Saturday, 05 July
Vigil of Sunday
4:30 p.m. - VINCENT and MARY (DiCello) LUPPINO
by their family

Sunday, 06 July
14th Sunday of Ordinary Time
7:45 a.m. - LIVING and DECEASED MEMBERS: SCIARRONE FAMILY
by Joseph C. Sciarrone
10:45 a.m. - MARGARET HANLON OTTERSON
by Joseph T. Cescon and family

Monday, 07 July
Weekday
12:05 p.m. - MARY LASCALA TROILO (anniversary of birth)
by her daughters, Tina and Liz

Tuesday, 08 July
Weekday
12:05 p.m. - ROSALIE YANNI GENNERELLA
by her husband, Bruno
7:00 p.m. - LIVING and DECEASED MEMBERS: MAZZUCA FAMILY
by Julia Civitarese Mazzuca

Wednesday, 09 July
St. Augustine Zhao Rong, priest, martyr, and companions
12:05 p.m. - JOSEPH A. PALKO and JOANNE PALKO BACH
by their wife / mother, Carmella

Thursday, 10 July
Weekday
12:05 p.m. - Health and God's Blessings on KATHERINE OLER PICCIONI
by Julia, Marie and Rose
7:00 p.m. - FOR A DECEASED PERSON (VMF)
by Vincent and Darla Fabiani

Friday, 11 July
St. Benedict, abbot (OblMem)
12:05 p.m. - DECEASED MEMBERS OF MERCURI FAMILIES
by Chris / Teresa and John / Maria

Saturday, 12 July
Weekday
8:00 a.m. - God' Blessings on LISA WHITNEY GALLAGHER
by her family

Vigil of Sunday
4:30 p.m. - ANTHONY J. LUPPINO
by his sons and his grandchildren

Sunday, 13 July
15th Sunday of Ordinary Time
7:45 a.m. - LOUIS and MARY TROILO
by Tina and Liz
10:45 a.m. - PARISHIONERS: StJosPar / StFdSPar
by EBC

Saint Joseph Parish
$1,171.00 from the envelopes and $110.00 from the plate. Thank you.
When one deducts from the sum of these two figures, $1,281.00 the parish's weekly financial obligation to the Diocese, i.e. assessments, $410.08 plus the weekly premiums for property and liability insurance, $160.01, the sum of which is $570.09, plus its weekly obligation to All Saints School, $941.06 the sum total of which is $1,511.15, one sees that ($230.15) of this collection is available for operating the parish. This is a deficit!

Saint Francis deSales Parish
$199.00 from the envelopes and $51.55 from the plate. Thank you.
When one deducts from the sum of these two figures, $250.55 the parish's weekly financial obligation to the Diocese, i.e. assessments, $46.15 plus the weekly premiums for property and liability insurance, $60.67, the sum of which is $106.82, plus its weekly obligation to All Saints School, $188.21, the sum total of which is $295.03, one sees that ($44.48) of this collection is available for operating the parish.This is a deficit!

THE SANCTUARY LAMP is offered, during the week of 06 - 12 June, in loving memory of Rosalie Yanni Gennerella, at the request of her husband, Bruno.

OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN!
Father KENNETH A. MEDVE has served honorably and well as assistant* pastor of St. Patrick Parish. Now he has been told, "Friend, come up higher!" He leaves our neighborhood in order to become pastor of the newly re-structured parish in Lansford. Our gratitude goes out to him for his good work and good influence. May God bless and protect him in his new job. Lansford is about to become lansfortunate.
(Feel free to change "assistant" to "associate" if you tilt to the left.)

SAINT JOSEPH PARISH WOMEN'S GUILD will meet on Wednesday, 9 July, at 7:00 p.m. in the Parish Hall. Please try to be there!

CHANGE OF ADDRESS
Drew Weidner welcomes letters from his friends in St. Joseph Parish. Here is his current address. (It has changed since the last time we put his address into the bulletin.)

We anticipate that there will be one or two more changes. If you want to be kept up to date with his addresses, you can contact Lisa or else you can call me.

PENULTIMATE
That's a fancy word for "next to the last". I learned that word in college and try to use it at least once a year in order to impress my friends and confound my enemies. With that in mind, let me point out to everyone that this is the PENULTIMATE WEEKEND for St. Joseph Parish and St. Francis deSales Parish. Hard to believe! Is this for real or is it just a bad dream?

Please allow me to provide evidence for claiming that His Excellency the Terminator - I mean the Governor - is a Girly Man. It would help if we knew the following facts:
Quite recently, the people of California overwhelmingly (61.4%) rejected a ballot initiative (Proposition 22) that would have legalized same-sex marriage and made it part of the statutory law of California.
However, the Supreme Court of California recently overthrew the manifest wishes of the majority of the citizens of California by declaring that a ban on same-sex marriage violated the state Constitution!
The effect of this ruling was to make same-sex marriage legal in California.
Now there is a move to amend the constitution of the State of California so as to prohibit same-sex marriage.
This move requires that the proposed amendment be placed on the ballot.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger - a Catholic - recently came out against the proposed amendment and in favor of the legalization of same-sex marriage.
With the above facts in mind, please read the following excerpt from an Associated Press article that appeared in newspapers on 30 June 08.

