Flowers for Blessed Mother in May
The flowers for the Blessed Mother on the side altar at the left are donated during the Sundays of May by:
Sunday, May 25 |
Rosella, Marge & Frances Saseen |
Monthly 50/50 Building Fund Raffle (Drawings: Sundays, May 25th & June29 th)
The Women’s Society continues to sponsor the Monthly 50/50 Building Fund Raffle. The drawing –from entries received from the May “salmon” tickets provided at the entrance of the church, and in the weekly church bulletin– will take place in the Social Hall following Mass on Sunday, May 25. The drawing – from entries received from the June “cherry” tickets provided at the entrance of the church, and in the weekly church bulletin-will take place in the Social Hall following Mass on Sunday, June 29.
Proceeds will benefit the Building Fund. Raffle Tickets are $1.00 each or 6 for $5.00. Buy or sell the tickets, and return the completed stubs as soon as possible in the collection or mail to: Our Lady of Lebanon Church, 2216 Eoff Street, Wheeling, WV 26003.
For more information or additional tickets, contact the church office at (304) 233-1688. Your generosity and cooperation enhances our Church. Congratulations and many thanks to Mary Custer of West Liberty who won $102 from the April 50/50 Raffle. She graciously donated her prize back to our church.
Memorial Day: A Poem for Memorial Day |
Lord, let me not in service lag, Let me be worthy of our flag.
Let me remember, when I'm tried, The sons heroic who have died.
In freedom's name, and in my way, Teach me to be as brave as they.
In all I am, in all I do, Unto our flag I would be true;
For God and country let me stand. Unstained of soul and clean of hand.
Teach me to serve and guard and love, The Starry Flag which flies above.
Endear A. Guest
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament
Saturday, May 31st, at 3:30 p.m.
Sunday, June 1st, after 10:30 a.m. Mass
Pope John Paul II said, “The Church lives by the Eucharist and knows that this truth is not expressed only in a daily experience of faith, but contains in a synthetic fashion the kernel of the mystery which she is herself. (…) The Church cannot realize her own vocation without cultivating a steadfast relationship with the Eucharist.” (Please plan to set aside a few minutes to enjoy this blessed time.)
Parish Rummage Sale(Saturday, June 7th, 8:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m.
“Help Needed.” Some strong hands to help move boxes from the garage to the hall on Sunday, June 1st, after Mass. Please see or call Linda at 242-6853. Set up for the Rummage Sale will be the same day.
“Rummage Sale Drop-Offs – to church Hall” on Monday and Tuesday, June 2 and 3, from 6 to 9 p.m. and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, June 4, 5, and 6 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The sale is set for Saturday, June 7, from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Sponsored by the Cedar Club. Lunch, baked goods and soft drinks will be available. For information call Linda at 242-6853 or Luane at 242-7437.
Cedar Club Meeting(Monday, June 9, at 7:00 p.m.)
Last meeting until fall. Please come and enjoy the party.
Father’s Day Masses (Saturday, June 14, to Friday, June 20)
Would You Want Your Son to Be Just Like You?
The title startled me as it came across the car radio: “Runaway fathers, throwaway kids.” I believe it was the commercial for a CBS radio program, and it had a special impact on me because I was at that very moment thinking of Father’s Day. I don’t know the “Promise Keepers” movement except by way of media reports, but if its goal is to help men be better husbands and fathers, I’m grateful. The Lord knows how tough is it to be a good husband and father in our culture. I’m not speaking of the physical “runaways” who “throw away” their kids. I’m speaking of those who stay right at home, but abandon their kids morally and spiritually. It’s frighteningly easy to do. Indeed, it takes a concerted effort not to do it. It takes time, thought, prayer, and, above all, courage, not to.
How can fathers abandon their kids, even while physically present to them? Simply by going along with the culture. One could see signs of it some thirty years ago or more. It became difficult to distinguish between father and son in styles of haircuts and clothing, except that the father looked sillier. Kids began setting the pace and the pattern. As recently as ten years ago, when I preached about the harmful effects of a lot of hard rock music, by way of both sounds and lyrics, I was roundly excoriated by fathers who liked it as much as their sons and daughters; laughed at the “pot” smoking, if they did not, indeed, join in.
