With a community in the Boston area and one in the Philadelphia regions, Super Bowl fever has hit the ICCC along with a friendly wager! The losing side will make a donation to a charity of the winning side's choosing. If the Patriot's win, our Philadelphia community, will be sending a donation to Beverly Bootstraps. If the Eagles win, the ICCC community in the Boston area, Oratory of St. Catherine of Siena, will be sending a donation to the Media Food Bank. FLY, EAGLES, FLY! And here's some inspiration from the Bible and the Philly Orchestra!
0 Comments
Hello everyone - We meant to post these earlier, but it's been a busy week! The parish collected a total of 155 pairs of socks for the sock drive and these are now part of the decorations in the sanctuary. A very special thanks to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County who organized the clothing drive (and decorated the tree!) and to Joanne who organized our sock drive. If you have a chance before or after Mass, stop by the sanctuary and check out the lovely tree and the socks in the baskets at the base of the tree.
2nd Sunday of Advent - We brought in gifts for the Adopt-a-Family program today! In addition to gifts from individual parish folk, the parish as a community contributed funds towards a tablet that was requested for a little girl from one of the families. During the intercessory prayers at Mass, we prayed for the families that "all the families may see joy and hope this Christmas." Then after Mass, we continued our series on prayer with time to reflect and pray on the 2nd Joyful Mystery, The Visitation. We collected 150 pairs of socks so far for our holiday sock drive, including several pairs that were mailed in from other parts of the jurisdiction! If you have socks to donate, you can still bring them in and we will add them to the sock collection. A very special thanks to Joanne for organizing the sock drive! This is what 150 pairs of socks looks like: We didn't have a chance to get everyone into the picture, but here are some of the parish folk who donated socks! We finally got them all into one bag, and Patrick volunteered to carry the whole set upstairs to the drop-off area. (That's one very large bag!) We didn't plan to have the word "kindness" there in the background when we took the photo but what nice touch!
A special thanks to Joanne and Kristi, who are continuing with the intercessory prayer ministry begun by Br. Bob. This ministry is part of the Mt. Carmel Apostate of Prayer. We have been blessed with Br. Bob's dedication to this ministry over the years and are glad to see his legacy continue to live on in the parish and jurisdiction. If you have any intentions or people you would like held in prayer, please let Joanne and Kristi know and take a moment to enter them into the book of intentions in the back of the chapel near the statue of Mary. Please also feel free to leave a message via the parish's Contact Page.
Hi everyone - Phew! It's been a busy week so we thought it may be easiest to share this update from Bp. Tim: "Thursday through Saturday, the ICCC clergy had a wonderful retreat at the Sisters of St. Joseph Carondelet Hospitality Center near Albany. I ordained Dave Wood as a subdeacon. He gave us commemorative mugs with a picture of a subdeacon donning a maniple with the legend "Tie one one". This evening, we had a wonderful service and dinner afterward. One parishioner had been abroad, in Spain and Jordan, and brought back souvenirs for parishioners from the Holy Land. Another parishioner brought Padre Pio devotional booklets for everyone. And another brought in leftover Halloween candy. And another brought socks for our upcoming socks for the homeless project. All in all, a great few days!"
Thank you for your generosity these past few weeks towards hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico. The members of St. Mary of Grace Parish have raised $530 as a community, which we will donate to the Puerto Relief Fund of Concilio. A very special thanks to Kristi, Hector, and Donna for providing information about the situation in Puerto Rico and relief organizations.
Today the parish decided to make a donation to support hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico. Thank you to Kristi and Hector, who are gathering information about which organization(s) we can support. More information to come... In the meantime, we wanted to share this prayer for those who may be separated from their loved ones at this time:
O God, whose fatherly care reacheth to the uttermost parts of the earth: We humbly beseech thee graciously to behold and bless those whom we love, now absent from us. Defend them from all dangers of soul and body; and grant that both they and we, drawing nearer to thee, may be bound together by thy love in the communion of thy Holy Spirit, and in the fellowship of thy saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer) At Mass today we celebrated the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, then afterwards had a surprise birthday celebration for Bp. Tim! Happy Birthday!!! |