Christmas Angel

Her master said to her, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master's joy.' -Matthew 25:21

Sally went to her eternal home December 25, 2012.

5 December 2012

On Wednesday night we worked on 1 Corinthians chapter 16.  There were no questions in the workbook pertaining to chapter 16, so we just read and discussed.  We then switched back to Acts, and read chapter 19.  Next week we will read the commentary sections about Acts 19, and begin answering questions on page 134.

28 November 2012

Wednesday night we pushed on to finish 1 Corinthians chapter 15.  We answered all of the questions and material on page 128 of our workbooks.  Next week we will start reading and discussing 1 Corinthians chapter 16.  There are no discussion questions in our workbooks for chapters 16-18, so we will just read and discuss and move on.

Please note that we will not be meeting December 26 or January 2.

Prayer request:  Please pray for my brother Fritz who will be returning to a difficult home situation in Detroit on Friday.

14 November 2012

On Wednesday night we kept on working in 1 Corinthians.  We kept discussing chapter 15, and answered questions 18 and 19 on page 127 of our workbook.  Next time we meet we will continue with question 20 on page 128.

Note:  We will NOT be meeting on November 21, the day before Thanksgiving.

7 November 2012

On our post-election meeting night we continued working on 1 Corinthians.  We read chapter 15 and then answered question 17 on page 127 of the workbook.  Next time we will continue on to question 18.

24 October 2012

On Wednesday night we welcomed Grace to our meeting.  She told us her very inspiring witness story.  We then read 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and discussed it a bit.  Next time (November 7, because we will not be meeting on Halloween) we will begin answering the questions in our workbook beginning at number 15 on page 126.

17 October 2012

Last week we covered a lot of ground.  We read and discussed 1 Corinthians chapters 12 and 13.  In our workbook we completed the questions through number 14 on page 126.  Next time we will pick up with 1 Corinthians chapter 14.

Note:  We will not be meeting on Wednesday, October 31.

10 October 2012

On Wednesday night we continued working our way through 1 Corinthians.  We discussed chapter 11 and finished all of the questions pertaining to that material in the workbook (up to and including number 10 on page 125.)  Next week we'll start reading 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

Note:  We decided that we will not be meeting on Wednesday, October 31.

19 September 2012

On Wednesday night we continued our journey through 1 Corinthians.  We read 1Cor. chapter 10 in our bibles, and discussed questions 3 & 4 on page 124 of our workbooks.  We will pick it up there when we meet Wednesday night.

12 September 2012

On Wednesday night we kept on working our way through 1 Corinthians.  We read and discussed chapter 9, and answered questions 1 & 2 on page 124 of our commentary.  We'll pick up with 1 Corinthians chapter 10 next time.

5 September 2012

On Wednesday night we continued reading from 1 Corinthians.  We read and discussed chapter 8, which had no corresponding questions in our workbooks, then read and discussed chapter 9.  Next time we will start our workbook's chapter 13.

1 Aug 2012

Just a reminder that we are taking our Summer Break until the end of August.  We will return on September 5 at 7:00 in our usual room. 

We finished off July by reading and discussing 1 Corinthians chapters 6 & 7.  Because the commentary skips over these chapters we didn't make any headway in our books.  We'll resume with chapter 8 when we come back.

Prayer request:  We were joined by a gentleman named Patrick who is living through a difficult family situation at the moment.  Please pray for him and his family.

20 June 2012

Tonight we continued working on Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.  We finished chapter 1 and chapter 2, answering questions 5 & 6 on page 115 in the workbook.  Next week we will move on to 1 Corinthians chapter 3.

13 June 2012

Wednesday night we continued working on 1 Corinthians.  We read chapters 1 and 2 in the bible, then answered question 4 on page 114.  We'll start with question 5 next week.

As a reminder, we will NOT be meeting on July 4, or the entire month of August.

And due to low turnout, we are disbanding movie night at St. Julian.  If you would like to watch a good spiritual movie, let us know and we can meet in someone's home on an informal basis.

30 May 2012

Wednesday evening we started Acts chapter 18 which describes Paul's time in Corinth.  We read all of Acts 18, then pages 109- the first two paragraphs of page 112 in the commentary.  We answered question 1 on page 114, so next week we will answer question 2, then move on to Paul's letters to the Corinthians.

16 May 2012

Last week we finished 2 Thessalonians.  We finished the last questions on page 108.  The next time we meet we will be starting Acts chapter 18.

NOTE:  We will NOT be meeting on Wednesday, May 23.

9 May 2012

Last week we kept working on 2 Thessalonians.  We finished question through number 19 on page 108 of the book.  Next week we will finish 2 Thess. and start on Acts chapter 18 and 1 Corinthians.

2 May 2012

On Wednesday night we finished reading and discussing 1 Thessalonians.  We read through 2 Thessalonians and answered the questions in the book through number 17 on page 108.  Next time we will start with the commentary on page 103, then questions starting at number 18.

25 April 2012

Last night we continued working our way through 1 Thessalonians.  We started working on chapter 5 of 1 Thess. and answered questions 14 & 15 on page 107 of our workbooks.  Next week we will finish up chapter 5 and start reading 2 Thessalonians.

11 April 2012

On Wednesday night we continued working on 1 Thessalonians.  We answered questions 11 & 12 on page 106 in the book.  Next week we will start at the top of page 107.

4 April 2012

This past Wednesday it seems that nearly everyone had Holy Week engagements.  With only four people at the table, we decided to cancel bible study and went to see October Baby instead.

In previous weeks we started reading St. Paul's letter to the Thessalonians.  We've gotten through chapters 1-3 and are partway through chapter 4.  In the book we will be picking up on page 106 with question 11.

22 February 2012

On Wednesday night we continued working on the letter of Paul to the Philippians.  We read, and completed all the commentary and questions for Philippians chapter 2.  In the book we answered question through number 13 on page 97.

The Pope's audience message:
Today the Church celebrates Ash Wednesday, the beginning of her Lenten journey towards Easter. The entire Christian community is invited to live this period of forty days as a pilgrimage of repentance, conversion and renewal. In the Bible, the number forty is rich in symbolism. It recalls Israel’s journey in the desert, a time of expectation, purification and closeness to the Lord, but also a time of temptation and testing. It also evokes Jesus’ own sojourn in the desert at the beginning of his public ministry, a time of profound closeness to the Father in prayer, but also of confrontation with the mystery of evil. The Church’s Lenten discipline is meant to help deepen our life of faith and our imitation of Christ in his paschal mystery. In these forty days may we draw nearer to the Lord by meditating on his word and example, and conquer the desert of our spiritual aridity, selfishness and materialism. For the whole Church may this Lent be a time of grace in which God leads us, in union with the crucified and risen Lord, through the experience of the desert to the joy and hope brought by Easter.

Special Announcement

We will NOT be meeting at St. Matthew's on Wednesday the 8th.  We are attending Fr. Barron's lecture at Elmhurst College.  Details can be found at http://public.elmhurst.edu/calendar?eventID=131537208

1 February 2012

Last night we began working on Paul's letter to the Philippians.  As you'll remember, that's where he was when we left him at the end of chapter 16 in Acts.  While this letter was written many years later, it was sent to the people we have been reading about in Acts.  We read chapter one of the letter, and the first page-and-a-half of the commentary on pages 91-92.  We answered questions 2-5.  As we go we will be filling in question 1.

From this week's Papal audience:
In our continuing catechesis on Christian prayer, we now turn to the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane, the Garden of Olives, following the Last Supper. As the Lord prepares to face his death, he prays alone, as the eternal Son in communion with the Father. Yet he also desires the company of Peter, James and John; their presence is an invitation to every disciple to draw near to Jesus along the way of the Cross. Christ’s prayer reveals his human fear and anguish in the face of death, and at the same time shows his complete obedience to the will of the Father. His words, “not what I want, but what you want” (Mk 14:36), teach us that only in complete abandonment to God’s will do we attain the full measure of our humanity. In Christ’s “yes” to the Father, Adam’s sin is redeemed and humanity attains true freedom, the freedom of the children of God. May our contemplation of the Lord’s prayer in Gethsemane help us better to discern God’s will for us and for our lives, and sustain our daily petition that his will be done, “on earth as it is in heaven”.

25 January 2012

On Wednesday night we finished reading and discussing Acts chapter 16, including all of the questions on page 90.  Next week we will begin reading St. Paul's letter to the Philippians.

We decided that on February 8, rather than meet for study at St. Matthew's, we will attend Fr. Barron's talk at Elmhurst College.  Details can be found at Elmhurst college's website.

Prayer request:  Liz Johnson's cousin's daughter Maia had been diagnosed with juvenile dermatomyocitis and she and her family need prayer.

The Pope's weekly message for this week:
In our continuing catechesis on Christian prayer, we now turn to the priestly prayer which Jesus offered at the Last Supper (cf. Jn 17:1-26). Against the backdrop of the Jewish feast of expiation Yom Kippur, Jesus, priest and victim, prays that the Father will glorify him in this, the hour of his sacrifice of reconciliation. He asks the Father to consecrate his disciples, setting them apart and sending them forth to continue his mission in the world. Christ also implores the gift of unity for all those who will believe in him through the preaching of the apostles. His priestly prayer can thus be seen as instituting the Church, the community of the disciples who, through faith in him, are made one and share in his saving mission. In meditating upon the Lord’s priestly prayer, let us ask the Father for the grace to grow in our baptismal consecration and to open our own prayers to the needs of our neighbours and the whole world. Let us also pray, as we have just done in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, for the gift of the visible unity of all Christ’s followers, so that the world may believe in the Son and in the Father who sent him.

11 January 2012

We rang in the new year by reading Acts chapter 16 in the bible and the corresponding portion of the commentary.  We finished the questions on page 88 of the workbook and will start at the top of 89 next week.

The Pope's message from Wednesday:
In our continuing catechesis on Christian prayer, we now turn to the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper, when our Lord instituted the Eucharist, the sacrament of his Body and Blood. Jesus’ gift of himself anticipates his sacrifice on the Cross and his glorious Resurrection. The Eucharist is the supreme prayer of Jesus and of his Church. At the Last Supper, with its overtones of the Passover and the commemoration of Israel’s liberation, Jesus’ prayer echoes the Hebrew berakah, which includes both thanksgiving and the gift of a blessing. His act of breaking the bread and offering the cup on the night before he died becomes the sign of his redemptive self-oblation in obedience to the Father’s will: he thus appears as the true paschal lamb who brings the ancient worship to fulfilment. Jesus’ prayer also invokes strength for his disciples, especially Peter (cf. Lk 22:31-32). May our celebration of the Eucharist, in obedience to Christ’s command, unite us more deeply to his prayer at the Last Supper and enable us, in union with him, to offer our lives ever more fully in sacrifice to the Father.