CORPUS CHRISTI SCHOOL

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2 BAPTIS M OF THE LORD CORPUS CHRISTI SCHOOL O pen House Today Sunday, Jan. 9, 1:00-3:00 p.m. All interested parents are invited to tour our school, meet with students, teachers and parents, and learn about the many programs for all students in our SACS-accredited school. Daily Religion class! Weekly Mass! Elementary and Junior High Resource Program! Accelerated Reader Program! K-6 Spanish! 7th & 8th Grade Latin! Interactive Boards in all classrooms! Science Lab! National Junior Honor Society! Duke Scholars Program! Corpus Christi News (CCN)! Scholars Bowl Team! Computer Club! Shakespeare-After-School Drama Club! Chess Team! Running Club! Scouting! Elementary Band (5-8)! School Newspaper & Yearbook! CYO Sports CORPUS CHRISTI SCHOOL New-Student Registration for the School Year Tuesday, Jan. 18, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 19, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. For further information, please call , ext ( School ) SCHOOL NEWS In-House Registration: Monday-Friday, Jan Registration Packets are sent by Kiddie Mail on Monday, Jan. 10. Archbishop Rodi s Visit: Tuesday, Jan. 11. Sunday School Classes resume today, Jan. 9, 10:05-10:55 a.m. Info: Kathleen Jester, SundaySchool@CorpusChristiParish.com. Respect Life Meeting, today, Jan. 9, 1 p.m., in the atrium. JANUARY 15 PRO-LIFE EVENT. Archbishop Thomas Rodi will lead participants in prayer at the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, 717 Downtowner Loop West Saturday, Jan. 15, at 3 p.m., and then celebrate a Mass for nascent (developing) human life at 4:30 p.m. downtown at the Cathedral. Pope Benedict, XVI requested that churches throughout the world preside in analogous celebrations involving the faithful in their respective parishes, religious communities, associations and movements. SPECIAL NOTES! 1. Send your address to church@corpuschristiparish.com. 2. Please support our advertisers on the back of the bulletin. Their ads give us our bulletins & inserts free of charge! Extend a personal invitation... If you know someone who has left the Catholic Church or someone who may want information or who may have questions about the Catholic Church... Extend a personal invitation to them to call to speak with one of the priests who will be more than happy to take time to answer questions and provide inform ation. Also extend a personal invitation to them to come to one of the Masses, or to come to our Adult Religious Education Classes. Or extend a personal invitation to fellow Catholics to learn m ore about our Catholic Faith in our continuing Adult Education program or to phone or make an appointment with one of the priests to discuss any question or to request further information. Your personal invitation could make all the difference in the world. The Women s Club Meeting: Monday, Monday, Jan. 10, 7 p.m., Community Center. All women are welcome to come an listen and share ideas for our Family Night Bingo to take place in March. Info: Barbara Collette, , or Earline Thorne, Society of St. Vincent de Paul Poor Box, Food, Clothing donations put in the designated places in the vestibule are distributed by the St. Vincent de Paul Society. To obtain assistance, call and leave name & phone no. st rd nd Meetings: 1 & 3 Wed., 7 p.m., Com. Ctr. Conf. Rm. (2 Flr.) Bible Study Groups Sun: 8:45-10 a.m. School Conf Rm., Ken Crowley, Tue:, 1:30-3 pm Vatican II/Bible Study, Com Ctr, Rm 6, Judi Ankiewicz, nd Tue, 7 p.m..: Com Ctr, 2 Flr, Complete Bible Course. Dave Burchette, Knights of Columbus nd Meeting: 2nd Tues., 7 p.m., Com. Ctr. Conf. Rm.. (2 Flr). Contact: Grand Knight, Bill Hamilton, Archdiocesan Catholic Youth Conference Friday-Sunday, Feb Perdido Beach Resort in Orange Beach, AL Deadline to register: Thursday, Jan. 20 Join teens from across the archdiocese for a weekend of great talks, amazing music and awesome prayer experiences! All parish teens in Grades 9-12 are encouraged to attend. Cost is: $185, which includes 2 nights hotel stay, all meals, T-shirt and a life changing experience! This only com es around every other year so don't m iss this opportunity!!! Remember: The deadline to register is coming up quickly: Thurs., Jan. 20. Registration forms are in the vestibule or available online by contacting youth@corpuschristiparish.com to have one sent to you. Turn forms in to the Parish Office before the deadline to guarantee your room space! Bake Sale next weekend (Jan ) after the Masses to raise funds to help our youth pay the cost to attend the Conference.

