St. Mary of Gostyn Catholic Church November 15, 2020

Page 2 Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2020 6:00 PM - Deceased Members of the Beales & Regis Families req. Jim & Rita Beales TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2020 9:00 AM - Ryan F. Duffy req. Duffy Family Lois Ann Sutter req. Mr. & Mrs. Robert Wiacek WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2020 9:00 AM - Bogdan Piatek req. Eileen Rogers George Drobney Sr. req. Rich & Janeen Ehrenberger THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2020 9:00 AM - Helen Zydek req. Jerry Kolpa Family Mary & Samuel Easterly req. Family FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2020 9:00 AM - Eileen Fitzgerald req. Joan Kilbride & Noreen Fitzgerald Napoleon Abella req. Abella Family SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2020 4:00 PM - Jerry Papievis req. Mary Ann Papievis Charles Miriani req. Jan Miriani SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2020 8:00 AM - Mark Gowgiel req. Mike & Mary Signer Mary Ann Minardi req. Madonia, Toth & Williams Families 10:00 AM - People of the Parish 12:00 PM - Deacon Jim Donahue req. Jerry Kolpa Martha Weinfurter req. Steve & Mary Spencer 6:00 PM - Paul Hoffman req. Mary Schramm

Stewardship

Our Catholic Faith with Fr. Keith: By now some of you may have already heard or seen reports about the release of the long delayed McCarrick Report. This dossier presents the findings from a Vatican investigation into the circumstances and people who enabled the rise to power, protective silence, and sinful secrecy of the disgraced Mr. Theodore McCarrick. Infamously, he is the highest ranking former cleric in the history of the Church to be laicized, meaning he was removed from the priesthood and episcopacy, suffered the loss of the ecclesiastic title of Cardinal, and confined to a life of prayer and penance. His deplorable conduct of adult homosexual predation against seminarians and young priests betrayed the priesthood, wounded his victims, and scandalized the laity. The institutional culture of silence may not have encouraged his sinful conduct but it did enable it by a curious and shameful secre-cy. Our Church has suffered a lot of indignity and shame in these last two decades with the initial uncovering of the misconduct of priests. Then, two summers ago, there were the additional revelations of the complicity of the bishops in failing to correct each other. We have a right and duty to demand justice and accountability not only for ourselves but most importantly for the victim-survivors. In your personal charity, please take a moment this week to pray for the healing of all those affected by these scandals.

God of endless love, ever caring, ever strong, always present, always just: You gave your only Son to save us by his blood on the cross. Gentle Jesus, shepherd of peace, join to your own suffering the pain of all who have been hurt in body, mind, and spirit by those who betrayed the trust placed in them. Hear the cries of our brothers and sisters who have been gravely harmed, and the cries of those who love them. Soothe their restless hearts with hope, steady their shaken spirits with faith. Grant them justice for their cause, enlightened by your truth. Holy Spirit, comforter of hearts, heal your people’s wounds and transform brokenness into whole-ness. Grant us the courage and wisdom, humility and grace, to act with justice. Breathe wisdom into our prayers and labors. Grant that all harmed by abuse may find peace in justice. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Remember, we do not abandon Jesus because of the sins of Judas.

A CALL TO STEWARDSHIP

Weekly Collection 11/08/2020 $31,503.50

Weekly Goal (Fiscal Year 2020/2021) $28,500.00

Goals to Date Sunday Goal to Date $541,500.00 Collections to Date Sunday Collection to Date $508,665.00 Total (Short of) Goals to Date $(32,835.00)

Thank you for your continued generosity during this extraordinary time. We are very grateful for your support!

November 15, 2020 Page 3

Around the Parish

Christmas 2020 Adopt-A-Family Saturday, December 12, 2020

St. Mary of Gostyn’s St. Vincent de Paul Society

Adopt-A-Family is a Christmas outreach program for needy families. For more than 30 years, this program has provid-

ed Christmas gifts and dinner for 100+ families. Typically, we have about 50 families from the Downers Grove area and 50 families from our sister parish, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, in Joliet. If you wish to participate, your family purchases a new Christmas gift valued at a minimum of $25 for each member of a needy family. Each needy family provides a ‘wish’ list to St. Vincent de Paul. You also provide all the food necessary to prepare Christmas dinner (or grocery gift cards for one meal). This is a wonderful experience that you and your family and friends can be involved with during the coming Christ-mas season. We welcome extended families, school groups, religious education classes, scout troops, office groups, neighborhoods, and others to participate. How to Get Involved First, consider the size of the family that you would like to adopt. Family sizes available for adoption range from a single person (1) up to families of 10 or more. Then sign up! Due to the pandemic, sign up will be only by email or telephone.

