Blessed is he who keeps faith forever, secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry.

Transcription

1 Church of the Immaculate Conception We at Immaculate Conception are a group of people bound together by our belief in Jesus Christ as our Savior. When we were baptized, we were called to share in His work. Therefore we pledge ourselves to build a community where all are welcomed, loved, needed and appreciated. Armed with the faith in the Immaculate Conception of Mary, we will celebrate the gift of life together in word and sacrament. September 24 & 25, 2016 Church of the Immaculate Conception 1180 State Highway 206, Greene, New York Rev. Msgr. John P. Putano, Administrator Website: iccgreene.wordpress.com immcongreene@syrdio.org Facebook: Church of the Immaculate Conception And ICC Youth Group Parish Office: Tue. thru Thurs. 10:30 am to 4:30 pm Mary Wentlent, Parish Manager Audrée Beach, Admin. Asst Fax Baptism & RCIA ICC Parish Office Youth Ministry: ICC Parish Council: Nancy Amell, Eileen Browning, Kelly Erickson, Robert Hanrahan, Donna Heisler, Joanne Moxley, Francis Feldpausch - President. ICC Trustees: Jackie Henninge ; jackiehenninge@frontier.com Robert Larkin ; robertmlarkin@gmail.com Feel free to contact the Trustees or Council Members with any concerns you have about our parish. Knights of Columbus Council Grand Knight Charles Browning Meetings the 1st Thursday of each month. Gluten free hosts are available. Notify the Sacristy before Mass if you need one. 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time Blessed is he who keeps faith forever, secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry. Weekend Mass Schedule Pastoral Care Area South: Saturday Vigil Mass: 4:00 pm Immaculate Conception, Greene 5:45 pm St. Joseph, Oxford Sunday: 8:45 am St. Joseph, Oxford 10:15 am Immaculate Conception, Greene 4:00 pm St. Paul, Norwich

2 Mass Schedule SATURDAY 9/24/16 4:00 pm Pat Madden by Joe & Joanne Moxley & family SUNDAY 9/25/16 10:15 am Donald Blaisure & Joyce Blaisure by Tom & Kathy Nichols TUESDAY 9/27/16 8:30 am Communion Service THURSDAY 9/29/16 8:30 am Communion Service SATURDAY 10/1/16 4:00 pm For Parishioners SUNDAY 10/2/16 10:15 am Charlie Coppola by Claire Gibbons Birthday Intention for Fr. Lupa (10/4) Fr. Ward (10/2) & in memory of Fr Currie (10/2) LAY PERSONS SCHEDULE Saturday 4:00 pm Saturday 4:00 pm September 24, 2016 September 25, 2016 E. M. s: H. Connelly J. Moxley S. Northrup J. Trepa Lector: R. Kroon C. Gibbons Servers: Adult Volunteer Adult Volunteer Sunday 10:15 am Sunday 10:15 am October 1, 2016 October 2, 2016 E. M. s: B. Doughty B. Norton M. Kim P. Husband L. Detweiler Z. Urda Lector: K. Ives B. Larkin Servers: D. Furman C. Leonard N. Brown C. Flanagan E. Kiehle L. Flanagan Counters: A. Browning K. Ives Church of the Immaculate Conception, Greene, New York Page 2 ICC WEEK AT A GLANCE SUNDAY 9/25 9-9:15 a Parent Meeting H 9 a Religious Education Classes AC 9:15 a Bible Study 11:30 a Confession 11:30 a Confirmation Class Parent/Youth Meeting 2 p Capt. & Crew Golf Tournament Afton MONDAY 9/26 6 p Cub Scouts AC TUESDAY 9/27 8 a Rosary & Communion Service WEDNESDAY 9/28 10:30-Noon Cards & Conversation H, K THURSDAY 9/29 8 a Rosary & Communion Service 10 a Scripture & Coffee - H FRIDAY 9/30 7 p Indoor Movie Night. Mother Theresa H, K SATURDAY 10/1 8:30-Noon Women s Retreat AC 3:30 p Confession SUNDAY 10/2 9 a Religious Education Classes AC 9:15 a Bible Study 11:30 a Confession Noon 3 Oktober Fest H, K Respect Life Sunday Location Codes: S Sanctuary; H Parish Hall; K Kitchen; CR Cry Room; L Library; P Pavilion; AC All Church; OF-Out Front; OB-Out Back; SJ St. Joseph s, DT Downtown. ICC Bible Challenge! Each week we will have a different verse from the Bible. Write it on an index card, cut it out and put on your refrigerator, or put it in your car! Try to memorize it over the week. Use it as a family contest each week or just as a personal challenge. This weeks verse is: E. Hadlick A. Simpson So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. Sacrificial Giving and Expenses for the month of August 2016: Total Income: $ 11, Total Expense: $ 8, Second Collection, 9/ Catholic Communication Expenses include: Sight & Sound trip, utilities. Does not include expenses for Memory Garden which come from separate funds. Remember St. Paul s advice: God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Cor.9:7) 1 Corinthians 13:13 We extend our sympathy to......the Kimbark Family in the recent loss of their loved one, Bill Kimbark, 9/18/16. We pray for the happy repose of his soul. May he find a new life with God in heaven.

