Bulletin June 26-July 15, 2016

SOLEMNITY OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL

Today we honor Saints Peter and Paul, two great apostles and two great heroes of our faith. We know, however, that they were very human heroes. Their limitations are spelled out for us in the Scriptures. We all know Peter’s shortcomings from the Gospels. We know Paul’s limitations from his own letters. That very human dimension of their personalities makes them very attractive models for us. It is very hard for us to identify with saints who are portrayed as perfect. We can all recognize something of Peter and Paul in ourselves.

Our Gospel reading recounts Peter’s great profession of faith and the special office that Jesus gives him to be the rock or center of the Church. It becomes clear that something much larger than a personal commission to Peter is being enacted. Since Peter will eventually be put to death, the Lord is speaking of His Church for all time. Jesus is establishing an office that will endure beyond Peter and whose purpose is to affirm and be the touchstone of the apostolic faith. This moment is important because it shows that the place of Peter and his successors in the Church was not a position that they assumed on their own but one they were given by the Lord.

If Peter was to be the rock of apostolic faith, Paul was to be the great missionary who would bring that faith to the world he knew. Paul seemed to have had a “roving commission” to establish churches throughout the Mediterranean and he gave expression to the apostolic faith in categories and words that non-Jewish people could understand. In the letters to the Colossians and Ephesians we see Peter’s confession of faith expressed in a way that  people in a non-Palestinian culture could understand.

St. Paul represents the local bishops who must bring the Gospel to people of different cultures and deal with problems and challenges that are very individual. The Church lives by the interaction between Peter who represents our roots and Paul who manifests our reach. Peter stands for our unity and Paul for our universality. The last century has seen emphasis  on our universality or catholicity.

How universal are we? To be a universal Church is, on the one hand, to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth. The missionary work of the Church is never over. The Church is not a European phenomenon but was created by Christ to fill the world. Every place on earth is a place that the Church can call home. Every culture adds a new and gracious branch to the growing tree of the Church. No two branches are identical yet they all draw life from the same roots and are part of the same tree.

The question of the universality of the Church, on the other hand, is about much more than the geographical spread of the Church. It raises the question of how inclusive we are. Can the Church be home for people who are poor, unconventional, inquiring, intellectual, divorced, criminals or weak of faith? Is the church only for people “like us” or is the Church called to be a model of the Kingdom that will gather all people within her? In a divided world, the Church can be a vivid sign of God’s universal salvation, the mystery that St. Paul remarked was hidden to Israel and only made known in Jesus Christ. We need Peter and we need Paul.

 IDC Meeting

The next IDC (In Defense of Christians) meeting will be held on Wednesday July 27th at 7pm. The location of the meeting will be announced in the next bulletin.

 Coffee Hour

There will be no coffee hour on Sunday July 3rd due to the Holiday weekend. Coffee hour will resume after 10 am liturgy on Sunday July 10th.

2016 Festival

The next festival meeting will be Thursday July 28th at 7pm in the Lebanon room. The festival is a parish event and St. Raymond’s only fundraiser to help support the complex for the year. Many hands do make the work load lighter and it takes a lot of time and preparation for this event.  More help would be greatly appreciated even if it’s only a few hours of your time.

Let’s show a strong parish effort to make this event a success!

 Sub-Deacon’s Corner

A group of visitors from a nearby Roman Catholic parish ask you about the difference between the Maronite Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Here is some information that you can use to answer the inquiry.

The Maronite Rite firstly observe the authority of the Maronite Patriarch assuming the station between the Pope and the Maronite clergy.  Traditionally the Maronite Rite has been in union with the Apostolic Roman See as one of the churches established by Saint Peter ministries.  Once the Church of Jerusalem fell in 70 AD, the Church of Antioch, from whence St. Maron (Maronites are “those of St. Maron”) began his teachings, became the mother of the Catholic Church.  Similarly as the Church of Rome, the Church of Antioch were began by St. Peter. Maronites observe and follow most of the rules from Vatican I and II. Although the Maronite Church observes the Holy See in Rome, the liturgical calendar and celebrations are very different.

