OUR CHRISTMAS COLLECTION

How have priests helped you through difficult or stressful times? How have priests helped you grow closer to our Lord and to each other? How can you help prepare the men who will serve your parish in the years to come? What can we do to show our gratitude for the priests who have ministered to us? The Christmas collection will give us the opportunity to assist the diocese in funding the formation of our future priests – our seminarians – and meeting the needs of our retired diocesan priests. We ask you to generously support Those Clergy Who Have Served and Those Clergy Who Will Serve. Even though we have recently completed a diocesan endowment campaign for these needs, many of those pledges will not be completed for a few years, making this collection still necessary at this time.

From the Pastor’s Desk:

This weekend as we celebrate the Third Sunday of Advent it seems as if time is just flying. The last nine months have been unlike anything I have ever lived through, a truly hard time to minister to people. Priests have had to step outside the box, at times way outside to find ways to minister in our parishes. The Advent Season as well as we now look to the celebration of Christmas is so different. Nothing is like it has been in the past. It is not going to be the Christmas of the past. I wanted the Vietnamese youth to realize our traditions and ways we celebrate Christmas has been a long time in getting us to where we are today. So in my homily at their mass I gave them a calendar of Christmas.

332—Constantine the Great, decreed December 25, the birth of Jesus Christ

337—Pope Julius I, decreed December 25 as the date of the birth of Jesus Christ

1050---1st German Christmas Carol

1200---St. Francis, Nativity and 1st Christmas Carol in Italy

1539—Notre Dame in Paris displayed 1st public Christmas tree in France

1659—Puritans laws against Christmas celebrations in Massachusetts

1600--- The Dutch and English place stockings on the fireplace for gifts

1820—German immigrants in Pennsylvania, holiday trees

1822—Night before Christmas poem by Clement Moore

1828—Dr. Joel Poinsett introduces poinsettias to the US from Mexico

1840—Christmas Cards first in England

1856—Massachusetts is the last state to legalize Christmas

As immigrants came to the US from all over the world, they brought with them their traditions, music, foods and decorations of how they had celebrated Christmas and we today are heirs to all along with what we create as truly American. This 2020 Christmas will be somewhat different, perhaps we will create new traditions more centered around our immediate families. This would be a good opportunity to attend one of the nights of the Christmas Novena beginning on December 17th. Confessions will also be available at 6:30 each night of the Novena.

If you haven’t signed up to reserve your spot for the Christmas Masses please call the office at 831-3565 and do so! We want to make sure we are prepared so no one gets turned away.

JESSE TREE

There will be a small Jesse tree and baskets in

church this Advent suggesting items for the poor.

Please take a tag or two and buy the items

and return to the parish office. Again we will

be giving these to Crosslines, Grace United

Methodist Church and Sammy’s window. Thank

you. This is one way to make difference in the

lives of the poor.

CHRISTMAS FLOWERS

Donations are being accepted for Christmas Flowers. Please

include your name and the name of the person/ family your

donation is honoring.

FEAST OF THE NATIVITY OF OUR LORD:

CHRISTMAS 2020

Bishop Edward Rice will be in Cape Girardeau to

celebrate the Christmas Masses in St. Mary of the

Annunciation Cathedral. He will preside at

Midnight Mass, the 8:30 a.m. Mass (Live-streamed

on parish Facebook page) and the 10:30 a.m. Mass

(broadcast on KZIM 960 AM) on Christmas Day

From the Pastor’s Desk:

This weekend we celebrate the beginning of the season of Advent. A time of waiting in which we are to prepare ourselves to welcome once again the comforting mystery of the Incarnation and the light of Christmas, it is important to reflect on Christian hope. If I have ever needed a season of hope, this year is at the top of the list. Our life changed drastically nine months ago with the shutdown of our economy, followed by a gradual opening of much of our world. But it has come at a great cost, over 251,500 deaths here in the United States. For those families life will never be the same. Advent is a time to look to God with a renewed hope in the coming of Son, it is a hope that never disappoints. Optimism disappoints, but hope does not. In our troubled times that are violent, filled with anger, we have need of hope. We may feel discouraged because we are powerless and seems like there is nothing we can do. We cannot abandon our hope because God is beside us, God walks with us. God has not abandoned us, because God, with his love, walks with us. The birth of the Savior is the hope that pierces and ends violence and hatred. He brings joy, happiness and hope.

The decorating, the parties, the gifts, the cards we send, the special foods we bake; are all ways in which we may prepare to celebrate the birth of the Son of God. But this year these traditions need to be different, they need to be small family groups. As we have begun this new Church liturgical year, make the Eucharist a priority in your life, whether Sunday or one of the daily masses during the week. Only then can you/we put Christ first in your/our lives. Otherwise it is simply happy holidays, give me presents and get this silly tree out of the living room on December 26th. Without gathering around the Lord’s Table, without Christ in our lives on a regular basis, we really have nothing to celebrate on December 25th.