3 CORPUS CHRIS TI CHURCH, MOBILE, ALABAMA J ANUARY 9, CCS NIGHT WITH THE JAGS AT THE MITCHELL CENTER Support the Cougars/Jaguars & watch the Jags Men/Women s basketball. This coming Saturday, Jan. 15, at 5 p.m. $7.00/ticket ($4.00 goes to the Booster Club). Deadline: Tomorrow, Monday, January 10. Info: Paul Gelineau Hurting from a divorce or separation? Find hope and healing at the Journey of Hope 2011 Conference, March 4-6 in Atlanta GA. Guests include Archbishop Wilton Gregory, Vatican Analyst Fr. Thomas Williams, and EWTN host, Johnnette Benkovic. Early registration discounts and scholarships available. Info & registration: Understanding the Catholic Faith Adult Ed Series of 5 Classes Wednesdays, Jan. 19 through Feb :00 to 8:30 p.m. in the Adult Ed. Room For Catholic and non-catholic adults. Wednesday Night Dinner 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Banquet Hall of the Community Center $8.00 for Adults! $3.00 for Children Includes Iced Tea & Coffee. Wine glasses are provided for those who bring wine. Jan. 12: Spaghetti w/meat Sauce, Caesar Salad, Garlic Bread, Banana Pudding Reservation Envelopes & Menus are in the vestibule. Men of St. Joseph Tuesdays, 7 to 8 a.m. in the Family Room All men are welcome to meet for prayer, reading the Gospel, and discussion. Info: Jim Donaghey, jbd@orthomobile.com or Women of Mary Tuesdays, 9 to 10 a.m. OR Wednesdays, 7-8 p.m., in the Family Room. All women are welcome to meet for prayer, reading the Gospel, and discussion. Info: Judi Ankiewicz, , or Sr. Deborah Kennedy, R.S.M., AA Alanon OA COD A AA: Sun., 7 p.m., and Wed., 7 p.m., Old Cafeteria Bldg. Alanon: Sun., 7 p.m., and Wed., 7 p.m., Arts & Sciences Bldg. OA: Sat., 9 a.m., Arts & Sciences Bldg. CODA: Tues., 6:45 p.m., Community Center, Rm. 4 (2nd Floor) Welcom e, New Pa ris h ioners Rob & Jodi Potter and their daughters, Makenzie and Madison + Mary Searle + Ernie & Lynn Seewer + Ray & Patti Hughes BAPTIZED IN CHRIS T Cole Alexander M cnally (son of Timothy Scott McNally & Stephanie Josephine Zoghby McNally) Flowers The flowers before the altar this weekend have been placed in memory of Chet Hemenway Given by The Hemenway Family. DAY OF PRAYER & PENANCE FOR LIFE Saturday, Jan. 22 In all the dioceses of the United States of America, Jan. 22 shall be observed as a particular day of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion, and of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 373 PRAYER SERVICE Hosted by Corpus Christi High School Youth Sunday, Jan. 23, 7 p.m. This Prayer Service will include readings from Scripture, Pope John Paul II s encyclical, The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae), Cardinal Joseph Bernardin s Consistent Ethic of Life, to help us reflect on the sanctity of all human life. MARCH FOR LIFE, WASHINGTON DC Sunday, Jan Monday, Jan. 24 MARCH FOR LIFE, MOBILE AL Monday, Jan. 24 March from St. Pius to Claire s Hope. Plans are still forming. Info: or All churches invited to participate! Corpus Christi High School Youth Ministry All high school students are welcome to all activities planned for high school students of the parish. Flyers in the vestibule with info & calendar of events. nd Meet for dinner at 6 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 23, 2 floor of the Community Center and for announcements & preparations for the prayer service we re hosting at 7 p.m. Volunteers are needed to help with the prayer service. Let us know if you can help. Also, bring your friends to the meeting and the prayer service. See our additional announcement on previous page of the bulletin regarding the Archdiocesan Youth Conference. Registration deadline is Thursday, Jan. 20! We re having a Bake Sale next weekend after all the Masses to raise money to help all of our youth meet the cost to attend the Archdiocesan Conference. FIRST COLLECTION TODAY for tithing offerings. SECOND COLLECTION TODAY for Corpus Christi Building Fund. RETIRED RELIGIOUS COLLECTION FINAL $4, CHRISTMAS FLOWERS COLLECTION FINAL: $1, CHRISTMAS COLLECTION: $31, DEC. 26 TITHING COLLECTION: $22, ONLINE TITHING: $7, DEC. 26 BUILDING FUND COLLECTION: $9, ONLINE BUILDING FUND: $2, Online Giving If you wish to use the online giving option, go to our parish website (CorpusChristiParish.com): click Church ; then click the green Online Giving icon on the left, and follow the instructions to m ake your contribution(s) to the regular tithing fund, building fund or special collections. Thank You and God Bless You Reports of Contributions can be checked or sent out at any time by calling the parish office ( ), and they will also be mailed out in January for parishioners and all who request them. If you do not receive a report, or if you find any error in your report, please call the parish office so that corrections can be made promptly. God bless you for your support and generosity.