First Liturgical calendar  of the Maronite Rite is broken into six seasons:

1. The season of Glorious Epiphany                                                                             

2. The season of Great Lent                                                                

3. The  season of Glorious Resurrection

4. The season of Glorious Pentecost
5. The season of the Holy Cross                 
 6. The season of the Glorious Birth of Our Lord                           

The Latin Rite celebrates the liturgical year into six seasons:

1. Epiphany                                    3. Easter                                              5. Advent

2. Lent                                             4. Pentecost                                        6. Christmas

The Maronite liturgical calendar does not have the season of Advent as we look differently at preparing for the arrival of our Lord. The Maronite Rite considers Lent a journey of hope as we  await the resurrection. As well the Maronite Lent begins with Ash Monday, not Ash Wednesday.

If you have questions about Catholic teaching or our Maronite tradition, or would like to suggest a topic, please email us or tell us the next time we see you. Thank you and God Bless.

David Wahby (wahby@sbcglobal.net) and Tony Simon (asimon@simonlawpc.com)

Kitchen Scoop

The Kitchen will be CLOSED the week of the Fourth of July.

Rolling Cabbage Rolls Mondays @ 8am

Making Kibbi Aras Tuesdays @ 8am

Rolling Grape Leaves Tuesday July 5th at 9 am  and  Tuesday July 19th at 4:30pm.

We are in need of kitchen help because we are not only preparing for Wednesdays, but also beginning to prepare for the festival.

The kitchen is one of the main attractions to the festival and any amount of time you can volunteer will be greatly appreciated.

Bulletin June 26-July 15, 2016

SOLEMNITY OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL

Today we honor Saints Peter and Paul, two great apostles and two great heroes of our faith. We know, however, that they were very human heroes. Their limitations are spelled out for us in the Scriptures. We all know Peter’s shortcomings from the Gospels. We know Paul’s limitations from his own letters. That very human dimension of their personalities makes them very attractive models for us. It is very hard for us to identify with saints who are portrayed as perfect. We can all recognize something of Peter and Paul in ourselves.

Our Gospel reading recounts Peter’s great profession of faith and the special office that Jesus gives him to be the rock or center of the Church. It becomes clear that something much larger than a personal commission to Peter is being enacted. Since Peter will eventually be put to death, the Lord is speaking of His Church for all time. Jesus is establishing an office that will endure beyond Peter and whose purpose is to affirm and be the touchstone of the apostolic faith. This moment is important because it shows that the place of Peter and his successors in the Church was not a position that they assumed on their own but one they were given by the Lord.

If Peter was to be the rock of apostolic faith, Paul was to be the great missionary who would bring that faith to the world he knew. Paul seemed to have had a “roving commission” to establish churches throughout the Mediterranean and he gave expression to the apostolic faith in categories and words that non-Jewish people could understand. In the letters to the Colossians and Ephesians we see Peter’s confession of faith expressed in a way that  people in a non-Palestinian culture could understand.

St. Paul represents the local bishops who must bring the Gospel to people of different cultures and deal with problems and challenges that are very individual. The Church lives by the interaction between Peter who represents our roots and Paul who manifests our reach. Peter stands for our unity and Paul for our universality. The last century has seen emphasis  on our universality or catholicity.

How universal are we? To be a universal Church is, on the one hand, to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth. The missionary work of the Church is never over. The Church is not a European phenomenon but was created by Christ to fill the world. Every place on earth is a place that the Church can call home. Every culture adds a new and gracious branch to the growing tree of the Church. No two branches are identical yet they all draw life from the same roots and are part of the same tree.

The question of the universality of the Church, on the other hand, is about much more than the geographical spread of the Church. It raises the question of how inclusive we are. Can the Church be home for people who are poor, unconventional, inquiring, intellectual, divorced, criminals or weak of faith? Is the church only for people “like us” or is the Church called to be a model of the Kingdom that will gather all people within her? In a divided world, the Church can be a vivid sign of God’s universal salvation, the mystery that St. Paul remarked was hidden to Israel and only made known in Jesus Christ. We need Peter and we need Paul.

 IDC Meeting

The next IDC (In Defense of Christians) meeting will be held on Wednesday July 27th at 7pm. The location of the meeting will be announced in the next bulletin.

 Coffee Hour

There will be no coffee hour on Sunday July 3rd due to the Holiday weekend. Coffee hour will resume after 10 am liturgy on Sunday July 10th.

