Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord

Transcription

1 Mark 3:25 St. Lambert Parish Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord June 10, 2018 Tenth Sunday in ordinary time Rectory: 8148 N Karlov Avenue Skokie, IL Phone: (847) saintlambert@aol.com St. Lambert Parish - Skokie, IL Website: Sunday Masses: (5 pm Sat) 8am, 10am, 12pm Weekday Masses: 7:15 am (Mon-Fri) 8am on Saturday Confessions: Saturday at 8:30am Pastor: Rev. Richard Simon Rev. Know-it-all: reverendknow-it-all.blogspot.com Deacon: Mr. Chick O Leary Music Director: Mr. Steven Folkers Office Staff: Debbie Morales-Garcia debbie.stlambert@aol.com Mr. George Mohrlein Religious Education : Gina Roxas youthchurchred@gmail.com To Register as a Parishioner: Go to stlambert.org under About Us or by phone. Weddings: Arrangements must be made 6 months in advance. Baptisms: Third Sundays of the month at 1:30 pm. Baptismal Prep Class is the first Tuesday of each month at 7pm in room 103. For guidelines and to register Debbie. Bulletin Guidelines: Submissions should be received at the office 10 days preceding the date of bulletin publication. Submissions should be in electronic format and sent to debbie.stlambert@aol.com.

2 Page 2 St. Lambert Parish 10th Sunday Ordinary Time READINGS FOR THE WEEK Monday: Acts 11:21b-26; 13:1-3; Ps 98:1-6; Mt 5:1-12 Tuesday: 1 Kgs 17:7-16; Ps 4:2-5, 7b-8; Mt 5:1316 Wednesday: 1 Kgs 18:20-39; Ps 16:1b-2ab, 4, 5ab, 8, 11; Mt 5:17-19 Thursday: 1 Kgs 18:41-46; Ps 65:10-13; Mt 5:2026 Friday: 1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-16; Ps 27:7-9abc, 1314; Mt 5:27-32 Saturday: 1 Kgs 19:19-21; Ps 16:1b-2a, 5, 7-10; Mt 5:33-37 Sunday: Ez 17:22-24; Ps 92:2-3, 13-16; 2 Cor 5:6-10; Mk 4:26-34 Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time June 10, 2018 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD; LORD, hear my voice! Psalm 130:1 Masses for the Week Sunday Offertory Collection: Saturday, June 9 5:00 Dscd. Members of Lynn/Ryan Families Sunday, June 10 8:00 People of St Lambert 10:00 Luz Tumang 12:00 Leonardo Deza Monday, June 11 May 26/27, 2018 Envelopes: $5, Loose: 1, Total: $7, Thank you for your continued generosity! For Online Giving: 7:15 John Drozd Tuesday, June 12 7:15 No Coffee Hour next week, Fathers Day. Yangun Sheh Wednesday, June 13 7:15 Dscd Members of Sheh/Liang Famillies Thursday, June 14 7:15 Monica Liu Friday, June 15 7:15 Hector David Saturday, June 16 Join us for the St. Lambert Senior Activity Meeting at 11:30 in Roberts hall. 8:00 Dscd members of Styczynski/Dionne Fa. & Michael J Polakowski 5:00 Romulo Biglete Birthday Sunday, June 17 8:00 People of St Lambert 10:00 Frank Niewiadomski 12:00 Roberto & Alfredo Cochico s AMERICAN FLAG This flag, which we honor and under which we serve, is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and purpose as a nation. It has no other character than that which we give it from generation to generation. Woodrow Wilson

