Saint Sharbel Maronite Catholic Church Las Vegas 4th Sunday after the Holy Cross St. Sharbel Pray for us! October 2019 Index Page Church Events 1 13th Sunday of Pentecost 2 News from the Middle East 3 Our Holy Father News 4 Beautiful Faces & Places 5 Festival Flyer 6 Festival News 7 Birth of our Mother Mary 8 Matthew 24:45 Community Life Announcements 9 Filipino News 10 10325 RANCHO Our Services HOLY MASSES Advertisements 11 DESTINO RD. DAILY: Monday – Friday 8:00 a.m. English Holy Mass Intentions 12 LAS VEGAS NV SATURDAY VIGIL: 4:30 p.m. English 89183 SUNDAY: 9:30 a.m. English PHONE: & 11:30 AM Arabic/Aramaic/English 702-616-6902 1st Sunday : 4:30pm FAX: Rosario y la Misa en Español 702-616-4032. 2nd Sunday: 4:30 pm stsharbel.lv@ Rosary & Tagalog Mass gmail.com Sunday Catechism @ 8 am www.stsharbellasv (Classes are Sept – May) st To Keep a Lamp Burning we have to egas.org 1 SUNDAY 9:30 a.m. & 11:30am Keep Putting Oil in it. Mother Theresa Youth Mass October 2019 Page 2 Some will suck up; others will want to test her ability; other FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE HOLY CROSS patiently will wait for her downfall; others grumble that they should have given the position; others can’t believe it’s The Faithful Servant a woman ; perhaps a few think she’s soft and so they play READING: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 the system; there may be others who will think she’s a good GOSPEL: Matthew 24:45-51 choice and encourage her along; others half-heartedly will support her; while others couldn’t care less. The following quote might suggest the wisest way we should behave to Our Gospel passage taken from Matthew tells how “bosses” must others of different position: behave or else… To your friend / loyalty The passage has two characters: the “good servant” who knows To you enemy /forgiveness how to care for those who we put under their care. There is also To you work /dedication the “bad servant” who mistreats other employees and forsakes their To a child /a good example duties. The story goes on to tell of the justice and punishment held To your parents /gratitude & out for these two servants. What we will reflect on is an extended devotion version of how the other servants behave. To your life partner / love & Let’s do a time warp and fly from Israel in 30 AD to Australia in faithfulness the year 2005. We are working in an office with 30 people, each sitting at their computer monitor, clicking the mouse away… When Jesus tells a story, He leaves it open to interpretation. The good and the bad servants are only leading us into our We’ve just received news that our boss is on long service leave for lives. We are called then to reflect on how do we behave in 6 weeks and they’ve replaced him with Ms. Jones, a 45-year old authority and how do we behave towards others in authority. female colleague. She had been pretty ordinary from what you We can make or break others. Do we allow others to grow know having worked on an assignment with her. So how would in their calling from God? Are we treating God’s workers you make her feel in her new position? as God would want us to? Rev. Fr. Nadim Abou Zeid MIRACLE OF SAINT SHARBEL This happened in Marseille. "this is the work of St Sharbel" says A week later, when she tells her doctor, Dr. F. Alain, what has just the doctor....... happened with her and that he has the scheduled exams, he Alice Gabrielle Abass, native of 1959, married Maroun Semaan reveals that she is completely healed but he cannot explain this touma is from beit melat in the akkar, Lebanon. She is a mother of healing medical. "" this is the work of st charbel " He said. two children and lives in Marseille (France) you can join her at In order to testify to her recognition and to thank st charbel for 0033442444525 her intercession, Alice goes to annaya and records this beautiful grace on August 6, 2019 by submitting her medical reports. Due to violent belly pain, Alice was admitted to the hospital center of martigues. Analysis and exams + x-rays reveal the presence of a cancer tumor on the womb. His doctor recommends a quick intervention with womb removal. This surgery was very difficult, unfortunately was not successful and Alice suffered from pain more unbearable than before. Post-operating exams can detect a serious medical error: by operating Alice from the womb the surgeon would have sanctioned the urinary routes. Alice has to be surgery again. This second intervention is set on 6 September He first loved us. 2019. During a phone interview