ST. BENILDE. ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 1901 Division Street Metairie, Louisiana 70001

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1 Sunday, January 15, 2017 Second Sunday in Ordinary Time ORDINARY FAMILIES EXTRAORDINARY FAITH ST. BENILDE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 1901 Division Street Metairie, Louisiana Church Office: (504) Church Fax: (504) Church CLERGY Rev. Robert T. Cooper, Pastor Rev. H.L. Brignac, Sacramental Asst. Deacon Biaggio DiGiovanni Deacon Stephen Gordon Deacon Clifford Wright BAPTISMS First and Third Sundays of the month at 12 Noon. Please call the Parish Office for more information. MATRIMONY Please contact a priest/deacon 8 months prior to your wedding. FUNERALS Arrangements may be made at the Parish Office. MASS TIMES Saturday Vigil 4 p.m. Sunday 9:00, 11:00 a.m. & 6 p.m. Monday Friday 7:00 a.m. Monday and Thursday 5:30 p.m. First Saturday 8:45 a.m. HOLY DAYS OF OBLIGATION See Inside the Bulletin for Schedule CONFESSION TIMES Saturday 3:00 3:45 p.m. Sunday 5:00 5:45 p.m. Monday 6:00 6:45 p.m. and by appointment at the Parish Office DIVINE MERCY ADORATION CHAPEL Eucharistic Adoration from 7:00 p.m. Sunday till 4:00 p.m. Saturday DEVOTIONS Holy Hour in Church Monday, 6:00-7:00 p.m. Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Following 7 a.m. Mass on Tuesday NEWCOMERS Call the Parish Office to receive a New Parishioner Registration Packet. ST. VINCENT DE PAUL SOCIETY St. Benilde Conference (504) ST. BENILDE SCHOOL Mr. Matt Downey, Principal 1801 Division Street Metairie, LA (504)

2 St. Benilde Catholic Church Ministers of the Liturgy January 14 & 15, 2017 Saturday - 4 P.M. Intention: Edward & Gail Boling (L), Flora Maria Be, Patrick C. McKinney, Merle & Charles Dittmer, Luly & Lester Mastio, George Spaulding, Mary Ducote, Dale Forshag, Dorothy Van Hoven, Georgine Powers, Rose Marie Greco Federico, Joseph Segari, Rudy Neubeck, Jr., Rita Neubeck & Family (L) J. Rodosta, L. Segari Cantor: Trish Foti Sunday - 9 A.M. Intention: Parishioners J. & G. Rojas, J. Tusa, P. Cifreo Song Leaders: Traditional Choir Sunday - 11 A.M. Intention: Christopher Monistere (L), Clifton Neyrey, Brenda Frey (L), Jennie Spitale Connie Gsell Gauchet, Joseph Donald Bernard, John W. Houston, Rudy Neubeck, Jr., Dianne Z. Harrison, Mary & Jules Haydel, Kelvin Ducote, Mary & Melvin Ducote, Hilton F. Daigle, Jr. J. Hutchinson, J. Hutchinson, C. & T. Pitre Song Leaders: Contemporary Choir Sunday - 6 P.M. Intention: Mary Quaid M. Drawe, D. Powers Cantor: Lauren Gisclair Pianist: Beth Kettenring Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Weekday Masses 7:00 a.m. Kimberly Carleton 5:30 p.m. Connie Gsell Gauchet 7:00 a.m. Floyd C. Bangs, Sr. 7:00 a.m. Jennie Spitale 8:15 a.m. June & Marvin Ackermann (L) 7:00 a.m. Floyd C. Bangs, Sr. 5:30 p.m. Clifton Neyrey 7:00 a.m. Walter Haydel The Church Sanctuary Lamp burns in memory of The Souls in Purgatory The Blessed Mother Votive Lamps burn For Families in Difficulty The St. Joseph Votive Lamps burn in Thanksgiving for a Prayer Answered Adoration Chapel Sanctuary Lamp burns in memory of Stuart and Gloria Fourroux Adoration Chapel Candles burn in memory of Deceased Priests Altar Ladies Week of January 15 M. Curry, G. Boling Linens Large - M. Seeber Small - J. Zeringue The Altar Flowers are in memory of Deceased Parishioners

