St. Colette Catholic Church 17600 Newburgh Road Livonia, MI 48152 734-464-4433 January 1, 2017 Mission Statement We, the Family of St. Colette, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit are dedicated to celebrating the Good News of Jesus Christ through Worship, Education, Fellowship and service to others. Mass Schedule Weekend Masses Saturday 4:00pm & 5:30pm Sunday 8:00am, 9:30am, 11:00am & 12:30pm Weekday Masses Tuesday, Wednesday, & Friday 9:00am For the most current information, please see our website: www.stcolette.net Follow us on Twitter: @stcolettevoice Welcome New Parishioners! To register, change an address, or if you moved, please contact the parish office.
Page 2 Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God May God bless us in his mercy. (Psalm 67) About Today s Solemnity One of the most ancient titles given to the Blessed Virgin Mary is Mother of God. This title comes from the Greek word Theotokos which means God bearer. These titles for Mary may sound strange to us. How can Mary be the mother of God? If we only think of God as the first Person of the Trinity, God as Father and Creator, we have every reason to be confused. However, our Christian faith teaches us that Jesus, as the second Person of the Trinity, is God. Referring to Mary as Mother of God or God bearer tells us more about Jesus than it does about Mary. Not only is Jesus human but, at the same time, he is also divine (God in the flesh = the Incarnation). Today s observance is a continuation of what we celebrated on Christmas Day. The Gospel for the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, tells us that the shepherds on the night Jesus was born did what the angels told them to do. They found Mary and Joseph and the newborn Jesus. Then they went to tell their neighbors that a savior was born. The story continues that Mary treasured what was said about her child and eight days after his birth Jesus was circumcised according to Jewish tradition and received his name which means savior. Since ancient days the Church has celebrated the Motherhood of Mary on the first day of the new year, January 1. Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord Saturday, January 7 Masses at 4:00 & 5:30pm Sunday, January 8 Masses at 8:00, 9:30, 11:00am & 12:30pm Incense may be used at all Masses January 7 & 8. Thank You to Our Christmas Pageant Children What a wonderful experience we had as some of the children of our parish retold the story of the first Christmas. Thank you to readers Marie & Ted Pominville and Cameron Laidlaw; to Adam Wojcik who was our Joseph and Keira Middleton as Mary; to Caitlyn Laidlaw who was the Angel Gabriel. And thank you to our multitude of angels: Teresa Sochacki, Gigi & Henry Bernack and Joseph & Gianna Graybill. Parish Offices Closed for New Year s Holiday The parish offices will be closed Monday, January 2. The offices will reopen on Tuesday, January 3 at 9:00am. During the time of the closure if you have a pastoral emergency that demands immediate attention such as the care of the sick or dying or to make funeral arrangements, please telephone the parish office at 734-464-4433, x5. 2017 Parish Calendars Now Available Once again our parish has the opportunity to offer free-of-charge Catholic calendars for the New Year. The calendars are located in the Gathering Space and on the window sill to the right of the altar. You are asked to please limit one calendar per family. A thank you is extended to the Harry J. Will Funeral Home for their generous contribution of donating the cost of providing these calendars to our parishioners. Death of Charlene Maurin Please remember in your prayers former St. Colette Parish secretary, Charlene Maurin. Over a year ago Charlene was diagnosed with breast cancer and in October, 2015 retired as parish secretary after serving for more than 24 years. Charlene had been undergoing treatment for cancer and she passed away on Saturday, December 17. Her Funeral Mass was celebrated on December 21 at St. Blase Catholic Church in Sterling Heights. Condolences may be sent to St. Colette Parish Office and they will be forwarded to Charlene s family.