Just as our Advent prayers and Scripture readings are to prepare us for Christmas, so also should our Advent decorations lead us to the celebration of Christmas. The blue violet color of Advent can become the background for Christmas. Using ribbon or material shot through with gold can be enhanced in the Christmas season. The purples can be added to with golds or silvers. Greenery can be left unlit through Advent and then become aglow during the Christmas season. Regardless, as we celebrate Advent this year, we are called as God’s holy people to open our hearts, individually and communally to the reality of Jesus Christ.

In the Catholic Church before Vatican II, Christmas was the only time that Mass was allowed to be held at Midnight. This was because in the early church, it was believed that Jesus was born at midnight, although there has never been any proof of this! A lot of Churches have midnight services on Christmas Eve. This year St. Agnes Cathedral will have 3 Christmas Eve masses, followed by 3 Christmas day masses. It will enable more people to attend and still be social distanced. The parish has Advent Booklets to help you walk through the Season of Advent, and free 2021 Calendars, please pick them up at Church, chapel, or stop by the office.

THANK YOU!

YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE in the lives of the poor and vulnerable in our diocese by donating to the annual Second Collection for Catholic Charities. If you have not donated, please prayerfully consider a gift: Online donations may be made at www.ccsomo.org, or call (417) 720-4213, or mail your donation to Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri, 424 E. Monastery St., Springfield MO 65807. Thank you for your prayers and support.

JESSE TREE

There will be a small Jesse tree and baskets in church this Advent suggesting items for the poor. Please take a tog or two and buy the items and return to the parish office. Again we will be giving these to Crosslines, Grace United Methodist Church and Sammy’s window. Thank you. This is one way to make difference in the lives of the poor.

~ Sr. Elizabeth Ann

Youth Activities

Just a few notes on upcoming events:

First Reconciliation retreat and celebration is Dec. 5th at 9:30 am in the Cathedral.

CLOW and PSR classes will resume on December 6th.

There will be a Youth Christmas Party and white elephant gift exchange on December 6th in the gym. Price of admission will be a hygiene item for donation to Sammy’s Window.

The Confirmation Retreat is scheduled for Dec. 13th at C.C.M. It will be an all day retreat. The cost for the retreat is $25. A permission slip is required. Questions: email ibounds@sta-cathedral or call the office 831-3565 ext. 107.

If you reserved an advent Kit and have not yet picked it up, please do so at the Parish office.

HOW YOUR MONEY FOR THE POOR HAS BEEN SPENT

In the past month, through the St Vincent de Paul organization and our parish, at least $1800 has been spent to help 10 households with utility payments. Generally each household is helped no more often than once every 6 months. 17 gas vouchers were given out, 120 bus passes were given to the Well of Life for people to use if they have a doctor or work related appt. One person was helped with lodging. This is in addition to at least $500 a month that is given both to Well of Life and Crosslines for food purchases. Having these two organizations help the poor in this way, takes the burden off our church; we wouldn’t have room for an inventory of food anyway. Also our parish provides funds for 40 laundry vouchers for the poor each month and another $200 to help with the Breaking Bread Project at Grace United Methodist Church where two evening meals a week are provided. I have been taking used winter clothes over there as they come in, and will be taking some stocking caps, gloves and socks to Connecting Grounds this week.

You will be seeing my usual requests for the poor during Advent. Please help if you are able. Thank you for your generosity.

From the Pastor’s Desk:

Why do we go to Church? Why do we give money in the collection basket? Why did I choose to be a priest, giving up the choice to have a family? The answers to these questions are found in Jesus and what He told the Apostles and Disciples as He ascended, “Go and make disciples.”

The Church exists to go and make disciples of Jesus Christ. Anything we do that does not fit into that purpose is outside our mission and is a waste of time and money. If people are in a relationship with Jesus, the church’s mission is to help them grow closer to Him. If people do not know Jesus or have grown away from Him, it is the Church’s mission to introduce or reintroduce them to Jesus Christ. For people who already are on the discipleship path, it means helping them to go deeper in their relationship with Jesus Christ.

The Acts of the Apostles describes the church as a movement that “turned the world upside down.” The Church exists to be a movement establishing the kingdom of God in people’s minds and hearts and to manifest itself concretely in our world. To be a movement, the church must move, never to be satisfied. When we think of church we so often think of buildings, but church is the people of God. St. Agnes Cathedral can be destroyed in a tornado, but unless every single member of parish was inside and were killed, the church of St. Agnes would continue. Since we are the church, the people of God, it means that the people have to move into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.

