SS. ROBERT & WILLIAM

Transcription

1 September 2, 2018 Twenty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time SS. ROBERT & WILLIAM CATHOLIC PARISH DIOCESE OF CLEVELAND For those of us who learned about our faith when we were young, perhaps we found that the explanation of our faith at that level was satisfactory for our age, but as we have grown and matured, perhaps we have found that the remedial explanation of our faith no longer feeds us in the same way, and the elementary answers to our faith questions no longer suffice, which can lead us to either dismiss the faith as fairytale superstition only useful for teaching ethics to children, or in our hunger for more, to dive into the deeper explanations of our faith now that our minds are better equipped to understand the answers to the faith questions we ask. This awesome, accessible video series will provide you with the opportunity to revisit the teaching of the Catholic faith from an adult perspective, which, in addition to your own enrichment, will assist you in explaining the faith to your children, family, friends, co-workers, etc. Part 1 of this series will take place on Monday evenings at 6:30 PM in the church from September 10 to November 12 and will continue with Part 2 in the Spring. Cost is free, no commitment is necessary, but registration is preferred to help us plan for set up, snacks, materials, etc. To register and see a complete listing of topics, please see a core member after Mass or visit our website. MASS INTENTIONS Monday, September 3 9:00 AM TK For all who Labor Tuesday, September 4 8:00 AM TK Dorothy Belavich by Family Wednesday, September 5 12:00 PM JB Stephen Markuz, Anniversary by Family Thursday, September 6 8:00 AM JB Joseph Wutchiett by Family Friday, September 7 12:00 PM TR William and Mary Planisek by Family Saturday, September 8 8:30 AM JB Ralph J. Cebron by Lou and Linda Shenk 1:00 PM (SG) Michael Maurer & Daniela Abreo Wedding 4:00 PM TR Leo Dekleva by Family Sunday, September 9 9:00 AM TK For the People 11:00 AM JB Bryan Duke by Mom 6:00 PM JB Erdani & Stergar by Ann Erdani Monday, September 3 Labor Day Parish Office Closed Tuesday, September 4 6:30 pm Parish Council 6:30 pm Addicts Parents United Wednesday, September 5 Thursday, September 6 6:30 pm Choir Rehearsal 8:00 pm Families in Christ Jesus Friday, September 7 Saturday, September 8 9:00 am Women s Fellowship This Week At The Parish 367 E. 260th Street Euclid, OH Phone: Stay Connected 9:00 am Men s Group 2:30 pm Confessions 7:00 pm AA Meeting Sunday, September 9 9:30 am PSR 9:45 am Lifeshare Blood Drive 7:00 pm Healing Prayer Rosary (Ursuline Chapel): Sunday at 8:30 am Monday, Wednesday, & Friday at 11:30 am Tuesday, Thursday at 8:30am Saturday at 9:00 am

