Calendar of Events.
September 3, 2014. Feast of St. Gregory the Great.
September 8, 2014. Luncheon Meeting and Speaker at the University Club and The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Speaker for September will be Marcia Carbines.
September 12. The Most Holy Name of Mary.
September 14. The Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
September 15, 2014. Board Meeting and Luncheon, Ss. Peter and Paul.
September 22, 2014. Luncheon Meeting and Book Discussion, Ss. Peter and Paul. We will be discussing the last chapter of The Be Happy Attitudes.
September 23-25, 2014. Annual retreat for the priests of our Diocese.
Priests' Anniversaries for September.
Fr. Loc Trinh, 9/19/92 and Fr. Ron Hutchinson, 9/24/1994.
Let Us Pray. We regret to report the passing of Theresa Ancona, sister of Monsignor Gasper Ancona, Moderator/Chaplain Emeritus of our club. She passed away on Thursday, August 28. Friends may pay their respects on Tuesday, August 2 from 4:30-7:30 p.m. at St. Sebastian. There will be a vigil prayer service at 7:00. Mass of Christian Burial will take place on Wednesday, September 3 at 11:00 a.m. Those wishing to send cards may address them to Monsignor Gasper Ancona, 5920 Lyn Haven Drive SE, Kentwood, MI 49512.
Congratulations. We congratulate our moderator Monsignor Edward Hankiewicz, who recently received the Citizen of the Year award from the Polish Heritage Society. The Polish Heritage Society's president Andy Budnik writes, "Monsignor Hankiewicz has been one of our most loyal and generous supporters. Monsignor was ordained in Rome by Pope John Paul II. He served as pastor of Sacred Heart Church for 17 years and is now at St. Mary's in Lowell. He is continually seeking ways to promote Polish Heritage and was instrumental in starting our Matka Boska Zellna Mass. He is a dear friend to the Society and we are honored to name him Polish Citizen of the Year for 2014.
Other News from the Society. Those who attended the August Luncheon Meeting at the University Club will recall that Father James Chelich spoke of two notable women, Jadwiga Lenartowicz Rylko and Barbara Senna. The Polish Heritage Society announces a new book by Dr. Barbara Rylko-Bauer, a medical anthropologist and long-term Grand Rapids resident: A Polish Doctor in the Nazi Camps: My Mother's Memories of Imprisonment, Immigration, and a Life Remade (University of Oklahoma Press, 2014).
Jadwiga Lenartowicz Rylko was a young Polish Catholic physician in Lodz at the start of World War II. Suspected of resistance activities, she was arrested in January 1944. For the next fifteen months, she endured three Nazi concentration camps and a forty-two-day death march, spending part of this time as a prisoner-doctor to Jewish slave laborers. In this book, Rylko-Bauer recounts her mother's life against the backdrop of twentieth century history--from her childhood and medical training, through her wartime experiences, to her struggles to create a new life as an immigrant to the U. S. She lived in Detroit, Michigan from 1950 to 1984, and spent the last 26 years of her life in Grand Rapids, where she died in 2010, at the age of 100 years.
The book has 28 photos, 4 maps--and historical notes and a bibliography (for those interested in more information). While grounded in scholarship, it is written to appeal to a broad audience. It is listed at $26.95 for hard cover and is available at Barnes & Noble and on Amazon.
Information courtesy of Lee Sullivan.
Follow-up on Five Star. On August 27, John Osterhart wrote: Attached is the letter introducing and promoting the Serra 5 Star Program, a program which is intended to help build a parish culture of vocations.
The letter was sent by the Diocese of Grand Rapids to the priests in the 16 parishes comprising the Grand Rapids Deanery of the Diocese of Grand Rapids.
Grand Rapids Serran Michael Fiorenzo has worked closely with the Grand Rapids Diocese to launch the 5 Star Program, starting in the Grand Rapids Deanery, with the intend to expand the program throughout the diocese once it has been established in the Grand Rapids Deanery. Michael Fiorenzo has been supported by Serra District 15 Bob Barrett of the Detroit/Oakland Serra Club, who helped design the Serra 5 Star Program and who came to Grand Rapids on several occasions to assist in getting the program underway in our diocese, and also by the other Grand Rapids and Muskegon Serrans who have served on the ad hoc 5 Star Implementation Committee.
The letter from the Diocese of Grand Rapids is as follows:
Dear Monsignors and Fathers,
We are writing to recommend a new resource to your parish for promoting vocations, in particular religious and priestly vocations, from the USA Council of Serra International. Serra USA has launched the Five Star Program in effort to provide resources for parishes in building a culture of vocations. In choosing t utilize the free resources, you also have the opportunity to create a local committee of lay volunteers who can coordinate the activities for promoting religious and priestly vocations in your parish.
