Encouraging the Culture of Encounter with Jesus Christ, His Church, and All People
 
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
 
Christ is King!!!
In the early part of the 20th century the spread of modernism was gaining even more sway in culture, philosophy, and politics.  We still suffer from this heresy even today.  As this way of thinking built up steam the thought that we could arrive at a perfect world through our own efforts became fashionable.  Leading to the soviet revolution and the claim that God no longer had a place in the world of politics or government; a new government based in atheism would lead the world to peace.  The Church in Her wisdom knew this was to lead to bad things.  Many of the tragedies and horrors of the past century stem from these false ideas.  At that time, the pope instituted a new feast in the Church called, Christ the King.  This was to make clear for Catholics that no earthly king, no government, no special philosophy, no political party, can replace God in Christ.  He alone is King! While there can be a number of different types of government, any of them that deny God and His law are destined for ash failure.  Today we remember Christ is King of the Universe and the King of our hearts.
 
St. Paul’s “4th Journey” Initiative
As part of this year’s evangelization effort we are in need of volunteers to help reach out to fellow parishioners.  The goal is to reach ALL of them as best we can, including those that we have not seen in a while.  In part this is a practical matter of verifying our records and to know just how many parishioners we have.  This is difficult since the church is not “big-brother” keeping tabs on everyone, and not everyone thinks to stay in contact with the parish if things change. Perhaps people move away, or some become sick or home bound without our knowing.  Sometimes people fall away from the faith and think it’s too hard to come back.  Well, Jesus calls us to reach out!  This is what St. Paul’s life in Christ was all about! So we want to follow his example.  We are calling this “St. Paul’s 4th Journey.”  From St. Paul’s Letters scholars say that St. Paul took three separate missionary journeys as he spread the Gospel among the Gentiles.  We are under his patronage and we can embody a “4th journey” as we proclaim the Gospel. 
Volunteers would be expected to attend a short training to familiarize them with our goals and then to make 5-7 phone calls per week for about 8-10 weeks. Please call the rectory if you want to help!
 
This weekend you will see the first phase in action.  We will have some of our volunteers at the Masses with some surveys to ask you a few questions.  They are very brief so stick around a few minutes and maybe even meet someone new!  We will do this throughout November in order to have face to face conversations with those who regularly attend Mass here.  After that, the phone calls will begin to others on our registry list. 
 
Ad Orientem
You may remember last year that we celebrated Masses of Advent Ad Orientem, meaning toward the East.  This requires the priest to turn, facing with the people towards the altar during the Eucharistic Prayer of the Mass.  This symbolic gesture is part of our tradition and an option that can be used in the current form of the Mass. While this gesture may not be as widespread or well known in recent experience or practice, we would like to use it only for Advent to help us enter more deeply into the reality of waiting for the Lord in Advent.  Please attend our faith formation session this Sunday morning for a discussion on this topic.  I am very open to discussing it with people individually as well.  Feel free to contact me at the rectory.
 
Sincerely,
Fr. Pfr.