3 June 10, 2018 Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord Page 3 Parishioners of St. Lambert Celebrate The Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Rummage Sales St. Edmund School Rummage Sale: June 9, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., 188 S. Oak Park Ave., Oak Park; use entrance on Pleasant Ave.; antique furniture, dishes, glassware, etc.; call for details. St John of the Cross Parish: 45th Annual Giant Garage Sale : June 16, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.; half-price bag sale June 18th, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; 51st Street and Wolf Road, Western Springs; free admission; furniture, electronics, books, toys, clothes, housewares, artwork, jewelry and more; visit for details. Saturday, June 23, 2018 at 5 pm St. Cecilia Parish Rummage Sale : June 22, 6-8 p.m. pre-sale, $3; June 23, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., bag sale starts at 2 p.m.; donations needed; drop off items that are clean and in working condition June 18-21, noon to 7 p.m. at the parish, 700 S. Meier Road, Mount Prospect; call for information. St. Martha Church/Shrine of All Saints Rummage Sale : July 13, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; July 14, 9 a.m. to 4pm; July 15, noon to 4 p.m.; 8523 Georgiana Ave., Morton Grove; eight classrooms of all types of gently used merchandise; food available; for information, call or stmartharummage@gmail.com. Rummage and Bake Sale : July 14, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., hosted by the St. Constance Woman s Club, 5843 W. Strong Street, in Borowczyk Hall, 5856 W. Ainslie St.; vendors can rent space, tables and chairs for $25; early reservations suggested; all reservations are due by June 14; to get details and register, contact Roberta at or roberta5829@hotmail.com. For more information, contact: Mrs. Irma Lemithe Mrs. Rita Justinien A reception will follow immediately after the Mass in Roberts Hall PROMISES Today s liturgy is full of promises. The reading from Genesis promises a final triumph over the power of sin and a return to a new creation. The reading from Second Corinthians promises that all who follow Christ will have to struggle. It also promises, however, that we can persevere if we but recognize that Christ is within us, renewing us daily, and giving us the courage and the strength we need to endure. The Gospel promises that doing God s will makes us family with Jesus, who forgives all sin and triumphs over evil. Today might be a good day for us to make some promises as well. We can promise to stop kidding ourselves about our own tendencies to selfishness and sin. We can promise ourselves to believe really believe that while we are not sinless, we are forgiven. We can promise ourselves to combat evil and sin by acting as sisters and brothers not only to the Lord, but to one another as well. Copyright J. S. Paluch Co., Inc.

4 Page 4 St. Lambert Parish 10th Sunday Ordinary Time The Reverend Know-it-all What I don t know I can always make up! Letter to Fidel Labrador continued... Just to refresh your memory, St Paul says, We maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. However St. James says, As you can see, a man is justified by his works and not by faith alone. These two statements sure seem contradictory. Hold on one minute. St Paul says we are not justified by works of the law. St. James says we are justified by works and faith together. Works of the law, a phrase, is quite different from the single word works. There is one other place in early Jewish literature where the phrase works of the law appears, albeit, in Hebrew. Let us turn to the Dead Sea Scrolls, always a fun read. There is a scroll titled 4QMMT, Miqsat Ma aseh hatorah or more easily, "Some Works of the Law". It deals with such important issue as dogs being forbidden entry into Jerusalem and several regulations about the impurity of the leper during the period of purification until final purification. Who among us has not lost sleep over these questions? A particularly interesting issue deals with the purity of the streams of liquids poured from a pure vessel into an impure one. As you all know from your regular reading of the book of Leviticus, a clay or porcelain vessel once one made ritually impure, cannot be purified and must be destroyed. And you all must know that if a dead rodent falls into a clay vessel that vessel is made unclean. The question is this: if one pours water from a clay pitcher into the unclean clay bowl, can the ritual impurity that infests the clay bowl travel up the stream of water and defile the clay pitcher so that it too must be broken? The Pharisees said no, the Qumran loonies said yes and St. Paul said Are you for real? (I am of course paraphrasing the words of Sacred Scripture). The scroll ends with the statement And these are some works of the law. So it seems that the phrase works of the law is a very specific reference to the important issues of clay bowls, dogs in Jerusalem and whom temple priests may marry. When St. Paul says we are not justified by works, he is clearly referring to ritual taboos such as grain offering left overnight in the temple and the rules regarding the slaughter of pregnant animals et alia. These things will never justify a person. So just what is justification? Read Romans the eighth chapter, 28 th verse and following: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified. St. Paul is really insistent that God s purpose is to adopt us as His children. In order to do this He must make us look like His Only Begotten Son, Jesus the Messiah, the only person worthy of divine sonship. So what did Jesus look like? If you could get into a time machine and go back to the carpenter shop in Nazareth 2,000 years ago you wouldn t walk out saying, Oh, what beautiful blue eyes He has, just like the calendar on the refrigerator! You would probably think, Boy was He kind and patient. He was so generous, He undercharged me! What did Jesus look like? There is a perfectly good description of Jesus in the Bible. We find it in Galatians the 5 th chapter verses 22 and 23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. That s what Jesus looked like. That s what you

