Showing posts with label celebration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label celebration. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

100th Anniversary of St. Philip Neri in Pictures


Proclaim with me the greatness of Yahweh,
together let us extol his name.
I seek Yahweh, and he answers me
and frees me from all my fears.
Psalm 34:3-4
The New Jerusalem Bible





The University of Notre Dame Handbell and Celebration Choirs as they prepare for the concert.












The glory of the Easter celebration continues as we begin our worship together.









Father Jason visits with his family after Mass.













Father Tim, Christel and Dennis Butrum, and Kay and Allen Hagemeier. Friends for many years.










Ron speaks with Nina Marczak, the church historian and Frank.













Father Jason sends us forth with his blessing.
A grand day was had by all, to be sure.







~~~^j^~~~

Ron and I would personally like to thank Father Jason and the Family of St. Philip Neri for their hospitality, generosity, and love. You truly are wonderful and we are proud to call you Family. May God bless you in His generosity for another 100 years!!

~~~^j^~~~

Thanks be to God!!!



Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Easter Prayer

Risen Lord, Oxford
Picture by Lawrance OP
uploaded 5/17/2007

We sometimes forget that there is more to Easter than the celebration of our Lord's Resurrection Day. In fact, we have the privilege of celebrating it for seven weeks. I was reminded of that as I picked up Fr. Rohr's Radical Grace, Daily Meditations. Here's today's reminder that we should still be having a party!

A Week of Easter Prayers:
Make Us Truly Catholic

God Make us truly catholic people. Make us bearers of the Incarnation. Make us not afraid of life and not afraid of this earth. Make us strive for justice and believe in peace. Make us not afraid of the cross and neither afraid of the Resurrection. Make us, Creator, not afraid of enjoying this world, of celebrating and protecting this world.

Teach us, Jesus, how to do liturgy, how to do life. Teach us, God to continue to make things beautiful, because you have made us beautiful by your choice of flesh.

We thank you for this world. and we thank you for our Holy Catholic Church.

Eternal God, make the Catholic people truly catholic. Make us whole. Renew our Church, Lord, in our time. And make us a whole and holy people. Heal us, Lord, from our hurts from Holy Mother Church. Show us how to forgive our Mother. Reconcile us to our tradition, to our past, so we can move into our future, so we can walk with your, loving God.

We ask for all of these blessing. We invite you into our world. We invite you into our lives in Jesus' holy name. Amen.
from The Price of Peoplehood

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Thanks be to, God.

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I would also like to ask you to pray for our oldest daughter, Laura, as she undergoes a colonoscopy today to find out why she is having such severe abdominal pain and why her colon is inflamed.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I wish you, with all my heart, happiness and joy in the celebration of St. Patrick's Day. I also offer this meditation on the prayer, St. Patrick's Breastplate. God Bless you all!!

St. Patrick's Breastplate

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In gratitude for St. Patrick and all the saints, I say,
"Thanks be to God."

Friday, November 30, 2007

The Christmas Pageant


My husband and I had been happily married for five years but hadn't been blessed with a baby. I decided to do some serious praying and promised God that if he would give us a child, I would be a perfect mother, love it with all my heart and raise it with His word as my guide.

God answered my prayers and blessed us with a son. The next year God blessed us with another son. The following year, He blessed us with yet another son. The year after that we were blessed with a daughter. My husband thought we'd been blessed right into poverty. We now had four children, and
the oldest
was only four years old.

I learned never to ask God
for anything unless I meant it. As a minister once told me, "If you pray for rain, make sure you carry an umbrella." I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children each day as they lay in their cribs. I was off to a good start. God had entrusted me with four children and I didn't want to disappoint Him.

I tried to be patient the day the children smashed two dozen eggs on the kitchen floor searching for baby chicks. I tried to be understanding... when they started a hotel for homeless frogs in the spare bedroom, although it took me nearly two hours to catch all twenty-three frogs. When my daughter poured ketchup all over herself and rolled up in a blanket to see how it felt to be a hot dog, I tried to see the humor rather than the mess.

In spite of changing over twenty-five thousand diapers, never eating a hot meal and never sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, I still thank God daily for my children. While I couldn't keep my promise to be a perfect mother - I didn't even come close...I did keep my promise to raise them in the Word of God.

