St. Barnabas Catholic Church February 8, 2015 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Transcription

1 St. Barnabas Catholic Church February 8, 2015 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Rev. Fr. Bryan W. Jerabek, J.C.L., Parish Administrator Sunday Mass 6:00PM Saturday Vigil 10:00AM Sunday Daily Mass 8:30AM Mon, Tues, Thur, Fri 7:00PM Wed (with novena) 8:30AM First Saturday Eucharistic Adoration 7-8:00AM Mon, Tues, Thur, Fri Confession 7-7:45AM Tuesday 12-12:45PM & 5-5:45PM Saturday and upon request 7921 First Avenue North Birmingham, Alabama Rev. Msgr. Eugene O Connor, Pastor Emeritus (in residence) Ms. Alice Carter, Secretary Mr. David Renda, Pastoral Care Mr. Steve O Donnell, Maintenance Ms. Sandra Hudecz, Housekeeper Mr. Tim Tipton & Mr. Isaac Johnson, Organists St. Barnabas Catholic School (K4-8) Mr. John Parker, Principal

2 Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time February 8, 2015 Rising very early he prayed. Parish Mass Intentions Saturday 2/7 8:30am Stephen Walker+ * Sunday 2/8 People of the Parishes Monday 2/9 Betsy Veigl+ Tuesday 2/10 Benjamin P. David+ * Wednesday 2/11 None Scheduled Thursday 2/12 Guest Priest s Intention Friday 2/13 None Scheduled Saturday 2/14 People of the Parishes * Mass Intention transferred from Our Lady of Sorrows School Mass Msgr. O Connor s Mass Intentions Saturday 2/7 6:00pm Marcy Cutrone+ Sunday 2/8 Annie Rumore+ Monday 2/9 The Nguyen Family Tuesday 2/10 Betsy Veigl+ Wednesday 2/11 Jimmy Mitchell+ Thursday 2/12 Mr. & Mrs. Ben Gregory+ Friday 2/13 Kay Mungus+ Saturday 2/14 Aurther Jenkins Sanctuary Lamp February 9-15 In memory of Mary Elizabeth Tortorici, by Mike and Debbie Tortorici. Offertory Collection Jan. 31/Feb. 1, 2015 Regular Offertory $ 2, Maintenance Fund $ One Voice (Thank You!) $ Benevolent Fund $ Food Pantry $ RCIA Instruction in the Catholic Faith Class will not meet this week. Class will resume on Thursday, February 19 at 6:30pm in the Fireside Room. Pray for the Sick Please remember in your prayers: Joyce Martin, Leslie Walters, seminarian Jim Handerhan, Frances Humphrey, Mary & Audrey Benson (Ireland), Chris Fine, Cesarea Villanueva, and all those listed in our Long Term Care Book. You are welcome to add names to this book, which is located by the St. Joseph statue in the church. Call the office to add names to this bulletin list. Parish School of Religion Classes are on Sundays, 8:30 9:45am. Msgr. O Connor s Bible Study Class will meet on Monday, February 9 at 6:30pm and Tuesday, February 10 at 9:30am in the Fireside Room. Vocation Crucifix Apostolate The vocation crucifix and prayer will be passed from Mr. & Mrs. James Jacobson to John Moseley on Saturday, and from The Hensel Family to Mr. & Mrs. Jack Tyler on Sunday.. Scripture Readings for Next Sunday 2/15 1 st Reading: Leviticus 13:1-2, Responsorial: Psalm 32:1-2, 5, 11 2 nd Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1 Gospel: Mark 1:40-45 FOOD PANTRY Janice Tyler & Jennie Haynes ALTAR/CHURCH Margo L. & Janet B. SACRED LINENS Pat Anderson A reminder that Father Jerabek will be away February Please pray for safe travels.

