July 24, Pastor: Rev. Richard Simon. Rev. Know-it-all: reverendknow-it-all.blogspot.com. Deacon: Mr. Chick O Leary

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1 St. Lamber Parish Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord July 24, 2016 Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us 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 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 : Jonathan Rivera saintlambertsyouthchurch@gmail.com To Register as a Parishioner: Call the rectory or us. Baptisms: Third Sundays of the month at 1:30 pm. Please call the rectory for guidelines and more information Weddings: Arrangements must be made 6 months in advance. Bulletin Guidelines: Submissions should be received 10 days preceding the date of bulletin publication. Send to debbie.stlambert@aol.com.

2 Page 2 St. Lambert Parish 17th Ordinary Sunday July 24, 2016 You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. Colossians 2:12 Masses for the Week READINGS FOR THE WEEK Monday: 2 Cor 4:7-15; Ps 126:1bc-6; Mt 20:20-28 Tuesday: Jer 14:17-22; Ps 79:8, 9, 11, 13; Mt 13:36-43 Wednesday: Jer 15:10, 16-21; Ps 59:2-4, 10-11, 17-18; Mt 13:44-46 Thursday: Jer 18:1-6; Ps 146:1b-6ab; Mt 13:47-53 Friday: Jer 26:1-9; Ps 69:5, 8-10, 14; Jn 11:19-27 or Lk 10:38-42 Saturday: Jer 26:11-16, 24; Ps 69:15-16, 30-31, 33-34; Mt 14:1-12 Sunday: Eccl 1:2; 2:21-23; Ps 90:3-6, 12-14, 17; Col 3:1-5, 9-11; Lk 12:13-21 Saturday, July 23 5:00 Ricaredo Ecplanada Sunday, July 24 8:00 People of St Lambert 10:00 Chua Tran 12:00 Jack & Jean Prebis and Judith Cieslak Monday, July 25 7:15 Digna Ravelo Tuesday, July 26 7:15 Jim & Alcera Smith Wedding Anniversary Wednesday, July 27 7:15 Elijah Tumang & Greg Carnero Thursday, July 28 7:15 Janet M. Bichl Friday, July 29 7:15 Jack & Jean Prebis & Judith Cieslak Saturday, July 30 8:00 Lilia Casas 5:00 Karla Anderberg Sunday, July 31 8:00 People of St Lambert 10:00 Edward & Ellen Ringhofer 12:00 Donna Mohrlein PRAY DAILY Each Christian needs half an hour of prayer each day, except when we are busy; then we need an hour. St. Francis de Sales The Coffee Hour will be hosted by the St Lambert Senior Activity Club and the contact person is Marilyn Sala. She can be reached at Your contributions are always appreciated. Sunday Offertory Collection July 9/10, 2016 Envelopes: $ 5, Loose: 2, Total: $ 7, For Online Giving: Thank you for your continued support! Widowed? Feeling stuck? Need help moving on to the life God now sees for you as a single person? A end our workshop/retreat and see the possibili es. August 13 & 14 - Mary Queen Parish Near North Ave. & Hwy 83, Elmhurst (No overnight availability.) Oct.22 & 23 - Nazareth Retreat House Batavia, IL Overnight no commuters Space limited register early. Joyful Again Widowed Ministry Phone: joyfulagain7211@gmail.com

3 Come One, Come All and share in the Family Fun! Food, Drinks and a Raffle with a Grand Prize of $5,000! Kids Games and... Live Music! Where? St. Lambert Parking Lot 8148 Karlov Ave., Skokie, IL Urban Rhythm 4-5 pm Reggae, Caribbean & Soul andi and i 3-4pm Jazz, Folk & Soul The Pawnshop Band 6-8pm Dance, Pop & Soul

