Historic St. James at Sag Bridge Church 10600 S. Archer Avenue | Lemont, Illinois 60439-9344

(Ph) 630.257.7000 | (Fx) 630.257.7912 | E-mail: stjames1833@att.net |Website: www.historicstjames.org Facebook: https://Facebook.com/Saint James At Sag Bridge

MASS SCHEDULE: WEEKENDS: Saturdays: 5:00pm Sundays: 8:00, 9:30 & 11:30am HOLY DAYS: 8:15am & 7:00pm WEEKDAYS: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday: 8:15am Fridays 6:00pm Wednesday: Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at 5:00-7:00pm, w/Confessions at 6:15pm & Mass at 7:00pm.

CONFESSION SCHEDULE: Mon./Dec. 19th - 7:30pm, Tue./Dec. 20th - 7:00pm Wed./Dec, 21st - 6:00pm, Fri./Dec 23rd - 6:45pm & Sat./Dec. 24th - 9:30am.

BAPTISMS: Sundays after the 11:30am Mass by appointment. At least one parent must be a registered parishioner.

WEDDINGS: Minimum eight months in advance. At least one spouse must be a registered parishioner. Marriage preparation by appoint-ment only.

FUNERALS: For families of registered parishioners, or for non-parishioners to be buried in our own cemetery.

SICK & HOMEBOUND PASTORAL CARE: Please notify rectory.

RECTORY OFFICE HOURS: Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu & Fri: 9:30am to 1:00pm

APOSTOLIC DISCIPLES: Fr. Thomas Koys, M.A.,S.T.L., Pastor □ Fr. Ed Gleeson, Pastor Emeritus □ Deacon, John M. Wilkinson, CKM, Minister of Care/RCIA □ Deacon, Doug Szarzynski, □ Ann Noonan, Secretary/Bus. Mgr. □ Mike Dillenburg, Parish Council Chair □ Doug Witter, Finance Council Chair □ Pamela Mikrut, Organist □ Rodney Poynter, Holy Name Society, President □ Margaret Ryan, Altar & Rosary □ Giovanna Imbarrato, CCD Teacher □ Mary Coughlin–Lenzen CCD Teacher □ Steve Hagen CCD Teacher □ Bunny Heppner, CCD Teacher, & Joyce McNamara-Coughlin, CCD Director.

Listen to The Winds of Change 12:00 noon to 1:00 pm on WNDZ AM 750. Fr. Koys substitutes every other Wednesday. Visit: windsofchangeshow.com, Fr. Koys’ e-mail: unlikeother-nations@gmail.com. Register on Flocknotes to receive im-portant text messages and emails. Text: jamesatsag to 84576

Register with www.formed.org & use our St. James’ code: KFWMDB (ALL CAPS)

Founded in 1833, St. James at Sag Bridge is the sole country parish of the Archdiocese of Chicago, serving a growing community of Catholics who come together to worship God through the celebration of the Eucharist and traditional devo-

tional activities within truly unique and beautiful surroundings. Our faith-filled community strives to bear witness to Jesus Christ by loving and serving one another to bring about the Kingdom of God.

January 29, 2017 Fourth Ordinary Sunday

Page Two January 29, 2017

FROM THE DESK OF THE PASTOR, FR. THOMAS KOYS, M.A.,S.T.L.

Schofield Barracks

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

As a new year begins, I want to assure you of my prayers for you, your families, and your parish communities. I also want to share some important information about Renew My Church.

As you may already know, Renew My Church is an archdi-ocesan initiative that involves all the people of the archdio-cese and their faith communities. The goal of Renew My Church is to make our parishes more vital and more sustain-able. We do this not on our own initiative but in response to the call of Christ, which was first heard by those disciples recounted in today’s gospel. The call is the same as it was in those early days of the Church: to be His disciples and take responsibility for carrying on His mission in our time. The place to start is by working together to make our parishes vibrant communities that form missionary disciples of Jesus. This will also mean being realistic about our limited human and material resources and evaluating how our present structures may need to be organized differently to keep pace with changing realities.

A very important part of the process of Renew My Church are the parish groupings that will work to plan for the future and discern where God is leading us. After receiving consul-tation and feedback from you, the priests of the diocese, and parish pastoral councils, we are announcing the groupings today. Your parish will be part of a grouping that will enable you to assess, plan, and discern how best to meet the needs of the future in a way that is both reasonable and in con-formity with God’s will for us.

Each grouping will have guidance for its process of reflec-tion and discernment. Everything, however, begins with building relationships across parishes in a given grouping. That means getting to know each other and perhaps sharing some common projects or events, such as retreats, lectures, or community service for those in need. With future guid-ance and facilitation, this will develop in more specific plan-ning and discernment directions. St. James parish is “grouped” with Sts. Cyril and Methodius, St. Alfonse's, St. Patrick, the both the Polish and Slovenian Mission sites.

