News Around the Parish

 

Christmas Boutique – the long awaited Mother’s Club Christmas Boutique is just around the corner and will be here next weekend.  The core group has been planning all year round and work began in earnest shortly after Thanksgiving.  Santa’s elves came in on Friday, after Thanksgiving, and began cleaning up and setting up to transform our hall into a magical destination for the Boutique.  A special Champagne Preview will begin on Friday night, 11/30 @ 6:30pm.  Tickets need to be purchased in advanced and it is a fun occasion as people dressed in their finest formal wear, shop and generally have a fun time with one another, while supporting this fund raising event for the school.  The following day, while the adults shop at the Boutique, the children enjoy the carnival in the school yard and gym.  From inflated rides that kids can jump in and slide, to scaling a tower, riding a bronco, face painting and coin tosses to win a goldfish, there’s something for everyone.  So encourage your family and friends to come and have fun.  You can also have your pictures taken professionally with Santa for your Christmas cards.  Grilled food is served by the Men’s Club at lunch time and there’s Mexican food for dinner.  It is a fun filled weekend that not only helps you get your shopping done, but also supports the school.  The weekend schedule is:  Sat. 12/1 from 10am – 8pm and Sunday 12/2 from 10-2pm.  Come and enjoy the St. Brendan Community Spirit.

 

Congratulations Confirmandees – Two Saturdays ago, 11/17, Auxiliary Bishop Robert McElroy celebrated Confirmation with our 8^th grade class.  Prior to their Confirmation, they attended a day retreat led by an atheist turned convert, Christine Watkins.  After their retreat, some of the teens who were unsure about their Catholic faith and whether God truly listened to their prayers, experienced a change of heart.  These are some of their comments:

I had an encounter with God

I now believe that I can make it to heaven

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go through with Confirmation and now I can’t wait

Now I feel like I’m worth something

Eleven young men and twenty young ladies received the Sacrament.  Please continue to pray that the seed of faith planted in them, will continue to grow and blossom.

 

Welcome New Parishioners – On Nov 17, the Welcome Committee organized the Parish Thanksgiving Dinner.  We also took that opportunity to welcome new members to our parish.  We do this 2 times a year, one around the feast of St. Brendan (May 16) and the other at our Thanksgiving Dinner.  From May 16, 2012, we’ve had 28 new households register in the parish, increasing our parish family by 51 members.  To our new members, we warmly welcome you into our community.  You’ll see a lot of new faces but don’t hesitate to introduce yourself to us, letting us know that you’re new to the parish.  And we’d be happy to tell you the scoop and the latest in our parish.  I’d also like to thank the members of the Welcome Committee, chaired by Rebecca Kassekert and Paula Haskell-Miraglia, for all the time and effort you put into making this a fun and joyful evening.  We all had a great time, thanks to you!  And to all of you visiting our parish this Thanksgiving weekend, if you are looking for a spiritual home, we’d be honored if you chose us.  Take one of our Welcome Booklet in the foyer of the Church, or visit us on-line, and learn about the many activities here in our parish.  You are welcome here!

 

Fr. Dan

 

Do We Include God in our Thanksgiving?

This weekend’s gospel speaks to the permanence and unchanging nature of God’s pledge of love for us. Of course we have been created with free will and are free to accept the offered love or to reject it. It seems particularly appropriate to consider this as we anticipate the coming celebration of Thanksgiving this week.  One of the positive signs at St. Brendan’s is that the number of people electing to attend Mass on this non-mandatory date increases from year to year.  Some people consider the simple act of giving thanks, expressing gratitude in kind phrases to others or in prayer as more important than the feasting on the plenty of food and other benefits that we enjoy as Americans.  We know that even our troops in the field of combat will have special Thanksgiving meals sent to them, and Hurricane Sandy victims who are just beginning to recover from their devastation will have donated special meals delivered for this date.  Yet isn’t Thanksgiving more about giving thanks than gorging ourselves on too much food?

