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MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
Christians in Community Service:
Providing Essential Aid to Our Community Members in Need
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hen Vida Laureano clients who need financial saw an article in the assistance. Often they need parish bulletin asking for help with rent, a utility bill, volunteers for Christians in or food. Since the referrals Community Service (CCS), come from social workers, she felt the Holy Spirit give volunteers know that their her a nudge. Vida began as need is real. Clients can a volunteer, and a couple receive assistance once years later, she stepped up every 12 months. to the role of team leader. “It’s an eye-opening Christians in Community experience to hear these Vida Laureano, Service has impacted her stories,” Vida says. “You’re team leader deeply. It has given her just in awe of the social a way to live her faith and grow in workers and gain a great appreciation prayer and service. for the struggles that our clients “It really has been a blessing for have. Often it is through nothing that me and I would encourage anyone they’ve done, just circumstances. who is thinking about it,” Vida says. They don’t have the safety net of “The blessings you receive as a family that many of us do.” volunteer are great.” In the last couple years, Vida CCS is an outreach ministry that has seen many clients impacted by provides critical aid to residents COVID-19. For those whose lives of Fayette County. The ministry already strike a delicate balance, one partners with social workers who refer more burden can overwhelm them. continued on back cover
Inside MAY 2022
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The Bible The Textbook of Stewardship The Month of Mary: A Time for Celebration and Joy
4 The Respect Life Ministry: Faithful Stewards of God’s Greatest Gift 6
The May Crowning Celebrating the Coronation of Mary
7 The Cathedral Gift Shop Offering Wonderful Gifts for All Occasions
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The Bible
The Textbook of Stewardship
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ave you ever wished that life came with an instruction manual? What a valuable resource that would be! Whenever you find yourself running in circles, this instruction manual would give you step-by-step instructions on how to fix the problem and reroute your course. Well, here’s some good news. For those living a Christian life, there is such a manual — the Bible. Sometimes referred to as the “textbook of stewardship,” the Bible is a bountiful resource for the present-day Christian. Written by anointed prophets and sages, this collection of divinely inspired parables, poems and letters is full of testimonials that express the blessings that come from true discipleship, conveyed through lives of stewardship. Stewardship is not a new concept. The Bible gives proof to this claim through passages such as the 26th chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy. We read Moses’ words, as he tells the Israelites to offer the choicest portions of their harvest to God: “When you have come into the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you as a heritage, and have taken possession and settled in it, you shall take some first fruits of the various products of the soil which you harvest from the land the LORD, your God, is giving you; put them in a basket and go to the place which the LORD, your God, will choose as the dwelling place for his name… ‘Now, therefore, I have brought the first fruits of the products of the soil which you, LORD, have given me.’ You shall set them before the LORD, your God, and you shall bow down before the LORD, your God” (Dt 26:1-2, 10). St. Paul briefly touches on the essence of stewardship when he said, “In every way I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak, and keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus who himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’” (Acts 20:35). Again, in St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, we read about living a life of Christian stewardship: “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each must do as already 2
determined, without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:6-7). While this is well and good, what does it mean for the present-day Christian? Why should it matter that the Bible alludes to stewardship in various passages? It shows us that Christians and Jews have struggled with and benefitted from the concept of stewardship for thousands of years. It ties the message of stewardship to the role of a Christian disciple. It gives proof that stewardship and discipleship go hand-inhand. It offers encouragement to us, that stewardship is in fact a foundational component of the Christian life, a way of life that one of the founding fathers of the Church — St. Paul — preached about and advocated. The Bible is indeed the textbook of stewardship. It lays out the steps we must take to become true disciples of Christ. Reading and meditating upon God’s Word is always a fruitful exercise. Those who regularly delve into Scripture often develop a deeper understanding of Who God is, how and why He loves us, and how we can show Him our love in return. As you strive to become a grateful steward and live the life of Christian discipleship, develop a love for Sacred Scripture. Allow God’s Word to nourish your soul regularly, and watch as stewardship changes from a foreign concept to an integral component of your daily life.
