Gallup Catholic Community

KC: Memorial Day Mass

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 22:28:17 +0000

May 31, 2010
9:30 am

The Knights of Columbus will be having a mass on Memorial Day, May 31st, at 9:30 AM, at the Grotto of the Blessed Mother in the Hillcrest Cemetery. All are welcome to attend.

SHC: FROM THE PASTOR – May 23rd

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 22:24:14 +0000

I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY SPIRIT … “Through his grace, the Holy Spirit is the first to awaken faith in us and to communicate to us the new life, which is to ‘know the Father and the one whom he has sent, Jesus Christ’ (Jn.17.3). But the Spirit is the last of the persons of the Holy Trinity to be revealed. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, the Theologian, explains this progression in terms of the pedagogy of divine ‘condescension’:

The Old Testament proclaimed the Father clearly, but the Son more obscurely. The New Testament revealed the Son and gave us a glimpse of the divinity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit dwells among us and grants us a clearer vision of himself. It was not prudent, when the divinity of the Father had not yet been confessed, to proclaim the Son openly and, when the divinity of the Son was not yet admitted, to add the Holy Spirit as an extra burden, to speak somewhat daringly … By advancing and progressing ‘from glory to glory,’ the light of the Trinity will shine in ever more brilliant rays.’ [St. Gregory Nazianzus, +390, Doctor of the Church]. [Catechism of the Catholic Church, #684]

+ + +

‘No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God’ (1Cor 2.11). Now God’s Spirit, who reveals God, makes known to us Christ, his Word, his living Utterance, but the Spirit does not speak of himself. The Spirit who ‘has spoken through the Prophets’ makes us hear the Father’s Word, but we do not hear the Spirit himself. We know him only in the movement by which he reveals the Word to us and disposes us to welcome him in faith. The Spirit of truth who ‘unveils’ Christ to us ‘will not speak on his own’ (Jn. 16.13). … [Catechism of the Catholic Church, #687]

+ + +

The Church, a communion living in the faith of the apostles which she transmits, is the place where we know the Holy Spirit:

In the Scriptures he inspired;
In the Tradition, to which the Church Fathers are always timely witnesses;
In the Church’s Magisterium [Teaching Authority], which he assists;
In the sacramental liturgy, through its words and symbols, in which the Holy Spirit puts us into communion with Christ;
In prayer, wherein he intercedes for us;
In the charisms and ministries by which the Church is built up;
In the signs of apostolic and missionary life;
In the witness of saints through whom he manifests his holiness and continues the work of salvation. [Catechism of the Catholic Church. #688]

+ + +

The mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit is brought to completion in the Church, which is the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. This joint mission henceforth brings Christ’s faithful to share in his communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit prepares men and women and goes out to them with his grace, in order to draw them to Christ. The Spirit manifests the risen Lord to them, recalls his words to them and opens their minds to the understanding of his Death and Resurrection. He makes present the mystery of Christ, supremely in the Eucharist, in order to reconcile them, tobring them into communion with God, that they may ‘bear much fruit’ (Jn. 15.8, 16). [Catechism of the Catholic Church, #737]

Thus the Church’s mission is not an addition to that of Christ and the Holy Spirit, but is its sacrament: in her whole being and in all her members, the Church is sent to announce, bear witness, make present and spread the mystery of the communion of the Holy Trinity …” [Catechism of the Catholic Church, #738]

SHC: FROM THE PASTOR – May 16, 2010

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 22:25:10 +0000

“RITES OF PASSAGE” … Probably more than at any other moment in our lives, other than the day of Marriage or Ordination, Graduation marks a “rite of passage” for each of us. It entails many elements, many emotions. It is both an end and a beginning; a time of laughter and of tears, of joy and of sadness. It is a time of anticipation and a time of hesitation. It is a happy time and a scary time! Most of all, I think, it is a time of promise and hope.

Graduation crystallizes a clearly defined change in our lives. In the simple act of receiving one piece of paper – a diploma – we know that we are being recognized and applauded for the accomplishments of at least twelve years of effort successfully completed. We also know deep down that we need to begin to “put away the things of a child,” and to begin to take on the responsibilities of an adult man or woman. To be honored for past achievements is cause for joy and satisfaction. To face the challenges of an unknown future, which will certainly bring great changes, is cause for reflection, and maybe just a little bit of fear!