The original Pilgrims were escaping religious persecution in England for their faith. These Puritan separatists’ religion began in England under the reign of Elizabeth I, (1558- 1663). Elizabeth was determined to stamp our opposition to the Church of England, (Anglican Church). The term “puritan” was derived from their stated purpose to oppose the English Church and to purify it from its Roman Catholic influences. In the spring of 1621, half of these Pilgrims who had been on the ship Mayflower had perished. The survivors had befriended friendly Indians who taught them to grow harvest from the soil. These Puritan separatists believed in the literal translation of the Bible and hence only celebrated two sacraments, Baptism and Eucharist, considering the other sacraments to be of human invention. The original Thanksgiving feast lasted 3 days, giving God the credit for their survival and good fortune to be alive and building their small colony. I believe that these original Pilgrims, though rejecting our Catholic faith in many parts, demonstrated a sense of God working in their midst.

In our modern day observance of Thanksgiving, to whom do we give thanks? For some it is the purveyor of the bountiful meal elements; for others it is the thought of commencing the Christmas shopping season; still others thank their family and friends; or reflect upon their blessings thinking of them as merited by our effort alone.

 What about thanking God ? Thoughts of thanking God for our good fortune, for being with us as we endure hardships, (thereby allowing us to be hopeful in the face of adversity) are not as popular as when this feast began. Let us resolve to restore the gratitude we owe God for never abandoning us and for His providence and love for us that “... will not pass away.”

 

   Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 Fr. Mike

 

News Around the Parish

 New Archdiocese Ministry for Homicide Victims – Five homicides in San Francisco within a few days apart, prompted the Restorative Justice Program of the Archdiocese to begin a Victim’s Assistance Program.  Because of our work with San Dimas Community, visiting the teens in Juvenile Hall, Fr. Mike and I were asked to assist in this ministry.  So far, we’ve gone over to the site of the fallen victims to pray for them, their loved ones and their perpetrators.  Each life is precious.  And when a person’s life is so violently taken away, we wanted to do something to say that the person’s life is precious to God and to their loved ones.  We should not treat life so callously.  The first person we prayed for, Jose Escobar, was a teen that San Dimas Ministry had been in contact with when we first met him in Juvenile Hall.  After his release, he changed his life and began doing better in school.  Each killing robs a person and their loved ones of a future.  So we pray for them and their families and try to assist them with what they need.  For example, burial cost for another victim, Cesar Bermudez, was over $5,000 that the immigrant family is having difficulties meet.  On behalf of the family, the Archdiocese is inviting the community to assist them and this new Victim’s Assistance ministry. 

If you’d like to make a contribution, you can make a check to St. Brendan Church, with Victim’s Assistance in the memo line.  We will forward it to them.

 All Saints – Last Sunday, 11/4, at the 9:30am mass, the parish was blessed by special visitors.  About 20 third graders came dressed as saints and they reminded us that we belong to a communion of saints.  Among the saints, were St. Anne, St. Brigid, St. Clare, St. Elizabeth, St. Francis, St. George, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Joan of Arc and of course, Mother Mary.  As St. Theresa, the Little Flower, promised that she will spend her heaven doing good on earth, so we have the confident hope that the saints in heaven, along with our beloved departed, continue to intercede for us.  I want to thank the “Saints,” their parents, Maria Detweiller, the Women at the Well, Dianne Marquez and the 9:30 choir for making this event possible.  Special thanks also to Paul and Beth O’Leary for providing the extra donuts needed at this mass.  Oh I want, to be in that number, oh when the Saints go marching in.

 

A Ministry of the Parish – as part of the Strategic Plan of the parish, the Parish Advisory Board have been discussing a ministry that all of us at St. Brendan can participate in, to live out our call by Jesus to discipleship.  We thought it would be important for our parish, not only to come together to worship and to learn about our faith, but also to live out our discipleship together.  This is a vibrant parish and there are many activities.  But many activities are inward focused that helps us and our children grow and blossom.  We were thinking, is there an activity that all of us, as children, teens and adults can do together that would fit in with our time, talents and abilities and that would also benefit our community?  Sr. Sharon Brannen has been meeting with St. Vincent de Paul, Catholic Charities, Habitat for Humanity and others to see how we, as a parish, can work together to serve a need in our community.  If you have any ideas or suggestions, don’t hesitate to share them with Sr. Sharon, Fr. Mike or me.

