Faith Formation News

UPCOMING SCHEDULE

January 20, 2025

Open Gym  10:00 AM-2:00 PM St Peter

January 21, 2025

Reconciliation Review  5:30 PM  St Kateri

January 25, 2025

First Reconciliation 11:00 AM St Kateri

January 26, 2025

Grades 1-5  8:15 AM St Peter

Grades 1-5  8:45 AM  OLOL

Edge Grades 6-8  4:30 PM  St Peter

Confirmation with Parent 6:30 PM  St Peter

January 27, 2025

Grades 1-5  4:45 PM  St Peter

OPEN GYM

Do you need a reason to get out of the house on Monday, January 20, 2025? The gym in the parish center will be open for anyone who would like to come by for fun and games. We have toys and games for all ages. The gym will be open for little ones from 10:00am-12:00pm and then for basketball, soccer, or volleyball from 12:00pm-2:00pm. Bring some friends or come as a family. Board games are also available for use in the classrooms downstairs.

FIRST RECONCILIATION

Please pray for all of the children and their families who will be attending our First Reconciliation Services at St. Kateri on January 25, 2025.

High School Confirmation Parent Meeting

All teens who will be Confirmed in May or November will have class and a parent meeting on Sunday, January 26, 2025 at 6:30pm in St. Peter Gym. Please make sure to arrive on time so that we can get started.

GOD LOVES ME FIRST GRADE RETREAT

Reminder: Palanca is DUE! Please make sure to write a letter to your little one telling them how much they are loved, and that they are a gift from God to your family and to our parish. Anyone who would like to drop off letters or little messages of love for our first graders can do so during all class times in the boxes labeled “LETTERS” or during regular office hours at each of the churches.

Patsy Gillespie

Director of Faith Formation

Mary, Queen of Martyrs Parish

(508) 746 - 0663 ext. 206

faithform@maryqueenofmartyrs.org

"For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me" (Jeremiah 29:11-14).

Spotlight on Activities

Dwell in the Present

January 15, 2025

Natalie Ryan

Reflect

The past and the future are sprinkled with many blessings, however God is in the present. We must tune our hearts to hear the melodies that surround us. The only way to be set in tune is to dwell in the present.

Pray

Lord, here I am. Surround me.

Envelop me in your presence, your love, your peace.

Help me to discern how I should spend my attention.

Show me that what I watch, who I follow on social media, what I read, and who I listen to all have an impact on who I am.

Guide me to only want to follow those who will lead me to you.

Sing the notes that only my heart can hear.

I am in your presence, and I am present in you.

Amen.



Act

Go through your social media accounts and follow pages that inspire you with faith-based posts. Unfollow pages that may not be lifting your thoughts upward.

DeCOLORES ALL!

Our next Ultreya is at:

Mary, Queen of Martyrs Parish

Saint Kateri Church

126 South Meadow Road

Plymouth, MA

on

Sunday, January 19, 2025 at

5:00 PM

Celebrant: Fr Joe Raeke assisted by Deacon Jim

Witness: Brian Pusateri from Broken Door Ministries

Brian is a Catholic Lay Evangelist, Author and Founder of Broken Door Ministries

All are welcome to a very special evening of faith, friends and growing closer to Christ. This month's Ultreya offers a unique opportunity to hear from national speaker, Brian Pusateri. Brian has been deeply inspired by his own Cursillo experience. He travels the country sharing his story and how Christ called him to create space for you and I to grow in faith.

This month's service project will be a good-will offering for Brian's ministry.

BROKENDOORMINISTRIES.COM

Please bring a snack to share & spread the word. Come join together with us to celebrate this wonderful Community of faith & to thank God for all of our Blessings! 

(Any questions call Patti & John at 617-678-4306. Also, please rsvp any help with food to be offered if possible. God bless & thanks to all!)

Holy Cross Retreat House Cursillos

January 30-February 2, 2025 Men's

February 20-23, 2025 Women's

March 20-23, 2025 Men's

April 24-27, 2025 Women's

MQM Ultreya's

January 19, 2025-Saint Kateri

February 16, 2025-Saint Kateri

March 9, 2025-Saint Kateri

April 6, 2025-Saint Kateri

May 18, 2025 - OLOL

Catholics Turn to Mary and Saints Amid Los Angeles Wildfires

Maria Wiering, OSV News

Monday 13th of January 2025

(OSV News) -- Several Catholics who have fled the wildfires ravaging Los Angeles have been praying for the intercession of Our Lady of Champion, who once saved a rural Wisconsin shrine from a devastating inferno.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, Catholics with connections to that shrine are praying for Mary to grant Angelenos another miracle now.

