Easter Basket and Book Donation

One of the many things that Good Shepherd exists for is to reach out to others in a caring and compassionate manner.  And we reinforce this constantly.  An example is our Easter Basket donations to GRACE and the Community Enrichment Center.  This week Lisa G, Bill H, Vern and Bob E delivered Easter Baskets to GRACE and to the Community Enrichment Center.  During Holy Week, Vern, Bob and Darline delivered additional baskets received to GRACE.  All these donations gave the children supported by these organizations a much happier Easter.

 

Also, Bob and Deb will be delivering all the books that have been donated to St. George Parochial School in Ft. Worth.  (St. George is our Great-Grandmother Parish).  This annual donation of books is always greatly appreciated by the staff and students at St. George.

We are blessed to belong to such a generous parish.  To quote Winston Churchill: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

During the week of April 1, the Good Shepherd Mission Council held a Recycling Program in conjunction with the Women's Group Garage Sale.  The Mission Council has worked with an organization that takes in unwanted electronics and other items and processes the materials to ensure that the items don't wind up in places that are bad for the environment.  Kathy spearheaded the publicity for this event and members of the Mission Council were at the Tinker House from 8 am to 5 pm every day to receive the recyclable items and accept donations that will go to support the Trade School in Honduras. 

The results were amazing - Several rooms of the Tinker House were completely filled up with recyclable items.  In addition, the recycling organization was able to go to people's homes and pick up big screen t-v's and other items.  And, as always, Good Shepherd parishioners were generous with their donations that will help improve the quality of life in Honduras.  Thanks to everyone for their outstanding support.  Our intention is to do this event every year in conjunction with the Women's Group Garage Sales.

Christ's Unconditional Love

Holy week has always been my favorite time of the church liturgical year. My own personal memories, growing up a cradle Catholic, of attending the chrism Mass (blessing of the Holy oils to be used throughout the church year), Holy Thursday (the Mass of the Last Supper), Good Friday’s Liturgy of the Word and as a family we always attended Easter Vigil. Holy week and the Easter Triddum hold in my mind and heart, the very basis and truths of the foundations of my Catholic faith. I mainly attended these days with my grandfather through my growing up years. He passed away last summer. So this Holy week, took on a more meaningful time for myself and brought to me a new sense of peace.

The beginning of Holy week starts on the sixth Sunday of Lent with Palm Sunday. This is when we commemorate Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We find in the bible the account of Jesus leaving Jerusalem and returns Monday. He spent time with Gentiles in the Temple, and on Wednesday left for the Mount of Olives. Spy Wednesday is an old and uncommon name for the Wednesday of Holy Week, which commemorates Judas' agreement to betray Jesus.

The beginning of the Easter Triddum starts with Holy Thursday. Here Jesus foretold the apostles the events of the next several days, including His impending death. Jesus returned to Jerusalem on Thursday, to share the Last Supper with His apostles. Also known as the name "Maundy Thursday" and is derived from Jesus "mandate" to love one another as he loves us. This day celebrates the institution of the sacraments of Holy Eucharist and Ordination. Good Friday a day of fast and the Church commemorate Jesus' crucifixion and death. Customs include Veneration of the Cross, communion from the reserved Maundy Thursday Mass, and the reading of the Passion. Jesus was crucified at Calvary on Friday, outside the gates of Jerusalem.  Holy Saturday is a day for prayer and meditation on the tomb of Christ.  The Easter Vigil (Saturday evening) and Easter Sunday celebrations are the Celebration of Christ’s Resurrection! The Easter Triddum is ended with evening prayer on Easter Sunday evening.