A Letter From Our Cathedral Rector
The Month of Mary:
A Time for Celebration and Joy Dear Brothers and Sisters:
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n the Catholic Church, we designate a particular devotion for each month — and May is when we honor our Blessed Mother Mary. Thus, this is a good time for us to think about and concentrate on our devotion to the Mother of God. Perhaps we can add a few more Marian prayers to our daily routine. Praying the Rosary might be even more important. Of course, that assumes that daily prayer is part of our daily routine — which it should be. Our Blessed Mother is important to our faith and our Church. Her willingness to serve in a way that allowed the Lord to take human form made our salvation a possibility. Because of her complete trust in God, she lived her life free from sin, and after her life, she was assumed into heaven by the power of God and crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth. She is, of course, not divine. We worship only our Lord Jesus Christ, but we honor Mary as a saint, and also in many other ways. We honor God when we remember the role of Mary in our salvation. Devotion to Mary always leads to Jesus Christ Himself. Mary was joyous when she said “yes” to God. That is the kind of joy we need to seek — and we, too, must say “yes” to the Lord. Let us be grateful to Mary for bringing us her Son. This is why we crown her on our Catholic version of Mother’s Day. Through Mary, we are given an invitation into the Catholic fold. Her feminine presence and the safety of her motherhood may help us grow. For most of us, this time of year is a month of growth in relation to nature. It is difficult not to have May as one of our favorite months for so many reasons. May is a beautiful time. We are called to make it even more beautiful, and we can do that as we serve and love one another. I am deeply blessed to be your pastor. I may say that often, but it is true. My priesthood has been a blessing and serving you all has made that blessing even more significant. I pray for you daily. Please pray for me. God bless you and keep you always. Sincerely yours in Christ, Fr. John Moriarty 3
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THE RESPECT W
hen Bridget Fay looks into the sweet face of her young son, she sees far beyond just his eyes. She sees a precious child of God that she was given to love, educate and bring into the loving arms of Our Lord and His Church. “Being pro-life meant something to me even before I had my son, but now that I have him, it means much more,” Bridget says. “Now I want to do everything I can to advance the culture of life because it is his peers and classmates that are being murdered in the womb. When he gets older and he learns about what has been going on with the horror of abortion, I don’t want to tell him that I just sat back and watched it happen. I would like to say that I was doing everything I could.” In fact, embracing the Gospel of Life means so much to Bridget that she recently volunteered to coordinate the Respect Life Ministry at our parish. “I have been very active in pro-life activities for about 13 years, so when I was invited to be coordinator, I said ‘yes,’” she says. “I am a
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LIFE MINISTRY: convert to Catholicism. I was a pro-life atheist, and the Church’s stance on the dignity and value of all life at all stages was one of the things that drew me to become Catholic. I love the pro-life stance of the Church! Ultimately, at the intersection between the scientific fact that life begins at conception and the moral teaching that you don’t kill humans, is where some people find God, and I was one of them.” Now that she is heading up the Respect Life Ministry, she cherishes some beautiful hopes and dreams on how to help others fight for the cause of life. “We have a very energetic group, and we have been talking about revitalizing Catholic respect life activities, not only in our parish but also in our local area,” she says. “Fr. John Moriarty was saying at our last meeting that he feels we should try to expand our ministry because there is a lot of pro-life activity in our local region but not a lot of specifically Catholic pro-life activity. We hope to encourage other parishes to get more involved.” The ministry will also be starting up a couple of new pro-life events. For example, on March 19 in Hehman Hall, they will be showing the movie Unplanned, followed by a discussion afterward. There will also be resources available for women experiencing unplanned pregnancies and people suffering from the harm of abortion. Currently, the Respect Life Ministry meets at the Parish Life Center or the O’Neill Center on the second Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m. One of the ministry’s main goals is to keep prolife issues — from conception to natural death — at the forefront of people’s minds and hearts. For example, they share pro-life bulletin announcements and the Prayers of the Faithful
Faithful Stewards of God’s Greatest Gift distributed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. During Respect Life Month each October, the ministry gives out materials on pro-life issues. This coming January, they plan on sharing information on prayers for the nine days preceding Jan. 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. “We also hope to continue to share information on the Kentucky Memorial for the Unborn at Frankfort Cemetery,” Bridget says. “There, people can have a name engraved in granite to
honor a baby lost through abortion, miscarriage, or stillbirth.” Finally, on Mother’s Day weekend, the ministry distributes baby bottles to our parishioners, so that they may fill them up with change to be collected on Father’s Day and donated to Birthright. Typically, our parish very generously raises about $3,500 annually through this effort. “Birthright is a great organization that supports women facing unplanned pregnancies, and I am on its board,” Bridget says.
