Parish News
Preparatory Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, I kneel before Your blessed cross. I want to open my spirit and my heart to contemplate Your holy sufferings. I want to place your cross before my poor soul that I might know it a little better, that I might receive more deeply into my heart all the You did and suffered, and that I might realize who it was for whom You suffered. May Your grace be with me, the grace to shake off the coldness and indifference of my heart, to forget my everyday life for at least this half hour, and to dwell with You in love, sorrow, and gratitude. King of all hearts may your crucified love embrace my poor, weak, tired, and discouraged heart. Fill my heart with an interior awareness of You. Stir fidelity, and perseverance in the contemplation of Your holy sufferings and death.
I want to meditate upon your seven last words upon the cross, the last words you spoke before You entered in o the silence of earthly death, You Who are Word of God from eternity to eternity. You spoke them with parched lips and out of anguished heart, those words which came straight from Your heart at the very end. You spoke them to everyone. You spoke them to me. Let them penetrate my heart, right to its very core, right to its very center that I might understand them. That I might never again forget them. That they might live in me and become the strength of my lifeless heart. Speak them Yourself to me, so deeply that I feel Your voice vibrating within me.
You will be speaking to me someday at the moment of my death, and even after my death. Those words will be either an eternal beginning or an everlasting end for me. O Lord, let me hear words of mercy and love from You at the moment of my death, I shall not ignore those words. Let me, therefore, her and now open my heart to receive Your last words upon the cross From:
“Watch and pray with me” by Karl Rahner.
Daily Readings
Weekly reading
Readings for the week of January 23, 2022
- Sunday: Neh 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10 / Ps 19:8, 9, 10, 15 / 1 Cor 12:12-30 or 12:12-14, 27 / Lk 1:1-4; 4:14-21
- Monday: 2 Sm 5:1-7, 10 / Ps 89:20, 21-22, 25-26 / Mk 3:22-30
- Tuesday: Acts 22:3-16 or Acts 9:1-22 / Ps 117: 1bc, 2 / Mk 16:15-18
- Wednesday: 2 Tm 1:1-8 or Ti 1:1-5 / Ps 89:4-5, 27-28, 29-30 / Mk 4:1-20
- Thursday: 2 Sm 7:18-19, 24-29 / Ps 132:1-2, 3-5, 11, 12, 13-14 / Mk 4:21-25
- Friday: 2 Sm 11:1-4a, 5-10a, 13-17 / Ps 51:3-4, 5-6a, 6bcd-7, 10-11 / Mk 4:26-34
- Saturday: 2 Sm 12:1-7a, 10-17 / Ps 51:12-13, 14-15, 16-17 / Mk 4:35-41
- Next Sunday: Jer 1:4-5, 17-19 / Ps 71:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 15-17 [cf. 15ab] / 1 Cor 12:31—13:13 or 13:4-13 / Lk 4:21-30
Pastor Message and Prayer
Baptism of the Lord, January 9, 2022
The Son of God is gradually revealed to the world. Isaiah the Prophet says: Here is my chosen one and I am pleased with him"(42:1). Luke proclaims; You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased" (3:22). Today, Jesus makes his first public appearance and is baptized by John. This is the final act preparation before the new era begins and it indicates Jesus'complete acceptance of the Father's plan for mankind. Jesus is ready to live and act in accordance with his Father's will. He is determined to introduce God's kingdom.
Here we face the importance of our own Baptism: this Sacrament is not just a private matter. In baptism, we are anointed for the same mission as Jesus was:" As the Father has sent me, so I send you"(John 20:21). We continue to proclaim God's kingdom as member of his Mystical Body-the Church. As Christians, we have been baptized into His mission to demonstrate God's righteousness and to help the Messiah fulfill the work He has begun. In order to demonstrate His light to others, the light must shine in us.
In our Baptism, we have been commissioned to an important task as members of Jesus' living Body here on earth, the Church: to give witness to ur fellow men that we truly believe in the Son of God. "Now that Christ has come, Christians are exprected to accept the Gospel as the chief norm of their lives, to do otherwise is to ignore the fact of the incarnation." (Bernard Haring, Shalom-Peace. The Sacrament of Reconciliation, 1967.).
In Sacrament of Baptism, we have been invited to live with Him forever. Ours is the next move: to accept or reject His offer.
"Today, I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. I call on heaven and earth to witness to the choice you make. Oh, that would choose life, that you and your descendants might live! Choose to love the Lord your God and to obey him and commit yourself to Him, for He is your life. Then you will live long in the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)
Fr. Joachim
St. Mary Mass Times
Saturday 6:00pm
Sunday 8:30am
Daily Mass Times
Wednesday 8:30am
Wednesday: Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament 5:45-6:00 p.m.
Wednesday 6:00 p.m.
Friday 8:30am
First Friday 8:30am Healing Mass and Adoration
Confession Times
Saturday from 5:30-5:50 or
by appointment by calling the Rectory at 815-858-3422
St. Mary Office Hours
Wednesday 8:30 am- 3:30 p.m.. by appointment
Thursday 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
