Year C Hymnal #876 The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph December 30, 2018 Sat., December 29 Mon., December 31 4 PM … Our Parish Family Weekend of December 23, 2018 Sun., December 30 Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, Joseph Regular Offertory $8,306.00 4—5 PM ...Food Pantry 7:30 AM …Nora Paris (1st Anniv.) by Nelson & Lillie Duquette Loose Offertory 567.50 Sat., January 5, 2019 Online Offertory Last Wk 1,050.00 6 PM … Pastor’s Reception 9:30 AM … Marie Jean by Mary Duval and Leslie Ann Total Offertory $9,923.50 5 PM … Edith B. Clark (living) by Anne Clark Stewardship Make up $ 112.00 On Monday, December 24, the food Monday, December 31 Holy Day Make up $ 45.00 pantry served 10 families and gave 12 PM … Available intention out 45 bags of groceries. The food 6:30 PM …Our Parish Family Food Pantry $ 350.00 pantry will be open on Monday, Tue., January 1, 2019 The Solemnity of Mary Christmas $ 9,527.00 December 31 from 4 — 5 PM. Please note the time 9 AM … Dennis Smith by SRP Christmas Loose 973.00 change. Wed., January 2 St Basil the Great & Gregory Nazianzen Total Christmas $10,500.00 12 PM … Claire Sasseville by Lionel & Lillian Coulon We will celebrate the So- Christmas Flowers $ 2,725.00 Thur., January 3 lemnity of Mary at a Vigil Mass on Monday, De- 8:30 AM ... Available intention Food Pantry $ 180.00 Fri., January 4 Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton cember 31, 2018 at 6:30 ********************** PM and at Mass on Tues- 6 PM … Joseph Handy by Gregory Handy Last Year: Wknd of Dec. 27, 2017 day, January 1, 2019 at 9 Sat., January 5 Total Reg Offertory $3,906.00 Total Stewardship $ 25.00 AM. This is a Holy Day of 4 PM … Maurice Caza by Irene DesRuisseaux Total Christmas $9,256.00 Obligation and we welcome and encour- Sun., January 6 The Epiphany of the Lord age all to attend. 7:30 AM …Our Parish Family Thank you for your sacrificial gift! 9:30 AM … Joseph Dambach (3rd Anniv.) by Christine and Please note that the Jack Dambach 5 PM … Available intention rectory will be closed on Tuesday, January 1, Sanctuary candle The sanctuary candle 2019 in observance of burns this week for Martin Kubik, Jr. by Mathew Kubik and Cristina Valente. the holiday. Happy New Year! READINGS FOR THE WEEK of December 30, 2018 eGiving ... Did you know you can use your credit Monday: 1 Jn 2:18-21; Ps 96:1-2, 11-12, 13; Jn 1:1-18; Tues- card or electronic check to support the mission of Saint day: Nm 6:22-27; Ps 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8; Gal 4:4-7; Lk 2:16-21; Raphael Parish? This is especially helpful when you Wednesday: 1 Jn 2:22-28; Ps 98:1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4; Jn 1:19-28; are on vacation. Go to our website (www.st-raphael- Thursday: 1 Jn 2:29–3:6; Ps 98:1, 3cd-4, 5-6; Jn 1:29-34; Fri- parish.org) and click on the Giving button. In a few day: 1 Jn 3:7-10; Ps 98:1, 7-8, 9; Jn 1:35-42; Saturday: 1 Jn minutes, you can be sure that your gift will work every 3:11-21; Ps 100:1b-2, 3, 4, 5; Jn 1:43-51; Sunday: Is 60:1-6; Ps day of the year to help your parish. 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13; Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6; Mt 2:1-12 Please pray for the repose of the soul of The Pastor’s eception for volunteers and those Dennis Smith, who died Dec. 26 and R whose funeral Mass will be celebrated on serving in ministry or in a volunteer role at Saint Jan. 3, 2019. Please keep him and his family in prayer. Raphael Parish will be Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019 from 6—9 PM at the rectory. If you volunteer or are in a minis- try and have not received an invitation, please call the office at 623.2604, Poinsettias in memory of loved ones and we hope you can join us! Thank you! Thank you to all who donated flowers this Christ- mas season. A list of donors is included in this week’s bulletin, along with the following: Our Saint Raphael Mr. & Mrs. Jeffrey Plourd: In honor of Kathleen Perkins CYO High School and in memory of Donald Perkins basketball team beat Saint Joseph's Ms. Barbara Miles: In memory of Robin Michael Miles of Salem, in im- pressive fashion Sincere Thanks Our pastor, P. Jerome, O.S.B., thanks this past Sunday 58 all those members of the Saint Raphael community and -48 moving to 1-2 on the sea- friends who remembered him at Christmas with Masses, son. Their