I knew I was missing the mark just a little when I told my daughter we were going to church to worship God, and she wanted to bring a bar of soap along to "wash up" Jesus, too. Something was lost in the translation when I explained that God gave us everlasting life, and my son thought it was generous of God to give us his "last wife."

My proudest moment came during the children's Christmas pageant. My daughter was playing Mary, two of my sons were shepherds and my youngest son was a wise man. This was their moment to shine. My five-year-old shepherd had practiced his line, "We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes." But he was nervous and said, "The baby was wrapped in w rinkled clothes." My four-year-old "Mary" said, "That's not 'wrinkled clothes,' silly. That's dirty, rotten clothes." A wrestling match broke out between Mary and the shepherd and was stopped by an angel, who bent her halo and lost her left wing. I slouched a little lower in my seat when Mary dropped the doll representing Baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, "Mama-mama." Mary grabbed the doll, wrapped it back up and held it tightly as the wise men arrived. My other son stepped forward wearing a bathrobe and a paper crown, knelt at the manger and announced, "We are the three wise men, and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense and fur." The congregation dissolved into laughter, and the pageant got a standing ovation.

"
I've never enjoyed a Christmas program as much as this one," laughed the pastor, wiping tears from his eyes. "For the rest of my life,I'll never hear the Christmas story with out thinking of gold, common sense and fur." "My children are my pride and my joy and my greatest blessing," I said as I dug through my purse for an aspirin.

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It is with gratitude that I thank Ron's cousin, Catherine, for sending me this in the form of an email. The author is anonymous to me at this time, but she has a wonderful way of putting into words the "Life and Times of Motherhood" in a simple yet moving manner.

I recall the time two of the boys, and I'm not sure which, and it's not important anyway, first served Mass TOGETHER. As always the Kellers were sitting in the front of the church so we have no idea how the rest of the congregation was reacting. I only know that I wanted to disappear, when neither boy could decide who was going to ring the bells at consecration. The bells were rung by BOTH as they fought for superiority. The problem was easily solved after Mass when they were instructed to decide before Mass who was to ring the bells. Our children are not only a constant source of joy, but also an endless cause for humility when our PRIDE gets in the way.

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Peace, Joy, and Thanks be to God!!!


Sunday, November 25, 2007

The Feast of Corpus Christi

I was reminded this morning at Mass how it is that on this Glorious Day of Celebration many are not thinking about the Kingship of the Savior. Every year in the Church's liturgical calendar this feast officially ends the year and the following Sunday we observe the beginning of the Season of Advent, that season when we anticipate the celebration of Our Lord's birth. Why is it that we do not revel in the joy of this feast? Not only have we been saved by the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we are also made co-heirs of the "kingdom" through Baptism.

St. John of the Cross writes...

The soul experiences in God as much gentleness and love as it does power and dominion and grandeur, for everything in God is one. The delight is strong; and the protection is powerful in gentleness and love, that the soul might endure the strong delight, and instead of fainting stand powerful and strong. If Ester fainted, it was because the king did not at first show himself to her favorably but as it says there, disclosed with burning eyes the furor of his heart (Est 15: 10). Yet she came to herself after he favored her, held out his scepter and touched her with it, and embraced her and told her that he was her brother and not to fear (Est 15: 11-12).

The soul no longer fears, since from henceforth the King of heaven acts in a friendly way toward it, as toward his brother and his equal. In revealing to it, in gentleness and not in furor, the might of his power and the love of his goodness, he communicates to it from his heart strength and love, going out to it from his throne, which is the soul itself, like the Bridegroom from his bridal chamber (Ps 18:6), where he was hidden and turned toward it, touching it with his scepter, and embracing it as a brother. There we find the royal garments and their fragrance, which are God's admirable virtues; there the splendor of God, which is charity; there is glittering of the precious stones of knowledge of the higher and lower substances; there the face of the Word, full of graces, which shines upon the queen, which is the soul, and clothes it in such a fashion that, transformed in these attributes of the heavenly King, it is aware of having become a queen. (Magnificat November, 2007)

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And so, I think this should also be a day of grand celebration!!! But then I have always loved a party. Just knowing and understanding that like the "good thief" we too will be one day with the King in Paradise should be reason to dance, sing and praise the Lord...Party!


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And in sincere gratitude I say, "Thanks be to God!!!"