Saint Joseph Parish:
$1,201.00 from the Sunday envelopes; $53.00 from the second collection (plate); $85.00 from the Dues envelopes; $20.00 from the Fuel envelopes; $35.00 from the Easter flowers envelopes; $15.00 from the Building Maintenance envelopes; $86.00 from the loose. Total: $1,495.00
Included in these totals is the money from the collection taken up at the 10:00 am AOH Mass on Saturday morning.
Receipts for non-parish purposes: - $347.00 from the Rice Bowl envelopes
Analysis: When one deducts from the total of the receipts for parish purposes ($1,495.00) our weekly financial obligation to the Diocese, i.e. assessments ($290.08), plus our weekly premium for property and casualty insurance ($444.49), plus our weekly subsidy to Trinity Academy ($358.17), the sum total of which is $1,092.74, one sees that $402.26 is available from this collection for operating the parish.


Saint Vincent DePaul Parish:
Receipts for parish purposes: $1,118.00 from the Sunday envelopes; $64.00 from the second collection (plate); $5.00 from the Dues envelopes; $40.00 from the Easter flowers envelopes; $25.00 from the Building Maintenance envelopes; $50.00 from the loose.
Total: $1,302.00.
Receipts for non-parish purposes: - $181.00 from the Rice Bowl envelopes
Analysis: When one deducts from the total of the receipts for parish purposes ($1,302.00) our weekly financial obligation to the Diocese, i.e. assessments ($183.92), plus our weekly premium for property and casualty insurance ($267.81), plus our weekly subsidy to Trinity Academy ($250.98), the sum total of which is $702.71, one sees that $599.29 is available from this collection for operating the parish.

All of the celebrations of the Divine Mercy Novena this week will include Exposition and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. See the schedule on page 07 of this bulletin.

CORRECTIONS
#01 - On page 02 of last weekend's bulletin, I put the wrong date for the Collection Totals. I typed 27/28 March. I should have typed 20 /21 March. The figures were correct, but the date was wrong. Sorry!

#02 - On page 08 of last weekend's bulletin, I thanked the Holy Rosary Society for providing the refreshments for the social gathering after the Palm Sunday Stations. I forgot to thank the Holy Name Society. So, for the archives, let it be noted that: (a) the women of the Holy Rosary Society prepared and served the food and drink; (b) the men of the Holy Name Society paid for the food and drink. Yours truly is in big trouble with the Holy Name Society. I hope this correction saves me from being expelled from that assembly. I sure wouldn't like to have it on my resume that I was tossed out of the Holy Name Society!

This reminds me somewhat of when I was growing up in Philadelphia. I always used to say to my mother: "Thanks for supper, Mom!" I don't think I ever in my whole life said to my father: "Thanks for supper, Dad!" But, now that I come to think of it, it was my father who went out every day to work to earn the money for the food that Mom put on the table. When I see my father in Heaven, I'll have to remember to say to him: "Oh, by the way, thanks for all those suppers, Dad!"
It's a woman's world!

15 March 2010
I see someone from Tuscarora is unhappy with many Catholics because they are agreeing with Dr. DiNicola. I guess I am a fall-away Catholic, or better yet, a recovering Catholic. I have totally lost my faith in the Catholic Church, but I will never lose my faith in God. There is a major difference.

Ringtown

My comment
Dear Ringtown:
You call yourself "a fall-away Catholic". I think you meant to say "fallen-away Catholic". Be that as it may, I urge you, now that you have fallen away, to pick yourself up and fall back in. If you remain in your "fallen away condition", you are aligning yourself with the antichrist - and you are toast!. Read 1 John 2,18-19 to see what the Holy Spirit has to say about those who leave the Church.
Believe me, friend: If you have totally lost your faith in the Catholic Church, you have totally lost your faith in Jesus. If you have totally lost your faith in Jesus, you have totally lost your faith in God. If this is not apparent to you, it is apparent to me.
Check out these words of Jesus addressed to His Church: "He who hears you, hears Me. He who rejects you, rejects Me. And he who rejects Me, rejects Him who sent Me." (Luke 10,16) I suggest you return to the Father's house, lest you die of wretchedness and hunger.

25 March 2010
I'm calling in regard to St. Patrick Church. I went to daily Mass there and was in dismay when I found the Mass was being celebrated in the basement chapel. First of all, the beautiful altar is upstairs. On top of this, I felt like a sardine because I could not find a seat and there were so many people. The solution is simple. When there are that many people going to Mass, have it in the church. I want the priest to know that was the last time I will go to St. Pat for Mass; but who knows, maybe they are trying to turn people away.

