 |
|
COMMUNITY, LITURGY, FAITH AND RCIACommunity
Do you wonder if there will be anywhere to meet people on campus and hang out between classes? Campus Ministry is a central meeting place for many students. Individuals and groups constantly stop by to put their feet up, have a light breakfast on Bagel Wednesdays, conduct student meetings or share . What Students Say about Campus Ministry…
Liturgy, Faith Development and RCIADo you look forward to practicing your faith in the Roman Catholic tradition? Mass is held in the Chapel of Saint Peter at noon on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 12:15 pm on Tuesday and Friday; and weekdays at 5:00 pm. The Sunday Community Mass is celebrated at 11:00am, Sunday student Mass is celebrated at 9:00 p.m. CLC at SPC - CLC's, or Christian Life Communities, are small faith sharing groups which meet weekly for an hour. These groups are inspired by Ignatian Spirituality and welcome people of all faiths who seek to understand the divine in everyday life. CLS's focus on Community, Spirituality and Service. For additional information please contact, Sinclair Ceasar: sceasar@spc.edu, SOCRATES CAFE- SC started by inquisitive Chrisotopher Phillips in 1996, it is a form of open dialogue that hearkens to the ancient Socratic tradition - every voice counts in endless exploration of ideas and discovery. Students choose any question that's on their minds: Do men experience heartache in broken relationships like women? What does it mean to feel stress? Do grades matter anyway? Christopher Phillips travels America and around the world to engage in dialogue with folks of varying religions and cultures, and has written books about the nature of stereotypes and narrow thinking and the liberating action of group conversation. Socrates Cafe meets twice each month with the first meeting September 3rd at 8PM. Campus Ministry coordinates college-wide Monthly Masses which celebrate or recognize significant events, people, or seasons. We also celebrate Holy Day Masses. These liturgies are held in Roy Irving Theatre or Chapel of Saint Peter. Time TBA. The dates are:
2008-09 Special Masses
MARTIN LUTHER KING MASS Saint Peter’s College 1/18/06-Sermon by Rev.Thomas Sheridan, S.J. 1 Samuel 17:32-32, 37, 40-51 Mark 3:1-6 The readings this morning are the ones to be found for this date in the lectionary used by Catholics the world over, part of a two-year cycle of sequential readings. Now it is always possible on an occasion like this to depart from the lectionary and choose other readings deemed more fitting for the occasion. But as soon as I saw what the readings in the lectionary for today were to be, I thought: “How very appropriate!” Take that reading from the gospel according to St. Mark, for example. It’s about one of the many confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees which abound in the first part of this gospel. In a sense, the Pharisees were prisoners of their own mind set. They had come to take it for granted that the way one related to God was by a meticulous outward observation of the Law, not just the Law as given to Moses, but that Law with all of its over 600 interpretations which by Jesus’ time had taken on the force of Law. Jesus had a different idea. He believed that the way God his Father wants us to relate to him is by service of one another – not a new idea, by the way. It was the teaching of the Hebrew prophets like Amos, and Hosea, and Isaiah – who were such a great source of inspiration for Dr. King.
I am ashamed to say that the first time I personally saw out-and-out segregation was in a church in Maryland in 1948. I knew a lot of these people, and by their standards they were law-abiding, God-fearing, neighbor-loving people. But, like the Pharisees, they were prisoners of their own mind-set. It seemed perfectly natural to them that the “colored folk,” as they were called then, should sit in the back of the church and go up to the altar rail for Holy Communion after the white folk. I say “out-and-out segregation” because I eventually came to realize that although there were no “whites-only” signs in New York City, where I came from, “whites-only” was a hidden, unquestioned, more subtle form of segregation rampant throughout the northern states as well. And, sad to say, it has not entirely ceased to exist even in this 21st Century. But it was when I saw what first reading the lectionary proposed for today, that I said, “Wow! How perfect: David and Goliath!” What a David was Martin Luther King against that Goliath of entrenched racial segregation in the south and elsewhere! And against that Goliath’s weapons of clubs, bull-whips, cattle prods, tear gas and water cannons, what were Martin Luther King’s weapons? David’s “five smooth stones” might seem a powerful arsenal by comparison. All Dr. King had was a policy of active non-violence – and a dream! But as it turned out those weapons were even more powerful than all of Goliath’s armaments. Non-violence is often misunderstood to be simply a do-nothing policy, the mere avoidance of conflict. But far from it! Active, aggressive non-violence as conceived by Dr. King was a powerful weapon. Let’s listen to him explain it in a sermon preached on Christmas Eve 1967: I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many sheriffs, too many white citizens’ councilors, and too many Klansmen of the South to want to hate, myself; and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up before our most bitter opponents and say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country, and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, and we’ll still love you. But be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.” Jesus’ many confrontations with the Pharisees – and with other powerful members of the political and religious establishment of his day, eventually led to his death. And the same was true of Dr. Martin Luther King. But he was sustained by a dream. Who has not heard, who does not thrill to recall his “I have a dream...” sermon? That was I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter, because I’ve been to the mountaintop, and I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will, and He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” We offer training for liturgical ministries: Eucharistic minister; lector, altar server, choir and instrumental accompaniment, and ministry of hospitality. If you seek spiritual direction or wish to receive the sacrament of reconciliation Campus Ministry staff are available to help schedule you an appointment if one of the chaplains is not readily available. If you are interested in receiving one of the sacraments of initiation, baptism, Eucharist, or confirmation, or are interested in updating your understanding of Catholicism, contact Fr. Joseph Papaj, S.J., jpapaj@spc.edu, Coordinator of the Rite of Christian Initiation program, for further information.
|
The incident recounted in today’s gospel reading is a perfect example of this. For the Pharisees, it was the Sabbath, and to do anything that smacked of work on that day was to break the Sabbath, and that’s all there was to it. For Jesus what mattered was this crippled man whom he saw before him, and what he could do for him. As he would say after a similar confrontation with the Pharisees: “The Sabbath was made for human beings, not human beings for the Sabbath.” And so he cured this neighbor in need, even if it was the Sabbath. And, as we know, it was this sort of activity that eventually led to Jesus’ death.