5 June 10, 2018 Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord Page 5 would have thought had you asked Him to fix your plow or cart. St. Justin Martyr who was born just 70 years after the death and resurrection of the Lord in Nablus in the Holy Land 20 or 30 miles from Nazareth and about half way to Jerusalem. He tells a beautiful story about Our Lord the carpenter. People were poor in Galilee. A farm animal was a big investment. The ox that pulled the plow was the most expensive thing a poor farmer might own. Think of it as a very expensive piece of farm machinery. If an animal was chafed or injured by its harness and yoke, the animal might be infected and die. Jesus had a reputation for being so good with animals that his animal collars and yokes were perfect. People came from all over Galilee to have their animals fitted for collars by Jesus. When Jesus stood up and said, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. My yoke is easy, my burden light. I suspect He was telling a bit of a joke. His hearers would have smiled and thought, Yes, this is the carpenter/ yoke maker turned rabbi. Jesus was saying in effect, if you think I m good with animals I am much better with the human heart. This is what Jesus looked like, meek and humble of heart. The word humble in the text is an interesting word. It is tapeinos and means undistinguished. Children and sinners were drawn to Jesus. The great and mighty weren t. That s what Jesus looked like. He set you at ease if you were nobody. He made you nervous if you thought you were somebody. God s purpose is to make me look like Him, ordinary and kind and generous. I would rather look rich and important. It s going to take a lifetime to convince me that looking like Jesus is the way to go. To be just is to be godly. It is to look like God who looks like Christ. I remember the story of Mother Teresa washing the feet of a dying leper. The leper who believed in reincarnation and that he was suffering for sins committed in a past life asked her, Why are you doing this? Mother Teresa said, Because I want to be like Jesus. The leper asked, Does He look like you? No, she said, but I try to look like Him. The leper said, If this is true, I want to be a Christian. Years ago I was a guest on an evangelical news show that was broadcasting the installation of a Catholic archbishop. I was there to explain weird Catholic things to the Protestants. They were particularly interested in the hats. There was a famous Protestant dean of a famous evangelical institute who preceded me on the air. As I heard what he was saying I felt so sorry for him. He was talking about Mother Teresa. He insisted that though she might be a fine person, if she believed that her good works would save her she was damned. If one thought he was saved by a work, he was certainly headed for hell. How could he have so misunderstood the Scriptures? Christ clearly says that if we fail to do good works He does not know us and that we should depart into that fire prepared for the devil and his angels. To believe is to trust. If I trust Jesus, I am going to do as he asks. No matter how much I insist that I trust Him, if I refuse to do what He asks I neither trust nor love Him. That s what St. James is saying. St. Paul is saying that no amount of avoiding pork and breaking unclean clay pots will make us look like God and make us worthy of heaven. He does however say that Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God will repay each person according to his works. (Romans 2: 5, 6) It is only by trusting Christ and consequently obeying Him by loving one another that we can be made to look like Him and be adopted by God. They are not contradicting each other at all. The gossip about Roman emperors is sure to be in next week s adventure packed article. To be continued..

