Grand Rapids Serra Club Newsletter June 2011

Notes regarding changes of venue:
Serra's 69th Annual International Convention, July 7-10, 2011, Ottawa, Canada.
"Let us celebrate with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." I Cor. 5:8.
Our summer membership and board meetings will be held at the University Club during June, July, and August.
Calendar of Events.
June 4, 2011. The ordination of Fr. Luis Garcia and deacons Darrel Kempf and Michael Hodges, 10:00 a.m. at St. Andrew's. Serrans have been asked to serve on the hospitality team and 6-8 Serrans are needed. We have already received responses from three. Notify Tim Hile if you are able to help. Hospitality team should show up at 9:00 or so.
June 5, 2011. The seventh Sunday of Easter and observance of the Ascension of Our Lord
June 13, 2011. Luncheon meeting and speaker, 12:00 Noon at the University Club.
June 12, 2011. Pentecost.
Please note that we are asking for an R. S. V. P. for our meetings at the University Club because the University Club requires a minimum of 25 for luncheon membership meetings. Please reply to Lee Sullivan at Lee50Lee@aol.com for June 13 and to Nancy King at njking50@gmail.com for July and August so that we can keep track of who's planning to attend. We encourage guests, not only so that we can meet our quota but also because your guests will have an opportunity to experience our club's everyday activities. We will continue to seek excellent speakers, and we want as many people as possible to enrich their lives and their Catholic faith with our speakers' wonderful talks.
June 19, 2011. Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity.
June 20, 2011. Board meeting, 12:00 Noon at the University Club.
June 27, 2011. Prayer service and luncheon meeting, 12:00 Noon at Sacred Heart.
June 26. The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.
July 25, 2011. An evening with the Sisters at Fifth-Third Park, 7:00 p.m. We will purchase 100 tickets to be distributed among the sisters. Individual Serrans will purchase their own tickets. The evening's activities include a picnic supper.

From the Bellringers.
Serra's first pilgrimage to the Holy Land will still take place from 11-18 July, 2011. The pilgrimage program in Jerusalem will be changed to reflect the rescheduling of some convention sessions to Ottawa 2011.
The 69th international convention will be held from Thursday, 07 July-10 July in Ottawa Ontario Canada in the brand new Ottawa Convention Centre which is directly linked to the headquarters hotel, The Westin Ottawa. The Most Reverend Gary Gordon, Bishop of Whitehorse in Canada will give the Keynote Address. The convention will commence with the Opening Mass in the Cathedral Basilica of Notre Dame at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, 07 July and will conclude with the Annual Banquet at the Ottawa Convention Centre on Saturday evening.

Catholic Legacy Award Dinner.
Many thanks to Mark Kubik and his committee for a successful Catholic Legacy Award dinner. In the future these dinners will more than likely be scheduled at 18-month intervals, so as to avoid "donor fatigue." Our next Award Dinner will more than likely be scheduled for November, 2012. Please note that as we consider future recipients of this award, the recipient does not have to be, but may be, a Serran but must be a Catholic. Mark received a thank-you note from the bishop for our $10,000 contribution to the Fund for the Continuing Education of priests.

Adoration. Vocations Chairmen Beverly Shields and Nancy Mulvihill ask that we observe adoration on an individual basis for now. The most ongoing opportunities for adoration are at IHM and St. Isidore. Code for St. Isidore is 513#. The code for Adoration at IHM (24/5, with no weekends) is 5412. Adoration at Sacred Heart of Jesus takes place every Thursday before First Friday, every month except during Lent.

Interns. Our three interns are second-year-seminarians Scott Nolan, Charles Schwartz, and James VanderLaan. Tim Hile has copied them on our newsletters, and we are encouraging them to attend our meetings so that they can acquaint themselves not only with us personally but also with the various links to professional expertise that our members can provide. We look forward to their attendance at our future meetings.

