Saint Francis F rancis Xavier CATHOLIC CHURCH
Contents: 2 Living According
to God’s Will Forming a Conscience and Moral Code
3 As Summer
Winds Down, We Continue Building Our Relationship with the Lord
4 Xavier Kids Gearing
Up for Another Year of Faith Formation Fun
6 Pope St. Pius X:
A Modern Traditionalist
7 Xavier Teens
Program Gears Up for a New Year of Faith, Fellowship and Fun
AUGUST 2021
GREETERS MINISTRY: Welcoming Parishioners and Visitors as Family
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ere at St. Francis Xavier, we receive many visitors for Mass each Sunday who join our community in joyful prayer. We are blessed to have the members of our Greeters Ministry — more than 50 strong — who are present at every Mass to make sure all who enter our doors are welcomed and made to feel part of our community. Angela Weiser coordinates the general ministry, while Fay Cypret coordinates the Greeters at the Spanish Mass. There typically are four to six greeters at each Mass on Saturdays and Sunday mornings, and at the 1 p.m. Spanish Mass on Sunday afternoons. Not only do they welcome everyone, but they also distribute bulletins. “We greet everyone as they come into Mass, and we want to make newcomers feel welcome,” Angela says. “What’s nice is we try to get to know people and call them by continued on page 5
Saint
Francis Xavier CATHOLIC CHURCH
Living According to God’s Will Forming a Conscience and Moral Code
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s Christians, it is important that we recognize the difference between right and wrong — both morally and ethically. Sometimes, though, this line can become blurred. Many situations we encounter in our lives include variables that can leave us internally conflicted and unsure of how to move forward in accordance with God’s will. So, how do we work through these moral conundrums? One way is to develop a solid Christian conscience. A moral conscience exists in the heart of every individual. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking. Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed” (CCC 1777, 1778). Think of your conscience as the “angelic” version of yourself sitting on your shoulder, giving you sound advice. While everyone is blessed with a conscience, each individual has a responsibility to develop this conscience from the time they are young. Parents obviously play an important role in developing their children’s consciences. As the primary educators of their children on ethical issues and the Catholic faith, parents have a responsibility to teach virtue
to their children and help them to avoid fear, selfishness and pride. As we grow older, we take on the lifelong challenge of continually forming our own consciences, and establishing a moral code that enables us to make the proper judgments. One valuable tool in forming a conscience is the practice of introspection. “It is important for every person to be sufficiently present to himself in order to hear and follow the voice of his conscience” (CCC 1779). In contemporary society, where there are so many distractions and routines, it is extremely important that we take the time to look inward and truly listen to what our inner voice is telling us. Another way to ensure we are developing a good moral code is by conforming to the mind of Christ. God the Father gave us Christ, physically present on this earth and recorded in Sacred Scripture, as the ultimate example of what to do and how to behave according to God’s will. In turn, when we act in loving imitation of Christ, we are certain to make practical judgments of conscience. The next time you are faced with a moral dilemma, take some quiet time to look inward, weigh the positive and negative outcomes, and listen to the voice of your conscience. Read the Gospels for examples of Christ’s teachings. By making this a regular practice, you will find that the voice of your conscience will come in louder and more clearly than you may have initially expected.
