Saint Margaret RC Church

06/23/2024

For your consideration, this week's note from the Pastor’s Desk:

“The Old Have Passed; New Things Have Come”

In last week’s column, I indicated that Christian faith is not merely an assent of the mind to doctrines and dogmas but, more especially, is a matter of entrusting ourselves to God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, in Whom we have come to new life as members of His Body and children of God. This is the work of a lifetime, with the doctrines and teachings of the Church to assist us.

As we grow in our relationships with the people around us, entrusting ourselves to them more fully over time, so it should be with our relationship with Christ. Uniting ourselves with Him not only helps us along the roads of life when things are going well, but also enables us to get through the tough, difficult, and crazy times that always seem to find us.

Sadly, it sometimes takes a matter of desperation before we place ourselves fully into the hands of the Lord. Such is the case in today’s Gospel. In this case, it’s a matter of desperation in which the powerless Apostles panic yet trust in Christ’s power to save them from the raging waters. Their plea is tied to a determination and a conviction about Christ’s ability and His desire to oblige in dire situations. The same Christ desires to heal us and to bring us through our troubles and into the fullness of life.

The first reading today reminds us that God is God and we are not. As developed as our modern science may be, there are times when it does not offer us a suitable explanation for the whys and wherefores of life. There remain great mysteries, many of which we never will comprehend until we stand in the presence of God. They need not be profound, though many powerful and unexplainable healings have occurred at Lourdes or elsewhere.

Perhaps we remember the words of Christ to a number of people whom He cured: “Go your way. Your faith has saved you.” It also has been said, “For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.”

Our lives as people of faith are supposed to be different from those who do not believe. We are new creations in Christ, St. Paul reminded his Corinthian disciples. As such, we are to live by grace, to continue the reconciling mission of the One Who died for all, living not for ourselves but for Him by following His example of self-emptying, sacrificial love. This is not an easy thing to do by any stretch of the imagination. So many saints as well as sinners have struggled with that challenge. The difference between them is that the former have surrendered themselves to the grace of God and allowed the strength of His Holy Spirit to guide and direct them; the latter have rejected His powerful presence.

Sinners though we be, let us embrace Christ and entrust ourselves more fully to His mercy, not just when the tempestuous waters of life threaten to capsize our boats, i.e., our lives, but especially to receive Him with great love and devotion each day, and then to use the power of His presence to live the life of our calling as members of His Body and children of God!

Rather than hearing Christ question us about being terrified people of little faith, let us strive to live each day in His love, even in the darkest of times and most troubling of life’s situations. May we hear Him say to us one day, “Your faith has saved you!”

~ Fr. Armato

[Note: These weekly Pastor’s columns sprang from my desire to continue to instruct my parishioners during the time of the pandemic, when our churches were shut tight against them. It was my hope that they might serve to strengthen people’s faith during stressful times. I now bring these articles to a temporary close as I prepare to retire from administrative responsibilities next week. God willing, I will take to the keyboard again soon, once I have set up my office at home. Please keep me in your prayers and be assured of mine for you and your loved ones.]

06/21/2024

Join us at St. Margaret's for confessions and holy Mass this weekend. Know that Christ is with us through every storm.

Saturday: Confessions ~ 4:00-4:45; Anticipatory Mass ~ 5:00 pm
Sunday Masses: 8 am; 10 am (Italian & English); 12 pm & 5 pm

Farewell reception for Fr. Armato in the Hall after the 12 pm Mass.

06/19/2024

June 19 ~ Memorial of St. Romuald (c.951-1027); hermit; founder in 1012 of the Camaldolese branch (today numbering only about 95 members) of the Benedictine Order; established several monasteries in Italy and Central Europe for the promotion of contemplative prayer, fasting, solitude, and the reform of the clergy.

"O God, Who through St. Romuald renewed the manner of life of hermits in Your Church, grant that, denying ourselves and following Christ, we may merit to reach the Heavenly Realms on high, through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen!"
~ Collect for the Memorial of St. Romuald

06/16/2024

For your consideration, this week's note from the Pastor’s Desk:

“Walk by Faith”

“Faith” is one of the most overworked and overused words in the Christian vocabulary. It can trip off the tongue so casually that we might use it without even thinking. We speak about our parish as a “community of faith”. We call the Creed the “Symbol of Faith”. We are baptized into “the Faith”. St. James tells us that, “faith without works is dead.” And on and on it goes.