I started my holy week on Palm Sunday in a very small parish in Napa Valley, California, St. Thomas Aquinas, as I was away visiting with friends. (A Mass of about 75 people.) A Dominican priest played the organ and the parish diocesan priest gave a very spirit filled homily. His main message was about the passion of Christ and how we are all called to love unconditionally as Christ did. He also asked his congregation, that even if you could not make Holy Thursday Mass or Good Friday Liturgy of the word, to stop at that time of the day to pray in union with everyone who was at church, to pray with the universal church. I thought that was a very real way to reach out to the community who may have had work or family obligations, to find a way to bring everyone together these days.  It was privileged to spend Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday at Good Shepherd last week. (Thank you to my mom and her husband who were in town to help my husband and me with our 5 children!) Holy Thursday was a beautiful celebration of the washing of the feet and Christ’s Last supper. I took in the many faces of our community as families, children and strangers washed each other’s feet. No one could deny the face of Christ, so very present in the faces of all God’s people who were there. The procession after communion of the Holy Eucharist to the chapel was also a very moving time.  The true presence, of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, was with us as we prayed through the night into Good Friday. The power and the presence of Christ for us on Good Friday, the pivotal moment in our faith, of the ultimate sacrifice of unconditional love, for us through Christ’s crucifixion.  The beautiful meaning of Christ’s love was so eloquently spoken to us by Fr. Jonathan. I embraced the Good Friday’s tradition of Veneration of the cross, in the presence again of all God’s people in our loving community. Seeing the cross being carried by those of our community, just as when Simon helped Christ carry the cross. We all carry our own crosses and the church is here to love us and help us carry our crosses. A very powerful representation of who we are as church! Easter Sunday brought for me the great joy of Christ’s Resurrection! Again the resounding theme of Christ’s unconditional love and His promise to us He would return!

Each year, I am amazed again and again, of how Christ shows Himself to me through this beautiful week long celebration. Holy week brought for me yet again a deeper love for Christ in our holy Catholic church through the witness of Christ’s love through all the people in our church. I am so grateful to have a great sense of peace in knowing that we are all given to choose freely His unconditional love, that only Jesus can show us through His ultimate sacrifice of death and Resurrection. That is what I strive to live for every day of my life…to know unconditional the love through Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross and live that out through my Catholic faith.

Alleluia, Jesus is risen, risen indeed! Happy Easter!

Divine Mercy.

 
We are in Holy Week and about to enter the church’s most holy days: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter.

If only we could understand God’s tremendous love for us. Who can imagine the incomprehensible suffering of Our Lord’s Passion? … And He would have suffered it for each one of us, even if we were the only one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, mind, and strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

We muddle along, judging others, criticizing, complaining, and hurting others in our words and actions and neglect. He forgives us over and over again!
 

If we could truly understand this unbelievable gift, our only response can be a heart full of thanksgiving and a desire to pass this gift to others. With hearts full of gratitude, we respond to the ABC’s of Divine Mercy:

Ask for His Mercy. God wants us to approach Him in prayer constantly.

Be Merciful. God wants us to receive His Mercy and let it flow through us to others.

Completely trust in Jesus. God wants us to know that the graces of His Mercy are dependent upon our trust.

This is a special time of grace for all of us. Our Lord chose St. Faustina to be His special apostle to help us understand His gift. She lived in the first part of the 1900s, and she was the first person to be canonized in our twenty-first century.

Please consider praying a special Novena: the Divine Mercy Novena, which begins on Good Friday and ends with Divine Mercy Sunday. Pope John Paul II established Divine Mercy Sunday to always fall on the Sunday after Easter. (Coincidentally, he died on the evening of April 2, 2005 – a first Saturday and after the evening Mass in celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday.) So many graces are associated with this Novena and this Holy Day.

Click here to see the Divine Mercy Chaplet

Please come to Good Shepherd’s celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday from 2 to 3 PM on April 7^th for a Holy Hour with Adoration and Exposition and Benediction and please pass the invitation on to others.

Trust in Him always!

Eli's Story

Eli was a 15 year old student who attended Colleyville Heritage High School and was a member of Good Shepherd Catholic Church of Colleyville. Eli's warmth was in his smile and his gift to was the light in his eyes and the beauty and grace in his laugh. During his brief but blessed life he loved puzzles, cards, books, games, trains and videos. His heart glowed while swimming and going for walks with his family while he pulled his wagon. He loved everyone he met and his love was contagious.   Eli passed away on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012.  Please read how Eli impacted a very special student, Sarah, who wrote the following essay as a gift to Eli.

