Calendar of Events.
October 1-31, 2011. Month of the Most Holy Rosary.
October 2, 2011. Respect Life Sunday.
Sunday, October 9, 2011. Good Night, Desdemona, Good Morning, Juliet, presented by Aquinas College Drama Department at the Circle Theater, 2:00 p.m. This is a great way to support both our club and Aquinas College. Get in touch with Aggie Kempker-Cloyd if you'd like to join our club for a little outing outside our normal meeting dates and times. Reserve tickets with Aggie by sending an e-mail to aggcloyd@aol.com or call 453-4181. Tickets are $10, and you may pay for them by adding the cost to the next quarterly dues. Reserve as many as you like, as friends and family members are welcome to attend as well. The play will take the place of our usual second Monday meeting.
Sunday, October 9, 2011. Spaghetti dinner at Our Lady of Sorrows, 11:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Tickets are $8 for adults or $3 for children. Call 243-0222 or buy tickets at the door. If you're planning to attend both the play and the Spaghetti Dinner, we recommend that you arrive early at Our Lady of Sorrows so that you can be finished with your dinner in plenty of time for the play. This is ordinarily a very popular event, and the lines can get long. Also, parking can be a problem if one arrives late. The 10:00 Mass dismisses at 11:00 and there is a well-attended noon Mass.
October 12, 2011. Columbus Day
October 17, 2011. Board Meeting, 12:00 Noon at Sacred Heart.
October 23, 2011. World Mission Sunday
October 24, 2011. Fourth Monday Prayer Service and Luncheon Meeting, 12:00 Noon
at Sacred Heart.
October 30, 2011. Priesthood Sunday. Download parish promotional materials from serraus.org.
October Saints' Days. Two very significant October feast days are Tuesday, October 4 (St. Francis of Assisi) and Friday, October 7 (Our Lady of the Rosary).
Welcome to our Club. We welcome our newest member, Marcia Carbines.
About 2013. We are in the earliest stages of planning our late summer or fall 2013 Regional Convention. The first steps are to set dates and locations. At this point, Joseph Scoville has agreed to serve as chairman, provided he gets plenty of help. That should be no problem, given the variety of talents to be found among our membership. The preliminary committee will reach out to other clubs in Michigan, as well as in other Great Lakes states and perhaps even West Virginia. They will seek the involvement of the Muskegon club in hosting the event. The preliminary committee is also receiving quotes from the various hotels we are considering.
Our Grand Haven 31 Club Visit. Nancy Mulvihill noted that 12-15 young men and several young women from the Grand Haven parishes our club visited on August 28 have expressed interest in discerning vocations.
An Unexpected Consequence. Our evening meeting at the University Club on September 12, with Ralph Hauenstein in attendance, was a success by anybody's standards. Our guests from the Catholic Lawyers' Association and the West Michigan Catholic Physicians have indicated to President Tim Hile that they especially enjoyed the talk by Msgr. Ancona and the fellowship with our Serans. Anyone who has heard Msgr. as a speaker would likely agree that while his comments are always thoughtful and masterfully worded, they fall easily on the ear. Focusing on the topic of the history of the diocese, Msgr. more than anything else spoke of his literary journey from start to finish in undertaking, at the invitation of Bishop Rose, the formidable project, Where the Star Came to Rest. Changing assignments from rector of the Cathedral of St. Andrew to pastor of the then, in his own words, idyllic St. Sebastian, Msgr. began his task of researching and writing this book and serving as an able leader of all those who assisted with the work. He worked on the book work while at the same time performing his regular duties as pastor over the next several years.
I, your editor, have a confession to make. I had bought the book some time ago at Our Lady of Sorrows, and then, alas! it found a nice home on the coffee table of our family room. Now and then I would take a few minutes to glance at it as I did my dusting. As a result of Msgr.'s talk, I have taken it from its resting place and started reading it, and have been well rewarded for my efforts. I have found new respect for Msgr.'s meticulous research and eloquent writing and for the efforts of the many talented people in our community who contributed to the undertaking. If Msgr. set out to produce a reader friendly history of our diocese, he certainly accomplished his mission.
Two Serra wives, each in her own way, contributed significantly to the work: Margie Scoville, according to Msgr., "did some excellent research, found elusive photos, and was very reliable for her help." Also, the book would not have been the same without Margaret Leiber's charming illustrations, among them Midnight Mass in the Michigan forest, December 25, 1675, Father Andreas Viszocky with children, and several maps.
One of the greatest lessons, one takes away from the book is that the Church has survived and even flourished in our diocese and throughout its history despite unimaginable hardships and fierce human conflicts, and I, for one, derive great comfort from that lesson. Once again, thank you, Msgr Ancona and your team of experts, for Where the Star Came to Rest. Fr. Ed tells us that copies of the book are still available at Sacred Heart.