The next time you are faced with a moral dilemma, take some quiet time to look inward, weigh the positive and negative outcomes, and listen to the voice of your conscience. Read the Gospels for examples of Christ’s teachings. By making this a regular practice, you will find that the voice of your conscience will come in louder and more clearly than you may have initially expected. 2
A LETTER FROM OUR PASTOR
As Summer Winds Down, We Continue Building Our Relationship with the Lord Dear Parishioners, know you don’t want to hear it, but the summer is coming to an end. I love summer in the parish as it’s a time of a lot of weddings, a lot of visitors, and the opportunity for parishioners, staff, and clergy to get away and rest. Leisure is an important aspect of life that we often undervalue. As we look ahead to the fall and the start of the OSU school year and the school year for our kids, we have many initiatives planned to continue to help you come to know the Lord Jesus and center your life on Him. For our young people, Xavier Kids and Xavier Teens are the places to be. For kids Pre-K through fifth grade, Xavier Kids (led by Jacob Farni) will be centered on a dynamic Sunday morning program centered on Jesus wherein kids will build a relationship with Him, make new friends, and have some fun. Xavier Kids will be Sunday mornings from 9:45-11 a.m. For our middle and high school students (grades 6-12), Xavier Teens on Sunday evenings will be a dynamic time to ask the big questions of life, build relationships, and grow in love of Christ and His Church. Under the leadership of
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Ashleigh Martin, Xavier Teens is a great blessing to our parish as it gives our young people rock-solid opportunities to encounter the Lord. Finally, I want to thank and encourage our Greeter Ministry. I hear from parishioners and visitors alike that our parish is very friendly. Let’s keep it up! Good cheer, kindness, and a warm welcome go a long way to helping visitors feel good about their visit and to help those fallen away from their faith to come back, and for regular parishioners to always know that their parish loves them and wants the best for them. If you’re interested in becoming a greeter, we’d love to have you! Let’s have a great August and focus this school year on encountering the Lord in new ways! In Christ,
Very Rev. Brian O’Brien Pastor, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church
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Saint
Francis Xavier CATHOLIC CHURCH
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XAVIER KIDS
t’s hard to believe that summer is quickly coming to a close. While our youngest parishioners prepare to say farewell to lazy days at the pool, family road trips, and school break, it’s the perfect time to look ahead to another fun-filled year of our Xavier Kids faith formation program! This past spring, Children’s Minister Jacob Farni brought a new and exciting way of presenting children’s catechesis to St. Francis Xavier by moving away from the traditional classroom setting and implementing a more dynamic and interactive program. “What we wanted to do was take a new approach to how we teach our kids our faith, and one of the big things was to get back to the basics,” Jacob says. “Our basic foundation is that God loves you, so our goal is to help the children have a deep conviction and belief that they are loved by God. With masks and social distancing, kids in kindergarten through fifth grade met for praise and worship, Bible lessons, and related skits and games. We really had a blast.” Group meetings — called Xavier Kids Live — take place on Sunday mornings about once or twice a month. These in-person gatherings are supplemented by Xavier Kids at Home videos made available on the parish YouTube channel. These videos mirror the topics and themes of the meetings, assisting parents in their role as first catechists in the home. Ref lecting on the first few months of the new Xavier Kids model, Jacob is thankful for the many blessings he has already seen poured out in this ministry. “One of the beautiful things is how much the Holy Spirit has worked some of these things out,” he says. “God has provided. We looked at Nativity Church in Maryland that does something similar and we use a program from 4
Children’s Minister Jacob Farni leads the fun at an Xavier Kids gathering.
New Spring, and both of those have helped me venture into this new form of catechesis. It has been great being able to take some good things from these other churches and take God’s love to these kids and see how much they are enjoying it. Seeing them together in community — COVID had broken everyone up and isolated families, so seeing them together again was amazing.” As with all of our ministries here at St. Francis Xavier, Xavier Kids wouldn’t be possible without the wonderful group of parishioners who have helped Jacob make this vision for faith formation a reality. The Xavier Kids ministry consists of three distinct teams. The technical team handles setup for the Xavier Kids Live events and ensures that the Xavier Kids at Home videos run smoothly. Small-group leaders help with the teaching portion of the morning when the children break into sections by age. Finally, the wellness team — or as Jacob likes to call it, the “Hype Squad” — checks kids in to the large-group meetings, monitors their needs throughout the event, and joins in all the fun!
