St. John Neumann Catholic Community
Staffed by Oblates of St. Francis de Sales
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Current Mass Times
Saturday: 5:00 p.m.
Sunday: 7:30am, 9:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 2:00 p.m. (español), 5:00pm
Monday-Friday: 9:00 a.m.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 12:10pm
Confession
Saturday: 10:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. (English)
Sunday: 3:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m. (español)
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Pastor's Perspective
The New Pastoral Plan is Coming
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Autumn is certainly in the air. This time of year invigorates me as we generally experience cooler, but not yet freezing, temperatures. For many, the school year has begun. And, there is a sense of new beginnings in different areas of our lives. This is my favorite time of year to take long walks and hikes and see the changing colors that will soon abound. With that sense of new beginnings in mind, we will be rolling out a new three-year pastoral plan the weekend of October 16 & 17. This second pastoral plan will build on our first plan, which covered 2017-2020. The plan's five areas of parish life remain the same: Community, Worship, Formation, Service, and Stewardship, but we have changed and enhanced its objectives.
We kept two common themes in mind while developing the plan. The first is how the parish continues to deal and live with COVID-19. How we have changed, and as a result of the Pandemic, how will we be different as a parish.
The second theme that runs throughout the five areas is that of volunteering. There will be an emphasis on how we recruit, train, nurture, and appreciate volunteers in all the different areas of parish life.
Please pray as we prepare to roll out the new Pastoral Plan and how you might be able to embrace and support it. Perhaps after learning more about a particular area of parish life, you may want to volunteer in that area if you are not already doing so.
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Catechetical Corner
It's Autumn
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By Mickie Abatemarco
Suddenly, we feel the cool of the mornings, watch the sunset earlier in the evenings, and know that change is upon us. We wonder: what will this season of autumn bring? For many, it is the beginning of a new school year and the start of Faith Formation. For our children, it is the beginning of classes, sacramental prep, and middle and high school youth ministry. For our adults, there are opportunities to participate in Bible Study, small faith group sharing, and our new book study, to name a few. It is always exciting to see where this journey will take us. If you have any questions about our offerings, reach out to Mickie Abatemarco at [email protected]. Finally, let us keep each other in prayer.
AUTUMN PRAYER
God of all seasons, we thank you for Autumn.
We thank you
for the touch of coolness in the air that gives us a new burst of energy,
for the coloring of trees that show the creativity of the Divine Artist,
for the falling leaves that reveal the strength of the branches,
for the hues of fields that bring peace to our souls,
for the smiles on pumpkins that bring joy to children,
for the fall harvest, which brings us gratitude for the bounty
of our land, for this change of seasons that reveals the circle of life.
God of all seasons, as you transform the earth, transform us by your Spirit.
Amen
— Rev. Doug Leonhardt, S.J.
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Catholic Mass Explained
Communion Prayer
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By Fr. Don Heet, OSFS
Father Heet continues his monthly series with further discussion of the Communion Prayer.
After the Our Father, the embolism, and the doxology (see the December 4 bulletin on our web site if you forgot what these mean), the presider says a prayer asking the Lord Jesus for the same gift of peace that He offered the apostles when He appeared to them after His resurrection (John 20:19). It is an appropriate prayer for this point in the liturgy. In the Our Father we have just asked to be reconciled with God (“forgive us our trespasses’) and promised to be reconciled with each other (“as we forgive those who trespass against us.”); now we pray explicitly to live in peace with each other.
The prayer is followed by the sign of peace, in which the General Instruction on the Liturgy says “the Church asks for peace and unity for herself and for the whole human family, and the faithful express to each other their ecclesial communion and mutual charity before communicating in the Sacrament.” The sign we offer to each other (a handshake, embrace or kiss) is not intended simply for members of our immediate family (although sometimes that is where peace is most desperately needed); rather whoever is close to us at Mass represents the rest of humanity with whom we followers of Christ are called to live in peace.
