Pastor’s Message: Memorial Day 2022

Dear Beloved Parishioners,

It has been a while since I have last written.  I kept pasting little bits into my template for when I finally get around to sharing. It was a much longer interval than I would have thought.  So, this missive might be called “Of Many Things….”

—

So, another graduation in the books.  Thanks to our teachers and staff for a great job as we have created another class of alums here at St. Justin. Aside from the rains which prevented the traditional class picture underneath the big elm tree opposite the church on the upper parking lot – we were back to pre-pandemic ‘normal’ for a graduation.  A lovely closing liturgy and handing out of ‘certificates of completion’, a nice dinner with slide show in our wonderfully decorated cafegymatorium, followed by dancing the night away, replete with a ‘candy bar’ to sate the sweet tooth among our grads. 

Well done, and congrats to the class of 2022.

—–

Thanks to all for their contributions to the ACA.  We have now met both our regular goal and our challenge goal, thanks to the increased generosity of our givers.  What we have not reached is our percentage of participation goal.  Fewer folks have contributed more to put is where we are.  So, even if you are not going to pledge, or only pledge $5, could you please return your signed pledge card to the rectory ASAP. 

Thanks for doing your part and our parish part in being “brothers and sisters all…”

  Here is the report.

REPORT DETAIL

2022 Published Goal                            $99,015

Challenge Goal                                     $141,761

New Donor Goal                                   52

Total to Date                                         $142,175

Total Parishioners                                855

Returned to Date                                  237

# New Donors                                       17

# Increased Contributions                   79

           Net Increase                               $28,749

# Maintained Contributions                 103

# Decreased Contributions                  26

          Net Decrease                               $-2,865

Signed Refusal Cards Returned          12

Pledges Percent                                   26%

Prior Year Pledges Percent                  41%

Cards Returned Percent                       28%

Matching Gift Cards Returned             3

Matching Gift Total                               $1,150

—–

Our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Program is expanding. 

Currently we have been offering “Level One” training to our pre-school through 1^st grade students. We are moving toward opening ‘level two’ teaching – 1^st through 3^rd grade students.  (Technically, level one is for pre-school through kindergarten, but since we did not have the space nor anyone trained for this, we ‘added’ the first graders to our level one classes.)  A few things will have to happen for that to come to be.  We are reclaiming those side rooms in the gym which stored overflow items from school so we could have our “pandemic 6 feet of space between students’ in the classroom.  Mrs. Barnes will receive her level two training over the summer. 

And here is where YOU come in.  We will need some items to help create our ‘atrium’ for Level 2.  If you happen to have any of these items, or have questions about what we need, please contact Mrs. Kathalynas at 314-635-2499 (office phone) or email at kathalynas@stjustinmartyr.org

• (8 count)- Book Shelves—wood or metal (no more than 4ft tall)
• (2 count)- Floor lamps
• (2 count)- area rugs (round and square size- dimensions like 8x10ft)
• (6-8 count)—serving trays with handles – wooden, silver, or nice plastic material
• (1 count)- small mirror to hang on the wall
• Portraits of Mary with baby Jesus and Last Supper
• Small little wooden altar for young children
• (2-4 count) Small crystal or stoneware pitchers (such as little coffee creamers)
• Mini chalice and paten for Eucharistic presentations
• Small stained glass window cling
• Angel Gabriel small statue

—–

THE DEEPER DIVE into the Sunday Scripture

A Reflection for the Ascension of the Lord (by Fr. Terrence Klein, sj)

We have all been new people at some time, in some place. At a school, a job, a community, even a family. It is a challenge because we lack the resources and familiarity that will later allow us to feel in place. At such a time, if we had a choice about being there, we could easily second guess our decision to come.

Because I was interested in the priesthood, I attended a Catholic boarding school. About two weeks after my departure, my parents received a postcard from me. My mother saved it; I came across it many years later. It said only this, “Dear Dad and Mom, you must come Saturday. Don’t bring Penny or Harold (my siblings). Just come!” My poor mother! She had cried all the way home and now this.

What produced the ominous postcard? The first friend I had made in this new place, another freshman boarder, had just departed for home. I remember sitting next to him on a bench in the locker room as he explained that he had a heart condition and that if he stayed, he would die. A bit melodramatic, but that was that. The first seed I had planted in this new patch of life had up and blown away!

If you can feel empathy for me, you can surely do the same for the disciples, who had gathered round their risen Lord. They asked, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).

Do not allow two millennia of Christian history to obscure how reasonable their expectation was. To recap their rollercoaster of delight and dread: Their joy turned to terror when the man they had thought was the messiah was murdered. Still deep in that sorrow, they were then delighted to learn that he had triumphed, not only over his enemies but over death itself.