Christ spoke to His disciples very often about faith: If they had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could uproot trees and even mountains. He took people to task, including His own disciples, for their lack of faith (“O, ye of little faith!”); He challenged His disciples (“You have faith in God; have faith also in Me.”); He also commended others for demonstrating their faith (“Go; your faith has saved you.”).

St. Justin the Martyr put it rather bluntly in one of his expositions on what it takes to be a Christian and, thereby, able to receive Communion: “No one may share the Eucharist with us unless he believes that what we teach is true, unless he is washed in the regenerating waters of Baptism for the remission of his sins, and unless he lives in accordance with the principles given us by Christ.” It is a matter of living the Faith that is received and professed. Talk is cheap. Do our actions match our words, or do we say one thing piously and act quite differently?

You and I claim to be people of faith, but what does this mean? Hopefully, we accept the various articles of the Creed that we profess each Sunday, but there is more to it than that. We are to accept the teachings of the Catholic Church, the “deposit of the Faith” that has been handed down from generation to generation, but, again, there is more to it than that.

That “more” is the way that we live as disciples of Christ, entrusting ourselves to His care and acting in accord with His teachings. Simply assenting with the mind is relatively easy; entrusting ourselves to Christ can be an entirely more difficult matter that even might lead us to doubt and separation from God. Yet, it is God Who sows the tiny “mustard seed” of faith in our souls so that we might produce the fruits of a holy life for His Kingdom.

It might help if our lives were peaceful and serene, the road smooth, and the seas calm, but that’s not the way that life is, is it? We know all too well from personal experiences that there are many difficult moments in our lives: problems within families or between friends, personal health issues, employment and financial difficulties, etc. The list is as varied and complex as we are. “These are the times that try men’s souls,” Thomas Paine wrote during some of the darkest days of the American Revolution. Our times are no less dark and no less trying.

St. Paul, writing yet again to his disciples in Corinth in Greece, exhorted them to hold fast to living a Christian lifestyle and reminded them, “We walk by faith, and not by sight.” When we see the storms coming, striking each and every one of us sooner or later, we are to put our faith into gear, entrusting ourselves to the Lord and recognizing that He is always with us just as He has been with countless Christian individuals and the Church in general over the centuries.

“Faith” is an encounter with a Person, and, for us, that Person is Jesus Christ for Whom we are to live and in Whom we have become new creations: children of God. Faith and reason are not contradictory but, rather, support and strengthen one another.

The sooner we entrust ourselves to Christ, the more at ease we become in weathering the storms. It takes practice and work on our part to be open to the grace of God and the power of His Holy Spirit. We deepen our relationship with Christ gradually (almost imperceptibly, like the seeds of the Kingdom in today’s Gospel), through prayer, opening our minds to the words of Sacred Scripture, and a proper and frequent reception of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist. It is the work of a lifetime.

Walk by faith and see the Kingdom come to life!
~ Fr. Armato

06/15/2024

06/15/2024

Join us at St. Margaret's for confessions and holy Mass this Father's Day. Pray for your Dad and allow the grace of God to help you grow in faith!

Saturday: Confessions ~ 4:00-4:45; Anticipatory Mass ~ 5 pm
Sunday Masses: 8 am; 10 am (Italian & English); 12 pm; 5 pm

06/13/2024

Join us for holy Mass celebrated in Italian and English at St. Margaret's at 9:00 AM on this memorial of St. Anthony of Padua! Veniamo tanti numerosi ad onorare questo beato santo!

06/13/2024

June 13 ~ Memorial of St. Anthony of Padua, one of the greatest Franciscan saints; born in Lisbon and baptized Fernando; trained by the Augustinians and entered their order at Coimbra, Portugal; joined the Franciscans after seeing the bodies of Franciscan martyrs brought from Morocco; the first Franciscan permitted by St. Francis to teach in a university; great preacher of the Gospel, admired for his wisdom in the classroom and in the pulpit and his devotion to the Eucharist and service to the poor; usually portrayed as a soft person, but physically tall and strong and ready to protect those in need; died in 1231 at the age of 36; entombed at Padua, Italy.

St. Anthony of Padua, pray for us!

06/11/2024

"Our task is not one of producing persuasive propaganda; Christianity shows its greatness when it is hated by the world."
~ St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Church at Rome

[Image: "The School of Athens/The Academy", by Raphael, 1509-11.]

