St. Mary - Big River Catholic Church 1 9 t h S u n d a y O r d i n a r y T i m e A u g u s t 1 2 t h, 2 0 1 8 I am the bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. John 6:48-50 T h e N a t i v i t y o f t h e B l e s s e d V i r g i n M a r y W 1 0 1 3 7 5 7 0 t h A v e. R i v e r F a l l s, W I 5 4 0 2 2 Oh Sacrament most holy! Oh Sacrament Divine! All praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine. Praised and adored be Jesus in the most holy Sacrament of the Altar, now and forever. Amen Mass Schedule Weekend. Saturday 6:00 pm Sunday 9:30 am Weekday. Mon. to Fri. 8:30 am First Friday & First Sat. 8:30 am Holy Days.See bulletin Welcome to St. Mary s www.stmarysbigriver.com Confessions -One hour before each Weekend Mass -Thurs. before First Fri. 9:00 am -First Friday 9:00 am -First Sat. 9:00 am -Any time by appointment Devotional Times Eucharistic Adoration 9:00 to 10:00 am every First Friday. Militia Immaculata (MI) Prayer Group Meets Wednesday (summer) 6:30 to 7:30 pm in the church. http://missionimmaculata.com/
P a g e 2 News & Events Welcome to St. Mary s! Welcome visitors! If you would like to become a member of our parish call the Administrative Assistant and we will help you register. S t. M a r y - B i g R i v e r Parish Calendar Monday - Aug. 13 St. Pontain, pope & martyr 6:15 Altar Rosary Mtg. 7:00 Fall Festival Plan. Mtg. 6:30 pm Finance Council Meeting Tuesday - Aug. 14 St. Maximilian Kolbe, priest & martyr 3:00-9:00 pm Directory 6:00 pm Vigil Mass of the Assumption of Mary Wednesday - Aug. 15 St. Assumption of Mary Holy Day Of Obligation 2:00-9:00 pm Directory 6:30 pm MI Prayer Group Thursday - Aug. 16 St. Stephen of Hungry No Mass - Father Away 2:00-9:00 pm Directory Friday - Aug. 17 No Mass - Father Away Saturday - Aug. 18 St. Alberto Hurtado 10:00 am - 5:00 pm Directory 5:00 pm Confessions 6:00 pm Holy Mass- Mission Co-op Priest visiting Sunday - Aug. 19 St. John Eudes, priest 20th Sun. Ordinary Time 8:30 am Confessions 9:30 am Holy Mass - Mission Co-op Priest visiting Fr. Louis will be on vacation August 16th to the 23rd. LifeTouch Directory Photo Shoot Week Double check you appointment time. Please arrive about 5 minutes before your appointment to check in. Light refreshments will be served while you are waiting. All Day Tuesday Adoration St. Mary s will offer adoration of the Blessed Sacrament every Tuesday from 7 am to 7 pm beginning August 14th. Come and spend sometime with our Lord and make reparation for all the offenses committed against Him. If you can commit to an hour or be a substitute please email Ashley Doornink at: ashleydoornink@hotmail.com Hiring Bookkeeper St. Mary s is seeking a new bookkeeper. It is a part-time paid staff position. Please inquire with Fr. Louis about the details. Deadline is Aug. 15th. Call the rectory at 715.425.5806. The position is available immediately. Pat Bjork Retiring Pat Bjork is retiring from the parish secretary and bookkeeping position at the end of July. She is ready to pursue fun new endeavors. We thank her and are very grateful for her 23+ years of dedicated service to St. Mary s! Pat plans to continue to be the point person for the Prayer Chain and help with the Cemetery Records. Altar Rosary Society Meeting and Fall Festival Planning St. Mary s is planning a revival of our Fall Festival, if we can get enough volunteers to help. Even our German Kolaches are returning! If you are interested in helping to make this happen, please attend the meeting on Monday, August 13th at 7:00 pm in the school hall. The regular Altar Rosary meeting will start at 6:15. Older youth are welcome to help too!! Finance Council Meeting Monday, August 13th at 6:30 pm in the rectory. 2018 Members Appointed Members are: Pat Pechacek Walter Betzel Mike O Malley (Point person for buildings & grounds) Danny McNamara (Staff Maintenance) John Matzek (Cemetery Committee) Rodney Janovec (Cemetery Committee)