Pottsville

My comment
Dear Pottsville:
You say that you "felt like a sardine" because you "could not find a seat". I am well acquainted with sardines, having opened quite a few cans of them in my life (delicious!) and I have never seen a sardine seated. But I jest!
Allow me to get serious. (From here on, I'm serious!)
Please commit the following list to memory: Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Mildness, Faith, Long-Suffering, Modesty, Continence, Chastity. These are the fruits of the Holy Spirit. These are virtues that characterize persons who live according to God's Holy Spirit. I trust that you manifest Modesty, Continence and Chastity in your life. If you do, God bless you! But three out of twelve is not excellent. I suggest that you strive to manifest the other nine. On the basis of your words in Thunder / Enlightning, quoted above, I would have to say that you flunk out on Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Mildness, Faith and Long Suffering.
Why do you not thank God that you have access to daily Mass? Why are you not grateful to live in proximity to such a fine parish as St. Patrick's? Why do you not appreciate having two holy and dedicated priests (Msgr. O'Connor and Fr. Kiefer) available to serve your spiritual needs? Why do you not give the pastor credit for wanting to save a few dollars by not heating the upstairs church unnecessarily? Do you have any idea how expensive it is to heat such a high-ceiling space? Why are you such a whiner? Why are you so petulant? Why do you not realize that our fathers chained in prisons dark might have experienced some occasional discomfort? Why do you not reflect on the fact that the Mass is the memorial of the Lord's self-sacrificing death and, in so reflecting, try to put your ego to death? Why are you such an unpleasant person? Why do you feel the need to be so hostile to Holy Mother Church in a public forum? Why do you feel the childish need to "punish" St. Patrick's by not going there anymore?

29 March 2010
This is in reply to Jean Joyce's letter of March 15: She asked, "Where did all the money go that was being collected for repairs to St. George Church?" All the money that was collected for maintenance and energy went to Allentown to pay for Father Flanagan's monsignorship. Don't Catholics know this by now? No money, no title. Look around and see how many priests are serving for years and are not monsignors. They refuse to pay the price.

Shenandoah

My comment
Dear Shenandoah:
Can you produce one scintilla of evidence that "all the money that was collected for maintenance and energy went to Allentown to pay for Father Flanagan's monsignorship"? No! Of course you can't! So, why do you make such a stupid and outrageous statement? Where I come from, that is called "libel". But you are safe from a libel suit because you take advantage of an anonymous forum. Father Flanagan's elevation to the rank of Monsignor was well deserved. He is a hard-working, intelligent and loyal priest, well-respected by his peers, including yours truly. The purple trim on his cassock can be interpreted as a kind of Purple Heart, awarded him in recognition of wounds incurred in the line of duty in Shenandoah. Good health and long life to him!

FIRST HOLY COMMUNION CHILDREN
Fr. Connolly will meet with the children who are preparing to receive First Holy Communion (Sunday, 23 May) on the following dates:

We will meet from 04:00 to 05:00 pm in St. Vincent dePaul Rectory.
These meetings are for ALL of the First Holy Communion children, whether they attend Trinity Academy or CCD.
Faithful attendance at these meetings is important and is obligatory

MANY THANKS to the persons who volunteered their time and energy in order to give a pre-Easter cleaning to St. Vincent dePaul Church and St. Joseph Church.
May the Lord (who appreciates a nice, clean church) reward you for your kindness!

THE PASSION: FACTS, FICTIONS and FAITH
This is the title of a "special" on Fox this weekend. I have set my DVR to record it. However, even without yet having watched it, I can confidently warn people against it. I am not saying that you should not watch it. On the other hand, I am not saying that you should watch it. As they say: "It's a free country! If you want to watch it, that's your business!"
But, if you do watch it, please - for God's sake - watch it with the realization that it is not an honest attempt to present the truth, but it is an attempt to destroy your faith.
I have seen enough TV specials on the subject of the life of Jesus to know ahead of time that it is the intention of the producers to twist and distort the truth.
I understand that John Dominic Crossan will be one of the presenters. Whenever you see J.D. Crossan's face on a TV screen, please know ahead of time that you are about to be subjected to a man who hates the Catholic Church. He is an ex-priest. He has some scholarly credentials. He is also a heretic who has long since excommunicated himself from the Church. He is the kind of person Pope Pius X was referring to (prophetically) when he wrote the following:

But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greater sway over the soul to blind it and plunge it into error, and pride sits in Modernism as in its own house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and an occasion to flaunt itself in all its aspects. It is pride which fills Modernists with that confidence in themselves and leads them to hold themselves up as the rule for all, pride which puffs them up with that vainglory which allows them to regard themselves as the sole possessors of knowledge, and makes them say, inflated with presumption, We are not as the rest of men, and which, to make them really not as other men, leads them to embrace all kinds of the most absurd novelties; it is pride which rouses in them the spirit of disobedience and causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty; it is pride that makes of them the reformers of others, while they forget to reform themselves, and which begets their absolute want of respect for authority, not excepting the supreme authority. No, truly, there is no road which leads so directly and so quickly to Modernism as pride. When a Catholic layman or a priest forgets that precept of the Christian life which obliges us to renounce ourselves if we would follow Jesus Christ and neglects to tear pride from his heart, ah! but he is a fully ripe subject for the errors of Modernism.

Excerpt from Paragraph #40
Pascendi Dominici Gregis

John Dominic Crossan (and a slew of others) are Modernists. Modernists do not really believe in anything higher or greater than themselves. Modernists reject the very thought that there is a mind greater than the human mind. Modernists do not do us the favor of departing completely and entirely from the use of Christian terminology. They know that, if they were to do so, we would recognize them instantly as enemies of the Faith. So, they dance around the subject and occasionally say things that make us think that they are our brothers and sisters in the Faith. For example, Crossan will say that he believes in the resurrection but does not believe in the empty tomb. Make a note of this: Anyone who denies the PHYSICAL resurrection of Jesus denies the resurrection of Jesus.
John Dominic Crossan and his ilk find a welcome among Catholics who are wise in their own conceits.