Renew My Church will undoubtedly involve leaving behind familiar patterns and demand that we move outside our comfort zones. In a word, it will require sacrifice, but that has always been true for the Church whenever we have tak-en up new challenges. I am convinced that we are up to the task, and willing to do whatever it takes to build our capaci-ty to pass on our faith to future generations. That is what is at stake in the Renew My Church process. I encourage you to become involved and pray for its success.

Sincerely yours in Christ, Cardinal Blasé J. Cupich Archbishop of Chicago

PRAYERFULLY CONSIDER YOUR GIFT TO THE 2017 ANNUAL CATHOLIC APPEAL

This week, many parish families will be receiving a letter from Cardinal Cupich asking that you make a pledge to the 2017 Annual Catholic Appeal. We ask that you re-spond as generously as possible.

The Appeal supports both Parish and Archdiocesan ministries and services. The Appeal funds services that are of great help to ministries here in our Parish. For ex-ample, Appeal funds support the training of catechists and support of the social justice issues of today.

This year, the theme of the Appeal is “Love Your Neigh-bor As Yourself.” We have all received God’s love. By financially supporting the ministries and services funded by the ACA, we help to extend God’s love to many, many others.

As you review the mailing from Cardinal Cupich, please note the ministries and services funded by the Appeal, including the ones that directly support the work of par-ishes. Then please give generously. Note, when our par-ish reaches its goal of $12,163 in paid pledges, 100% of the additional funds received will be returned to us for use in our Parish.

CHICAGO’S GOT SISTERS! MARCH 31-APRIL 1 CHICAGO, IL: Spend 24 hours visiting and praying with sisters from a variety of religious communities. Come experi-ence community life, while asking questions about discernment and getting answers in real time. For sin-gle Catholic women ages 18-40. For more information, contact Sister Theresa Sullivan, D.C., at sisterthe-

resa.sullivan@doc.org or 812-963-7556. Register now online at http://called2.be/CGSMar17

OUR LADY'S FAMILY PRAYER CENACLE meetings through June. The holy hour will begin at 4:00 pm and will end at 5:00pm. The basic outline for each meeting will be; Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary, Reflection, and Fellowship at St. James Sag Bridge: - February 19th - March 19th - April (Sabbatical for Lenten/Easter Season) - May 21st -June 25th — Deacon Doug Szarzynski —

FRIDAY, FEBUARY 3RD IS THE FEAST OF ST. BLAISE. WE WILL HAVE

BLESSING OF THE THROATS FOLLOWING THE 6:00PM MASS & ALSO

ALL WEEKEND MASSES.

Fourth Ordinary Sunday Page Three

Catholic Robots By Sean Gillen

At Mass we sit, stand, genuflect, kneel, and verbally respond- if we do this without anything going on in our head or our heart, we are acting like robots.

Every Catholic is guilty of acting like a robot from time to time because we are not perfect. Our God on the other hand is perfect, He loves us, and wants more for us than we sometimes allow into our lives.

A trend among Catholics that has grown over time is to trivialize what is too "deep" or hard to understand. This be-gan in the pre-Vatican II world. Before Vatican II by and large, youth faith formation pretty much sucked. Everyone was expected to form their own relationship with our Lord and figure out everything on their own without much guidance or direction. Because so many Catholics were not taught the goal of the Church or how to understand and live their faith, many Catholics trivialize it instead of diving deeper. Because of this we have to have cultural Catholics, we have confused Catholics, and we have Catholic robots.

Catholic robots are not just people who were raised in a shallow environment, but any Catholic who gets compla-cent can act like a robot. It truly takes effort and perseverance to dive deep into every Mass. It takes intellect to ask deep questions and it takes apostolic passion and love to pursue the answers. We ALL have that intellect and the ability to love. The problem is so many Catholics in every generation don't want to ask questions that will help them grow in their faith, such as:

What am I supposed to learn from the Gospel?

How is God present in my life? How do I know Him?

How does my life affect God and His kingdom?

There are different types of Catholics in today's world because everyone is in a different place in their own faith journey. There are amazing people whose hearts have been won by Jesus Christ. The Church has given us amaz-ing examples of faith and role models (saints) from the most unexpected places throughout her history. Unfortu-nately, there are still some Catholics who struggle and often fall away from the Church for lack of fulfilment. There are groups of Catholics who can be described as "cultural Catholics" or "obligatory Catholics", meaning that their relationship with Holy mother Church is an just an obligation or part of their family heritage. If the Church is only a tradition or an activity to someone, then how can that person come to know and be a part of the Body of Christ?

