SECOND
SUNDAY of EASTER
DIVINE
MERCY SUNDAY
APRIL
15, 2007
(M -
Memorial, A - Anniversary)
6:45 PAT BONNER--M
req.
by Grace Cosgrove
9:00 MARGARET MAGUIRE--M
req.
by Nancy Hardart
TUESDAY, APRIL 17
6:45 ALEXANDER J. QUINLAN, JR.--M
req. by the Hiler Family
9:00 BERTHE and LOUIS BREUIL--M
req. by the Shields Family
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18
6:45 BERNARD
BROOKS--A
req. by the Family
9:00 THE SAPORITO and
LOIACONI FAMILIES
reg. by the Saporito
Family
THURSDAY, APRIL 19
6:45 VIRGINIA HALEY--M
req.
by the Clergy & the People of
Sts.
John & Paul Parish
9:00 MARGARET
MAGUIRE--M
req. by the James Weldon Family
6:45
MARY A. and EDWARD S. LADIN and ROSE DUDEK--M
req. by the Ladin Family
9:00 VERONICA MC PEAK--A
req. by the McPeak Family
ANSELIM, bishop
9:00 HELEN MARA
NUGENT and JOSEPH NUGENT--M
req. by Maura & Richard Concannon
5:30 CARLO
VENTIMIGLIA--M
req. by Lorraine Stratis
SUNDAY, APRIL
22
7:30 GIOVANNI
D’ANDREA--A
req. by Anthony D’Andrea
9:00 MARGARET
MAGUIRE--M
req. by Richard & Paula Rivera
10:30 HECTOR
BLONDET--M
req. by Nancy & Bill
Winnis
12:00 FOR
THE PEOPLE OF THE PARISH
5:00 RICHARD
RITZ--M
Req. by Anne Ritz &
Family
PRAYERFUL
REMEMBRANCES
Your prayers are requested for
the sick at home, and in the hospitals, especially: F. Peter O’Hara, Taylor
Shea, Ben Pariea, Pat O’Rourke, James
Curtin, Carmella Musumeci, Msgr. Joseph
J. Boyd, Ramona Murill, Debra Abrahamsen, Patricia Kuhr, Theresa Astorino, Joseph Mileti, Dotty Doherty, Caroline
Weldon, Lenny Cavalieri, Jenna Mussolini, Teresa Civetta, Frank Maiola, Aileen
O’Brien, Sister Margaret Coakley, Ed
Lenard, Pam Hissey, Tricia Eigo, Alice
Nasta, Mildred Traub, Catherine Ann Brennan, , Sarah Butler, Mimi Cosgrove,
Kristen Long, Patrick Lamont, Elizabeth Kim, Eloise Selby, Thomas M. Lamb, for
our service men and women at home and abroad; for the faithful departed, JOHN COLARUSSO, and those who have no one to pray for them; and for the honored
dead of the Armed Services.
SUNDAY COLLECTION
Last week’s collection (04—08—07)
$10,195
Attendance: 2,200
The parish of Saints John and Paul thanks you for
your support. We are grateful to our parishioners who use our envelope system.
If you wish to receive Church support envelopes, please call the Rectory at
834-5458.
BANNS of
MARRIAGE
III -- Carlos Torres – Kathryn Kirchoff
III – Frank Pacelli, III –
Christine De George
10:30 AM
MASS MUSIC NOTES
In the Anthem “Blessing And Glory” by Sergei Rachmaninoff, the great
Russian composer from the Romantic Period, the Choir sings “Grant us Thy
mercy”, a perfect sentiment for today, Divine Mercy Sunday.
BAPTISM
PREPARATION for PARENTS of INFANTS
To arrange for a
Baptism, please call the rectory and you will be given an appointment with one
of the parish priests.
Water in
the Word
Baptismal
Preparation Session Schedule
All sessions are
offered on the following Saturday mornings from 10 AM – 11:30 AM. Please call
the rectory to attend. We will begin new sessions in 2007. The dates for the upcoming
classes are as follows: FRIDAY, MAY 4th at 7:00 pm,
and June 2nd.
WANT TO
SEE PARISH PHOTOS on THE INTERNET?
Fr. Joe has been
taking pictures of many events in and around the parish – SJP School Pep Rally,
Christmas Show, The Living Rosary, Teen Ski Trip, etc. If you would like to
view any or all of them, please go to http://community.webshots.com/user/joeeno.
