September 24, 2006

Dear friends in life and in ministry . . .

Gee, it seems like only a few days ago that I emailed you. In fact it was only a few days ago. This week I'm sending my weekly update a few days early.

It has been a wonderful albeit very busy week. I'm Chair of the United Way Campaign in my community and this was a week to do a number of presentations concerning the important work that United Way agencies do to address some very intense community needs.

God blesses us with only so much time. Hate to waste any of it but I'm going to try to catch up on a few unused days off this week.

Have a good week. Serve each other well.

Ray

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Bulletin: September 24, 2006

September 24, 2006

Jesus’ Grandparents: Joachim and Anne In the flurry of activity that occurred during the first week of September, many of us missed the celebration of “Grandparents Day.” This week, I hope to make up for this omission with some information on two grandparents of special note, St. Joachim and St. Anne.  In my youth, my parents erected a shrine in our back yard to St. Anne De Beaupre whose intercession is celebrated in a magnificent shrine in Quebec. St. Mary’s western wall includes a statue of St. Anne and the young Mary. But relatively little is known of Jesus’ grandfather, St. Joachim.
Tradition holds that Joachim and Anne were the parents of Mary, the mother of Jesus.   There is no reference to them on the pages of scripture.  So where do we get there names and what is their story?

Their names are found in the apocryphal gospel known as “The Infancy Gospel of Jesus”.   The Apocryphal, or hidden gospels, consist of accounts of Jesus’ life that where not excepted as inspired works and thus were not included in the official Canon of the Sacred Scriptures, the “Bible”.
However these apocryphal works reflect the Christian imagination of the time period and have resulted in wonderful, devotional and festive dimensions of our Christian community.  Not long ago “the Gospel of Judas”
created a bit of a stir that we all read about and heard on TV.  It made big headlines the National Geographic Organization released its existence.

Long before grandparents’ day was established on the first weekend of September, the church had a festival that honored the presumed grandparents of Jesus.   While their names and stories are not part of inspired Scripture, but rather from apocryphal legend, the Savior’s human ancestry is not.  Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, indeed has dwelt among us, as a human being, like us in all things but sin.  He was part of a family like all of us.   In honoring the grandparents of Jesus, we are really proclaiming our faith in the mystery of the incarnation; that God has become one with us.  So in a way, to see Jesus is to see Mary and to see Mary is to see her parents, Joachim and Anne.  Thus, we celebrate their feast day to affirm a central mystery of our faith: that God has joined with our human experience in the person of Jesus Christ.

Church Renovations Going Well
By all comments I’ve heard, our first weekend of our Church Renovation trial went very well.  I realize that not everyone with negative thoughts share them directly with me. If you have constructive thoughts on the renovations - please feel free to share them with me.
Meanwhile teams of volunteers have thoroughly cleaned and polished the Stations of the Cross and Al Hanning continues to wash and paint the church walls. Good Stewards All!

Have a good week. Serve one another well.