2 LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD If one member suffers, all suffer together with it (1 Cor 12:26). These words of Saint Paul forcefully echo in my heart as I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons. Crimes that inflict deep wounds of pain and powerlessness, primarily among the victims, but also in their family members and in the larger community of believers and nonbelievers alike. Looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient. Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated. The pain of the victims and their families is also our pain, and so it is urgent that we once more reaffirm our commitment to ensure the protection of minors and of vulnerable adults. 1. If one member suffers In recent days, a report was made public which detailed the experiences of at least a thousand survivors, victims of sexual abuse, the abuse of power and of conscience at the hands of priests over a period of approximately seventy years. Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have come to know the pain of many of the victims. We have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death; these wounds never go away. The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced. But their outcry was more powerful than all the measures meant to silence it, or sought even to resolve it by decisions that increased its gravity by falling into complicity. The Lord heard that cry and once again showed us on which side he stands. Mary s song is not mistaken and continues quietly to echo throughout history. For the Lord remembers the promise he made to our fathers: he has scattered the proud in their conceit; he has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty (Lk 1:51-53). We feel shame when we realize that our style of life has denied, and continues to deny, the words we recite. With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them. I make my own the words of the then Cardinal Ratzinger when, during the Way of the Cross composed for Good Friday 2005, he identified with the cry of pain of so many victims and exclaimed: How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to [Christ]! How much pride, how much selfcomplacency! Christ s betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his body and blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison Lord, save us! (cf. Mt 8:25) (Ninth Station). 2. all suffer together with it The extent and the gravity of all that has happened requires coming to grips with this reality in a comprehensive and communal way. While it is important and necessary on every journey of conversion to acknowledge the truth of what has happened, in itself this is not enough. Today we are challenged as the People of God to take on the pain of our brothers and sisters wounded in their flesh and in their spirit. If, in the past, the response was one of omission, today we want solidarity, in the deepest and most challenging sense, to become our way of forging present and future history. And this in an environment where conflicts, tensions and above all the victims of every type of abuse can encounter an outstretched hand to protect them and rescue them from their pain (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 228). Such solidarity demands that we in turn condemn whatever endangers the integrity of any person. A solidarity that summons us to fight all forms of corruption, especially spiritual corruption. The latter is a comfortable and self-satisfied form of blindness. Everything then appears acceptable: deception, slander, egotism and other subtle forms of selfcenteredness, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14) (Gaudete et Exsultate, 165). Saint Paul s exhortation to suffer with those who suffer is the best antidote against all our attempts to repeat the words of Cain: Am I my brother's keeper? (Gen 4:9). I am conscious of the effort and work being carried out in various parts of the world to come up with the necessary means to ensure the safety and protection of the integrity of children and of vulnerable adults, as well as implementing zero tolerance and ways of making all those who perpetrate or cover up these crimes accountable. We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary, yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and future. Together with those efforts, every one of the baptized should feel involved in the ecclesial and social change that we so greatly need. This change calls for a personal and communal conversion that makes us see things as the Lord does. For as Saint John Paul II liked to say: If we have truly started out anew from the contemplation of Christ, we must learn to see him especially in the faces of those with St. John of the Cross weekday Mass Schedule: Monday, Wednesday, & Friday at 8 am Tuesday & Thursday, 6:30 pm