3 St. Benilde Catholic Church Volume 35 Issue 3 Stewardship of Treasure Weekend of January 7 & 8 Envelopes $4, Loose.2, Electronic Giving Repairs & Maintenance.2, Msgr. Richaud Fund Totaling $10, Let us focus on generosity, or returning God s gifts with increase, through the generous sharing of our time, talent and treasure. ~ Fr. Cooper Spaghetti & Meatball Dinner Mark your calendar! St. Benilde Boy Scout Troop 227 will hold its annual Spaghetti and Meatball Dinner on Sunday, February 5. Dinner will be available for eat-in or take-out, from 10 AM - 2 PM, in the cafeteria. Dinners cost $6 each. Subs will also be on the menu. This fundraiser helps defray the cost of summer camp. Hope to see you there! Louisiana Life March The 8th Louisiana Life March will be held on Saturday, January 21, from 10 AM until 12 noon, in Baton Rouge. There is a chartered bus scheduled to leave St. Edward s at 7:45 AM, returning by 3 PM. The cost is $15 per seat, which includes bus driver tip and two bottles of water. Please bring your own lunch and beverages for the bus ride back home. T-shirts are available for $10. Flyers may be found in the church foyer. For more information and to reserve your seat, please call Yvette Fouchi at Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion Jan. 21/22 4 PM C. Casente, E. VanHoven 9 AM C. Rispoli, b. Soleto, K. Klapatch, R. Theriot 11 AM K. & M. Sorensen, N. Bostick, L. Frey 6 PM J. Zeringue, T. Kettenring Out Of Reverence For The Lord Jesus who so generously shares with us His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, worshipers are earnestly invited to remain with the congregation until Mass is concluded. Quieting Room We are blessed to have many children in our Parish. They and their parents are most welcome to participate fully in the celebration of Mass. The community needs to be patient with parents trying to teach their children how to behave in Church. Parents need to be mindful of how and when to teach such lessons. During the celebration of Mass, the Quieting Room is intended to serve as a place of refuge for parents whose children need to be removed from the assembly. It is NOT an alternative seating area where adults can talk or children simply play or munch on cereal. It is important that children be taught proper Church discipline and etiquette. Therefore, parents with children who are able to be seated in the Church are kindly asked not to take up the space in the Quieting Room from those parents who may find their children need a "timeout."

4 St. Benilde Catholic Church Fr. Cooper s Corner Sharing our Riches Out of all of the teachings and actions of Jesus, perhaps none illustrates the call of forgiveness and the means to fulfill it than the under-appreciated Parable of the Two Debtors (Mt 18:23-35). The context is Jesus response to St. Peter s question, If my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? Peter suggested an astronomical standard, As many as 7 times? which means giving someone an eighth chance before writing him or her off as incorrigible. Jesus replies, No, Seventy Sevens. Whether that means 70 7 (490) or 70+7 (77) times really does not matter, because seven is a number already with a sense of infinity. It means astonishingly never to stop forgiving. Anticipating the question how one could possibly forgive without limit, Jesus presents the story of the two debtors. The first is brought before the King owing 10,000 talents. A talent was the weight of gold equivalent to 6,000 denarii and a denarius was a full day s wage. That means that the man owed 60 million days worth of work, something that would take him 164,271 years to pay off. He begged for time to pay it off, but he would have needed to live to 165,000 years old to have the chance to do so. To monetize his debt in today s figures, if he were making $100 a day (or $12.50 an hour), he would have owed $6 billion. However, Jesus tells us that when the King saw the debtor pleading absurdly for time, his heart was moved with pity and he forgave the entire debt. He didn t even make him pay what he could. He forgave it all. We re supposed to see in this what God does for us: He forgives our entire debt. He forgives us seven, seventyseven, 490 times and more. But then Jesus says that when that servant who had been forgiven the equivalent of billions in today s money went off and met a servant who owed him 100 denarii about $10,000 in today s money, for someone making $12.50 an hour and that second debtor similarly fell down and begged for time to pay it off, the first refused to show him mercy, but instead started angrily to choke him, saying Pay back what you owe!, and threw him into prison until his family raised the money to pay him back. The first servant, who had almost certainly loaned the 100 denarii out of the 10,000 talents he had received, was summoned back before the King. The King called him wicked and poignantly asked, I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you? Rather than paying the mercy forward, he stifled the flow. And Jesus says he was sent to prison until he would pay back the last penny, an impossible task because of the size of his debt. Because he was unwilling to forgive a small debt, he would be in prison forever; his lack of forgiveness, rather than what he owed, was what got him sent to an unending incarceration. What is the relevance of this parable for each of us? The first lesson is about the debt we have incurred to God because of our sins. There is no way we can ever pay it back. We are always debtors, not creditors, in the