Cultural Catholics act like robots. Why? Because their understanding of the Church and the goal of the Church is incomplete. You can go to Mass every Sunday, 'say' all the prayers, and go through all the motions, but doing that will have as much effect on your salvation as what is in your heart. Many people are cultural Catholics because they are raised that way, taught by word and example that Church is a requirement or a social event and not taught to understand the goal of the Church or even how and why Jesus is relevant to their lives.

Here's an example: I teach Confirmation class and I had a girl who always goes to Mass and went to Catholic school her whole life. She could not explain to me what the Holy Spirit is. Even if you didn't go to Catholic school, if you go to Mass every Sunday you should know some things about the Holy Spirit because you say all the funda-mental facts about the Holy Spirit in the creed every Mass! "I believe in the Holy Spirit, The Lord the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spo-ken through the prophets." Unless you are robotically rattling off these words without even listening to what you're saying, you should know a LOT about the Holy Spirit. Come on!

You are not going to have the same experience at every Mass. Similarly you're not always going to have the same emotions when you pray. It's okay not to feel like you are getting everything you think you should be getting out of Mass. It's normal. What matters is your perseverance and your open heart. Jesus your savior who died for you and loves you so very much, will take care of the rest. Trust yourself, trust Him and just focus intently on what you're doing, don't be a robot.

When we don't try to dive deeper with our minds and ask ourselves what we are doing and why, we fall into a cycle of robotically repeating actions once or twice a week to feel good about ourselves. This cycle is missing the rela-tionship that we (The Church, the Bride of Christ!) strives to have with our Savior Jesus. We rob ourselves and Je-sus of the relationship that we were created for and we rob the whole world of the people that we could be.

Our weekly Offertory collections from, Sunday, January 22, 2017 was $3,253.00 and the number of

envelopes was 119.

OUR MANY THANKS TO OUR REGISTERED FAMILIES USING ENVELOPES AND THE

CASH-AND-CARRY FOLKS.

Our CHURCH CLEANERS FOR FRIDAY 2/03/17 Are Diane, Sandy, Bronislawa & Volunteer.

If you are interested in volunteering, please contact the rectory office 630.257.7000.

VOTIVE OFFERINGS FOR

THE WEEK OF 1/29/17

St. James Altar & Rosary Society Get Well int. for Karyn Cimaroli In memory of Lillian Simanavicius

5th Ordinary Sunday

2/4 & 2/5/17

Celebrant

Altar

Servers

Lectors

5:00 PM Fr. Tom Koys

Dooley Dooley J. Szarzynski

R. Podkowski

8:00 AM Fr. Ed Gleeson

J. Beecher J. Beecher F. Casiple

C. Slowik

9:30 AM Fr. Tom Koys

N. Akroush J. LaSota J. LaSota

Witter

11:30 AM Fr. Tom Koys

N. Akroush A. Gallager M. May

J. DeRoche

Our beautiful bouquets of flowers surround-ing our altar were made available by the

generosity of Kate Miller

THANK YOU!

Monday January 30th 8:15 AM Jerzy Brukasz

Tuesday January 31st-St. John Bosco 8:15 AM Jerzy Brukasz

Wednesday February 1st 7:00 PM Birthday Blessings for Joseph Dziurdzik

Thursday February 2nd-Presentation of the Lord 8:15 AM In loving memory of Ann A. Swigon

Friday February 3rd-Sts. Blaise/Ansgar & *Blessing of the Throats 6:00 PM Blessing & Thanksgiving for the Raj Family *BLESSING OF THE THROATS TO FOLLOW 6:00PM MASS & ALL WEEKEND MASSES.

FIFTH ORDINARY SUNDAY Saturday February 4th 5:00 PM Barbara & Leon Pieprzyca

Sunday February 5th 8:00 AM Jerzy Brukasz 9:30 AM Helen Kane & Mary Frantz 11:30 AM Jeff & Pauline Etling

SAVE THE DATE:

Jan 30, Mon, 6:00pm/Rectory

Family Enrichment mtg

“Strategies for Mom & Dad”

Feb 3, Fri 1st Friday Adoration

Everest School

Feb 4, Sat, 10am 1st Confession for 1st Communicants Church

Feb 4, Sat, 3pm Annulment Work-shop Sag Hall

Feb 5, Sun Superbowl “Big Games” party Sag Hall

Feb 12, Sun 11:30 Mini-Retreat Confirmandi Sag Hall

Feb 19, weekend Annual Catholic Appeal

Commit-ment Cards

Feb 19, Sun, 3pm Adams/Jefferson Play

Reddick Mansion, Ottawa, IL