Come join us for our Flu Shot Clinic after all weekend Masses September 18 and 19.
Have some coffee, donuts (on Sunday only), friendly conversation and an opportunity to get your flu shot.
The clinic is sponsored by Hy-Vee pharmacy and is offered to all parishioners age 10 and over. Hi-Dose vaccines are available for ages 65 and over.
Protect yourself - get a flu shot!
Have some coffee, donuts (on Sunday only), friendly conversation and an opportunity to get your flu shot.
The clinic is sponsored by Hy-Vee pharmacy and is offered to all parishioners age 10 and over. Hi-Dose vaccines are available for ages 65 and over.
Protect yourself - get a flu shot!
Would you forgive?
“There’s a lot of medicine that my grandmother taught me. We use the word medicine to mean ‘a way to live,’ and one way is forgiveness. I will give you an example. When my grandmother was teaching us about Wounded Knee, she said, “Grandchildren, there is something that was very difficult that happened to our people that I want to share. But the purpose of this teaching is to not have you hold any malice or hate in your mind or in your heart or in your soul for the people who did that. The Long Knives—that’s what you call the cavalry—killed close to 300 of our people—women and children, all the people in Wounded Knee, South Dakota, not very far from where we live. And so my teaching is, I want you to pray for them. I want you to pray for our families who lost their lives. I want you to pray for the Long Knives who committed this. I want you to pray for their mothers and fathers and their grandparents.” Then my grandmother said something that Christ said on the cross: “they don’t know what they did. They will have to live with this. We don’t have to hate and retaliate and avenge these things that happened to the Lakota people. The Creator has a way to do this, but, believe me, it would be done with compassion and love. That’s the way, the way we want.”
--Basil Brave Heart, spiritual elder of the Lakota People
There is a great deal of anger in our nation and world today. When someone is hurt or wronged, the thought is I am entitled to avenge it. For if I don’t, what will stop it from happening again? But such an approach only escalates the violence and the pain. Jesus offers another way. It is called forgiveness. As Basil’s grandmother told her grandchildren, “they do not know what they did.” Healing does not come from destroying another or causing pain. When God “avenges” a wrong he does so with compassion and love…and he tries to teach us to do the same.
I think of the hurt and injustice in our world today. Anger will not heal it. Revenge cannot heal it. The real medicine is forgiveness; the same forgiveness Jesus showed from the cross. Each of us has the power to choose not to hate or “get even.” There is another path called forgiveness. Jesus walked that path. The question is will we.
Father Jeff
There will be a second collection this weekend for the USCCB Bishops Emergency Disaster Fund. These funds will be used for the humanitarian, long-term recovery, and significant Church needs arising from recent calamities.