Bulletin Deadline: Monday at 10:00 a.m. Website News: to: Pastor The Reverend Michael Whyte

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1 A Parish of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford Mass/Liturgy Schedule: Saturday Vigil at 5:00 p.m. Sunday Masses at 8:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. (Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day Weekend, NO 5:00 p.m. Sunday Mass) Daily Mass at 8:30 a.m., Monday through Wednesday, and Friday. (Yearly) Sacrament of Reconciliation: Saturday from 4:00 p.m. until 4:30 p.m. Baptisms and Baptismal Preparation: Please call the parish office at Sacrament of Holy Matrimony: Please call the parish office at at least 6 months in advance Choir Practices: Adult Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. Youth Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m. Contemporary Music Group Thursdays at 7:00 p.m. Bulletin Deadline: Monday at 10:00 a.m. Website News: to: StCatherineWebMaster@Comcast.net 265 Stratton Brook Road, Box 184, West Simsbury, Connecticut Tel: /Fax: stcathy@comcast.net Website: WELCOME! We welcome all visitors who are celebrating with us today. As is our custom at St. Catherine of Siena, please remain in your pew for the singing of the first and last verses of the recessional hymn. Parish Office Hours: Monday-Friday 9:00 a.m. through 2:00 p.m. The St. Catherine Parish Legacy Fund is committed to ensuring the long-term stability of our parish and its ministries. Please consider a gift in lieu of flowers upon a love one's passing as a way to ensure our community will thrive well into the future. The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, 2 Nov., 2014 Pastor The Reverend Michael Whyte PARISH STAFF Administrative Assistant-Parish Office Mrs. Lisa Cerchia or stcathy@comcast.net Director of Religious Education Mrs. Kathi Bonner or kathidre@aol.com Director of Youth Ministry Mrs. Judy Pluta or judyplutaym@gmail.com Music Director Mrs. Susan Zybert or susanzybert@comcast.net Facilities Manager Mr. Michael Grappone Parish Council President Mr. Tom Tanski Finance Council Chairman Mr. Scott Muryasz Parish Legacy Fund Chairman Mr. Peter Pabich Parish Lay Trustees Mrs. Melissa Horbal, (860) Mr. Joseph Capozzoli, (860) Thanks for worshiping with us. If you would like to join our parish family, fill out a yellow membership form found in the vestibule or atrium and mail it to us, drop it in the collection basket or call us at

2 WEEKLY MASS INTENTIONS Saturday, November 5:00 pm Mass for Linda Voghel, 5th anniversary, requested by her family; Sunday, November 8:00 am Mass for William Paradis, requested Deb Farrell; Sunday, November 11:00 am Mass for William Shea, 7th anniversary, requested by his wife; Sunday, November 5:00 pm Mass for Lenore Healy, requested by Amy & Lou Daniels; Monday, November 8:30 am Mass for Astra Cerchia, birthday remembrance, requested by her family; Tuesday, November 8:30 am Mass for Cathryn Blair, requested by Max & Dottie O Meara; Wednesday, November 8:30 a.m. Mass for Joseph Leon, requested by the Ferri Family; Friday, November 8:30 am Mass for Kathie Kowalczyk, 1st anniversary, requested by her family; Saturday, November 5:00 pm Mass for Anthony & Lucia Brancato, requested by their family; Sunday, November 8:00 am Mass for William Paradis, requested the Small Christian Community; Sunday, November 11:00 am Mass for Theresa Murphy, requested by Mary & Ed Bouquillon; and, Sunday, November 5:00 pm Mass for Dolores Faltys, requested by Jim & Tina Yablonski. Offertory Collection Weekly Collection: $11, Loose Cash/Checks $ 1, Envelopes $ 9, Cathedraticum* -$ School Tax* -$ *Parish taxes (5.5%) paid to the Archdiocese for services to the parish. Repair & Refurbishment $ Next Week s Second Collection is for Repair & Refurbishment. Monday Evening Confessions will be discontinued until further notice. Confession is available on Saturday afternoons from 4:00 4:30 p.m. Religious Education News CONFIRMATION REMINDER: We tweaked the class time this year: Morning classes are 9:15 10:30am. The evening classes for Confirmation One are 6pm-7:15pm and Confirmation II are 7:15pm- 8:30pm. Please be on time so that class can be dismissed on time! Next class is Sunday, Nov. 2nd. Daylight Savings Time ends Nov. 2nd so remember to set you clock so that you are not