EUCHARISTIC ADORATION

After the 8AM Mass on Fridays in the chapel

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.

Moms and children’s Rosary group every Friday from 10AM to 11:30AM.  Call MaryAnn at 922-3461 before you come for the first time.

Adult Volunteers: Cindy Reis, Linda DeSantis

  Students: Laura N., Carly N.,  

Designate a gift to Saint Antoninus Church in your will and give witness to your faith. 

FROM OUR PASTOR

Quinquagesima was a challenge for me in the third grade as we learned to make cursive "q's".  That term indicates fifty days before Easter as our preparation for the great feast of our salvation becomes ever more intense.  I have been thinking that it would be particularly appropriate to make this Lent in the company of St. Paul, whose bimillenial we have been celebrating this year.  For example, each Friday before the parish school Mass, the students and I recite a passage from St. Paul.  There are also available in our parish library many excellent commentaries on his letters.  Another “living, breathing” way to meet St. Paul would be to participate in the Life in the Spirit seminar.  For as St. Paul says “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”

-- Rev. Christopher R. Armstrong

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Ash Wednesday, February 25 and Good Friday, April 10, are days of abstinence from meat and also days of fast, that is, limited to a single full meal.  With regard to Good Friday, the teaching of the Second Vatican Council should be recalled.

   Let the paschal fast be kept sacred.  Let it be celebrated everywhere on Good Friday and, where possible, prolonged throughout Holy Saturday, so that the joys of the Sunday of the Resurrection may be attained with uplifted and clear mind (Constitution on the Liturgy, No.110).  The other Fridays of the season of Lent are days of abstinence from meat.  The law of abstinence binds all Catholics 14 years and older.  The law of fasting binds all Catholics from their 18^th birthday until their 59^th birthday (Canons 97 and 1252).

   The teaching of Pope John Paul II may be simply paraphrased:  the obligation to do penance is a serious one; the obligation to observe, as a whole or “substantially”, the penitential days specified by the Church is also serious.  No one should be scrupulous in this regard; failure to observe an individual day of penance is not considered serious.

   People should seek to do more rather than less.  Fast and abstinence on the days prescribed should be considered a minimum response to the Lord’s call to penance and conversion.

PILGRIMAGE TO IRELAND WITH FR. CHRISTOPHER ARMSTRONG

on September 15-26, 2009.  $3,650 + airtax per person/double occupancy.  Air Taxes and Insurance not included. Brochures are on the greeting room shelf. For info call Best Catholic Pilgrimages, info@bestcatholic.com or 1-800-908-2378.

SAINT ANTONINUS TROOP 614 FISH FRY

LaRosa Buddy Cards are being sold by the 8^th grade to raise money for their field trip to Columbus.  The cards are $10.00 each and are valid until February 2010.  Please call an 8^th grader or JoAnn Gay 922-7705(home) or 470-6349 (cell).

2Corinthians
 Introduction

      The Second Letter to the Corinthians is the most personal of all of Paul's extant writings, and it reveals much about his character. In it he deals with one or more crises that have arisen in the Corinthian church. The confrontation with these problems caused him to reflect deeply on his relationship with the community and to speak about it frankly. One moment he is venting his feelings of frustration and uncertainty, the next he is pouring out his relief and affection. The importance of the issues at stake between them calls forth from him an enormous effort of personal persuasion, as well as doctrinal considerations that are of great value for us. Paul's ability to produce profound theological foundations for what may at first sight appear to be rather commonplace circumstances is perhaps nowhere better exemplified than in Second Corinthians. The emotional tone of the letter, its lack of order, and our ignorance of some of its background do not make it easy to follow, but it amply repays the effort required of the reader.   

      Second Corinthians is rich and varied in content. The interpretation of Exodus in chapter 3, for instance, offers a striking example of early apologetic use of the Old Testament. Paul's discussion of the collection in chapters 8-9 contains a theology of sharing of possessions, of community of goods among Christian churches, which is both balanced and sensitive. Furthermore, the closing chapters provide an illustration of early Christian invective and polemic, because the conflict with intruders forces Paul to assert his authority. But in those same chapters Paul articulates the vision and sense of values that animate his own apostolate, revealing his faith that Jesus' passion and resurrection are the pattern for all Christian life and expressing a spirituality of ministry unsurpassed in the New Testament.       

