Generation Christ - Ann Arbor at 530 Elizabeth Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 US
| 9-25-2009 |
~ The Weekly Update ~
Friday of the Twenty-Fifth Week of Ordinary Time (OF) / Ember Friday after Michaelmas (EF)
Greetings GenChrist,
A big thank you to all who helped with pancake breakfasts last week and to all who invited friends to the Generation Christ kick-off. Our year will continue this week with an hour of prayer and praise on Sunday evening at 7:00 p.m.
In thanksgiving to God for the pleasant changing of the seasons, please consider joining GenChrist's monthly visit to the Delonis Center, this Sunday.
In Christ,
Paul Schultz
News in Brief
Today: Adoration / Ember Friday Vespers
September 27: Delonis Center
September 27: School of Community - 4 p.m.
September 29: GenChrist hour at 40 Days For Life - 7:00 p.m.
October 10: Proposed Pilgrimage for Priests - Save the Date
GenChrist notes: Housing opportunity; Core Team needs
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News
Adoration / Ember Friday Vespers - from Paul
Every-Friday Adoration has begun at our parish - Adoration has begun for today and will continue at St. Thomas until Benediction and Mass tomorrow morning.
Tonight at 6:30 p.m., a group of us will be meeting for a half hour of Adoration - it will be in the school chapel at that time. When the Blessed Sacrament is reposition to the Church, we will then pray the Mass prayers for Ember Friday as well as Vespers (evening prayer). Afterward, we will gather at Karen's apartment for a simple supper and pleasant conversation. Please join us.
(See the prior Weekly Update for a discussion of Ember Days, generally)
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Pancake Breakfast - September 19th and 20th
On Sunday, September 20th, we will be holding pancake breakfasts to welcome new parishioners and returning members to this year's Generation Christ fellowship. In order to bring as many people as possible closer to Christ through our Sunday evening Holy Hours, we need volunteers to help serve the pancakes and to advertise the breakfast throughout that weekend.
In particular, for the Saturday vigil Mass as well as for all the Sunday Masses, we will need a GenChrist member at each Mass to read an announcement or to speak about GenChrist and we'll need several members to greet people at the doors after the final blessing and to hand out invitations/flyers. During the 9:00 and 10:45 Masses, we will need eight persons to cook the breakfasts that will be served following those Masses.
If you will be attending any Mass at St. Thomas that weekend and can help in any way, please email Mark
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40 Days for Life
This fall, from September 23 - November 1, our community will be uniting with over 212 other cities across America for the largest and longest coordinated pro-life mobilization in history - the second nationwide 40 Days for Life campaign. The 40 Days for Life campaign is made up of three key components:
· Prayer and Fasting: inviting people of faith throughout our city to join together for 40 days of fervent prayer and fasting for an end to abortion
· Peaceful Vigil: standing for life through a 40-day peaceful public witness outside Planned Parenthood, 3100 Professional Drive, Ann Arbor. To sign up to pray and witness at the vigil, go to the Ann Arbor website and click on Vigil Schedule.
· Community Outreach: taking a positive, upbeat pro-life message to every corner of our city
Learn how you can "speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves" here in Ann Arbor by contacting Paul Dobrowolski or by visiting the website.
Upcoming 40 Days for Life events:
Kick-off Rally - Tuesday, September 22, 7-9 pm, Christ the King Gym (see attached flyer)
Life Chain - Sunday, October 4, 2-3:30 pm, intersection of Washtenaw and Huron Parkway, Ann Arbor
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GenChrist Notes
Religious education need
We've got a strong parish religious education program planned for the year, but we need a few teachers work are willing to team up with another teacher for the 4th, 5th and 6th graders. Training and materials are provided. The final introductory catechist meeting will be tonight, Friday, September 11, at 7:00. Please call Monica Pope.
Pope Benedict's Prayer Intentions
Each month, Pope Benedict XVI announces his special prayer intentions--particular things that he wishes all Catholics to pray for that month. (When, for instance, we pray the rosary and say the prayers at the end for the intentions of the Holy Father, these are the intentions for which we're praying.) Pope Benedict offers two intentions every month, one general, and one for a particular Catholic missionary activity.
His general prayer intention for September 2009 is "That the word of God may be better known, welcomed and lived as the source of freedom and joy."
Pope Benedict's mission intention is "That Christians in Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar, who often meet with great difficulties, may not be discourage from announcing the Gospel to their brothers, trusting in the strength of the Holy Spirit."
Ember Days notice
In a few weeks, we will have an opportunity to observe the Autumnal (or "Michaelmas") Ember Days - Ember Wednesday (9/23), Ember Friday (9/25) and Ember Saturday (9/26), which fall in the week after the Sunday after the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14th in the calendar of each form the Roman Rite).
Ember Days fall four times within each year and are days when the faithful can particularly focus on God through His marvelous creation. Ember Days are days of fasting and partial abstinence, which are voluntary under the 1983 code of canon law. Marking the change of the natural seasons by prayer and fasting, we can thank God for all that He has done for us, for the plenty of the earth, and the beauty of the world He created. (See also, New Advent: Ember Days)
In our Protestant and/or secular American culture, it is often said that the Church co-opted pagan festivals, giving them a little leavening of Catholicism but otherwise importing them whole cloth. In most important cases, this claim is wholly untrue; but is made by our opponents so as to suggest that Catholicism is a pagan or non-Christian religion. Ember Days are, in a sense, an exception to the rule - not because the Church adopted anything that was pagan but rather because the Church 'Christianized' something that the pagans had gotten almost right - thanking and praising God for a bountiful harvest, a rich vintage, a productive seeding or the blessing of nature in general.
Ember Days began in the Diocese of Rome before Christians were free to practice the Faith in public and gradually spread to all of western Christendom. They were celebrated in the third century and their origins are shrouded perhaps even further in the past. In 1969, in preparation for the introduction of the Missal of Pope Paul VI in 1970, the Congregation for Divine Worship invited all of the national bishops conferences to determine how the Ember Days should be incorporated into the calendar of that Missal within their nations. To date, the Bishops of the United States have not acted on this invitation - and the Ember Days do not yet appear in our Ordinary Form calendar.
Nonetheless, under Pope Benedict's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, it remains our option to take advantage of the Extraordinary Form's calendar and the prayers and readings attached to Michaelmas Embertide. (These prayers and readings will be more particularly provided next week)
