St. Lambert Parish Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord December 17, 2017 Third Sunday of Advent Rectory: 8148 N Karlov Avenue Skokie, IL 60076 Phone: (847) 673-5090 E-mail: [email protected]St. Lambert Parish - Skokie, IL Website: www.StLambert.org Sunday Masses: (5 pm Sat) 8am, 10am, 12pm Weekday Masses: 7:15 am (Mon-Fri) 8am on Saturday Pastor: Rev. Richard Simon Rev. Know-it-all: reverendknow-it-all.blogspot.com Deacon: Mr. Chick O’Leary Music Director: Mr. Steven Folkers Office Staff: Debbie Morales-Garcia [email protected]Mr. George Mohrlein Religious Education : Gina Roxas [email protected]To Register as a Parishioner: Go to stlambert.org under “About Us” or by phone. Weddings: Arrangements must be made 6 months in advance. Baptisms: Third Sundays of the month at 1:30 pm. Baptismal Prep Class is the first Tuesday of each month at 7pm in room 103. For guidelines and to register email Debbie. Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-17
Transcript
St. Lambert Parish
Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord December 17, 2017
Third Sunday of Advent
Rectory: 8148 N Karlov Avenue Skokie, IL 60076 Phone: (847) 673-5090 E-mail: [email protected] St. Lambert Parish - Skokie, IL Website: www.StLambert.org Sunday Masses: (5 pm Sat) 8am, 10am, 12pm Weekday Masses: 7:15 am (Mon-Fri) 8am on Saturday
Pastor: Rev. Richard Simon Rev. Know-it-all: reverendknow-it-all.blogspot.com Deacon: Mr. Chick O’Leary Music Director: Mr. Steven Folkers Office Staff: Debbie Morales-Garcia [email protected] Mr. George Mohrlein
Religious Education : Gina Roxas [email protected] To Register as a Parishioner: Go to stlambert.org under “About Us” or by phone. Weddings: Arrangements must be made 6 months in advance. Baptisms: Third Sundays of the month at 1:30 pm. Baptismal Prep Class is the first Tuesday of each month at 7pm in room 103. For guidelines and to register email Debbie.
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-17
Page 2 St. Lambert Parish Third Sunday of Advent
Winning raffle booklet numbers are put back in the hopper. Giving you more opportunities to win
Masses for the Week READINGS FOR THE WEEK Monday: Jer 23:5-8; Ps 72:1-2, 12- 13, 18-19; Mt 1:18-25 Tuesday: Jgs 13:2-7, 24-25a; Ps 71:3-4a, 5-6ab, 16-17; Lk 1:5-25 Wednesday: Is 7:10-14; Ps 24:1-4ab, 5-6; Lk 1:26- 38 Thursday: Sg 2:8-14 or Zep 3:14-18a; Ps 33:2-3, 11-12, 20-21; Lk 1:39-45 Friday: 1 Sm 1:24-28; 1 Sm 2:1, 4-8abcd; Lk 1:46-56 Saturday: Mal 3:1-4, 23-24; Ps 25:4-5ab, 8-10, 14; Lk 1:57-66 Sunday: 2 Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16; Ps 89:2-5, 27, 29; Rom 16:25-27; Lk 1:26-38
Date (2017) Amount Book # Name
Sunday, Dec 10th $ 100.00 3519 Millar, Isabelle Monday, Dec 11th $ 50.00 3502 Sanchez, Denise
Tuesday, Dec 12th $ 50.00 3128 So, Jasmin
Wednesday, Dec 13th $ 50.00 3211 FFOS
Thursday, Dec 14th $ 50.00 2442 Madsen, Madeleine
Friday, Dec 15th $ 50.00 2518 Almonte, Jaime E.
Saturday, Dec 16th $ 50.00 2385 Syfu, Joselito L.
Our next Coffee Hour on December 24th will be a
coffee only event .
