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Letter from Fr. Woody on 9/6/2023

Click here for Common Questions and Answers on the Partners in the Gospel Process

7/20/2023 https://archseattle.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Partners-CurrReality-min.pdf

Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.

Brothers and sisters, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.

No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;  there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.

Last week, Rosemary Adamski gave a wonderful appeal for the Annual Catholic Appeal. She quoted Mother Teresa, “I am a little pencil in the hand of a loving God, who is sending a love letter to the world.” She asked, "What kind of pencil am I and what is the love letter I am in this world? What kind of message is my life projecting and imprinting?"

To be sure, many in our congregation are not happy with how the Archdiocese has chosen to handle the priest shortage, to say nothing of the parishioner shortage. Nonetheless, here are six reasons to support the appeal:

Last Saturday I attended the Catholic Earth Day Summit at Seattle U. It started with Fr. James Martin’s Ten Messages from Laudato Si’:    A spiritual perspective of ecology is given. . . .

The point is, you don’t have to be one of the Eleven or take Holy Orders to be important to Jesus. You might even think you can run away from him. He loves you anyway and will come for you.

Each act of creation ends in the chorus, “God saw how good it was.”

Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but everyone for the interests of others. Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, who ... emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross

7/20/2023 Click here to view current reality video: https://vimeo.com/833426196

So now it’s your turn to take that seed of faith she sowed into you and spread to others. Seeds of love, faith, strength, wisdom hope, grace, humility, joy and so much more.

God sets aside only the proud. The rest of us sinners are all in line.”     Pope Francis in an Associated Press Interview in January, quoted by Cindy Wooden on usccb.org

Without listening together to the Spirit, he said, the church runs the risk of falling prey to ideological divisions. "But where is the Holy Spirit? Watch out, the Gospel is not an idea or an ideology, it is a proclamation that touches and changes your heart. But if you hide in an idea, you are making the Gospel a political party, an ideology or a social club."

The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. It seems that sin has two components: (1) it’s attractive and (2) it’s about us.

St. Therese currently serves over 44 zip codes.  Families travel from as far as Tacoma and Everett because the new evil is “pricing communities of color” out of the very area once designated ghetto enough for us to reside in.  But the community is still here, holding on within the walls of St. Therese classrooms.  

In 2023 emigration is still a hot topic in the United states. As we enter Black History Month, I wanted to draw attention and remind us of one of the most tragic moments in our country's history, the Back to Africa Movement and the American Colonization Society.