GEARING UP FOR ANOTHER YEAR OF FAITH FORMATION FUN We hope all parishioners in Pre-K through fifth grade will come be a part of Xavier Kids this year. We look forward to coming together once more to learn about our Catholic faith and — most importantly — the deep and abiding love our Lord has for each and every one of us! “You’re not getting just the rules and what
we believe,” says Jacob of the Xavier Kids program. “It’s also, ‘Here is how God loves you, and here is how God asks you to love Him.’ It’s amazing because it’s joyful. It’s not just, ‘Do this, say this, pray this.’ It’s about how Jesus loves you and how you say you love Him back by how you live your life.”
Are you interested in learning more about Xavier Kids or volunteering as a team member? If so, please email Jacob Farni at jacob@sfxstillwater.org. Registration for this exciting faith formation program can be accessed through our parish website — https://www.sfxstillwater.org/.
GREETERS MINISTRY name. We try to make a personal connection with people so they feel this is their home.” Fay established the Greeters at the Spanish Mass when she realized more Hispanic families were attending St. Francis Xavier. As a member of one of the first Spanish-speaking families in Stillwater, Fay appreciates how much a warm welcome can mean. “Greeters Ministry is one of the easiest things to do,” Fay says. “This way, you get to know each other at church.” By making that personal connection with others, our greeters are helping to build a desire for parishioners to become active in stewardship. As greeters, the ministry members embody stewardship themselves, as they uphold the first parish stewardship pillar of Hospitality. Our parish benefits from their giving of their time and talents by encouraging others to join parish ministries — and perhaps become greeters themselves.
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“I think people feel more welcome and are more willing to help and be involved, as well as attend Mass more regularly,” Angela says. In addition, Fay has been able to witness firsthand how our parishioners’ stewardship of giving their treasure has helped others in need. “We had a couple families who needed help and we were able to assist them through our Mother Teresa Fund,” Fay says. “Or, in some cases, I’ll have them talk to Father about getting help.” Those in the Greeters Ministry find that their own faith is bolstered by their outreach. Becoming a greeter is quite easy. Angela welcomes any parishioner who expresses an interest in joining the ministry and will work to put the new member on the schedule. “It helps me feel more connected to the church,” Angela says. “I have met a lot of people I wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Anyone interested in becoming a member of the Greeters Ministry may call Angela Weiser at 405-372-9111. Those interested in joining the Hispanic Greeters Ministry may call Fay Cypret at 405-372-9304. 5
Saint
Francis Xavier CATHOLIC CHURCH
POPE ST. PIUS X:
A MODERN TRADITIONALIST
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n Aug. 21, the Church commemorates the feast of a great saint — St. Pius X, the peasant boy who became the Vicar of Christ. St. Pius X is a wonderful saint for our times because he effectively and definitively worked for a balance between upholding the Tradition and Faith of the Church and adapting to the Modern Age. St. Pius X — Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto — was born in 1835, one of eight children in an impoverished peasant family. He pursued God’s call on him to the priesthood from an early age. Even as a young priest, he possessed great personal and pastoral skills. In addition to his deep holiness and virtue, St. Pius had a passion for defending and preserving the truth of the faith, which he carried with him into his pontificate. As pope, he gave as his motto: “Instaurare Omnia in Christo” — “to restore all things in Christ” — a mission proclaimed not a moment too soon. Already in Europe, secular governments, social institutions, and the mass media were driving the faith out of public life and education, all the while upholding individual freedom — understood as unlimited license — as the ultimate good. Worst of all, these philosophies had made their way into the minds of many clergy and Catholic laity, who claimed that modern science had discredited many dogmas of the Church. They proposed a new Christianity based what they called the “religious experience,” a continually changing and evolving human experience that would in turn continually transform the meaning of Catholic teachings. The problem was that the new teachings proposed by these modernists 6
contradicted the very foundations of the faith established by Jesus Christ. Fortunately, the Holy Father saw through the modern theories immediately and exposed the false doctrines, all the while acting with extreme discretion and pastoral charity. Pope Pius X reminded us that God, the Author of both faith and reason, and in Whom there is no contradiction, cannot allow science and true religion to contradict. Moreover, he declared that all the essential teachings of the Catholic faith and of Scripture could be defended rationally, and he encouraged the faithful to study the faith and read the Scriptures daily. While Pius X spent much of his pontificate defending Catholic dogma from the threat of Modernism, he recognized the need for legitimate modern reforms within the Church. For instance, he initiated the codification of Canon Law, because the laws of the Church had little organization up to that time. He reformed the administrative offices of the Church. He also reformed the Liturgical Calendar, giving precedence back to the Sunday liturgies, which were too often being trumped by celebration of the daily saint’s feast. Pius X initiated a renewal in liturgical music, as well, bringing back Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony to their primary place within the liturgy. Two of this saint’s most noted acts are reassigning the time of First Communion of children to the age of reason (about 7 years), and advising and promoting daily Communion, saying, “Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to heaven.”
