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Streaming Masses and Announcements for the week of 20 November 2022
STREAMING SUNDAY AND WEEKDAY MASSES
Today's Live-Streamed Mass
Worship Aid for Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
Please note there will be no 7 am daily Masses this week.
Join us for Taizé Prayer on Monday, November 21, at 8 pm. Come pray for Christian unity in our community and the world. All Christians are warmly invited; invite your friends.
. There will be only one Mass at 10 am on Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 24. As a way of giving thanks to God for the many blessings in our lives, please help those experiencing food insecurity by bringing non-perishable food items to Mass on Thanksgiving day. You will be invited to place your contribution at the foot of the altar during the offertory. A basket will be available for donations of cash, checks, or gift cards. All donations will benefit the Catholic Charities St. Lucy Food Project.
Concerts at Saint Bernadette presents Advent Lessons and Carols, Sunday, December 4 at 7:30pm. Saint Bernadette Music Ministry, featuring our adult and young people’s choirs, and Lector Ministry present hymns, choral music and scripture readings from the rich treasury of the Advent Season. The event is free and open to all. A free-will offering will be accepted for ECHO. Keep Christ in Christmas! The Knights of Columbus will be selling Christmas cards in the vestibule after all Masses on November 19-20 and December 3-4. You may contact Mike Candalor at mcandalor@cox.net to get information or arrange another opportunity to view/purchase cards.
The Saint Bernadette Bake Sale is December 10 & 11 after all Masses in the Church vestibule. Please consider signing up to donate an item to the bake sale. All proceeds go towards our Capital Campaign.
Beginning next weekend the Knights of Columbus will be selling Christmas trees in the lower parking. Please support the charitable work of the Council. The lot will be open from 5pm to 9pm on weekdays and 9am to 9pm on weekends.
Upcoming Second Collections:
November 20 - Campaign for Human Development
November 27 - ECHODecember 4 - School Tuition Assistance
December 11 - CATHOLIC CHARITIES CHRISTMAS COLLECTION
December 18 - Parish Special Needs
December 25 - Parish Facilities and Maintenance
Fr. Don's Weekly Letter ~ 20 November 2022
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
Having traveled together with a wonderful group of companions has been refreshment and new resolve for me. I wish all of us could benefit from the experiences we have had.
Again, it is Tuesday night and we are just arriving in Rome. We go to our audience with Pope Francis in the morning. They say it will be rainy all day tomorrow and the audience is outside on the piazza in front of Saint Peter. We keep reminding ourselves, it is a pilgrimage and not a vacation! Traditionally pilgrimages involved a great deal of sacrifice and hardship, even danger, as pilgrims awakened in the fourth century seeking to discover the places they had always read about in the Gospels. In our case, we have remembered the stories of the saints we have traveled with these two weeks, and the stories have come alive because we find ourselves in often unchanged places, in the context of the saints themselves. I found myself grumbling this morning - our time in Assisi was largely rainy and cold - not without some brilliant moments of incredible beauty - and all I had to do is reflect on how Saint Francis himself knew these rainy cold November days all too well, and without a home or an umbrella to keep the rain from soaking him.
We have had very little to complain about, truly. In fact, the surprising beauty of Ravenna, Modena, and Bologna, surprised nearly all of us, because they were new places for most of us. The cathedral in Modena exists today exactly as it did at the time of the Fathers of the Church in the fourth and fifth centuries. It is largely untouched, a place of deep faith and history.
The remarkable natural beauty that Francis found in the monastery he established on the mountain at La Verna was as transforming and restoring as much for us as it was for him. And the order and beauty of the perfectly ordered Renaissance city of Pienza which had been imagined and built by Pope Pius II had the same healing effect for all of us.
We celebrated Mass before the very tomb of Saint Francis yesterday morning in the crypt of the basilica in Assisi! Today we traveled to Orvieto and celebrated Mass in the cathedral basilica that was built in honor of the eucharistic miracle at Bolsena, the shrine which contains the linen corporal upon which the Body of Christ under the form of bread bled on the altar.
Now we are in Rome, and will be here for three full days before returning on Saturday. We have faithfully carried your intentions with us all along the way and pray that our return to Saint Bernadette with all our saint friends will be a source of renewal for all of us. God is glorified in his saints - which includes you!
The Lord be with you,
Streaming Masses and Annoucements for the Week of November 13, 2022
STREAMING SUNDAY AND WEEKDAY MASSES
Today's Live-Streamed Mass
Worship Aid for the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Please note there will be no 7 am daily Masses this week.