If you would like more information on how to savor and protect God’s gift of life through this ministry, please see future parish bulletins or call Bridget Fay at 617-538-4472.
Christians in Community Service “Here we are two years out and we still are dealing with people affected by COVID,” Vida says. “When you are making an hourly wage, a reduction in hours can be catastrophic to a family’s budget.” The assistance of CCS can help bridge the gap that could otherwise be devastating. CCS is dependent on financial donations from parishioners. Referrals for help during the pandemic have stretched the CCS budget to its limit. Parishioners can donate online or with quarterly envelopes. These funds are critical in supporting the community members with whom we regularly interact. “You find out they are working in places we patronize, like restaurants, hotels, and retail,” Vida says. “These are people that we encounter on a
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daily basis.” Beyond financial donations, CCS is run purely by volunteers. It’s flexible work — each volunteer takes half a day each week to respond to calls. They talk with the social worker, fill out an intake form, and send it to Treasurer Sharon Arnold, who writes the check and mails it directly to the utility company or landlord. Volunteers may work from anywhere as long as they have access to the database. “It’s gratifying to know that we can assist at all, fulfilling our duty to serve our brothers and sisters in need,” Vida says. “We are all children of God, and we all deserve the proper dignity bestowed on us by our Creator. Through this ministry, we’re serving Jesus.”
If you would like to volunteer with CCS, please contact Vida Laureano at vlaureano@aol.com or 859-492-9999. To donate online, visit the parish website www.cathedralctk.org — select “Give to CTK” and under the “Fund” menu, designate donations for “Christians in Community Service.” 5
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The May Crowning
Celebrating the Coronation of Mary
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or many Catholics, May Crownings of statues or icons of the Blessed Mother have become rites of spring. Like flowers blooming or Mother’s Day, this annual Marian devotion reminds us that the cold of winter is behind us, and it ushers in a month during which the Catholic Church pays special homage to Mary as the Queen of Heaven and Mother of God. Generally taking place during the first weekend of the month, May Crownings bring children — often, recent First Communicants — out in their Sunday best to participate in processions and adorn statues of the Blessed Mother with crowns of flowers or actual gold crowns. Additionally, the children often place roses at her feet, and Catholics carry out similar practices in their homes by placing roses around statues of the Blessed Virgin, or even adding ornamentation to images of Mary. But where did this practice come from, and how did it develop into the tradition that we currently know and love? The Coronation of Mary had been a popular subject in European art and literature for centuries, but the tradition of the May Crowning can be most accurately traced back to the late 16th century. Perhaps inspired by the practice of adding
ornamentation to Marian icons that had been carried out by some Eastern churches, Pope Clement VIII added two crowns to the icon of Mary with the Infant Jesus in the St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome. The crowns were eventually lost, but were replaced by Gregory XVI in 1837 in a rite that was to become the standard practice for crowning. While the May Crowning is not an official liturgical celebration on the Church calendar, it is an important practice in honoring Mary as the Queen of the Universe, and its imagery is especially influential in the faith formation of children. As Liz Kelly writes in May Crowning, Mass, and Merton and Other Reasons I Love Being Catholic, “One of the defining aspects of being Catholic is devotion to Mary. I favor no Marian celebration more highly than May Crowning, the feast that recognizes Mary as queen of heaven and earth. To a person of any age, this is a mighty big title, but to a child of five or six or seven, it expands to enchanting, magical proportions. How many queens does one get a chance to meet in a lifetime, much less crown?” This year, make a special effort to honor the coronation of Mary through participation in a personal or public May Crowning devotion.
Bring Flowers of the Rarest Bring flow’rs of the fairest, Bring flow’rs of the rarest, From garden and woodland And hillside and vale; Our full hearts are swelling, Our glad voices telling 6
The praise of the loveliest Rose of the vale. O Mary! we crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May, O Mary! we crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May.
