ST. AUGUSTINE PARISH NEWS
ST. AUGUSTINE PARISH NEWS
St Augustine Parish Germantown. Please consider shopping for Germantown Nursing Home when shopping this Christmas season. Needed gifts include new blankets, socks with grippers, wall calendars, stuffed animals, and large print puzzle books like word search. Please bring the gifts to church by Sunday December 15.
ST. AUGUSTINE PARISH NEWS
St. Augustine Parish are being asked to donate to (CAMP) a local food bank. The food Bank is asking for donation of complete Pancake mix. Please bring donation to the church after Sunday mass or other church services.
ST. AUGUSTINE PARISH NEWS
4th Series of the Advent Video Series
Disciples Serve
Monday December 16, 2024
*(Location)* (Queen of Martyrs) /Sharon Davis
4134 Cedar Ridge Rd.
Dayton, Ohio 45414
ST. AUGUSTINE PARISH NEWS
Relevant Radio is a national Catholic radio station promoting the Faith here in the Cincinnati and Dayton areas. Listen on 105.9 FM, on their #1 FREE Catholic app or at http://relevantradio.com.
ST. AUGUSTINE PARISH NEWS
Holy Spirit Family of Parishes Newsletter
It’s time for our Summer Holy Spirit Family of Parishes Quarterly Newsletter. Please send articles for submission to Liz Gadola:
gadola@ourladyofgrace.org
SAINT AUGUSTINE PRAYER CHAIN
If you would like to be a part of the St. Augustine Prayer Chain, please contact Marie Klotz at saintapraysingtown@gmail.com
SAINT AUGUSTINE ONE CALL
To be added to the St. Augustine one-call, please contact Fran Delegato at delegatof@outlook.com
Sonshine in a Bag
St. AUGUSTINE PARISH participated and supported “SONSHINE IN A BAG” food program. The Sonshine in a Bag program provides bags of food to refer students who they feel could benefit from receiving food from this program.
ST. AUGUSTINE PARISH NEWS
While traveling and you wish to find Catholic Services near your visiting area go to this website.
http://CatholicMassTime.org
ST. AUGUSTINE PARISH NEWS
Sunday October 1st. St. Augustine presented the (The Top 3 Reasons That I Became Catholic… and Always Will Be. The Dr. John Bergsma, a former Protestant Pastor’s story) was shown immediately after the 8:30 am Mass. Please fill free to view this presentation.
To View click below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06F4i4TtS1c
Saint of the Week
December 1, 2024
December 12: Our Lady of Guadalupe
When Mary appeared to Juan Diego as Our Lady of Guadalupe, she had encouraging words for him. “Am I not here, I who am your mother?” In the image on Juan Diego’s tilma (tunic), Mary identifies herself with the Aztec people. She has their hair and features, their symbolic maternity dress. She incorporated their important symbols of the sun, moon, and stars. Today’s Mass includes two Gospel options. Both are familiar passages from the Gospel of Luke – the Annunciation and the Visitation. Both are equally relevant to today’s feast because Mary’s yes to Christ isn’t only to care for him but to come to us. Our Lady of Guadalupe is pregnant. The image bears witness to Mary’s yes to conceive the Savior of the World. But even in her pregnancy, she goes to care for Elizabeth. Now Mother to all the world, Mary comes to the aid of her children, reminding them of her presence among them.
Saint of the Week
December 1, 2024
December 6: Saint Nicholas, c. 270–c. 346
Patron Saint of children, sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, brewers, pawnbrokers, unmarried people, Russia, and numerous countries and cities.
Very little about Nicholas is historically verifiable, but because his life is the origin of the legend of Santa Claus, he is a highly venerated saint in the Church. Nicholas was born into an affluent and devout Christian family. When he was young, his parents died from an epidemic, leaving him an orphan and heir to his family wealth. Conscious of Jesus’ exhortation to “sell what you have and give to the poor,” Nicholas sold his inheritance and distributed the proceeds to the needy.
One popular legend is that among the recipients of his wealth were three girls whose father could not afford dowries for them to be married. Their futures looked grim, including the possibility of their resorting to prostitution to survive. Aware of the dire situation, Nicholas threw a bag of gold through their window that the father used as a dowry for his first daughter. Nicholas then did this a second time. After the second daughter’s marriage, the father waited all night for a third bag of money. When Nicholas threw the third bag through the window, the father ran out and thanked him. Nicholas asked him not to tell anyone. One version of the story says that each bag of gold landed in stockings hung by the fire to dry, leading to the Christmas tradition of placing stockings out for Saint Nick, who secretly fills them.
In another popular story, Nicholas was on a ship traveling to the Holy Land. A storm suddenly arose, and the crew were fearful for their lives. Nicholas prayed, and the storm ceased. For this reason, Saint Nicholas is patron saint of sailors and those taking sea voyages.