2016 Festival

The next festival meeting will be Thursday July 28th at 7pm in the Lebanon room. The festival is a parish event and St. Raymond’s only fundraiser to help support the complex for the year. Many hands do make the work load lighter and it takes a lot of time and preparation for this event.  More help would be greatly appreciated even if it’s only a few hours of your time.

Let’s show a strong parish effort to make this event a success!

 Sub-Deacon’s Corner

A group of visitors from a nearby Roman Catholic parish ask you about the difference between the Maronite Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Here is some information that you can use to answer the inquiry.

The Maronite Rite firstly observe the authority of the Maronite Patriarch assuming the station between the Pope and the Maronite clergy.  Traditionally the Maronite Rite has been in union with the Apostolic Roman See as one of the churches established by Saint Peter ministries.  Once the Church of Jerusalem fell in 70 AD, the Church of Antioch, from whence St. Maron (Maronites are “those of St. Maron”) began his teachings, became the mother of the Catholic Church.  Similarly as the Church of Rome, the Church of Antioch were began by St. Peter. Maronites observe and follow most of the rules from Vatican I and II. Although the Maronite Church observes the Holy See in Rome, the liturgical calendar and celebrations are very different.

First Liturgical calendar  of the Maronite Rite is broken into six seasons:

1. The season of Glorious Epiphany                                                                             

2. The season of Great Lent                                                                

3. The  season of Glorious Resurrection

4. The season of Glorious Pentecost
5. The season of the Holy Cross                 
 6. The season of the Glorious Birth of Our Lord                           

The Latin Rite celebrates the liturgical year into six seasons:

1. Epiphany                                    3. Easter                                              5. Advent

2. Lent                                             4. Pentecost                                        6. Christmas

The Maronite liturgical calendar does not have the season of Advent as we look differently at preparing for the arrival of our Lord. The Maronite Rite considers Lent a journey of hope as we  await the resurrection. As well the Maronite Lent begins with Ash Monday, not Ash Wednesday.

If you have questions about Catholic teaching or our Maronite tradition, or would like to suggest a topic, please email us or tell us the next time we see you. Thank you and God Bless.

David Wahby (wahby@sbcglobal.net) and Tony Simon (asimon@simonlawpc.com)

Kitchen Scoop

The Kitchen will be CLOSED the week of the Fourth of July.

Rolling Cabbage Rolls Mondays @ 8am

Making Kibbi Aras Tuesdays @ 8am

Rolling Grape Leaves Tuesday July 5th at 9 am  and  Tuesday July 19th at 4:30pm.

We are in need of kitchen help because we are not only preparing for Wednesdays, but also beginning to prepare for the festival.

The kitchen is one of the main attractions to the festival and any amount of time you can volunteer will be greatly appreciated.

Bulletin June 19-26, 2016

Sunday of the Sending of the Apostles

Matthew 10:16-25

In the passage of today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “ Remember, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves”. By   saying this, Jesus tries to warn his disciples in advance that the mission He is giving them will expose them to rejection, hostility and violence.

The teaching of the Gospel challenges the ways of the world. The Gospel challenges people to live not for themselves, but for God and others. It declares certain things to be immoral and challenges people to reform their lives. Some people fall away from God in times of suffering. They don’t understand how bad times can happen to good people. But Jesus never promised an easy life for his disciples in this world. He warns us that His followers would suffer persecution . Jesus says, “ No disciple is above his teacher, no slave above his master”. If Christ was persecuted, so also will his faithful followers. Christ promises to give them inner strength by the power of the Holy Spirit to remain faithful in spite of persecution.

The persecution of Christians is not just a thing of the past. It continues to our present time and will occur until the end of time. Throughout history the faith has been rejected and Christians have been exiled, imprisoned, tortured and killed because of their witness fro Christ. It continues to happen in the Middle East, parts of Africa and other various places around the world.

If we want to be faithful to Christ, we will also suffer some type of persecution. We need to learn to accept it without becoming discouraged by it. It is difficult, because we all want to be understood, appreciated and respected. Studying the history of the church and the lives of the saints help us to understand how the message of the Gospel can survive and even thrive in spite of persecution. The early Christian, recognized as Tertullian, wrote in the early third century, “ The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church”.

We need not be afraid of persecution. God will strengthen us. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus exhorts his disciples to pray. It is through prayer that the disciples would find the strength to be faithful to Christ despite persecution. But instead of praying, the disciples fell asleep. If we feed ourselves spiritually through prayer, spiritual reading, meditation and the sacraments, we will find the courage to endure persecution . We show our love and fidelity for Christ not only by loving Him in times of peace and success, but also by our faithfulness in times of trial, rejection and loss.

