PARISH NEWS!

May 17, 2019

OUR PASTOR ROCKS THE ROCKIES!

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHT

Gearing Up for Summer Fun

St. B’s High School Youth Ministry is a place for teenagers to grow in community and faith. All high schoolers, Catholic or not, are welcomed at weekly gatherings throughout the academic year and social gatherings—bonfires, laser tag, mini-golf—throughout the summer.

Weekly gatherings are a great opportunity for teens from different schools to build friendships while exploring Scripture, playing games, learning about Church Traditions, asking the big questions, and praying together—all over pizza and snacks.

Summer activities allow for more social bonding to keep teens connected between school years. This summer, we’ll be joining forces with other local parishes to help teens develop faith-filled friendships beyond our parish boundaries. Stay tuned for upcoming event details, beginning with our Summer Kick-off Bonfire on Wednesday, June 12!

Families often seek out Youth Ministry for the Sacrament of Confirmation. At St. B’s, Youth Ministry and Confirmation Preparation run independently but are complementary experiences, and teens are encouraged to participate in both. Confirmation prep is a two-year process, often beginning in grade 9; more information and registration will be available by August.

If you’ve graduated grade 8 and have not yet started college, we’d love to get to know you. We invite you to attend our Summer events. You are always welcome to bring a friend!

If you feel called to serve our teens and have a passion for living out your call to discipleship, join our leadership team.

Contact our Youth Minister: vita@saintbrigidparish.org 

 

CLERGY CORNER

Fr. Sebastian Bukenya, Associate Pastor

On Losing the Sense of the World as a Dangerous Place

In our time, we have lost the sense of the world as a dangerous place. In conforming ourselves to worldly expectations, we lose our eternal identity as children of God. The irony is that we are confronted with a litany of ugly realities of war, injustice, conflict, infanticide, school shootings, terrorist attacks, homelessness, racism, and many others. What we have lost is the ability to see these challenges as specifically Christian challenges (and not simply human challenges). Furthermore, we have little sense of the Christian life as the way we live in the world as “resident aliens.” As a result, we have come to be so much “at home” in the world that we readily accept explanations that purport to offer the ultimate account of reality. The sociological accounts lead us to think that all these catastrophes are inevitable; we easily assume “race,” “tribe,” and “nationality” to be merely natural identities.

When the children of Israel were in exile, many of them forgot that they were strangers in the foreign land. They became so comfortable in exile that they even began to pick up strange habits from their captors. This led them to adulterate their faith in YHWH their God and consequently to lose their identity as God’s people. As Christians, we are strangers in a strange land who must constantly bounce back to a life of vigil, a life of alertness and resistance where we assume a unique posture in the face of these evils. How can business continue normally in our churches amidst these evils? The apostle Paul cautions us in Romans 12:2 saying: “do not conform yourselves to this age….” For such times as these, the Church is on trial. We can choose to be at home with whatever is going on around us or to be a people that exemplify the true notion of Church as the body of Christ in which when one part suffers, the others suffer as well. Our biggest challenge is to learn to own our identity as Christians—living in this world but not of this world. 

 

 

ENCOUNTER, LOVE, SERVE

GETTING READY FOR SUNDAY