RALLY for
GOD, FAMILY and LIFE
Please join the
Knights of Columbus on Tuesday, April 24th in Albany, New York for a
peaceful, prayerful demonstration of our support for Pro-Life legislation. We
need 20 people to sign-up in order for a bus to pick up the group here at Sts.
John and Paul.
Please call Bill
Winnis at 914-573-9445 to make a reservation.
CALENDAR of EVENTS for WEEK OF APRIL 15th:
SUNDAY, APRIL 15th:
10:15 AM SCH: Religious Education classes
11:00 AM AUD: Easter Egg Hunt
3:00 PM RMR: Boy Scouts
4:00 PM CH: Divine Mercy Holy Hour
6:00 PM RMR: Youth Group Meeting
MONDAY, APRIL 16th:
8:00 AM AUD: SJP School all day
3:00 PM RMR, AUD, & GYM: PSPA after
school activities
6:30 PM RMRL Safe Environment
TUESDAY, APRIL 17th:
9:00 AM RMR: PSPA Meeting
9:30 AM AUD: Catechetical Regional Office Meeting
3:00 PM AUD & GYM: PSPA after school activities
6:00 PM RMR: Cub Scouts
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18th:
11:00 AM SARAH NEUMAN: Mass
12:45 PM RMR: 3rd grade Brownies
12:45 PM AUD & GYM: PSPA after school activities
2:50 & 7:30 PM SCH: Religious Education classes
4:00 PM RMR: Weblos
7:00 PM RMR: Boy Scouts
7:00 PM RECTORY: Habitat for Humanity
THURSDAY, APRIL 19th:
7:00 PM AUD: John Serrano rehearsal
FRIDAY, APRIL 20th:
3:00 PM RMR: 4th grade Girl Scouts
7:00 PM AUD: Junior High School Dance
7:00 PM RMR: Defensive Driving
RELIGIOUS
EDUCATION NEWS…
Please return your
Lenten contributions from the Operation Rice Bowl mite boxes as possible to the
Religious Ed Office or the school office. This money will be used by Catholic
Relief Services for families in need all over the world.
Truly, He is risen!
HAPPY
EASTER SEASON!
The SRA is sponsoring
an Easter Egg Hunt today (April 15th) at 11:15 am in the auditorium.
Please join us for food, fellowship and fun.
DANCE for
5th, 6th, 7th AND 8th GRADERS
The Woman’s Guild will
sponsor a Spring Dance for the Parish Students of the 5th, 6th,
7th, and 8th grades. It will be held on Friday, April 20th
at 7 pm until 10 pm in the Auditorium. We will have a DJ and pizza. Admission
is $20.00. If you wish to have your son/daughter attend, please come to the
rectory to pick up a permission slip.
Also, if you would
like to help, please call Mary Haney at 833-2251.
FR.
BRIAN’S BIBLE CLASS
Father Brian’s class
on the new Catechism for Adults will not be held until Monday, April 30th.
25th
and 50th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS
The parish will honor
all couples celebrating their 25th and 50th wedding
anniversaries during 2007 with a Mass at 10:30 AM and a reception following the
Mass on Sunday, April 29th. If you are celebrating either of these
anniversaries and would like to participant in this special event, please call
the Rectory and ask for Charlotte. Reservations must be in to the Rectory by
Monday, April 24th so that we can prepare for the luncheon. Thank
you.
50th
WEDDING ANNIVERSARY CELERATION at the CATHEDRAL
Couples celebrating
their 50th Wedding Anniversary anytime during 2007 are invited to
attend the annual Golden Wedding Jubilee Mass with Cardinal Egan at the
Cathedral of St. Patrick on Sunday, May 20th, at 2:00 pm.
Pre-registration is required. Please call Charlotte at the Rectory (834-5458)
to register for this celebration. The closing date to register is Friday, May 4th.
WOMEN’S
GUILD NEWS…
AUTHORS of
THE FAITH CLUB
To speak
at
Sts. John
and Paul Women’s Guild Luncheon
On May 3,
2007
The three authors of The Faith Club, the best-selling book about the
interfaith journey of a Muslim, a Christian, and a Jew, will be the guest
speakers at the Women’s Guild on Thursday, May 3rd, at 11:30 a.m. at
the Larchmont Shore Club.
Reservations are required. Tickets are $40.00 per person and can be
purchased by calling Patricia Howard at 833-2434.
MASS BOOK
for 2008 to OPEN
The 2008 Mass Book
will open on Monday, April 23rd.