3 September 25, 2016 Cards & Conversation - Wednesday, August 31, 10:30-12:30. Everyone is welcome to join us in the Parish Hall for a morning of fun, games & conversation followed by a light lunch. Indoor Movie Night Friday, Sept 30 will feature a DVD on Mother Teresa s life, in honor of her canonization on Sept. 4. Popcorn, snacks & beverages are provide. Everyone is welcome to attend! Don t miss the Ladies Morning Retreat planned for Saturday October 1, 8:30-12:00. Sister Laura was so pleased to be asked to visit us and present her thoughts on our spiritual landscape. For a full description see the flyer in this bulletin. There is no cost to this retreat. Invite a friend, or come by yourself. We have a nice group already signed up from our parish and surrounding Catholic churches. You don t need to be Catholic to attend. First Annual Oktoberfest - Sunday, October 2 from Noon to 3. Our Knights of Columbus will be serving their wonderful pulled pork with salt potatoes, cole slaw, Black Forrest cake and a beer garden tent! Free will offering! The Accords a local accordion duo will provide entertainment. A Pie Baking Contest will take place from 12:00-12:30. Please consider baking your best pie and bringing it to be judged. Sign up to bring a pie in the vestibule. If you would like to be a judge, you can sign up for that as well! Parish Day Trip to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Syracuse. Monday, October 10. We leave here at 10 am and ride up together. While there, we can pass through the Holy Door of Mercy for a plenary indulgence. (There is information on the vestibule bulletin board about this special opportunity.) We will attend the Mass at 12:10, and then go for lunch at Kitty Hoynes Irish Pub and Restaurant nearby. If you want to ride up on your own and make a day of shopping or movies afterwards, that is fine as well. Please sign up in the vestibule so we can plan our transportation. Save the Date! Men s Prayer Breakfast- Saturday November 5 from 7:30-8:30 am. Deacon Tim McNerney will be our leader. Church of the Immaculate Conception, Greene, NY Page 5 Volunteer Opportunities Greene Food Pantry - We collect non-perishable foods for our local food pantry. May & November we cover the hours at the Pantry. Meals On Wheels Our volunteers make the deliveries for August & February: Mon, Wed, Fri, 11:15am. Call the Parish Office to join our team! Our Brother s Keeper We take donations of CLEAN blankets, quilts, sheets, towels, batting & fiber fill. & yarn. Please bag the items. Bottle & Can Drive - drop off your refundable items n the bin next to the Rectory garage. St. Pauly Textile collection shed in our parking lot. Donate your unwanted clothes & fabric items & ICC receives 4 cents per pound collected. Need someone to repair the door on our Bottle & Can bin. Call the Parish Office. Memorial Garden Update We hope you have had a chance to walk through our new garden and enjoy the beautiful scenery. A beautiful statue has been ordered depicting Our Lady of Fatima, and should arrive in 6-8 weeks. If you would like to be on a gardening team to have an opinion on the flowers and shrubs being planted, please sign up in the vestibule. We need everyone s input on the Marian shrubs and flowers to be planted. The entrance sign and list of donors is in the process of being ordered, and when it is ready to go up we will let everyone know. We hope to have Bishop Cunningham visit for a special blessing when the statue and shrubs are in. Fr. Charles Currie Memorial Garden behind Our Lady of Good Council Parish House will be dedicated after all Masses on Oct. 1 & 2 (aprox. 6:15 p Sat. & 9 & 11:30 a Sunday.) Hospitality provided, All are welcome. October is Respect Life Month. Once again we will be collecting items for Birthright in Sidney all month long. Drop you donations off in the bassinet that will be placed in the vestibule. Thank you. Life Chain is a peaceful witness of pro-life Americans, standing on public sidewalks and praying for our nation and for an end to abortion. All are invited to join us on Sunday, October 2 from 2:00-3:30 pm at the corner of Harry L Drive & Reynolds Road, Johnson City. Signs will be provided.