Pastor s Corner Best wishes to all of you for a blessed and holy Christmas Season and for a healthy and safe New Year! I hope everyone has been enjoying the Christmas holidays with time spent together with family and friends. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped in preparing our church for the Christmas celebration. Gratitude is extended to the Decorating Committee, Carol and Dan Brown and chaired by Pat Conn and all the volunteers who decorated the church with poinsettias, trees, wreaths, lighting and garland. Also to our parish s business manager, Greg Boyer and our secretarial and maintenance staffs who worked many hours behind the scenes making sure everything would be in place and working properly. A thank you is offered to our Director of our Religious Education, Theresa Lisiecki and the children and their parents who participated at the Christmas Eve Mass with their pageant. Appreciation is extended to our Director of Music Ministry, Susan Garr and the choirs and instrumentalists for the music, to everyone who participated at the Christmas Masses and the altar servers, lectors, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, ushers, sacristans, Fr. Mike and Deacon Gary who exercised their ministries. To all that helped and participated in any way, may God bless you for your generosity, interest and support. Now that another Christmas Day is past doesn t mean our celebration of this feast is ended for Christmas is not just a day but also a season. We have only just begun to celebrate the mystery of God becoming human in Jesus. This is countercultural in a society where many people spend the days after Christmas Day removing their decorations and storing them for another year. We, instead, continue the celebration begun on Christmas Eve, commemorating not only Christ s birth but also honoring his mother Mary with her oldest title as the Holy Mother of God (today s observance), as well as Jesus early manifestations as the Lord of the Gentiles (Epiphany celebrated next Sunday), and the beloved Son of God (the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord on January 9). As our church remains decorated for the Christmas Season, make the effort to keep your homes decorated as well. An old custom is to keep the home decorated until Epiphany which in our country is celebrated on the Sunday after New Year s Day (this year on January 8) and in many other countries on January 6. Don t forget to keep using the blue reflection books you received at the beginning of Advent to help you keep these days holy. Before or after Mass be sure to visit our church s Nativity Scene located in church in the space usually occupied by the shrine of the Holy Family. Continue to spend time together with relatives and Page 3 friends especially this weekend as we celebrate the beginning of a new year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Fr. Gary Welcome to Our Parish If you are joining us for the first time or visiting for the holidays, our parish family welcomes you to our church. We re glad you are with us to celebrate this season of peace and joy. May the holiness of this time strengthen and sustain you during the New Year. In the future you are welcome to join us again for worship. If so inclined we invite you to become a part of our parish family by becoming a registered parishioner. Please feel free to call the Parish Office at (734) 464-4433 or email at parishoffice@stcolette.net on January 3rd or afterwards for more information New Automatic Interior Church Doors New interior church doors have been installed. These are the eight glass and wooden doors, four on each side, between the Gathering Space and the main body of the church. With the installation of the new doors, please note that two doors on each side are now automatic doors. For those who need assistance with the opening of the interior doors there are automatic door openers attached to the walls near the doors that are automatic. As with all automatic doors, to activate the opening simply push the metal button on the wall. The doors will remain open for a certain amount of time to allowing a person to walk thru the doorway. Besides opening automatically please remember the doors also close automatically. As with all automatic doors, once they are open please do not try to close them manually. Doing so will damage the automatic opening/closing system.
Page 4 Baptism Mark Your New Calendars Mariam Rose Reisner, daughter of Benjamin Luke and Rachel Malia and Jordan Alexander Escobar son of Alexander and Jessica were welcomed into the Catholic Church through the sacrament of baptism on Saturday, December 17, 2016 at St. Colette Church. Deacon Gary Pardo celebrated the baptisms. This weekend we begin the year 2017 so please mark your new calendars with these important liturgical celebrations: March 1 Ash Wednesday April 9 Passion (Palm) Sunday Paschal Triduum: Holy Thursday April 13 Good Friday April 14 Easter Vigil April 15 Easter Sunday April 16 April 29 & 30 Parish Celebration of First Eucharist May 28 Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord June 4 Solemnity of Pentecost Sunday God Bless these Families! Just for You(th) On Saturday Dec. 10th, a group from St. Colette s Youth Ministry went to Gleaners in Detroit. Our group enjoyed a short tour of the facilities and we spent the majority of our time sorting cans. We took canned veggies from one bin and checked them for dents and good expiration dates along with checking that they were the right veggies for the project we were working on. We worked on the projects in the section kids helping kids where we sorted objects for backpacks to be given to children for meals for the weekend. Our group only sorted cans, but other groups there also arranged plastic bags