3 whom he wished to be identified (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 49). To see things as the Lord does, to be where the Lord wants us to be, to experience a conversion of heart in his presence. To do so, prayer and penance will help. I invite the entire holy faithful People of God to a penitential exercise of prayer and fasting, following the Lord s command.[1] This can awaken our conscience and arouse our solidarity and commitment to a culture of care that says never again to every form of abuse. It is impossible to think of a conversion of our activity as a Church that does not include the active participation of all the members of God s People. Indeed, whenever we have tried to replace, or silence, or ignore, or reduce the People of God to small elites, we end up creating communities, projects, theological approaches, spiritualities and structures without roots, without memory, without faces, without bodies and ultimately, without lives.[2] This is clearly seen in a peculiar way of understanding the Church s authority, one common in many communities where sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience have occurred. Such is the case with clericalism, an approach that not only nullifies the character of Christians, but also tends to diminish and undervalue the baptismal grace that the Holy Spirit has placed in the heart of our people.[3] Clericalism, whether fostered by priests themselves or by lay persons, leads to an excision in the ecclesial body that supports and helps to perpetuate many of the evils that we are condemning today. To say no to abuse is to say an emphatic no to all forms of clericalism. It is always helpful to remember that in salvation history, the Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships present in the human community. God wanted to enter into the life and history of a people (Gaudete et Exsultate, 6). Consequently, the only way that we have to respond to this evil that has darkened so many lives is to experience it as a task regarding all of us as the People of God. This awareness of being part of a people and a shared history will enable us to acknowledge our past sins and mistakes with a penitential openness that can allow us to be renewed from within. Without the active participation of all the Church s members, everything being done to uproot the culture of abuse in our communities will not be successful in generating the necessary dynamics for sound and realistic change. The penitential dimension of fasting and prayer will help us as God s People to come before the Lord and our wounded brothers and sisters as sinners imploring forgiveness and the grace of shame and conversion. In this way, we will come up with actions that can generate resources attuned to the Gospel. For whenever we make the effort to return to the source and to recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of creativity open up, with different forms of expression, more eloquent signs and words with new meaning for today s world (Evangelii Gaudium, 11). It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetrated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for those most vulnerable. Let us beg forgiveness for our own sins and the sins of others. An awareness of sin helps us to acknowledge the errors, the crimes and the wounds caused in the past and allows us, in the present, to be more open and committed along a journey of renewed conversion. Likewise, penance and prayer will help us to open our eyes and our hearts to other people s sufferings and to overcome the thirst for power and possessions that are so often the root of those evils. May fasting and prayer open our ears to the hushed pain felt by children, young people and the disabled. A fasting that can make us hunger and thirst for justice and impel us to walk in the truth, supporting all the judicial measures that may be necessary. A fasting that shakes us up and leads us to be committed in truth and charity with all men and women of good will, and with society in general, to combatting all forms of the abuse of power, sexual abuse and the abuse of conscience. In this way, we can show clearly our calling to be a sign and instrument of communion with God and of the unity of the entire human race (Lumen Gentium, 1). If one member suffers, all suffer together with it, said Saint Paul. By an attitude of prayer and penance, we will become attuned as individuals and as a community to this exhortation, so that we may grow in the gift of compassion, in justice, prevention and reparation. Mary chose to stand at the foot of her Son s cross. She did so unhesitatingly, standing firmly by Jesus side. In this way, she reveals the way she lived her entire life. When we experience the desolation caused by these ecclesial wounds, we will do well, with Mary, to insist more upon prayer, seeking to grow all the more in love and fidelity to the Church (SAINT IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, Spiritual Exercises, 319). She, the first of the disciples, teaches all of us as disciples how we are to halt before the sufferings of the innocent, without excuses or cowardice. To look to Mary is to discover the model of a true follower of Christ. May the Holy Spirit grant us the grace of conversion and the interior anointing needed to express before these crimes of abuse our compunction and our resolve courageously to combat them. Vatican City, 20 August FRANCIS

4 SPIRITUAL Women s Fellowship We are called by our Lord to be holy. How s that going for you? Well, help is on the way at our next Women s Fellowship meeting on Saturday, September 9, 2018, from 9:00-11:00 am in the Upper Hall, as we host our own Father John Betters to guide us through Our Call to Holiness. Fr. John always brings his very special brand of warmth, sincerity, and comfort, and we always leave feeling blessed. Maybe this time we will leave feeling holiness is possible too! No reservations necessary. Call Renee Barber ext. 262 with questions. Cleveland Retrouvaille Weekend September 14-16, 2018 A Lifeline for Troubled Marriages Has your marriage become unloving or uncaring your relationship cold, distant thinking about a separation or divorce? Are you already separated/divorced but both of you want to try again? Then the Retrouvaille program may help. RETROUVAILLE, which means rediscovery, is supported by the Catholic diocese of Cleveland, but it is open to couples of all faiths. This program consists of a weekend experience for couples and six follow-up sessions. A registration fee of $150 is required to confirm your reservation. For more information concerning the program, or to register, please call Marce or Liz Gliha at or , or go online to FAITH FORMATION B n o t 2 LOG IN: SRWSJCEUCLID.FORMED.ORG Have you thought of leaving a legacy, especially for our parish or school? Remember Ss. Robert & William in your will or trust to continue our traditions and education. Contact Fr. John at the Parish Office for more information.