an hour early for class! Grade 4 Class Mass is Sunday, November 16th at 5pm. All 4th Graders should be at the church no later than 4:30 pm. All are required to attend. Please remember to bring a non-perishable food item for the food pantry. First Reconciliation is Sunday, Nov. 23rd at 3pm! Please be at the church by 2:45pm ~ families will sit together. YOUTH MINISTRY NEWS SENIOR HIGH YOUTH MINISTRY REMINDER! TWA Teen Weekend Away permission slips are due November 2nd! Sunday, November 9th 6:00 pm SHARP! Join us for an enlightening evening. A guest speaker from FOOD SHARE will be with us to present HUNGER 101 an interactive exercise sure to raise our awareness. You will have fun, you will be surprised! This is a great Thanksgiving preparation activity. Please bring one non-perishable food item to donate to Food Share. JUNIOR HIGH YOUTH MINISTRY Monday, November 10th, 7:00 pm Thanksgiving applesauce! Join this Jr. High Youth Group tradition making applesauce for area soup kitchens. BRING 6 apples, an apple peeler and a cutting board from home. Put your family name on utensils. Pizza will be served. Adult helpers are needed. Defending Our Religious Liberty The Catholic Church is not asking for special treatment when it comes to the federal healthcare mandate, she is simply asking that every American s right to religious freedom be protected. This right is not only about our ability to go to Mass on Sunday, or to pray the rosary at home. It is about adhering to the tenets of our faith, so that we can contribute to the common good of all Americans. If you haven t done so already, please voice your opposition to the mandate by calling President Obama at the White House at or U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell at Let them know that the mandate is in violation of our First Amendment right to religious freedom.

3 FROM FATHER MICHAEL... Catholic Facts & Positive Influences on Society During the US Civil War most nurses were men but Catholic nuns, who had nursing care deeply rooted in Christian theology, were appointed to oversee military hospitals and served as nurses on naval ships. The major orders of sisters were the Daughters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy, and the Sisters of the Holy Cross and followers of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. More than 640 Catholic nuns organized and ran 28 American hospitals, providing care in the North and the South. President Lincoln ordered the Secretary of War to buy the sisters whatever they asked for. These nuns were known as the Angels of the Battlefields; When the Catholic Church was founded schools were limited. Today, in the United States alone, the Catholic Church teaches 3 million students per day in its more than 250 Catholic colleges and universities, 1200 Catholic high schools, and 5000 Catholic elementary schools. Could you imagine the cost to the government if they were all to close and those students needed to be absorbed into the public system?; There are more than 274,378 Catholic parishes world-wide, and together they feed, clothe and shelter more people than any other single organization. In the United States alone the value of these services was in the billions of dollars; Catholic Charities alone spent $3.696 BILLION dollars providing financial assistance and services. In the US more than 549 Catholic hospitals served 88.8 million people. All this medical care is being threatened by the nation s new healthcare law; There are 77 million Catholics in the United States and 38,275 Catholic priests, serving in 21,367 parishes in the US; and, Historically speaking, medical care came about because of the Catholic Christian faith. Yes the ancient Egyptians, Chinese and the Romans provided limited medical care to soldiers, high government officials and gladiators, usually out of temples by the religious leaders. It wasn t until the declaration of Christianity by the Roman government as a legal religion that early hospitals came about. It was the First Council of Nicaea (325 AD) that the construction of a hospital in every Cathedral town was begun with the first in Turkey and Constantinople. The first hospitals had housing for doctors (archiatroi), nurses (hypourgoi) and orderlies (hyperetai) as well as rooms for various classes of patients. This is just a sampling of how the