 

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan

 

 

Reflections of Our Parochial Vicar

 

      The Greatest Commandment and Voting

This Sunday, the 31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time, the readings and the Gospel could not have been more appropriate.  In our first reading we are asked to love our God with all of our heart, mind and souls, in other words, with our total being and in total trust of God. Our motivation may not be as noble as we would like. Perhaps we only worship God and keep his commandments out of a sense of fear for our own consequences.  We hope to grow into relationship with God where we reach a point of relationship and trust that we do things from an informed conscience, our sense of duty arising therefrom and ultimately love and faithfulness with our God and Creator. Unfortunately, most of us begin from following precepts out of obedience, as a child obeys his/her parents. This obedience is rooted in trust that our parents and our God wish what is right for us. It takes a lifetime to develop a well-formed conscience and to act on that conscience.

It takes a relationship with God to ultimately move from obedience to acting out of love.

We are charged with doing our best, (NOTICE: We are not called always to succeed), to develop a sense of what we consider right or wrong and ultimately developing a well-formed conscience.

This takes patient listening to opposing views, it takes research into what we as members of the Catholic Church are called to do, it takes careful consideration, and after we have enough

information for acting FROM a well-formed conscience- it takes acting on our best decision of  what is right or avoiding that which we consider wrong.

 In 2007, The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops prepared a letter for use for Catholics regarding the responsibilities we as Catholics have in forming our society and in helping us to consider our faith responsibilities as we exercise our constitutionally guaranteed right to vote our conscience. An excerpt follows:

“Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship is widely used to share Catholic

              teaching on the role of faith and conscience in political life. …
          In short, it calls Catholics to form their consciences in the light
         of their Catholic faith and to bring our moral principles to the
         debate and decisions about candidates and issues.”

 Importantly, this paper explicitly makes clear that no candidate or issue is advocated. What this position paper does make clear is that we are to vote our Catholic conscience. In our gospel of  this weekend, we are told of the basic commandment to love and serve God with all of our being AND to love our fellow brothers and sisters as well as ourselves. May God be with each of the good people of St. Brendan as they cast their vote and in so doing seek to accomplish this gospel imperative.          

 

Fr. Mike

 

News Around the Parish

 

The Gift of Sight – This is one of those gifts that we can easily take for granted.  In today’s gospel, Jesus asked a blind man what he wanted as he called out to Him.  The blind man responded saying that he wanted to see.  And Jesus restored his sight.  Last year, another young man who was losing his sight asked to see.  He was a young man that San Dimas’ ministry had visited while he was in Juvenile Hall.  He grew up in the Mission and was part of a gang.  After his release, he wanted to leave that life and San Dimas continued to stay in touch with him, helping him to make good choices.  He married and together they have a child but he started to lose his sight.  Doctors said he needed surgery in both eyes to restore his sight.  But he had no health insurance.  San Dimas did some fundraising and together with a $ 10,000 gift from the Mother’s Club and $ 6,000 from the parish, we contributed to his surgery.  To date, he had surgery on one eye and it went well.  At our last San Dimas monthly meeting, he attended with his wife and child and expressed his gratitude to all of us who were so generous to him.  And he also encouraged us to speak boldly to the youth in Juvenile Hall, that there is life beyond the “barrios” neighborhoods.  There is so much more than simply fighting over turf.  If you are interested in this ministry, let me know.  San Dimas (SD) is an

interfaith ministry.  Aside from Juvenile Hall here in San Francisco, SD members also visit the youth in San Leandro and San Mateo Juvenile Hall and in the San Bruno Jail for Men.

 Faith Sharing Book Club – 25 parishioners signed up for the Book Club and we began meeting last week, using Christine Watkins’ book, “Full of Grace.”  I want to thank the Year of Faith Committee members for suggesting this.  Eileen Miller, Lou Scheerer and Zdenka Bodisco helped coordinate this and are serving as facilitators.  In addition, the priests and sisters of this parish are also enjoying the small faith sharing groups.  If you’d like to join us, you can drop-in at the Convent’s conference room (234 Ulloa Street) in any of the following sessions:

              Thursday morning, 9:30-11:00 am (10/25, 11/1, 8 & 15) – Facilitated by Eileen  
               Miller with Sr. Catherine joining in.

   Thursday, 7:30-9:00 pm (10/25, 11/1, 8 & 15) – Facilitated by Zdenka Bodisco with 

    Fr. Dan and Sr. Sharon joining in.

    Saturday, 10 - 11:30 am (10/20, 11/3, 10 & 17) - Facilitated by Lou Scheerer with

                Fr. Mike and Sr. Herminia joining in.

Peace,

Fr. Dan