5 PARISH SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM Fr. John D. Betters, Pastor ext. 228 Fr. Thom Kowatch, Parochial Vicar Ext. 229 Fr. Tim J Roth, Parochial Vicar frroth@srweuclid.cc Ext. 235 Renee Barber, Pastoral Associate rbarber@srweuclid.cc, ext. 262 Meg Cosgriff, Co-Principal mcosgriff@srwschool.cc, ext. 243 Martha Dodd, Co-Principal mdodd@srwschool.cc, ext. 231 Renee Dzuroff, Business Manager rdzuroff@srweuclid.cc, ext. 224 Patrick Fink, Director of Facilities & Maintenance pfink@srweuclid.cc, ext. 291 Kate Fraser, Youth Minister kfraser@srweuclid.cc, ext. 246 Ellen Ivory, Director of Discipleship & Development eivory@srweuclid.cc, ext. 230 Kyle Lorek, Director of Music klorek@srweuclid.cc, ext. 241 Gail Monroe, Pastoral Associate/DRE gmonroe@srweuclid.cc, ext. 248 Bob Perusek, Liturgy Director bperusek@srweuclid.cc, ext. 290 Nathan Raddell, Director of Communications nraddell@srweuclid.cc, ext. 280 Parish Office Hours: Mon, 8:30 am 6:45 pm, Tue, Wed & Thu, 8:30 am 6 pm, Friday, 8:30 am 4:30 pm, Closed Saturday & Sunday 367 E. 260th Street Euclid, OH (Fax) info@srweuclid.cc The Collection: for August 26th is $ Loan Balance: $1,299, August Faith Direct Second Half, $2,985 Monthly Loan Payment: $10, Please consider a donation to help lower our long term debt. Please call Fr. John or Ellen at the Parish Office at or them at fjb@srweuclid.cc or eivory@srweuclid.cc. Thank you very much for your continued generosity. Fr. John We'd like to connect with you! Get important updates from our church in a timely and convenient way. Flocknote, the tool we're using, lets you choose what information you'd like to receive - via or text message - from the various ministries & groups in our church.. Visit our church at: SRW OR Text SRWEUCLID to from your phone to subscribe. PRAYERS NEEDED Please pray for Esther Zobec, Marti McRedmond, Eleanor Gulich, Robert Gallagher, Rose Dibartolomeo, Dakota Miller, Yaminah Ortiz, Dorothy Calabrese, Curt Jones, Richard Reel, Pat Reel, Mark Reel, Andrew Carnes, Jim Schlecht, Sr., Helen Herman, Karen Long, Liza Raddell, Mary Ellen Fellenstein, Anthony Fratino, Rita Burke, Harry Krawczyszyn & Family, Ann Nykiel, Thomas Bukovec, Karen A. Waldron, Tony Hocevar, Katie Kalish, Tom Brenkus, Alda Kovalsky, Jean Feiten, Marianne Ellul, Geraldine Hoffert, Janet Cika, Pauline Dutcher, Sharon Kazusky, Grayson Kazusky, Violet DeStefanis, Ann Grossman, Donald Pavlovich, Mary Ann Hudak, Faye Bukovec, James Augustine, Ted Sabat, Christopher Henderson, Alexis Farrar, Rose Leo, Patricia Johnston, Thomas Jirousek, Pauline Krall, John Ellul, Ray Golick, Jeanette Hocevar, Josephine DiTirro, Danita Wells, Teresa Sullivan, & all those who are ill in body, mind, or spirit. We thank, pray, and ask for God s blessings for those in the military and safety forces serving our country and community. We offer our deepest sympathy to the family of Fr. Joe Goebel, and all those who have lost a loved one. May they know the peace and comfort of God s love and find strength in the support of our parish community.

6 Bulletin # : Ss. Robert and William 367 E 260th Street Euclid, OH X280 Contact: Nate Raddell Software: Win 10 Publisher 2016 Adobe Acrobat DC Transmission Time: Tuesdays, 9am Bulletin Date: 10/01/2017 Special Instructions: