Dear Parishioners of St. Mary’s,
If you are like me, you are probably desperate to see the sun again, though, perhaps, the weather lately has fit many of our moods – kind of cloudy and dreary. Many things have quickly changed in our lives and that also includes how things function at the parish. Similar to what I did last week, I wanted to write to all of you with a few practical things to keep you informed on what is going on “behind the scenes” and what practical steps we are looking at or implementing during this time of trial and then also to include some thoughts on a spiritual side. I am hoping to do this weekly and, in addition, we will be doing a few other things as well over the next few weeks, more of which is included below.
Live Jesus! Fr. Peter We now find ourselves just a few days from our celebration of Christmas and I’d like to include a reflection from St. Alphonsus Liguori as we enter these final days of preparation for Christmas.
“Our Lord sent St. Augustine to write upon the heart of St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi the words, ‘and the Word was made flesh’ Oh, let us also pray the Lord to enlighten our minds, and to make us understand what an excess and what a miracle of love this is, that the eternal Word, the Son of God, should have become man for the love of us. The holy Church is struck with awe at the contemplation of this great mystery: ‘I considered Thy works and was afraid.’ If God had created a thousand other worlds, a thousand times greater and more beautiful than the present, it is certain that this work would be infinitely less grand than the incarnation of the Word: ‘He hath showed might in His arm.’ To execute the great work of the Incarnation, it required all the omnipotence and infinite wisdom of God, in order to unite human nature to a divine person, and that a divine person should so humble himself as to take upon him human nature. Thus God became man, and man became God; and hence, the divinity of the Word being united to the soul and body of Jesus Christ, all the action of this Man-God became divine: his prayers were divine, his sufferings divine, his infant cries divine, his tears divine, his steps divine, his members divine, his very blood divine, which became, as it were, a fountain of health to wash out all our sins, and a sacrifice of infinite value to appease the justice of the Father, who was justly offended with men. And who, then, are these men? Miserable, ungrateful, and rebellious creatures. And yet for these God becomes man; subjects himself to human miseries; suffers and dies to save these unworthy sinners: ‘He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to death of the cross’ (Philippians 2.8). O holy faith! If faith did not assure us of it, who would believe that a God of infinite majesty should abase himself so far as to become a worm like us, in order to save us at the cost of so much suffering and disgrace, and of so cruel and shameful a death? ‘O grace! O power of love!’ cries St. Bernard. O grace, which men could not even have imagined, if God himself had not thought of granting it to us! O divine love which can never be fathomed! O mercy! O infinite Charity, worthy only of an infinite bounty!” On behalf of myself, Fr. Gibson and the entire parish staff may these final days of Advent be days of grace and a joyful and Merry Christmas to all of you! I find myself sitting down in my office to write this bulletin article in the midst of the pouring rain of the first day of school here at St. Mary’s. We’ve not had a lot of these rainstorms this summer, but it seems fitting as the calendar turns to the start of a new academic year for it to begin not with the beautiful sunny and humid days of summer, but of grey and rain that hints of the coming fall. Of course we still can have spectacularly beautiful days during the fall, but there is something nice about a rainy day from time to time, isn’t there?
As the new year begins, I wanted to take a moment to thank Justin Weber, our seminarian summer intern for his time and work here over the course of the summer. Justin will be returning to Rome to prepare for ordination to the diaconate this fall and ordination to the priesthood next spring, it has been a pleasure to have him here over the course of these past three summers. As he departs, we also welcome back our other two seminarian interns back from their summer breaks, Deacon Levi Schmitt and Matthew Kirk. Deacon Schmitt was just ordained to the transitional diaconate this past spring and is preparing for ordination next spring for the Diocese of LaCrosse. Matthew is beginning his second year of studying theology at the seminary and will be here at the parish, but also embarking on societal ministry, which is part of the formation program at the seminary. We have been very blessed to be entrusted with helping with the formation of these young men and we have also been blessed as a parish with a number of priestly vocations over the past few years, most recently, Deacon Patrick Magnor, a son of this parish was ordained to the diaconate earlier this year and is preparing for his ordination to the priesthood in May of next year. He will be the third priestly vocation from St. Mary’s over the course of three years! Please keep all of them and all those in discernment in your prayers. In light of these vocations and my belief that there are even more here, St. Mary’s is going to begin a new discernment group for boys and young men who are in 8th Grade through college to help facilitate their formation and discernment. This group recently launched on the Feast of the Assumption and will be known as the Sons of Our Lady, a branch of the Sons of St. John group that the Archdiocesan Vocations Office runs. If you know of a young man between 8th Grade and their college years, who desires to deepen their spiritual life and prayerfully discern their vocation in life then this is the group for them – please encourage them to contact the parish office to be placed on the Sons of Our Lady mailing list. We will be meeting once a month for an hour with time for a brief formation talk, prayer, and then a meal together. The group will be led by myself, Fr. John Gibson, Deacon Levi Schmitt and Matthew Kirk. One of the highlights of a new academic and formation year is our annual Parish Picnic, which will take place on Sunday, September 15th from 12:00 to 2:00 – it’s a wonderful way to relax and meet other parishioners and have a little fun. Everyone is invited to attend! We have been blessed with good weather over the past few years, and so hopefully that will hold true for this one as well. Another opportunity for parents with young children to meet one another and to have a little fun is with our Parish Playgroup – the Playgroup is meeting this weekend (between the 9:00 and 11:00 Masses) and will meet at the same time on December 8th for a Breakfast with St. Nick, and again in February and April of next year. If you have little children, please be sure to stop by and meet other parents! Speaking of young children, we are so blessed to have so many here at St. Mary’s! Thank you to all the parents who work so hard to get all your little ones together and here for Sunday Mass! Finally, parents of children in our religious education program, if you have not yet registered for classes or the sacramental preparation sessions, please do so as soon as possible! Thank you to all our parents who take the religious formation of their children so seriously – it is a promise made by the parents at a child’s baptism and which is deeply pleasing to God to see fulfilled! As I look back at my own childhood, one of my fondest memories is of my grade school experience at my home parish. I remember stopping by the local pharmacy for candy on the walk home from school; I remember fall football games with classmates in one of my friends’ back yards; I remember the baseball “world series” we’d play on the playground during an extended recess at the end of each school year. I also remember gathering with the various classes every morning for a hallway prayer during Advent; I remember one of our priests stopping by our classroom to teach us; and I remember the wonderful teachers who helped us to grow not only academically, but also spiritually. These memories are so much a part of me and are still so vivid to me, that it is hard for me to think that I graduated from grade school nearly twenty-seven years ago! It also reminds me of the importance of those grade school years in my own development and formation — second only to my family, it was my experience at a Catholic grade school that shaped me more than anything else during those formative years.
I share these memories with you, not out of a sense of nostalgia, but to share with you my own experience with Catholic education and how formative it truly is and, because I believe it to be so formative, to invite you personally to stop by our parish school's Open House on Sunday, January 27th from 8:00 to 12:30. As parents of young children there are so many choices you have had to make and will continue to make — and there are few more important than the educational decisions you make for your children. I would like to invite you to consider St. Mary’s Visitation Parish School as a possible educational choice for your child and to stop by the Open House and learn more about it, to meet school parents and our wonderful principal, Mrs. Mary Tretow, and all the dedicated teachers and staff of our parish school. While it may be possible to think that it’s only in my role as a pastor to encourage people to look at the school, I do not encourage you to do so out of a sense of obligation or duty, but because I truly believe in what our school is doing and the treasure that it is. I also believe that if you see it and experience it for yourself, you will come to agree with me. I hope to see you there! Live Jesus! It’s amazing to me that no matter how old we might be — how many Christmases we have already lived through — that there continues to be something which draws us on numerous levels into this celebration of the birth of Our Lord. We encounter the beauty of these days and something deep within us wells up and fills our minds and hearts with joy and peace. And, of course, this makes sense, since what we are celebrating is our own redemption, the profound love of God who, when we were lost in darkness, pours forth His light into the world, in the Person of His Son.