When they are ready to share the sweet mercy of his messiahship, dread returns as our Lord introduces an apparent delay. He tells them that he is sending them away, “to the ends of the earth.”

“It is not for you to know the times or seasons
that the Father has established by his own authority.
But you will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you,
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
throughout Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth.”
When he had said this, as they were looking on,
he was lifted up,
and a cloud took him from their sight (Acts 1:7-9).

No kingdom, neither relief nor satisfaction! No, before he is lifted, as if by a breeze, our Lord tosses them to the winds. What a way to begin being “new people.”

Their personal anguish may be lost to history, but we still share their disappointment. We ask, what is this? A promise, an apparent fulfillment and then, “Off you go, to share my destiny of suffering and of death.”

When they first encountered the Lord Jesus, the disciples did not know his measure, but they certainly knew that they were not living in the kingdom of God on earth. In time they came to trust his teaching, and, more importantly, his very person. Both had been buried deep in the earth with his death. With his resurrection, both rose fresh and fragrant in their hearts.

Now, with only the promise of a kingdom, dangled and withdrawn, they will preach and plant the kingdom of God upon earth. They will do this because he has sown this kingdom in their souls.

We never knew their deep distress, nor have we gained their complete conviction. We want to be new people in a new place, but it seems so much simpler to return to what is worn and weary.

The Lord did not withhold his kingdom from his first disciples, nor does he keep it from us. Our redeemer stands ready to receive us at its ever-secure ramparts. Yet following him into its fullness is not a question of drifting with him into the clouds.

No, first we must go where he has gone. In the words of the hymn,

Christ by a road before untrod
Ascends unto the throne of God.

That road was more than Christ entering heaven. It began when he first entered our humanity, set himself onto our path. The redeemer came from God, took on the flesh and lived his life, and then, in the resurrection, carried the human person he had become into heaven itself.

Before we can know the fullness of his kingdom, we must complete ourselves. Like our Lord, we must tread the road we call life. Replete with blessings, it is nonetheless beset by storms and troubles. Before we reach the bastion of heaven, we must all pass through the water, the trench that surrounds and secures it. There is nothing for it, save to swim through suffering and death itself.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since through the blood of Jesus
we have confidence of entrance into the sanctuary
by the new and living way he opened for us through the veil,
that is, his flesh,
and since we have “a great priest over the house of God,”
let us approach with a sincere heart and in absolute trust,
with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience
and our bodies washed in pure water.
Let us hold unwaveringly to our confession that gives us hope,
for he who made the promise is trustworthy (Heb 10:19-22).

My parents did not come the Saturday that followed my postcard. They had wisely called the Capuchin priests who had me in their care. One of them went to their home and strengthened them. Another did the same for me.

We have all been new people at some time, in some place. There is nothing for it but a long walk and frightening swim. But whether walking or paddling towards the ramparts of heaven, we are never alone.

—–

I will never….  

Another parishioner called letting me know that she was nearly ‘taken’ by another person purporting to be me.  It was the usual “I am in a meeting but need you to get me credit cards as gifts…” scam.  Though I am grateful that people want to help, please know that I WILL NEVER, EVER, EVER ask you to do something like that, via text or email.  Never. 

It was a good thing that she was having trouble with the technical side of providing the gift cards and had to call her family for help, otherwise she would have been out $700. (which should be your first clue – I never spend that much money on my family’s gifts…) They recognized it immediately for what it was… 

In the meantime, I am so sorry that I apparently am such a popular target for scammers…  So, please, though I know you want to help me, and it warms my heart that you do, trust that I will never ask you to do my ‘gift buying’ for family/faculty/staff, etc…   

—–

6 mattresses looking for a new home…

   Room at the Inn, a social justice outreach of the Archdiocese, changed its model of operation during the pandemic.  No longer do they send their clients to a different site each night.  As a result, we are now looking to ‘re-purpose’ six mattresses that we would have thrown on the floor of our maker space as the sleeping quarters of the residents in the program once a month. (the first six found a new home with two families who were graduating the program and starting their own permanent housing.) Though they might not function well as your main sleeping bed, they are quite functional for a cabin in the woods or the farm out in the country. 

Here is a picture of the mattress and the tag as to what the mattress is made of.   

If interested – contact Fr. Bill at your earliest convenience.  A free will offering can be made, but it is not necessary…

—–

An ACTION ALERT from the USCCB

https://www.votervoice.net/USCCB/Campaigns/95200/Respond

blessings, fr. bill