4 Sacraments of God s Love In the pastoral practice of infant Baptism, you have rightly insisted on the need to administer Baptism only when there is a well-founded hope that the child will be brought up in the Catholic faith, so that the sacrament will bear fruit. At times, however, the Church s guidelines are interpreted more strictly than they are meant to be. As a result, parents are told without sufficient reason that their child s baptism must be postponed, or even refused. Prudence and pastoral charity suggest a more understanding attitude towards those who approach the Church with good intentions to request baptism for their child. The same pastoral charity should also restrain pastors from making demands that are not required by the Church s doctrine or law... It is important that the first sacrament of Christian initiation should be seen primarily as God the Father s gift to the child. The free and unmerited nature of grace is never so evident as on the occasion of a child s baptism. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. (I John 4:10) Pope John Paul II When I was young I was rather severe. I said, the sacraments are the sacraments of the faith, and when the faith isn t there, where there s not practice of the faith, the sacraments can t be conferred... When I was Archbishop of Munich I always discussed this with my pastors, and there were two factions, one severe and one more generous. I, too, in the course of time have realized that we have to follow instead the example of the Lord, who was very open with the people who were at the margins of the faith at that time. He was a Lord of mercy with sinners too open, according to many of the official authorities welcoming them or allowing himself to be welcomed at their dinners, drawing them to himself in his communion. If we can see even a tiny flame of desire for communion in the Church, a desire from these children who want to enter into communion with Jesus, it seems right to be rather generous. The true sense of catechesis, in fact, should be this: to carry the flame of the love of Jesus, even if it s small, to the hearts of children, and through the children to their parents, thereby opening anew the places of the faith in our time. Pope Benedict XVI

5 Is Limbo In Or Out? Out. The fate of unbaptized babies after death has been a topic of discussion in the Church since at least the 4 th century. The discussion centered around how to interpret Jesus words in the Gospel of John: No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5). Whether these words of Jesus applied to babies was apparently not a concern for the earliest Christians, since they baptized only adults. The practice of baptizing children only gradually entered the Church s life. But once it was established, Christians were faced with the question of how to reconcile Jesus words in the Gospel of John with the fact that some babies, obviously innocent of personal sin, died before being baptized. th St. Augustine in the 4 century developed the idea that every human being upon birth was marked by the original sin of Adam and Eve. Augustine thought that unbaptized babies might suffer a milder form of hell, without intense punishment. Augustine s concept of original sin became the teaching of the Church, but his theory about its consequences to unbaptized babies was never adopted by the Church as a whole. This again became a topic of debate in the 12 th century. St. Thomas Aquinas developed the theory that unbaptized babies would experience a place of natural happiness that would not, however, include a direct vision of God. He called this state of natural happiness limbo. The idea of limbo was never defined as an official Catholic teaching, although it was widely taught in catechisms. Some theologians proposed other possibilities: for example, that the faith and love of the child s parents would be sufficient for the babies to receive a baptism of desire and so go to heaven. At Vatican II the Church shifted gears and taught: Those also can attain to everlasting salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, yet sincerely seek God, and moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do his will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience (Lumen Gentium #16). Once the Church realized that a lot of unbaptized people are in heaven, the teaching on limbo had to change. The Catechism of the Catholic Church never mentions limbo. It says that we now entrust to the mercy of God children who die without baptism (CCC#1261). We trust that God can bring all of his children to the joys and beatitude of heaven. God our savior... wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4). In 1984, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, but then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stated: Limbo was never a defined truth of faith. Personally... I would abandon it since it was only a theological hypothesis. In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI formally recognized that the teaching on limbo had to be placed in limbo (so to speak). A Vatican document released in 2007 said that the traditional view of limbo as the destiny of those who die unbaptized is based on an unduly restrictive view of salvation and that God wants all human beings to be saved. The document said that grace has priority over sin, and the exclusion of innocent babies from heaven does not reflect Christ s special love for children. In regard to Jesus statement in the Gospel of John, No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: God has bound salvation to the Sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacrament (CCC#1261). In other words, the Sacrament of Baptism is the ritual new Christians are ordinarily bound to celebrate as a sign of their commitment to follow Jesus and his way of love within the community of the Church. Baptism is symbolic of immersion into the life of Christ as lived within the Christian community. God s mercy, however, is not limited by human rituals. It is his loving kindness and mercy that ultimately gains us entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. People were bringing their children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples were scolding the people for doing this. Jesus became indignant when he noticed it, and said: Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; it is to just such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Mark 10:13-14

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7 Congratulations! to Corpus Christi s Boy Scout Troop 29 who have been selected as a recipient of the $500 Chris Myers Extra Mile Award for being an outstanding group in the community. Fox 10 News aired a story on our troop s award this past week. Our scouts are always willing to help out when the opportunity arises. They earn numerous service hours each year in their work of helping those in need.

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