4 Page 4 St. Lambert Parish 17th Ordinary Sunday The Reverend Know-it-all What I don t know I can always make up! Le er to Jennifer Jen E. Russ, enough already It s me I ended this harangue and moved on to other cultural train wrecks. I apologize for what has become a helpless, whining meander on my part, but my confusion was summed up nicely by a blues musician who just returned from touring Outer Mongolia with a Chris an rock band. (I am not making any of that up). He is constantly travelling the world sharing the Gospel by means of music. I think he is on his way to China in a month or two. He said all the mee ngs and commi ees are just a recogni on that the Church is dying and no one knows what to do. I don t think the Church is dying. He doesn t either. He said that where it has been recently persecuted, it is thriving. It is among most Europeans that it is dying. In the term Europeans I include the ci zens of Europe, especially Western Europe and their colonial descendants, the Americas, Spanish, Portuguese, French and English speaking. Chris anity flourishes in South America, but the protestant evangelical/pentecostal variety, not the Catholic, but among us Europeans the cloud of God s glory seems to have moved on. It s me to get used to it. We have rejected the culture of our forebears. This means that to be culturally Catholic or Chris an is completely impossible because the culture is dying. One can no longer be Catholic because one is Italian, or Spanish or Belgian. One can only be Catholic or Chris an for that ma er because it is true. It is me to drop the fantasy that because one has a bap smal cer ficate one is a Catholic. When I was boy in another century, one was excommunicated, that booted from the church, if one failed to receive Holy Communion during the Easter season. One could only receive communion if one was in a state of grace, which meant assis ng at Mass on a weekly basis and, if married or sexually ac ve, living in a faithful and sacramental marriage. That meant for most of us one could only be Catholic if one went to confession at least once a year. To fail to receive the sacraments of penance and Holy Communion annually meant, in effect, to no longer be a Catholic. I have no idea which of those assump ons is s ll true. We redefine things constantly in hopes of keeping the body count up, but we are fooling ourselves. In an urban area of 8 million we count two million plus as Catholics. We claim that 20% of Catholics go to Mass every Sunday. It is probably more like 15 percent if one includes tourists, occasional par cipants and pastoral padding of the sta s cs. Let s see, 15% or 20% of an area popula on of 8 million. I think that comes to about 2.5 percent or less. We are already a Church that has faded to insignificance in this part of the world. Face it. Why has this happened? There are a lot of reasons. If I could pick one it would have to be the sins of the clergy. The clergy have always sinned, but there are mes when the sins of the clergy become so offensive to God and to the people that reac on is inevitable. In the Middle Ages there were a lot of holy priests. S ll there were enough who thought the faith was their private plaything that the reforma on and the centuries of religious war ensued. Similar things happened with the decadence of the 6 th century that a religion roared out of the east and swept away most of the Chris an world. The Cathars were such a contrast to the decadent clergy of the twel h century that had it not been for the poor and holy followers of saints Dominic and Francis, the Church would have perished. And now we in the 21 st century are paying for the sins of 20th. I am not referring to the sins that are so popularly reported by the vultures of the press. The scandals of the late 20 th century were only symptoms of the rot. The rot had already festered for a century and more. We slowly lost the vision of piety that inspired the first missionaries to this land and we cannot recoup un l we recover that piety.

5 July 24, 2016 Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord Page 5 The faith is not about breaking the whole world into small discussion groups. It is about holiness, and that holiness has to begin with the clergy. About the early disciples, the Romans were wont to say these men have been with Jesus. Un l once again that be said about me and my fellow clergy, the decline will con nue inexorably. I have two reasons to hope: St John Paul the Great and Mother Teresa of Calcu a. In the horror of the 20th century the Lord gave his orphaned children both a father and a mother. Of them it could be said, These had been with Jesus. Evangelism is to bring people into a saving knowledge of Jesus, the Messiah, not a theological, a social, a poli cal or historical knowledge, but a SAVING knowledge, a knowledge of Him that causes us to be ashamed of our sins and to long for the change that only grace can achieve. It is not a knowledge that conforms His image to current perversions, but a knowledge of Him that delivers us from the perversity, violence and ugliness of these mes. Be not conformed to this present age but be transformed by a renewal of your mind. (Rom 12:2) To evangelize is not complicated. It is simply to learn how to pray with people. If we talk about Christ, we are was ng our me, but if we can get those who are lost to talk to Christ, they will be saved from this dying culture of death. To evangelize is to move a person from saying Him about Christ, to saying you to Christ. It is that simple all the commi ees in the world won t help an iota, but one mother Teresa and one Karol Wotyla who could invite people to trust Christ by their very presence and make all the difference. If we don t learn to be holy and to invite people to meet the One whom they see that we truly love, the Catholic Church in America will become an arcane club, interes ng only to historian and medievalists. If we the clergy do not repent and return to the Gospel, the thing is up. I have one more cause for hope. I believe the Lord will give us a second chance. It seems the Church flourishes in persecu on. I believe that He may just bless us with real suffering, it seems to have already begun in Canada and Europe and America, where an increasing number of laws threatened those who would be faithful to the faith that we have received from Christ and the apostles. I suspect that being a Chris an in the post European world will become very uncomfortable. Perhaps sooner than we think we will have, as Pope Benedict suspected, a smaller, but holier and, I would add, more real Church. It s a hard rain s a-gonna fall. The sky is darkening and it has already started to drizzle. I suggest we get out the umbrellas. Enough, The Rev. Know it all July 15, 2016 STATEMENT OF ARCHBISHOP BLASE J. CUPICH ON TERROR ATTACK IN NICE Last night, all people of good will were shaken by yet another horrific act of terror carried out in Nice, France, as thousands gathered with friends and family to celebrate their unity as a nation on Bastille Day. We join our French brothers and sisters in prayer for the scores of innocent victims who lost their lives, the many who were injured, and for their loved ones. We pray that God's tender mercy will bind the wounds of those whose suffering defies description. Let us not succumb to the temptation to despair or to a fear that divides us. Rather let us honor the memory of these men, women, and children by renewing our sense of unity and solidarity. Let us walk the way of hope by demonstrating our love for all God's children, and by working with people of all nations to achieve sustainable security and peace. Answers for Anagram Helmet Breastplate Peace Truth Shield Prayer Sword Bible Temptations

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7 July 24, 2016 St. Lambert Parish Page 7 Find the words