5 St. Benilde Catholic Church Volume 35: Issue 3 forgiveness department. God the Father did not write off our debt, but sent his Son to pay for the debt with His own body and blood on the Cross. Since we have been forgiven an amount like the U.S. national debt, we are called to go out likewise and forgive others their much smaller debts to us, because nothing anyone could do to us amounts to what we have done to the Son of God made man through our sins. This is a very important point for us to understand. Very often we can think our sins are light matter, simply peccadilloes, but they led to Jesus crucifixion. If we stopped there, it would be hard for us not to feel infinitely miserable. But God loved us so much that He counted it a bargain to send His Son to die in payment of the debts we incurred. The second lesson is that God s infinite mercy toward us can be forfeited. In the parable, the Master who had written off the $6 billion debt revoked it when he saw the one he had forgiven refuse similar mercy to the person who owed him. When Jesus taught us to pray the Our Father, He put seven petitions on our lips, but only one had a condition attached: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And Jesus added: For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. In the Parable of the Two Debtors, Jesus makes the point even more strongly: Referring to the decision to throw the first debtor into the eternal slammer, Jesus says, So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. This will happen not because God wishes to punish us, but because unless we have a heart that is merciful toward others, we are incapable of receiving God s mercy; if our heart is not pumping out the Christ-like blood of mercy, it is dead and cannot receive Christ s in-pouring. Framed positively, we need to pay Jesus mercy forward. God, who is rich in mercy, has restored us the fortune we have squandered, and wants us, as spiritual billionaires, lavishly to share that gift with those who need our mercy, down to the last penny. That is the transformation that happens when we recognize just how much we have been forgiven. Safe Environment Training Safe Environment Training will be held at St. Benilde on January 19, at 6:30 p.m., in the cafeteria. All volunteers who have even one unsupervised contact with minors, and all who participate in an overnight event, must attend safe environment training prior to volunteering for the first time and every three years thereafter. Please contact Mary Kelly, ext. 113, for further information. Next weekend is Hospitality Weekend. The CYO and Boy Scout Troop 227 will host. Please join us for coffee, donuts, and fellowship after Mass. Night at the Races Please join us for the annual Night at the Races hosted by the St. Benilde Home & School Association. It will be held on Saturday, January 28, in the cafeteria. The Clubhouse will open at 7 p.m. with racing to begin at 7:30 p.m. Admission to the Clubhouse is $3 per individual and $5 per couple. We will have plenty of food and drinks for everyone to enjoy. If you would like to volunteer to be a Jockey, please contact the Home & School Association by at stbenildehomeandschool@gmail.com. This event is for adults only.

6 St. Benilde Catholic Church THE PRIESTHOOD To any young man in our parish who is discerning a call to the priesthood or who feels some attraction to priestly life and ministry, I would be happy to hear from you and delighted to talk with you. Know that I pray for you daily and that I am ready to support you in your vocational journey. I invite all members of our parish family to become personally and actively involved in the effort to identify men with apparent qualities for priesthood and encourage them to discern the will of God in their lives. Let us recommit ourselves to fervent prayer that the call of Christ the High Priest will echo in the hearts of the next generation and that it will be nurtured and sustained so as to grow and flourish. ~Fr. Cooper Eucharistic Adorers Needed For the past 10 years, we have been blessed to have Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration here at St. Benilde Parish. Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration is the adoration of Jesus Christ present in the Holy Eucharist. The Eucharist is displayed in a special holder called a monstrance, and people come to pray and worship Jesus continually throughout the day and the night. Come to our Perpetual Adoration Chapel and spend some time with our Lord. He is waiting there to embrace you, lovingly and mercifully! If you would like to become a committed adorer, please contact Joy Rojas at (504) or visit the parish website: Let s Stay Connected!! Facebook: Robert Cooper Instagram: frrobertcooper The Online Giving (E-Giving) program is a convenient way to practice responsible financial stewardship by using electronic funds transfer (EFT). Through Online Giving, all contributions to St. Benilde Parish will be made via an automatic payment (ACH - bank draft) from your checking account. Once your Online Authorization Form is completed and you are properly enrolled, monthly donations to the regular Sunday Collection, the Repairs and Maintenance Fund, or the Msgr. Richaud Endowment Fund become automatic. To Enroll in our Online Giving Program, visit the parish website: Did You Know? Catholics Don t Worship Mary And The Saints Many Catholics are confused about the role of the Blessed Mother and the Saints. Should we pray to Mary and the Saints or should we go right to the top and pray to God? In a nutshell, the Catholic Faith teaches that we must worship God alone. Mary and the Saints are to be honored, not worshipped. However, their intercession can be extremely powerful and emulating their virtues can put us on the road to Heaven.

7 JANUARY 15, 2017 ST. BENILDE CATHOLIC CHURCH ID # DIVISION ST. METAIRIE, LA NANCY CAROLLO MONDAY THROUGH THURSDAYS - 9 A.M. TO 3 P.M. FRIDAYS - 9 A.M. TO 12 NOON SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS: