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Weekly Bulletin November 10, 2024
by Terrie Evans
On this Sunday, the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, our San Antonio Church Community salutes all veterans. On Monday, November 11th we honor Veterans Day, the day that is set aside to honor our Military Veterans who have served their country in the Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, Space Force, and Coast Guard. There are many events scheduled in our area to thank those for their service. On Sunday, November 10th, Delhi Township Veterans Organization will be honoring the 21 Veterans who were killed in the line of duty starting at 1:00PM at the Delhi Township Memorial Park. Monday, November 11th, the VFW Post 10380 will conduct a ceremony from 11:00 AM until 12:00 noon at the Veterans Park Plaza at 6231 Harrison Avenue to commemorate local Veterans and honor their dedication to service in our country. Also on Monday, the Hamilton County Public Library (Downtown Main Library) will host a Veteran’s Day Commemoration from 10:30 AM until 12:00 noon with Kelly Knox, a Persian Gulf and Bosnian War Veteran the featured speaker. To honor the men and women who have served in the military, the Veteran’s History Area, the “Catherine and Thomas Huenefeld Story Center” will be open to browse our proud local Veterans and their stories. There will also be an area where Veterans can record their own memories at the Story Center Studio. The Cincinnati Zoo will offer free admission for all Military Members on Veteran’s Day which includes Active Duty and Retired Military, National Guard, Reserve Officer Training Corps, and Veterans with proof of service. Military personnel will also be able to purchase up to 6 discount tickets for their immediate family. Starbucks will offer a free tall coffee to any Veteran Service member and their Military Spouses on Veteran’s Day. Bob Evans Restaurants will offer a free meal on Veteran’s Day for Veterans with proof of service. Gold Star Chili will offer Veterans and Active-Duty Military a complimentary meal (up to $12.00) who present a valid Military I.D. Mike’s Car Wash will offer Veterans and Active-Duty Military a free Ultimate Wash on November 11th at locations in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. Veteran’s Day is also the 249th Birthday of the Marine Corps. On this Sunday we thank all our Military Veterans who are present at our 9:000 AM Mass on this Sunday!
We also honor the feast of St. Martin of Tours on Monday, November 11th. Martin was born in Hungary in 316 and at the age of fifteen became a soldier like his father. While serving in France, he came upon a shivering half naked beggar, Martin got off his horse and with his sword, sliced his cloak in half covering the man. Later in a dream, Martin saw the old man as Christ, a vision that would change his life. When he was released from military service, Martin dedicated himself in service to Jesus Christ and the Church. He would be Baptized by St. Hilary and began his studies under the direction of St. Hilary of Poitiers. He established an early monastery that later became part of the Benedictine Order. In 361, he established the Liguage Abbey that was later destroyed during the French Revolution and was re-established in 1853 and is still open at present. In 371, the clergy of Tours made Martin their Bishop who had a huge following working to welcome people into the Church, evangelizing people to faith, and Baptizing them into the Church. Martin traveled tirelessly, teaching and opposing heresies. Martin then journeyed to Italy where he became involved countering the Arain Heresy. He suffered many attacks by the violent leaders before fleeing to an island in the Adriatic. Throughout his work, he longed for a monastic life and in 372, Martin established an Abbey at Malmoutier where he would be able to live as a monk with the Disciples he had attracted. He would later face more growing heresy in the Church with many executions taking place because of the conflicts. Martin died in Gaul at the age of 80 later named Patron saint of the Poor, Soldiers, Tailors, and Winemakers. There were many miracles attributed to him with the likeness of St. Martin of Tours riding a horse, with a cloak and sword portrayed in many areas throughout Europe from the tale of the beggar. In parts of Europe, St. Martin’s Day is marked as the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter. In grape growing regions of Europe, the first new batch of wine was ready on the feast of St. Martin of Tours and in Sicily, November is the season of winemaking. Sicilians celebrate the tradition of dipping their anise biscuits in Moscato a sweet white or rose’ fizzy wine on its feast day.
On November 12th, Tuesday, we honor the feast of St. Josaphat (John Kuntsevych) born in 1580 in western Ukraine to Orthodox Christian parents. In 1054, Eastern churches began to separate from the Holy See, with many of those Orthodox Christians becoming anti-Catholic. John felt drawn to the spiritual life of joining a Ukrainian Monastery and joined in 1604. He worked to re-incorporate the Eastern Orthodox tradition with the authority of the Catholic Church. He was ordained a priest, became and Archbishop working in the era of its Counter-reformation. He worked for the urgent pastoral needs of the people and resisted any attempt to compromise the tradition of the Eastern Churches. His mission was seen as controversial and soon lurid stories and malicious lies were made about him and by 1620, his opponents arranged for the consecration of a rival Archbishop. Josaphat felt the new threats would lead to attacks that would eventually lead to his demise as he said: “You people of Vitebsk want to put me to death” he stated. “You make ambushes for me everywhere, in the streets, on the bridges, on the highways, and in the marketplace. I am here among you as a shepherd, and you ought to know that I would be happy to give my life for you.” In 1623, an Orthodox priest waiting outside his residence soon assembled a mob who demanded his life as they threatened all those companions around Josaphat who died praying in front of the men who would shoot and behead him and throw his body in the river. His body was later recovered and is now buried in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Josaphat was Canonized in 1867 as the 1st saint of the Eastern Church to be Canonized in Rome. His death brought about a movement toward Catholicism and unity. The division between East and West began in the 4th Century when the Roman Empire was deeply divided over customs such as using unleavened bread, fasting on Saturday and celibacy. Both sides had religious leaders who participated in politics and disagreements with Church doctrines that split the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
On Wednesday, November 13th we celebrate St. Francis Cabrini (Francesca Saverio Cabrini) 1850-1917 and Italian American Roman Catholic religious sister who founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and is considered the Patron Saint of Immigrants. In 1890, Mother Cabrini and 7 other women religious founded the Order who supported the many Italian immigrants who were settling in the United States. Her newly formed congregation provided much needed services to the new American citizens. The supplied citizenship classes, education, health care and well care for children, taking in orphans and foundlings. They saw the need and started a day school and later went on to establish seven homes and a free school and nursey. To help pay expenses, the nuns started classes in needlework; selling their handiwork to pay for the needs of those children who they took in, realizing that Italian immigrants needed all the help her order could give them. For 28 years Mother Cabrini traveled throughout the United States establishing 4 hospitals, as well as another 50 orphanages, convents, and schools. In Chicago, Illinois the Sisters opened Columbus Hospital in Lincoln Park and now Saint Cabrini Hospital, both located in the city’s Italian neighborhood. Years before Government agencies provided services, Mother Cabrini founded 67 Missionary Institutions in New York, Chicago, Des Plaines, Illinois, Seattle, New Orleans, Denver and Golden Colorado, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. The Sisters of the Sacred Heart spread to Britain, France, Spain, and South America. Mother Cabrini died on December 22, 1917, at the age of 67 in Columbus Hospital in Chicago with internment in West Park, Ulster County, New York at the Saint Cabrini Home. In 1933, her body was exhumed with parts of her body preserved in the International Motherhouse in Rome, at her National Shrine in Chicago and her Major Shrine in New York. She was Beatified by Pope Pius XI on November 13, 1938, and Canonized on July 7, 1946, by Pope Pius XII. The miracle recorded for her Beatification happened for a day-old baby who had been blinded then recovered when given the wrong dose of silver nitrate. The child, Peter Smith (1921-2002) attended her Beatification ceremony when he was 17 and a few years later was ordained a priest. The miracle attributed to her Canonization was the healing of a terminally ill member of Mother Cabrini’s congregation. When she was Canonized, 120,000 people filled Chicago’s Soldier Field for a Mass of Thanksgiving. Mother Cabrini’s other Shrines dedicated to her are located in Southwark – London England, Burbank – California, Lewiston – New York, Peru – New York, and Scranton – Pennsylvania. There are 4 Churches and Parishes named for her in Rome, Italy and 42 throughout the United States, 23 in Brazil, Argentina, Spain, France, Canada and the Philippines and 6 hospitals in the U. S., Canada, Australia, and Philippines. She is the 1st woman to have a paid holiday named for her in the United Sates when the Colorado General Assembly passed an act that established Cabrini Day as an annual legal holiday. The 1st was celebrated on October 5, 2020, and a film about her life, “Cabrini” was made in 2024.
On Friday, November 15th, we honor the feast of Albert the Great who joined the Order of the Dominicans after studying at the University of Padua. He began to read the writings of Aristotle and then took a position at the University of Cologne teaching theology, where one of his pupils St. Thomas Aquinas, became a close friend. He had a scientist’s natural curiosity. Albert’s interests were varied, he studied the heavens as well as the earth, making valuable observations for astronomers, biologists, botanists, and geologists. He was the first Western theologian to make a sharp distinction between faith and reason and insisted that, “purely from reason no one can attain the knowledge of the Trinity, the Incarnation of Jesus and the Resurrection.” Albert also studied Greek and Arabic science and showed their basic compatibility with Christian thought and the outlook of the early Christian fathers. Finding that Theology and Philosophy were two distinct methods of reasoning. He became the Dominican Director of Studies and in 1245, Master of Theology, the 1st German Dominican to achieve this distinction. In 1254, Albert was made Provincial of the Dominican Order, and in 1260 he was appointed Bishop of Regensburg by Pope Alexander IV. Albert established the curriculum of studies for all Dominican students and was credited for introducing Aristotle to the classroom. Albert Died in 1280 and was Beatified in 1622 in Rome by Pope Gregory XV and Canonized by Pope Pius XI on December 31, 1931. Albert was named Patron Saint of students of the Natural Sciences with his Major Shrine, St. Andrew’s Church located in Cologne, Germany. The Albertus Magnus High School in New York, Albertus Magnus Lyceum in Illinois, and the Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut are also named in his honor. At the University of Houston, near the Houston Law Center, a statue of Albert is displayed for his contribution to law.
On Saturday, November 16th, we honor St. Margaret of Scotland (1045-1093), great niece of Edward the Confessor, a Saxon Princess who would marry King Malcolm of Scotland. Margaret gave birth to six sons and two daughters while teaching her husband and children about the Christian faith she brought to Scotland from what she had learned from the Anglo-Norman Christianity. She lived a pious holy life performing many charitable deeds, instructing her family all the virtues of her Christian faith and devoting every evening in devout prayer. Margaret brought English Monks to Scotland who settled in a Benedictine priory, Dunfermline Fife where in 1072 she built a magnificent church. She took care of the needs of her poor neighbors on a daily basis, feeding 300 people and many times serving them herself. She was canonized by Pope Innocent IV in 1250 and on her feast day, many will perform a service for the poor to honor her virtue. They will send donations or baby items to a local pregnancy crisis center or donate food to a church food pantry. A Prayer in Honor of St. Margaret: “O, God, who made St. Margaret of Scotland wonderful in her outstanding charity towards the poor, great that through her intercession and example we may reflect among all humanity the image of your divine goodness. Through Our Lord, Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. AMEN.”