 

 

It’s extraordinarily easy to walk down my school’s hallways and not really see the kids I pass, not to see their struggles, their dreams and hopes for the future. It’s much easier to turn to the newspaper or Internet to find role models there. But they’re just ink on paper or pixels on a screen. No, it’s much harder to look around you and find real strength among your peer. Especially one in a helmet to keep him safe from violent seizures that claim his body.

                Eli walked the halls after everyone had gone to class so he wouldn’t get hurt in the rush of bodies. He walked with a smile on his face and happy words pouring from his mouth. I watched students avoid him, be scared of his strange mannerisms and, and not understand that he was badly brain injured. He would sometimes yell out, and thrash from his aide’s guiding hands. I watched this boy struggle to control his body, and suddenly my problems weren’t so big.

                I tried every time I saw him to smile, wave, or say hello. He usually stared vacantly at me, and occasionally waved back. His aide looked like she expected me to make jokes at his expense. I didn’t realize why until I watched a sixth grader point and laugh at him. I felt sick inside.

                Eli was one of the most innocent people I’ve ever met. He was in a bad situation, one he couldn’t escape, and still he was positive. He seemed to laugh a lot more than he was unhappy. He didn’t acknowledge the cruelty of others, let alone allow it affect his sunny mood. Seeing him was the bright point of my day. He was a genuine as it is possible to be. I admired him for his courage and his determination to find joy in life.

                If we all lived like Eli, we would be better off for it. He didn’t live with regrets. He lived in the moment and always was amazed when time turned, and a new moment came. He didn’t let the words of others bring him down: he was happy being himself, comfortable in his skin, and loved by the people who knew him. So maybe Eli was the perfect one, despite his physical disabilities. Does that make us the ones who are imperfect, flawed?

Maybe his handicap was what made him the way he was. It says a lot about our society that we can overlook the truly perfect souls to focus on our own selfish problems, our own flaws. Someday, if I’m lucky, I hope I can be half as good a person as Eli was.

                When I heard that he’d died in his sleep, probably from a seizure, I had to excuse myself from the classroom to cry. The thought that he had passed away, unnoticed by most of my classmates, made my heart sink and my stomach churn.

                                We had managed to be in school with him for three years and most of the other kids never noticed him. Maybe they never saw him walking the halls, or maybe they looked through him, or maybe they just didn’t look. Maybe it was easier to pretend he wasn’t there. What does it say about us that we can make another human being invisible? But it makes that invisible kid even more of a hero to me.

                To me, Eli represented so many things that were pure and good in the world. He was a pillar of perspective in a world full of people trying to tear him down. And yet he stood strong, he held fast to joy, perhaps without even knowing what he stood against. I refuse to let myself forget him, refuse to become just another student who has already dismissed his life.

                I never even knew his last name.

I guess in a lot of ways I'm more like my classmates than I wish I was, than I hope to become.  Eli, I hope you know how much you've changed my life for the better.  Goodbye. May you rest in peace, may your legacy never be erased from my heart.  

Stations of the Cross

Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri my sisters and I attended St. Bernadette’s Catholic School. Just like thousands of other students, we said the Stations of the Cross each Friday during Lent.  This was a normal Lenten practice for all of us. 

Fast forward some years, and for a long time, I would find myself too busy or tired from a long day at work to even think about attending The Stations.  The actual journey to the Cross was something I would only focus on for Good Friday.  Due to that day’s schedule, it may have limited it only to a short prayer between meetings or phone calls.  Somewhere along the way, the opportunity to spend time with the Stations represented itself to me, and each year since, it has enhanced my Lenten journey.  God is so good!