Xavier Teens Program
Gears Up for a New Year of Faith, Fellowship and Fun
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he ability of our parish youth to go into their schools, sporting events, and places of employment and answer questions about the Catholic faith is important. Thanks to our parish Xavier Teens program — formerly EDGE and LifeTeen — youth will be ready to share the Catholic faith in their circles. Although the name has changed, the 6:30 p.m. Sunday night gatherings remain. Director of Youth Ministry Ashleigh Martin invites all youth in sixth to 12th grade to check out Xavier Teens. The first session for this school year is Sunday, Sept. 12, in the parish Youth Room. All youth start together for a game or icebreaker, then break into groups based on grade for the lesson, and break into smaller groups to discuss the topic. “The small-group time is a favorite for the youth,” Ashleigh says. Ashleigh wants all youth to know their friends are welcome, and attendees need not be Catholic. “Some kids struggle with inviting their friends,” she says. “Their friends think the Catholic Church is different, and they don’t know about it.”
A huge goal of Xavier Teens is to equip students to share the faith and to be trained in apologetics. “We want the youth to be able to evangelize to their friends,” Ashleigh says. “That is so important here at our parish.” Ashleigh has enjoyed leading our youth programs since took over as Youth Director about five years ago. “I do this because of the youth,” she says. “I love being with them. I feel rejuvenated when I am with these kids, and I learn so much from them.” In particular, Ashleigh is impressed by the questions that the youth pose about the Catholic faith. She finds that she continues learning about the faith herself, as she works to provide youth with the correct answer. “Learning about the faith doesn’t end when we end Religious Education,” she says. “We have to keep building on that and help them grow in their faith.” There are also other events planned throughout the year, like the Steubenville Youth Conference, day and overnight retreats, continued on back cover
Sunday evening Xavier Teen Nights include all kinds of fun activities.
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Saint
Francis Xavier CATHOLIC CHURCH
St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church 711 N. Country Club Rd • Stillwater, OK 74075 Web: www.SFXStillwater.org Phone: (405) 372-6886
XAVIER TEENS PROGRAM continued from page 7
a canoe day trip, and a Colorado ski trip. The high school youth also go on a summer mission trip to Mound Bayou, Miss. After the 2020-2021 school year, this year will bring some return to normalcy, and Ashleigh is most thankful for that. Last year, most sessions were held in-person with an online option. The topics were based on real things youth want to know about, like how to talk to atheists, dealing with drug and alcohol abuse, and exorcisms. Although the program and events were a bit different, Ashleigh is thankful students were able to share the recorded messages with family. There were even people who don’t have kids at home who watched and enjoyed the lessons. This year, there will not be an online option. Ashleigh invites adults to get involved in this year’s programming. Help is always needed for small-group time. All questions and discussion topics are provided.
If you would like more information, please contact Ashleigh Martin at ashleigh@sfxstillwater.org. Visit https://www.sfxstillwater.org/youth-ministry6th-8th to sign up for Flocknote.
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