Saint Joseph Parish: $1,248.00 from the Sunday envelopes; $87.85 from the second collection (plate); $359.00 from the Dues envelopes; $185.00 from the Block envelopes; $66.00 from the loose. Thank you.

Saint Vincent DePaul Parish: $1,043.00 from the Sunday envelopes; $54.10 from the second collection (plate); $30.00 from the Fuel envelopes; $313.00 from the Building Maintenance envelopes; $59.96 from the loose. Thank you.

THANK YOU, TJ!: Timothy J. Smith is a young man of St. Joseph Parish who did some good work recently in the church. He helped his grandpop (a distinguished gentleman whose name slips my mind at the present time) with a delicate and somewhat dangerous bit of repair work. You may have noticed scaffolding in St. Joseph Church recently. It was put up in order for TJ and his grandpop to do some surgery on the aneurysms (my terminology) that started to show themselves in the fabric that is pasted onto the ceilings. Moisture trapped between the ceiling and the fabric caused the fabric to bulge. The bulges needed to be "broken" and the material re-affixed with a super-strong adhesive. If not taken care of promptly, the material would have started to peel and fall down and then we would have had major problems. Thank you to TJ and his grandpop for a good job of preventive maintenance.

GEE, I DIDN'T KNOW THAT! I have a friend who studies Latin as a kind of hobby. He is the only one of my friends who sends me emails written in Latin. (You probably think I am referring to a priest. No, I'm not. Believe it or not, he is a married man with a bunch of kids.) A few days ago, he asked me how I would write or say "Ashland" in Latin. "That's not too hard to figure out" I said. "TERRA" is "land" and "CINERUM" is "of ashes". "So" I said " I guess it would be 'TERRA CINERUM'". He told me that that was not correct. He said it would be "TERRA FRAXINOSA". I didn't know the word "FRAXINOSA", so I asked him what it meant. He said it meant "pertaining to the ash tree". The Latin word for "ash tree" is "FRAXINUS". Then he explained that the "ash" in the name of the borough of Ashland does not refer to "ash" in the sense of "cinder", but to "ash" in the sense of "ash tree" because the town was named after Henry Clay's hometown of Ashland, Kentucky, which (I guess) is known for its ash trees. If you are a "north of the mountain" native, you probably already knew all that. However, since I am a recent arrival to "north of the mountain", it was news to me! Now, whenever I go to Ashland, I shall think of trees, not cinders. That's a more pleasant image!

JOSEPH C. CHIARETTI,
a member of St. Vincent dePaul Parish, died on Saturday, 4 October. Born on 5 February 1921, Joseph was 87 years of age.
He is a son of the late Leo and Jane (Wood) Chiaretti. He has one brother, John Chiaretti, and one sister, Jane Chiaretti Wayne, both of whom are deceased.
Joseph is survived by his wife, Alice (Walukonis) Chiaretti, to whom he had been married for almost 55 years.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated for Joseph at St. Vincent dePaul Church on Thursday, 9 October. The interment took place at the Indiantown Gap National Cemetery.

Eternal rest grant unto Joseph, O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

If I remember my American history correctly, it was Benjamin Franklin who said to the delegates at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1776 these famous words: "Gentlemen, we had all better hang together or else we shall all hang separately."
In other words, we had better surrender our provincialism and stop our infighting. We had better stop thinking of ourselves as New Yorkers and Virginians and Pennsylvanians and South Carolinians etc., etc. and start thinking of ourselves as Americans or else, most assuredly, we shall all find ourselves hanging from King George's tree. It's all about UNITY FOR THE SAKE OF A COMMON AGREED-UPON OBJECTIVE.
With this as my analogy, let me be perfectly blunt with you, my dear Catholic flock of Girardville: It is my devout hope that Girardville will survive the great testing that is coming. It can survive only if we swallow our pride for the common good.
We are not Josephites!
We are not Vincentians!
We are Catholics!!!
Second to being Catholics, we are Catholics of the Girardville tribe.
If we insist on being Josephites or Vincentians above being Girardvillians, we shall indeed all perish. We must hang together. Is there anyone out there who doesn't know what I'm talking about? If so, please let me know and I'll explain it all to you in tedious detail.

A LETTER FROM THE BISHOP

Dear friends in Christ,

Each of us at Baptism is given a special responsibility. We are called by our Lord to tell the world the "Good News" of His love and salvation. We are to be His missionaries.

Each year on World Mission Sunday, all baptized Catholics gather for Mass - in small chapels, as well as in large cathedrals around the globe - to celebrate our missionary vocation and to offer prayers and sacrifices for the missionary task.

Our celebration this year on October 19th takes an added significance as the Church here at home marks the 100th anniversary of our "mission independence." In 1908, a papal decree removed the designation "mission territory" from the United States. Up until that time, we were the beneficiaries of the generosity of the Catholics of Europe through the Society of the Propagation of the Faith.

Today, more that 1,150 young churches in Asia, Africa, the Pacific Islands and Latin America have these same needs. As we remember our own mission history this World Mission Sunday, we can offer our prayers and financial help for the young and growing churches of the Missions today. Your generosity through the Propagation of the Faith will reach those who await the "Good News" of Jesus, who long to experience His hope and love.

Please be as generous as your means will allow this World Mission Sunday. And let us pray, in the words of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, that our celebration encourage everyone toward a renewed awareness of the urgent need to proclaim the Gospel.

Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Edward P. Cullen, D.D.
Bishop of Allentown

JOSEPH V. SHEMONIS,
a member of St. Joseph Parish, died on Sunday, 5 October. Born on 15 April 1921, Joseph was 87 years of age.
He is a son of the late Joseph and Josephine Shemonis. He has two sisters, both of whom are deceased: Evelyn Shemonis O'Neill and Leona Shemonis Perneta.
Joseph was the husband of Theresa Corigliano Shemonis, who died in 1986.
Joseph has one daughter and one son: Rita Shemonis Romanot and Michael Shemonis.
He has five grandchildren: Susan Romanot; Gary Romanot; Nicole Koenig; Nova Koenig; Noel Koenig.
A service was held for Joseph at the McDonald Funeral Home on Friday, 10 October. The interment took place at the St. Joseph Parish Cemetery, Fountain Springs.

Eternal rest grant unto Joseph, O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

LEOPOLDINE M. YURENKA,
a member of St. Joseph Parish, died on Tuesday, 7 October.
Born on 12 September 1904, "Poldie" was 104 years of age! Perhaps it is a belaboring of the obvious to note that Mrs. Yurenka was the oldest member of our parish. Her passing is the end of an era.
Born in Vienna, Austria, she was a daughter of the late Martin and Juliana Rizikia. She is the last member of her immediate family.
She was married to Louis Yurenka, who is deceased.
Louis and Poldie had one child - their son, Walter, who was married to Argia Panaccio Yurenka. Walter is deceased. Argia is Poldie's next of kin.
The Mass of Christian Burial for Poldie was celebrated in St. Joseph Church on Friday, 10 October. The interment took place in the St. Joseph Parish Cemetery, Fountain Springs.
Both the day of Poldie's birth and the day of her death are Marian days. We observe the Holy Name of Mary on 12 September and Our Lady of the Rosary on 7 October.
Poldie was a devout Catholic woman. We have no doubt that the Holy Mother was close to her all during her life and in the hour of her death.

Eternal rest grant unto Poldie, O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

WE SHARE THE MAIL
I received the following email this past Monday (6 Oct). With the permission of the sender, I re-print it here in its entirety. For prudential reasons, I withhold the name of the writer.

From: xxxxxx@xxxxxx.net
Sent: Monday, 06 October, 2008 12:06 AM
To: Rev. Edward B. Connolly
Subject: Bishop Martino

Father,
Thank you for putting the letter from Bishop Martino in the bulletin. After reading it, I began to cry because I really needed to see those words. After a meeting at work on Thursday, I was questioned by several co-workers who I was going to vote for. I hesitated and then said I was voting Republican. Well, I opened a can of worms. I got screamed at from some of the people and they were complaining about getting four years of the same thing etc. My face was getting red and I was ready to explode. These are people that need to like me, but I did not care. I said, well my simple reason for voting Republican is because of the abortion issue. They laughed and I felt like I was in a room with Satan. One girl said, "don't you think it is a woman's right to choose? She has free will? It is their choice. I said, yes, she has free will, but I am not contributing to the fact that I think it is right for her to choose to kill. I would be admitting it is ok. Then I got the whole economy issue. I said, I go with my gut instinct, not my pocket book. They got up and left me, except for one young man who came over to me and said that he respected my opinion on why I was voting Republican. He said I am the first he has heard to say that was their reason. I told him that is very sad.

I then had to end a friendship with a friend of twenty years today because she continually slanders the Catholic Church making up excuses for voting for Obama. She is one of those "I'm-Catholic-but" Catholics. I know it is wrong for me to end a friendship, but I told her I cannot listen to satanic talk anymore. I get home from teaching CCD and right away I get to converse with a person who started telling me not to believe everything the Catholic Church tells me. I am going to send her a copy of the letter from Bishop Martino.

Respectfully,
XXXXXX

 To:        Parents, Children and CCD teachers of St. Joseph Parish, Girardville, and St. Vincent dePaul               Parish, Girardville - plus all Anglophone Catholics everywhere!
From:     Fr. Connolly
Re:        The Act of Contrition

Many years ago, when God was in His heaven and all was right with the world, English-speaking Catholic boys and girls all learned the same formula for the Act of Contrition. It was and is an excellent formula.
One reason: It has a certain universal appeal, inasmuch as it is a translation of the classic Latin Actus Contritionis, which has been translated into many different vernaculars.
Another reason: It includes expressions of both perfect contrition and imperfect contrition.
A third reason: It includes good resolution for the future, together with awareness of the need for divine help in order to succeed in carrying out the good resolution.
In brief: It is a concise and intelligent prayer, well suited for taking into adult life.
Unfortunately, some persons can't leave well enough alone and always have to re-invent the wheel. So, the catechetical industry came up with new - but distinctly unimproved - formularies for the Act of Contrition. The rationale was that children don't understand the classic Act of Contrition. We tend to underestimate children. All I know is that my classmates and I at Most Precious Blood School in Philadelphia understood it when we were five and six years old. I don't think we were any smarter than the kids in Girardville in 2008. So, I want every child in CCD in our two Girardville parishes to memorize the Act of Contrition as printed on this paper and I respectfully suggest that all of our adults go over and have it committed to memory, if they haven't already done so.