3 NEW! Altar Sodality Meeting The Altar Sodality will meet for lunch on Wednesday, February 11 at the Olive Garden on Crestwood Boulevard at 11:30am. All ladies of the parish are invited to attend. NEW! NOW HIRING St. Barnabas School St. Barnabas Catholic School needs a K-4 teacher s aide. The ideal candidate for this parttime position would have an early childhood certification or be working towards an early child care degree. Consideration will be given to high school graduates with experience working with preschool children. Send all inquiries to the school principal, Mr. John Parker, at principal.stbarnabas@gmail.com, or call for further information. Strong Men, Strong Faith Evening Conference The 12 th annual Strong Men, Strong Faith conference will be held at St. Peter the Apostle Church in Hoover on Monday, February 16 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm. This will be an excellent way to prepare for the season of Lent! The speaker this year will be Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers. Ladies, please encourage your husbands, fathers, and sons to go! For more information and for a discounted registration rate, go to NEW! Ash Wednesday Schedule & Lenten Rules Masses on Ash Wednesday will be at 7:00am, 8:30am (School Mass all welcome), and 7:00pm. (This is a slight change from a schedule printed a couple of weeks ago!) Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholics. In addition, Fridays during Lent are obligatory days of abstinence. The norms on fasting are obligatory from age 18 until age 59. Pregnant women and others for whom fasting would be perilous to their health are exempted. Those fasting are permitted to eat one full meal; two smaller meals may also be taken, but not to equal a full meal. The norms concerning abstinence from meat are binding for all from age 14 onwards. Broths made from meat (as long as there are no pieces of meat in it) are permissible according to the letter of the law, though perhaps not fully coherent with its spirit. Vegetarians do well on days of abstinence to give up a certain food or dish that they regularly enjoy, since they already give up meat, not for penitential reasons, but as a way of life. NEW! Lenten Devotionals Copies of the Magnificat Lenten Companion will be available in church starting next weekend. NEW! Lenten Schedule Stations of the Cross and Benediction for the School: Fridays at 1:15pm in the church. Lenten Meals (Fridays only): February 20, February 27, March 6, March 13, March 20, and March 27, 5:30-6:30pm in the School Cafeteria. Parish Stations of the Cross and Benediction: Fridays of Lent at 7:00pm in the church. GENERAL PARISH INFORMATION Baptisms Contact Father Jerabek, preferably during the pregnancy so as to be able to schedule the baptism soon after birth. Weddings Contact Father Jerabek no less than six months in advance to begin preparations. Parish Registration Contact the church office. Knights of Columbus Mike Sullivan, Food Pantry Contact the office to inquire about how you can help.

4 Announcing the St. Barnabas Catholic Educational Foundation The new perpetual endowment fund for St. Barnabas Catholic School! A copy of the legal agreement establishing this fund may be found on the back of this page. This agreement establishes the Foundation as a perpetual fund, meaning that only its earnings will fund school activities, and the principal balance will never be touched. In this way, the school will someday have a stable financial foundation. It is therefore urgent that we build this fund up as much and as quickly as possible. The agreement also foresees two catastrophe scenarios which, please God, will never happen; nevertheless, it is prudent for these scenarios to be anticipated, so that funds will always and only be used according to donor intentions. The fund is invested in the Catholic Investment Foundation of North Alabama, a savings vehicle established and managed by the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama. This investment portfolio strives to strike a balance between maintaining low risk and making good earnings. It has very good historic returns. Given how low bank interest rates have been for several years now, this investment foundation should far outperform the alternatives. Once the fund s principal balance reaches $500,000.00, annual distributions will begin from the earnings to provide for scholarships and, possibly, other capital improvements in the school. Until such time as the fund produces sufficient earnings for these annual expenses, additional ongoing fundraising will take place for the Monsignor Eugene O Connor Annual Scholarship Fund. An initial deposit of $10, has been made to the fund, thanks to a gift for the express purpose of the school endowment that was made to the parish just over two years ago. About the Monsignor Eugene O Connor Annual Scholarship Fund This fund, first established by Bishop Baker at Monsignor s retirement celebration a few years ago, honors his longstanding priestly commitment to Catholic education, from his very first assignment as a priest until today. Establishment of this fund means that scholarships will always be awarded in Monsignor s name. While the endowment fund is being built up, annual fundraising will take place so as to raise the needed amount for each year s scholarship assistance in our school. Once the endowment fund begins making distributions from earnings, they will be deposited into this annual scholarship fund (apart from any amounts that may go toward capital expenditures), where they will continue to earn interest until all scholarships are paid out. This annual scholarship fund is held in the Deposit & Loan of the Diocese of Birmingham, earning at present 1.25% interest (much higher than most banks offer). The initial balance is approximately $7, Your Help Is Needed Your help is urgently needed to make these funds grow! However, note well: the parish depends upon your regular offertory donations to pay its ordinary bills; please do not subtract from your normal giving to give also to these new funds. Rather, gifts to the Endowment or Scholarship Funds should be above and beyond your ordinary giving. All gifts are tax deductible to the extent allowed by state and federal laws. Please remember St. Barnabas Catholic School in your will! For the Endowment Fund, make your check out to the St. Barnabas Catholic Educational Foundation. For Scholarships, make your check out to the Msgr. Eugene O Connor Annual Scholarship Fund. It is also possible simply to write a check to the parish, indicate school support in the memo, and Father Jerabek will allocate it where it is most needed.