The mixture of realities and emotions affects not only those who are graduating. It touches also their parents, their siblings and families, their teachers and their friends, as well as their parish family. All of us are united in our hopes for these young graduates, and in wishing them the very best as they begin a new phase in their lives. We pray that they will make good decisions for themselves and that they will succeed in whatever good endeavor they set their mind to. We pray especially that they will continue to grow into fine, mature men and women who will be a credit to their families and to all who have worked with them over the years to help them arrive at this point in their lives.

This human experience of a life changing event is paralleled in the feasts we celebrate today and next Sunday. Today we observe the Solemnity of Our Lord’s Ascension into heaven – his return in glory to the Father from whom he came. His personal mission on this earth was complete. His life, his death and his resurrection had fulfilled the age-old promise of deliverance and salvation made by God to the people of Israel. For three years he had lived and labored with his chosen followers, the apostles. He had taught them the things of God. Most of all he had showed them the love of the Father and his merciful forgiveness. The time had now come for him to leave his followers, and to leave to them the task of perpetuating the work of salvation in every age and to every people.

This was certainly a time of transition in the lives of Jesus’ disciples! The apostles could not see into the future any more than we can. They had little idea of what was in store for them. What they did know through unshakeable faith was that this Jesus was the Messiah, and the Son of God and that he had risen! They also knew that he had chosen and called each of them to give witness to this faith before all the world – a daunting task, to say the least! They also relied on the Lord’s promise that he would not abandon them, “would not leave them orphans.” And so, after Jesus’ Ascension … they waited for the Lord to make the next move!

Theology on Tap 7!

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:55:17 +0000

May 18, 2010
6:00 pm	to	10:00 pm

Theology on Tap is a great opportunity for anyone (21 and over) to meet in a relaxed setting to discuss Catholicism and Theology. Enjoy a beer and enjoy great discussions. Atheist? Catholic? Protestant? All are welcome! Enjoy a drink, good company, and great discussion. This is the good life!

This month, we are privileged to have Jim Burnham, noted apologetics author, in as our guest speaker. Mr. Burnham will be fielding questions and criticisms regarding Catholic Doctrines from local protestant churches. Please come and enjoy this great event!

This event will take place at the Knights of Columbus Hall (200 Apache Circle, next to the Pepsi Plant)on May 18th, 2010, at 8 PM. There is road construction going on, so please come in the back entrance to our property at the end of Strong Dr, behind the hall. Also, please help us spread the word!

SHC: NOTES FROM THE PASTOR (May 9, 2010):

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 22:06:12 +0000

“THE DECISION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT” . . . The First Reading for this Sixth Sunday of Easter comes from the New Testament, from the Acts of the Apostles. It speaks of the first great internal crisis faced by the nascent Church, and of how that crisis was resolved by the Apostles. The issue concerned whether or not one first has to become a Jew before he/she could be baptized. All of the first followers of Jesus were Jewish, and all of the men who followed him, including the Apostles, had been circumcised – as prescribed by the Law of Moses. Some of the Jewish Christians were insisting that before a man who was a Gentile (i.e., not a Jew) could be baptized, he would first have to be circumcised. Both male and female Gentiles would have to promise to follow all of the precepts of the Mosaic Law. In other words, before a Gentile could become a Christian, he/she first had to become a Jew.

Paul and Barnabas, along with the Gentile Christians, asserted that the only thing required for baptism (and for salvation) was a living faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Messiah. It was not necessary for a Gentile to follow the Law of Moses in all its details in order to become a Christian. This controversy simmered within Church communities for several years, and became more and more divisive. Finally, it was decided to refer the matter to the Apostles themselves for resolution. After hearing arguments on both sides of the matter and after much discussion among themselves, the Apostles determined that it was not necessary for a man to be circumcised, nor to observe all the strictures of Mosaic Law, in order to be a Christian, although certain fundamental prohibitions should be followed. In the words of the Apostles themselves, …

“It is the decision of the Holy Spirit,

and ours too,

not to lay on you any burden beyond that which is strictly necessary,

namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood,

from the meat of strangled animals, and from illicit sexual union.

You will be well advised to avoid these things. Farewell.”

[Acts 15.28-29]

This key meeting of the Apostles was in fact the very first Council of the Church, the so-called “Council of Jerusalem.” It is noteworthy that the language used by the Apostles to convey their decision clearly shows that they understood that their decision was that of the Holy Spirit himself! They were convinced that it was God himself who was speaking through them!