The Five Star Program can also strengthen the faith of the families that participate. Components of the program provide opportunities for parents to have faith conversations with their children, to pray together as a family, and to participate in service together as a family. Research shows that these three activities as a family are the top means of children having a faith that "sticks" with them into their emerging adult years.
We recently met with Mr. Michael Fiorenzo, a member of the Grand Rapids Serrans who is coordinating the local implementation of the Five Star Program. Members of the Grand Rapids Serra Club are ready to assist your parish volunteers in utilizing these resources.
In the coming months, a member of Serra will be following up this message by contacting you to see if you have any interest in beginning the program in the coming year and to address any questions you may have.
Thank you for your consideration on this. Finally, thank you for your own "yes" to God's call to priestly ministry.
Sincerely,
Rev. Ron Hutchinson, Office of Priestly Vocations, Mr. Carl Apple, Office of Communications, and Mr. Mark Mann, Office for Families, Youth, and Young Adult Ministries.
The Newman Connection. Regarding the Newman Connection, Mark Mann wrote,..."I would say this coming year our focus is on building the bridges between our parishes and the Newman Connection so that by next graduation season, we are ready to increase participation in this initiative.
Related to this, I am happy to say that a total of 304 incoming freshman were listed at our four main campuses here in the Diocese of Grand Rapids--GVSU, Ferris State, Hope, and Aquinas. Peace and all good."
Update. Let us continue to pray for Hazel Paul, who is back home after receiving wonderful rehab care at the Marywood facility which we visited this past June.
A Harsh Lesson. In last week's Gospel Peter was praised for his act of faith, and rewarded by being made the bedrock of the Church. This week he is named a satan for judging not by God's standards but by man's. And Peter accepted the correction. But we can still feel a little sorry for him. After all, he loved Jesus so much, and when Jesus predicted his death at the hands of the Jewish leaders, Peter wanted to spare the Lord the agony he foresaw. Even Jesus, when that agony was upon him, prayed to the Father not to allow it if it could be avoided. So Peter could not have been wicked in his urging, "May you be spared, Master!" Most of us would say the same thing.
We still struggle with suffering. Not many of us understand our own sufferings, much less the troubles that plague the Church. We see Christians persecuted in the Eastern European countries, and we think God is cursing them. But perhaps he is not. Perhaps the cross they bear is the weight not of their own sins but the weight of the apathy and laziness of us who find our untroubled hour in church every week a chore we hurry to finish. The old truth still holds: the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Out of love, those persecuted believers carry the burden of our failure.
Readiness to suffer and to love--how much we still need to follow in that commitment. Lord, the only thing that kills the Church is lukewarmness. The only thing that kills each one of us as Christians is a radical unwillingness to suffer and to love. Sometimes you have to teach us that lesson harshly. But please, Lord, never stop teaching it.
Source: Bulletin, Our Lady of Sorrows, September 1, 2014.
Pray for the Persecuted. The bishop of the Diocese of Grand Rapids, Bishop David Walkowiak, asks that Christians throughout the diocese pray this prayer frequently on behalf of Christians throughout Iraq, Thousands of Christians have fled from their homes in recent weeks rather than convert to the extremist brand of Islam imposed upon them by the Islamic State (ISIS).
Lord,
The plight of our country is deep
and the suffering of Christians is severe and frightening.
Therefore, we ask you Lord
to spare our lives, and to grant us patience,
and courage to continue our witness of Christian values with trust and hope.
Lord, peace is the foundation of life;
Grant us the peace and stability that will enable us
to live with each other without fear and anxiety,
and with dignity and joy.
Glory to you forever. Amen.
A Message from our President.
Please pray for me and for our local Grand Rapids Serra cllub as we work on our vocations and education mission. I hope your holiday weekend was wonderful and filled with the love of Jesus. This month we have another wonderful speaker lined up for our first meeting and we are finishing the Be Happy Attitudes as our group reading project. Thanks to all the Serrans who volunteered to lead the group discussions each month. This has resulted in some thoughtful debates and learning for all who have participated.
I want to give a special thank you to Mike Fiorenzo for his leadership and work with the diocese on the Serra Five Star Program. He will talk about this at our two monthly meetings and will ask for volunteers in implementing this program in the Grand Rapids diocese. Please be generous with your time and talent in this effort.
May the love and peace of Jesus Christ be with you and your families as we move from summer to fall. Mary, Mother of Vocations, pray for us and guide us in our vocations work to bring dedicated leaders to the call of service in the Holy Catholic Church.
Agnes Kempker-Cloyd