4 Continuing Our Tradition of Service Since 1914 NEVILLE LAW OFFICE Chris P. Neville, Esq. Robert M. Larkin, Of Counsel P. O. Box 570 * 36 Genesee St. Greene, New York Molly S. Nolan Licensed R.E. Salesperson 607- Bartles Pharmacy 10 Lafayette Park. Oxford, NY After hours - Brian Bartle KENNEDY FUNERAL HOME, INC. 21 North Chenango St., Greene, NY kennedyfuneral@frontiernet.net kennedyfuneralhome.net Your Ad Here! $ small; $ medium; $ large; for one year. The ad is shared with St. Joseph s bulletin. Call BY PATRONIZING OUR BULLETIN ADVERTISERS YOU ARE SAYING THANK YOU FOR HELPING TO PUBLISH OUR BULLETIN. Root Funeral Home Greene s Oldest Funeral Home Member New York State Funeral Director Assoc. Serving Greene, Oxford and the surrounding communities. Charles C. Dietrich North Chenango Street Greene, New York Construction Lawn Mowing/Brush Hogging Home Improvement Excavating Gerry Reiss Mike Reiss Oxford, New York St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery Oxford, New York A beautiful, peaceful resting place Double Plot $700 1 casket & 1 urn or 2 urns Name: Address: Parish Registration Form City: State: Zip Code: Phone: I am new to the parish and wish to register. I am previously registered. I want offering envelopes. I am interested in learning more about the Catholic Faith. Mail to: Immaculate Conception Church, 1180 State Hwy. 206, Greene, NY or place in collection basket

5 September 25, 2016 Church of the Immaculate Conception, Greene, New York Page 3 Father s Notes Why Keep the Commandments? If a person has to keep the Ten Commandments to get to heaven, why did Jesus Christ die on the cross and shed His blood fur us? Romans 3:24 says we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Isn t it by the blood of the Lord, & not by the observance of the law, that we are forgiven our sins & have eternal life? You re right. We do not keep the law of God and Jesus Christ in order to buy God s love and our sharing in His life. These are free, unmerited gifts. Jesus does tell us, however, what we must do because we are His disciples, part of His family. Several times He corrected His followers when they tried to act, or even prompt Him to act, against that lifestyle. See, for example, Matthew 7:21, 19:17 and Chapter 25, and John 9:21.) In other words, there are certain ways we Christians do things, Jesus tells us we must live our lives according to that way or we just won t fit into the kingdom. Fr. John J. Dietzen, Catholic Q & A Making Proper Comparisons When you are invited, go and take the lowest place. Luke 14:10 The saints sincerely felt deep humility because they compared themselves with God, and not with their fellow human beings. Their faults, their failures, their weaknesses were manifestly clear to themselves in the brilliant light of God s perfection. If we could only learn to compare ourselves with God, how could we feel anything but humility? Pride comes from a false point of comparison. These days, it is commonplace to read in the papers of hear on television about people whose lack of morals is notorious. It is easy to feel pretty proud our ourselves in comparison. The comparison makes us feel complacent, and the desire for such a comfortable feeling is behind a lot of prejudice, racial and otherwise. Looking down on others gives us a sense of personal elevation. A pride that is produced by comparing ourselves with despicable people - or those we may consider despicable, is condemned by Jesus. The complacency it begets inhibits our spiritual growth. God s own perfection is the ideal toward which we must strive. Fr. Charles E. Miller, C. M., The Word Made Flesh Wisdom From Our Catholic Tradition The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness and peril of falling? St. Augustine of Hippo, AD Wisdom from our Catholic Tradition God is there in these moments of rest and can give us in a single instant exactly what we need. Then the rest of the day can take its course, under the same effort and strain, perhaps, but in peace. And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed; just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God s hands and leave it with God. Then you will be able to rest in God really rest and start the next day as a new life. St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) Feast day, August 9th Bus trip to Divine Mercy Shrine, Stockbridge, MA. Sponsored by St. Paul s Prayer Group. Tues. Oct. 4, $58 (does not include meals.) Depart St. Paul, Rome, 7:30 am. (Chenango Co. group pick-up 8 am at Whitesboro Plaza.) Send check made out to St. Paul s Church to `807 Bedford St. Rome, NY by Sept. 25. Take in the beautiful Fall foliage along the Mohawk River. Shrine has exquisitely carved bronze life-size outdoor Stations of the Cross on spacious grounds, opportunity for Confession, Mass in the Chalet of Divine Mercy and excellent Gift Shop with religious articles. Treat yourself to a wonderful, relaxing day of Spiritual Renewal. Fr. Lupa RCIA The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is the process used by the Church for adults who are interested in becoming Catholic. Possible candidates for the process are: Unbaptized adults who wish to become members of our Roman Catholic Faith Community; Baptized adults form other denominations who desire full communion with us; Baptized Catholics who have not been instructed in the Faith. (This process is not designed for Fallen Away Catholics. If you know someone who fits into this group, please have them contact Father Lupa. ) Step one of RCIA concerns the basic teachings of our faith in Jesus Christ. We will begin the sessions with our neighboring parish in October. If you or someone you know is interested or if you have any questions of concerns, please feel free to call Fr. Lupa at the or parish