next game is Sunday, prayers, cards, visits, baked goods, gifts and other forms of January 6, 2019 vs. Saint Pius kindness. May the Lord bless you and your loved ones abun- at 2:30 PM at Bedford High dantly during this beautiful Christmas season and throughout School. the New Year of 2019! Thank you again! From the Pastor: Fr. Jerome Joseph Day, O.S.B. Sister Wendy’s quirky approach to finding beauty offers a good resolution She was eccentric. She had buck teeth, a Virgin Mary as a young woman cradling the slight speech impediment and a mildly an- body of Jesus on her lap after he is taken noying high-pitched English accent – and she down from the Cross. There is none of the wasn’t even born in England. She was a wailing, shrieking agony of so many moth- middle-aged nun who lived in a caravan, or ers, wives, daughters or sisters who receive small camping trailer, in the backyard of a the lifeless remains of their slain or martyred group of nuns living in a monastery. She was men. Instead, Mary exhibits a noble serenity, trying to be a hermit. gravely accepting what must be, and in her She was as unlikely an international televi- acceptance, lifts the moment up beyond this sion star as anyone could imagine, but she world. As Sister Wendy observes, Mary rises loved art and people. And she loved Christ like a mountain in marble, and down the and his Church. So in the strange world of sides of this maternal mountain, the body of television ratings, quality performances and, Christ seems to slide gently down. She adds quite possibly, the movements of the Spirit district library’s mobile van. Having read that the sculpture manifests the ways men of God, the Sister Wendy Beckett phenome- about art, she started writing. In 1988, she and women complement each other and sim- non was born some 30 years ago. published her first book, Contemporary ultaneously exhibit tension in their physicali- This past week, on the feast of Saint Ste- Women Artists. ty, psychology and spiritual essence. phen Protomartyr, Dec. 26, Sister Wendy Just three years later, she agreed to do a Sister Wendy’s ability to see into art, to see died at age 88 – having bequeathed to audi- stand-up documentary about London’s famed beyond art and to see the artwork itself ences around the world and to the Church a National Gallery after she was approached has left the contemporary world with an im- way of approaching art that makes it accessi- by BBC producer Nicholas Rossiter. A little portant reminder of the beauty and power of ble, desirable and inspirational. The day after bit like a masterly spider, she wove a web of art. The prosaic, polarized nature of politics, Christmas is Boxing Day, once a day of gift- art theory, history, and personality with a relentless commerce absent creativity and giving by the lord and lady of the manor to flair for the dramatic, and managed to cap- increasingly mindless, isolated leisure servants and tenants but now a way for many ture an audience that wanted more and more. dominating the contemporary moment re- people to bestow gifts of affection on those She wrote more than 25 books on art, spiritu- minds men and women in the 21st century outside one’s immediate family and circle of ality and poetry; made a dozen TV documen- that we have a desperate need for beauty in close friends. Certainly, Sister Wendy’s gifts, taries; was interviewed by major media jour- our lives. That beauty cannot simply be a literary, artistic, philosophical and spiritual nalists around the world, counted popes and beautiful artifact in a museum or church, it have been a gift that has enriched the world. prime ministers among friends and fans— must be something that continues to touch Born in 1930 in Johannesburg and reared and always found her way back to her cara- thought and memory. Moreover, we need to in South Africa, Wendy Mary Beckett was van, upgraded by the Carmelites to a small see such an artifact as it is in itself, as it was the daughter of Aubrey mobile home in 1994. understood in the time of its creation and as and Dorothy (Sheehan) Sister Wendy saw her it acts on us now. Beauty can be found in Beckett. Her father was a work modestly from many places, in multiple forms. medical doctor. At age 16, the beginning until the Sister Wendy discovered beauty on ceil- she entered the teaching end of her life. She ings, walls and framed canvases.