Roman Catholic Church has been a major benefit to society at large and to the United States in particular, defending the dignity of all human life. Keep these figures in mind the next time you hear some ignorant person berating the Catholic faith as exclusionary or uncaring. Educate them! (Facts and figures taken from the Kennedy Catholic Director and the US Department of Defense) Thank YouS All Around! A big THANKS to the Women s Club for organizing our annual Trunk-Or-Treat event for our parish s children. Mary Lou Cobb, Melissa Li, Michelle Helitzer, Colleen Tighe as well as a number of others, organized and executed this wonderful event. Children, dressed in costumes, enjoyed the crafts, games, dancing along with aluncheon and a fun trunk-or-treat event in the new parking lot. A great family event and I thank all involved! THANKS also to our Health and Healing Ministry for providing the St. Catherine of Siena Flu Clinic on 21 October. Joining forces with the Farmington Valley Nurses Association a great deal of information and flu shots were provided helping to keep our community safer from the coming flu season! 31 st Sunday in Ordinary Time: Death is not the end, but a beginning! Today we celebrate the Faithfully Departed all those who have died and who believed that God loved them and actually desired them. This is the oldest feast celebrated in the Catholic Church to pray for the dead at Mass and in our private prayers is considered a Spiritual Work of Mercy that we all are obligated to do. Our Catholic faith teaches us that at death we actually do not end but are transformed into a new Being. In fact we believe that at the very moment of death we are judged (the particular judgment) and receive our eternal reward. Our bodies and our souls separate and as theologians put it, we become like a mind alone, communicating with God in a completely different way (at the final judgment our mortal bodies and our immortal souls will be reunited and glorified). Our Catholic faith also teaches us that it is the obligation of those of us on earth to pray for the departed, especially for the souls in Purgatory (who are there due to any hindrance that keeps them from the face of God until they are purified) so that they may be welcomed home. This is a good time to talk about ghosts and spirits, since we are also close to Halloween and our cultural obsession with mediums and soothsayers. The Church, from its theological studies and from God s Eternal Word, believes in four (4) kinds of spiritual beings we don t believe in ghosts and visits from the dead (sorry Abigail s). The four types of spiritual beings are: God (supernatural), Angels (messengers from God), disembodied souls (the human soul at death), and demons (preternatural). At death, the human body and the soul separate and the body is reverently placed in its burial resting place. God does not call aunt Mary or uncle Joe back to life (remember the soul and the human body are separated and the body is in the grave, thus we have no feet or hands) to rattle about in the attic or to throw pots in the kitchen at 1 a.m. All that is for Halloween movies, restaurant marketing, and for fleecing. God does only that which is logical and since He desires us to be with Him in the eternal kingdom, the movie-like hype goes against what God would do. To believe in mediums or soothsayers is to not believe in the glorious power of God and in His desire to have us with Him eternally. Let s get back to praying for the faithfully departed. Today s reading from the Book of Wisdom gives us great hope: The souls of the just are in the hands of God and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish to be dead, and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction but they are in peace. (Wisdom 3) Wisdom tells us that there is great peace after death for those who follow the Lord. And in today s Gospel of John we are assured by Jesus Himself that God desires us for all eternity to join with Him in His divine life: And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. (John 6:37-40). With this confidence in God s great love for our immortal souls, let us remember our part to pray for all the faithfully departed, especially our family and friends at Mass, by lighting a candle or at the end of the grace at meals saying a Continued on next page.