December 17, 2017 Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord Page 3
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, In 1223, just two years before his death, Saint Francis of Assisi set up a living crèche, a replica of the manger in Bethlehem at the birth of Jesus. He preached and prayed before the scene. His biographer, Thomas of Celano, says that in that moment Francis was “overwhelmed with love and filled with wonderful happiness.” His contemplation of Jesus, the Word made flesh, drew him to experience the depth of God’s love. We live in a troubled world beset by wars, violence, injustice, broken relationships, and illness. Beyond that, we do believe and are convinced that God loves us and walks with us in Jesus, his Son. As we know, God will heal us and our broken world and bring us into the fullness of life. It is my hope that when you pray before the mystery of the Incarnate Word, as Saint Francis prayed, you will be renewed in hope and confidence and be “overwhelmed with love and filled with wonderful happiness.” May God bless you with a renewal of faith, hope, and love as we celebrate the birth of the Lord. Sincerely yours in Christ,
ARCHBISHOP OF CHICAGO
Christmas 2017 Cardinal's leer to the Faithful
Archdiocese of Chicago
For More Information please
contact St. Athanasius
Parish in Evanston at
847-328-1430 ext. 100
Or email the parish office at
parishoffice@ saintasparish.org
The registration
deadline for this tour is January 9, 2018.
Dear Rev. Know it All, A non-Catholic friend of mine told me that Peter doesn’t mean rock. It means more like a chip off the old block and that Jesus didn’t ever intend to start the papacy and that the papacy started in 325 with the takeover of the Church by the emperor Constantine. Is he right? Yours sincerely, Roland Stone Dear Roland, Your friend’s scholarship is about as deep as a puddle. First of all, the papacy certainly goes back to the first century of the faith. Allow me to quote St. Irenaeus of Lyon: Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; we do this, I say, by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere. (Against heresies Vol.3 Chapter 3 sec 2)
Irenaeus wrote these words around 180AD. He had some pretty good credentials. He was the
Greek bishop of a Roman city in southern France. He was born during the first half of the 2nd century AD, perhaps as early as 115 and was a native of St. Polycarp's church in Smyrna in Asia Minor. He had been raised as a Christian at a time when there were very few cradle Catholics. St. Polycarp had been a student of St. John and Irenaeus had been a student of St Polycarp. You can’t get a better early Christian pedigree than that. Irenaeus states that the Church of Rome was the preeminent Church of Christianity a full two hundred years before Constantine. So much for the myth of Constantine making the bishop of Rome the Pope. I suspect that Constantine would much rather have had the bishop of his new capital as the leader of the Church. The bishop of Constantinople wasn’t even considered a patriarch of the church until 400 years after Christ.
The Council of Nicaea in 325 convened by the Emperor Constantine, recognized the primacy of the Church of Rome, followed by the churches of Alexandria and Antioch. The church of Constantinople was considered unimportant and certainly didn’t go back to the first days of Christianity. The Council of Chalcedon in 451AD recognized the diocese of Constantinople as “second in eminence and power to the Bishop of Rome”. This recognition certainly miffed the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria. Why? There had been only three churches which considered St. Peter their founder, and thus had Peter’s supervisory authority, Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. Antioch had been established as a church by St. Peter, Alexandria traced its origins back to St. Mark, the delegate of St. Peter but Rome was preeminent because both Peter and Paul had been its founders and St. Peter had been martyred and buried there. These lists of succession and such things as relics were quite important to the first Christians, no matter how we think of them. As to the Peter/Rock business, why would the first Christians make such a fuss about three cities, no less and no more, as having apostolic authority unless they could trace their ordination back to St. Peter? They
The Reverend Know-it-all “What I don’t know… I can always make up!”