to be filled with the food and in past visits we ve folded, stapled, and counted recipes for the backpacks. A nice addition to our most recent visit was a short video made by Gleaners to thank volunteers and show us what our time has done. While we sorted cans our crew had a can-tastic time making can and vegetable puns, and we also put can and vegetable related vocals to Christmas songs to make the time pass. Our group had a wonderful time, and we had a chance to get creative and have fun while also doing something important to help others. It was a memorable event not only for the unique experience that yielded the use of a box troll to get cans from the bottom of the box and the chance to weigh our entire group on a massive scale before we left, but for seeing the faces of happy children in the video and knowing that our efforts helped send out 3,000 meals. -Mary Kate Rae Upcoming Events Jan. 7-8 Jan. 9 Taking Pizza Kit Orders after all Masses Handing out Epiphany Kits after all Masses Youth Group 7-9pm Little Caesar s Pizza Kit Fundraiser This month, the Youth Ministry program will again be selling Little Caesar s Pizza Kits. We had such a great response from parishioners last year, and many people asked if we d do the fundraiser again this year. We ll be taking orders for 3 weekends in January, with pick up the last full weekend, Jan. 28-29th, after all Masses. Orders will be here just in time for Super Bowl Sunday, so consider getting your game day pizza from us! They have pizza kits of different types, breadsticks, and cookie dough. Look for a table with order information the back of church starting Jan. 7th, and if you have any questions, call the Youth Ministry Office at 734-464-1677. ST. COLETTE WOMEN'S GUILD Our first meeting of the new year will be Thursday, January 12 at 1p.m. in the Social Area. This will be our annual Pot Luck luncheon. The membership is asked to contribute dishes of meat, vegetable, salad or dessert to share. RSVP by Monday, January 9, to June at 734-464-0476 to inform if you will be attending and what dish you will be bringing. Looking forward to seeing you!
Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Holy Hour of Prayer On Friday, January 6, after the 9:00am Mass our parish will provide the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, followed by a Holy Hour of Prayer, and concluding with Benediction at 10:30am. The Holy Hour includes time for both communal and private prayer. Please join others in this special opportunity for spiritual growth. Religious Education News First Reconciliation Meeting: Monday, January 9th This is a reminder to all our 4th grade families registered to prepare for the sacrament of First Reconciliation that our next mandatory meeting and class will be coming up next week. Please call or email the office if you are unable to make the meeting. Traditional Catechism to Resume Tuesday, January 17th We are a week away from classes resuming but just wanted to get the beginning of these last few classes on everyone s radar. See you then. Junior High Youth Group: Thursday, January 19th The next Jr. High Youth Group meeting will be coming up soon so plan now to attend. All 7th & 8th grade students and their friends are invited. The evening begins at 6pm with dinner and then who knows what wild and fun activity Amy has planned for the night. Plan to come and find out. For Further information or to contact the office please call 734-464-4435 or by email at religioused@stcolette.net. Page 5 Advent/Christmas 2016 The Christmas Spirit was definitely ALIVE at St. Colette again this Advent/Christmas Season 2016. There are many things that take place before any decorations are visible in the church. The Giving Tree needs to be organized. Tags need to be cut out and yarn attached for hanging on the tree. Organizations let us know what they need, then that information is transferred to labels that are then attached to the tags. Over 1300 tags were put on the Giving Tree by the Jr. High Youth Ministry Group. THANK YOU! The Gathering Space contained many boxes in different colors for collecting the gifts for the charities. These boxes overflowed with the many gifts that were purchased. We continue to support the same charities year after year because of the great need. St. Al s Church, The Capuchin s After School Program, Loaves and Fishes, Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Sr. Judie Ann, The Lennon Center, Prison Ministry, and new this year Refugee Program - benefited from all the donations. A little over 400 toys were given to St. Leo s for their Children s Christmas Party. Many gift cards were donated to help with last minute requests. THANK YOU! On December 6th, the toys were packed for St. Leo s Parish in Detroit by 22 volunteers who were surely thinking about the smiles that would appear on the children s faces as they received such nice things. THANK YOU! On December 11th, the entire church was transformed into gift central for the sorting of the gifts. On this very snowy day, over 40 happy elves appeared to help with this big task. Four of the elves even ventured out to the local stores to purchase gifts that didn t make it back due to the weather or sicknesses. Gifts were sorted and packed. Some of the gifts were loaded onto vans for delivery the next day. Others were left for the charities to pick up the next day. THANK YOU! On December 12 and 13th, the drivers of the vans departed for their destinations in Detroit. THANK YOU! A project of this magnitude is only as successful as the people who take time to purchase a gift or two and the people who volunteer in so many ways. Thank you for sharing your Christmas Spirit with your fellow parishioners and for making the Advent/Christmas Season brighter for many people in our community.