6 Page 6 St. Lambert Parish 10th Sunday Ordinary Time Chicago Workers Collaborative receives funds from CCHD When Enedina Zacarías was hurt at her job, she knew there was a problem. A conveyor belt at the candy factory where she worked as a temporary employee worker fell on her and threw her against a metal table. I hurt my spine, she said. The force of the blow broke my arm, I fractured the bone close to the shoulder, and my tendons were torn. Zacarías says that on the day of her accident, the factory did not provide anything for the pain. Given her need to work, she went back the next day, swollen and in severe pain. When her employers took her to the company doctor, the doctor assured her there was nothing wrong with her. She eventually sought a second opinion and discovered she had suffered a spinal disc injury. I was very hurt, she said. I can t work. And they have not paid me a penny. Originally from México, Zacarías, 64, is going through difficult times, because she lives alone and she has to pay rent and buy food. A coworker told her about Chicago Workers Collaborative, an advocacy group that workers call La Colaborativa. Chicago Workers Collaborative assigned a lawyer to Zacarías. The lawyer has been fighting for back wages for the time she has been out of work. The company denies negligence. They want productivity, says Zacarías. They don t care what happens to us. Zacarías recently had arm surgery and her lawyer covered the expense. Zacarías still needs spinal surgery, but the doctors are telling her that surgery is not advisable, because it is too risky at her age. Chicago Workers Collaborative is a nonprofit organization located in Englewood and Little Village that advocates for workers rights, especially those who work as temporary workers and work through job agencies. La Colabora va, which helps in issues such as wage the, defense services and training, is one of the agencies that receive support from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. The most frequent problems for temporary workers are wage the and accidents at work, said Isaura Mar nez, organizer of Chicago Workers Collabora ve. Also, retalia on by their employers, such as unfair dismissals. Mar nez said wage the happens frequently because workers are not protected and o en lack proper informa on. Because the people who are working through a temporary work office live paycheck to paycheck, losing a day of work is very serious for them. Precisely because they have a job, and they want to take advantage of it, they don t give themselves the me to go places to receive informa on about their rights, she said. A lot of people are afraid because of their legal status. Mar nez says that some mes the worker goes to the temporary work offices and the office tells them they didn t fill out the applica on correctly and for that reason alone they do not receive their full salary. They discount them, they steal one day of salary, some even a week or two of salary, she said. They give thousands of excuses to keep that money. Tim Bell, execu ve director of La Colabora va, says Illinois has regula ons for temporary worker agencies. They have to register, they must have a license to operate, he says. They have to show they have insurance in case a worker gets injured. If they don t have that they can be fined by the government. The collabora ve scored a victory when, at the end of September, Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the Responsible Jobs Crea on Act (HB 690) that created more regula ons for temporary work agencies, and, among other things, seeks to eliminate hiring discrimina on and promotes safety in the workplace. The law, which

7 June 10, 2018 Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord Page 7 will go into effect the summer of 2018, is the result of a Chicago Workers Collabora ve ini a ve in associa on with the Warehouse Workers for Jus ce. These ba les have united La nos and African- American workers. It s very important to have that unity, said Bell, because the bosses are always pi ng both groups in compe on for jobs and to keep them divided is to keep them weak. That s something we are changing as well. MARRIED IN 1968? Have you registered for the annual Golden Wedding Anniversary Mass? Rosaura Mar nez was a temporary worker for six years in different factories and she saw that division. When we were in Springfield, it was a beau ful experience, said Mar nez, because both groups were together, African Americans and La nos, with the same feeling and the same struggle. Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago Picture: From le, Elvia Garcia, Isaura Mar nez, Enedina Zacarias, Isabel Mar nez, and Le cia Garay plan strategies for the Chicago Workers Collabora ve in Li le Village on Oct. 13. Chicago Workers Collabora ve, which receives a grant from CCHD, organizes low-wage temporary laborers to protect their rights, figh ng an -worker and an immigrant ac vi es of employers while strengthening protec ons for temporary agency workers. CWC has raised labor standards in Illinois through grassroots campaigns that led to the passage of seven new laws, including the toughest temporary-labor and wage-the laws in the country. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic) If not, there is still time to register. The Golden Wedding Anniversary Mass will be celebrated on Sunday, September 16, 2018 by Cardinal Cupich. The location of the Mass will be announced soon. To register, please contact your local parish, or register online at pvm.archchicago.org. We hope to see you there! SAINTS AND SPECIAL OBSERVANCES Sunday: Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Monday: St. Barnabas Wednesday: St. Anthony of Padua Thursday: Flag Day Saturday: Blessed Virgin Mary