Next Week Sunday Morning Masses     November 17, 2019        Celebrant: Fr. Schmitz

Special Collection for the Diocese of the Military

 Veterans Day is tomorrow (Monday) November 11.  The USCCB has established this Sunday for the annual collection for the Diocese of the Military (formerly known as the Military Ordinariate).  All Catholics in the US Armed Forces are part of this diocese, regardless of where they are deployed.   For obvious reasons, Sunday collections at all base chapel Masses or Masses for deployed personnel are not adequate to cover the costs of maintaining the diocese.  Although priest chaplains are commissioned officers and thus paid by the military, this national collection provides the other necessities and record keeping that is necessary for a diocese without boundaries.    This is a special collection taken up today.

Maintenance Man at St. Ann

Please be advised that applications for the position of maintenance man at St. Ann were suspended as of Tuesday, November 5.  The process of interviewing candidates has begun.  

Reflection on Scripture

“I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.  Amen.”    We say these words every time we recite the Apostle’s Creed.  Do we really reflect on what “resurrection” means?  Resurrection is not the same as “resuscitation.”  Scripture reminds us that Jesus was in the tomb three days.  In the culture at that time, this meant you were certainly dead.  Three days in the tomb was effectively a “certificate of death.”   Jesus explains to the Sadducees that our existence in eternity with God is very different from biological life of earth.    There is no more suffering or pain.  There is no longer a need to reproduce.  Our resurrected physical bodies are no longer subject to the laws of physics.  Remember Jesus walked through locked doors.  This is that which is longed for by the brothers martyred in today’s reading from 2 Maccabees.   Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians that we are to endure patiently waiting for the resurrection.

If you have ever seen a Lamborghini Diablo, you know that (even sitting still) it was made for speed.  Has your spiritual insight ever allowed you to catch a glimpse of a sainted soul like Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta or Pope St. John Paul II, you know that such souls are not made for death; but for resurrection.  Jesus tells us he is the resurrection and the life.  If we live and die in him, we’ve got it made.

Next Weekend: Thirty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time   

Mal 3:19-20a

2 Thes 3:7-12

Luke 21:5-19

Theme:  Eschatology