To sign up, please email Cathy and Ihor Hlohowskyj at ihorcathy@sbcglobal.net

or call 630-241-3447. Once you’ve signed up, information about your adopted family will be provided either by email and/or mail. Schedule Sign-up: Beginning Oct 31 until all families are adopted. Gift Drop-off: Saturday, Dec 12, 2020 from 8-10AM at SMG parking lot. (Early drop-off dates will be available upon request).

ALTAR FLOWERS

The beautiful flower arrangement this weekend was donated

in memory of MARVIN RONALDSON

and the lovely plants are in memory of DICK MASON

Baptism St. Mary of Gostyn Parish Family welcomed the following children to the Catholic Faith through the Sacrament of Baptism recently: Grace Margaret Gaudette, Daughter of Matthew & Molly Gaudette Jack Edward Maggio, Son of James & Kelly Maggio Michael Wyatt Mull, Son of Daniel Mull & Sarah Beyer Jack Pierce Nave, Son of Bradley & Kathryn Nave

We will celebrate Thanksgiving Mass on Thursday, November 26 at 9:00. We anticipate having attendees that will fill our Church to its lower capacity num-bers. We will release a “new” reservation tool for this Mass as a test for our upcoming

Christmas Masses reservation system. With your reserva-tion, you will be able to select the number of seats in a specific area of the Church for your family. This will hopefully ensure that we will not have overcrowding in the Church or other locations for Christmas and you will not have to arrive at Church early to “get your seat”. We respectfully request that you register for this Mass and the upcoming Masses with the exact number of family members who will be attending and ask that you only register for one Mass. We may not be able to accommo-date you for the holiday season if you do not have a reserved seat. Thank you for your support!

Prayer Requests

The following persons have requested prayers from our parish community:

Karli Brown Carmela Martini Kristina Grazys John Selfridge Bob Earley Julie Worch Ruth Marshall Lisa Warmke

Josh Ritter Patricia Wright Sandra Stevens Nancy Gatto Sharon Kling Hugh Toner Thomas Mendoza Art Stadtler

Religious Education

R.E. Calendar

Nov 18/19 - grades 3,4,5 & 6 St Vincent DePaul food drive Nov 25/26 - No RE Happy Thanksgiving Dec 2/3 - grades 1,2,7 & 8 Dec. 9/10 - grades 1,2 7 & 8 Dec. 16 - Advent Reconciliation grades 3 to 8

Religious Education Annual Food Drive for the St. Vincent DePaul Food Pantry

Each year at Thanksgiving Religious Education has a food drive for the St Vincent DePaul food pantry which is locat-ed here at St Mary’s. We will have our drive 2 weeks in a row so all RE students have the opportunity to participate. The food pantry accepts all nonperishable food items. At this time, they are in need of the following items to help service the people in our community: Canned soup

Canned meat

Paper towels

Canned fruit

Canned vegetables

Our deepest sympathy to the families of Saul Enriquez, father of Ricci Enriquez

Janice Hofmaier Ruth Marshall, mother of Sue Belsan

Emily Skala Arek Stefaniszyn

In Sympathy

Pray for our Military Let us pray for all of our military personnel, especially the men and women of our parish who are serving

in harm’s way:

Kevin Braasch Michael Martel Natalya Brechlin John Svoboda Christopher Fountain Nathan Kijowski Bob Lang Zachary Frana Peter Gartlan

Timothy Randazzo Kyle Ng Christopher Randazzo Joe McSweeney Maggie Benhart Kevin Hanlon Brendan Vrtis Thomas Mendoza Ben Gartlan

CAMPAIGN FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT COLLECTION Next week our special collection will support the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Forty million people

in the United States live in poverty. This collection supports programs that empower people to identify and

address the obstacles they face as they work to bring permanent and positive change to their communities. Learn more about the Catholic Campaign for Human

Development at www.usccb.org/cchd/collection.

