Preparing for Worship







Peace!

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

On Pentecost we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit with her seven-fold gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude (or courage), knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.  These gifts come to us with an invitation to prayerfully continue the discernment process we began at this year’s General Assembly. The gifts come to us with an invitation to life and challenges us, like the members of the early Church, to say yes to all God has in store for us. This Spirit of God comes to us with the surging power of love, which has the power to disorient us and shake us out of our complacency.

St Augustine reminds us that it is this unceasing love at the heart of the Trinity that descends on us at Pentecost and imbues us with this same love which unites the Trinity, and has the power to unite us a Church in our witness to the world of this ancient message of God’s all inclusive love.

At our recent General Assembly the Holy Spirit moved us to renew our commitment to proclaim to the whole world that God’s love in non-discriminatory, that we of CACINA are inspired by the Holy Spirit, in this time and place, to proclaim a message of peace and welcome home to people who are searching for an authentic Catholic expression of faith.

We are moved by the Holy Spirit at this Pentecost, with faith and courage, with understanding and piety, with counsel and knowledge, and with wisdom and fear of the Lord to go out to the whole world with this message of God’s powerful and disorienting love. 

At this Pentecost, we of CACINA are:

• inspired to strive to be a holy people and to bring his holiness to fruition in our individual lives and our parish communities
• Called to receive this grace and to share it with all whom we meet;
  
• challenged, like Peter and John, to proclaim the healing power of the name of Jesus (Acts 3:6), to say to the disinvested, come home, and to the oppressed that there is liberation in CACINA’s expression of our theology; and most importantly,
• Commissioned to be living witnesses to the power of God’s love moving in our Church and our lives.

At this Pentecost let us renew or covenant to each other, to our Mission, and to Our Church. Let us hold the world and each other in our prayers and ask for the grace of the seven-fold gifts to truly live our anthem; “All are welcome, All are welcome, in this place”.

Given Under or Seal and Signature on the Feast of Pentecost, Anno Domini 2009

The College of Bishops of the Catholic Apostolic Church in America


Greetings and Announcements

Hello Everyone and Peace!

I am hoping you all had a good week, filled with God’s blessings.
I am excited about the many activities we have coming up in the month of June and am hoping many of you can join us for some or all of our adventures.

• June 1 at 6:00 our regular Parish Council Meeting and pot-luck dinner at Stephanie and Meghan’s;
• June 7 our Parish will have a table and a presence at the Asbury Pride Festival from 10:00 A.M. to 6:00.P.M. please come out and support us and stop by and say hello if you are there.
• June 10 our first “Movie and Chat” night at 7:00 P.M.
• June 13 our first Paris Picnic at the rectory on Mellon Ave in West Orange form 3:00 P.M.
• June 18 our Recover Mass at St. George’s in Maplewood.

We are trying to start a parish choir, and thought we could begin meeting immediately after Mass. So, please plan on attending our first meeting this Sunday.

Some updates:

• Robert has sent out a very nice “We miss you letter”, and has gotten a response back.
• Geety is still waiting for any suggestions for website revisions.
• Geety and Robert have merged the e-mail list and we now have over 300 names. Geety will now be responsible for sending out the Parish Notes
• We renewed the ad. in the local papers and I placed St. Francis on the Yellow Pages.com
• Looks like we have agreement on St. Francis leading the way for a inter-faith and ecumenical prayer service for 2010 Asbury Pride Festival.

As many of you know I have been named the Vicar for Ecumenism and Communications for CACINA. Below is a statement reflecting our ecumenical activities to date. Please, if any one has any interest in ecumenism, I would welcome the help.






May 26, 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Grace and Peace of God the Father, the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all!

At our last College of Bishops’ conference call, the bishops asked if I would write to the whole Church an outline of our Ecumenical strategies. Our primary goal is to work with other credible Faith communities to build a viable and legitimate alternative voice for Catholics who value the essential Traditions, and differ with the Rome’s merging of theology with unquestioning compliance. Our hope is to take the lead in developing a reputable body of committed Faith communities who can develop pastoral, theological, and ecclesial forums for dialogue, which might result in the establishment regular meetings or conferences for addressing shared concerns for strengthening our non-Vatican Catholic communities. Following is a four-point strategy for moving forward in these ecumenical efforts to: 

1. Communicate to the larger non-Vatican Catholic Communities that CACINA would like to participate in developing a credible alternative voice to Vatican Catholicism, in a non-adversarial dialogue.
2. Strengthen communication initiatives and practices that enable CACINA and different Independent Catholic jurisdictions to act together to build community.
3. Support communication practices advancing ecumenism through representing religious and cultural difference in a dialogic format
4. Participate in selective specialized ecumenical agencies: Project Ploughshares, ICCC, NCC and the Conference of North American Old Catholic Bishops