6 Religious Instruction Religious Instruction will meet on Sundays from 9-10:10 am., beginning this Sunday, September 25. All classes have 2 teachers and new this year is a combined Kindergarten and first grade class. We have many new teachers and a new engaging curriculum. If you know of a family that has been away from the parish, why not invite them back and tell them about the great things going on at Immaculate Conception. If any family would like to talk with Father Lupa, just call the parish office. He is always willing to talk to people and bring them back to the church. First Communion: Children in 2nd grade will learn about and then receive their First Reconciliation and First Communion. They will meet during regular class time, Sunday mornings from 9-10:10 am. Confirmation: The confirmation program this year will include 8-10th grade youth. There will be a mandatory parent meeting on Sunday September 25 following the 10:15 Mass. Please meet in the social hall for a short discussion of the calendar year. Please be aware that this class will normally be meeting on Sunday afternoons. Follow Me: Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John Beginning Sunday, September 25 at 9:15 am our parish will offer this intriguing study on the Gospel of John. Join other adults in the parish hall for the short 30 minute DVD presentations and then some conversation. This is an 8 week study. Please sign up in the vestibule if you are interested. There is no fee for this study. Books will be provided at the first lesson. Do you know what PCA stands for? Pastoral Care Area. We are in the Diocese of Syracuse which is broken up into over 40 areas. Our church in Greene is a member of the Chenango County PCA. We have 8 parishes as members from Afton, Bainbridge, Greene, Oxford, Norwich, Sherburne and New Berlin. There are members of each church's parish council that have volunteered to attend meetings four times per year with the other church volunteers from our PCA. Our Trustees go to these meetings as well. We rotate our meetings at the various churches so that we can get a tour and have some social time to get to know each other. During our meeting we discuss ways to communicate better, share adult formation ideas, collaborate on youth events and discuss ways to reach out to the needy in our area. You will be hearing more about our PCA and ways our churches will handle the future with the shortage of Priest. Church of the Immaculate Conception, Greene, New York Page 4 Dear friends, Some days when life gets really heavy I will be driving along and I see those tall corn stalks and am reminded of my Dad singing in the car. His favorite was the theme song from Oklahoma- The corn is as high as an elephants eye! You have to imagine his beautiful bass voice getting up to the glorious ending to this song Oh what a beautiful morning, to imagine the full effect of the moment on the daughter sitting in the car. As I think of that moment, I ask myself, How did he stay so positive? I know life was heavy for him as well, as his ministry at church had him involved with all sorts of people and situations. I come to the conclusion that it was his faith in a loving God that kept him going; His faith that God sent his son to teach us how to handle these things in life. His faith that Jesus loved us so much that he died for us, and gave us his gift of the Holy Spirit. The natural conclusion to these musings is that someone had to teach him about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Was it his parents? His grandparents? His Sunday School teacher? Those teachers of our faith are such important people! We have this window of opportunity when our children and grandchildren are little, and they will listen and soak it in like little sponges. Today marks the first day of CCD classes at our parish. The new DRE team has planned a great year that they feel will reach our young families. The teachers, some new to the program, have read over their lesson plan and are excited and I m sure a little nervous about this first day. I met with Catherine Cornue last week, she is the Diocesan Director of Faith Formation. She is a really lovely person, patient, kind and a good listener. She says that the ultimate goal of all catechesis is a relationship with the God who has loved us into existence. Isn t that beautiful? She reminded me that every person in our parish is called to discipleship. What can you do to be an active and conscious participant in the life of our faith community? There is someone in our parish who calls herself a prayer warrior. She has a list of people she prays for every night, and she believes in the power of that prayer. Please pray for each of our teachers, our students and our young families that they will soak up these lessons like sponges. Thank you for supporting this parish and our mission. Have a great week. Peace!~Mary Wentlent Pat is looking for the buckets of flower bulbs she had stored behind the shed. It s time to put them in the garden. Please contact the Parish Office if you know where they went..