Today's Live-Streamed Mass

Worship Aid for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Wednesday, November 1st, is All Saints Day. Please mark your calendars for this Holy Day of Obligation. All Saints Day Masses: Vigil on October 31 at 7:30 pm, 7 am, 9 am, noon, and a 7:30 pm bilingual. All Souls Day Mass 7 am, 9 am, noon, and a 7:30 pm bilingual.

 Remember loved ones in the All Souls Day Novena of Masses. All Masses November 2nd-10th will be offered for those included in the novena. Remembrance envelopes are available in the church vestibule. Please return the completed envelopes to the parish office before November 1.

 The Knights of Columbus have partnered with Cross Catholic Outreach to bring its Box of Joy ministry project. You can fill the box with small toys and toiletries for children in need. You are also encouraged to mail a $9 check separately for each box to cover international shipping costs. Pick up your boxes after Mass the weekend of October 28 & 29 and bring them back the weekend of November 11 & 12.

 Next weekend, there will be a display of beautiful olivewood handmade carvings from the Holy Land. These carvings are made by the Christians of Bethlehem, who use them as their source of income. Let us support our brothers and sisters in The Holy Land.

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

Last week, we laid to rest a very dear friend and colleague, Sister Susan Louise Eder, OSFS. We worked together for nearly 15 years – she as principal, I as pastor – at Holy Cross Academy, the parish school for Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Fredericksburg. She was greatly loved by so many children, families, and those of us who had the privilege of knowing her.

She was truly a daughter of Saint Francis de Sales, whose motto was “Live Jesus.” I have never known anyone who did it better.

As an educator and administrator, she was also one of the best. I was a first-time pastor when I went to Fredericksburg and learned much from her about being a good pastor.

The Oblate Sisters of Saint Francis de Sales, whose motherhouse is in Childs, Maryland (near the Delaware border), were asked by Bishop Keating to come to Stafford County and start a school that would ultimately become a parish called Holy Cross. The Sisters have a photograph of the first time they walked onto the empty field where the school would be born in 1998. There was urgency in establishing a school because the Daughters of Wisdom – the same Sisters who started our school at Saint Bernadette –
were closing their Catholic school in Fredericksburg, Montfort Academy, and a Catholic school was needed. The Oblate priests were already here in the diocese, having founded St. John Neumann and Our Lady of Good Counsel Parishes and Bishop Ireton and Paul VI High Schools.

Sister created the community at Holy Cross and gathered the people of God together. Holy Cross Academy thrived and was a model school academically and spiritually. When the Sisters were abruptly asked to leave five years ago, they were welcomed by the Archdiocese of Baltimore at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish’s school, which was at that time in crisis. Also, at that time, Sister learned she had cancer. The Sisters, with the leadership of Sister Susan Louise, were able to turn that school around. She gave everything she had to the people she served wherever God sent her. We celebrated her funeral at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church on October 20.

I write about her today because I miss her, and I want you to know the beauty of her vocation. She was the best of all of us, and her vocation as a religious sister needs to be remembered by all those who might be considering the beauty of a vocation like hers.

I write also about her today to all those who have this idea that women don’t have a role in the Church. This has been a topic of discussion at the Synod, which continues this month in Rome. It is inaccurate to say that women don’t have a role; you can only say that women aren’t priests. At the Synod, for example, there is a lively conversation about the possible role of women as deacons in the Church – it has happened in the past. But do not underestimate the amazing influence and contributions of women like Sister Susan Louise. Consider the impression she has made on children and parents as a principal of 500 students a year for 30 years, as well as her always active life in the parish. She was a great speaker and leader in the diocese and beyond in her order, and she was a dear friend to many.

May her memory truly be a blessing to all of us.

The Lord be with you,

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

You may have noticed - again, this year, our ushers are counting how many people attend Mass each Sunday during October. It is the “October count.” Last year our Mass attendance was down slightly from the pre-COVID count, not as much as many parishes experienced. I think we came through the pandemic rather well, and our attendance is robust. We will see how our numbers look this year. But generally speaking, Christianity across the board seems to be experiencing a decline in active participation. It is the topic of an article in The Atlantic, “The Misunderstood Reason Millions of Americans Stopped Going to Church:”

“A new book, written by Jim Davis, a pastor at an evangelical church in Orlando, and Michael Graham, a writer with the Gospel Coalition, draws on surveys of more than 7,000 Americans by the political scientists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe, attempting to explain why people have left churches—or “de-churched,” in the book’s lingo—and what, if anything, can be done to get some people to come back. The book raises an intriguing possibility: What if the problem isn’t that churches are asking too much of their members but that they aren’t asking nearly enough?

“The Great Dechurching finds that religious abuse and more general moral corruption in churches have driven people away. This is, of course, an indictment of the failures of many leaders who did not address abuse in their church. But Davis and Graham also find that a much larger share of those who have left the church have done so for more banal reasons. The book suggests that the defining problem driving out most people who leave is … just how American life works in the 21st century. Contemporary America simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life. Rather, it is designed to maximize individual accomplishment as defined by professional and financial success. Such a system leaves precious little time or energy for forms of community that don’t contribute to one’s own professional life or, as one ages, the professional prospects of one’s children. Workism reigns in America, and because of it, community in America, religious community included, is a math problem that doesn’t add up.

“Numerous victims of abuse in church environments can identify a moment when they lost the ability to believe when they almost felt their faith draining out of them. The book shows, though, that for most Americans who were once a part of churches but have since left, the process of leaving was gradual, and in many cases, they didn’t realize it was even happening until it already had. It’s less like jumping off a cliff and more like driving down a slope, eventually realizing that you can no longer see the place you started from.”

If this is true, that what begins as a distraction becomes a habit, then maybe a simple word of encouragement from one another can help us stay on track. Especially today, when we are surrounded by such division and inhumanity, even as witnesses of the desperate violence of war and cruelty in Europe and the Middle East, we need to be reminded of the real calling we have received, to be literally counter-cultural, to pray and speak and be the outward sign of peace and unity in the face of such polarization. My brothers and sisters, we are the solution and can’t walk away from it.

The Lord be with you,

Today's Live-Streamed Mass

Worship Aid for the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Next week’s 2nd collection will be for Porto Charities.

 ECHO’s yard sale is next Saturday, October 28, from 8 am-noon in the school gym. Proceeds will help local people experiencing an emergency and those with long-term low-income needs.

 Wednesday, November 1st, is All Saints Day. Please mark your calendars for this Holy Day of Obligation. All Saints Day Masses: Vigil on October 31 at 7:30 pm, 7 am, 9 am, noon, and a 7:30 pm bilingual. All Souls Day Mass 7 am, 9 am, noon, and a 7:30 pm bilingual.

 Remember loved ones in the All Souls Day Novena of Masses. All Masses November 2nd-10th will be offered for those included in the novena. Remembrance envelopes are available in the church vestibule. Please return the completed envelopes to the parish office before November 1.

 The Knights of Columbus have partnered with Cross Catholic Outreach to bring its Box of Joy ministry project. You can fill the box with small toys and toiletries for children in need. You are also encouraged to mail a $9 check separately for each box to cover international shipping costs. Pick up your boxes after Mass the weekend of October 28 & 29 and bring them back the weekend of November 11 & 12.