NOTE: October 2, is Grandparents Day at

St. Antoninus School.   Mass will be at 9AM.

EUCHARISTIC ADORATION

Every Friday after the 8AM Mass

ROSARY

7:00 PM Fatima Prayer Group on Monday

After the 6:45 AM and 8 AM Masses Monday thru Friday and after the 8 AM Mass on Saturday.

THE PARISH LIBRARY is open every Sunday morning in the Holy Family Room of the undercroft.

CONFESSIONS SCHEDULE

Thursday, October 1, 4:30PM – Fr. Armstrong

7:30PM – Fr. Mick

Saturday, October 3, 3:00PM – Fr. Armstrong

BABYSITTING FOR THE 9:30AM MASS,

SUNDAY, October 4

Adult Volunteers: Cindy Reis, Linda DeSantis

Students: Sydney R., Sydney S., Maggie W., Kelsey S.

ADULT BIBLE STUDY every Monday from 7:00 to 8:00PM in the Holy Family Room of the undercroft. If you have questions please call Mary Lynne Rapien at 922-0902.

RCIA on Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. in the Holy Family Room of the undercroft. Questions call Deacon Bob Schroeder at 922-4759.

LITURGY OF THE WORD for children in grades 1 and 2 (until they have received their First Holy Communion), at the 9:30 Mass every Sunday.

PREP classes for Catholic students in public schools are on Sundays. To register please call Deacon Bob Schroeder at 922-4759.

ST. ANTONINUS SUNDAY SCHOOL for 4 and 5 year-olds will be held in the school cafeteria during the 9:30 Mass on Sundays starting October 4th. Students registered for the 4 year-old group must be eligible for Kindergarten in the fall of 2010. Call Deacon Bob at 922-4759.

COFFEE & DONUTS ON will be on October 11, November 8, December 13, January 10, February 14, March 14, April 11, and May 9.

Remember St. Antoninus in your will. 

FROM OUR PASTOR

     I continue with considering each phrase of the vision statement in turn: "I see a day when every member of St. Antoninus Parish engages in Divine Worship...when every member participates in the Sacred Triduum every year." The Triduum, the "three days," refers to Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. On Holy Thursday evening, we celebrate the institution of the Sacraments of the Eucharist and of the Priesthood. During that Mass of the Lord's Supper, the washing of the feet is a reminder that all Christians are called to a life of service after the example of Jesus. On Good Friday, we commemorate the Lord's Passion. The Liturgy of the Word, the Veneration of the Cross and the Communion Service remind us all of the price of our salvation. On Saturday evening, at the Easter Vigil, we rejoice in the Lord's Resurrection, His victory over sin and death. The Easter Vigil has four parts: the blessing of the Easter fire, the Liturgy of the Word, the Liturgy of Baptism if there be catechumens, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Those three days summarize the mystery of our faith. They need to be experienced. Over the years, I have heard lots of excuses, (e.g. "too long" or, "we are going to the beach") but few reasons as to why so few parishioners participate in the Triduum, when, for example, people watch endless hours of sporting events or that a Catholic Church is just yards away from that beach. If you do nothing else for Lent, do at least this: pray the Triduum.

Fr. Christopher R. Armstrong

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Today’s second reading warns that a heart consumed with avarice and envy leads to jealousy, strife, conflicts, and disputes. A giving heart, in contrast, can sing instead with the psalmist, “Freely will I offer you sacrifice; I will praise your name, O Lord, for its goodness.” See Psalm 54.

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CISE APPEAL You may use the envelope or use the poor boxes at the church entrances. Please make checks out to St. Antoninus Church with the notation in the memo line, CISE Appeal. Thank you.

PCW BABY BOTTLE CAMPAIGN monetary donation may be returned to the greeting room during the weekend Masses on October 10 and 11th.

Parish Council meeting will be tomorrow night Monday, September 28th at 7:30 p.m. in the school conference room. Visitors are always welcome

Biggs, Kroger, Price Hill Chili and The Holy Grail Gift Cards are available during rectory office hours of Monday-Friday 8AM to 3PM and after all weekend Masses.

