What's Happening at St. Helens Catholic Church this week !?!

Confession- 30 minutes before Mass and Mass is at the Rectory Chapel 423 NE Grattan Street unless otherwise stated. (Please call ahead to confirm days and times for any event: (904)- 742-9781

Abstinence

Abstinence means refraining from eating the meat from mammals or fowl, and soup or gravy made from them. Fish is allowed, hence Fridays are known as "Fish Fridays." Traditionally, the laws of abstinence apply to all aged 7 and over.

Partial Abstinence

Meat and soup or gravy made from meat may be eaten once a day at the principle meal.

Fasting

Fasting is the taking of only one full meal (which may include meat) and two smaller, meatless meals that don't equal the large one meal. No eating between meals is allowed, but water, milk tea, coffee, and juices are OK. Meat is allowed at one meal (assuming abstinence isn't also expected on a given day). Traditionally, everyone over 21 years of age and under 59 years of age is bound to observe the law of fast.

Week of May 22nd-May 28th

Monday 22nd: Within The Octave

Mass 8:30 am

Rosary After Mass

Mass 6:00 pm

Altar And Rosary Society 3:00pm

Tuesday 23rd: Within The Octave

Mass  - 8:30 am

                                                                                                                                      Rosary After Mass                         

Hospital Visitation and Shut-ins

Altar And Rosary Society 3:00pm

Wednesday 24th: Within The Octave

Mass-8:30am

Rosary After Mass

Altar And Rosary Society-3:00pm

Mass 6:00pm / Bible Study 7:00pm: The Book Of Joshua

Thursday 25th: Octive Day Of Ascension/Saint Gregory VII/St Urban

Mass -8:30am

Rosary After Mass

Chrysostom Bible Institute 9am-12pm

Altar And Rosary Society-3:00pm

Mass 6:00pm / Catechism Classes 7:00pm

Friday 26th: Saint Philip Neri Abstinence

Mass -8:30am

Rosary After Mass

Chrysostom Bible Institute 9am-12pm

Altar And Rosary Society-3:00pm

6:00pm  Mass

Rosary After Mass

Parish Meal (Soup and Salad) 7:00pm

Saturday 27th Vigil Of Pentecost/Saint Bede

Mass 9:00am

Rosary After Mass

Soup and Sandwich 12:00pm

Door to Door Visitation 1:00-3:00pm

Sunday 28th Pentecost Sunday

Mass 9:00am

Catechism Classes-10:00am

Home Visits For Communion 11:00am

Ascension

This Holy day of Obligation, 40th day of Easter, commemorates Christ's Ascension into Heaven from Mount Olivet 40 days after He rose from the dead (Mark 16:14-20). After the Gospel is sung, the Paschal Candle, lit from the New Fire of the Easter Vigil, is extinguished to symbolize the departure of Christ (if you use a Paschal candle at home, it should be put away today, too).

The story of Our Lord's Ascension and His foretelling of the Pentecost to come is recounted most fully by Luke in in Acts 1:1-11:

The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, of all things which Jesus began to do and to teach, Until the day on which, giving commandments by the Holy Ghost to the apostles whom he had chosen, he was taken up. To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion, by many proofs, for forty days appearing to them, and speaking of the kingdom of God. And eating together with them, he commanded them, that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father, which you have heard (saith he) by my mouth. For John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence.

They therefore who were come together, asked him, saying: Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? But he said to them: It is not for you to know the times or moments, which the Father hath put in his own power: But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had said these things, while they looked on, he was raised up: and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments. Who also said: Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven. Then they returned to Jerusalem...

He ascended to be glorified with the Father, to sit at the Father's right hand, to rule as King of Kings, to send us the Holy Ghost, and, as Hebrews 1:1-2 says, to be our High Priest Who

is set on the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens, A minister of the holies, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord hath pitched, and not man.

And He ascended to prepare a place for us. St. John recounts in the first 3 verses of the fourteenth chapter of his Gospel that after the Last Supper, Our Lord told His disciples:

Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to myself; that where I am, you also may be.

Glorious promise to those who believe and obey! And there is something else most splendid about the Ascension: Christ foretold it, and in such a way as to teach the Apostles of the miraculous nature of the Eucharist. In John 6:56-58, we read:

For My Flesh is meat indeed: and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me.

Immediately after hearing these words, some of His disciples are scandalized -- some even to the point of walking away from Him. Jesus then said to them that they would know His words are true when they will see an obvious miracle with their own eyes -- His Ascension. Verses 62-63:62

But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you? If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?

As to the place of His Ascension, the Golden Legend, written in A.D. 1275 by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, has this to say:

As to the first he ascended from the mount of Olives by Bethany; the which mountain, by another relation, is said the mountain of three lights. For by night on the side of the west it is lighted of the fire that burneth in the Temple, which never is put out ne quenched. On the morning it is light of the orient, for she hath first the rays of the sun before it shineth in the city, and also it hath great abundance of oil that nourisheth the light, and therefore it is said the hill of three lights.

