• EM & Lector Schedule

• Music Schedule

• RCIA Catechist Schedule

• EM Schedule for Forge Pond  & Shorrock Gardens

• Hospital EM Schedule

Music  Control 

Pentecost Readings:
Vigil: Genesis 11:1–9 or Exodus 19:3–8a, 16–20b or Ezekiel 37:1–14 or Joel 3:1–5; Psalm 104:1–2,24, 35, 27–30; Romans 8:22–27; John 7:37–39
Sunday: Acts 2:1–11; Psalm 104:1, 24, 29–31, 34; 1 Corinthians 12:3b–7, 12–13; John 20:19–23

Mass Intentions and Memorials  

Saturday May 10th

• 4:00 PM Deceased Members of the Baetz Family

• 5:30 PM Adelaide Williams & Madeline Spaziano

HELP WANTED

Visitation Food Bank and St. Vincent de Paul would like to start a Soup Kitchen at Visitation.  This would take place once a month on a Wednesday afternoon to start.

Needed are cooks, set-up people, servers, shoppers, those who would solicit donations, clean-up people and supervisors.

If interested, please contact Frank and Isabel Kronicz at 732-255-2835.  A meeting is being planned.

NEW PARISHIONER MEETING

If you live within Visitation Parish boundaries and are not yet registered, please join us for a New Parishioner meeting.  This meeting will help you to understand the benefits of being a registered parishioner at Visitation.  The meeting will be held in the Daily Chapel, Friday, May 16, and Sunday, May, 18.  Please contact Dee at the Parish office at extension 201 to schedule a meeting date.  We look forward to seeing you at the meeting.

Vacation Bible School

Visitation will hold Vacation Bible School Monday, July 21, thru Friday, July 25, in the Rectory Basement from 9:00 AM to Noon.  Registration will be held Monday, June 9 thru Friday, June 13, from 11:00 AM to 7:30 PM.  The cost is $25.00 per family.  If you would like to help out or would like additional information, please contact Nancy Grodberg at 732-477-5217

The next bus trip sponsored by The Holy Name Society will be to the Showboat Casino, Wednesday, June 4, 2008.  We will depart from the Church parking lot at 9:00 AM and return approximately 5:30 PM.  The cost is $18.00 per person and you will receive $20.00 in coins and a $5.00 food certificate.  For additional information and reservations call 732-477-0028 ext. 105.  All tickets must be paid for in advance to guarantee a seat.

MOTHER'S DAY NOVENA
Mother's Day cards are available in the vestibule of the Church.  Please remember to pick up your cards to have your mother or a loved one remembered in a nine day novena beginning Monday, May 12 at 7:30 AM Mass in the Daily Chapel.

Several years ago, when I was teaching ninth-graders enrolled in a confirmation preparation program, the students told me that they were really struggling with the whole concept of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. As we all know, those gifts are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. I told the students that receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit is like receiving a pair of jeans that have a waist and length that are simply too large. Rather than exchanging the jeans, we hold on to them until we grow into them. I shared this with them because I realized that at different times in my own life, I had turned to these gifts to get me through some particularly challenging situations.

DRAW STRENGTH FROM THE GIFTS

Everyone who has been confirmed has received the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Too often these gifts lie dormant. Can we even imagine what the world would look like if we shook off our stupor and awoke to the reality of these gifts? Take a moment to reflect on each of them. Every one of us, at some time or another, needs to put into practice one of these gifts. When faced with a difficult decision, draw strength from the gifts of wisdom, understanding, and counsel. When striving to overcome addictive behavior or when working through a difficult marriage issue, draw strength from the gift of fortitude. When asked about your faith, don’t be afraid to turn to the Spirit’s gift of knowledge. Draw strength from the gifts of piety and fear of the Lord as you nurture your faith life through prayer. Pentecost gives us the opportunity to recognize the fact that God has generously poured forth the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Let’s not forget the tremendous potential of the gifts of God’s Spirit.

Veni, Sanctus Spiritus

Today, O Lord, through the mystery of Pentecost, you sanctify your Church in every place and nation. Pour out the gifts of the Spirit upon the whole world, and bring to completion in the hearts of your faithful, work of love which you began with your first proclamation of the kingdom, who live and reign with the Father and the same Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Why did Jesus fold the Napkin after His resurrection?

The Gospel of John (20:7) tells us that the napkin, which was placed over the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes. The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded and was placed at the head of that stony coffin.

Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, "They have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb and I don' t know where they have put him!"

Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see. The other disciple outran Peter and got there first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen cloth lying there but he didn't go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus' head was folded up and lying to the side.

Is that important? Absolutely! Is it really significant? Yes! In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin you have to understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day.
 
The folded napkin had to do with the Master and Servant, and every Jewish boy knew this tradition. When the servant set the dinner table for the master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the master wanted it. The table was furnished perfectly and then the servant would wait, just out of sight, until the master had finished.
 
Now if the master were done eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers, his mouth, and clean his beard, and would wad up that napkin and toss it onto the table. The servant would then know to clear the table. For in those days, the wadded napkin meant, "I'm done." But if the master got up from the table and folded his napkin and laid it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table because the folded napkin meant, "I'm coming back!"

HE IS COMING BACK!

Congratulations to our Music Director 
and her husband, Natalya and Richard Bencivenga on the birth of their first child. Sophia Antonina Bencivenga

How to use Your IRS "STIMULUS" check:

As you may have heard, the Bush Administration said each of us would get a rebate check to stimulate the economy.

If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China.

If we spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs, if we purchase a computer it will go to India, if we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala, if we purchase a good car it will go to Japan, if we purchase useless crap it will go to China and none of it will help the American economy.

We need to keep that money here in America, SO.

The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it at yard sales and flea markets since those are the only businesses still in the US.

Gas Prices?
Grin and Bear It

Exploring effects of contraception

After we published Christopher West's column on the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's encyclical, Humanae Vitae, ("On the Regulation of Birth"), I've been in a couple of conversations about this important document. It is a relatively short document, but full of love for the married couple, and deep in meaning.

When I first read it in 1999, remembering that it was issued in 1968, I was struck by the pope's prophetic voice, specifically about infidelity, and also about government forcing birth control. Continuing in section 17, he also speaks a bit more vaguely about limits that shouldn't be passed regarding the integrity of the human organism and its functions. More about this in a moment.

He asks us to consider "how wide and easy a road" (remember that the road to heaven is narrow and steep) would be opened to extramarital affairs and a general lowering of morality.

And who says a pope is unaware of human weakness?

He goes on to say "Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that men - especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point - have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so they must not be offered an easy means of eluding its observance." We need encouragement to do the right thing, not an easy way out of it.

Then, he goes on to say that, "It is also feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-contraceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion." Apparently, he could not foresee the coarsening effect on women, as well, as exemplified by many My Space listings.

He predicted also that artificial contraception would be a "dangerous weapon" placed in the hands of public authorities who might have no morality. "Who will stop rules from favoring, from even imposing upon their peoples, if they were to consider it necessary, the method of contraception which they judge to be most efficacious?" He adds that our most personal moments of "conjugal intimacy" could be interfered with by public authorities. Hmmm. He doesn't say it, but I think that China's one child policy comes to mind as a rather extreme example.

He concludes section 17 with comments about "insurmountable limits" to man's dominion over his own body; "limits which no man … may licitly surpass." This is more of a stretch, but I believe in this, we see a reference to things only vaguely possible, but unknown, in 1968 - embryonic stem cell research, frozen "spare" embryos, designer babies and the like.

There are powerful arguments made against contraception by people more learned than I, including Dr. Janet Smith's "Contraception: Why Not." Her talk is available for free from One More Soul - www.omsoul.com . I would also heartily recommend reading the encyclical for yourself.

Encyclicals are available at the Vatican web site, www.vatican.va but there's a site that is easier to search - www.papalencylcicals.net. For me, Pope Paul's vision of the future, and how I saw it come about, played an important role in understanding the connection between abortion, weakening morality and contraception.

Paula Glover is editor of The Monitor. She is available at pglove@dioceseoftrenton.org.

We pray for our spiritually adopted babies who at 31 weeks their growth begins to slow down a bit, and the brain goes through a period of rapid development.  The only major organ left to fully develop is the lungs.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, thank you for all of the mothers we have to celebrate with today on Mother’s Day who chose life.  We pray for our spiritually adopted babies and ask for their lives to be spared from abortion.  Amen.