Church of Saint Monica Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Saint Stephen of Hungary 413 East 79 th St., New York, NY 10075 Church Offices and Parish Center: 406 East 80 th St., New York, NY 10075 (212) 288-6250 Fax: (212) 570-1562 Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Sunday, January 14th, 2018 Office Hours Our Offices are open: Mo. 9am 5pm Tu.-Th. 9am 7pm Fri. Closed Sat. 10am -2pm Sun. Closed Our offices close for lunch: 1pm 2pm daily Parish Staff Pastor Rev. Donald C. Baker frdcab@stmonicanyc.org Associates: Rev. Msgr. Leslie J Ivers msgrlivers@stmonicanyc,org Rev. Joslin K. Jose frjoslin@stmonicanyc.org Pastoral Associate: Ms. Maryann Tyrer mtyrer@stmonicanyc.org Parish Manager: Music Director Mr. Michael Ward John Zupan mward@stmonicanyc.org jzupan@stmonicanyc.org Associate Music Dir: Ms. Lora Cohan lcohan@stmonicanyc.org Cantor: Mr. Joseph Neal Wedding Coordinator: Ms. Debbi Burdett DBweddingsnyc@gmail.com Mass Schedule Saturday: 12:00pm Saturday Vigil: 5:30pm Sunday: 7:30am 9:00am 10:30am 12:00pm 5:00pm Monday Friday: 7:30 & 12:00pm Confessions: Saturday 5:00 5:30pm and by appointment Our church is open: 7am 4pm daily for private prayer St. Stephen of Hungary School Pre-K through 8 th Grade Catholic Parochial School 408 East 82 nd St., New York, NY 10028 (212) 288-1989 Fax: (212) 517 5788 Ms. Caroline Walker www.saintstephenschool.org Principal: Interested in admissions to our parish school? admissions@saintstephenschool.org
TODAY S READINGS First Reading -- Speak, for your servant is listening (1 Samuel 3:3b-10, 19). Psalm -- Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will (Psalm 40). Second Reading -- Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you? (1 Corinthians 6:13c-15a, 17-20). Gospel -- Andrew found his brother Simon and brought him to Jesus (John 1:35-42). The English translation of the Psalm Responses from Lectionary for Mass (c) 1969, 1981, 1997, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation. All rights reserved. READINGS FOR THE WEEK Monday: 1 Sm 15:16-23; Ps 50:8-9, 16bc-17, 21, 23; Mk 2:18-22 Tuesday: 1 Sm 16:1-13; Ps 89:20-22, 27-28; Mk 2:23-28 Wednesday: 1 Sm 17:32-33, 37, 40-51; Ps 144:1b, 2, 9-10; Mk 3:1-6 Thursday: 1 Sm 18:6-9; 19:1-7; Ps 56:2-3, 9-13; Mk 3:7-12 Friday: 1 Sm 24:3-21; Ps 57:2-4, 6, 11; Mk 3:13-19 Saturday: 2 Sm 1:1-4, 11-12, 19, 23-27; Ps 80:2-3, 5-7; Mk 3:20-21 Sunday: Jon 3:1-5, 10; Ps 25:4-9; 1 Cor 7:29-31; Mk 1:14-20 SATURDAY January 13th Vigil 5:30 PM Giselle Peña SUNDAY January 14th Second Sunday in Ordinary Time 7:30 AM Helen & John Flack & Family 9:00 AM Margaret Weidner 10:30 AM Anne McCormack 12 NOON Parishioners of St Monica, St Elizabeth of Hungary, St Stephen of Hungary 5:00 PM Joseph Zedrosser MONDAY 9:00AM TUESDAY 9:00AM 12NOON January 15th Weekday Mrs. Gelormini January 16th Weekday Gaye Emma Matthews Catherine Picinick WEDNESDAY January 17th St. Anthony 7:30 AM Sofia Kim (Living) 12 NOON Rita Marra THURSDAY January 18h Weekday 7:30AM Nancy Collins 12NOON Martin Ward FRIDAY January 19th Weekday 7:30AM Ciria Joseph Padilla 12NOON Donald Gels SATURDAY January 20th Weekday 12 NOON Roslita Green Malia SAINTS AND SPECIAL OBSERVANCES Sunday: Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Monday: Martin Luther King, Jr., Day Wednesday: St. Anthony Thursday : Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins Friday: Julian Calendar Theophany (Epiphany) Saturday: St. Fabian; St. Sebastian Bread & Wine This Week s Bread & Wine in Memory of Maria Encarnacion Litrenta Offered by Maria Litrenta PRAYERS FOR THE SICK Please remember in your prayers Fr. Peter Colapietro, Fr. Jim Gavin, Rosemary Catalano, James Baker, Kathleen Reddington, Roger & Franklin White, John Healey, John Shegina, Tobias Bustamante, Victor Worizid, James Leung, Raymond Feeley, Broley Gus, Frank Krescanko, Katie Kavanaugh, James Carberry, Fr. Ronald Stark, Alyssa Sardelli, Megan Driscoll & Loretta Pontcello AND ALL VICTIMS OF MILITARY ACTIVITY PRAYERS FOR THE DECEASED Bridget Murray, Donald Fitzgerald, Patricia McGuire- Randt, Larry Eivens, John Gambino, Donald Fitzgerald- Luis Gonzalez, & Gerhard Goede, Sotero Matta, Sebastian Fernandez Begne, Fr. Joseph Irwin & Agnes Lynch Please pray for our deceased parishioners and family members If you wish to add the name of a loved one to the prayer list, please notify the parish center: (212) 288-6250
