Link Announcement for the 7th Sunday of Easter, May 24, 2020

1 Kings17:  'The jar of flour will not run out and the bottle of oil will not become empty before God sends rain on the land and ends this drought."

Hebrews 9:  But instead he sacrificed himself once and for all, summing up all the other sacrifices in this sacrifice of himself, the final solution of sin.

Mark 12:  "All the others gave what they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford – she gave her all."

 

 

 

 

 

Another Reminder for 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 10, 2024

`

 

Sez Tori, "Welcome in, Everybody.  It is fun even for us kids."

 

Welcome: Catholic Mass with coffee & juice, and pastries, some bought, some home-made.

Time: 9:30; Celebrate with the Community & Stack with John 

Place: Legacy Charter School, Accent Drive, Plano, TX 75075

 

 

 

Sez Leo, "I agree with Tori."

 

Readings: 

Isaiah 40, 1-5, 9-11   Comfort, give comfort to my people.  (a good one)

Psalm 104,  Bless the Lord my soul.

Titus 2, 11-14, 3, 4-7,  The grace of God has appeared.  

Like 3, 15-16, 21-22,  He will baptize you with Holy Spirit.

 

 

And sez Harper, "I agree with Leo and with Tori.

 

 

Community Activities:  

ROMEO MEET: Friday, January 11, Jason's Deli, Collin Creek Mall, west side of Central, 1:00.  Welcome all wakos, you will fit right in.   This old geezer will miss again Friday.

JULIETTE LUNCHEON: February, TBA 

 

 

All God's Children welcome.  Kids' communion.

 

TRUE?

There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day.

Alexander Woollcott

 

 

Our Father.

 

What's up in Ye Old Catholic Church?  Like…

1. Effort made to remove land mines from sites in Holy Land.  https://www.ncronline.org/authors/melanie-lidman 

 

 

 

Peace, John & John.

 

 

See you Sunday,

J.S., 214-783-0443

 

 

Peace, Jim.  Peace Cathy.

 

JSM Mission-Faith Statement: 

 Help create a Catholic Community that welcomes all God’s People, provides for and challenges spiritual and total growth.

Reaches out to help people who are disadvantaged and make the world we live in a better place to live.

 

 

 

Peace, Everybody, and have a wonderful 2019.

Readings:

Isaiah 49, 3, 5 &6,  I will make you a light to the nations.

 Psalm 40,  Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will.

 1 Corinthians 1, 1- 3,  Grace to you and peace.

 John 1, 29-34,   John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him.

 

 

Hi, Everybody, Welcome in.

 

Isaiah reminders—

 Author: This is Isaiah #2, the composer of chapters 40-55.

 Date:  Ca. 555 before Christ.  The Jewish people of Jerusalem are in the Babylonian Captivity.

 Today’s Message: Hope and promise of a better time with emphasis on 1. being a Servant of the Lord, and 2. being a Light to the Nations.

 

 

"Come on in, Folks," sez Zoe.  

 

A Light to the Nations

So, Rosemary says to me, “Hey, we are getting tired of hearing you talk about the Jewish Community Center.  I was running past her my ideas about a homily for this morning.  Therefore, I request your tolerance.  One more time.

I went to this Center initially just to work out a bit, and especially to see how I liked spin classes.   Four houses down from our house lives a youngish  Jewish couple who have two kids now in college and a white dog, named Patty.  Guess with whom Aviana likes to visit. 

 

 

The excellent Candle Man of The Week, Ben.

 

The couple, Bud and Barbra, knew I did a lot of biking and kept encouraging me to visit the J, which is 10 minutes from our house.  When I discovered I could get in free with my United Health card, Silver Sneakers, I started going. 

For the first six months I found the exercise good but there was little camaraderie among the riders.  People came and went without as much as a word.  The next six months I began to learn names and started greeting everyone and talking.  Today there is a lot of camaraderie.

 

 

What a treat, Folks, Buddy is still awake.

 

So it happened one morning while walking to the room where the bikes are that I began to talk with a guy I knew and liked named Mike, a guy in his early 50’s, very personable, smiling all the time, and Jewish.

I had been reading some fictional works on the Holocaust.  So I feel comfortable enough to ask Mike about himself.  “Where is your family from, Mike?”  “From Poland,” he responds.  “Wow,” I think, “the Holocaust was horrible in Poland.  Like Auschwitz is near Warsaw and Warsaw was the scene of the Warsaw Uprising.” 

 

 

I see you Ben, and I cannot say that a little mouse did not swipe your cupcake last week.  Be nice to me and we'll see what might happen.  Even Carol is watching you from behind you..

 

So I ask, “Mike, how was your family effected by the Holocaust?”  “We lost over 80 members of our extended family.”   I cannot believe what I am hearing.  I am struck dumb.  I am choked up.  I feel like I am walking on holy ground, next to a Jewish saint.  A bright light.

There is also a little lady named Haya in our group.  I found out her birthday, got the class to sing to her one morning, and gave her one of those little Belvita cookie packages.  I asked the lady who rides next to me how old she though Haya is.  She says in her 80’s.  So I ask her. 

We are exactly the same age, 76.

 

 

 

Offertory team: Sir Charlie (who released him from time out!) & Jan, Bernadette & Gil. 