In a taped interview Sunday morning on NBC's "Meet the Press", Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called the measure "a waste of time". "I personally believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman" Schwarzenegger said, "but at the same time I think that my, you know, belief, I don't want to force on anyone else."

WE SHARE THE MAIL
Note: The writer of this email is Thomas J. Nash. Tom is an exceedingly bright (and humble) young man who works for EWTN as a "theological consultant" (or something like that). A few times he has been a guest at St. Joseph Rectory. Recently his sister, Mary, died. She was 42 years old and had Down's Syndrome. Tom notified his friends via email about Mary's death. I think it is well worth sharing - for more reasons than one. It is a thoroughly Catholic letter.

Dear Friends in Christ:
It is with sadness in my heart that I report that my little sister Mary died early this morning, after a lifelong struggle with health problems.
For those of you in the Detroit / Ann Arbor area, the wake will be at Muehlig Funeral Chapel
I won't have easy access to email over the next several days, so please check with Muehlig for more details on the wake and funeral. The funeral will be at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Ann Arbor later this week. I'll be traveling home from Alabama tonight or tomorrow morning. Also, re: any calls to me on my cellphone, my anytime minutes are after 6 p.m., although simply your prayers are greatly appreciated at this time.)
Mary was born with Down's Syndrome on Feb. 24, 1966, the youngest member of our family. She was the youngest both of eight children here on earth and twelve overall, including Catherine (third overall, who died shortly after birth), and three other siblings who died via miscarriage.
Oftentimes these days, too many people do not pray for the faithful departed, assuming that they are in heaven. In Mary's case, she at most could have committed only venial sins, so we have great confidence she is with the Lord. Yet, we nevertheless commend her prayerfully to the Lord in thanksgiving for the witness she has been to so many.
Doctors told my parents not to expect Mary to leave the hospital after she was born in February 1966, given her heart and lung problems. But with God's grace, our family's love, and Mary's tenacity, she persevered. She was on oxygen overnight since a seizure in 1989 and 24-7 since 1995. And yet she continued to witness to us amidst her infirmities. She loved the Lord and exemplified his love to us. And I am profoundly grateful to God that we could talk one more time yesterday and exchange "I love you's." She was joyful in our interaction, despite her increased health problems of the last week.
I ask for your prayers for my extended family and friends, that this may be a time that we all grow closer to the Lord. We mourn Mary's passing, while grateful that her suffering is over. And, most of all, we look forward to the Great Reunion in heaven.Thank you and God bless you.

In Christ,
Tom

St. Teresa of Avila

AS IF WE DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH INSANITY TO COPE WITH!
Q - Can you conceive of any situation that would require the commissioning of teenage Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion in a particular diocese, especially a rural one? I thought maybe a Catholic high school setting but surely there would be enough adults to do the job if needed.

Peggy Staley
Iowa

A - No, I can't - and for numerous reasons.
First of all, introducing youngsters to that "ministry" sets up a false notion of what the lay vocation is all about. Vatican II and Christifideles Laici make the point that the lay role is, for the most part, to be found in the world, not within the Church and certainly not normally within the sanctuary.
At the Catholic high school Mass, all the pastors of the students should be invited to every full student-body Mass - and they should make attendance at such Masses a pastoral priority. Therefore, no unordained people would be distributing Holy Communion, period.
My biggest objection to having teenagers serve in this role, though, comes from twenty years' experience in the high school apostolate. Very few teens today live what we might euphemistically call "integrated lives". By that I refer specifically to lapses or even life-styles which involve the use of drugs, sex and alcohol, along with rather spotty Sunday Mass attendance. Granted, the same can be true of adults, but more can be done to safeguard the situation where adults are concerned. One personal anecdote put me over the edge on this a number of years ago, and it has since been confirmed by other teenagers. A high school boy told me that he thought it was "weird" when the girl with whom he had sexual intercourse the night before gave him Communion on Sunday morning and even winked at him as she did so!
Some of this stuff you just can't make up.

Father Peter Stravinskas
The Catholic Response, July / August 2008, Page 39

My comment: It would be an act of extraordinary pastoral irresponsibility, bordering on sacrilege, to appoint teenagers as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion. Thank God this is not allowed in the Diocese of Allentown, to the best of my knowledge!

Please note:
We depend on the BAA Office in Allentown for updates. We do not receive this information with maximum promptness. It is quite possible that your name is not on this list, even though it should be. If that be so, please let us know.

A FEW THINGS ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD

The final weekday Mass at St. Francis deSales Parish will be the 10:00 a.m. Mass on Wednesday, 9 July.
The final weekday Mass - i.e. the final Mass - at St. Joseph Church will be the 12:05 p.m. Mass on Monday, 14 July.
The final weekend Mass - i.e. the final Mass - at St. Francis deSales Church will be the 12:15 p.m. Mass on Sunday, 13 July.
The final weekend Mass at St. Joseph Church will be the 10:45 a.m. Mass on Sunday, 13 July.
The final act of liturgical worship for parishioners of both parishes will be held in St. Joseph Church on Monday, 14 July. There will be Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament at 6:00 p.m., followed by a Holy Hour. It will conclude at about 7:00 p.m. with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
The final social gathering for all parishioners of both parishes will be in St. Joseph Parish Hall immediately after the 14 July Holy Hour mentioned above.