There have been only twenty “Ecumenical Councils” in the two-thousand year history of the Church. The last was the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), which took place in Rome, from 1962-1965. In each of these assemblies, that original apostolic conviction that it is God himself who speaks through the Magisterium (the Teaching Authority given by Christ to his Church) has been fundamental. That Magisterium comprises the Bishop of Rome (the successor of the Apostle Peter and the Vicar of Christ) and the bishops of the world in communion with him (the successors of the Apostles). The most solemn expression of the Magisterium occurs when the bishops of the world gather with the Bishop of Rome in a Church Council – just as the Apostles gathered with Peter in Jerusalem in the earliest days of the Church, and just as some three thousand bishops from around the world gathered with Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI at the Second Vatican Council in the mid-twentieth century. All of this is in fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to his Apostles given in today’s Gospel:

“… the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit

Whom the Father will send in my name,

Will instruct you in everything,

And remind you of all that I told you …”

[Jn. 14.26]

SHC: FROM THE PASTOR (May 2, 2010):

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 22:02:16 +0000

May, The Month of Mary – It is fitting that each year we celebrate A civic holiday in the month of May, the month of Mary. Mary has much to teach us about the true meaning of motherhood, and about its crucial importance in the eyes of God.

The most exalted vocation ever given by God to any human being was the one given to Mary, and that vocation was to motherhood. In God’s gracious and mysterious plan, after all had been prepared – after all the patriarchs, judges, prophets, priests, kings and lawgivers of Israel had come and gone – the key moment of salvation rested with one woman’s assent to the call to motherhood. At the time she conceived, Mary did not understand the full meaning or the implications of God’s plan. What person ever does? Even though she did not understand perfectly God’s intentions, she resolved to accept his will for her and to live out that holy will day by day, year by year. She was the all-loving mother to her all-loving Son.

Mary was – and remains – the jewel of God’s creation. She was – and remains – the perfect flower of his human enterprise. In spite of this, she endured all the pains, heartaches, worries and suffering that attend any mother. She had to flee from the slaughter of Herod shortly after the birth of her Son. She endured the panic of a lost child for three days. She watched as her Son began his earthly ministry, and felt the rejection, ridicule and hatred to which he was subjected. She witnessed the agony of his passion and stood at the deathbed of the cross. She suffered the excruciating torment of burying her only child.

Jesus himself, at the climax of his self-sacrifice to the Father, was concerned for his mother and for his followers. He gave his mother to the Church and the Church to his mother, in the person of John the Apostle. He thus rendered perpetual the motherhood of Mary. She is not only the Mother of Jesus who is the Son of God, she is – by the deliberate act of her Son at the moment of his death – the mother of the Church. She is our mother. As she was with her Son at his birth into the world, so she was with the Church at its birth on Calvary and at Pentecost. As she was with her Son through his whole earthly life, so she remains with the Church through the centuries of its earthly life. As she was assumed in the fullness of her humanity – body and soul – to be forever with Christ in the glory of heaven, so she awaits the day when all of us shall be with her and with her Son forever in the fullness of our humanity.

SHC: FROM THE PASTOR (April 25, 2010):

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 22:00:30 +0000

“Beginning with the Easter Triduum as its source of light, the new age of the Resurrection fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance. Gradually, on either side of this source, the year is transfigured by the liturgy. It really is a ‘year of the Lord’s favor.’ The economy of salvation is at work within the framework of time, but since its fulfillment in the Passover of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the culmination of history is anticipated ‘as a foretaste,’ and the kingdom of God enters into our time.”

“Therefore Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the ‘Feast of feasts,’ the ‘Solemnity of solemnities,’ just as the Eucharist is the ‘Sacrament of sacraments’ (the Great Sacrament). St. Athanasius calls Easter ‘The Great Sunday’ and the Eastern Churches call Holy Week ‘The Great Week.’ The mystery of the Resurrection, in which Christ crushed death, permeates with its powerful energy our old time, until all is subjected to him.”

“By a tradition handed down from the apostles which took its origin from the very day of Christ’s Resurrection, the Church celebrates the Paschal mystery every seventh day, which day is appropriately called the Lord’s Day or Sunday.’ The day of Christ’s Resurrection is both the first day of the week, the memorial of the first day of creation, and the “eighth day,” on which Christ after his “rest” on the great Sabbath inaugurates the “day that the Lord has made,” the “day that knows no evening.” The Lord’s Supper is its center, for there the whole community of the faithful encounters the risen Lord who invites them to his banquet.”

