Message from our Pastor Carlos D. Suarez:
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Peace and blessings!
As I reflect on the graces of this past week, my heart goes back to the baptisms that I was privileged to celebrate during last weekend’s masses. In the five years of my time in the Vocation Office I spent most weekends visiting different parishes around our Archdiocese. So while I got to know wide swaths of the people of God and to celebrate Mass with many different worshipping communities, I was otherwise somewhat distant from the normal flow of parish life. I only had a handful of opportunities in the past five years to welcome a new member to the body of Christ through the sacrament of baptism. Therefore, it was quite a joy to welcome new members to the body of Christ and to reflect on the fact that over the coming years I’ll be blessed to do so many more times! It is a blessed custom of our Church that most of us are baptized as infants. The grace of God flows out upon us and the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us early on. The downside is that many of us take a long time to reflect on that reality and its implications for our lives.
At our baptism each of us was clean of the stain of original sin, we were declared a beloved son or daughter of God, and the Holy Spirit came to dwell within us. Add to that the fact that we receive Jesus in the Eucharist every time we come to communion and then we may rightly ask ourselves why we don’t see more of an impact of God dwelling within us. To paraphrase St. Teresa of Calcutta, sometimes our inability to see the power of God’s grace in our lives is due to the fact that we need to give God permission. God is all-powerful and he desires to shine in and through us, but He respects our free will. Let that sink in for a moment, if every baptized Christian truly trusted in God’s promises and gave the Holy Spirit power to act in and through us this world would be a dramatically different place. On a smaller scale the same can be said of our Stoughton Catholic Community. How awesome could we get to be if we just gave God permission? He wants to do amazing things here, He wants to set our community afire with His love, all we need to do is give Him permission. Let’s awaken to the reality of God’s love for us, let’s awaken to the power that our “Yes” to God can unleash in our community, and then let’s give God permission! – Fr. Carlos
Meus queridos irmãos e irmãs em Cristo, Paz e bem!
Refletindo sobre as graças da semana passada, meu coração volta para os batismos que tive o privilégio de celebrar durante as missas do fim de semana passado. Nos cinco anos de meu tempo no Escritório de Vocações passei a maioria dos fins de semana visitando diferentes paróquias da nossa Arquidiocese. Então, embora eu conheci grandes áreas do povo de Deus e celebrei missa com muitas comunidades, eu fiquei um pouco distante do fluxo normal da vida paroquial. Nos últimos cinco anos, só tive algumas oportunidades de dar as boas-vindas a um novo membro do Corpo de Cristo por meio do sacramento de batismo. Portanto, foi uma grande alegria receber novos membros no corpo de Cristo e refletir sobre o fato de que nos próximos anos terei a bênção de fazê-lo muitas vezes mais! É um costume abençoado da nossa Igreja que a maioria de nós fomos batizados quando éramos crianças. A graça de Deus flui sobre nós e o Espírito Santo vem habitar em nós desde o início. A desvantagem é que muitos de nós demoramos muito para refletir sobre essa realidade e suas implicações para nossas vidas. Em nosso batismo, cada um de nós ficou limpo da mancha do pecado original, fomos declarados filhos ou filhas amados de Deus e o Espírito Santo veio habitar em nós. Adicionemos a isso o fato de que recebemos Jesus na Eucaristia cada vez que vamos à comunhão e então podemos nos perguntar por que não vemos um impacto maior da realidade que Deus habita em nós. Parafraseando Santa Teresa de Calcutá, às vezes nossa incapacidade de ver o poder da graça de Deus em nossas vidas se deve ao fato de que precisamos dar licença a Deus. Deus é todo-poderoso e deseja brilhar em nós e através de nós, mas respeita o nosso livre arbítrio. Fiquemos pensando nisso por um momento, se cada cristão batizado realmente confiasse nas promessas de Deus e desse ao Espírito Santo licença para agir em nós e através de nós, este mundo seria um lugar dramaticamente diferente. Numa escala menor, o mesmo pode ser dito de nossa Comunidade Católica Stoughton. Que maravilhosos poderíamos ser se apenas dermos licença a Deus! Ele quer fazer coisas incríveis aqui. Ele quer incendiar nossa comunidade com Seu amor. Tudo o que precisamos fazer é dar-Lhe licença. Despertemos para a realidade do amor de Deus por nós, despertemos para o poder que nosso “Sim” a Deus pode desencadear em nossa comunidade e então demos licença a Deus! - Pe. Carlos
A Message from our Parochial Vicar
Father Daniel Zinger:
Hello, Everyone!
When I was a boy, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, Richard and Mary Ann Zinger. My Grandma Zinger is of Irish descent and certainly has a way with words and a keen gift for storytelling. True stories that is! Some of my fondest memories are when I used to sit with her and listen to her tell stories of her family. Often these stories illustrated how the very identity of her and her family was inseparable from their Catholic religion and faith. She always made a clear point to tell me that there was absolutely nothing, under any circumstances, that could stop them from practicing their Catholic religion in the way it should be practiced!
One of “heirlooms” of faith that my Grandma Zinger passed onto me was a love for the Rosary. I used to watch her pray it and eventually she taught me how to pray it and we would pray it together. I recall very fondly and reverently with how much gentle devotion she would pray each Hail Mary.
One of the interesting and practical things about our Catholic devotional life is that each month of the year has a spiritual theme. The month of October is the month of the rosary. According to tradition in the 13th century, the Blessed Mother appeared to a priest, now Saint Dominic Guzman, and gave him the rosary and asked him to make it known. Ever since then the rosary has made its way to every corner of the globe as a cherished prayer among Christians, known for its profound simplicity but also for its powerful effect on the lives of those who pray it and for those for whom it is prayed. Certainly without a doubt, among the Catholic faithful, after the Mass itself, the rosary comes second.
The rosary is the prayer of everyone at every moment of life: it is the prayer of those who must wait and those trying to find their way out of anxiety and desperate situations; it is the prayer of young people trying to discover what God wants them to do with their lives; it is the prayer of those searching for a spouse; it is the prayer of moms and dads as they lie awake at night thinking about their children; it is the prayer of the elderly waiting for God to call them home, it is the prayer of the immigrant as they seek with all their might to find their way in the new land they have come to; it is the prayer of the incarcerated stretching out their arms to heaven asking for mercy and forgiveness; it is the prayer of those who mourn the loss of a loved one asking heaven to provide a sign of safety, and it is the prayer of those who simply just want to give thanks to almighty God and to praise him and honor his mother for the blessings they have received in life
God our Father’s plan was that his son, Jesus, should come into this world and live a life that would be as ordinary as possible so that we would always be able to relate to him. Jesus is like us in all things, except though, without any sin. His Mother, Mary, cherishes the life she shared with her son, and so thus, God willed that we should be given the rosary, so that we can recount the life she shared with him with her. Each and every time we pray the rosary we take our Blessed Mother by the hand and allow her to lead us through each decade of the rosary and when we do we see in our souls how much more connected we become to Jesus and Mary and how much such a connection affects our lives.
The month of October is a good time of year to begin to make a habit of praying the rosary regularly. I’ve noticed in my own life that often great quality time to spend with someone is in the car. It certainly can be the same with God, when we are driving to or home from work or out and about doing errands, praying the rosary along the way can be the quality prayer time we need to fit into our day.
Please know, as the priest who serves you, each and every day all of you, your families and those you love are remembered in my daily rosary!
May Our Lady of the Rosary give us much grace and goodness!
Blessings!
-Fr. Daniel Zinger