4 Get involved: you don t have to do everything... but everyone should do something! Upcoming Meetings/Events NOVEMBER -Sun, 2nd Children s Liturgy of the Word/RH, 11 a.m. -Sun, 2nd Eucharistic Adoration/Church, 1-2 p.m. -Sun, 2nd Confirmation 1 & 2/All rooms, 6 p.m. -Mon, 3rd Welcome Committee/Library, 7:00 p.m. -Mon, 3rd PC Exec/Rectory, 7:00 p.m. -Tues, 4th Children s Choir, MR, 6:30 p.m. -Tues, 4th Adult Choir, MR, 7:30 p.m. -Thurs, 6th Renew, Library, 10 a.m. -Thurs, 6th Girl Scouts, RH, 7 p.m. -Thurs, 6th Contemporary Choir, MR, 7 p.m. -Fri, 7th MMPT, MR, 10:00 a.m. -Sun, 9th Senior High Youth Group, RH, 6 p.m. -Mon, 10th Junior High Youth Group, RH, Kitchen, 7 pm -Mon, 10th Parish Council/Library, 7 p.m. (Fr. Michael continued) prayer for the dead. We can offer our rosary for them or in our thoughts about them ask God to be merciful to them so that they will greet us when we come to the Gates of the Kingdom. And, in passing on our faith we can assure that there will be someone on earth praying for our souls. Today s culture calls for people to ignore death, as if we can. To skip the funeral rites, to not visit the dying for fearing of remembering them that way, or so as not to upset the children. Death and eternal life is a part of our existence. For we were all created for union with the Divine. And to ignore it does us an eternal disservice. Let us pray now for all the faithfully departed, for their immortal and invaluable souls and that the Communion of Saints will be our eternal resting place. Social Outreach Pantry Partners The November distribution for SCPP will take place over two weekends. The regular distribution is November 15. The Thanksgiving distribution is November 23. Thank you to the parishioners whose generous donations support this mission. Your generosity with financial support as well as the time you commit to volunteering is a blessing to SCPP and its members. LEAF RAKE It is that time again to help the elderly needy in our Parish as well as our community. Come out and join other parishioners as we rake lawns for those who cannot. Bring the whole family, for what has traditionally been a fun-filled day. We are looking for people with rakes and blowers. The date for the leaf rake is November 15 th at 7:30 AM in Russell Hall. There are sign-up sheets in the vestibule and atrium of the church for volunteers as well as to sign up lawns that will need to be raked. Please feel free to contact Bill Tagliatela with questions or if you would like to sign up via , wtagliatela@gmail.com, (860) Lunch will be served after the raking is complete. Rain date will be November 22 nd. Thank you for all you do. Please join-n and come to a meeting of your choice. Our Children s Choir needs voices! We are in need of beautiful children s voices for our choir which meets on Tuesdays from 6:30-7:20 p.m. and sings at two Vigil Masses a month. We are already preparing for Advent! Please call Susan Zybert at (860) and join us in singing to the Lord! Calling all kids! Halloween is filled with treats. Share the fun and donate a portion of your Halloween candy to give treats to Feed the Hungry. All treats will be distributed by The Feed the Hungry Youth Group at the November visit to Saint Elizabeth House. Donations may be dropped off in the candy boxes in the Atrium and Vestibule. Parish Socializing... Make it a family tradition! Don't miss this year's Advent Wreath making on Sunday, November 23 at 12:00 pm in Russell Hall. We'll supply the materials and you will build your original Advent Wreath with greens. Please bring a dessert to share. Sign-up Sheet in the Atrium. Volunteers are needed to help too. Contact Karen or Rich Sickinger at or sickfam@comcast.net with any questions. SAVE THE DATE ADULT PARISH CHRISTMAS PARTY SATURDAY DECEMBER 6, 7PM RUSSELL HALL Northwest Catholic High School invites prospective students and parents to attend one of a series of Admissions Information Sessions at three different locations in the Greater Hartford area during October. NWC will also host an Open House on Sunday, Nov. 9th from 1-4pm. For more information or to register for an info session online, go to NorthwestCatholic.Org/InfoSessions or contact Andrew Selig at aselig@nwcath.org to reserve a spot. Saint Mary's School in Simsbury invites you to a Fall Open House for Prospective Families on Wednesday, November 5th, beginning at 6:30pm. Serving students from Pre-Kindergarten through 8th grade for over 50 years, St. Mary's offers daily faith, challenging academics, a full spectrum of extra-curriucular activities and a 1:1 ipad environment to promote effective use of technology. Please come and get to know us and learn about the difference "Faith in Education" can make. To RSVP for Open House or to schedule a personal tour that accommodates your family's schedule, please contact the school office at or smsoffice@stmarysimsbury.eduk12.net

5 End of Bulletin Information on this page is not printed Church: City: St. Catherine of Siena West Simsbury, Connecticut Account # Run # Routing Code: O Phone: Fax: Contact: Lisa Cerchia

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