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I’m really looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving with you again this year – my 15th! – WOW! There is so much for which to be grateful. I am grateful for the gift of the Holy Priesthood and the opportunity to continue to serve as your Pastor. I am grateful for your prayerful support for my family, especially my nephew Michael. I am especially grateful for your generous practice of stewardship offering your time, talent and treasure for the support of our parish, and the many, many other charitable causes that come your way.
Our SMMA Grade School attends an All School Mass on Tuesday, November 26th at 9:30am celebrating the season of Thanksgiving. It’s always a very inspiring Mass; all parishioners are welcome – especially our Home School families.
SMMA touches the lives of so many people and your support makes that happen. Our Mass schedule Thanksgiving Day is 6:30am and 9:00am. During each Mass you will have the opportunity during the Offertory to place at the altar canned goods or a monetary offering for those less fortunate. The food is taken to the local food pantry; the money is given to our St. Vincent de Paul ministry.
During the coming season of Advent each Deanery of the Archdiocese will offer an Advent Reflection which includes a meal together, a conference, and an opportunity to participate in an outreach offering to our brothers and sisters in need. The South County Advent Reflection will be at Assumption Parish on Sunday, December 15th, beginning at 2:30pm. Dr. Andrew and Michele Chronister will give the reflection.
This is the time of the year when we send out a Year End Appeal Letter. A special year end gift to our parish may help with your tax situation and certainly helps to support the many activities, organizations and ministries of our parish. I especially thank those who regularly support our parish. If you haven’t been able to make any financial donations throughout the year to help support the parish, a year end gift is an excellent way to do your part to help our parish be Alive in Christ.
God bless you!
 Msgr. Norb Ernst – Pastor
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Help Us Keep You Informed!
"See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him."
1 John 3:1
St. Cecilia (3rd c.) is one of the most venerated of the virgin martyrs of Rome. Her name is in the Roman Canon of the Mass. According to tradition she made a private vow of chastity to Jesus, yet her parents promised her in marriage to a suitor. On her wedding night, St. Cecilia told her husband that she had not only made a vow to remain a virgin, but that an angel guarded her purity. Her husband agreed to honor her vow and follow Christ if he could also see her guardian angel. She instructed him to first be baptized, and afterwards he was able to see her angel. Cecilia's brother-in-law also converted, and both men were eventually martyred for their faith; but not without first converting their jailer. St. Cecilia was later arrested and also sentenced to death. An executioner struck three blows but was not successful in severing her head from her body; instead, she survived for three days preaching to those who visited her in prison until her last breath. They lovingly soaked up the blood from her wounds with clothes and sponges. Her relics, along with those of her husband, his brother, and the converted jailor, were placed in the church of St. Cecilia in Rome. Because she sang hymns to Jesus in her heart on her wedding day, St. Cecilia is the patron saint of musicians. Her feast day is celebrated on November 22nd.
"For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope."
Romans 15:4
November 21st is the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to tradition, the Blessed Virgin Mary was consecrated to God as a young child; when she reached three years of age her holy parents, St. Anne and St. Joachim, presented her before God in the Jerusalem temple where she was to be educated and raised. This dedication was a result of a promise St. Anne made to God while she suffered from many years of infertility. The liturgical celebration honoring this event appeared in the East much earlier then it did in the West. In the late Middle Ages it was promoted as a feast day for the universal Church.
Bl. Maria Franciszka Siedliska (1842-1902) was born to a noble and wealthy family in Warsaw, Poland. When a Capuchin friar prepared her for her First Holy Communion, she began to desire the religious life and made a private act of consecration to God. Her father was greatly opposed and said he would rather see her dead then lost to the cloister. Her vocation was not deterred, and she went to Rome to obtain the Pope's blessing for founding an active apostolic Order modeled on the hidden virtues of the Holy Family. The Congregation of Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth was formed in 1875, and she took the name Mary of Jesus the Good Shepherd. In 1885 the Nazareth Sisters arrived in New York, eventually settling near Chicago where they made their first foundation in the U.S.A. She was beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 1989. Her feast day is November 21.