K-8 Religious Education and Adult Faith Formation meet in the Parish Center on Sundays, 10:15 11:45am. Save the Date! Our next Family Faith Formation event will be on Sunday, February 11, 9-11:30am in the Parish Center! This will take the place of K-8 Religious Education and Adult Faith Formation on that day. This Mardi Gras themed event will help all of our families get ready for Lent! All adults are welcome in the Parish Center, 10:45-11:15am on Sunday mornings, to discuss the Scriptures over a cup of coffee or tea, led by one of our clergy or our pastoral associate. This Adult Faith Formation program is open to any adults drop in any Sunday and check it out! Considering becoming Catholic? Catholic adult but not yet confirmed? Contact Maryann to continue your faith journey with our Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults or Adult Confirmation processes. You can join at any time of the year! Family Question of the Week: We are back in Ordinary Time (the name ordinal means counted, not nothing special!) How can we, as a family, incorporate all that we celebrated at Christmas into our day-to-day life? What is one thing we have learned, or have been reminded of, that we can put into practice during this season?
Discover the Trail of Martin Luther The Reformation in Germany Hosted by Father Donald C. Baker September 12 22, 2018 11 days 14 meals included Highlights... Mainz Worms Gutenberg Museum Erfurt Wartburg Castle Lutherhaus Eisleben Dresden Leipzig St. Thomas Church Wittenberg St. Mary s Church Berlin For information contact Maryann Tyrer Pastoral Associate St. Monica St. Elizabeth of Hungary St. Stephen of Hungary mtyrer@stmonicanyc.org 212-288-6250 Reflection I am convinced that the pro-life position of the Church must be developed in terms of a comprehensive and consistent ethic of life. The substance of a Catholic position on a consistent ethic of life is rooted in a religious vision. But the citizenry of the United States is radically pluralistic in moral and religious conviction. So we face the challenge of stating our case, which is shaped in terms of our faith and our religious convictions, in non-religious terms which others of different faith convictions might find morally persuasive. We should maintain and clearly articulate our religious convictions but also maintain our civil courtesy. We should be vigorous in stating a case and attentive in hearing another s case; we should test everyone s logic but not his or her motives. Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, A Consistent Ethic of Life: An American Catholic Dialogue, 1983
SPECIAL DEVOTIONS After all weekday masses Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament Every Friday after the Noon Mass to 3 PM, with Benediction following the Divine Mercy Chaplet Devotions Miraculous Medal on Mondays after each Mass Divine Mercy The Divine Mercy Chaplet is prayed each Friday afternoon at 3 PM Sacrament of Reconciliation: 5:00 PM on Saturdays Anytime by appointment BAPTISMS & MARRIAGES: Please call the rectory office for more information. COMMUNION FOR THE HOMEBOUND: If you know of anyone who cannot attend church because of illness or age, and would like to have communion brought to them, please contact the parish office, so that we can arrange for a Eucharistic Minister to bring communion to them. Wednesday January 10th Saint Anthony s Day Monday January 15th We celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr Day TREASURES FROM OUR TRADITION "Ordinary Time" began for us this week. On the old calendar, the feast of the Presentation, still more than two weeks away, was the last day of the Christmas season. Sadly, Bethlehem is hardly a place of peace on earth these days. The ancient Christian community has been largely uprooted by political strife. The Church of the Nativity stands (barely) in remarkable disrepair and disorder in Manger Square. The roof is crumbling, the major doorways are blocked, the wiring is faulty, and the worship life is disrupted by quarrels among Eastern Christians. The church was founded by the Emperor Constantine in 325, destroyed in a Samaritan revolt in 539, and rebuilt by the Emperor Justinian. When the area came under Muslim control in 638, the holiness of the church was respected, and in return Christians allowed Muslims to pray in the south aisle, a right still upheld. Earlier in that century, invading Persians were ordered to destroy all churches, but when they saw the magi carved over the doorway of the Church of the Nativity, they spared it out of respect for their ancestors who bore gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the same city. The Crusaders restored and redecorated the church by the twelfth century, and it is their plan that survives. Down a few stone steps is a stone grotto with a silver star marking the place of Christ's birth: when the star was stolen in 1847 it triggered an international crisis that exploded into the Crimean War. Since 1852, the church has been shared by the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian Churches. The Greeks are in charge of the grotto, but don't enjoy the best of friendships with the Armenians. Catholics have the care of the Chapel of the Manger, and avoid the squabbles by a separate entrance to the Franciscan monastery church of St. Catherine. Pray for peace in Bethlehem! -Rev. James Field, Copyright (c) J. S. Paluch Co.
