Comfirmation Sunday
~Confirmation Time At Holy Spirit~ Bishop Raymundo Peña is scheduled to be at Holy Spirit this Sunday, April 29, 2007, at 4:00 pm for Confirmation.
~Kanickers
Update (4/28/07): DON'T FORGET
Please do not forget that on May 23rd, our bishop will be celebrating his 12th-Anniversary as the spiritual leader of our diocese.
On May 25th, he will also be celebrating his 50th-Anniversary as an ordained priest. He was ordained in Corpus Christi, Texas, on May 25, 1957.
Please join me in wishing him our most heartfelt Congratulations.
Note: A reminder to those of you that have volunteered for the Inverted Blue Bird Program:
This event remains scheduled as planned for Sunday afternoon. Please arrive at least 15 minutes early to allow sufficient time for you to set up and be in your assigned positions previous to the start of activities. You know what to do... See you there!
17 comments:
Thanks for the reminder - I'll be there - there's a lot I want to say to the bishop.
Re: Inverted Blue Bird
Please remember to stay within the public areas (sidewalks, easements, etc.), respect private property rights and please, do not block the flow of vehicle traffic.
Anyone needing signs... the youth group had a sign making party this afternoon... all sizes now available... be there a little before 4:00 to get a good one.
Just look for the white Ford van with the "Inverted Blue Bird" logo on the side... signs galore!
Please also remember that even tho' the service station on the corner is now closed, it remains private property and we have been asked not to park our cars there.
UPDATE: Last Minute Reminders:
North 10th Street and Nolana is a very busy intersection between 4:00 and 5:00 pm on a Sunday afternoon, so please be careful.
Also, remember that not everyone agrees with bringing our troops home and putting an immediate end to the war. As those of us who have been there before already know, protesting the war is not always graciously accepted by all.
Above all, have fun and respect the law so that our Inverted Blue Bird War Protest will be able to continue each Sunday until this senseless war has ended!
Thank you all for your participation!
Blue Bird Leader-1
There was also this:
Church Employee That Has Seen It All said:
This does not sound good. I hope you do not end up marring a very special day for the confirmations just to prove a point. Maybe your children have already been confirmed so it won't matter to you, but I know that I would not have liked to see my sons' Confirmations begin with a picketing outside the church.
Why not picket the Bishop's office, it is not too far from McAllen and no one's special day will be affected. Whatever you do, think of the young men and women being confirmed. Aren't they part of your community as well?
OMG... I sure hope anyone else didn't mistake our Inverted Blue Bird War Protest between 4 - 5 pm, at 10th Street and Nolana in McAllen with anything having to do with the Bishop being at Holy Spirit for Confirmation.
Any coincidence was purely happenstance!
~Kanickers
I knew of the war protests, but when you have bloggers stating in response to this article that they have a lot to say to the bishop, what is one to believe other than they will take advantage of an already scheduled event, the protest, to make a point at another already scheduled event, the confirmation ceremony. Was I wrong? Did anyone address the bishop in those signs? Please clarify this for me.
I understand your confusion... The two should have been totally separate posts. Sorry for the confusion.
Kanickers
Dear Church Employee That Has Seen It All:
You obviously have NOT seen it all! Come to "Holy Spirit Parish"!
There is nothing new under the sun. What has happened at Holy Spirit is tragic, but not unique. Countless hundreds of churches have been CLOSED throughout the country by uncaring bishops simply because they were not financially viable anymore. Anonymous needs to realize that the Church is universal and not just your community in McAllen, so in the sense that I have seen messed up stuff like that happen, nothing that the heirarchy does will surprise me anymore and therefore, I HAVE SEEN IT ALL!.
Dear Church:
I'll bet you haven't seen it all! C'mon down and we'll show you!
IF in fact, the situation at Holy Spirit is not unique, then it is time for some of us to break from the Roman Catholic Church and form a chuch that LIVES God's teachings.
I feel your pain, anonymous. But the Church needs us and will thank us some day. Hell, some of us will be canonized saints, though we won't know it in our lifetimes!