Entertainment 2010 books and Zone coupon books are now on sale daily at the rectory and after all weekend Masses with the other gift cards. Still only $20! Call Larry Hurley at 608-7604 for FREE express delivery to your home or office. All proceeds benefit St. Antoninus Church and School. Thank you for your support!

LIFE IN THE SPIRIT SEMINAR

Are you feeling called to develop a deeper personal union with God? Are you seeking a fuller presence of the Fruits of the Spirit in your life (love, joy, peace, patience, etc.)? All are invited to come and experience a reawakening of the presence of the Holy Spirit at an upcoming Life in the Spirit Seminar. The seminar will be held the first four Saturday mornings and Sunday evenings in October and will end with a session on Sunday evening November 1st. Saturday morning sessions are from 9-12 with Mass at 8:00 and a light breakfast prior to the seminar. Sunday evening sessions begin with dinner @ 5:30. The Seminar begins at 6:30 until 9:00 pm. The sessions will be held between both St. Antoninus and St. Max in West Chester. Brochures with detailed information have been placed in the pews at church. To register or for info call Susan at 227-0844. Is child care an issue? Please indicate this when calling.

TRAVELING CHALICE

Thank you to Donna Vitt who took the Traveling Chalice into her home for one week to help pray for vocations to the religious life. If you would like the Traveling Chalice for one week, please call Debbie at 922-2414

MOM’S ROSARY CIRCLE GROUP is every Friday from 10AM to 11:30AM at Mary Ann Baverman’s home, 5327 Quailwood off Sylved Ln. All Moms and all kids are welcome. Rosary instruction is available. Call before you come the first time 922-3461.

ORIENTATION MEETING ON CHILD PROTECTION DECREE will be in the Holy Family Room of the undercroft at 7:30pm, October 12, and November 19. If you have attended an orientation meeting since August, 2003, you do not need to repeat it. For further info about these meetings and the background checks, please call Deacon Bob Schroeder at 922-4759.

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY HOME CONSTRUCTION ON FYFFE AVE.

From 8:00am to 3:00pm or any hours you can help, on October 17, and November 21. Call Deacon Bob Schroeder at 922-4759 or send e-mail to: w8cro@arrl.net.

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY LUNCH for the construction volunteers will be on Saturday, October 17. If you would like to help, please call Julie Heil at 922-3848 in the evening.

FROM OUR PRINCIPAL – JACK COREY

Dear Parishioners: This Friday, October 2, will be Grandparents’ Day at the school. As in the past, this will move the 8 a.m. Mass to 9 a.m. This move allows grandparents to attend Mass with their grandchildren. For grandparents with grandchildren in the school, the grandparents should meet in the youngest grandchild's homeroom by 8:40. Their older grandchildren will also go to that classroom and the family may attend 9:00a.m.Mass together. Parents and younger siblings are welcome at the Mass, but due to space limitations we ask that they do not attend the reception or the tour of the school. This is a first-rate event. Our students thoroughly enjoy walking their grandparents around the school and showing them work the students have done so far this year. I encourage all grandparents to come and enjoy the morning with us.

FROM OUR SEMINARIAN INTERN, MATTHEW J. ROBBEN

Little Angels: “Little Angels,” everyone has them! This is the term I apply to the people in our lives that either prevent us from doing something really stupid or encourage us to accomplish works of charity we never would have done on our own. It is often in hindsight that we realize just how special these people are in helping us choose God’s way and not our own. One “Little Angel” in my life was George. George and I worked maintenance together at Thomas More College. The first words out of his mouth when we met were, “Are you coming to Mass with me today?” Somewhat puzzled, I said “No, I just go on Saturday.” The question and answer were the same every morning for 4 months, until September 21, the Feast of St. Matthew. George would not accept no for an answer. I think that it was part of his master plan when Father Devou ensnared my help either to serve or to do a reading every day. Daily Mass became the catalyst for spiritual growth and acceptance of God’s will in my life. Looking back over my life, I have been truly blessed to be guided by so many “Little Angels.” Now, when I see them, I let them know just how much their guidance has meant. I challenge you this week to seek out the “Little Angels” in your life and thank them. You never know, they may have been waiting for an Angel just like you!

SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL SOCIETY

Today (Sunday, September 27) is the feast day of St. Vincent de Paul, who knew that "God had sent him to bring news to the poor." Together with your gifts, the members of the Society continue his work and mission in our parish.

THE ATHLETIC CLUB IS LOOKING FOR volunteers to fill the positions open for Basketball Tournament Coordinators. Please call Brian Bohan at 922-4313 or Mike Rolfes at 451-6704 to inquire about either position.

Sign-ups for St. Antoninus Boys’ Basketball (3rd-8th grade) will be conducted via email. Please send the name, grade level, birth date, address and contact phone number for any interested boys either to Shawn Harp at HARPSHAWN@aol.com or Scott Sportsman at scottsportsman@fuse.net . The deadline for sign-ups is Friday, October 2nd.

ADULT SOCIAL GROUP

Oct 2nd, Steering Committee meeting at 1PM in the Holy Family Room. All are welcome. Help us improve our group.

Oct 12th, Communion Service at 12:30PM, followed by lunch in the undercroft and Fred Kellerman’s “Funky Bingo”. Cost is $9 per person. Get in your reservation by October 7th.

December 1-3 – Trip to “Our Lady of the Snows Shrine”. Leave Tues, Dec. 1st, at 8:30AM and return Thur. Dec. 3rd. Cost $175 per person, deposit $75 per person due now, full amount by November 1st. Three spaces left.

HOLY SPIRIT PRAYER GROUP

Perhaps you were fortunate enough to have heard Pete and Gina Beckmeyer’s witness concerning their trip with the whole family to visit the shrine in France of St. Therese, “the Little Flower”. You will remember stories of her early life and the fascinating way they shared info about her sainted parents. Well, we are again to be blessed by Pete this week as he delves into the story of our generations’ canonized saint, Padre Pio. The talk, “Nurturing of a Saint” was part of a program on Padre Pio at the Bible Institute. We’ve all heard stories of this incredible Saint’s ability to read souls. What in his early childhood enabled him to seek the Lord so devoutly? Don’t we want that for our children too? Come to chapel at 7:30PM, Tuesday.

The Parish Renewal Appeal is being very well received by the people of our Parish. Please use the special envelope to indicate your new level of giving and then in succeeding weeks, return to your regular envelope packet.

Holy Family Parish & Men's Societies will be having our 1st Oktoberfest on October 3, from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM after our 4 o'clock Mass.

Seton High School Walk on Sunday, October 4th. For info call Ceil Lundy at 471-2600 ext. 210. Registration forms are available at www.setoncincinnati.org.

ST. JOHN VIANNEY AUGUST 4 (A.D. 1859)

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints Continued from last week… There is in history no other record of seemingly diabolical “infestation” so long, so varied, and so cogent; the phenomena ranged from noises and voices to personal violence and the unexplained burning of the saint’s bed, and continued intermittently from 1824 for over thirty years, both by day and night sometimes under conditions in which they were observed by others beside the sufferer. It is not an exaggeration to say he took it as all part of the day’s work. “You must get very frightened”, the Abbe Toccanier said to him. “One gets used to everything, my friend”, was the reply. “The grappin and I are almost mates.” Not only was the Cure of Ars subjected to supernatural persecution but he also suffered from attacks which, were it not for the infected state of human nature, would be labeled unnatural. Some of the less worthy and less discerning among his brother priests, remembering only his lack of education and formal training, certainly unable to recognize sanctity when they saw it, criticized his “ill-judged zeal”, his “ambition”, his “presumption”: he was even a “quack” and an “impostor”. “Poor little Cure of Ars!” he commented, “What don’t they make him do and say! They are preaching on him now and no longer on the gospel.” But they did not stop at verbal criticism and sacristy tittle-tattle: they delated him to the bishop of Belley. The cure refused to take any action, nor after enquiry did Mgr Devie; but having heard a priest apply the adjective “mad” to M. Vianney, he referred to it before his clergy assembled at their annual retreat and added, “Gentlemen, I wish that all my clergy had a small grain of the same madness”.