The request for masses MUST be
submitted in writing to the rectory.
Send in or drop off in
the rectory, your list of masses with the dates and times you would like and
also include a check made out to Sts. John & Paul. Each announced mass is
$15.00. We will then fulfill your requests and return a receipt to you. If the
date and time you requested is not available, we will give you a date and time
as close as possible. The requests will be fulfilled in the order in which they
were received.
DEFENSIVE
DRIVING COURSE
The National Safety
Council’s Defensive Driving Course will be offered in the Rectory Meeting Room
on Friday, April 20, 7 – 10 PM.
SAVE THE
DATE
The Pastor’s Dinner will
be held this on THURSDAY, JUNE 7th, at 7:00 PM at the Larchmont
Shore Club. So mark your calendars and be part of a fun filled evening. All men
of the parish will receive a letter in the mail with more details.
DIVINE
MERCY SUNDAY- APRIL 15th
This Sunday, April 15th,
is Divine Mercy Sunday. We will have a Holy Hour in the Church from 4 to 5 PM.
All parishioners are cordially invited to attend.
THE
CATJHOLIC WIDOWS and WIDOWERS
Cordially invite all
Widows and Widowers
To attend the
Monthly Mass at 7 P.M. for Deceased Spouses
Followed by the Monthly Meeting
Monday, April 23
St. Pius X
Scarsdale, New York
CIRCLE
YOUR CALENDARS
SUNDAY,
MAY 6th
FOR OUR
SPRING BLOOD DRIVE
All parishioners are urged to participate in our annual Blood Drive. Giving
blood is such a very important ministry that helps so many.
EASTER
FLOWER MEMORIALS
IN MEMORY OF DONOR
Beatrice Noble & Chris & Mary Ruth Becker
Ruth & Barney
Wiegard &
Lucy & Harry
Becker &
Hope Becker
Irma & George
Brust & Ann Worthy
Vern & Veronica
Hanley
Frank Lyons & Ann Lyons
Kathy & Fred
Bricker
Cosgrove, Donahue
& Margaret C. McDermott
Mc Dermott Families
THE PASTOR’S COLUMN
As we continue our Easter celebration, we
recall two significant historical events. Prior to the ascendancy of the
Archbishop of Cracow to the throne of Peter, the life of a modest religious
sister and the visions she experienced were relatively unknown outside the
Catholic Polish community. Though the Marian Helpers of Stockbridge,
Massachusetts has been promoting the message of divine mercy and devotion,
their shrine at Eden Hill was largely unvisited. I discovered it myself in August
1978 when I stayed at the Red Lion Inn in the village where Norman Rockwell
lived and worked.
What the Diary written by the newly
canonized saint reveals is the Lord responding to the needs of her
contemporaries. In a country soon to be overrun and occupied by the Nazi
forces, the messages brought comfort to the oppressed. Like earlier
apparitions, the divine had broken in upon the human situation. To restore in
the Church a proper understanding of the Eucharist, St Margaret Mary Aloque
received promises from the Sacred Heart. As communion was gaining a foothold in
the Russian Empire and Europe was involved in the war to end all wars, Mary
appeared to the children of Fatima and called upon them to pray her rosary for
peace. To the visionaries of Medjugorje, the Blessed Mother addressed her plea
for a revival of faith and conversion of heart. Saint Faustina’s faithful
service affects us intimately as we reflect on the current geopolitical crises
and the personal dilemmas of family discord and mental dysfunction. Vengeance
seems to motivate too many world leaders. One upmanship is the part and parcel
of gaining power. Interactions in the home and at work seem to be equally
unforgiving. The necessity of heeding the directions to follow the promptings
of the Lord is undeniable. The Order dedicated to spreading the message of
divine mercy summarizes it as follows: “Ask for His Mercy. God wants us to
approach Him in prayer constantly, repenting of our sins and asking Him to pour
His mercy out upon us and the whole world. Be merciful. God wants us to receive
His mercy and let it flow through us to others. He wants us to extend love and
forgiveness to others just as he does to us. Completely trust is Jesus. God
wants us to know that the graces of His mercy are dependent upon our trust. The
more we trust in Jesus, the more we will receive.”