Go ahead if you wish, but it would be a man made church and not the Church that Christ founded upon Saint Peter, Cephas, the Rock. He did not establish a perfect Church of and for perfect people, but a Church with the means to offer the world His saving message until He returns again. I prefer to concentrate on receiving Christ in the sacraments and not on who is administering the sacraments because the deacon, priest, bishop or pope are not perfect, just as I am not perfect, and we ought to forgive their failings for love of God just as we expect God to forgive us our sins in Christ. You will say, "But they started it." I know that, anyone with any intelligence and common sense knows that. You have been dealt a bad hand. Deal with it and move on, it can't last forever. The Church will survive despite the best efforts of the Enemy to infiltrate the ranks of the clergy, who attribute themselves the title of "alter Christus", other Christs, but often fail to act like Christ. Do not be discouraged and do not put all of your faith in the clergy, the choir, the parish leaders, the parish founders, etc., but on Christ and only Christ.
I don't mean to offend, but I am not sure if the Pope is a bit much for some of you. I suspect he is because they also use bells during the consecration at Saint Peter's in Rome, so he must be a country bumpkin like the rest of us unevolved faithful who don't have a problem with that tradition, nor with bowing our heads at the Incarnation passage of the Nicene Creed in honor of Our Lady's fiat. What a wonderful way to honor women, I think, to acknowledge this Woman's singular role in salvation history at every Mass. Instead, we ridicule what we don't understand. Vatican II did not abolish this practice, but modified it. It used to be that everyone genuflected when these words of the creed were said. I personally think that if we are going to be faithful to the Council, and not to the so called "spirit" of the Council, let us be faithful in little things so that we can be entrusted with bigger things, like the good stewards that we are called to be. The liturgy is not one parish's property to modify at will and ridicule standard practices at other parishes of the universal Church in the whole world. Doing so just leads to confusion, indifference, dissent and eventually schism as anonymous before me proposes.
That said, grandstanding and theatrics are a wrong step in the opposite direction because the focus is not on Christ present in the Word and Eucharist but on the office of the celebrant. I don't agree with that either. The priest has a role to play: he is the presider of the assembly, not the entertainer. There has to be a healthy balance and the documents of the Council provide that if only we are willing to live up to them and not our personal or communal interpretation of them.
Here is what I foresee happening, although I hope to high heaven it NEVER does: The ongoing turmoil at this parish causes it to implode. The parish is placed under interdict by the bishop. Entire families storm the church and stage a sit in that lasts for days, perhaps weeks. The bishop is sued for breach of fiduciary duties, breach of trust, etc., and a majority of parishioners propose a split from the Catholic Church and join another denomination, most likely the Episcopal Church for similarity of worship and anything goes theology. After mounting criticism and disruption of church functions due to the ever growing controversy, the Diocese cuts its losses and reaches a settlement with the pre-Brum parishioners, handing over the parish physical plant and depleted financial interests, thereby setting a precedent for other dioceses in the country and the world. (Too bad we are trendsetters in negative ways.) Holy Spirit parish continues on its journey of faith and spawns other churches in the Valley when consensus cannot be reached on important and not so important issues by the newly established democracy. Man, I hope it never ends like this but it somehow seems inevitable when consecration bells and bowing in reverence are enough to make people upset. What you must have gone through these past years, I can only imagine.
To church employee who has seen it all: No. You can't even imagine what the founders and builders of Holy Spirit Parish have gone through. You seem so knowledgeable about the church. Why do YOU not speak out about the shameful acts that have occurred at the hands of Pena and Brum? If Pena chooses to close Holy Spirit, we who paid for that bulding would gladly take it over and rebuild the city of God, and our tears will turn into dancing!
I don't know what credibility I have in this matter. Opining one way or the other or, as I often have, espousing a middle ground, won't do much to change the situation. I just participate in the conversation here to show my solidarity with you, powerless as I am to do anything more than pray for you. If this blog is not meant for such participation, let me know and I will kindly stop contributing, no hard feelings.
I am not of your parish, I am not involved in any protest movement and I have been nothing more than a fellow sufferer under this regime, patiently waiting for a new bishop, although my parish has not gone through what yours has, no one else has, we are all in agreement on that point. But to hope against hope for an apology from these people is not healthy nor realistic. The apology would not be sincere if it is forced; would you be satisfied with that? I don't think you would. It's like our nation under the present administration, with the war, the high gasoline prices, the crackdown on civil liberties and invasion of privacy issues. No one is advocating leaving the United States. Likewise, I don't agree that leaving the Church is the best answer either. This bishop won't live forever, none of us will, and change is coming, believe that.
Post a Comment