Voices from the Past.
This past April 19 John Osterhart and Nate McKenzie received the following note on the subject of the 59th Anniversary for the Grand Rapids Serra Club.
Greetings and Salutations!!!
The Grand Rapids Serra Club Newsletter presented itself while I was surfing the Serra Web page. Shortly a Charter Banquet is occurring. Congratulations on the year 59. It is almost 60 years of service to the Church. This is a note from the past.
Bishop Haas decided that there should be a a Serra Club in Grand Rapids. He instructed each parish to supply two men as candidates. There were about 24 parishes at that time and the yield was sufficient to get things moving. Bernie Haviland was the Charter President. Pete Straubel, Mr. Hansknecht and me (Don Bocast), all from Lear Inc.'s Quality Control Department, were part of the initial package.
I was on the young side for a typical Serran, married for two years and a Catholic for two years. It seemed that being a Serran and a Catholic was synonymous. It struck me that, indeed, it was almost 60 years ago and I do have a 50-year pin that is almost 10 years old. Congratulations again for sustaining and supporting the work of Serra.
For me it was the start of a great voyage. Several years later Loretta (now a member) and I moved to Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Serra Club was home for several years and the 1957 Los Angeles Serra International Convention set the standard for the next decade. I was delegated to start a club in SW Los Angeles and became the Charter President for the South Bay Serra Club.
(I served) two tours as Governor, one in District 82 and one in District 6 (Denver). Loretta and I attended more than 30 International Conventions here and overseas. Those with a long memory may recall the 1978 Convention at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs which I chaired with Joe Reich, Sr. It was a landmark convention--1500 or so in attendance.
I did two stints on the International Nominating Committee in the late 70s.
As a contrast the Colorado Springs Serra Club just celebrated its 5th anniversary. The current club is the fourth for Colorado Springs (that is another story altogether). Our Charter President Charlene Prado was well trained for the project. Her parents were both Serrans and she grew up in the parish where Fr. Serra is buried.
Old timers have been known just to rattle on. Apologies. Again, congratulations and continue the good work.
Siempre Adelante
Don Bocast (the Ancient One).
John's reply:
Don, thank you for your wonderful e-mail of congratulations and recounting your experiences in the formation of our club. We are planning to celebrate our 65th anniversary by hosting a Regional Conference in 2013. Locally, Ralph Hauenstein is the only remaining charter member of our Grand Rapids Serra Club and is GOING STRONG, going to his office on most days and looking forward to his 100th birthday on March 20, 2012 (same birthday date as our twin granddaughters, so I can remember it). Ralph has lost his wife Grace and a daughter in the past couple of years. Person after person (friends and family members) got up at Grace's funeral and all stated that they had never heard her utter an unkind work about another person--what a tribute!
Also of interest, I attended the 1978 International Convention in Colorado Springs at the Broadmoor. It was an unmatched location. I was president of our club that year, having joined in 1974, and attended with our chaplain, Msgr. Gus Ancona. I also had the wonderful experience of playing tennis with Thomas Murphy, who was Serra International president that year. After our game, in which he soundly beat me, we had refreshments with Msgr. Ancona, and Tom announced to us that he was planning to leave his Indianapolis law practice to become a priest. He is now Father Thomas Murphy. I had occasion to see him at other Serra conventions in the past few years, and he has been in very poor health. This past October after I finished doing some presentations to Serra Clubs in Region 6 (WV, OH, and MI-LP), a gentleman who was Tom Murphy's college roommate introduced himself and told me he had often double dated with Tom and Tom's girlfriend.
It is a small world. Don, thank you so much for your e-mail! Kind regards, John Osterhart, Director Region 6, USA Council, Serra International.

Serra Handbooks. Serra membership handbooks and Serra handbooks for each of the various officers are available at serraus.org. There is a link for downloading these handbooks on the home page, or the Officers' Handbook link is http://www.serraus.org/serrausa/serra-manuals.htm There is no need to print these handbooks if one is cyber-savvy because they can be moved to a special folder and referred to as needed. However, Tim Hile has printed several hard copies of the membership handbook of anyone should be interested in requesting one. These handbooks are very helpful, and especially if you are a new member or a new officer, we urge you to take a look at them.

Priests' Anniversaries for June.

