2/18/2018 Embrace the Angels![]() My Dear Parish Family, Life-giving activities are from the Spirit of God. What are my life-giving activities? What are those things that make me the person God intended me to be? In today’s gospel from Mark, Jesus was in the company of adversaries and angels. It occurs to me that we have to have both. We cannot have a choice of one. If there is only one thing before us, we don’t choose one or the … same one; there is no choice there. Everyday all of us are surrounded by adversaries and angels, bad and good, and we do choose, sometimes consciously, sometimes not. Life has become so busy, so full, even in “down” time we are missing ourselves, and maybe even others close to us, in the daily buzz. In thinking about Lenten practices 2018, what to give up … what to add … Let’s search for what will help us keep Jesus at the center of our life. Enter Lent … another genius of the Church. Somehow, those early church leaders knew we all would need an annual retreat. They knew it would take about 40 days. They knew we would need to hear, again, the stories of Jesus’ own struggles and encounters with human beings just like us. Lent is a time for spring-cleaning, for getting our house in order, for inspection. Clear out the clutter – remove distractions. Clean the house – fast from dirt and disorderliness. Purge duplicates – give to people who need the things we store in our cupboards and closets. Make room for sacred space, prayer, time and space for relationship with Jesus and the people in our lives. Give something up as a spiritual practice of self-discipline, a small suffering aligned with Jesus’ incredible suffering. Care for the poor, especially the cold and the hungry. Lent is a time to clean up our house, the one we live in and the one inside of us, the dwelling place. A suggestion: Write down all your daily activities. Discern those that are responsibilities and do your best with them. Discern those activities that do not give life and discontinue or severely curtail them, get help if needed, and finally, identify and embrace those activities that do give you life. Unleash what God had in mind for you. Embrace the angels. What adversaries will we defeat? Let’s go for a 40-day cleanse and revisit Fr. Patrick's suggestions to fast (choose 1 or more) from: worry, judging others and negativity, pessimism and complaining, anger about things and hostility towards people, anxiety and bitterness, self-righteousness and grudges, greed and deceit, envy and arrogance. Embrace Lent. Siempre adelante, Eve Collier Parish Life Minister 2/11/2018 Living the Mission![]() There are almost 600 youth in Girl Scouting in Camarillo alone, from kindergarten Daisies to 12th grade Ambassador Scouts. The mission of this 100+ year organization is to build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place. Service to others is interwoven into almost every aspect of scouting, as a component of most badges and especially at the highest Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards. Girl Scouts work closely with their community and other philanthropic organizations, including their schools and churches. Recently, Padre Serra Girl Scouts have organized food drives, sent care packages to children worldwide, supported our military and veterans, cleaned up parks and beaches, reached out to the homeless, and organized activities for younger children including babysitting and Trunk-or-Treat here at PSP. Everything in Girl Scouting is based on the Girl Scout Promise and Law: On my honor I will try to serve God and my country, to help people at all times and to live by the Girl Scout law. The 10-stanza law includes practicing good morals like honesty, helpfulness, caring, respect while using resources wisely, and ultimately making the world a better place. The Promise and Law includes many principles and values common across religions. So while a secular organization, Girl Scouts encourages girls to take spiritual journeys via their faiths' religious recognition. Scouting welcomes girls of all faith traditions, teaching mutual respect. Two programs teach the girls more about their faith: the “My Promise My Faith” pin and national awards through Programs of Religious Activities with Youth (P.R.A.Y., www.praypub.org) or specifically for the Roman Catholic faith through the Catholic Committee on Scouting (www.nfcym.org). Scouting helps develop a passion for service, self-reliance, leadership, an array of skills, friendships … and besides, it’s fun! For more information please visit www.micasagirlscouts.com (Camarillo Service Unit) or www.girlscoutsccc.org (local Council), or contact Karen Fraser at [email protected]. For information on Padre Serra’s Boy Scout Troop #257, a vibrant outdoor troop that meets every first Tuesday each month, contact Lance and Cheryl Kistler at [email protected]. They will be participating in the Ventura County Boy Scout Council’s Annual Scouting for Food event on February 24 and some boys are working on the Ad Altare Dei Catholic Religious Award to be presented at the Cathedral in May. Come to their pancake breakfast the first Sunday in June to meet our troop in person. Our parish is blessed to have a boys troop and a girls troop as real-life examples of living our mission. Siempre adelante! 2/3/2018 Quiet Heroes
![]() They visit people in their homes, in convalescent hospitals, in assisted living residences, rehabilitation centers, and at both Pleasant Valley Hospital and St. John’s Hospital in Oxnard. Some of our ministers work full time and have families. Some are retired, and are generously making good use of their free time. They try, at each encounter, to spend some social time with their communicant, lead the sick in brief but intense and worshipful prayer, and then offer them communion. I frequently note how deeply connected these ministers become to their charges, often accompanying them from home care, to hospital and convalescent care, all the way to their deaths, at times even attending their funerals. From personal experience, I can attest to the beautiful faith of our elderly and sick parishioners. I often feel that I receive more than those I visit, whose trust in, and love of the Lord is often so deep. Those that do will