The “Lamb of God” is a litany that belongs to the people; it is to be sung while the priest is breaking the host. In earlier times (and even today at liturgies with fewer worshippers) the priest would break the host and distribute the pieces of the one host to those receiving communion. Depending on the size of the host – and keep in mind, in the Eastern rites, it is more a loaf than a flat piece of bread – it could take a minute or two to divide it into small pieces for distribution; the Lamb of God litany is intended to last as long as it takes to divide the host.
Finally, the priest holds up the host and the chalice and, picking up on the phrase the congregation has been singing, identifies the Lamb to whom we look for mercy and forgiveness with the bread that has been blessed and broken for us and the wine that has been poured out for us: the body and blood of Christ.
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Parishioner Spotlight
Fritz Diefenderfer
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How long have you been a parishioner at SJN?
My wife and I have been parishioners for about three years
What ministries have you been involved with at SJN?
We are heavily involved in Young Adult ministry. We also helped out with Rooted in 2019, and I went through RCIA as a candidate a year or so before that.
What is a memorable moment from your ministry work?
Probably when Young Adults helped with the Hypothermia Shelter. I'm an introvert, but my wife is an extrovert and a social worker and so was really driving the conversation with our guests. Then a year or so later I ran into one of the guests at Target and it was really cool to see that he remembered us and our amazing community. He still seemed really appreciative of the warm welcome SJN gave him.
What is your favorite thing about being Catholic?
I'd say the push to bring God's kingdom to everyone. I was raised Lutheran and there was an internal joke about how Lutherans
(at least Missouri Synod) didn't like the word evangelization. It was easy to slip into the "I believe, so I'm saved" and never push myself to do more. Being able to have real theological conversation with Catholics and learning from saints, priests, bishops, etc. has given me the need to shift my everyday focus to God and his plan rather than simply reserving that for Sundays. I can see joy in life only comes from entering into God's love and that (or really what that leads to) is the greatest gift.
A fun fact about me:
Despite my name, I am significantly more Italian than I am German and I know next to nothing of either language.
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The Season of Creation (SOC) is a time when the Catholic Church joins with Christians all over the world to celebrate and protect the earth, our common home. It began on September 1 with the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation and ends on October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. The Catholic Church has long championed care for creation as a way of being in right relation to the world that God has created.
In 1971, St. Pope Paul VI pointed out in an Apostolic Letter that, “by an ill-considered exploitation of nature [man] risks destroying it and becoming in his turn the victim of this degradation.” He added that, “not only is the material environment becoming a permanent menace … but the human framework is no longer under man’s control, thus creating an environment for tomorrow which may well be intolerable. This is a wide-ranging social problem which concerns the entire human family.” His words ring true when considering the degradation of soil, water, and air that all humanity shares.
In 1990, St. Pope John Paul II devoted his message for the World Day of Peace to the theme, Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation. He emphasized the importance of right relationship, as God’s creatures, with the universe all around us. “In our day,” he wrote, “there is a growing awareness that world peace is threatened … also by a lack of due respect for nature.” He added that “ecological awareness, rather than being downplayed, needs to be helped to develop and mature, and find fitting expression in concrete programmes and initiatives.”
In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI’s message for the World Day of Peace was If you Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation. He asked, “Can we remain indifferent before the problems associated with such realities as climate change, desertification, the deterioration and loss of productivity in vast agricultural areas, the pollution of rivers and aquifers, the loss of biodiversity, the increase of natural catastrophes and the deforestation of equatorial and tropical regions? … All these are issues with a profound impact on the exercise of human rights, such as the right to life, food, health and development.”
Building on the previous popes’ urgent messages, Pope Francis continued the call to “all people of good will” to respect and repair the interconnectedness of all of creation through his encyclical Laudato Si’. The encyclical highlights the importance of being in right relationship with God, with others (especially the poor and future generations) and with the planet, “our common home.” He summarizes, "We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis ... Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.”
Throughout these five weeks of the SOC, the SJN Care for Our Common Home Ministry has provided opportunities to participate in SOC through prayer, activities and resources from the Vatican, Catholic Climate Covenant, and the USCCB. Look for bulletin tips and postings on our website, https://cfoch.weebly.com.
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“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.”
John 15:1-2
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