A community of Faith hope and love THIRTY SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME November 8, 2015 Stay awake and be waiting for the Lord! ’ T. BERNARD S S CATHOLIC CHURCH 516-731-4220 Phone/516-731-4355 Fax Email: [email protected] MISSION STATEMENT Website: www.StBernardsLevittown.org PASTORAL TEAM With faith, hope, and love the people of Father Ralph Sommer, Pastor [email protected] St. Bernard's parish family are on a mission ext. 130 to bring the gospel of Jesus Father Joe Nohs, Associate Pastor [email protected] to the Levittown Community and beyond. ext. 128 Deacon John Blakeney [email protected] 516-731-4220 Spiritual Life Deacon James Flannery [email protected] Schedule of Masses: 516-731-4220 Saturday: 8:00 am and 5:00 pm Deacon Timm Taylor Sunday: 7:30 am, 9:00 am (Family Mass), 10:30 am, [email protected] 12 Noon, 5:30 pm (Youth Mass) 516-731-4220 Father Joy Varkey, Resident Priest Weekdays: 8:00 am [email protected] Holy Days : see website: www.StBernardsLevittown.org ext. 124 Father Andres Fernadez, Resident Priest ext 131 Confessions: Mrs. Susan Martin, Director of Religious Education Saturday: 4:00 - 5:00 pm. Weekdays: After the 8:00 am Mass [email protected] 516-731-8511 Phone/516-731-7860 Fax Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Novena and The Religious Education Center is closed on Fridays. Benediction: Sr. Christine Sammons, O.P., Monday: Check schedule on page 5. Coordinator of Parish Social Ministry Morning Prayer: [email protected] 516-731-6074 Monday through Saturday 8:30 am, Prayer Room. Books are Ms. Sarah Kropac, Coordinator of Youth Ministry available. [email protected] Baptism of Children : We welcome infants and children to our Christian community! Baptisms are held on select Sundays at Mrs. Mary Jane Witte, Director of Liturgical Music 1:30 pm. Please contact the parish at least 3 months before [email protected] ext. 142 an anticipated baptism – even before a new child is born – to ensure enough time to complete the baptism Ms. Diane Vella, Pastoral Associate [email protected] preparation process. Our three-step preparation process ext. 143 includes: 1) at-home reading and preparation by the parents; Mrs. Rose Marie Rotondo, Sacristan 2) an intake conversation with a member of our parish staff; [email protected] and 3) participation with other parents in a Sunday morning 516-731-4220 gathering, which begins with attendance at our 9:00 am Mr. Len Lanzi, Facilities Manager “Family -friendly” Mass. Please call 731-4220 or e-mail ext. 120 [email protected] to request a Baptism information Mr. Dimas Carbajal, Head of Maintenance and preparation packet. [email protected] ext. 126 Marriages: Church arrangements should be made at least 6 months before the marriage and before making any contracts with restaurants or caterers. Please call the Would you like to join our vibrant community of Faith, Hope Rectory to set up an appointment with a priest, 731-4220. and Love at St. Bernard’s? Sign-up and get to know us at Ministry to the Sick and Aging: If you are, or know of one of our monthly New Parishioner Registration and Wel- someone who is homebound and would like to receive Holy come evenings! For information, call the parish office at Communion, please call the rectory at 731-4220. 516-731-4220, or download a form from our website St. Vincent De Paul Society: 735-3218 www.StBernardsLevittown.org. Click on “Join St. Bernard’s Parish” on the left side of the home page form. If you Usher Coordinator: John Lyons (516) 390-5150 or move away, please notify us as well. [email protected] Bulletin Deadline: Friday, 5:00 pm, nine days prior to publication. You may email us at [email protected] or leave a printed copy in the inbox on the bulletin desk in the Parish Office. Thank you for your cooperation! 2 No Guilty Giving E– mail Father Ralph: [email protected] Faith Direct Jesus notices a poor widow who puts a couple of coins in the temple treasury I haven’t written a church and points out to his disciples that she was giving unlike the others. “They contribution check in a have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has decade. That’s because I find contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.” (Mark 12:38-44) it easier to give electronically. Actually I find myself doing I am so tempted right now to ask you -- yes you -- to increase your financial almost all my payments for contribution to St. Bernard’s so we can continue the good work of Jesus in our any kind of personal bills or community. But that request would be one based on guilt: That poor widow contributions online. It