“Jesus, I trust You.” This is not just an
expression which was requested by the Lord to be placed below His image. It
must be an attitude that is adopted by us as we experience the burdens of our
lives, the presence of natural disasters, the violence of war, and the human
deprivation of famine. No matter what occurs we must acknowledge that the Lord
is filled with love for us. He will not deny us what we need. But we must as well
realize the necessity of co-operating with His graces. My mother taught me:
“Heaven helps those who help themselves.” Because of her knowledge of the
society in which she lived and of her prayerful life, she stated: “I feel
certain that my mission will not come to an end upon my death, but will begin,
O doubting souls, I will draw aside for you the veils of heaven to convince you
of God’s goodness.” (Diary 281) The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is a wonderful
devotion to express the true nature of our relationship with God. It is out of
love not fear that we accept the call to follow the Risen Lord.
I truly regret being away from the parish
and the archdiocese as we commemorate the bicentennial of the existence of the
Church of New York. The dates for my pilgrimage to Ireland had been set
previously and could not be changed. In the coming weeks, I hope to share with
you some of the proud history of worship and service performed by our
ancestors: priests, religious, and laity. I am sure that each of us is cognizant
of the fact that the faithful efforts of many preceded the advent of the
recognition of this particular church. We were, we are, and always will be an
immigrant community. They come from Spain, Portugal, France, England and
Holland to spread the Catholic faith. How much we are in the debt of the French
Jesuits who courageously proclaimed Christ to Native Americans. Some were
martyred. We remember the figure of Isaac Jogues who not only was tortured once
but after he recovered in his native land, he returned and continued his
mission and shed his blood in Auriesville. (As an aside: when summer comes and
many of you visit the Baseball Hall of Fame, it might not be a bad idea to go a
few miles out of the way and spend some time at the Shrine of the North American
Martyrs.) Though Catholics were part of the exploration parties of many nations
and though they had leadership positions in some of the colonies, notably
Thomas Dongan, governor of New York, there was widespread discrimination
against them and legal bars were established. For example, one year after the
signing of the Declaration of Independence, one of the country’s Founding
Fathers, John Jay, sponsored the addition of an anti-Catholic oath into the
State Constitution. Despite formal shunning, the faith community thrived.
In 1785, a group of influential Catholic
laymen purchased land on Church and Barclay Streets from Manhattan’s Trinity
Episcopal Church as the site for the first Catholic church in New York City.
These influential Irish immigrants had brought a deep faith to their new home
and a desire for a place in which the some 200 Catholics living in Manhattan
could worship. This happened 23 years prior to the establishment of the Diocese
of New York.
As New York City grew, so did the Catholic
community within it. The need for an additional church and the establishment of
New York as a separate diocese from the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1808 led to
the decision to build one. Dominic Lynch and Cornelius Heeney assumed
leadership roles in this effort.
Father Anthony Kohlmann, S.J. had been
named Vicar General of the diocese at the request of Richard Luke Concanen, New
York’s first bishop, due to his delay in departing Europe because of Napoleon’s
peninsular War. Generally credited as the “Founder of the Diocese,” Father
Kohlmann laid the cornerstone for St. Patrick’s (Old) Cathedral on June 8,
1809. The project, which was planned to last a year, took eight years to
complete. When it was finally completed in 1817, the cathedral was the largest
church edifice in the city. While his efforts to structure and administer the
newly formed diocese were vital to the future of the Church in New York, Father
Kohlmann’s defense of the right of priests to maintain the Seal of Confession
was an equally important legacy. During confession, a penitent admitted to
stealing and asked Father Kohlmann to help return the items to their rightful
owner, which the priest did. When called before a Grand Jury, Father Kohlmann
refused to identify the penitent.
Mayor DeWitt Clinton presided over the
court that rendered a unanimous decision in favor of Father Kohlmann. When
Clinton became governor of the state in 1828, he encouraged the legislature to
allow priests and ministers to withhold confidential information, gained during
the hearing of confessions, from courts of law.
Saints Patrick’s (Old) Cathedral was
dedicated in May of 1815, four months after Father Kohlmann was recalled to
Georgetown University and six months before Bishop John Connolly, O.P., arrived
to assume leadership of the diocese to which he had been appointed in October
1814. Among the many tasks facing the new bishop was the shortage of priests
for the quickly growing diocese, which originally included all of New York
State and northern New Jersey. Father Michael O’Gorman, an Irish immigrant, was
the first priest to be ordained in the Diocese of New York.
Throughout this year, we will give and
introduce significant events and eras in our Church’s history.
Let us pray for the Archdiocese and its
people.
Jesus vivat,
Fr. Brian