Join us for Taizé Prayer on Monday, November 21, at 8 pm. Come pray for Christian unity in our community and the world. All Christians are warmly invited; invite your friends.
This weekend, Nov. 12/13, our second collection will support the annual Mission Cooperative Plan Appeal for our diocese. Our parish mission organization is the Diocese of Kumbo in Cameroon. See p, 14 for more information. Please be generous.
. There will be only one Mass at 10 am on Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 24. As a way of giving thanks to God for the many blessings in our lives, please help those experiencing food insecurity by bringing non-perishable food items to Mass on Thanksgiving day. You will be invited to place your contribution at the foot of the altar during the offertory. A basket will be available for donations of cash, checks, or gift cards. All donations will benefit the Catholic Charities St. Lucy Food Project.
The Saint Bernadette Bake is December 10 & 11 after all Masses in the Church vestibule. Please consider signing up to donate an item to the bake sale. All proceeds go towards our Capital Campaign.
Keep Christ in Christmas! The Knights of Columbus will be selling Christmas cards in the vestibule after all Masses on November 19-20 and December 3-4. You may contact Mike Candalor at mcandalor@cox.net to get information or arrange another opportunity to view/purchase cards.
Please consider a planned gift to the Seminarian Education Endowment Fund to cover the costs of the formation of our future priests. See p. 13 for information.
Upcoming Second Collections:
November 13 - Missionary Appeal, Diocese of Kumbo
November 20 - Campaign for Human Development
November 27 - ECHO
Fr. Don's Weekly Letter ~ November 13, 2022
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
Streaming Masses and Announcements for the week of 6 November 2022
STREAMING SUNDAY AND WEEKDAY MASSES
Today's Live-Streamed Mass
Worship Aid for the Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Please note, there will be no 7am daily Masses the weeks of November 7 and 14.
Parish and School offices will be closed on Friday, November 11 for Veterans' Day
This weekend, there will be a display of beautiful olive wood handmade carvings from the Holy Land. These carvings are made by the Christians of Bethlehem, who use them as their source of income. Please support our brothers and sisters in The Holy Land.
Next weekend, Nov. 12/13, our second collection will support the annual Mission Cooperative Plan Appeal for our diocese. Our parish mission organization is Diocese of Kumbo in Cameroon. See p, 14 for more information. Please be generous.
Parish and School offices will be closed on Friday, November 11 for Veterans' Day
. As a way of giving thanks to God for the many blessings in our lives, please help those who are experiencing food insecurity by bring non-perishable food items to Mass on Thanksgiving day. You will be invited to place your contribution at the foot of the altar during the offertory. A basket will be available for donations of cash, checks, or gift cards. All donations will benefit the Catholic Charities St. Lucy Food Project.
Please consider a planned gift to the Seminarian Education Endowment Fund to cover the costs of formation of our future priests. See p. 13 for information.
Upcoming Second Collections:
November 6 - Archdiocese of Military Services
November 13 - Missionary Appeal, Diocese of Kumbo
November 20 - Campaign for Human Development
November 27 - ECHO
Fr. Don's Weekly Letter ~ 6 November 2022
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
Sunday of this weekend 34 pilgrims, mostly from Saint Bernadette, and I will be on our way to Italy. We will travel from shrine to shrine, each day celebrating the feast of a different saint. It will be an active schedule. We start with Saint Mark in Venice, on to Saint Anthony in Padua, then Saint Dominic at his shrine in Bologna when we also visit Ravenna. The patron saint of Modena is Saint Germinian (also known as San Gimignano for whom the medieval town in Tuscany is named) who was a contemporary of Saints Ambrose, Athanasius and John Chrysostom.
In Florence we will celebrate the feast for Blessed Fra Angelico at the monastery of Saint Mark where the famous painter was a monk, where the individual cells of the monks contain some of his precious frescoes. Of course, then, in Siena we will celebrate Saint Catherine, followed by a visit to La Verna, one of the monasteries established by Saint Francis of Assisi where he received the stigmata. The next day in Assisi we have a rare reservation to celebrate Mass at the tomb of Saint Francis.
We turn toward Rome, on the way stopping at Santa Maria degli Angeli in Orvieto, with Mass in the Chapel the Corporale, a eucharistic miracle. Once in Rome we have Masses planned at the basilica of St. Louis, at the tomb of Saint Peter in the Clementine Chapel directly beneath the high altar at Saint Peter's, and in the Sistine Chapel of the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, ending our trip with thanksgiving to Mary in the church first established for celebrating Christmas.