Bishop Carl has nicely summarized the efforts of the Office for Ecumenical Affairs to date, and so I include the summary here:

George has been very busy on the Ecumenical front. 
Under his stewardship:

• A dialog has started with the ECC  Web site: http://www.ecumenical-catholic-communion.org/ Given our similarities and our basic agreements on important points of theology we are drafting a  joint statement of inter-communion
• Numerous others have started coming out of the woodwork (bishops etc)
• Membership in the World Council of Churches is under consideration
• Membership in the ICCC, the International Council of Community Churches is again under consideration. Here is their web site: http://www.icccusa.com The ICCC has links to the National and World Council of Churches and the Churches Uniting in Christ.
• CACINA is looking at hosting convocation of some sort in the fall to bring us all together.
• A Letter inviting an ecumenical dialog was developed and sent out, and to date we have had four positive responses.

Please accept this as our invitation to pray for the ecumenical efforts of the Church and to participate at any level you can with our reaching out to others in the spirit of Christian unity. I welcome any suggestions or ideas you may have for opportunities for ecumenical involvement. I can best be reached at georgelucey@hotmail.com or by phone at 973-731-7765.


Your Servant in Christ,

+George R. Lucey, FCR
Vicar for Ecumenical Affairs.



Here is a very nice letter of welcome form our new diocesan bishop, Francisco Betancourt:

                                                  
                                               


May 27, 2009   


Dear Sisters and Brothers,


Peace be with you.   I am grateful to our God that the faith community of St. Francis of Assisi has decided to become a parish in the Catholic Apostolic Church in North America. I welcome you and embrace you as we begin our journey together. I know in my heart that we will continue to reach out to those who have been made to feel unworthy of the love of God.

Bishop George Lucey, both through our meetings together and your parish notes, has shared with me your activities and ministries. Your spirit and willingness to serve all of God’s children is in keeping with the mission of our founder St. Charles of Brazil. Our church is stronger because of your talents, love and support.

I look forward to visiting with you and celebrating at the table of the Lord. Let us pray for one another that we might be ever faithful to our calling.
         

Your brother in Christ,

+Francisco
Bishop Francisco J. Betancourt, FCR
Diocesan Bishop of the Little Portion


Save the Date!

I am pleased to announce that the following candidates will be ordained to the Deaconate on Saturday, September 26, 2009, at Holy Rood church in Manhattan, New York at 11:00 AM. There will be a rehearsal the evening of the 25th, at 7:00 PM.
 
Candidates for the Deaconate:

• Patricia Smith
• Michael Theogene
• Walter Hillebrand

http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/HolyroodEpis.html
 
Please forward this email to all interested parties.
 
Thank you, +Frank

Remember our next Healing and Recovery Mass at St. George’s will be June 20  at 4:00 at St. George’s in Maplewood. Please try and join us. It is a quiet and gentle time for us to ask God to enter into the brokenness of our lives and move in healing ways.

I am hoping you can help me spread the word about our Mission. I have taken Internet ads. Out on Craig’s List and Orange Soda. I have a bit of an Internet presence on the WWW, but could use all of your help getting the message to others about our Mission.

I know in some Protestant communities they ask each member of the congregation to bring a friend. Let’s try this for the next couple of weeks, eh!

We still need some help with the Liturgy and if anyone is interested in helping with the liturgical planning, please let Geety know at: geetyoscar@gmail.com
 
If anyone is interested in helping with the Mission Notes, please let me our Geety know. Again, any announcements please forward them to me or Geety.
 

Intercessions:

We pray that the spirit of god may breathe fresh life into our Church, to renew and nourish it so that it remains relevant and meaningful to a modern world.
Lord in your mercy, Hear our Prayer.

We pray for that same outpouring in our own lives so that we may remain faithful to God’s word and proclaim that message to others who are yet to hear it. We pray especially for those from our parish who are most in need of your mercy
Lord in your mercy, Hear our Prayer.

We pray for those who feel cheated, lonely, depressed, those imprisoned and those suffering in mind or body.
Lord in your mercy, Hear our Prayer.

In this  week, we pray for those throughout the world for whom even the most simple existence and standard of living is a constant struggle.
Lord in your mercy, Hear our Prayer.

We pray for those who have died, for those whose anniversaries occur at this time, and for those who have died suddenly or tragically at the hands of others.
Lord in your mercy, Hear our Prayer.

We now ask Mary to intercede for us in all our prayers as we say Hail Mary...
We now pray silently for all our own intentions.

God our Father, we thank you for the gift of the Spirit that lives within us, and we ask you to listen to all our prayers through the intercession of Jesus Christ, your son, who lives and reigns with you for ever and ever. Amen.

visit our website (www.stfrancisnj.org)

973-731-7765