Campus Updates Fiscal Year 2019-2020

It is hard to believe that in spite of the challenges that COVID-19 presented to us as a Parish this past year, we were able to make several repairs and/or changes around campus. All of these projects were able to be completed due to the generosity of our Parishioners both before and after the pandemic began. Thank you for your help in keeping our facilities safe, in repair, and up to date for the use of all our Parishioners and School families. In the Church, we replaced the outdoor Prairie entrance paving stone side walk in the early fall season. We had monitors for the Church on a wish list for a long time. These were installed this summer and are giving us the ability to display prayers and hymns during this time when we cannot have prayer guides or hymnals in our pews. At the same time, we upgraded the microphones that we are using for Mass. In the Underground, used by Youth Ministry and our After School Program, we refreshed this area with paint and much needed repairs. Lastly, we did repairs to our parking lot after what was a rough winter due to ice removal and the movement of heavy equipment during the work at the School. We completed the building/renovation of our Activity Center and Gym. There are still finishing touches inside of the building that we need to complete, but both areas were able to be used during the winter season prior to the pandemic shutdown. The finishing touches for these areas will occur once we are able to be back to full day school attendance and we get back to some sense of “business as usual” in the building. The landscaping was completed in the summer. At the School, we replaced the east most boiler in the main building as well as the air conditioning in the Administration area. These two projects were part of the ongoing “Blessed in Tradition; Faith in our Future” capital campaign. We spent many hours painting hallways in the School as well as refreshing the teachers’ lounge area. Thanks to our Knights of Columbus, the kitchen area adjacent to the Activity Center also received a facelift with fresh paint and a cleanup of the existing cabinets.

From the Pastor Dear Parishioners,

This week we are presenting to you our Annual Parish Report of Time, Talent and Treasure for fiscal year 2019-2020. This fiscal year started out like most, but ended the fourth quarter with the pandemic in full swing. As we review this year, one unlike any most of us have ever experienced, we continue to be thankful for those who have given of yourselves in some way to share the many Gifts that God has given you.

Many of our ministries have found safe ways to continue to meet virtually, outdoors, or through quick notes and cards to those housebound, just to name a few examples. Our Parishioners continue to donate food and essentials to St. Vincent De Paul and PADS to help those less fortunate. Our weekly offertory donations, while somewhat off from our “normal” times before the pandemic, continue to come in through the mail, the offertory baskets at the entrances of the Church, or on line through virtual giving.

Our Parish is healthy both physically and spiritually due to the sharing of all of these Gifts and the many more that I have not listed. Thank you for your stewardship today, tomorrow and for the years ahead. May our most generous Lord continue to bless us all.

In Christ,

Father Jim

School News

November 15, 2020 Page 9

Adult Faith

Page 10 Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

NEW PARISHIONERS: We are happy to welcome new members to our community, and encourage you to register either in person at the Parish Office, or register online through our website, www.stmarygostyn.org.

BAPTISMS: St. Mary of Gostyn offers baptismal preparation sessions on a monthly basis. If this is your first child, you will need to participate in a baptismal preparation session before you can receive a date for your baby’s Baptism. Parents are the first and primary educators in the practice of the Faith. Godparents play an important role in the faith life of your child. While considering godparents for your child, be aware that at least one must be a baptized and confirmed Catholic who is active in his/her faith. Please call the parish office at 630-969-1063 to register for a preparation class and to schedule a baptismal date.

BECOMING A CATHOLIC: The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) is a process of welcoming and preparing adults for the Sacraments of Initiation - Baptism, Eucharist, and Confirmation - for full membership in the Catholic Church. Unbaptized adults, adults baptized in another Christian faith, and baptized Catholics with little or no formal religious education are invited to participate. Please call the Parish Office for further information.

ANNULMENTS: We are available to help anyone who is in need of information about how to apply for an annulment. Please contact the Parish Office at (630)969-1063.

SACRAMENT of ANOINTING: The Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick is available at regularly scheduled liturgies throughout the year, or by appointment. You may ask the presiding priest before any Mass for an anointing. Communal Anointing Masses are held on the 1st Saturday of the month in August, December and April at the 8:00 AM Mass. The Eucharist will also be brought to those who are ill, upon request. Please notify the Parish Office if members of your family are in the hospital or homebound.

FUNERALS: Arrangements are usually made by the Funeral Home or by a family member. A member of our Bereavement team will meet with you to plan the Funeral Liturgy. Eulogies can be given at the Wake Service, Interment at the Cemetery or at the Funeral Luncheon, but not at the Mass of Christian Burial.

MARRIAGES: Arrangements should be made at least six months in advance to provide ample time for preparation of this sacrament.

PRAYER GROUPS: Monday evening Rosary at 6:30 PM in the Church; Tuesday evenings at 6:00 PM in the Parish Center chapel.

RECONCILIATION: Confessions are heard Saturday, 8:30 to 9:30 AM in church. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is also available by appointment. Please call the Parish Office (630-969-1063) to arrange to have your confession heard by a priest.

St. Mary of Gostyn Parish