Dear Parishioners:
--- October 22nd is WORLD MISSION SUNDAY. We celebrate this
day by remembering our baptismal call –to bring the Gospel to all! The collection today
for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith supports the work and witness of the
Mission Church, as it provides for priests, religious and lay leaders who offer the Lord’s
mercy and concrete help to the most vulnerable communities in the Pope’s missions.
Thank you for your generosity.
---As a result of Hurricane Ian’s havoc – first across Cuba and the Dominican Republic
and then the southeast US starting in Florida – lives have been lost and many Church
properties, along with homes and businesses, have been severely damaged or destroyed.
Catholic Relief Services and its local partners are responding with food, water, and
sanitation assistance, and will eventually assist with the repair and rebuilding of homes.
To respond as a unified Church, Archbishop Itienne suggest that each parish will take
up a voluntary special collection for the humanitarian, long-term recovery, and
significant Church needs arising from these calamities. This special collection will be
taken on the weekend of October 22 & 23. Please be generous.
--- Luke depicts Jesus at prayer right from the beginning of his Gospel. Prayer becomes
one of the ways by which we follow Jesus. Luke insists on the importance of prayer for
the Christian life. We must pray unceasingly, for prayer is a sign of our faith in God.
Prayer is not something that we use to put pressure on God to get our own way.
Authentic prayer opens us up to the action of God’s Spirit, bringing us in line with
God’s desires, and making us into true disciples, obedient to Jesus and to the Father who
has sent him.
Both parables in Luke 18 present prayer as continual and persistent, hurling its petitions
against long periods of silence. Prayer means asking and seeking, knocking and waiting,
boundless trust and patience. Those who pray sometimes become frustrated and angry
that their supplications are not heard. Yet, life in the Christian community is possible
only through a life of prayer. The surprising thing about prayer is that its first effect is in
us. Our own minds and hearts are shaped by prayer as we seek opportunities to translate
that prayer into practice, the truest test of its authenticity.
Luke tells us that Jesus sometimes prayed all night. Of his praying on the night of his
arrest, Luke writes: “and being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat
became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground” (Lk 22:44).
---October is the month of Respect for Life, as a people of faith, we value the “gift of
Life – from conception to natural death” and we continue joining with our Church to
pray for this gift of Life and the “Freedom to choose Life” and “Religious Freedom” with
a Novena (9 days) in this effort.
---October is also the Month of the Rosary – The Feast of Our Lady of Rosary. There
are opportunities to pray the Rosary before each Mass on the weekend; come early before
Mass and join with other parishioners to pray this beautiful traditional prayer for Life
and Peace.
---Counting down in three weeks, The Annual Holiday Bazaar at our Parish (All Day
Friday, Nov. 4; All Day Saturday, Nov.5 and after Masses on Sunday, Nov. 6). Please
stop by the Community Room before and after Mass to visit and purchase something for
a good cause (All proceeds are for Share and Care Ministry) to help the needy and the
unfortunate of our faith community and the larger community of Port Orchard.
Christ’s Peace,
Fr. Phuong Hoang