On this Christmas, I’d like to share with you some of the words written by St. John Chrysostom, who lived over sixteen hundred years ago, they are words from a homily he preached on Christmas Day: “I behold a new and wondrous mystery. My ears resound to the Shepherd’s song, piping no soft melody, but chanting full forth a heavenly hymn. The Angels sing. The Archangels blend their voice in harmony. The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise. The Seraphim exalt His glory. All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven. He who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below and he that was lowly is by divine mercy raised. Bethlehem this day resembles heaven; hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices; and in place of the sun, enfolds within itself on every side, the Sun of Justice. And ask not how: for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For He willed, He had the power, He descended, He redeemed; all things move in obedience to God. This day He who is, is born; and He who is becomes what He was not…” On behalf of myself, Fr. John Gibson and the entire Parish Staff a very blessed and joyful Christmas to all of you! In last weekend’s bulletin, I shared information on the new St. Mary’s Visitation Purgatory Society – designed to encourage us in praying for those who have died, not only in the month of November in which it is a particular focus of the Church, but all year long. This November we are praying in particular for the intentions of those members of St. Mary’s who have died over the past year. In other months, intentions will appear in the bulletin to help guide our prayers. How beautiful would it be if we, as a parish, regularly prayed for the dead! In speaking of Purgatory, I thought it may be helpful to reprint something from last year, laying out the Church’s teaching in order to help us understand this important doctrine of the Church.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire…” (CCC #1030-1031). We see here then that there are two important elements to keep in mind as we consider the Church’s doctrine on Purgatory. The first element is the reality of the effects of sin. Sin has its effects even once the sin itself is forgiven – there is still a debt that must be repaid even if the sin itself is forgiven. This notion is what underlies our understanding of the need to do penance for sin – even sin which has been forgiven. Over the course of our earthly lives, through prayer, sacrifices, acts of charity, etc., some of that debt is repaid. If, upon death, there is still some of that debt to be paid, it is paid for in purgatory. Perhaps we can liken it to a scar that one bears from surgery. The surgery deals with the illness or sickness, but the scar remains afterwards. If we use this analogy we can see that God’s mercy forgives the illness and sickness of sin, but a scar still remains, a scar which is then healed in Purgatory. The second element underlying the Church’s doctrine on Purgatory is the reality that we must be prepared and finally purified in order to see the face of the living God. In this sense then we can see Purgatory as the foyer of heaven, where the soul that has died prepares to encounter God Himself – anything of sin is removed so that one can enter into God’s sight in purity. Following from this, then, is our understanding that the prayers of those on earth can assist those souls going through this process of purification, we can, in effect, help make up for some of the debt that they owe from their own past sins – to repay a debt which is not ours in that sense. The Church goes on to state in the Catechism, “This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: ‘Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin’ (2 Maccabees 12:46). From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead: Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them” (CCC #1032). The greatest prayer that can be offered for someone who has died is the Mass. This is why we have Mass Intentions – the Mass Intention is the person for whom the Mass is being offered, when they are someone who is deceased it is to aid them in Purgatory. It is a noble and beautiful thing to have a Mass celebrated for one who has died. There is usually a monetary offering that is given to the Church when a Mass is requested. If you would like to request that one of your own loved ones be an intention at Mass, please contact the Parish Rectory where those are scheduled. Praying for the dead is one of the Spiritual Works of Mercy and is one that we particularly focus in on during the month of November. In the next few bulletins you will find prayers that can be offered for those who have died as well as a few prayers that we can pray for ourselves, so that, when that moment comes, we are ready. The Church’s calendar for November begins with two major feast days, the Feast of All Saints on November 1st, followed by the Commemoration of All Souls on November 2nd. These two feasts which begin this month direct our minds and hearts to our ultimate end – life with God and help us to consider our eternal destination and the reality of death and of what have traditionally been considered the last four things: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. In the midst of our consideration of those things the Church recommends that we also turn our minds towards the reality of Purgatory and to pray, in a particular way, for those who have died and are being purified in preparation for seeing God in the Beatific Vision. However, it is not only in November that we are asked to pray for those who have died and are being purified in purgatory, but it is also a pious practice we should maintain all year long.
