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Browsing From the desk of Fr. Tharp

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

St. Ann – Sacred Heart Women’s Day of Renewal

The annual Women’s Day of Renewal is Saturday, October 13.  More information is in this bulletin.

October Count

As is the case every year, during the month of October we will count the people attending Mass at our parishes.  Special attention to weekly attendance at your home parish or pastoral region is paramount during this month.

 Archdiocesan Workshop

The Office of Divine Worship and Sacraments of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati will hold a regional Eucharistic Minister’s Workshop at Sacred Heart on October 10, 2018 from 7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m.  More information is available in this bulletin.

 Looking Ahead

Thursday, October 18 is the annual Convocation of Priests called by the Archbishop.  All active Archdiocesan priests are required to attend.  I will celebrate the usual morning Masses at both parishes, but this day will NOT be available for a funeral or emergency administration of the Sacrament of the Sick.  Please be advised.

 Building for the Future Committee

The committee meets each fourth Thursday.  At the latest meeting, it was decided that we need to be more specific as to cost of materials and labor for each component of the renovation or building.  We are seeking to be exhaustive in our delineation of options so the parish can eventually vote on realistic possibilities to be included in any future feasibility study.  There are many opinions we would like to organize and bring to the whole parish to seek consensus.   Stay tuned.  More to come.

Reflection on Scripture

“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”   This is the sixth of the apodictic laws known as the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments.  As referenced in the Books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, adultery was a matter of justice.  If another man were to have relations with your wife, the husband could find himself unwittingly raising another man’s child.  It would mean that the husband could not be sure that his children were truly genetically his own.  Such infidelity would destroy the family and eventually the society.  For the early times in Israel, there was no concept of afterlife.  You simply lived on in your children.  If your children were not genetically yours, your bloodline was dead which meant that you were genetically extinct.  We call this the “procreative” dimension of marriage.

Jesus articulates another dimension of the marriage covenant, previously not all that frequently referenced.  We call this the “unitive” dimension of marriage.  Jesus suggests that as a man and woman live their marriage raising their children, they reflect the unity of the Holy Trinity and the presence of God in their union.  As Sacred Scripture says, “They are no longer two but one flesh.    What God has united, man must not divide.”   This is the sacramental nature of marriage. 

In the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Vatican II Gaudium et Spes Pope Paul VI, the unitive and procreative aspects of marriage are described as two streams of water in the same fountain.  They exist in union and cannot be separated.  What a shame that in our contemporary world, the “secular definition of marriage” has come to mean “any and all analogous things;” and therefore has come to be “meaningless” to our society!   This is the culmination of the denial of Natural Law.  

As Catholics, we defend the sanctity of “Marriage” as a “Sacrament.”  We will not seek to change the Laws of God and the Laws of nature to conform to contemporary impulsive human labeling.  Scripture, tradition, and nature created by God reveal the Creator’s purpose.  It is a matter of justice, tradition, and morality from an unchanging God.

 

Next Weekend: Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    

Wis 7:7-11

Heb 4:12-13

Mk 10:17-30

 

Theme:   The camel and the eye of the needle.

 

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