Father Tony Stephens, a member of the Fathers of Mercy and rector of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion near Green Bay, offered Mass Jan. 10 for intentions related to the Los Angeles fires. He prayed for an end to the fires and for rain, for people's safety, for firefighters and police, for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and "for people to quit pointing fingers right now" in blame, he told OSV News.

Our Lady of Champion honors Mary's 1859 apparition to Adele Brise, an illiterate Belgian immigrant in Wisconsin's Northwoods. In 1871, Brise led prayers of protection against the Great Peshtigo Fire, the most devastating fire in U.S. history to date, which killed as many as 2,400 people and burned 1.2 million acres. As the fire approached the village of Champion, the area's farm families, some with their cattle, sought refuge with Brise and her companions in a chapel built to honor the apparitions. Together they processed in prayer around the sanctuary as fire scorched the grounds' perimeter fence but did not cross the boundaries.

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The next day it rained. Those who sought refuge were saved, which many attributed to Mary's intercession.

In addition to praying to Our Lady of Champion, Father Stephens said he is appealing for the intercession of Brise, whose cause for canonization is being discerned, as well as St. Swithin, a ninth-century English saint and former bishop of Winchester known to ward off drought.

On July 9, the shrine publicized a version of its prayer to Our Lady of Champion that included an appeal for an end to the Los Angeles fires. On Relevant Radio's live Family Rosary Across America radio program Jan. 10, its leader Father Rocky Hoffman also called on Mary's intercession for an end to the wildfires under that specific title.

Several wildfires have been raging in Los Angeles since Jan. 7, spread by tremendous winds and affecting multiple areas. The Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires have destroyed roughly 60 square miles. At least 24 people are dead, with many others missing. Evacuations have been ordered for more than 92,000 Los Angeles County residents.

Historically, many saints have been asked to intercede against fire. St. Florian, a third-century Roman, is the patron saint of firefighting, as one legend says he saved a village from fire using only a bucket of water. St. Catherine of Siena is also a saint for fire prevention, as she was engulfed in a kitchen fire while deep in prayer, but her sister pulled her to safety unscathed. St. Barbara is also invoked for death against fire or electricity.

There are also historic patrons of several areas threatened by the Los Angeles fires, originally named for Catholic saints by Spanish explorers and settlers, such as the city of Santa Monica, which has issued mandatory evacuation orders for some neighborhoods due to the encroaching Palisades Fire. Mary's mother, St. Ann, is the likely namesake of the dangerous Santa Ana winds that are making the fires so difficult to contain.

While it may seem natural for residents of the City of Angels to call upon their guardian angels for all needed aid against the fires, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has another, albeit more obscure, patroness: St. Vibiana, whose tomb is in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

A third-century virgin and martyr, St. Vibiana was buried in Roman catacombs along the Appian Way. Her tomb was rediscovered in 1853. According to the cathedral's website, Pope Pius IX gave the relics to Bishop Thaddeus Amat, who had recently been appointed to the Diocese of Monterey, California -- which at that time included Los Angeles -- with orders he build a cathedral in her honor.

The cathedral was completed in 1876 and was named St. Vibiana in her honor, but after it sustained significant damage in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the archdiocese decided to build a new cathedral, Our Lady of the Angels, and St. Vibiana's relics were moved to its crypt. (The original, deconsecrated cathedral was eventually restored and opened as an event venue.)

St. Vibiana's relics also reportedly survived a church fire in Santa Barbara, where they were interred while funds for the cathedral were being raised.

Although popular devotion to the saint has waned, some Catholics have made efforts to revive it, especially through a Los Angeles-based organization named Gaudent Angeli. On Jan. 11, its leaders sent out an appeal to St. Vibiana via email with a prayer, ending with "Save us, and your city which the Divine Bridegroom entrusted to you!"

Paul de Partee, a Catholic convert, co-founded Gaudent Angeli with two others during the COVID-19 pandemic. He is encouraging Catholics to call upon St. Vibiana, even though he thinks of her as a "modest" saint who does not seek attention.

He noted, however, that her relics were discovered on the anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, another saint dear to many Angelenos.

"St. Vibiana has been present in Los Angeles since its founding, at least as a diocese," he said. "We should be praying for her intercession for the fire because she is intimately connected to Los Angeles and cares not just about the Catholics, but every person living there and lives to intercede all the time."

Father Stephens said Catholics should take seriously the possibility of a miracle.

"I'm absolutely praying for that," he said, adding that until the fires are extinguished, "we'll certainly keep it in our petitions."