In the interest of encouraging parishioners of St. Mary’s to pray for the dead regularly, we are beginning the St. Mary’s Visitation Purgatory Society to help encourage those prayers and to keep them in the forefront of our mind throughout the entire year. The Purgatory Society requires no sign-ups, no informational meetings, no registrations; one can join simply by committing oneself to praying over the course of the year for those who have died and, in particular, remembering them in prayer at Mass. To this end, the 6:30am Mass on First Fridays will have the Mass Intention of the Poor Souls in Purgatory. In addition, every month a different intention for the dead will be published in the bulletin to guide our prayers. For instance, in December, we will pray in particular for all deceased grandparents, especially with the intercession of Ss. Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Blessed Mother. As I said, this will require no forms to fill out or pledge to take, simply keep in mind that prayer intention over the month. In next weekend’s bulletin, I will write a bit more about Purgatory and what the Church teaches regarding it. However, as this week we begin November, it seems fitting to place here the Purgatory Society Prayer Intention for November: For all those Parishioners of St. Mary’s who have died over the course of this year, that, with the intercession of all the Saints, God will carry them through their period of purification and welcome them to His heavenly kingdom. Eternal rest, grant unto them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen. After a long and cold winter, it’s delightful to continue to feel the warm breezes of summer and to enjoy the school year winding down for another year – I hope that this coming summer is truly a time of rest and peace for you and your family! We certainly ended the year on a high note – we were able to celebrate Fr. Dave’s 50th Anniversary as a priest, to witness the ordination and first Masses of two sons of our parish, Fr. Will Arnold and Fr. John LoCoco, and, in addition, received word that Fr. John Gibson will begin serving as our new part-time Associate Pastor later this month. We also had Confirmation, First Communion, May Crowning, and recently witnessed the Graduation of the new St. Mary’s Class of 2018. Fr. John Gibson will be with us beginning in mid-June and his first weekend will be the weekend of June 23rd/24th. He will celebrate the 9:00 and 11:00 Masses that weekend and we will have a small social for him after the Masses that weekend in the Atrium, please be sure to stop by and introduce yourself! That weekend we will also welcome back Justin Weber, who serves as our summer seminarian intern and who will be with us over the course of the summer months. Justin is studying for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.
If you had the chance to read my letter in our regular stewardship letter the summer projects that you will see unfolding will not surprise you, but for those who were not able to read the letter I wanted to share some news on some of what you will see on campus this summer. One of the first projects you will notice is the resealing of our parish and school parking lots and re-striping the lot for parking as well as for games for the school children. This resealing is a necessary part of the ongoing maintenance of the lot and protecting it against the vagaries of Wisconsin weather. The second project you will see is the landscaping work in the front of the rectory. The two trees which are currently in front of the rectory are slowly dying and are regularly losing limbs and the time has come for them to come down, we will take the opportunity then to landscape that entire area. We are able to do this because of parishioners who donate regularly to the maintenance of the parish gardens and natural surroundings. The new landscaping will continue to enhance our property and tie in that parcel of land to the area outside the Adoration Chapel and the Atrium. The third project will be the polishing of the church floors. This project is not only one that will enhance the beauty of the church by returning the floors to their original shine, but also is necessary to protect the terrazzo floor from damage which comes from age. Due to the scope of this project there may be times when you come into church and see your favorite pew roped off as they clean the floor beneath and around it, hopefully they will complete the project quickly and thank you for your understanding. Finally, another significant project will be redoing the gym floor, our Athletics Association and Home and School as well as generous donors at our School Auction have provided the funding for this needed project – it is wonderful to see various groups in the parish come together in a single project! If you recall, last year St. Mary’s was the recipient of an Elm Grove Beautification Award – we truly have stunning grounds which have been bequeathed to us from generations that have come before us, hopefully we are doing our part to pass them on to the next generation. Thank you for all the gardeners who help keep our grounds looking so beautiful, as well as our parish maintenance staff who work hard to ensure things are functioning as they should. Also, a special thank you to all of you for your generosity – your generosity allows us to not only carry on our mission as a parish, but to continually work to maintain the parish’s property. I hope and pray this summer is a time of rest and grace for you and your family! The weather has finally turned towards spring! I usually love winter, but even for myself this winter was getting a bit long! The joy of hearing the snow melt, the sun shining and temperatures warming up to where one can tentatively open some windows is one of the joys of spring! Another of the joys of spring is the celebration of Easter and the various celebrations which unfold during this Easter Season. This Easter Season there is much here at St. Mary’s to celebrate and I’d like to remind you of a few of them.
