St. Jude Award, Latin Class, and Sisters

From the Pastor:    St. Jude Award, Latin Class, and Sisters

       Next weekend we will celebrate the final Sunday of the Liturgical Year. Every year on this particular Sunday it is customary in our diocese that the Bishop bestows a St. Jude Award medal upon someone whom each pastor chooses, in recognition of important work done for the benefit of the parish, often with little to no recompense or fanfare. Time and time again the recipients are shocked as much as they are honored when they receive a letter inviting them to the ceremony. This year I chose an employee of the parish to receive the medal. He is a man whose value I knew nothing of when I first came to Epiphany. I had not expected to need his talents for I had done without them for years before at other parishes. Yet I was fortunate enough to have trusted the advice and pleading of others who assured me of his great worth and so I gave him a part-time job. It was a good decision. Perhaps it was a wise one, perhaps just a lucky one, but a good one nonetheless. You see, at my last two previous assignments, the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass was limited to the Low Mass. Once Bishop (now retired) Lynch saw the light, jumped on the Traditional bandwagon with great gusto and made Epiphany Tampa’s Center for the Traditional Latin Mass in order to give it greater exposure and make it available to far more people, I, for the first time, needed a schola so that we could also have Sung Masses. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Anders Bergmann, the director of the schola, is this year’s St. Jude Award recipient. I am very grateful for the hard work and dedication that it takes to train and lead the great schola he has put together. And God bless his wife, Katherine, who takes care of all of their children without his assistance while he is busy! If group awards were given out I would have asked for one medal for each member of the schola and family. The ceremony is open to anyone who wishes to attend. It will be held at the Cathedral of St. Jude the Apostle in St. Petersburg at 3:00 pm on Sunday, November 24. (FYI, here’s some background information on what a “schola” is from Britannica.com: “Schola cantorum, medieval papal singing school and associated choir, the ancestor of the modern Sistine Choir. According to tradition, the schola cantorum was established by Pope Sylvester I (d. 335) and was reorganized by Pope Gregory I (d. 604), but the first written mention of it dates from the 8th century. The purpose of the schola was to teach both singing techniques and the plainsong repertory, which was then learned by oral tradition. Under Pope Gregory the course of study was said to be nine years. In the gradual standardization of Western church chant, the schola’s musicians were a prime influence.”)
       On a different note, so to speak (or is that “so to chant”?), one of our parishioners has volunteered to teach another Latin class! This one is going to be different than our last one in that we are looking for families who want to learn Latin together. It should be quite different than any language class you have already taken elsewhere. It will be an attempt to make understanding the Latin used in the Mass become a fun family project, with multiple people of obviously varying ages and abilities all helping each other uncover the “secret code” of our liturgical tongue. Small families (around here that might mean fewer than five kids!) and individuals will be teamed up with others so you can come even if nobody else in your family or circle of friends wishes to join you. Watch for more information coming up soon and talk it up in the meantime.
       The last item for the day is a request for prayerful assistance for our girls entering into religious life. Last Lent the Epiphany Council of Catholic Women asked you to participate in their “Pennies for Semmies” campaign, encouraging you to pray for our seminarians and to make a monetary donation to help them with their expenses while they are in formation for the priesthood. This Advent the ECCW is asking you to participate in something very similar for our young women who are in formation to become Religious Sisters. They are calling this campaign “Cents for Sisters” and it will officially kick off in two weeks, so this notice is just a “heads up” to get you prepared. I am also using it as a request. I am much less informed about the needs of those entering into the first stages of Religious Life (whether they be girls discerning a call to be a Sister or Nun or boys looking at becoming a Brother) than I am about those young men discerning priesthood. If your child, male or female, has in the past or is now in some stage of Religious Life formation, I (and the ECCW) could use your input as to how best to help without overstepping bounds or getting in the way or seeming to ignore their real needs. We also want to be sure that we have the names of all of our parishioners who are in formation of one sort or another. So if you have good information to share, please contact either me or someone in the ECCW so that we can learn how best to support and encourage vocations.

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka
       

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