BUSINESS CORNER FROM OUR MUSIC DIRECTOR I am writing a brief Business Corner this week to share with you that the parish received $36,121 in Christmas Offertory. On behalf of Father Baker and the parish staff, thank you for all of your support throughout the year, and thank you for this very generous Christmas offering. We wish you all a Happy and Healthy 2018, and we look forward to continuing to grow in faith and community with all of you. Mike Ward Parish Manager I invite you all to stop by the Parish Center on Wednesday, January 17 th from 7PM-9PM for a Meet & Greet. As your new director of music, I would love to hear from you about your experiences with the music liturgy here at St. Monica, St. Elizabeth of Hungary St. Stephen of Hungary. Wine and cheese will be served. Our Adult Choir is reforming, and we are looking for old members to come back and new members to come join! Our Adult Choir rehearses on Wednesdays at 7:30 PM in the church and sings on Sundays for the 12:00 PM Mass each week. If you like to sing why not give it a try? Anyone interested in joining should contact John Zupan, our Music Director for more information. Also we are looking to see if there is any interest in starting a parish children s choir. A very exciting prospect. And finally, if there are any musicians out there that would be interested in sharing their musical gifts please come see me. So excited to be with you all. John Zupan Director of Music
From Your Pastor January 14th, 2018 Like victims of a tragic pedestrian accident, they have long begun to appear; lying on the side of the street, covered in tattered tinsel and ribbons, their coat of pine needles lying in heaps around them: Christmas trees. Once they were the stars of our homes, and now like some aging silent movie actress they are abandoned and forgotten. Their yearly appearance along the avenues of our city is the clearest sign to me that CHRISTMAS IS OVER, and the long dreary slog towards Easter and Spring! has begun. Christmas and Easter. Although they are two religious holidays found on the American secular calendar, for the Church they are more; they are the two hinges on which the whole Church calendar pivots. The church calendar: for most people, this is that free calendar from the local funeral home that gets distributed in December. But the CHURCH Calendar is that succession of seasons and holidays/holy days that turn the year into a succession of celebrations on which we commemorate and communicate our faith. Take Christmas for example: Christmas isn t just a day but a whole season of days, stretching from sundown on December 24 th until Epiphany and really until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. It has a four-week period of preparation before it called the season of Advent. This is why even though our city is already filled with Christmas carols and decorations at Thanksgiving, in churches we stick with purplish decorations and Advent Wreaths. This is why when people are abandoning their dried-out Christmas trees on street corners, finally done with the wearying holiday season, in church we are watering the poinsettias and still singing Silent Night. It s the same with Easter a six-week period of preparation called Lent, and an eight-week celebration of Easter in a season which lasts until Pentecost. The time in between Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter is called Ordinary Time. It sounds boring. But really this is just an example of (yet another) ill-advised translation from the Latin. Ordinary here has the sense of an ordered numbering of days; in this case the Sundays in Ordinary Time. However, the season is far from ordinary. The priest wears green, which is a sign of growth and new life. The readings at mass are all about Jesus ministry. The readings from the Old Testament are seen as pointing to what Jesus is saying and doing in the New Testament. The focus of Ordinary Time is the extraordinary appearance of Jesus on the world scene, the growth of his movement, and the opposition to it. Through the weekly readings of Ordinary Time, we are introduced to how Jesus understood the one he called Our Father, and how those who are children of that Father live, believe and pray. Because of the way Easter falls so early this year (something I will attempt to explain in a later column) the first block of Ordinary Time is short. it lasts until February 14 th, which is Ash Wednesday as well as Valentine s Day (another conundrum we will eventually discuss in this column!) Normally during Lent people give up something. Here s a challenge: for the 4-5 Sundays of Ordinary Time leading up to Lent Take something on. Read the weekly readings for Sunday before Mass. You can get the readings on line at usccb.org/bible or even subscribe to Magnificat (http://us.magnificat.net) or Give Us This Day (https:// www.giveusthisday.org/#book/ ) to have a monthly guide to daily prayer which includes not only the Sunday readings, but the readings for daily mass and Morning and Evening Prayer as well. Or you can just come on Sundays to Adult Faith Formation. It is held from 10:15-11:30 in the Parish Center (406 East 80 th Street between York and First Avenues). In these discussions we gather, drink a cup of coffee or tea, and we read the Sunday readings. We learn about them and take from them meaning for our lives. You don t have to be a Bible scholar that is the whole point. You just have to want to get something more out of mass and our faith tradition. Something we can take with us into the weeks of this dreary time of year which will make them less... ordinary. Father Baker