      The letter is remarkable for its rhetoric. Paul falls naturally into the style and argumentation of contemporary philosophic preachers, employing with ease the stock devices of the "diatribe." By a barrage of questions, by challenges both serious and ironic, by paradox heaped upon paradox, even by insults hurled at his opponents, he strives to awaken in his hearers a true sense of values and an appropriate response. All his arguments centers on the destiny of Jesus, in which a paradoxical reversal of values is revealed. But Paul appeals to his own personal experience as well. In passages of great rhetorical power (2 Cor 4:7-15; 6:3-10; 11:21-29; 12:5-10; 13:3-4) he enumerates the circumstances of his ministry and the tribulations he has had to endure for Jesus and the gospel, in the hope of illustrating the pattern of Jesus' existence in his own and of drawing the Corinthians into a reappraisal of the values they cherish. Similar passages in the same style in his other letters (cf especially Romans 8:31-39; 1 Cor 1:26-31; 4:6-21; 9:1-27; 13:1-13; Philippians 4:10-19) confirm Paul's familiarity with contemporary rhetoric and demonstrate how effectively it served to express his vision of Christian life and ministry. 

      Second Corinthians was occasioned by events and problems that developed after Paul's first letter reached Corinth. We have no information about these circumstances except what is contained in the letter itself, which of course supposes that they are known to the readers. Consequently the reconstruction of the letter's background is an uncertain enterprise about which there is not complete agreement.      

      The letter deals principally with these three topics: (1) a crisis between Paul and the Corinthians, occasioned at least partially by changes in his travel plans (2 Cor 1:12-2:13), and the successful resolution of that crisis (2 Cor 7:5-16); (2) further directives and encouragement in regard to the collection for the church in Jerusalem (2 Cor 8:1-9:15); (3) the definition and defense of Paul's ministry as an apostle. Paul's reflections on this matter are occasioned by visitors from other churches who passed through Corinth, missionaries who differed from Paul in a variety of ways, both in theory and in practice. Those differences led to comparisons. Either the visitors themselves or some of the local church members appear to have sown confusion among the Corinthians with regard to Paul's authority or his style, or both. Paul deals at length with aspects of this situation in 2 Cor 2:14-7:4 and again in 2 Cor 10:1-13:10, though the manner of treatment and the thrust of the argument differ in each of these sections.            

        Scholars have noticed a lack of continuity in this document. For example, the long section of 2 Cor 2:14-7:4 seems abruptly spliced into the narrative of a crisis and its resolution. Identical or similar topics, moreover, seem to be treated several times during the letter (compare 2 Cor 2:14-7:4 with 2 Cor 10:1-13:10, and 2 Cor 8:1-24 with 2 Cor 9:1-15). Many judge, therefore, that this letter as it stands incorporates several briefer letters sent to Corinth over a certain span of time. If this is so, then Paul himself or, more likely, some other editor clearly took care to gather those letters together and impose some literary unity upon the collection, thus producing the document that has come down to us as the Second Letter to the Corinthians. Others continue to regard it as a single letter, attributing its inconsistencies to changes of perspective in Paul that may have been occasioned by the arrival of fresh news from Corinth during its composition. The letter, or at least some sections of it, appears to have been composed in Macedonia (2 Cor 2:12-13; 7:5-6; 8:1-4; 9:2-4). It is generally dated about the autumn of A.D. 57; if it is a compilation, of course, the various parts may have been separated by intervals of at least some months.   The principal divisions of the Second Letter to the Corinthians are the following:

Address (2 Cor 1:1-11)

The Crisis between Paul and the Corinthians (2 Cor 1:12-7:16)

          Past Relationships (2 Cor 1:12-2:13)

          Paul's Ministry (2 Cor 2:14-7:4)

          Resolution of the Crisis (2 Cor 7:5-16)

The Collection for Jerusalem (2 Cor 8:1-9:15)

Paul's Defense of His Ministry (2 Cor 10:1-13:10)

Conclusion (2 Cor 13:11-13)