One of the things that pilgrims do is we carry with us all your intentions and needs to the holy places we visit and pray for you, as if you are there with us. We will remember all of you at Saint Bernadette everywhere we go. But don't worry: there will be a lot of sightseeing and good food in between!
Upon returning we will, hopefully, present our plans to move forward with our parish building plan and continued capital campaign. We have had many meetings with diocesan consultants and have established a timeline and a budget which we will share with you. Of course, nothing is the same as it was four-plus years ago when we started the process, but in the meantime we learned valuable lessons from a global pandemic and a security crisis on campus, both of which have caused us to re-think the mixing of our school population with anyone from outside our school community. The effects of the pandemic and it's supply chain complications, as well as the assault on Ukraine and resulting materials shortages and inflation, make moving forward with any such projects something that we will need to do very carefully and wisely with all the help we can get.
Our goal remains not just to build a building but, rather, community, to prepare a place where our community can grow, where we can develop to the full stature of Christ as the Catholic family at Saint Bernadette. We just need a space where that can happen. While I'm away I plan to take my laptop and develop a clear snapshot of our need, our progress and our hopes for a future timeline. Ciao, for now.
The Lord be with you,
Streaming Masses and Announcements for the week of 30 October 2022
STREAMING SUNDAY AND WEEKDAY MASSES
Today's Live-Streamed Mass
Worship Aid for the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
A big THANK YOU to all those who contributed to the recent Saint Lucy Food Drive for Catholic Charities! You donated 8,975 lbs of food and $1,485 in checks and cash.
Please note, there will be no 7am daily Masses the weeks of November 7 and 14.
Thank you to all those who contributed their time and talent in making this past weekend's Parish Picnic and Fall Festival a huge success. It is with many hands that this event was made possible.
All Saints’ Day Masses (a holy day of obligation this year): October 31 Vigil Mass, 7:30pm, November 1 Masses at 7 and 9am, Noon, and a 7:30pm (bilingual).
The All Souls’ Day Mass schedule includes 7 and 9am, noon, and a 7:30pm bilingual Mass for all our deceased.
Remember loved ones in the All Souls’ Day Novena of Masses. All Masses November 2-10 will be offered for those included in the novena. Remembrance envelopes in which you may include the names of your deceased family or friends are available in the vestibule of the church and parish office. To participate please fill out one of the envelopes with your donation and return them to the parish office before Nov. 2.
Please join us for First Friday Adoration this Friday, November 4 in the Church. Take a moment and spend some quiet time with our Lord. Holy Hour begins at 7pm.
Upcoming Second Collections:
October 30 - Porto Charities Special Kids/Needs
November 6 - Archdiocese of Military Services
November 13 - Missionary Appeal, Diocese of Kumbo
November 20 - Campaign for Human Development
November 27 - ECHO
Fr. Don's Weekly Letter ~ 30 October 2022
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
God was definitely smiling on us with his good creation last weekend for an uncommonly perfect day as we celebrated our fall festival/parish picnic! Some 2,000 people came together and enjoyed the afternoon. Thanks to all the many who made it happen – all who brought their side dishes, who grilled the hamburgers and hot dogs, who set up the fun booths and activities for the kids, baked for the cakewalk and supervised the bouncing attractions and rock climbing wall, not to mention everyone who set up so many tables and chairs and cleaned up at the end. It was a labor of love and I hope that no one felt overworked. There were so many people pitching in to provide a great outcome.
Special thanks to the school PTO and the Knights of Columbus for always providing such great support!
"Everyone is happy," someone said to me. "How often do you come across that?" Indeed.
If you think about it, we've had a major event nearly every weekend in the month of October, and it feels like a parish community again. But notice – and this is the most important thing – that it happened because we came together and made it happen together. Let's imagine what else is possible if we join our minds and hearts and make dreams happen.
This week is the beautiful feast day of All Saints, when we celebrate all those who have gone before us who are with God in heaven – all those whose friends didn't have a budget for a formal canonization! I like to include in this group of unrecognized saints so many who I have known and have gone before us already. For those of us who might need a little help to get there we have All Souls' Day, when we remember all those who are undergoing whatever purification is necessary to be comfortable in the presence of God in eternity. It's possible we know some folks in this group, too, and this feast day reminds us of our need to care for each other with prayer, particularly those who depend on it.