A Rich Source of Priestly Vocations. From Salute, the Magazine of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, Joan Frawley Desmond, Retister Senior Editor NRC, writes in an article reprinted from the National Catholic Register, "From Battlefield to Altar, Armed Services are Fertile Ground for Priestly Vocations:
In 1981, Stuart Swetland graduated with top honors from the U. S. Naval Academy, earning a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. His long-term dream to serve his country was realized when he was commissioned as a Navy officer. He went on to serve on frigates and destroyers. Today, he's Monsignor Stuart Swetland, a Catholic priest and the Flynn Professor of Ethics at Mount St., Mary's University in Emmitsburt, MD. Though Monsignor Swetland's trajectory from military warrior to spiritual warrior might raise some eyebrows, it's a well-worn path to the priesthood. Annually, about 10 % of priestly vocations are men drawn from the ranks of active-duty military, with another sizable portion of recruits raised in military families.
Now that number is getting a boost as the Archdiocese for the Military Services completes the first three years of its new vocations initiative specifically designed to encourage and foster priestly vocations in all the services.
The AMS not only aspires to increase the shockingly low number of military chaplains, but also to draw these recruits into dioceses throughout the United States. The brainchild of Archbishop Edwin O'Brien of Baltimore, who previously led the Archdiocese for the Military Services, the program received seed money from members of the Order of Malta and has graduallyl gained traction under the leadership of Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who succeeded Archbishop O'Brien in 2008. Since the AMS's first vocations director, Father John McLaughlin, a late vocation on loan from Boston, hit the road in the summer of 2008, about 40 young men have signed up. Some participate in the "co-sponsorship program, in which the AMS and the recruit's home diocese share seminary formation and educational expenses and then establish a period of service at home and as a military chaplain. Others enter religious orders or apply as regular diocesan vocations program...
Father McLaughlin did not serve in the military, though his father was a Marine. A graduate of Boston College and a top wrestler, he worked in real estate and coached high school wrestling on the side, winning state championships. Over time, he began to reassess his own career plans and entered the seminary.
Over the past three years. Father McLaughlin has signed up recruits from every military service but the Coast Guard and landed graduates from West Point, the U. S. Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy. He has met young men whose faith was ignited or solidified as they fought on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan and grappled with the enduring questions of human existence: Why am I here? What is my mission on earth? Why was I saved when others were taken?...Father Brett Brannan, who is author of To Save a Thousand Souls: A Guide for Discerning a Vocation to Diocesan Priesthood and is serving his sixth year as vice rector of Mount St. Mary's Seminary--where a number of seminarians in the AMS co-sponsorship program are enrolled--recalls (stories) from his seminary days.
"Men see and experience terrible things in war, and one fellow seminarian told he he was in a foxhole between two friends," he said. "They were killed, and he survived. For a long time he wondered why he had been saved."
Father Brannen underscored the point that young men who grew up in military families are prepared to accept the sacrifices that come with priestly vocation.
"A military family has to pick up and move where they are needed. That's the priesthood: It requires a willingness to lay down your life," said Father Brannen, who noted that the student body of the U. S. Naval Academy is more than 50% Catholic.
"It's an ordered life," he observed. "Many priests do not obey their bishop, and then they wonder why they aren't flourishing. Military families understand this. They realize that the whole is more important than the parts, and that's the priesthood. When I say, 'I have plans,' Jesus has his plans and I have to change mine."...
Msgr. Swetland contends that the Church will reap a great harvest by increasing support for the military chaplain program and notes that his own vocation was fostered by gifted chaplains who nurtured the mutually compatible values that inspire both military service in military service and a priestly vocation...
"Men who enter the military do so out of a sense of service--a willingness to lay down their life for others and to give the gift of self," he said, "and that's what you need for the priesthood."
The Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA publishes SALUTE for the nation's Bishops, active and retired military chaplains, and financial supporters of the Archdiocese. Salute, Summer 2011.
Let us Pray. A prayer service for Dale Hollern and several members of his family was held yesterday afternoon at St. Stephen.
Also, John Osterhart sends us this note: Conor Dugan is one of Steve's good friends and an EGR classmate who has long discerned the possibility of a priestly vocation. His parents are St. Stephen parishioners and Conor is now married and the father of three. His wife is a GR. Catholic Central graduate from IHM parish. He graduated from Dartmouth and Notre Dame Law School. He now lives in the Washington, D. C. area and had open heart surgery about a year ago. I used to send him our GR Serra newsletters when he was in college.
I am sure he would be delighted to receive support for his "vocation run" from any Grand Rapids Serrans, any St. Stephen or IHM parishioners or others who hear about his run for vocations in the Archdiocese of Washington, D. C. John O.
Finally, Lee Sullivan has sent a message informing us of the passing of Franciscan Sister of the
Eucharist Valerie Nehl on September 30 at the Franciscan Life Process Center in Lowell.
A Mass of Christian Burial will take place on Tuesday, October 4 at 9:00 a.m. at the Franciscan Life Process Center. Her obituary appeared in the Grand Rapids Press on Sunday, October 2.
October 2011 Promise XIII. "I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.
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