The devaluation of fatherhood has been a stock-in-trade of our modern culture, from comic strips depicting “cave men” as predictably stupid brutes, dragging their wives by the hair with one hand, wielding a massive club in the other, all the way to the ooh’s and ah’s over “hunks” bare-chested to prove the manly prowess of pectoral muscles! Periodically the nonsense becomes “theological”: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” becomes “In the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer and of the Sanctifier,” if you please.
The conspiracy against fatherhood ranges from the most radical form of machoism, such as the idolatry accorded a male athlete who boasts of the number of women who have slept with him, to the most radical form of feminism that would leave Freud himself scratching his head in bewilderment. This is to say nothing, of course, of the men’s shirts and jeans and underwear ads, the movie and television idols interviewed on big-time talk shows trying to prove, not evolution, but devolution, that any man truly gifted by nature can become hairier than any ape. Are young boys, young men, immune from all this? Do they see their fathers almost literally “aping” such folly, or, at least, laughing along, failing to reflect the slightest revulsion?
Countless numbers of parents make indescribable sacrifices for their kids, working almost unbelievable numbers of hours to provide for them, particularly to assure a college education. How many, however, are bewildered by what their youngsters are taught or not taught in college, or which values prevail and which are ridiculed. Many parents awe me by what they do for their kids, but I am saddened by the way their best efforts can be undermined by the culture. Who says kids have to go to Florida on Easter breaks? Who says high schoolers have to have sophisticated graduation proms and all-night parties? Talk to high-school principals who try to curb some of these activities and they’ll tell you that some parents become their worst enemies. “Who do you think you are, telling my own son or daughter what to do?” Sadly, in too many cases honesty would compel them to add: “I, myself, never tell them what to do.” Oscar Wilde’s silly maxim is, indeed, taken more seriously in our culture than we might like to believe: “Fathers should be neither seen or heard. That is the only proper basis for married life.”
As I am neither husband nor father, it’s easy for me to talk, I know. And I know, too, that I might well do a miserable job as either. I ask no one to listen to me, however, but rather to the Lord: “Would any of you fathers give your son a snake when he asks for a fish... a scorpion when he asks for an egg?” (Lk 11:11-12). Or when he says to Job: “Stand up now like a man and answer the questions I ask you” (38:3). Aren’t an awful lot of kids looking to their fathers to give them not what they, the kids, think they want, but what their fathers believe is best for them? Don’t countless numbers of kids want their fathers to be real men, not machos, but men who stand up to the culture, instead of being overwhelmed by it? What did our Lord ask the people about John the Baptist: “What did you go out into the desert to see, a reed shaken by the wind, a man clothed in soft garments?.. . Yet I tell you no man born of woman is greater than John the Baptist.” Unless, perhaps, Jesus might have added, Joseph, my foster father, that “just man.”
I have often asked myself: “If you had a son, would you want him to be just like you? If not, why not?” Once again, it’s an easy question for me to ask, but if I had the responsibility, it would be a tough question to answer. One of my greatest privileges as a priest and as archbishop of New York, however, is to meet on a daily basis and to have come to know in a personal way countless numbers of fathers about whom I could answer without the slightest hesitation: “Would you want your son to be just like them?” The answer? “Thank God, I certainly would.” (by Archbishop of New York)
Masses for Our Fathers & Grandfathers
We are offering a week Masses for Deceased and Living fathers and grandfathers. Please remember the souls of those who hold you on their shoulders when you were a child.
Remembered Deceased Fathers and Grandfathers:
Deceased fathers & grandfathers of the Chidiac Family by Fr. Bakhos
Habib & Louis Khourey, Sr., & Nassif Nader by Lou & Charlotte, Emmalena & Louie
Frank Gray & Abraham George by Jim & Shirley George
John Dusick (father) and John Jacob (grandfather) by Sandra Dusick
Charles Przelenski and John Jalad, Sr., by Darlene Vasiliatis & John Jalad, Jr.
Joseph J. John by the John Family
Remembered Living Fathers and Grandfathers:
Living fathers & grandfathers of the Chidiac Family by Fr. Bakhos
Lou Khourey by his children Emmalena & Louie & wife Charlotte
Picnic in the Parking Lot(Friday, June 20th, 6:30-9:00 p.m.)
Mark your calendars now for this highlight of our spring activities. The Cedar Club will provide hot dogs, buns and soft drinks. Please bring a covered dish to share and a beverage of your choice. In case of rain the event will be in the church hall. Bring family and friends. Come and enjoy. For more information call Linda at 242-6853, |
