Chalice, Stole, and Rosary Program

As published in this week’s bulletin, May 18, 2008
We invite families and individuals to sign up for our Chalice, Stole, and Rosary Program.  These items and a book of prayers will be traveling throughout the parish households.  By signing up you are committing to pray for vocations in the Church for one week.  These items symbolize the need for priests, sisters, deacons, nuns, monks and brothers to fully dedicate their lives to the ministry of Christ.  These items are presented at the Sunday Mass you attend, and you return them the following Friday.  Together, our prayer can make a difference!  Sign-ups will be after Mass, in front of the church this week, and in the office at other times. - Fr. John

Hand In Hand

Prayer and Work… together, hand in hand.  Fr. David shared this at Mass yesterday and I share it with you… ‘Pray as if everything depended on God, work as if everything depended on you.’  In parallel, imagine being on a boat with a paddle on each side, one for ‘prayer’, one for ‘work’.  You need both to get somewhere.  Using only one would cause you to move, but only in circles, stuck on the same spot.  I read this illustration somewhere a long time ago.  I close with last night’s reading,

(James 2:14-24, 26)
What good is it, my brothers and sisters,
if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
Can that faith save him?
If a brother or sister has nothing to wear
and has no food for the day,
and one of you says to them,
“Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,”
but you do not give them the necessities of the body,
what good is it?
So also faith of itself,
if it does not have works, is dead.

Indeed someone might say,
“You have faith and I have works.”
Demonstrate your faith to me without works,
and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.
You believe that God is one.
You do well.
Even the demons believe that and tremble.
Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless?
Was not Abraham our father justified by works
when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?
You see that faith was active along with his works,
and faith was completed by the works.
Thus the Scripture was fulfilled that says,
Abraham believed God,
and it was credited to him as righteousness,
and he was called the friend of God.
See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
For just as a body without a spirit is dead,
so also faith without works is dead.