Nicholas became bishop of Myra, perhaps selected by the clergy, perhaps with God-given inspiration. During Nicholas’ time as bishop, Emperor Diocletian ordered a great persecution of Christians. Sometime between 303 and 306, Bishop Nicholas was arrested and tortured. When Constantine became emperor in 306, he ordered the bishop’s release. Seven years later, the Edict of Milan granted religious tolerance to Christians. The freed Bishop Nicholas attended the Council of Nicaea in 325, called to address the Arian heresy that denied the full divinity of Christ. In some sacred art, Bishop Nicholas is portrayed as slapping one of the Arians across the face.
Legends abound about Saint Nicholas, many portrayed in art and some that underlie his various patronages. Bishop Nicholas died on or around December 6, 346 and was canonized by popular acclaim. On his feast day, the faithful performed charitable works, especially toward children.
After the Church split between East and West in 1054, Saint Nicholas’ remains were in the hands of the Orthodox Church. In 1087, Catholic sailors from Bari, Italy took part of Saint Nicholas’s remains from his Myra tomb and brought them to Bari where a church was later built in his honor. To this day, his bodily remains excrete a liquid, at first thought to be an oil but now believed to be water, which is collected, mixed with holy water, and distributed to the faithful in bottles every May 9, the day his remains arrived in Bari. Commonly referred to as the “Manna of Saint Nicholas,” the liquid is believed to contain miraculous healing power.
Saint Nicholas, through your intercession, God has touched many lives. Legends of your life have inspired faith throughout the centuries, just as your ministry impacted the people of your day. Please pray that I will become a saint and fulfill the mission God has given to me. Saint Nicholas of Myra, pray for me. Jesus, I trust in You.
Saint of the Week
November 17, 2024
Dedication of the Basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul
November 18: Dedication of the Basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles
After Emperor Constantine the Great legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire in 313, he constructed churches, including four Roman basilicas: Saint John Lateran, Saint Peter’s on Vatican Hill, Holy Cross of Jerusalem, and Saint Paul Outside the Walls. Today, the Church celebrates the dedication of Saint Peter’s on Vatican Hill and Saint Paul Outside the Walls.
In 64, a great fire destroyed much of Rome. Many historians believe Emperor Nero set the fires himself to have an excuse to rebuild portions of the city. Blaming the fire on the Christians, Nero implemented the first organized persecution of Christians in the empire. Among the many arrested and martyred were Saints Peter and Paul. The two basilicas mark their places of execution.
Peter, Prince of the Apostles and Bishop of Rome, is believed to have been crucified upside-down in the Circus of Nero near the ancient Egyptian obelisk that now stands in the center of Saint Peter’s Square. Buried on Vatican Hill, his grave became a place of pilgrimage. After Constantine legalized Christianity, he constructed Old Saint Peter’s Basilica to foster devotion and encourage pilgrimages. Dedicated by Pope Sylvester around 324 or 326, it remained for more than a millennium.
Until 1305, popes lived at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran. After the Avignon Papacy ended and Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome in 1377, the Lateran Palace was in disrepair from two fires. The pope built a new papal palace next to Old Saint Peter’s on Vatican Hill, where every subsequent pope has resided. By the early sixteenth century, Old Saint Peter’s was in serious disrepair, so Pope Julius II ordered its demolition and began a reconstruction that was completed 120 years later. In 1626, Pope Urban VII dedicated today’s Basilica of Saint Peter at the Vatican.
Saint Paul, the Church’s tireless evangelist and preeminent theologian, founded and nourished many Christian communities. Arrested in Jerusalem, Paul appealed to the Roman emperor as a Roman citizen and was transported to Rome for trial two years later. He was beheaded on or around the same day that Saint Peter was crucified. His beheading and burial occurred just outside the city walls.
Emperor Constantine built the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls over Saint Paul’s grave. Over the next 1,500 years, successive popes added on to the basilica, renovated it, and decorated it. In 1823, a fire destroyed almost the entire basilica. Over the next thirty years, the church was redesigned and reconstructed. Pope Pius IX completed and dedicated it in 1854.
As their graves are foundations for these two churches, Peter’s and Paul’s lives and ministries are the Church’s foundation. Saint Peter, the first pope, received the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Of him, Jesus said, “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Saint Paul, the great evangelist to the Gentiles, symbolizes the Church’s missionary life and theological articulation of the faith. His writings make up most of the New Testament. Though centered and unified by Saint Peter, we must go to the ends of the earth, sharing the Gospel like Saint Paul. Every bishop throughout the world is obliged to make an “ad limina apostolorum” visit to Rome once every five years to report to the pope about his diocese and visit the two apostles’ tombs.
Saints Peter and Paul, God used you in powerful ways that have had a profound impact upon the lives of God’s people. Please pray that I will become a foundation upon which God continues to build His Church and from which the message of salvation goes forth. Saints Peter and Paul, pray for me. Jesus, I trust in You.
For More Saint of the Week
https://www.catholicsmart.com/saint-of-the-week/
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