Unto this hill Jesu Christ commanded his disciples that they should go. For on the day of his Ascension he appeared two times, one time to eleven disciples that ate in the hall where they had supped with him. All the apostles and the disciples and also the women, abode in that part of Jerusalem which is called Mello, in the mountain of Sion, where David had made his palace. And there was the great hall arrayed and ordained for to sup, whereas Jesu Christ commanded that they should make ready for to eat the Paschal Lamb, and in this place the eleven apostles abode, and the other disciples, and the women abode in divers mansions there about.

And when they had eaten in this hall, our Lord appeared to them and reproved them of their incredulity. And when he had eaten with them, and had commanded them that they should go to the Mount of Olivet on the side by Bethany, he appeared again to them, and answered to them of the demands that they made to him indiscreetly, and with his hands lifted he blessed them; and anon before them he ascended unto heaven.

Of the place of this ascension saith Sulpicius, Bishop of Jerusalem, and it is in the Gloss. For there was edified a church in the place where were made the signs of his ascension. Never sith [afterwards] might be set there any pavement, it could not be laid ne set but anon it issued out, and the stones of the marble sprang into the visages of them that set it. And that is a sign that they be stones on which Christ passed upon, which lie in the powder and dust, and abide for a token and sign certain.

The footprints said to be His are now enclosed in a shrine called the Chapel of the Ascension near the top of the mountain. The original building was destroyed by the Persians in A.D. 614, but was rebuilt by Crusaders. The Moslems took control of the building in the 13th century and transformed it into a mosque, walling in the arches, and adding a dome.

Note that the station church for the Feast of the Ascension is S. Pietro in Vaticano.

Customs

As to customs, it is traditional to eat some sort of bird on this day, in honor of Christ Who "flew" to Heaven. If you live in a hilly or mountainous area, climbing the hills in commemoration of Jesus and the Apostles' climbing the Mt. of Olives, whence Jesus ascended to Heaven, is customary. Putting the two together, a picnic that includes some sort of bird and eaten on a hill or mountain would be a perfect way to spend the day.

In some parts of Italy (Tuscany, for ex.) there is the interesting custom of catching crickets on this day. Families will have a picnic while the children look for crickets, which are said to bring blessings (as they are seen to do in the East, too) -- especially if they still sing when taken home in little cricket cages. Back in the day, a man would adorn his beloved's doors with flowers on this Feast, and give her a cricket cage, too. I have no idea as to how crickets came to be associated with the Ascension, but the Feast is also known in parts of Italy as "La Festa del Grillo" ("the Feast of the Cricket"). Now this custom usually takes place on the Sunday after Ascension Day, and caged crickets are sold so that children can release them -- but crickets can be kept as singing pets, too!

Something else wonderful happens in Italy on the Feast of the Ascension and the days following: in Venice, there is a clock tower in the Piazza San Marco. This marvelous clock, made in A.D. 1499 (and recently restored) indicates not only the minutes and hours, but the days, months, Zodiacal signs, and phases of the Moon as well. At the top of the tower are two large figures known as the Moors ("Mori"), who signal the hour by striking a large bell. Underneath them is a large, golden lion -- the symbol of St. Mark, patron of Venice. Underneath this is a niche which holds a figure of Our Lady and her Son. Twice a year -- on the Feast of the Epiphany and during the festivities surrounding the Ascension (known as "la Festa della Sensa" in Venice) -- doors on either side of Our Lady open up, and out come the three Magi, led by an angel. The angel and Kings make their way around Our Lady and Jesus, the angel regaling them with his trumpet, and the Kings bowing and removing their crowns. 1

Also on this day, a very old civic ritual is re-enacted in this city. The Ascension had always been an important Feast to the Venetians: in A.D. 1000, the Doge left on this Feast Day to aid the Dalmatians who were being threatened by the Slavs. This led to Venetian security and became celebrated annually with a blessing of the sea. Then, in A.D. 1177, the Doge helped bring about a peace between Barbarossa and the Papal States. Pope Alexander III was so grateful for the Doge's service that he sent a blessed ring as a sign of the sovereignty that the Doge and his successors will have perpetually over the sea. The blessing of the sea turned into a "marriage with the sea," and since that time, the Doge of Venice would board an ornate, gilded boat (the Bucintoro, or Bucentaur) and be rowed to the lagoon in front of the church of San Nicolo del Lido, accompanied by clergy and government types, and with a procession of other decorated boats following behind. There, the Doge would throw a ring into the waters while saying the words "Desponsamus te mare, in signum veri perpetuique dominii," which mean, "We marry you, oh sea, as a symbol of perpetual dominion." Now the mayor throws the ring, thereby uniting that beautiful city with the sea... (See paintings of the Clock Tower and the voyage of the Doge on the bucintoro, painted by Francesco Guardi.)

Finally, it's common practice to begin a Novena tomorrow (Friday) -- the Novena to the Holy Ghost, in anticipation of the Feast of the Pentecost. This is the time during which the very first novenas was made, when Mary and the Apostles prayed from Christ's Ascension to the Pentecost, a period of nine days (Acts 1-2).