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were founded on Simon Bar Jonah, Peter the Rock. But I’m sure that your friend knows better than the first Christians. As for this bit about Peter not meaning rock, it’s nonsense. The fuss is made because in Greek the world rock is “petra”. Some languages, like ancient Greek, have gender, number and case. English words generally only have number. A rock in English is neither feminine nor masculine. This doesn’t work in ancient Greek. In order to know who you are talking about in Greek and for that matter Latin you have to use a masculine ending to refer to a man. Generally “-a” is a feminine ending in Greek and Latin. The common ending for a male is “-os” in Greek and “-us” in Latin. For Jesus to say that Simon Bar Jonah’s new name was “petra” would be like saying “Thou art Wilhelmina...” William would be the more appropriate name for a man. It would avoid confusion, at least back then it would. To make His point clear that He was giving Simon Bar Jonah a new title as well as a new name, the translators of Jesus’ words would have had to stick a masculine ending on a feminine word. That's how Greek and Latin work. However, the more important point here is that JESUS WASN’T SPEAKING GREEK OR LATIN!!! He was speaking Aramaic. Aramaic doesn’t have the gender problem that Greek does. Jesus called Simon bar Jonah “Kepha”. This title is repeated 19 times in the New Testament, so clearly it was noteworthy to the first Christians. In addition, St. Paul uses just the word Kepha eight times. When St. Paul wants to make a point, he uses the very word that Jesus used in Aramaic when talking about Simon bar Jonah. He is in effect conceding the title to St. Peter. We can dispute what “petra” or “petros” or “kepha” mean, but the importance of the title and the importance of St. Peter to the first Christians are indisputable. He clearly appears as the leader of the apostolic band. More significant is the passage in which Jesus says that will give the keys of the kingdom to Simon bar
Jonah who will control access to the court of heaven. The Davidic monarch had an officer called the ‘al bayit, literally the “house supervisor”. It was a continuous hereditary office and the keys of the house of David were its symbol. The first Christians perceived that Jesus was founding an institution that would have legitimate authority as prefigured in the Davidic royal court. People who try to redefine the words are simply trying to avoid the fact to which the first Christians and the Scriptures clearly attest: Jesus established a visible institution with legitimate authority. That authority is limited to issues of faith and moral, but it is authority nonetheless. Remember what St. Irenaeus said about “those of perverse opinion who wish to assemble in unauthorized meetings”. The history of the papacy is a catalogue of saints and sinners, of the strong and the weak. Its history reflects the life of its first incumbent who at one time Jesus called the rock and at another time called Satan. (Matt. 16:23) Despite their weakness and human frailty, and even sinfulness, the popes have been a stabilizing force in the unfolding of Christianity, despite the quibbles of those who think themselves more infallible than a pope. Yours, the Rev. Know it all
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December 17, 2017 Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord Page 5
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Page 6 St. Lambert Parish Third Sunday of Advent
Michelle Martin
You’ve got mail December 7, 2017
I’ve always loved the readings for the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8, especially the Gospel, the scene from Luke where Gabriel tells Mary that she is going to bear the Son of God.
The church must like it too, since we get to hear it twice this year. It will make a return appearance on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, which also falls on Christmas Eve.
God is keeping his angels busy in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, sending one to Zechariah to announce the impending birth of John the Baptist, and sending Gabriel to Mary.
The evangelist doesn’t say precisely what these messengers from God looked like, but we can surmise that they were, at the very least, disquieting, as they had to tell both Zechariah and Mary not to be afraid. Not like, say, a vulnerable little baby laying in a manger.
Maybe their appearance was so awe-inspiring that it made it easier for the recipients to accept the awesomeness, in the original sense of the word, of their messsage.
Or maybe that was just the way things were in Palestine 2,000 years ago. How else would the Lord have communicated, in a time when a letter could be sent no faster than it could travel on horseback, and that only for the most privileged few?
Now there are all kinds of ways to communicate across vast distances. Radio waves, which travel at the speed of light, can circle the globe seven times in a second. Electric impulses of course are much
slower, but still people can text and video chat and talk on the phone and email, 24 hours a day. My children don’t remember a time when it was rare for people to place international calls because it was so expensive; now, if calling costs too much, Skype is free.
The changes in technology have come so fast that it’s easy to forget how different it is now, even for children. Now, when kids’ friends move across the country, or they go to camp with kids from other states, they don’t always disappear. They show up in Instagram likes and comments, as PlayStation or Xbox video game opponents, and yes, on Twitter and even Facebook.
This year, my mother asked what I wanted for Christmas via a “Words with Friends” game message.
So if the Incarnation were to happen today, how would God tell people about it?
Would Zechariah get a text from an unknown number? Would Mary get an instant message? For that matter, instead of angels in the sky above Bethlehem, would there be a meme? Would it go viral?
The salvation story — the message that God loved us so much that he sent his Son to die to save us — that’s been the greatest viral message of all time, and it’s one that started when getting the word out was something that took years, not seconds.
How God sends the message, though, is only half the story. The other half, the half that falls on us, is how we receive it.
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December 17, 2017 Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord Page 7