The Cathedral Gift Shop
Offering Wonderful Gifts for All Occasions
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hen Elizabeth Johnson and her husband, David, arrived at the Christ the King parish office for a meeting, Elizabeth had no idea that she would be leaving with a ministry that has enabled her to share God’s love with parishioners and guests. Elizabeth, along with a team of dedicated volunteers, operates the Christ the King Gift Shop that sits in a small nook in the church. The hours are before and after the Saturday vigil Mass, as well as all the Sunday Masses. The shop offers a wide variety of Catholic items, such as rosaries, crucifixes, sacramental gifts for celebrations like First Communion, as well as saints medals, saints prayer cards, Bibles, journaling books, and baby gifts. There will be a variety of items on hand that are perfect for Mother’s Day gifts. How Elizabeth came to this ministry is a story unto itself. When she and David were waiting for a meeting to begin, Katie Sheppard, Director of Advancement, began chatting with them. Then Katie asked Elizabeth, “I have a question — would you want to run the Gift Shop?” “I said, ‘Let me pray on it,’” Elizabeth says. “But Katie said, ‘I need to know now. Today is the deadline for the Stewardship Renewal, and I don’t have the Gift Shop in it.’ I said, what if I said ‘no?’ and Katie said, ‘We’d take it down.’ So, I said ‘yes.’ I didn’t want it to close. It just kind of happened.” Elizabeth may have been influenced by the large crocheted portrait of Jesus that was standing in the parish office at the time. It has been dropped off at the office by an unknown donor, and now, as Elizabeth says, “it kept staring at me.” When Katie said Elizabeth could have the portrait, she accepted it. The portrait now hangs in the Gift Shop. “It’s kind of like Jesus is watching over everything,” Elizabeth says. As patrons look over the items for sale,
Elizabeth and the volunteers have the opportunity to teach the meaning of the items. “There are stories behind those things, and there are meanings behind things,” Elizabeth says. “We give away little medals, and when kids can say a prayer, like the Our Father or Glory Be, they get a coloring book. It’s beautiful to hear them.” Plans are being made to have custom items available, such as rosaries and pocket coins, available only at our Gift Shop. The Gift Shop has been closed for two years as a result of pandemic restrictions. When Katie asked Elizabeth if she would take over the operation, Katie knew that Elizabeth often shopped at a Catholic book store in town and would be familiar with items to sell. “She’s really taken it from a closet to something that’s open each weekend,” Katie says. “Merchandise just spills out the door. She’s always looking for new things to purchase. It’s continued on back cover
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299 Colony Blvd. | Lexington, KY 40502 cathedralctk.org | (859) 268-2861
The Cathedral Gift Shop
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really become a stopping point for people coming out of Mass. They stop, talk and shop. It’s become such an evangelization tool for the parish. “She has so much energy and enthusiasm,” Katie adds. “She is evangelizing and teaching while she’s selling and meeting so many people.” Elizabeth attributes much of the shop’s success to the volunteers. “I have volunteers who really help to get it up and running,” she says. “They’ve been very helpful. One volunteer told me, ‘I’ve had so many
graces since I started working here!’” The shop has been blessed and Elizabeth is working to have it dedicated to the Blessed Mother. “We’d like to do that,” Elizabeth says. “There is a sculpture of Mary right above the shop.” Elizabeth invites all to stop in before or after weekend Masses to see what is available. “The best gifts are God gifts,” she says. “It’s a privilege to do this. Anything being done for God is a privilege.”
Anyone who would like more information about items available at the Gift Shop may contact Elizabeth Johnson at 317-408-2794 or bethtsky@gmail.com.
LITURGY SCHEDULE
Saturday Vigil - 5:00 p.m.|Sunday - 7:30 a.m.; 9:00 a.m.; 11:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Daily (Monday to Saturday) - 8:00 a.m.|(Monday to Friday) - 5:30 p.m. Reconciliation: Wednesday 4:45 - 5:20 p.m., Saturday 3:45 - 4:45 p.m. | First Sunday of the month 8:30 a.m. and 10:15 a.m.