1 9 t h S u n d a y O r d i n a r y T i m e P a g e 3 Home School Co-op Opportunities St. Mary s Home School Co-op Several families from St. Mary's are working together to offer a twice-a-month co-op for preschool and elementary aged kids (approx. ages 3-12) meeting at St. Mary's. The preschool class will focus on songs, games, prayers, crafts, and learning objectives such as letters and numbers. The elementary class will be split into two sections: K-2 and 3-6. These sections may include memory work (e.g., poetry, Latin, math, hymns), picture study, music study, science experiments, and nature study. There is a fee for participating in the co-op along with the expectation of the parent assisting in the class or childcare room. We will meet on Tuesdays (twice a month) at St. Mary's school from 9:30-11am. Email or call Rachel Digman for more details or to join - 920.904.1631 or rachel.wepner@gmail.com. Mr. Pete Beurskens - Literature Class Mr. Beurskens is again offering his Introduction to Literature Class. This class will take place at St. Mary s on Thursday mornings after mass from 9:15 to 10:30 am. It is geared to 13-16 yr. olds. It runs from September 13 to May 2. Tuition fee: $100/Semester and $50 for second student from same family/semester. If interested contact: Pete Beurskens edibleacres5@gmail.com or text/call 715.317.0513 St. Mary s Parish does not sponsor these classes. It only permits them to be conducted in the school hall. Faith Formation Religious Education Registration Registration for fall classes has now begun. Forms will be mailed to those who have not yet registered. Please return them ASAP. Catechists Needed! We are in need of several catechists for the afternoon and evening sessions. Please call or email Traci Campion ASAP if you are willing to help in this most noble endeavor. Our children are the future of the church! We need generous adults to help guide them to our Holy Faith. Catechesis of the Good Shepherd The Religious Education program has exciting news! We are in the planning stages to bring the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Program to St. Mary s!! This is an amazing program that helps to bring our youngest members to faith in Jesus. The program focuses on learning about Jesus as the Good Shepherd and incorporates much learning of the scriptures and the mass. Rachel Digman will be our first Level One teacher. We will be planning throughout this year and making materials. As we get further along more information about it will be posted. We hope to offer our first class next fall 2019. We will need many volunteers to help make this happen. If you are creative and like to make things please let us know! We will need people who would be willing to make things out of wood for us as well. We will need lots of donated materials. We will post lists of needed items soon. Please keep this undertaking in your prayers so we can start our littlest members on the wonderful path of discovering our Lord in the Scriptures and Holy Mass. Support Our Advertisers Income for August 5, 2018 Plate... $540.46 Adult Envelopes...3949.70 Friendship Fund...1500.00 Improvement Fund 1500.00 Youth Ministry.. 10.00 Total... $7,500.16 Thank You!
A Message From Our Pastor This Wednesday, August 15, is the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a holy day of obligation for us to participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This feast has been celebrated in the liturgy of the eastern world since the sixth century and in Rome since the seventh century. On November 1, 1950, Venerable Pius XII defined the dogma of the Assumption. He solemnly proclaimed that the belief whereby the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the end of her earthly life, was taken up body and soul, into the glory of Heaven, really forms part of the Deposit of Faith, received from the Apostles. This feast confirms us in the theological virtue of hope, whereby we seek our sanctification and that of others in the midst of our ordinary duties. At the same time, we are encouraged to look to the goal of our life, namely, Heaven. We have a Vigil Mass on Tuesday at 6:00 pm preceded by Confessions at 5:00 pm. On the feast day itself (Wednesday) Mass is at 8:30 am. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God! On Thursday of this week I fly to Brownsville, Texas, to spend a week with Monsignor Heberto Bert Diaz. Monsignor Diaz and I met while we were in our last four years of preparation for the priesthood at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, Italy (1985-1989). We became close friends and have remained so despite the passing of time and the miles that separate us. Monsignor Diaz is the Vicar of Clergy for the Diocese of Brownsville as well as the Pastor of Saint Mary Mother of the Church, a large, youthful parish (lots of young families and lots of babies!) with its own school right in the city of Brownsville. Ever since our ordination to the priesthood I usually have made one trip annually to Texas for some vacation time with Monsignor (and his English sheepdog, Chelsea, and Amazon parrot, Luke!). The good Monsignor always makes me earn my keep as he puts me to work