Another of the astonishing circumstances of the Abbe Vianney’s incumbency of Ars was its becoming a place of pilgrimage even during his lifetime: and that not to the shrine of “his dear little St. Philomena’, which he had set up, but to himself. No doubt curiosity had its share in starting it, for miracles of loaves and visits of the devil cannot be kept quiet, but it gathered strength and volume and continued because people wanted the spiritual direction of the village priest in his confessional. This steady stream of penitents, “the pilgrimage”, was what chiefly upset his myopic clerical critics: some of them even forbade their people to go to him. People from afar began to consult him so early as 1827; from 1830 to 1845 the daily visitors averaged over three hundred; at Lyons a special booking office was opened for Ars, and 8-day return tickets issued – one could hardly hope to get a word with the cure in less. For him this meant not less than eleven or twelve hours every day in the confessional during the winter and anything up to sixteen in summer; nor was he content with that: for the last fifteen years of his life he gave an instruction every day in the church at eleven o’clock. Simple discourses, unprepared—he had no chance to prepare them—which went to the hearts of the most learned and the most hardened. Rich and poor, learned and simple, good and bad, lay and cleric, bishops, priests, religious, all came to Ars, to kneel in the confessional and sit before the “catechism-stall”. M. Vianney did not give long instructions and directions to his penitents; a few words, a sentence even, but it had the authority of holiness and not infrequently was accompanied by supernatural knowledge of the penitent’s life: how many times, for example, he was able to correct the number of years since a penitent had last been to confession, or remind him of a sin which he had forgotten. “’Love your clergy very much’, was all he said to me”, said the Archbishop of Auch; “Love the good God very much”, to the superior general of a teaching institute; “What a pity! What a pity!” he would murmur at each accusation, and weep at the tale of sin. This people came hundreds of miles and waited sometimes twelve hours on end, or had to attend in the church day after day, before they could be heard; and by these simple means numberless conversions were made. To be continued next week…

Of course we have a deeply shared concern to serve the poor and those in need. However, there is a Trojan horse under the guise of Health 'Care' bringing massive changes in the very structure of our democracy. Every voter in this nation needs to let their voices be heard...now and in the weeks ahead. Since supporters of the abortion industry are prevalent throughout the current administration and in Congress, we must be vigilant in watching for any efforts to encourage the abortion industry’s mentality that has long underpinned abortion and the culture of death: “are you wanted/are you ‘as valuable’”. Human life must be protected from conception through natural death. www.usccb.org

History (Google pro life Hyde Amendment) has shown that America may see a Health "Shell Bill" pass with many of our red life-flags seemingly removed to placate the dissenters i.e. Pro life/pro family constituents. Once this gutted "Shell Bill" passes into law...then...the regulations appear and all the offensive concerns are able to be put back: abortions, ‘reimbursing’ e.g. Oregon's insurance companies and individuals for euthanasia and assisted suicide, the abortion industry’s dream of school-based health clinics (eight pages currently), embryonic stem cell research, human cloning etc...cleverly using semantics of premiums not tax money. The 'shell game' in full force.

To try and prevent this tragedy from occurring, American voters can insist that legislators also specifically state in the original bill what may not be included otherwise it will be assumed to be included...and the follow-up regulations later will implement it. Honest or naive people may not think like this but voters know that honest people have been hoodwinked for years by those who do think like this.

Continue to pray. Americans now have a user-friendly way to make a big impact: consider “helping make it happen” ASAP! The Yellow Health Postcard Campaign utilizes www.HealthPostcard.com. Let us not live with shoulda/woulda/coulda.

Health reform? Yes.

At the expense of the vulnerable and the future of our children? No.

God is good!

Jane Hoffman

St. Antoninus Pro life Pro Family Committee