 

I am stunned and really curious.  How different was her life than mine?  She speaks with an obvious European accent.  So I invite her to lunch with me and Rosemary.  I am betting that her first 18 years were a lot different than mine spent growing up in University Park .

We go to the Corner Bakery at Preston-Forest.  She says she was born in a small Polish town in 1940, the year after the Nazis had invaded and occupied Poland.  Her father and his two brothers had a business.  Her father, however, must have had a premonition about how bad it might get.

 

 

Here they come, Folks, let's start the celebration, Olivia and Shonda.

 

He took the family first to the Russian zone of Poland, and then managed to escape to Marseilles, France, on the Mediterranean.  From there they went to Israel when it was still a British holding.  Finally, they escaped to New York, where she grew up.  Her two uncles and all the extended family disappeared.

Again I am stunned and humbled to be in the presence of this person. 

 

 

Our Best Man, Cowboy Cole. 

 

I think all of us here and certainly myself, we hope to be light to others, like Isaiah promises.  Often it is the light of others that touches me.   Mike and Haya humble me, sensitize me,  and focus a whole new light on my own life, how blessed I am and have been.

Who is a light for you? 

And for whom are you a light?

 

Cowboy Cole, Take these Pagans out into the wilderness from whence they come and leave them.  No more love for you two.

 

  

Community Finances:   

  Expenses: $  330.00

  Outreach: $  60.00

  Thanks again, Folks, for doing what you can.

 

 

Linda and Barbara

 

                                 

 Readings:

Deuternomy 26, 4-10,  He brought us out of Egypt.

Psalm 91,  Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble.

Romans 10, 8-13, The same Lord is Lord of all.

Luke 4, 1-13, Jesus was led into the desert for 40 days.

 Deuteronomy 

The scene: The Israelites have escaped from Egypt and have been wandering in the desert for years.  They are just about to enter The Land.  They are assembled.  Moses is addressing them and reminding them of all Yahweh has done for them over the years of wandering.   

In our chapter he is telling them that when they have settled in their new land, where he will not accompany them, they must take a basket full of a portion of their first harvest, present it to the rabbi, and offer it as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.   

Who & When: Though about Moses, Deuteronomy is a compilation of numerous sources.  Guess when: post Babylonian Captivity, say 555.  Easy to remember.

Romans

Paul writes to the Romans that all people, Gentiles as well as Jews, are invited to be part of the Christ event.

  Beware of Great Expectations: observations on a new pope

I must confess that Monday morning when I first heard of Benedict’s retirement, I was excited.  “We might get a new man who is progressive and less authoritarian,” I thought.  With a little reflection I have two observations I would like to share with you from my perspective and experience.  Both fall under the Beware of Great Expectations heading.

1. Beware of expecting a progressive pope.  The college of cardinals has been carefully screened to include only very conservative, corporate, follow the leader type men.  They will likely vote their kindred.
2. Beware of the idea that a 3^rd world man would be great.  Two Africans are mentioned, one I know, Cardinal Arinze from Nigeria.  I attended his "coronation" in ’76 or ’77. 

One observation about him and many Africans is that in being converted they really bought into traditional Catholicism.  I knew a Tanzanian bishop who prohibited drums at liturgies because he thought they were pagan. 

Moreover, the custom of the African tribe demands that a big man make a big impression, not the idea of being a servant or last.

 

Leo ready to dance. Check the video.

Have a Happy Lent?

Looking forward to Lent this year?  I confess that I was not.  Maybe it has come too quickly after Christmas this year.  However, I know I mildly dreaded it until.  Until we had our Ash Wednesday Mass at Marlene’s house.  Something happened there, some grace of being at home.  I felt peaceful about it all.

So what are we going to do about this Lent?  Three observations.

1.  As a community you all will be invited on several occasions.  We will have a food drive next Sunday and a general pick up by Soul’s Harbor’s truck another Sunday.  One Sunday we will have one of our penitential rites, probably the Sunday just before Palm Sunday. 

        2.    I am going to invite you most Sundays to have a happy Lent.  It is Spring Training time.  Instead of focusing on the negativity  and the bad, focus on getting back in shape, from taking a daily walk to riding your bike around The Lake, White Rock.  Pass out compliments, like I mentioned last week.

          3.  I am also going to kick off a special project.  For years before I moved out of Jesuit I had a men’s group in the evening maybe two Tuesday a month.  It was both fun and profound.  I did not have furniture enough for all who came.  So I would take all the furniture out and I lay cushions all along the walls of the small office I had.  Everybody sat on the floor. 

I want to start a new group, a lunch group.  All you guys here are invited.  Tentatively, it will be Fridays, 1:00, Jason’s Deli here at Collin Creek Mall on Central.  It won’t be every week usually, mostly when I can come.  I’ll send out a note to everyone.  2 guys, 20 guys, who knows? 

  

Why am I doing this now?  Good Lenten Penance!  Lenten penance with Stack.  Get you to heaven quicker.  Actually, it is because I miss you guys.  I may see everybody Sundays, but I don’t get to find out how it is going.  It will be great fun.

You women can rejoice that the old guy is out of the house for a while each week.   

So, what are you going to do to have a happy Lent?

 

 

Community Finances:   

  Expenses: $  360.00

  Outreach: $   60.00

 

  Thanks again, Folks, for doing what you can.

 

                       

The Kiss of Peace