The Lord be with you,
Streaming Masses and Announcements for the week of 23 October 2022
STREAMING SUNDAY AND WEEKDAY MASSES
Today's Live-Streamed Mass
Worship Aid for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
THIS weekend we will celebrate World Mission Sunday. Pope Francis invites the entire Church to pray and give generously in support of mission dioceses in Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and parts of Latin America and Europe. Your prayers and generous help in next week’s collection for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith will support priests, religious and lay leaders who serve the world’s most vulnerable communities. Thank you!
Save the Date! You are invited to our Saint Bernadette Parish Picnic and Fall Festival Family Day, October 22, 1-5pm. Volunteers will be needed to make this family event a success and all are asked to bring a side dish, a dessert or a snack. Please contact the office if you'd like to give a hand. Find more information and details on page 9.
ECHO's popular Yard Sale will be held on Saturday, October 29 from 8am-noon in the school gym. Proceeds of the sale benefit ECHO whose mission is to help local people who are experiencing an emergency as well as those who have long-term low-income needs.
All Saints’ Day Masses (a holy day of obligation this year): October 31 Vigil Mass, 7:30pm, November 1 Masses at 7 and 9am, Noon, and a 7:30pm (bilingual). The All Souls’ Day Mass schedule includes 7 and 9am, noon, and a 7:30pm bilingual Mass for all our deceased.
Remember loved ones in the All Souls’ Day Novena of Masses. All Masses November 2-10 will be offered for those included in the novena. Remembrance envelopes in which you may include the names of your deceased family or friends are available in the vestibule of the church and parish office. To participate please fill out one of the envelopes with your donation and return them to the parish office before Nov. 2.
This week is the last opportunity to sign up for the Rise Against Hunger Event. Volunteers from the community to pack and distribute 175,000 life-changing meals. Details and a signup link can be found on page 10 of this week's bulletin.
Please note, there will be no 7am daily Mass the weeks of November 7 and 14.
+ + +
+Mark your calendars for these upcoming dates!
Parish Family Picnic, Saturday, October 22, 1-5pm
Echo Yard Sale, Saturday, October 29, 8am-Noon
Fr. Don's Weekly Letter ~ 23 October 2022
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
I want to start with thanking all of you for your kindness and patience as we have worked on practicing our bilingual Mass responses. After three weeks, and this being the fourth, we will all be able to attend bilingual evening Masses on All Saints' Day (a holyday of obligation) and All Souls' Day together and be united, familiar with the music for Mass. As holydays come along (and other feasts, like Our Lady of Guadalupe Dec. 12) we will have one Mass in the evening that is most practical for all, rather than two small Masses as we have done in the past (English 6:30 and Spanish 8pm), two times that really don't work for anyone.
As I have mentioned in the past, there is more than just a matter of convenience here, it is an opportunity to practice real hospitality to those among us, to help people feel like this is their home. Members of the parish who have Spanish as their first language (and some as their only language) are offered only one Mass with Spanish on Sundays. Imagine if your only option was 1pm on Sunday afternoons, probably the least desirable time. Now, imagine if you could go to other Masses and hear something familiar, even sing something you recognize, and realize that the entire parish is welcoming you by singing with you. I realized again the goodness of this when I met a wonderful young couple at Mass last weekend who had come for the first time with their new baby to Mass. Spanish was their original language, but 1pm just didn't work with the baby. They were joyful to discover that we cared enough to help them feel included and are registering here. It was a moment of grace.
Once we are past the first week of November, we will continue to revisit other Mass settings as we always do, and refresh our repertoire of Church music. These things must be planned carefully, because they involve a lot of preparation with choirs and cantors. So, thanks for your wonderful hospitality and patience.
According to an article by the Catholic News Agency in 2015, the average American Catholic was a middle-aged white woman married to a Catholic spouse. Today the American Catholic is younger, less likely to be married, and Spanish speaking. In 2016, 18% of the population of the United States was Hispanic, about 40% of the Catholic Church. 50% of Catholics 14 to 29 were Hispanic, 60% of Catholics under 18 years of age.
Surveys show that the decline in membership of all Christian churches of those who speak English or Spanish is consistently the same, but the presence of Hispanic Catholics is the reason that the Catholic Church continues to show growth in the United States. People who identified as Catholic in the western world declined from 81% in 1986 to 47% in 2020. Catholic population has grown 71% since 1960 due to Hispanics, according to the USCCB website.
The USCCB places the challenge before us, to find new ways of encountering and responding to the Hispanic and Latino presence in the Church, empowering all of us to become missionary disciples.
The Lord be with you,