Last weekend we celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation – we were privileged to have Archbishop Listecki here to celebrate this sacrament with our teenagers who prepared over the course of this year for this powerful advent of the Holy Spirit in their lives. It was a joy for them and for their families. Also, last weekend I announced at all the Masses that Fr. John Gibson, currently Associate Pastor at St. Dominic’s Parish in Brookfield, has been assigned as part-time Associate Pastor here at St. Mary’s and part-time Chaplain at Catholic Memorial High School. We will officially welcome him in June and we will be hearing directly from him in the coming weeks as he begins to introduce himself to the parish community. I am sure we will all be grateful for the ministry he will exercise here. We also continue to be grateful for the ministry that Fr. Dave Filut has exercised amongst us for nearly eight years and will continue to exercise here in the future. Please join us on May 6th following the 9:00 AM Mass to celebrate Fr. Dave’s 50th Anniversary of Ordination to the Priesthood and to thank him for all the help and assistance he has given to our parish. That same weekend, albeit later in the afternoon, our First Communicants will celebrate their First Communion at a special Mass at 1:30 in the afternoon. Please pray for these children as they prepare to receive Christ present in the Eucharist for the first time. It is a joy as a pastor to be able to celebrate this with the children and to have the privilege of giving them their First Communion! Join us later that week on the evening of May 10th for our annual May Crowning, our annual celebration to honor our patron, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth. This is also an important tradition for our 2nd Graders and 8th Graders and everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend. We also have the great joy of celebrating the ordination of two of our parish sons, Deacon William Arnold and Deacon John LoCoco, to the priesthood on May 19th. This will be a joyful occasion for them and for their families and for the entire parish. I am not sure how long it has been - but probably decades - since two men from the same parish were ordained to the priesthood the same year. Deacon Arnold will celebrate his First Mass at the 5:00 PM Mass on Saturday, May 19th; Deacon LoCoco will celebrate his First Mass at the 11:00 AM Mass on Sunday, May 20th. Join us after each of those Masses for a celebration in the Atrium and an opportunity to receive their first blessings. I find myself, more and more, giving thanks to God for all the blessings He bestows on this parish, He has been so good to us and it’s easy when we live in the midst of it to not recognize it for what it is, or to take it for granted. God has been very, very good to St. Mary’s – and I hope and pray that we will respond to His goodness by following Him with love and obedience and doing His will with joyful hearts. My dear brothers and sisters, it is with great joy that we celebrate once again the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ! Alleluia! As we have journeyed to the Cross over the Lenten Season we can now glory in the victory won upon it over the course of the Easter Season. Here are some words from a homily by St. Ephrem the Deacon, a Doctor of the Church who lived in the 4th Century:
“Death trampled our Lord underfoot, but he in his turn treated death as a highroad for his own feet. He submitted to it, enduring it willingly, because by this means he would be able to destroy death in spite of itself. Death had its own way when our Lord went out from Jerusalem carrying his cross; but when by a loud cry from that cross he summoned the dead from the underworld, death was powerless to prevent it. Death slew him by means of the body which he had assumed, but that same body proved to be the weapon with which he conquered death. Concealed beneath the cloak of his manhood, the godhead engaged death in combat; but in slaying our Lord, death itself was slain. It was able to kill natural human life, but was itself killed by the life that is above the nature of man. Death could not devour our Lord unless he possessed a body, neither could hell swallow him up unless he bore our flesh; and so he came in search of a chariot in which to ride to the underworld. This chariot was the body which he received from the Virgin; in it he invaded death’s fortress, broke open its strongroom and scattered all its treasure. He who was also the carpenter’s glorious son set up his cross above death’s all-consuming jaws and led the human race into the dwelling place of life Since a tree had brought about the downfall of mankind, it was upon a tree that mankind crossed over to the realm of life. Bitter was the branch that had once been grafted upon that ancient tree, but sweet the young shoot that has now been grafted on, the shoot in which we are meant to recognize the Lord whom no creature can resist. We give glory to you, Lord, who raised by your cross to span the jaws of death like a bridge by which souls might pass from the region of the dead to the land of the living. You are incontestably alive. Your murderers sowed your living body in the earth as farmer sow grain, but it sprang up and yielded an abundant harvest of men raised from the dead. Come then, my brothers and sisters, let us offer our Lord the great and all-embracing sacrifice of our love, pouring out our treasury of hymns and prayers before him who offered his cross in sacrifice to God for the enrichment of us all.” A blessed and joyful Easter to all of you and your families! |
Fr. PeterArchives
June 2023
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