5 ST. BARNABAS CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION St. Barnabas Catholic School, Birmingham, Alabama (hereinafter St. Barnabas ) has established an endowment fund for the school. The provisions of this agreement are to guide the investments of the corpus of the fund and any contributions made hereafter to the fund for the purpose of maintaining the school and offering a quality education to its students in perpetuity. 1. The name of the fund is the ST. BARNABAS CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION (the Educational Foundation ). 2. The principal amount (corpus) shall be invested through the Catholic Investment Foundation of North Alabama (the Investment Foundation ) with all gains and losses being attributed to the corpus. The Investment Foundation shall act under a separate, express trust agreement that makes the Investment Foundation the trustee of the Educational Foundation s funds and the Education Foundation the beneficiary of the trust res. It may be added to from time to time by any donor. Unless required by law the corpus may not be spent. 3. Until the corpus reaches Five-Hundred Thousand ($500,000.00) all earnings will be added to the corpus (the saving stage ). 4. When the corpus reaches said threshold amount an advisory board will be formed to manage the distribution of earnings (the distribution stage ). However, fundraising shall continue thereafter in hopes of increasing the possibility of annual earnings and to meet the needs of inflation and increased enrollment. 5. The purpose of the fund shall be to further the educational mission of St. Barnabas primarily by providing scholarships to those students demonstrating financial need or other merit. Selection of recipients of said scholarships shall be by committee appointed by pastor in consultation with the board of directors. The fund may have as a secondary purpose capital improvements and capital expenditures of the school. Said expenditures will be provided for at the discretion of the pastor in consultation with the board. At all times the pastor and board will take into consideration the requirements of Canon Law and their fiduciary duties toward the fund. 6. The school principal shall be an ex officio member of the board once constituted. There should also be a seat to be filled by a member of either the parish finance council or the parish pastoral council at the discretion of the pastor. Members of the board will be chosen by the pastor among candidates known for their integrity of Catholic life and expertise in handling financial matters under the guidance of the Bishop. 7. Payouts from the fund will be made in accordance with federal and state tax law for non-profit endowment funds. 8. If for any reason the school itself must close the fund will continue and distributions from earnings will be made for educational purposes within the parish or for other Catholic educational purposes at the discretion of the pastor in consultation with the board. 9. If for any reason the parish itself should be suppressed the fund shall continue in perpetuity and thereafter provide through the distribution of earnings for the needs of Catholic education within the Diocese of Birmingham at the discretion of the Bishop of the Diocese. Administrator, St. Barnabas Parish and School Birmingham, Alabama Date: February 2, 2015

6 Our Wonderful Catholic Faith Obama s Take on the Crusades This past week at the National Prayer Breakfast, our President repeated a particularly beloved historical fallacy or legend of our time about the Crusades. These types of fallacies are falsifications of history that many people, if not the majority, come to accept and use as a means of criticizing and intimidating certain groups. President Obama did this very thing by comparing the recent unspeakable atrocities committed by ISIS/ISIL in the Middle East to the Christian Crusades of the Middle Ages. He said, Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. Many people were understandably offended by this comparison, since it is an anti-catholic misrepresentation of history. Have things gotten so bad that our President cannot find speech writers who know history? Anyhow, since there is a great deal of confusion about the Crusades, I copy here an article which helps to set them properly in context. It is by the historian Steve Weidenkopf, published on Catholic.com. The Crusades are one of the most misunderstood topics in Church history. Movies and TV present as established fact an outdated anti-catholic narrative about them that stays alive by sheer repetition. Not only do secular critics of the Church use this narrative to attack Catholicism (and religion in general), but many Catholics uwittingly accept it as true. The negative spin on the Crusades began in the sixteenth century with the Protestant revolutionary Martin Luther, who saw them as an outgrowth of papal authority and power. Later Enlightenment authors such as Voltaire and Edward Gibbon shaped modernity s negative view of the Crusades by portraying them as barbaric projects undertaken by greedy and savage warriors at the behest of a corrupt papacy. Modern-day Crusade historians, thankfully, eschew the anti-religious prejudices behind this view, and are bringing to light an authentic understanding of these Catholic events from the perspective of those who participated in them. But such scholarship has not eradicated the popular myths. In order to properly understand the Crusades, we must recognize them as authentically Catholic events in an age of faith. This does not mean that everyone in the Middle Ages was a saint, or that society was perfect; but it was an era in which people made radical life decisions, such as going on Crusade, because of their faith in Jesus Christ and his Church. The modern secular-humanist world, lacking faith, struggles to understand the authentic religious worldview of the medieval period and so is handicapped when trying to understand the Crusades. The Crusading movement was a Catholic movement. Popes called for Crusades, clerics (and saints) preached them, ecumenical councils planned and discussed them, and Catholic warriors fought them for spiritual benefits. The Crusades cannot be properly understood apart from this Catholic reality. The modern world's historical amnesia on this point is curable, and the cure begins with Catholics learning the authentic history of their Church and the culture it created. Like the Benedictine monks of old, we modern Catholics can maintain the inheritance of Western Civilization, and correct the errors and biases of our age, through a commitment to learn our history and take pride (where appropriate) for the actions of the men and women who came before us in the Faith. Many Catholics cringe at the mention of the Crusades, either because they know an anti-catholic attack is coming, or because they feel embarrassed. But I propose that rather than trying to change the subject or dodge the criticism, we should recognize the glory of the Crusades. What does that mean? After Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they sinned against God by worshipping the golden calf. God wanted to destroy the Israelites for their idolatry, but Moses interceded for the people and the Lord relented. Moses special relationship with God included the gift of being in the presence of the Lord in the meeting tent, where he spoke to God face to face. Moses pleaded with God for his presence to remain with the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land so that the other nations would see their uniqueness. Moses also begged the Lord to show him his glory (Ex. 33:18). The Hebrew word for glory used most often in the Old Testament is kabod, which means heavy in weight or something of great importance. In this sense, the Crusading movement which occupied 600 years of Catholic history cannot be seen as anything but glorious. That does not mean we whitewash or ignore their bad parts, but simply that we give due attention to their import in the life of the Church. We live in a time ripe for a reinvigorated sense of Catholic identity, and a thorough knowledge of the Crusades helps us build it. Catholics need to know the authentic history of the Church in order to defend it from its many critics in the modern world; however, for a truly vibrant Catholic identity to take root and flourish, defending the Church is not enough. We must go on the attack, and present the story of our Catholic family with vigor, courage, and resolve. In the words of Walter Cardinal Brandmüller, president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for the Historical Sciences: [W]e should finally stop being like the frightened rabbit that stares at the snake before it is swallowed by it. This defeatist attitude, this whining selfpity that has gained so much ground in Catholic circles, is an insult to God. What is needed is a new, forceful consciousness of being Catholic. Recognizing the glory of the Crusades is one way that we can take pride in our Catholic identity and contribute to a forceful and positive resurgence of the Faith in the Western world. For more information about the correct history of the Crusades, I recommend that you also read the article by Steve Weidenkopf called Crash Course on the Crusades, located at Next week the Inquisition! Father Jerabek