If we are faithful to Christ in persecution, we will experience the joy of life in the spirit. Jesus will speak to us in our hearts and give us this peace and joy , and ultimately bring us into His Kingdom in Heaven.

Happy Father’s Day

As we celebrate this Father’s Day on Sunday June 19th, we extend our love and prayers to all the fathers of the parish.

May the Lord God, through the intercession of St. Joseph, Patron of all families, bless you and sanctify your vocation and fatherhood and grant you health, peace and joy.

Be assured of our prayers for you.”As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on the  faithful.” Psalm 103

“When a man walks in integrity and justice, happy are his children after him” Proverbs 20:7

 

 

Sub-Deacon’s Corner

A group of visitors from a nearby Roman Catholic parish ask you about the difference between the Maronite Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Here is some information that you can use to answer the inquiry.

 

Historically, the origins of the Maronite Church are to be found amongst those monastic and lay people who gathered around the saintly hermit - Maron, an early 5th-century Syriac monk venerated as a saint. These Christians who accepted his way of life and worship were soon identified as "those of St Maron" - the Maronites.

The Maronites belong to the Antiochian Tradition of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The immediate head of the Maronite Church under the Pope of Rome is the Maronite Patriarch who bears the title of 'Patriarch of      Antioch and All the East'. The Maronite Church is the only Eastern Catholic Church that does not have an Eastern     Orthodox equivalent and the only Rite taking its name from a saint. The Maronites are one of 23 rites that make up the Universal Catholic Church and observes the papal authority of Rome. There is one Western (Latin) and were twenty-two (22) Eastern rites, the Maronite rite is one of the Eastern.

Western Rite

Western Tradition

Latin (or Roman)

Eastern Rite

Alexandrian Tradition                                 

Coptic Catholic Church

Eritrean Catholic Church

Ethiopian Catholic Church

 

Chaldean Tradition

Chaldean Catholic Church

Syro-Malabar Catholic Church

 

Antiochian Tradition

Maronite Catholic Church

Syrian Catholic Church

Syro-Malankara Catholic Church

 

Armenian Tradition

Armenian Catholic Church

 

Byzantine Tradition

Albanian Catholic Church

Belarussian Catholic Church - Defunct

Bulgarian Catholic Church

Greek Catholic Church

Hungarian Catholic Church

Italo-Albanese Catholic Church

Križevci (Croatian) Catholic Church

Macedonian Catholic Church

Melkite Greek Catholic Church

Romanian Catholic Church

Russian Catholic Church

Ruthenian Catholic Church

Slovakian Catholic Church

Ukrainian Catholic Church

 

Graduate Sunday

All High School and College graduates from the parish are invited to attend and participate in the liturgy on Sunday June 26th  at 10am, to honor your accomplishment and present the scholarship award to one of our high school graduates who has received the St. Raymond’s College Scholarship, Mr. Ralph Skitt, who will be attending Creighton University. Following the liturgy, everyone is invited to a pancake breakfast hosted by St. Raymond’s Men’s Society in honor of all our High School and College Graduates.

All Are Welcome!

 

 

Kitchen Scoop

Rolling Grape Leaves Tuesday July 5th at 9 am . We are in need of grape leaves and could use the help rolling to not only prepare for Wednesdays, but also to start to prepare for the festival.

The Kitchen will be CLOSED the week of the Fourth of July.

 

Weekly Finances June 12-19, 2016

Income:$4, 974.00

Expenses:$6,383.69 (Building Insurance and Liability, Utilities, Personnel Costs, Flowers for First Communion and Sub-Deacon Ordination, etc)

 

2016 Festival

There will be a festival meeting Thursday June 23rd at 7 pm in the Lebanon room. The festival is a parish event that  requires many months of time and preparation to make it a successful fundraiser for our Church.

“Many hands make the work load lighter…Why not be a part of something positive and up building? No one will remember if you “sit out” but if you are part of something positive-that is something to remember.”

If you are interested in having a booth at the festival please speak with Chorbishop Moussa to get a Booth Form. If you have a booth form please turn them in so the committee can know how many booths we will have this year. Thank you