St. Paul Roman Catholic Parish Fort McMurray 31st Sunday ... · 2017-2018 Sunday Missals and Youth Missals Sunday Novem-are available for sale . Please ask church’s office or cry

St. Paul Roman Catholic Parish Fort McMurray

480 Signal Road, Fort McMurray, AB T9H 4R7

780-791-4305; ; Fax: 587-258-6898 Visit us: Website at www.stpaulparishwb.com

Email: [email protected]

31st Sunday of Ordinary Time

Parish Staff

Pastor

Fr. Reddy [email protected]

Assistant Pastor Fr. Jhack Diaz

[email protected] Bro. Jayson

[email protected]

Parish Secretary: Janet Alipio [email protected]

Liturgy Schedule Monday-Friday

Rosary & Mass 8:40 am Saturday 7:00 pm

Sunday 9 am & 11 am

Mass/Adoration

RCIA- Every Wednesday at 7pm at St. Paul’s Church

Spanish Rosary -Every Second Friday of each month at 7pm

THANK YOU for your donation made to St. Paul Parish. October 28

and 29th General collections $4,637.35

St. Paul Parish Confirmation/ First Communion Schedule 2017-2018

Pentecost People Sunday- November 4, 7:00pm November 5, 9:00am

Gift’s of the Spirit Sunday- November 25, 7:00pm November 26, 9:00am Confirmation- December 6, 7:00 pm December 7, 7:00 pm

BAPTISM Baptism prepara-tion on every third Tuesday of the month. Next one will be held on November 21st at 7 pm at St. Paul Church. And The Sac-rament of Baptism will be celebrated on every fourth Sunday of the month at 2 pm in St. Paul Church.

CWL Monthly Meeting Monday November 6th, 2017 at St. Paul Church in the portable, 7PM. Monday, December 4th will be a Potluck at St. Paul Church Hall. 6:30 supper after 6pm Mass. January Meeting will be January 8 not New Years Day.

2017-2018 Sunday Missals

and Youth Missals

are available for sale .

Please ask church’s office or

when you go to masses they

can be found at the front of

cry room.

Sunday Missal cost $5.00

Youth Missal cost $10.00

There’s a box beside where

the missals are. Please in-

sert your payments in the

box.

Tagalog Mass

Sunday Novem-ber 26th 6pm at St. Paul ‘s

Church. All are welocme!

Sunday Reflection By Dn. Raymond 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

When I started the Sunday Celebration of the Word without priest in Fort McKay after my ordination, the parishioners there had no idea what a deacon is no matter how I explained it. But they heard I have a wife and kids and called me Father. Finally an eighty years old “figured” it out and called me: Father Deacon Raymond, Dea-con became my first name. When I shared the story with people at St John Church, Val, the principal of St Anne School at that time, started calling me: Father Deacon Raymond Grandpa Chan. We had two grandkids studying at St. Anne.

In this Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 23:9) Jesus said: “call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven.” Am I in trouble now that I am called not just father but also grandfather? First of all, Jesus is not banning the use of the term, “Father.” In fact, he expects us to respect our biological fathers and to call them “father.” He also tells us to respect our spiritual ancestors calling many of them, “Father.” Abraham is often referred to as Father Abraham. St. Paul often reminds people that he is their spiritual father. The apostles and all who founded churches were called to be the fathers of those churches. In today’s Gospel, Jesus also tells his disci-ples to call no one teacher. But the New Testament continually refers to God appointing some to be teachers.

In Matthew 23, Jesus is pointing at the Pharisees who exalt themselves, looking for new ways to demand respect. They wear headbands with pieces of cloth hanging on them called phylacteries with written words of scrip-ture to remind them of God’s Word in front of their eyes literally. Proverbs 4:20-21 says, “My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight; Keep them in the midst of your heart.” The trouble was that the Pharisees were seeing God’s words but not keeping them. They were just putting on a show of holiness to be admired. Jesus’ point was that the Pharisees were making religion about them-selves, not about God. The Catholic priest is ordained to continue the loving work of the Father. He is called father because the mandate of the Sacrament of Holy Orders is to make the Father’s love real for His people. When the priest doesn’t do that, then he doesn’t deserve to be called father. It is easy for a priest to use his position in the Church to point to himself instead of to God. The priest acts as though he is the source of wisdom for all. People then look to him as their guide instead of to God. St. Paul ran into this difficulty after he left Corinth. The people there were divided into groups. One group said that they belonged to Paul, who brought them the faith. A second group said that they belonged to Apollos, a Christian missionary who came after Paul and who nurtured their faith. Paul wrote the Corinthians that we all belong to God, not to this or that individual, (1 Corinthians 3:6), remind-ing them “I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plant, but it was God who gave the growth.” Throughout history, the Church has suffered from humans making a big deal out of themselves to serve their egos instead of serving God. They seem to have forgotten the last words of today’s Gospel, (Matthew 23:11) “whoever exalts him-self shall be humbled. Whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.”

Matthew 23 isn’t just about priesthood, though. It is about how all of us use our position in the Church. We all have authority, some as priests, or teachers, or parents, or catechists, etc. Many of us are parents. If we are good parents, we will demand that our children respect us as the representative of God in this stage of their lives. We also want them to learn respect for all those whom God has given any form of authority, like teachers. Jesus speaks about teachers in today’s gospel too. For the teachers, I believe that they became teachers because they want to form the young into productive citizens of our country and of God’s Kingdom. I am sure as Christians, we are all in-volved in charitable ministries, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, etc. We don’t do this so we can have others respect us. We reach out to others to serve Christ in the needy. In whatever way leadership is manifested in our lives, we have to be sure that we are leading others to God, not to a meeting or a social of our own fan clubs.

The basic message of today’s gospel is that everything we do must be about Jesus Christ, never about our-selves. We have to understand that we are His servants. Our priests must manifest God’s fatherhood, not their own fatherhood. Our teachers are part of the teaching ministry of Christ, and are teaching for his glory, not teaching for their own glory. In all things, God must be exalted. If that means at times stepping back while another continues the Work of God more effectively than we can, so be it. It is better to humble ourselves and be exalted by God than to exalt ourselves and end up with nothing. That is the conclusion of today’s Gospel.

Those who are humbled will be raised up. Instead of imposing ourselves on oth-ers, let us live in Christ unassumingly. This past year, thanks to your support of Devel-opment and Peace, you have empowered a local partner in Ecuador by providing over $230, 000 to implement food sover-eignty projects. This has helped residents become more self-sufficient through rural indigenous women’s work, and to set up small family gardens. May Peace be with Her!

Source: D&P Annual report 2015-2016 P11

Spanish Adoration will be held on No-vember 10th at 7 pm at St. Paul’s Church

Spanish Mass Sunday November 19th at 5pm

St. Paul ‘s Church All are welcome!

NIGHT VIGIL PRAYER MEETING

November 17th at 7:pm at St. Paul’s

Church.

All are welcome to attend!

Note:

November 9th 9:00am week-day Mass has been canceled.

The total from the Children’s collection is $825.76 from the Regional Mass last Septem-

ber 10th at Holy Trinity School. This amount will be forwarded to the Holy

Childhood Association.

“Wisdom is brilliant, she never fades. By those who love her, she is readily seen, by those who seek her,

she is readily found.” We are thankful for the wisdom women bring in working towards sustainable peace.

We celebrate and recognize Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakkul Karman who were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. Together,

they are engaged in a nonviolent struggle for the safe-ty of women and for women’s rights to fully partici-

pate in peacebuilding work.

Source: Women at the Heart of Peace and Reconcilia-tion P18