When we read the Gospel, we find people coming to Jesus because they wanted something from Him: they came to hear him speak, they came to be healed, and they came because family or friends needed his help. They were simply consumers, focused on their needs. Even the apostles didn’t follow Jesus because they looked to him or believed in his mission. He was a rabbi who taught with authority and they felt good about themselves and he was popular. They were focused on being on Jesus’s left and right when he was made king. Even at the Last Supper the Apostles were arguing about who was the greatest.

Today with the virus rampaging through our country the Church’s mission is much harder to live out. Here at St. Agnes we are working in the school as well as in the church to be as safe as possible with the wearing of masks as well as the sanitizing. We are also trying to the best of our abilities to meet the sacramental needs of the people in these uncertain times. Our parishes exist to help move people to develop their own personal relationship with Jesus Christ, taking ownership of their own faith, and then, out of that relationship, taking ownership of the mission of the church to go and make disciples. And all of this is strengthened by uniting around the Eucharistic table on Sundays and being fed with the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

Let us keep in prayer all those suffering from COVID-19.

ADVENT ACTIVITY KIT

Due to COVID 19 and being unable to meet as a parish for Advent Fair Activities or Breakfast With Santa etc, The Faith Formation program of St. Agnes Cathedral is offering an Advent Kit for families of

The Connecting Grounds Outreach Center

at 3000 W. Chestnut Expressway is looking for some help for the homeless:

 Volunteers to hand out hand warmers, blankets, coffee, gloves and hats to the homeless between Oct. 25-Mar 31 in the evenings.

 People to prepare and/or serve meals at the Outreach Center.

 You can join the TCG Outreach Volunteers Facebook, or theconnectinggrounds.com to learn more.

 Donate items such a gloves, bus passes, cups with lids, sleeping bags, hand warmers, socks, blankets and sweatshirts. Bring them to the church office. I will see that these are dropped off at the Center.

Thank you, Sr. Elizabeth Ann

MERCY IN A COVID TIME

COVID continues and continuing to follow the necessary guidelines for safety is sometimes wearying. I was thinking it would be a wholesome idea to add a new corporal/spiritual work of Mercy to your practices: Calling people whom we know are alone and staying at home. We have seen how small a world can become. You might set a goal of phoning one person a week and four different people a month. These could be relatives, or former co-workers or people you know from church. You may never know how much this means to the other person.

Sr. Elizabeth Ann

SECOND COLLECTION FOR CATHOLIC CHARITIES

Next Sunday, Nov. 22, is the annual Second Collection to support the work of Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri (CCSOMO). Thousands of individuals and families turn to CCSOMO every year for help. Due to COVID, the number of those CCSOMO is serving has increased dramatically-many have never before needed assistance.

CCSOMO responds to all with Christ-like compassion in the name of our entire Catholic community. Please be a partner this year by making a generous donation to the Second Collection in support of CCSOMO. This collection is an opportunity for Catholics throughout our diocese to unite to Reach Out, Provide Hope and Change Lives.

From the Pastor’s Desk:

Our government, along with the Supreme Court, seems to want to rewrite 3000 years of the Jewish/Christian understanding of marriage, and morality. What is morality? I was taught, granted 39 years ago, that morality is the rightness or wrongness of one’s actions. Within our Jewish/Christian background our morality is guided by the 10 Commandments, the Bible, and 2000 years of Christian teachings. Much of the Western World seems to want to rewrite the guiding principles of morality today.

Many human actions, which may be freely chosen, will always be unacceptable. These actions are referred to as “intrinsic evils” and are immoral regardless of circumstance. “I did not want to hurt their feelings, so I told a little white lie.” First of all, lies are not colored, according to the 8th Commandment it is either the truth or not. A person in a sad marriage without any physical contact, having physical relations with someone not their spouse is committing adultery. The list and the examples can go on endlessly. If we would but follow God’s 10 Commandments, the world would be a much better place.

Morality itself is, by its very nature, a code of black and white. Fixed moral values must always guide our decisions. If we begin to play the game of “gray” areas, the whole fabric of society begins to unravel. Robin Hood robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, but the 7th Commandment says, “do not steal”, it doesn’t say except from the rich. In the eyes of much of the world’s population Americans are all rich, therefore, it would be ok to come to our country and take whatever they wanted.

In rewriting what is marriage, our court system, and our governmental leaders are setting Christianity, as well as Judaism, and Islamism to the sideline and are stating they know better than the major world religions. When governments seek to trump what the major religions of the world believe, teach, and have held from their foundation, then those governments are seeking to take the role of religion itself. Study history, the human race never seems to learn from the past, thus we repeat the same mistakes.

