Author: Rosemary

Macy Grattafiori & her dad, John.

Readings:

Isaiah 25, 1-6, 10, Then will the eyes of the blind be opened.

Psalm 146,  Lord, come and save us.

James 5, 7-10,  The coming of the Lord is at hand.

Matthew 11, 2-11,  The blind regain their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.

Macy & Nick.

We have heard that people discover that the Blog has not been coming.  Typepad tends to drop people for no reason.  So if this happens to you, just sign up again by going to www.johnstackministries.com

Main Altar at the venue in Watercolor, Florida, part of Santa Rosa Island.  An excellent, rustic wedding venue.

Observation & Homily from John

Love for Kids: A few words about Love for Kids yesterday. Bill Hammond signed up a John Stack Ministries team for it. I met up with three others from our community—Rich, Cheryl, and Mike Carrell. We were assigned to help prepare lunches and manage the lunch line for about 900 kids and their adult guardians. Our team totaled ten volunteers plus the head honcho from Love for Kids. Some in our team were college students looking for a volunteer experience and they proved they were there to work. The team worked without a break for over two hours, and collaborated as a real team.                       

John preparing to share his homily ideas.

   Many of the kids expressed their gratitude. It was cute seeing their eyes scan the lunch boats for any differences, like some differences in cookie selection. Some kids said, “I don’t want chips; I want Cheetos” or “Where’s the drinks?” etc. I checked with our volunteers, and we all were highly honored to represent John Stack Ministries, loved our gig, and were happy to be able to stand strong for Bill.

Who is that man with the crazy hat?

Homily:

There are umpteen healing stories in the Bible (Old and New Testaments). Healing and forgiveness stories are at the core of the Gospel message. They’re mostly connected to forgiveness and reconciliation. They teach us to ‘watch’ for the blessings that come our way daily; how different this is from that Christmas song, you better ‘watch out’ cause Santa knows if you’re good or bad.

The sister act on candles, Georgie, Tori, & Zoe.

The Good News invites us to watch carefully for life-changing blessings, rather than watch fearfully for threat and punishment.

Recently I shared my family’s struggles over forgiving a family member for past mistakes. We suffer in a relationship of brokenness and distance.

Buddy reading & speaking from the heart the Candle Blessing of the Week

Another example from about 20 years ago gives me hope. It was when two of my sisters and I ganged up on another sister whom we thought needed to change how she related to the nursing home staff where our disabled older sister lived—basically to force her to do things our way.

Happy Birthday, Tom.

My sin was not being sensitive to how each of us is different, and so ‘gives’ in different ways. My blessing was to see on the long drive home how wrong I was in judging rather than accepting and forgiving. I returned the next weekend and asked forgiveness. In spite of her children’s advice to say no, she forgave me. Her gift of forgiveness and reconciliation was and is a great blessing in my life.

Happy 3rd Anniversary, Cody & Shonda.

Question: How are you sometimes not sensitive to how other’s differences can lead to you judging others and distancing yourselves? I invite you to participate in our forgiveness and reconciliation rite today.     

Amen.

Thanks, David & Caroline for driving Rosemary & me all over Santa Rosa Island for the wedding.

Having a vision, Aggie?

Readings:

Isaiah 11, 1-10, The wolf shall be a guest of the lamb…(beautiful, poetic?)

Psalm 72,  Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace forever.

Romans 15, 4-9  Let us throw off the works of darkness

Matthew 3, 1-12,  John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert  (Fear based spirituality?)

We have noticed that people discover that the Blog has not been coming.  Typepad tends to drop people for no reason.  So if this happens to you, just sign up again by going to www.johnstackministries.com

Welcome in, Chip & Cathy.

Curtis Jenkins, December 15

This morning I have my first Christmas homily of the season.  I want to introduce you to Curtis Jenkins, a  school bus driver for about 70 kids from Lake Highlands Elementary, Richardson West Junior High, and J.J. Peace Senior High.  Jenkins is a 46 year old black guy who married his 8^th grade girl friend.  They have 3 daughters all in their 20’s. 

Teamwork.

Jenkins has been driving the school bus for 7 years.  Initially he gave up his career as an electrician/ plumber so he could be more present to his mother, who is not well.

What is special about Curtis is taking place right now, this very week  All the 70 kids who ride his school bus may make a request for a Christmas present.  Last year apparently when Curtis had bought, wrapped, and loaded all the gifts into his bus, there was hardly room for the kids.  He does this every year.

Candle lighting with Tori.

Plus, during the year he gives birthday gifts (Sound familiar?  Maybe cupcakes?).   As the kids prepare to disembark, Curtis gives them a little pep talk, like a hope talk.  Maybe a quickie homily or final blessing?  He even develops community responsibility by creating clean up teams, safety teams (like bigger kids helping smaller kids, and helper kids (like for gift distribution).  Parents say their kids wake up eager and excited that they get to ride Curtis school bus.

He's got it memorized, Folks.

Curtis was featured in the April 20, 2019 edition of the Dallas Morning News. 