often exhibit many other beautiful qualities of generosity, tenderness, prayerfulness and compassion. In effect, they resemble Jesus, at least to me. This ministry is not for everyone. I encourage you to consider joining this marvelous company of Christlike, quiet heroes. You don’t have to be wise or eloquent. You do need a caring heart, but I bet that’s already true about you. Give this service some deep thought. Siempre adelante! Fr. Patrick Pastor 1/27/2018 Seeds and Sparks!![]() When applying for a graduate teaching program after college, one of the interview questions centered on my favorite Gospel story that relates to teaching. Relying on my years in Catholic elementary and high school, I suggested Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed. As educators, we plant small seeds and nurture them to grow into marvelous things! Before staying home with our two sons, my wife was also a Catholic school teacher and principal. In her office was a quote by William Butler Yeats that read, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” We light small sparks that will grow and bring light and warmth to those who surround it. I share these anecdotes this week as we begin the celebration of National Catholic Schools’ Week – an opportunity to recognize the tremendous achievements of the 6,429 Catholic schools across the United States. Catholic schools are where students are able to learn, serve, lead, and ultimately succeed. Seeds are planted and sparks are lit every single day in our Catholic schools. I feel so tremendously blessed to be principal at our very own Catholic school at St. Mary Magdalen here in Camarillo. It is a privilege to work with a dedicated and enthusiastic faculty and a tremendous honor to partner with amazing parents in the education of their children. It is with these teachers and parents that seeds are planted and small sparks are nurtured. I am certainly proud of the academic achievements of our students that see them typically score above the national average on standardized tests and advance to the top high schools in our area. I’m also proud of the wide range of opportunities we are able to offer our students during the school day such as Spanish and music as well as after school activities including a wide variety of clubs and sports. We help our students to grow and flourish in so many ways, but I truly believe the most important seeds we plant and flames we fan are that of our students’ faith. To be able to start every day in prayer, celebrate Mass together once a week as a school community, and openly talk with students about our shared Catholic faith is something I most enjoy about my job and something that sets our school apart from others. We prepare students to not only be productive citizens of this world, but also develop them to one day be citizens of heaven. The work that we do is something that cannot be done without your prayers and support and to my fellow Padre Serra parishioners, I offer humble words of deep gratitude. Your generosity over the years allows us to continue to grow and thrive. This is your school community and you are such an important part of the educational journey and faith development of all our children. You are there with us as we plant seeds and light the fire. Siempre Adelante, Mike Ronan Principal, St. Mary Magdalen School ![]() Dear Friends, Today’s Gospel and Old Testament readings have to do with a call that Jonah experienced and that Simon, Andrew, James and John all heard from Jesus and to which they responded. It’s a call to discipleship and it’s one that is meant for all of us. Many of us heard the story of Jonah in the belly of the fish when we were young. I find it interesting that the church chose to skip that part of the story for today’s reading which begins: The word of the LORD came to Jonah, saying: "Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you." So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the LORD'S bidding. The reason Jonah was in the belly of the fish was because he first attempted to escape God’s call by literally fleeing on a ship. When God sent a storm, the sailors threw Jonah overboard, and the fish swallowed him. Three days later, returned to dry land (I’ll spare you the details), Jonah had a different attitude. I wonder if the point is that one way or another, it’s best to respond to God’s call, which is constant and unyielding, even in the face of our disobedience and imperfection. The disciples that responded so readily to Jesus’ call in today’s Gospel were also far from perfect. Remember how they bickered over who would get to sit at Jesus’ right hand in the coming kingdom? Remember how they fell asleep at Gethsemane and abandoned him at Calvary? Yet they are saints – examples for all of us, celebrated for centuries by the church to which we belong. So if the call to discipleship is unyielding and uncompromising, and meant for all of us, to what exactly are we being called? In the Gospel, Jesus calls the disciples to follow him, and they do. What does following Jesus mean? To what are we to follow him? To preaching (announcing the good news that the reign of God is at hand and within), teaching, healing, prayer, obedience, redemptive suffering, death and resurrection. I realize that many of those words may sound churchy or foreign to us living as we do in the complex world of 2018. But they are what we are called to, according to the gifts we’ve been given, by virtue of our baptism. And if we, in our weakness and imperfection will try to respond to the call, God will bring great blessings to our world and to us. When Jonah preached repentance as he’d been commanded, “the people of Nineveh believed God … When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.” When Jesus’ disciples obeyed the command to go and teach all nations, a church that none of them could imagine grew to span centuries and to touch all parts of our world. Ours is a church that has accomplished tremendous good, even though it is made up of imperfect, weak and disobedient people just like you and me, who have tried to respond to God’s call, relying on God’s grace. Siempre Adelante, Dominic MacAller Liturgy and Music Minister |
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