is so gave EVERYTHING she had to the temple, and you can’t give a little more much quicker and easier and each week? I’m saving at least 49 cents each time -- not to mention Yet, if you read the gospel carefully, Jesus never says that what she did was receiving cash back rewards good. He just says she did it. In fact, in the passage just before this one, he when I use my credit card. If says, “Beware of the scribes....they devour the houses of widows and, as a you’re like me and would pretext, recite lengthy prayers. They will receive a very severe rather make your church condemnation.” I wonder if he is appalled that she gave everything away. offerings electronically, How will she live now? Who is going to take care of her? Is she a generous, consider using Faith Direct, free-spirited, couldn’t-care-less woman who trusts that all will be OK if she an online service where you gives away her last pennies, or is she giving because some scribe has told her can choose exactly how much that she had better do this or God won’t love her? The gospel doesn’t shed to give in your weekly and any light on this. Rather it calls into question the reasons we give to the special offerings. Just go to church. www.faithdirect.net and within a few minutes, you’ll Why do you give as much as you do? Out of obligation? Out of love? Out of be all set. And when the guilt? Out of a generous spirit? Because we need the money? Because it’s basket comes around on what you or your family has always done? Do you get a ton of charity Sunday, just smile as you pass requests in the mail and somehow feel obligated to respond? Or feel guilty it, knowing that you’ve throwing the appeals away? Today might be a good day for us to take some already given and made our time and reflect a little on our motives for giving and our choices for giving. lives much easier since we Giving ought indeed be a free choice that expresses our values, our hopes, and don’t have to process checks our love. or count cash or print envelopes for you. Our Faith I’m not going to yield to the temptation to use this gospel to guilt people into Direct parish code is: giving more. While I’d like people to give more because our needs continue to NY272 grow and develop, that has to be their free choice, not something that this modern day “scribe” pushes through promises of greater blessings or through guilt. 3 Parish News Gifts of treasure TODAY, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8 Sunday collections Ministry of Consolation Memorial Mass November 1, 2015 November 2, 2014 Today, Sunday, November 8, 2015, there will be a $ 14,683.00 $ 15,616.05 special Mass at 3:00 p.m. in loving memory of all the 626 envelopes 657 envelopes deceased parishioners who had a funeral mass or a Faith Direct memorial service at St. Bernard’s from October 2014 to $ 1,903.77 $ 1,901.63 September 30, 2015. There will be light refreshments in Total Collection the parish center following the Mass. All are welcomed $ 16,586.77 $ 17,517.68 Second Collection - All Saints to attend. $ 3,540.95 $ 2,370.55 357 envelopes 214 envelopes Capital Campaign Goal: $1,000,000.00 Catholic Daughters, Court St. Pius X, #1690 Pledged: $1,199,925.00 Collected to date: $1,059,166 Memorial Mass in the church Thursday, November 12, 2015, 7:00 PM Please continue to fulfill your pledge commitment so that all of the planned projects can be accomplished. Meeting in the Parish Center Thank you for your continued generosity. Thursday, December 10, 2015, 7:30 PM Mid-Week Mid-Morning Book Discussion Here’s a change of pace… a whodunit! complete with Faith Direct courtroom maneuvering and surprising turns of evidence Have you enrolled yet? and at the same time a mystery, something altogether www.faithdirect.net Code = NY272 richer and deeper! Join your fellow parishioners on Wednesday, November 18 at 10 AM in the Parish Parish calendar (Subject to change) Center for an informal discussion of Snow Falling on Monday, November 9 Cedars by David Guterson. Start reading early…it’s After 8am Mass Miraculous Medal Novena, Church 460 pages, but well worth the time. You won’t be sorry! Tuesday, November 10 10:00 am Our Lady of Consolation, Parish Center For more information contact Wally Rodier at 2:00 pm Zumba Gold, Parish Center [email protected] or 516-731-6690. 6:00 pm Religious Award Boy Scout Troop 316, Cafeteria 6:15 pm Children’s Choir Practice, Parish Center 7:00 pm Boy Scout 316 Meeting, Cafeteria 7:00 pm Boy Scout Monthly Committee Meeting, Are YOU Parish Center the salt of the earth? 7:00 pm Spanish Rosary, Prayer Room Table salt enhances the flavor of food.