(Catechism of the Catholic Church #1168, #1169 and #1166)

SHC: Notes from the Pastor (April 18, 2010):

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:59:21 +0000

DELAYED RECOGNITION … One of the curious details running through so many of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances is the initial failure of people who knew him intimately during his earthy life to recognize him after he rose from the dead. At the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene does not recognize him at first. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus spend hours walking and talking with him without knowing whom they are encountering, until they finally recognize him in “… the breaking of the bread.” The Gospel for this Third Sunday of Easter tells us: “… When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus …” How can this be? Why wouldn’t these people who knew and loved Jesus have recognized him immediately? Were they just a bunch of “dumb bunnies?”

There is yet another detail that works its way, less subtly, though these accounts: the apostles at first do not even believe the good news that Jesus is truly risen! “After all,” they might well have reasoned, “if the Master has really risen from the dead, would he not have come first to us, his chosen twelve? Why would he reveal himself first to ‘just’ the women?” A little later, Thomas refuses to believe the testimony of even his fellow apostles until the Lord himself provides the graphic proof he stubbornly demanded! What are we to make of all this? Why is the joy of the greatest good news that humanity could possibly hear – that death itself had been overcome – to be clouded by hesitation, doubt and outright denial?

The detail of initial disbelief really provides us the key to understanding why Jesus is not immediately recognized by those who were so close to him. It is not the “eye of the body” (human common sense) that first comprehends the risen Lord, but rather the “eye of the soul” (Faith). Why? The answer is simple. The reality of Jesus’ resurrection is just too wonderful to be embraced by mere human understanding. It is, literally, “Mind-blowing!” This is true of all the mysteries of our Faith, not just the resurrection.

In trying to respond to the resurrection of Jesus Christ by using just our ordinary human resources, we are left addled and befuddled! Those first disciples, in other words, were not “dumb bunnies,” but they were dumbfounded! Because they could not understand, they doubted … they hesitated … they denied. That comes down to saying that they were human – just like us! The drama of the Easter season is to watch the personal and spiritual transformation of these all too ordinary human beings (the apostles) as the power and love of the Risen Lord embraces them and changes them. The real drama of the Easter season is to experience in our own minds and hearts that same powerful love embracing and changing us!

THE EASTER MYSTERY, AT ITS DEEPEST LEVEL, IS MEANT FOR US

TO BRING INTO OUR OWN HEARTS AND TO LIVE

SHC: Parish Mission

admin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:44:35 +0000

March 7, 2010

March 10, 2010

Sacred Heart Cathedral would like to invite all the faithful of the Diocese of Gallup to our Parish Mission.
March 7th – 10th. Bishop James S. Wall will be our Mission Presenter. His Theme is: “Love, Hope and Truth in the Teaching of Pope Benedict XVI.”

Bishop Wall will speak at all the weekend Masses to begin his Mission than the First Conference will begin Sunday March 7th at 7:00 p.m. in the Cathedral.
He will speak at 7:00 p.m. each evening of Monday-Wednesday. He will also be celebrating Mass at 8:00 a.m. each weekday Monday, 8th-Wednesday 10th and will then present a synopsis of the previous night’s teaching in the lounge of the Family Center. A simple continental breakfast will be served. On the last day of the Mission Wednesday, March 10th, we will continue with our tradition of a “Potluck Dessert” social following that evenings presentation. On the last night, we will also be taking up a “love offering” for the St. John Vianney House of Discernment for priestly vocations.

Everyone is welcome! What a blessing to have our own Bishop James S. Wall as presenter at this years Lenten Mission.

SJV: Lenten Stations of Cross and Archbishop Fulton J Sheen Talks

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:38:49 +0000

February 19, 2010
6:00 pm
February 26, 2010
6:00 pm
6:00 pm
March 5, 2010
6:00 pm
March 12, 2010
6:00 pm
March 19, 2010
6:00 pm

During Lent. Stations of the Cross will be held at St John Vianney Parish, on Fridays beginning
February 19,2010 at 6 pm. After the Stations, there will be a special
Lenten Series featuring Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in 30 – minute Video in the Hall.
Hot Chocolate and hot cider will be served during a brief discussion after
the video.