It took Judaism and Christianity many centuries to come to the understanding that marriage needs to be between one man and one woman. We cannot allow modern society to form our conscience. Neither can we allow politicians or even courts of law to form our conscience. All of these change as the winds of time blow. For years our society has been driven by the news media, and Hollywood. It has become a society that centers around the “me, myself, and I” attitude. We have become a society that has spent our children’s future so we do not have to go without. We do not need everything shown on television, we do not need to continue to have the biggest, fastest, and newest of everything.

Pope Francis has been criticized with his stance of CIVIL UNION for gay couples, notice, that is not marriage. That is simply legal union giving them rights under the law. Civil union has nothing to do with the Sacrament of Matrimony. Stated by Canon Law, marriage takes place between a man and woman with the possibility of producing children. In France a couple must have a civil union before they can have a sacramental church marriage (separation of church and state). I have been asked if the Pope’s statement causes me concern, “No because for 4,000 years of human history marriage has been between men and women, a civil union is a legality for two people as I understand it.”

ADVENT ACTIVITY KIT

Due to COVID 19 and being unable to meet as a parish for Advent Fair Activities or Breakfast With Santa etc, The Faith Formation program of St. Agnes Cathedral is offering an Advent Kit for families of the parish. The kit will include supplies to make an advent wreath for your home. an Advent calendar, crafts, daily meditations and special activities to make the Advent season more meaningful for your families. This is also a great resource for all families, even grandparents who may wish to do something memorable with grandchildren. We do ask that you call the parish office 831-3565 to reserve a kit or email Iris at ibounds@sta-cathedral.org. Advent is fast approaching so we will have pickup Sunday, November 22nd through November 24th. Let's make the Advent season special even with the pandemic!

MERCY IN A COVID TIME

COVID continues and continuing to follow the necessary guidelines for safety is sometimes wearying. I was thinking it would be a wholesome idea to add a new corporal/spiritual work of Mercy to your practices: Calling people whom we know are alone and staying at home. We have seen how small a world can become. You might set a goal of phoning one person a week and four different people a month. These could be relatives, or former co-workers or people you know from church. You may never know how much this means to the other person.

Sr. Elizabeth Ann

Youth Activities

Upcoming Youth Service Project "Feeding the Hungry" Sat, Nov 14th, 10 AM-1:00 PM St. Agnes Cafeteria. Youth are needed to help prepare lunch boxes and hygiene packets for the unsheltered in our area. We will put together the food and hygiene items from 10 AM- 12:00 PM and serve outside under the tent from 12:00-1:00 PM. Masks are required! Gloves will be provided. Great service project for our Confirmation candidates. Contact Iris or Sister Grace for more details ibounds@sta-cathedral.org.

From the Pastor’s Desk::

In 1979, two years before I was ordained, St. Pope John Paul II in his homily in Washington DC stated: “I do not hesitate to proclaim before you and before the world that all human life, from the moment of conception and through all subsequent stages is sacred, because human life is created in the image and likeness of God. Nothing surpasses the greatness or the dignity of a human person.” Later in his homily he continued, “All human beings ought to value every person for his or her uniqueness as a creature of God, called to be a brother or sister of Christ….And so, we will stand up every time that human life is threatened.” He concluded by stating, “Everything aimed at banishing discrimination, in law or in fact, is a service to life. When the rights of minorities are fostered, when the mentally or physically handicapped are assisted, when those on the margin of society are given a voice, in all these instances the dignity of life and the sacredness of human life are furthered.

As I stated at the beginning of my letter, this was from a homily in 1979 and we are still struggling as a country and church to put into practice a culture of life. A culture of life which begins with protecting the unborn, but just as important is protecting children once they are born with adequate food, housing and medical care, to protecting the immigrant, the homeless and the elderly.

Throughout my life the rights of the individual have been held as a high standard, so much so, that now when the community suffers as a whole, too many individuals still do what they want, stating, “No one is going to tell me what to do.” There was a comic in the newspaper a few weeks ago which stated it well: It showed London during WWII, with all the windows blacked out except one, where a man in the window stated, “no one is going to tell me to black out my windows”, as bombs rained down. As I write this letter, the United States have had 228,590 deaths from Covid 19; the next country closest to us with Covid deaths is Brazil with 157,226. Lack of consideration for each other has led to more deaths because so many have lost sight of the common good which recognizes my rights end where everyone else’s begin.

We have open mass intentions in November. If you would like to schedule a mass for a beloved dead please contact the parish office at 831-3565.

HELP FOR OUR NEIGHBORS

St. Vincent DePaul Society of St Agnes parish has helped many people in the past with their utility bills to keep them from being shut off. City Utilities is now sending out many shut-off notices that have been delayed because of the virus epidemic. We are concerned due to the weather extremes that many of the elderly or otherwise compromised will be severely impacted. Thank you for your past support but with additional support we would be able to expand our help in this situation. Thank you for any help you may be able to give.