Jesus Our Shepherd
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Community Events
(All Liturgies begin at 9:30a unless otherwise noted.)

For the month of January, 2012:
  • Sunday, January 01 – Feast of Mary, the Mother of God, Rev. Francis Baiocchi presiding, community sing, no fellowship, no community meeting;
  • Sunday, January 08 – Feast of the Epiphany, Rev. Donald Wright presiding, community sing, fellowship & community meeting;
  • Sunday, January 15 – 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Rev. Thomas Marlier presiding, community sing & fellowship;
  • Sunday, January 22 – 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Rev. Kathy Vandenberg presiding, community sing & fellowship;
  • Sunday, January 29 – 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Rev. Francis Baiocchi presiding, community sing & fellowship.
For the month of February, 2012:
  • Sunday, February 05 – 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Rev. Donald Wright presiding, community sing, fellowship & community meeting;
  • Sunday, February 12 – 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Rev. Thomas Marlier presiding, community sing & fellowship;
  • Sunday, February 19 – 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Rev. Kathy Vandenberg presiding, community sing & fellowship;
  • Sunday, February 26 – 1st Sunday of Lent, Blessing of the ashes, Rev. Donald Wright presiding, community sing & fellowship;
For the month of March, 2012:
  • Sunday, March 04 – 2nd Sunday of Lent, Rev. Thomas Marlier presiding, community sing, fellowship & community meeting;
  • Sunday, March 11 – 3rd Sunday of Lent, Rev. Kathy Vandenberg presiding, community sing & fellowship;
  • Sunday, March 18 – 4th Sunday of Lent, Rev. Francis Baiocchi presiding, community sing & fellowship
  • Sunday, March 25 – 5th Sunday of Lent, Rev. Donald Wright presiding, community sing & fellowship


Weekly Bulletin
Two parts for the week of 22 January, 2012: part 1 | part 2



Homily
22 January 2012

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

God picks unusual people to be prophets. When you look at television and read newspapers these days you are confronted with many people who believe they are prophets. They also believe we should follow their way. I made the mistake of turning on the presidential debate on Thursday. This one was especially vitriolic and aggressive. Each person had ideas of the way the people are supposed to act. Later, I turned on another program and the other political party had unkind words and ideas about how the politicians in the country are supposed to act. I am not saying that politicians are prophets. But if you did not know they are connected to a political party, they seem to know all of the answers. They even can make you feel, at times, that God is backing them and their ideas.


News
Piss on War: Death, Desecration, and Afghanistan

Hamilton Nolan, Gawker

A video emerges showing US Marines pissing on three Taliban corpses in Afghanistan. The outrage machine grinds into motion. The media bestirs itself from its slumber. Americans momentarily pay attention to the war in Afghanistan again. Politicians rush to add their names to the chorus of identical statements. All inflamed over the least bad thing that soldiers do in war.

A God For All Peoples

Patricia Datchuck Sánchez, NCR

Through the centuries, a variety of interesting legends have grown up around this feast of the Epiphany. Although the Magi from the east are not named, described or numbered in the scriptures, most legends agree that there were three of them. One particular legend, told to world explorer Marco Polo on a trip to Persia (Iran), described Balthazar as a young man, Caspar as middle-aged and Melchior as a senior citizen (The Travels of Marco Polo, or, the Description of the World, 1298).


Meditations
Searchin'

Fr. Pat Brennan, NCEPR

For the last 31 years, Dawn Mayer and I have co-hosted a radio program that has come to be known as Horizons. The theme song that we have used these many years is Searchin' So Long by Chicago. One of the lines of the song sings about "searchin' for an answer." We thought the words of that secular song captured the essence of faith. With faith we do not have scientific knowledge. Rather faith largely deals with mystery. Mystery invites us to an ongoing, ever deepening search. On this feast of the Epiphany, I think it is appropriate to think and pray about whom or what many of us who believe are searching for.

I Was Blind, Then I Saw

Alice Camille, NCR

I saw him from a block away. He perched precariously in a motorized chair, his body slight like a child’s, hardly weighing 50 pounds in his maturity. I counted three serpentine bends in the arm that reached out to guide his odyssey, and my heart sank at the writhing distress that was this man’s whole existence. His limbs twisted like a contortionist’s. Even his face was beyond his control, gripped by grimaces many times a minute.