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Sunday, July 5, 2009
FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

MONDAY, JULY 6, ST. MARIA GORETTI, VIRGIN & MARTYR

TUESDAY, JULY 7, WEEKDAY

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, WEEKDAY

THURSDAY, JULY 9, ST. AUGUSTINE ZHAO RONG, PRIEST & MARTYR, & COMPANIONS, MARTYRS

FRIDAY, JULY 10, WEEKDAY

SATURDAY, JULY 11, ST. BENEDICT, ABBOT

SUNDAY, JULY 12, FIFTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Leaving a Legacy of Love and Faith

Your last will and testament can leave a legacy of your faith by helping pass it on to others. When drafting your will, after taking care of your family, please consider naming Saint Rita Parish and/or The Diocese of Arlington as a recipient of your estate. For more information, contact the diocesan Planned Giving office at 703-841-2516, or visit www.arlingtondiocese.planyourlegacy.org.

LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR FAITH

Father Horkan will continue with his July series of presentations on the faith entitled, Truth and Freedom, Love and Grace: A Summary of the Catholic Faith. All current adult Catholics and those interested in the Church are welcome to join Father Horkan in the Parish Center Conference Room each Wednesday evening at 7:30 PM. — For the July 8^th presentation: Salvation and Grace through Jesus Christ, True God and True Man

Pray for priests who suffer for defending authentic
Catholic doctrine. They imitate Christ Crowned with Thorns.

Prayer for Holiness in Priests

Grant, O Lord, that every hand laid upon You at the altar may be a friendly hand, whose touch is tender and consoling as Joseph’s was; that the lips which form so many sacred words may never be profaned by frivolous or unworthy speech; that priests may guard, even in the noisy streets of the city, the impress of their noble functions, the bright token that they have but lately come down from the holy mountain; and may there be in their garments the fragrance of the altar, that everyone may find them living memorials of you, accessible to all, yet more than other men. — Grant that they may contract from the Mass of today a hunger and thirst for the Mass of the morrow, that the sacred anticipation be their last thought at night and Your tender summons their first awareness in the morning; that your priests, filled with You and Your good gifts, may give largely to the rest of men who are seeking You, O Lord. Amen.

— Author Unknown

BE A GUARDIAN ANGEL THIS SUMMER
BY HELPING FEED OUR HUNGRY NEIGHBOR

Bring canned fruit for the shelter. No applesauce or crushed pineapple, however. Use the baskets in the Russell Street & office side vestibules for drop-off.

Grocery store gift cards can be placed in the collection basket, or dropped off at the Rectory Office (business hours only).

Bring in non-perishable foods in small or medium sizes: cereals, dried milk, peanut butter, juices, fruits, meats, vegetables, soups, vegetable oil, etc. Use the same baskets as mentioned above for drop-off. — ALL food items will go to ALIVE! and Catholic Charities pantries. May God reward you for your kindness to His hungry poor.

As of June 24^th, we have 819 registered parishioners,
for a total of 2,018 individual members.
WILL YOU BE MOVING THIS SUMMER?
Please let us know by calling Joanne at
703-836-1640, ext. 10.

“Works of Love are Works of Peace!”

— Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

It is a Work of Love, a Work of Peace to pray for our monthly Respect Life Intention. July’s intention is for those who are forgotten or thrown away, especially the poor, the sick and aged, that God might change our hearts and move us to love them as the image of Christ.

Our Respect Life Mass for July will be celebrated on Saturday, July 25^th at 8:00 AM. The Rosary will follow at approx. 9 AM at the Duke Street abortion facility.

Saint John Vianney, pray your brother priests!

PARISH FINANCIAL UPDATES
“Catch-up”

Regular collection June 6–7 … $10,980
Monthly R&R (Repairs & Replacements) … $2,730
Regular collection June 13–14 … $9,218
Additional R&R donations … $818
Catholic Communications … $3,333

Regular collection June 20–21 … $9,593
Additional R&R donations … $210
Cascia Account donations (for the needy);
Total for above weeks … $555

(Miscellaneous donations, including early arrivals for Catholic Communications/Peter’s Pence not included with this report.)

Our Porto Caravan’s annual “Special Kids/Special Needs Collection” is scheduled for the weekend of July 11–12. Over 40 parishes participated in last year’s campaign which collected and disbursed $70,000 in financial assistance to various special education and disability related programs throughout the diocese. Thank you for your generosity in giving to this annual campaign for “God’s Special Children.”

Join the St. Rita Father’s Group: The Father’s Group at St. Rita Parish gathers every second Friday of the month, discusses a work of faith, exchanges mutual insights, and joins together to assist the Church. The Father’s group will meet in the Parish Center on Friday, July 10^th at 7:30 PM to discuss G.K. Chesterton’s work on St. Thomas Aquinas called The Dumb Ox. (The title was taken from the pejorative nickname fellow students used for St. Thomas until they realized his quiet brilliance.) Call Father Donahue or Father Horkan for more information on the Father’s Group.

Join the St. Rita Women’s Group: All married women of the parish are invited to attend the next Women’s Group meeting which will be held on Friday, July 17^th, beginning with the Rosary in the church at 7:30 PM. A planning meeting will follow in the Parish Center Reception Room; come ready with your ideas and suggestions for the months ahead. For more information, please call Nancy McKeague at 703-768-1474, or mckeague6@cox.net.

In order to clear away all those lost & found items that seem to gather in our Sacristy like lost treasures, we’ll be making these items available for reclaiming in the Russell Street vestibule the weekends of August 1–2 & 8–9. All items will be dated and made available a second time as well. (Dates to be announced.) All unclaimed dated items will be either thrown away or given to charity.

The Month of July is traditionally devoted to the Most Precious Blood of Jesus. A priest friend once commented that the confessional should be thought of as sitting at the foot of the Cross, with our Lord’s Precious Blood washing over us as the priest recites the words of absolution. Check our bulletin cover for confession times at Saint Rita Parish: Five times weekly!

IN GOD WE TRUST

On this July 4 weekend, we should reflect upon the blessings the God has given this nation and show Him thanksgiving. Our Founding Fathers believed firmly that the hand of God was at work in history and that we and all nations should adhere to His laws. For example, the Declaration of Independence concludes by entrusting the Revolution to the hands of Providence. And, in his first inaugural address, George Washington said, “no people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men, more that the people of the United States” and that we must never forget “His divine blessing … upon which the success of this government must depend.” He had written earlier in a letter to Thomas Nelson that “the hand of Providence has been so conspicuous” in the Revolution that “he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith and more the wicked” who fails to give thanks to God. Likewise, Benjamin Franklin, whom history books present as a skeptic, wrote of the Revolution in 1784, “If it had not been for the justice of our cause, and the consequent interposition of Providence, in which we had Faith, we must have been ruined.”

But these days, people are very reluctant to invoke their faith in public matters or attribute anything to the hand of God. They invoke the principle of a “wall of separation between church and state” that supposedly keeps people from applying their faith to matters involving government. That phrase, which is found nowhere in the Constitution or America’s founding documents, comes from two 1802 letters that Thomas Jefferson wrote explaining his support for religious liberty and his refusal to proclaim an official day of fasting or thanksgiving. He did not mean that people should not bring their religious beliefs to the public sphere. For the Declaration of Independence based the revolution on “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” and the inalienable rights that come from our Creator. In Notes on the State of Virginia Jefferson later wrote, “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?” Reflecting upon the institution of slavery, Jefferson also declared in that work, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.” In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln declared that the Civil War was both God’s punishment for slavery (on both the North and the South) and His means of bringing it to an end.

In the First Amendment, applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, the Founding Fathers intended that there would be no official church; but they affirmed that the nation should be governed by the natural law of God, which in turn can be understood by all. The Congressional Record of September 25, 1789 records the purpose of the First Amendment’s prohibition on an established religion by saying, among other things, “We will not all be Catholics, or Anglicans, or any other denomination. We do want God’s principles, but we don’t want any one denomination running the nation (emphasis added).” And, the very day after passing the First Amendment, Congress promulgated the Northwest Ordinance, which would govern the territories in much of what is now called the Midwest. In that legislation, Congress said, “Religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government, Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” In short, the Founding Fathers understood that this nation was founded upon the law of God and guided by His providence. It is a wisdom that should guide us still.

— Father Horkan