You know what this makes me want to do?  Pick up on Cathy’s idea last Sunday where we would give a Christmas gift to every kid in this school.  Are these not our kids?  A possibility?  How many kids are here?

Juliets' Christmas luncheon.   Table 1 of many.

All these ladies do is have parties!

Sez Betsy, "Hi, Everybody, welcome in."

Readings:

Isaiah 2, 1-5, They shall beat their swords into plowshares (Peace based spirituality?)

Psalm 122,  Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord

Romans 13, 11-14  Let us throw off the works of darkness

Matthew 24, 37-44,  Stay awake!   You do not know on which day the Lord will come.  (Fear based spirituality?)

Wake up, John!

Homily by Deacon Mike

I think that John Stack has challenged all of us this Thanksgiving to visualize the abundance of the blessings that each of us have received. Today it’s my turn to share such a blessing that I received; it was a gift to me some time ago, but not forgotten.

What a Team!

But first, I am going to begin by having us recall the blessing that the Samaritan man had received in our gospel reading today. After he realized that his sins had been forgiven, he returned to give glory to God. Jesus then praises his faith, raises him up to newness of life, and gives him, and us, an invitation to follow him. A blessing doesn’t get any better than that!  

Bill, from now on you will be called "Candle Bill."

If you think about it; when we came through those doors this morning, each of us received an abundance of blessings; a smile, a welcome, a hug, or kiss. Some times those blessings are unexpected, and we smile and allow them to linger in our hearts.

In the spirit still of Thanksgiving, Mike homilizes an event he takes gratitude in being a part of.

45 years ago, one morning, when I was still in a discernment process to become a deacon; I was driving south down Greenville, and had just passed over LBJ.  Immediately I realized that on this particular day the stop and go lights were not working. It was then that I saw three young school boys, looking back and forth unprepared. I pulled off to the right, rolled up my windows and ran ahead down to where they were standing.  When I got a chance I held up my arms to the traffic coming both ways, and then led them arm in arm to the other side.

Offertory time with Rich, Cody, Tom, and Denni.

The slightly older boy said, ‘Thank you!’ And, they stayed there until I got back to the other side, then they shouted again, “Thank you!” When I finally got back to my car, it took me a while to ease back into the traffic. When I finally got back to where I had led the boys across, to my surprise they were standing beside each other eagerly waiting for me to drive by. I read their lips as they shouted, for the third time, ‘Thank you!’  I had been blind-sided by the unexpected gift; the boys had taken my breath away.

Happy Thanksgiving, John & Connie.

Sez Shonda, "Welcome in, Everybody."

Readings:

2 Samuel 5, 1-3, David anointed king of Israel 

Psalm 122,  Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord

Colossians 1, 12-20,  Let us give thanks to the Father.

Luke 23, 35-43,  This is the king of the Jews.  

Likewise say Connie & John, "Come on  in, Folks"

Homily by John Cade

Every Sunday we “do” the Mass. ‘Eucharist’ is the Greek word for “giving thanks”. Following the theme Stack and Mike and I set for these three weeks, I will share my gratitude for four of the many blessings I received this year.

Welcome Home, Gil.  It has been a long recuperation and it is delightful to see you.

On Jan. 1 Lambrini retired. We are grateful together for her having this good job for 21 years, achieving many career goals, and, in the process, earning the respect of her coworkers. Of course, even a good job includes work stress—like its duties and demands and sometimes its environment. And you know, if your partner is stressed, you are stressed. Retirement is when we both get to say goodbye to those stresses, and catch up on our bucket list.

Thanks, Sophia, for lighting our candles.

In terms of health, Lambrini had severe A-fib symptoms; they were debilitating. A blessing I shared with her was her ablation surgery that reduced the worst of her A-fib symptoms, Alleluia! On my personal health blessings: I had an echocardiogram and a stress test this summer, after which my cardiologist said, “See you next year!”—always what we want to hear. My Urologist said the same just this past week.

Happy Thanksgiving, Brent.  This $1000 check is for the Souls Harbor enterprise.  I only wish it could be our $2000.

Another blessing was celebrating with Lambrini our 25^th wedding anniversary. It’s not just all these years together; it’s also deepening our devotion and gratitude for each other and working to better accept our differences.  Speaking of weddings, I was blessed getting to preside over the wedding of a young couple. Doing weddings is a gift; they are such happy occasions, intimate and full of promise and fun.

Bill, even with chemo treatment, you still challenge our community to do more, like the Love for Kids Picnic coming up this month.  Thanks.

Finally a big blessing, this year and every year, is being part of this community. An example of what a blessing this community is was how this community stood with Rich and Carol as they ‘walked their walk’ right in our midst. We got to see their steadfast loyalty and courage.

Says Marilyn, " Sign up for the Juliets Christmas luncheon coming up soon."

I give thanks for the loving support this community provides. We all experience losses. My gratitude is for the way this community helps me and all of us feel safe enough to share them, and courageous enough to accept them, and get on to the next step of our journey.

How will you remember and give thanks for the blessings of this year, individually and together?

Communion for All.