Tradition traces this loving tribute to our Lord back to the Blessed Mother’s retracing her son’s steps along what became known as the Via Dolorosa (the Sorrowful Way) on His way to His Crucifixion at Calvary in Jerusalem.  Pilgrims to the Holy Land commemorated Christ’s Passion in a similar manner as early as the 4^th century.  Later it became a way of allowing those who could not make the long, expensive journey to Jerusalem a way to make a pilgrimage of prayer.  Today, we have 14 Stations, these are meant to be “stopping points of reflection” along the way for prayer and meditation.

 

1.   Jesus is condemned to death.

 

2.   Jesus carries His cross.

3.   Jesus falls for the first time under His cross.

4.   Jesus meets His sorrowful Mother.

5.   Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry His cross.

6.   Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.

7.   Jesus falls for the second time.

8.   The women of Jerusalem weep over Jesus.

9.   Jesus falls for the third time.

10. Jesus is stripped of His garments.

11. Jesus is nailed to the cross.

12. Jesus dies on the cross.

13. Jesus is taken down from the cross.

14. Jesus is laid in the Sepulcher (the Tomb).

This year the Station that is extremely powerful to me personally is Station #11 - Jesus is nailed to the Cross.  I find myself reflecting on this often.  I see the ugliness of my sinfulness, and can see each one of my sins nailed to His cross.  What added weight He must have felt.   Thoughts of my own pettiness,  wrongful pride, being small minded, unkind thoughts or actions, lack of willingness to forgive, these and so many others caused my Lord so much pain.  Yet He endured it, for you and me, so that we can have our sins forgiven and eternal life in Heaven. 

If you have never been before, now is the time to participate before your Lenten journey ends.  Don’t be anxious on how to participate, you will be given a pamphlet to follow.  To give you an idea of what you will experience, here is how it typically is presented:   

Ø  There is a beginning prayer with a response.

Ø  Each station will be announced and there is a response exchanged between the reader and the attendees

Ø  A reading of the Holy Gospels is presented that  goes along with the Station

Ø  The reader provides a short reflection

Ø  Other prayers are said during the Stations – the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be will also be prayed.

I hope this article peaks your interest to attend the Stations of the Cross, especially if you have never had the opportunity before in the past.   I pray that it will enhance your Lenten journey and allow you to become closer to our Lord during his sorrowful Passion.   May God bless you now and always.

Less than a Servant's Heart

Often times we find ourselves venturing into service opportunities with less than a servant’s heart.  Perhaps we are “required” to perform a certain number of hours of community service as a school requirement or maybe we agreed to participate in a community service activity during lent.  Whatever reason brought us to the service opportunity, we usually have a different perspective upon completion.  Case in point, our Parish Service day on February 28.  At 8:30 a.m. on a cold and windy February day, our 90+ volunteers were preparing to spend time outside raking mounds of leaves or sorting through clothes in a cold warehouse.  Some were a little more enthusiastic about the task at hand than others.  Being a Jesus-style servant is not easy and, like many of you, I’d really like to be better at it.  I’ve volunteered on my share of committees and ministries over the years, but there is always some kind of reward or recognition.  If nothing else, I feel pretty good about myself for being so selfless! Having a servant’s heart means to not only place other’s needs ahead of my own, but to serve with the right motivation—and that is to put God’s will first.  Often times we complete the work we are assigned to do and don’t realize the impact it has on those we have come to serve.  Though gratitude should not motivate us to serve, I think it provides us with a different perspective, the perspective of the recipient.  Therefore, I wanted to share a letter we received from a grateful recipient of the service we provided on our Parish Service Day.

I am 88 years old and had the pleasure of getting yard work done by a super nice group.  I truly appreciate the work.  I used to be able to do my yard work for years and I enjoyed doing it, but can no longer do it.  Today a nice group of people from your church with children of different ages did a super job.  I know they will be rewarded for it by our maker.  You will always be in my heart and give me reason to believe that there are good people in this world.  

 

The gratefulness of this elderly woman shows us that small acts can have huge impacts!  My prayer for this lent is that God uses me as His hands and feet to make a difference for His kingdom and may my only motivation be God-centered.

 

Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them. Luke 12:37

By Sarah L