with Simon Touma, a parent who lives in Lebanon, the latter evokes st charbel and advise Alice to pray and coat her belly with blessed oil by keeping faith and hope. Alice is performing quickly with great fervor and confidence. It even goes further and swallows small grains of land and incense that usually accompany the bottle of oil delivered by the convent of annaya to pilgrims. Vivid pain prevents him from finding his sleep. Alice has the feeling of surgery without anesthesia. She's suffering terrible. Then it's like the calm that suddenly takes over the storm. His pains fade. She regroup, rises from bed and finds out that everything has come into order and something big just happened. October 2019 Good News from our Leader Page 3 OUR HOLY FATHER POPE FRANCIS STRESSES ‘WITNESS’ IN OPENINg of Extraordinary Missionary Month Pope Francis on October 1, 2019, launched the Extraordinary Missionary Month with the theme: “Baptized and sent: the Church of Christ on mission in the world ”. The Holy Father marked the occasion by presiding over the liturgical prayer of Vespers in memory of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus, patroness of the Missions, in the Vatican Basilica. In his homily for the service, the Holy Father stressed what he called the “keyword” for being a mission: Witness. “But how does one set about being a missionary? By living as witnesses: bearing witness by our lives that we have come to know Jesus,” Pope Francis said. We sin by omission, that is, against mission, whenever, rather than “Witness is the keyword: a word with the same root as the word ‘martyr’. spreading joy, we think of ourselves as victims, or think that no one The martyrs are the primary witnesses of faith: not by their words but by loves us or understands us. We sin against mission when we yield to their lives. They know that faith is not propaganda or proselytism: it is a resignation: “I can’t do this: I’m not up to it”. How can that be? God respectful gift of one’s life…Let us ask ourselves this month: how good a has given you talents, yet you think yourself so poor that you cannot witness am I?” enrich a single person? We sin against mission when we complain and Pope Francis cited the examples of three renowned missionaries: keep saying that everything is going from bad to worse, in the world Saint Therese of the Child Jesus shows us the way: she made prayer the and in the Church. We sin against mission when we become slaves to fuel for missionary activity in the world. the fears that immobilize us when we let ourselves be paralyzed by Saint Francis Xavier, perhaps, after Saint Paul, the greatest missionary of thinking that “things will never change”. We sin against mission when all time. we live life as a burden and not as a gift when we put ourselves and our Venerable Pauline Jaricot, a laborer who supported the missions by her concerns at the center and not our brothers and sisters who are waiting daily work: with the offerings that she made from her wages, she helped to be loved. lay the foundations of the Pontifical Missionary Societies. “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7). He loves the Church on the “We are accompanied by a religious woman, a priest, and a laywoman,” go. If it is not on the go, it is not Church. A Church on the go, a Francis stressed. “They remind us that no one is excluded from the missionary Church is a Church that does not waste time lamenting Church’s mission.” things that go wrong, the loss of faithful, the values of the time now in Following is the Pope’s Full Homily provided by the Vatican the past. A Church that does not seek safe oasis to dwell in peace, but In the parable we have heard, the Lord appears as a man who, before longs to be salt of the earth and a leaven in the world. For she knows leaving on a journey, calls his servants and entrusts his property to them that this is her strength, that of Jesus himself: not social or institutional (cf. Mt 25:14). God has entrusted us with his greatest treasures: our own relevance, but humble and gratuitous love. lives and the lives of others. He has entrusted any number of different Today we begin the Missionary Month of October in the company of gifts to each of us. These gifts, these talents, are not something to be three “servants” who bore much fruit. Saint Therese of the Child Jesus stored in a safe, but a true vocation: the Lord calls us to make our talents shows us the way: she made prayer the fuel for missionary activity in bear fruit, with boldness and creativity.