celebrating Masses and hearing confessions in both English and Spanish. Monsignor Diaz and I actually have a claim to fame that few people in the world share. During the summers of 1986 and 1988 (while we were seminarians studying in Rome) this dynamic duo bicycled the entire Western coast of Italy North from Rome all the way to Avignon, France, and then South from Rome all the way to Reggio di Calabria and over to the Northern coast of Sicily. Of course, that was a few years ago and a few (!!??) pounds ago! I return to Big River the evening of August 23. Celebrating Masses in our parish next weekend is Father Robert Obol who comes to us through the annual Mission Co-op Appeal in the Diocese of La Crosse. You may recall Father Thomas Ayepa who was with us last year. He is unable to come to Big River and so is sending his confrere from the Diocese of Moroto, Uganda. Father Obol will ask us to spiritually and financially support our fellow Catholics in the Diocese of Moroto. Pope Benedict XVI began his first encyclical letter, God Is Love, quoting 1 John 4:16: God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. This expresses, according to Pope Benedict, the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny (1). That same verse from the First Letter of Saint John goes on to say that we have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. The former Pope comments: In these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his or her life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction (1). Once again, Pope Benedict XVI turns to Saint John this time his Gospel for a description of this event: God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should... have eternal life (John 3:16). Saint John concludes that in this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the expiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). According to Pope Benedict, since God has first loved us, love is now no longer a mere command ; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us... (This) love which God lavishes upon us (is that) which we in turn must share with others (1). What a beautiful description of the Christian life and the task of evangelization this is incumbent upon all of us by virtue of our Baptism! Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us! Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us! Blessed Solanus Casey, pray for us! Father Kevin C. Louis, STL P a g e 4
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Pastor - Fr. Kevin Louis, STL 10137 570th Ave. River Falls, WI 54022 Rectory Phone: 715-425-5806 Fr. Louis Cell: 715-505-3870 email: crossensis89@gmail.com Deacon - Deacon Dan Gannon 651-210-9651 gannon.dan@gmail.com Administrative Assistant - Traci Campion 715-307-8844 reginahope1917@gmail.com Bookkeeper - Pat Bjork 715-273-3577 bjork.p@outlook.com Director of Religious Education (DRE) - Traci Campion 715-307-8844 reginahope1917@gmail.com Youth Ministry - Corrie Loe 715-262-3663 corrieloe@gmail.com Cemetery - John Matzek 715-792-2582 Rod Janovec 651-341-9203 Prayer Chain Requests - Pat Bjork 715-273-3577 bjork.p@outlook.com School Hall Office - 715-425-7830 Altar Rosary Society (ARS) - Angie Dosdall 715-792-2447 Finance Council - Pat Pechacek 715-262-4089 Stewardship Committee - Andy Mishek 715-426-1978 Grounds & Building Maintenance - Danny McNamara 715-821-1197 Mass Intentions Monday, August 13 - Dave Bjork By Chuck & Rosanne Matzek Tuesday, August 14 - Don Engel By Friend 6:00 pm Mass - Leola Marek By Joyce Daymond Wednesday, August 15 - Raymond & Irene Matzek By Ray & Janice Matzek Thursday, August 16 No Mass Friday, August 17 No Mass Saturday, August 18 6:00 pm - Jim Huppert By Pat & Kelly Pechacek Sunday, August 19 9:30 am Pro Populo - & Living & Deceased Members of Altar Rosary Society By ARS August 18th Saturday - 6:00 pm Mass Reader.....Carol Betzel Ushers...Randy Maier, Mark Huppert, Joe Matzek, Peter Schommer Cross......Brent Coppler Candles..... Matt & Justin Maier Music....... Joanne Maier Rosary... Melissa Blegen Liturgical Assistants August 19th Sunday - 9:30 am Mass Reader...Shari Turvaville Ushers/$ Counters....Shawn Dosdall, Pat & Derek Pechacek, Lon Huppert Cross/Incense.Nathaniel & Marcus Merta Candles...Andrew & Daniel Pluth Rosary.... Angie & Shawn Dosdall Gift Bearer..Angie & Shawn Dosdall Has your contact information changed? Do you want us to contact you? Would you like to register? Cut out this little form, fill it out, and place it in the collection basket. Name: Address: Phone: (home) (cell) Email: