Page 2 The Ascension of the Lord May 20, 2012 A Spirituality of the

Page 2
The Ascension of the Lord
May 20, 2012
A Spirituality of the Ascension by Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser
The Ascension throws some important light on the mystery of love and
intimacy. What’s the Ascension? It’s an event inside of the life of Jesus and
the early church, a feast- day for Christians, a theology, and a spirituality, all
woven together into one amorphous bundle of mystery that we too seldom try
to unpack and sort out. What does the Ascension mean?
Among other things, that the mystery of how we touch each others’ lives is
strangely paradoxical in that the wondrous life-giving power of arriving, touching another’s life, speaking words that nurture, doing actions that build up, and
giving life for another, depends also upon eventually leaving, being silent,
absorbing rather than actively doing, and giving our goodbye and death just as we once gave our presence and our life.
Presence depends too upon absence and there’s a blessing we can only give when we go away. That’s why Jesus, when
bidding farewell to his friends before his ascension, spoke these words: “It’s better for you that I go away.” “You will be sad now,
but your sadness will turn to joy.” “Don’t cling to me, go instead to Galilee and I will meet you there.” How might we understand
these words? How is it better that someone we love goes away? How can the sadness of a goodbye, of a painful leaving, turn to
joy?
This is something that’s hard to explain, though we experience it daily in our lives. Allow me an example: When I was 22, in the
space of four months, my father and mother died, both still young. For myself and my siblings, the pain of their deaths was
searing. Initially, as with every major loss, what we felt was pain, severance, coldness, helplessness, a new vulnerability, the
loss of a vital life-connection, and, the brutality and finality of something for which there is no preparation. There’s nothing warm,
initially, in any loss, death, or painful goodbye.
Time is a great healer (though there’s a lot more to this than simply what washes clean or is anaesthetized by the passage of
time). After a while, for me this took several years, I didn’t feel a coldness any more. My parents’ deaths were no longer a painful
thing. Instead their absence turned into a warm presence, the heaviness gave way to a certain lightness of soul inside me, their
seeming incapacity to speak to me now turned into a surprising new way of having their steady, constant word in my life, and the
blessing that they were never able to fully give me while they were alive began to seep ever more deeply and irrevocably into the
very core of my person. The same was true for my siblings. Our sadness turned to joy and we began to find our parents again, in
a deeper way, in Galilee, namely, in those places where their spirits had flourished while they were alive. They had ascended
and we were the better for it.
We often have this kind of experience, simply in less dramatic ways. Parents, for instance, experience this, often excruciatingly,
when a child grows up, grows away, and eventually goes away to start life on his or her own. A real death takes place here. An
ascension has to happen, an old way of relating has to die, painful as that death is. Yet, it’s better that our children go away. The
same is true everywhere in life. When we visit someone, it’s important that we come, it’s also important that we leave. Our
leaving, painful though it is, is part of the gift of our visit. Our presence partly depends upon our absence.
This however must be carefully distinguished from what we mean by the axiom: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” In
essence, that’s not true. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but only for a while and mostly for the wrong reasons. Physical
absence, simple distance from each, without a deeper dynamic of spirit taking place beneath, ends more relationships than it
deepens. In the end, most of the time, we simply grow apart. That’s not how the ascension deepens intimacy, presence, and
blessing.
The ascension deepens intimacy by giving us precisely a new presence, a deeper, richer one, but one which can only come
about if our former way of being present is taken away. Perhaps we understand this best in the experience we have when our
children grow up and leave home. It’s painful to see them grow away from us, painful to say that particular goodbye, painful to
see them, precisely, ascend. But, if their words could say what their hearts intuit, they would say what Jesus said before his
ascension: “It’s better for you that I go away. There will be sadness now, but that sadness will turn to joy when, one day soon,
you will have standing before you a wonderful adult son or daughter who is now in a position to give you the much deeper gift of
his or her adulthood.”
—www:liturgy.slu.edu/
Page 3
The Ascension of the Lord
Mass Intentions
Weekly Events at St. Didacus
Saturday...……………..May 19
5:00PM…………………†Eva Diaz-Rondon
Sunday……………..…..May 20
8:30AM…………..…….†Antoni Kropiouski
10:00AM…………..……†Eugene Sergi
11:30AM………………..People of St. Didacus
Monday………………...May 21
7:30AM………….……...†Raymond Keeyes
Tuesday………..…..….May 22
6:00PM………………in thanksgiving to the Sacred Heart
Wednesday………..….May 23
8:30AM………………....†Carolyn Curiel Hastings
Thursday………...…….May 24
7:30AM……………...….†Ernesto Fuentes
Friday…………....……..May 25
7:30AM ………………..†Bernard & Elizabeth Morzinski
Saturday...……………..May 26
5:00PM…………………Watson Family, Spec. Int.
Readings for the Week of May 20, 2012
Sunday:
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:
Saturday:
Next Sunday:
Acts 1:1-11/Eph 1:17-23 or
4:1-13 or 4:1-7, 11-13/Mk 16:15-20
Acts 19:1-8/Jn 16:29-33
Acts 20:17-27/Jn 17:1-11a
Acts 20:28-38/Jn 17:11b-19
Acts 22:30; 23:6-11/Jn 17:20-26
Acts 25:13b-21/Jn 21:15-19
Acts 28:16-20, 30-31/Jn 21:20-25
Acts 2:1-11/1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13 /
Jn 20:19-23
GIFTS OF
OUR TREASURY
THE WEEK OF May 13, 2012
Collection for May 13, 2012
Restricted Funds for May 13, 2012
Total Income:
May 20, 2012
$4,832.00
$ 265.00
$5,097.00
Rest In Peace
† Juliette Cote
Eternal rest,
grant unto her,
O Lord,
and let perpetual
light shine
upon her.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Spanish RCIA
Cub Scouts
Small Faith V
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Small Faith III
Youth Night
Small Faith IV
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Eucharistic Adoration
Religious Education
Choir
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Small Faith I&II
Spanish Choir
RCIA
English Baptism Seminar
Friday, May 25, 2012
Bear Scouts
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Spanish Baptism Seminar
5:30-7:00pm
6:30pm
7:00pm
8:30am
6:30pm
7:00pm
7:30am-8:30am
5:30pm
7:00pm
6:30pm
6:30-8:00pm
7:00pm
7:00pm
3:00-5:00pm
10:00am
Location
Location
Hall
Hall
Winona
Location
Hall
Hall
Hawley
Location
Church
School
Church
Location
Hall
Church
Hall
Hall
Location
Hall
Location
Hall
Go and teach all nations, says the Lord;
I am with you always, until the end of the world.
Please Pray For
Maria Luz Arrellano
Jim Barnes
Herbert Baxter
Herminia Brignoni
Ibeth Brignoni
Ruben Campos
Marie Cavanaugh
Connie Craig
Walter Craig
Bart Diaz
Juanita Diaz
Fred Dueber
Maria Fielding
Nancy Gray
Susan Guenzel
Rosie Kinninger
Marcella Halweg
Maria Koter
Anita Laing
Juanita Lopez
Maria Lopez
Sue Medearis
Dolores Mediano
Esteban Mediano
Joe Moser
Segunda Ordona
Sylvia Paiz
Dominick Palestini
Diane Porter
Atina Rodriguez
Aaron Rodriguez
Alette Rodriguez
Gladys Palestini
Carlos Sainz & family
Jeff Salazar
Patricia Seay
Christine Segura
Terrie Small
Michael Smith
Raymond Sparks
Helen Treat
Charles & Therese Tucker
Pat Weaver
Sue Walker
Rose Zaragosa
Catarina Zizzo
Adalina Zarate
And the special intentions in our Book of Needs
Welcome to St. Didacus Parish!
Masses
Saturday 5:00pm
Sunday 8:30am & 10:00am English
11:30am in Spanish
Daily Mass
Mon., Thurs., Fri. 7:30am
Wednesday 8:30am & Tues. 6:00pm
Eucharistic Adoration
Wednesdays 7:30am—8:30am
First Fridays 8:00am—9:00am
Confessions—Saturdays 3:30pm or by appt.
Pastor, Fr. Michael J. Sinor
Parish Office 619-284-3472
Page 4
The Ascension of the Lord
May 20, 2012
Taco Sunday!
Next Week!
May 27 —Support our
4630 34th Street, San Diego CA 92116
284-8730
parish’s Youth Program
and enjoy some great food,
too! The Youth Group will
be selling tacos after all the Sunday Masses.
St. Rose of Lima Parish in Chula Vista is hosting a one day retreat
Living Everyday with Passion and Purpose
With Matthew Kelly and musical guest Eliot Morris
June 2, 2012
9am-1:30pm
Tickets for this special event are available on-line at www.strosecv.com or
for more information call 619-235-0961
ext. 340.
St. Didacus School May Crowning, May 11, 2012
It’s not too late to turn in your donations for the
Annual Catholic Appeal! Extra envelopes are
available in the pews or from the Parish Office.
Please pray for the repose of the
soul of Richard Griswold’s
mother, Rosemary Del Castillo.
Her funeral will be at Nazareth
House on June 1st at 9:30am.
Vacation
Bible School
at
St. Didacus
Parish
Save the date:
Monday July 23rd
– Friday July 27th,
9:00am – 12:00pm
For Children ages
4 yrs – 5th grade
Fee: $40 per child/
$60 per two
Page 5
The Ascension of the Lord
The risen Lord’s
ascension is an
invitation to us to
preach the gospel
by the way we
live. The most
effective preaching is the goodness of our own lives. Practically, this
means we relate to others the way
Jesus himself did, since it is his
mission we take up. We reach out
with comforting words that heal
broken hearts, strong hands to lift up
the discouraged, and integrity of
action that makes clear to whom we
belong—the risen Lord. This way of
living calls us to surrender into the
Father’s hands just as Jesus did.
—Living Liturgy
May 20, 2012
Resurrection in Hard Places: London in World War II
In 1939, when it was certain that war was on its way,
the trustees of the National Gallery decided that the
whole collection should be sent to Wales and then
on to Canada for safety. But in the middle of the
battle for France, Churchill sent a telegram to
Kenneth Clark, the Director of the National Gallery,
which said: “Bury them in caves or in cellars, but not
a picture shall leave these islands.” So the paintings
were put into slate mines in Wales. However, two years later the public
started to complain. There were daily concerts in the National Gallery but no
Old Masters. A letter to the Times on January 2, 1942, said, “Because
London’s face is scarred and bruised these days, we need more than ever
to see beautiful things. Would the trustees of the National Gallery consider
whether it were not wise and well to risk one picture for exhibition each
week?” The trustees decided on one a month. Kenneth Clark began finding
out what the public wanted and he was astonished to find that they didn’t
want paintings that would show resilience or the strength of the human
spirit. The picture they wanted most of all was Titian’s Noli me tangere, a
picture of the resurrection.
—Living Easter Through the Year
Kid’s Corner
The Ascension of Jesus
Start Here
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes,
and a cloud hid him from their sight.
Acts 1:9
What is the
“good news”
that the disciples discover
and proclaim
to everyone?
It is that God is
with us at every moment of
our lives—from birth to
death, and even after we
die. God is always with us.
“If you seek
yourself, you will
find yourself
—to your own
ruin. For the man
who does not seek
Jesus does himself
much greater
harm than the
whole world and
all his enemies
could ever do.”
—Thomas á Kempis
Pagina 6
La Asencio del Señor
¿Estás
registrado
en
la
parroquia?
En los estados Unidos
los católicos se registran a la
iglesia que atienden con regularidad. Registrarse en la parroquia de San Didacus es
una declaración de su deseo
de ser parte de nuestra comunidad católica y un compromiso con la vida de nuestra
familia parroquial. Estar registrado en nuestra parroquia hace las cosas más fáciles
para usted en los momentos como bautismos, matricular
a sus hijos en la escuela de San Didacus, RICA, Catecismo, Primera Comunión, Confirmación, Bodas, cuando se le pide ser padrino de bautismo o confirmación, e
incluso para los funerales.
Las parroquias suelen solicitar la verificación del
estado de una persona practicante como católico en la
asistencia a Misa, etc, cuando a una persona se le ha pedido ser padrino o madrina. Si no esta registrado no se
puede hacer esta verificación. Para registrarse, favor de
recoger un formulario de registro de color verde a la entrada de la Iglesia. Usted puede enviarlo por correo o
entregarlo en la oficina parroquial. Si usted tiene alguna
pregunta, por favor no dude en pasar por la oficina y estaremos encantados de ayudarle.
20 de mayo, 2012
“El próximo domingo,
Domingo de tacos”
27 de mayo
El Programa de Jóvenes de la
parroquia, los invita a disfrutar de ricos tacos, la venta de
tacos será después de las misas del domingo, para ayudara a los jóvenes para ir a retiros y conferencias.
Marque en su calendario/ 2do
Evento de Reciclaje
El ministerio de Jóvenes de San
Didacus los invita el sábado 30
de junio al domingo 1◦ de julio a
reciclar, computadoras, celulares, etc.
En el estacionamiento de la escuela de San
Didacus de 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
CORONACION A LA VIRGEN
Para finalizar nuestro año del catecismo
el miércoles 30 de mayo tendremos la
Coronación de la Santísima Virgen con
toda las familias del catecismo, 5:30pm.
Vacaciones de Verano
de San Didacus
Guarde esta fecha:
Lunes 23 al viernes 27
de julio
9:00am – 12:00 pm
Para niños de 4 años a
5° de primaria
Cuta: $40 por niño y
$60 por dos.