June 1: Louis Anderson and Melvin Fox, 1963; Joseph Fix and William Zink, 1968; Bernard Carlin, 1978; Troy Nevins, Jose Luis Quintana, and Chris Rouech, 1996; and Michael Alber, 2002.

June 2: Kenneth Schichtel and Don Lomasiewicz, 1962; and Matthew Barnum, Mark Peacock, and Victor Kynam, 2007.

June 3: James Bozong, John LaGoe, Tom McKinney, and Anthony Vainavicz, 1961; Ron Schneider, 1967; and Anthony Russo, 2000.

June 4: Eugene Golas and Thomas Schiller, 1955; and Andrew Thompson, 1981.

June 5: Michael Danner, George Fekete, Pedro Garcia, and Paul Milanowski, 1965; Charles Brown, 1993; Thomas Brown, 1999; and David Gross, 2010.

June 6: Msgr. John Giammona, 1959; Norman Droski, Thomas Vesbit, and John Wisneski, 1964; Patrick Cawley, 1970; James Chelich, 1976; and Michael Burt, 2009.

June 7: Phillip Sliwinski and Peter Vu, 1997; Godfrey Onyekwere, Anthony Pelak, and Philip Salmonowicz, 2003; and Michael Cilibraise, 2008.

June 11: Fred Hoesli, 1964.

June 12: Thomas Bolster, 1982.

June 13: John Vallier, 1987.

June 14: Ed Boucher, 1960; and Mark Bauer, 198

June 15: John Thome, 1946.

June 16: Thomas Page, 1979.

June 18: Thomas DeYoung, 1983.

June 19: Msgr. Terrence Stewart, 1970.

June 24: Ed Hankiewicz, 1979.

June 28: Ayub Francis Nasar, 1985.

June 29: Robert Balser, 1949.

We thank Lee Sullivan for gathering this information, checking for its accuracy, and sending the cards. In June that's an especially big job and we are grateful for Lee's devoted attention to this task. And we congratulate those priests who are celebrating their anniversaries in June.

A Message from our President.
Dear Serrans: Thank you again for your support of the Catholic Legacy Award Dinner. We received many compliments, surpassed our goal in funds raised, and were able to honor one of our own with the inaugural Catholic Legacy Award. Mark Kubik did an outstanding job with his committee to pull off a first-class event.
Remember our 2nd Monday meetings will move to the University Club for June, July, and August. It is imperative that we R. S. V. P. through Nancy to get accurate counts. Please do not hesitate to invite guests to any of our functions. More to come on speakers for these meetings as we receive the information.

Please keep Deacon Dale Hollern in your prayers as he continues his radiation treatments.
More discussion needs to be had by our club on the project that the Director of Vocations, Fr. Ron Hutchinson has asked us to undertake with a fall or spring trip to St. Thomas University/St. John Vianney Minor Seminary in Minneapolis. I hope to meet with Fr. Ron prior to our June 13 meeting and have more information for our membership to discern on this project. There are at least four young men from these prior trips who are enrolling this fall in minor seminary. Their enrollment can be attributed to their attending these weekends at St. Thomas in past years.
Thank your for your continued prayers for vocations. Mary, Mother of all Vocations, Pray for Us. Tim Hile.
Editor's Note: Transporting these young men to St. Thomas used to be performed by a religion teacher at West Catholic. He is no longer with West Catholic, and we assume Fr. Ron is looking for someone to continue the tradition. Depending on numbers, they could travel by bus or van, but there have been four our five students at a time. St. Thomas provides two weekends per year, one in the fall and one in the spring, for young men to come to the campus and discern their vocations.
Promise for June of the Most Holy Rosary: Promise VII. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.
The Serran Prayer for Vocations (from the prayer card in memory of Frederick Louis McNair (Requescat in Pace): Oh God, Who will not the death of a sinner but rather than he be coverted and live. Grant we beseech you, through the intercession of Blessed Mary, ever Virgin, St. Joseph, her spouse, Blessed Junipero Serra, and all the saints, an increase in laborers for Your Church, fellow laborers with Christ to spend and consume themselves for souls through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who ives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.