Soon to be on our way!

Our mission trip to Chicago begins this Sunday! We are excited to arrive and get to work! I hope the we will consider keeping a journal of your daily encounters, your "spirit"-dipitous moments and an awareness of how you are transformed by those you serve this week.

If we concentrate on how good we feel when we serve others, then it becomes all about us...if we concentrate on how we can improve others lives, then its all about Jesus Christ. Please keep us in your prayers.

Mission Trip News

Habitat for Humanity Participants! Please bring a nail apron, hammer and tape measure with you, I don't think you need any of the paint supplies.
So far it appears that there will be 52 of us...31 from St. Mary and 21 from St. Gerard. On Monday, we will be working at St. Sabina Parish and at Maria high School doing clean up and some landscaping. I have 15 hard hats so if you've always wanted your own maybe you should visit Lowe's or Home Depot.

Tigers Game Options: The date options are now August 20 and 31. Both games are 1:05pm. Let me know your preferences.

The "Native Star" from Whispersintheloggia

As the Stateside church prepares to celebrate the elevation of another of its own to sainthood come fall, it's worth noting that today's the feast of the lone Native American on the path to canonization: Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-80), the orphaned "Lily of the Mohawks" whose legacy of contagious zeal amid illness and the scorn of her own did much to grow the church's outreach to the native communities.

Baptized at 20 against her family's wishes, Bl Kateri spent her days caring for the aged and sick after a smallpox epidemic when she was four led to the deaths of her brother and both parents and struck the young girl, leaving pockmarks that were said to have vanished at her death, and a loss of sight that remained for the rest of her life. From the accounts of her life available today, what invariably floats to the top is the sterling witness that is the standard fare of the saints: the Eucharist was her treasure, prayer was her strength, penance was her purification, and joy, her hallmark.

Beatified in 1980 by Pope John Paul II, Kateri has come to further prominence thanks to her adoption as patroness of ecology and the environment. Prayers for her canonization abound, and after its annual pre-feast powwow celebrating native spirituality and culture, her main shrine at Fonda, New York is hosting a simple Mass today.

On 11 October, Pope Benedict will canonize Bl Damien deVeuster -- the Belgian-born "Leper Priest" of the Hawaiian colony of Molokai -- at the Vatican, while in Baltimore, a local process was recently opened to investigate a potential final miracle attributed to the intercession of the 19th century Redemptorist Bl Francis Xavier Seelos (1819-67).

All told, US Catholicism can boast of nine saints and five blesseds.

Mushball Tourney

We are entered in a Mushball Tournament at St. Gerard on Sunday, August 23rd. Keep that date open. Ya say..."Idk how to play no stinking mushball!" We'll be tutored in this fine art on our HfH trip in Chicago

Tigers game

Tigers have a coupla 1:05pm games coming up in August (9th,20th, 31th) Pick your best day and let me know if you are interested in going. Want to get the tix now before all those "fair weather fans" get them

WOW Again!

Let's do that WOW thing again this Wednesday. Think we will have chicken and root beer floats. See you from 6-8pm. Come on incoming freshpersons...get out there! Directions at www.stmarychelsea.org.