- - - Maria Wiering is senior writer for OSV News.

The Song of Bernadette

Every Catholic should be truly devoted to our patron saints, not just knowing facts about them, but learning to love them in their spiritual care for us, and the example of their lives. I went to Lourdes last April in order to learn about new patrons of mine, the Lady of the Grotto and St. Bernadette Soubirous, and want to bring what I’ve come to love about these women to our parish. I will lead a group reading the historical novel, The Song of Bernadette, after the Tues. 9am daily Mass in Carver from Tues. 11/12/24 until the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes on Tues. 2/11/25. Franz Werfel wrote the novel as fulfillment of a vow made to God to sing Bernadette’s story to the world after he learned about the apparitions in the remote Pyrenean village while hiding from the Nazis there as a Jew during WWII. Immediately it became a bestseller and award winning movie. Please leave me a message by voicemail or email if you would like a book. If you may come to the group, or read along on your own. If there is interest I could also meet after my Sunday OLOL Masses every 3 weeks for those who cannot come on Tuesdays.– Fr. Paul 

St. Vincent de Paul at St. Peter’s

The SVdP Food Pantry is held every Friday from 2:30-4:00 PM at the St. Peter Parish Center, 10 Memorial Drive. Thank you to our friends and parishioners who have so kindly remembered the Society, and those we serve, through your generous private gifts, and donations left in the church donation boxes, located at each door of the church. Your kindness helps many.

We are currently in need of: Shampoo, Conditioner, Toothpaste and Toothbrushes, Razors, Deodorant, and Small Laundry Detergents. Donations may be dropped off at the Parish Center or at the church.

If you are in need, please call the office at 508-746-0663 Ext. 307 and leave a message. We can help with resources and aid. You may also call us at this number if you are interested in volunteering for SVdP.

The Saint Kateri Food Pantry

Tuesdays from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM

The Food Pantry is always in need of any non perishable food items such as canned soups, pasta and sauce products, baking goods, cereals, canned tuna or chicken, boxed meals such as Hamburger & Tuna Helpers, canned vegetables and canned fruit and fruit juice. Liquid dish detergent, Kleenex, paper towels, toilet paper and cleaning products are very much needed. Personal hygiene products, such as deodorant, body wash/soap and shampoos are staples in every household and always appreciated!!

Thank you for your continued support of the food pantry!

Mary, Queen of Martyrs Parishioners, we need your help! On the 3rd Tuesday of each month, we receive a large order of food delivered from the Boston Food Bank. This delivery is generally about 3,000 lbs. Our staff is older and unloading this amount of products is difficult for the small group of people who usually help.

PLEASE consider taking an hour of your time to come by the church around 8:30 AM that day to help unload. We meet every third Tuesday of the month!

Thank you to all who came to the Mary, Queen of Martyrs Fall Prevention Workshop on January 5th. We had a great turnout with 50 people in attendance. A big thank you to Dr. Sam Rosenbach and his wife Callie for sharing such wonderful and valuable information and to John Kearney for offering his services to help make our homes safer. Thank you to Planet Fitness for the donation of a gift card for our raffle. And a huge thank you to Patti and John DeAngelo for organizing this event.

Knights of Columbus

St. Patrick's Day

Corn Beef & Cabbage Dinner

When: Saturday, March 15, 2025

6:00 PM

Where: St. Peter's Parish Hall

What: Corn Beef & Cabbage Dinner

Watch for more Information to follow in the coming weeks.

At Sacred Heart School, we continue to have an excellent and academically challenging program for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

We offer a rigorous faith-based education rooted in the gospel and have done so for more than seventy years. We would love to welcome new families to Sacred Heart. Parents, who qualify for financial aid, are encouraged to pursue that through our Admissions department. We welcome families to reach out to us, as we will be having an Open House on Sunday, January 26, 2024 from 12 PM to 2PM, which also is the start of Catholic Schools Week-Nationwide.

ONE-DAY SPIRITUAL RETREAT

FOR GRIEVING PARENTS

SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 2025

Losing a child under any circumstance is devastating. Focusing on the spirituality of the grieving process can help.



The Emmaus Ministry is for parents whose children of any age, have died by any cause, no matter how long ago. The purpose of this retreat is to give yourself the gift of time on your spiritual journey.

Please join Fr. Joe and other parent companions at

Our Lady of Lourdes 

130 Main St. Carver, MA

9:30am-6:30pm

Registration is required

Detailed information and registration to follow

Learn about other Emmaus Ministry for Grieving Parents retreats at

www.emfgp.org