Wreath pins help Christians 'take 'back Advent' RENSSELAER, N.Y. (CNS) With small hand-crafted Advent wreath pins, parishioners at St. Joseph Church in Rensselaer are helping Christians across the country to "take back Advent." In the process they are restoring funds formerly generated by bingo for Rensselaer's Catholic school, St. Joseph's-St. John's Academy. Wearing the wreath pins, which feature one pink ribbon or flower and three purple ones, can serve as a reminder that the weeks before Christmas are a time of waiting for the coming of the Savior. Mercy Sister Julia Mary Werner, pastoral associate for administration, began the project two years ago when she and two parishioners made 300 Advent wreath pins to sell at the parish's annual Christmas craft fair. At $1 apiece the pins quickly sold out - and the following February Sister Werner began recruiting,more parishioners. "I thought if, this can work for 300, maybe itcan work for 20,000," she said. Since then, more than 70 parishioners have been working on the pins, some at home, some gathering one night a week at the parish hall. Once a month they gather for an all-day marathon session. _ Before each work session they pray, "Bless those who will wear these wreaths. By wearing them, may they enter more deeply into the Advent season and may they encourage others to travel with them the Advent
road to Christmas joy and peace." In 1997 the wreath pins, which are a little over two inches in diameter, came in only one style, featuring three purple bows and a pink one attached to the green circlet of artificial fir. Last year they added a second style, with pink and purple silk flowers. Some gift shops and fund-raising groups from other parishes and schools began buying the. pins in bulk for $1 apiece and reselling them for $2, expanding the market. By Advent last year, the group had made nearly 24,000 pins and sold more than 5,000 when The
Evangelist, Albany diocesan newspaper, did a feature story on the pins. Catholic News Service picked up the story and it was carried in other diocesan newspapers around the country. When that happened, "we were deluged with more orders than we could fill," Sister Werner said. Orders came in from at least 20 other states and as far away as Italy, Peru and Taiwan. Interest was not confined to Catholics. Orders came in from Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians. This year the parishio'ners have 30,000 pins ready to meet the demand. "We're getting orders now from
They're everywhere they can be to offer distractions.
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people who clipped the article out. through the Advent season and help of their paper last year and saved it," them prepare for Jesus' birth. said Jean Nolan, parish secretary. The wreath pins are attached to a JEFFREY E. SULLIVAN card with the message, "Christmas. FUNERAL HOME Let Advent take you there!" 550 Locust Street The card also has a short prayer Fall River, Mass, that wearers may say as they put the pin on, asking God to guide them Rose E. Sullivan WilIiamJ. Sullivan MargaretM, Sullivan
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A MODEL displays miniature Advent wreath pins that encourage Catholics to take back the season.
.Bishops say they're turned off by sounds of cell phones ~
lHEANCHOR- Diocese ofFall River-Fri., November 26, 1999
then a cell phone is not an appro- anybody, or anybody to be in . priate object. It is a distraction," contact with me, with that (level he added. of) urgency:' He said there was a need "to Bishop J. Kevin Boland of Savannah, Ga., said he has never develop an etiquette on cell By MARK PAmSON heard the electronic chirping of a phones, just as we've developed CATHOUC NEWS SERVICE cell phone at Mass. He noted that an etiquette on other subjects." WASHINGTON - When it doctors often use beepers that stay Bishop-designate George J. comes to the information super- silent but vibrate when a caller's Lucas, a St. Louis priest named in highway, America's Catholic bish- phone number is entered and mid-October to head the Diocese of Springfield, Ill., said he has a ops would prefer that cell phones those "are a good thing." pull off to the side of the road. He also recounted being at the cell phone, but "not on me. I tend Cardinal James A. Hickey of Kinsale Golf Club in County to think of telephone conversaWashington had weighed in on Cork, Ireland, where he saw a sign tions as a private thing. I don't the subject in a column earlier in at the first tee warning: "No cel- like to speak on the phone when other people can hear me." November in his archdiocesan lular telephones." Auxiliary Bishop Patrick J. newspaper: saying that church was "Obviousiy, you don't want to not the place for cell phones. be caught in the middle of your Zurek of San Antonio said that During the bishops' annual backswing when a cell' phone when he's heard cell phones ring fall general meeting in Washing- rings," he said. "If it's that signifi- during his homily, he used to tell ton, nearly every bishop infor- cant in golf, it should be even the congregation, "That gives me mally polled by Catholic News more significant in the context of five minutes more." "Of course, I never did," he Service had something to say the Mass." about -them, a sign that cell Auxiliary Bishop Nicholas J. added in an interview. "But that phone usage has grown to ubiq- Samra of the Melkite Diocese of usually stopped it. I think people Newton, Mass., said he's not only forget." uitous levels. Bishop Donald W. Trautman of heard cell phones ring several . Bishop Zurek used to have a Erie, Pa., a former chairman of the times at -Masses, but "it's even cell phone but no longer does, and bishops' Committee on the Lit- - happened during a synod of our now when he's on the road in a urgy, agreed with Cardinal. bishops. We had to ask them to small town, "I miss it," he said. shut them all off." . Retired Archbishop Daniel W. Hickey's view. "It happens all too often," la- Kucera of -Dubuque, Iowa, said "I know that they're becoming a problem in restaurants," he to.ld mented Bishop Donald W. Wuerl having a cell phone might have Catholic News Service, although of Pittsburgh, himself a cell phone been useful for safety reasons when traveling in a rural diocese. he's never heard a cell phone "go user. "I don't take it with me to meet- But with so much commuting off' during Mass. _ "If we are to have full, con- ings and events," he said. "I never time, he said, "car time is time to scious and active participation, felt I had to be in contac~ with be with the Lord."
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