06/10/2024

For your consideration, this week's note from the Pastor’s Desk:

“The Devil’s Works vs. God’s Grace”

Those of us who are of a certain age may remember the comedian Flip Wilson portraying a character that he called “Geraldine”, a woman of (let us say) questionable repute. Whenever confronted with having committed some sinful behavior or another, “Geraldine” would shirk personal responsibility and respond, “The Devil made me do it,” and we would laugh. It seemed funny at the time. Many, if not most, people today seem to be of the same frame of mind, if we even bother to admit that our behavior has been sinful in the first place. The reality of sin, however, is deadly and no laughing matter.

Prompted by Satan, the sin of Adam and Eve, who were created in the image and likeness of God, was the attempt to displace God in their pride. It appears that things haven’t changed from the time of the Fall. We, too, rather than following God, make the final words of the poem “Invictus” our own: “I am the master of my fate; I am the master of my soul.” Yes, we have responsibilities and a commensurate measure of authority in life, but we do not have the authority to go against God. False pride thrives, and not only in the month of June.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Jerusalem scribes accused Jesus of performing works, especially in driving out demons, as a minister of Satan. Their reasoning was totally out of whack. Thus Jesus responded with His famous “house divided” analogy, that was used by Abraham Lincoln in an 1858 debate about the future of our country, which, he insisted, could not survive half slave and half free. Our Civil War would bear him out. The charge made by the scribes was more than a personal offense against Jesus. It was an offense against the Holy Spirit: attributing evil acts to the very Font of grace.

We live in a very confused time in a world that is turned upside down, when evil deeds – like abortion, transgender medications and surgeries, sexual relations outside of marriage, “marriage” other than between one man and one woman, euthanasia, etc. – are promoted as being good, while good measures for the protection of human life, the dignity and responsibilities of the human person created in the image and likeness of God, and the sanctity of a permanent, unifying, faithful, and procreative marriage are disregarded and demeaned as being repressive of “human freedom”. The term, "reproductive rights", has been distorted today to signify the ability of a mother to sacrifice at will the innocent life in her womb.

Sadly, supporters of a moral way of life are deemed to be not simply mad or insane or out of touch, but actually oppressors of those who live contrary to the Divine will and commandments. We may be ignored, or derided as being irrelevant and antiquated, or marginalized by “progressive” legislation or executive orders, or even jailed by aberrant court rulings.

Christ, speaking to those around Him in today’s Gospel, said that there is a relationship that surpasses even the fundamental bond of blood kinship, i.e., to do the will of His Father, Who wants to share with us His own divine and eternal life as His beloved children by adoption. Our lives as faithful Catholics requires more than sentimentally keeping a Rosary in our pocket or making the Sign of the Cross for the paparazzi. We are called to live in the light of the Spirit and to act with the freedom of the children of God to do what is right, good, holy, true, just, and beautiful in His sight.

By God’s design, we are not left to our own devices and limitations. As St. Paul reminded his disciples in Corinth, God granted them and “more and more people” (including us) “grace bestowed in abundance”. Rather than getting discouraged at opposition and our own human setbacks and failings, therefore, we should take heart in the knowledge that we can be renewed each day by this grace and that God has prepared an eternal dwelling for His faithful ones in Heaven. He is merciful and ready to forgive all who turn to Him freely in an attitude of truly contrite repentance and humility.

The Passion and Resurrection of Christ have paid the price of our redemption. We are called to accept this wondrous outpouring of God’s love and to respond by undergoing the radical change of heart that will align us to live more perfectly with Christ through the power of His Spirit working in us and through us.

We might be inclined, like wayward “Geraldine”, to attribute our sinful behavior – whether through our thoughts and our words, or the evil that we have done, or the good that we have failed to do – to the works of Satan, but it is far better in the long run to allow the powerful grace of God, which surpasses all understanding, to guide and form us into a newer, truly freer, and more lasting life.

We have received the Spirit of adoption. Therefore, we should live in faith by that Spirit, not only in our celebration of the holy days that have passed recently but also in the common yet complex situations of daily life. If we do so, God “will raise us also with Jesus and place us ... in His presence,” for we truly will be brothers and sisters of Christ, His sons and daughters.
~ Fr. Armato

06/08/2024

Join us at St. Margaret's for confessions and holy Mass this weekend as we celebrate the Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time as disciples, brothers and sisters, of the Lord.

Saturday: Confessions ~ 4:00-4:45; Anticipatory Mass ~ 5:00 pm
Sunday Masses: 8 am; 10 am (Italian & English); 12 Noon; 5 pm

06/07/2024

June 7, 2024 ~ Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Christians always have drawn upon the "inscrutable riches" of the love of Christ. Kyrie eleison! Lord, have mercy!

This year, the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is on June 7.