(The following is reprinted here for those who may
not have seen last weekend’s Bulletin because of the severe rainstorm.)
THE
EXECUTION OF TIMOTHY McVEIGH
My dear parishioners,
With profound reverence
for the victims, living and deceased, of the Oklahoma City bombing, and for
those who will mourn for them all of their days, I simply cannot understand how
the state killing of Timothy McVeigh makes any of our or the mourners’ lives
better. Justice? One life for one hundred sixty-eight is
certainly no moral equivalency. Another
set of parents, the McVeigh’s, mourning the loss of a child, life’s greatest
pain, won’t bring any of the victims back.
The way some in our land cheered the ritual of preparation for and the
execution itself especially saddened me.
And, if anyone thinks that justice would not have been served by life
imprisonment without the possibility of parole, they simply have never taken
the time to go beyond the surface and learn what penal life in these United
States is all about.
I respect your right to disagree with my
sentiments. I also believe that it is
important for you to know where your pastoral leader stands. As always, with love,
Monsignor
Masiello
The Community of Holy Trinity offers its
congratulations, prayers, and best wishes to Tracy Lyn Clark and Mark
Andrew Lannutti who entered into the holiness of married life in the Lord
Jesus Christ in our parish church on Saturday, June 16th.
A VOCATION REFLECTION
Today we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist who
heralded the advent of the Messiah. He
prepared the way for the Lord’s coming.
Today, the way of the Lord still needs to be proclaimed! Can you be a voice in this world for the
Lord? One way is by being a priest,
religious sister or brother. Think about it. For more information, call the
Vocations Office at 973-497-4365 or visit its web site at www.rcan.org., or see one of us, your priests,
sisters, deacon.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
The Children’s Program of the Elizabeth Coalition to
House the Homeless is presently looking for volunteers to assist with the
Children’s Summer Program. The summer
program will start Tuesday, July 10th and finish on Friday, August
17th. It will run Tuesday
through Friday, from 1:00 PM until 4:00 PM.
If you enjoy sharing your time with a child, or have
an interest in arts & crafts, sports, music or any other activity, and can
volunteer at least one afternoon a week during the summer, please contact Joanne Eash at 908-355-2060.
2002 MASS
BOOK
The 2002 MASS BOOK will OPEN on Tuesday, June 26th
at 7:00 PM (to 9:00 PM). The evening
time is meant to accommodate working schedules. In the interest of fairness to
all, and to allow for a greater choice of dates and time, NO INDIVIDUAL will be
permitted to take more than FIVE (5)
Masses on the opening night or any other time (ONLY ONE (1) OF WHICH CAN BE A SUNDAY MASS.)Your cooperation and
understanding are deeply appreciated!
OFFERTORY
COLLECTION - Owing to last weekend’s
severe rainstorm, no fair comparison can be made between this year and last
year’s collections. To those who worshiped last weekend and contributed $12,207.00, thank you, thank you, thank
you!
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
REGISTRATIONS - The Religious Education Office will be going on a summer schedule and
will be closed for new registrations until Tuesday, August 7th and
Wednesday, August 8th.
We are in need of catechists for our next school year
(September through April) for primary grades (grades PK through 5th)
on Sunday mornings (10:15 to 11:15 AM) and Monday and Tuesday afternoons (3:30
to 4:30 PM). We also need catechists
for our Jr. High program (grades 6,7,8) for Monday or Tuesday evenings (7:15-8:30
PM). If you can help us in this very
fulfilling ministry, please call the REO at 233-7455.
HOLY TRINITY HIGH SCHOOL 50TH REUNION - Arthur and
Nancy Zande are attempting to contact the Class of ‘52 for a reunion to be held
in June 2002. If you can help them make
contact, please call (H) 973-729-5063 or (O) 973- 697-2000.
CYO Summer Day Camp - CYO Youth and Young Adult Ministries will again be
sponsoring their annual Summer Day Camp.
“Camp” runs from Monday, June 25th until Friday, August 10th.
It is held at the Archdiocesan Youth
Center in Kearny. The Camp is open to children ages 5 to 12. Camp activities include athletic events,
arts and crafts, and computers, swimming, special guests, weekly trips and much
more. (Busing is available at an additional
cost from various churches throughout Union, Hudson, Bergen and Essex
Counties.) For more information, please
contact the Camp Office at 201-998-0088, ext. 816. Give your kids a wholesome camping experience, which will leave
them with a memorable and lasting impression.
THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST
“Your wife
Elizabeth will bear a son and you shall name him John. . .
He will go
before the Lord in the spirit
to prepare
a people fit for the Lord.”
TWO PROPHETIC STANDS
1. OUR
AMERICAN BISHOPS
Regarding
the Supreme Court’s Stenberg v. Carhart decision that declared Nebraska’s law
banning partial-birth abortion to be unconstitutional, the National Conference
of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) issued a statement strongly condemning the decision
and recommitting the U.S. Catholic bishops to the task of finding legal ways to
protect unborn children.
“In
Stenbert v. Carhart, a majority of five justices ruled that even the killing of
a child mostly born alive is protected by what the Court called ‘the woman’s
right to choose.’ This decision has
brought our legal system to the brink of endorsing infanticide,” the bishop’s
statement declares.
“Already
the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) has used
this decision’s expansion of the logic of Roe to attack congressional efforts
to reaffirm that a child completely born alive is a legal person....The
euphemism of ‘the right to choose,’ routinely used to avoid mentioning
abortion, is now being used to justify killing outside the womb,“ the statement
further points out.
“Our legal
system, and thus our national culture, is being pressed to declare that human
life has no inherent worth, that the value of human life can be assigned by the
powerful and that the protection of the vulnerable is subject to the arbitrary
choice of others. The lives of all who
are marginalized by our society are endangered by such a trend.”
2. THE “BATES
SEVEN”
New York
University recently honored seven students it expelled 60 years ago for an act
that N.Y.U. today calls “courageous.”
In the
1920s, 30s and 40s, many college athletic departments had a “gentlemen’s
agreement” that, if a game was scheduled between two schools and one of them
objected to black athletes participating, the opposing team would keep the
black players off the roster. Many
larger, prestigious northern universities - including Harvard, Rutgers, the
University of Michigan and N.Y.U. - complied so as not to embarrass their
mostly southern opponents.
In
November 1940, N.Y.U. was scheduled to play football against the University of
Missouri. Leonard Bates, N.Y.U.’s star
fullback, would not be allowed to play.
Seven students, appalled at their school’s complicity in such
discrimination, began circulating petitions, wore buttons and picketed the
university administration, chanting “Bates must play!” The protests increased when other black
basketball and track stars were forced out of athletic events.
N.Y.U.
resisted. Not only did Leonard Bates
not play, but the student leaders - known on campus as the “Bates Seven” - were
suspended for “circulating a petition without permission.” One of the seven,
Evelyn Maisel, a senior, was not able to graduate.
After
World War II, many universities, including N.Y.U., began dropping the
gentlemen’s agreement as pressure from students and politicians mounted. But the N.Y.U. protest in 1940 and 1941 was
the largest protest against the gentlemen’s agreements. The stand of the “Bates Seven” was one of the
first sparks of our nation’s civil rights movement that would blaze two decades
later.
At the
N.Y.U. dinner for the “Bates Seven” this spring, Naomi Rothschild, now 80, said
that this was the first positive acknowledgment she has received from her college
activism.” “When it happened, I got no
support from the school, no support from my family. For all these years I felt slightly guilty that maybe I had done
the wrong thing. Now maybe I see that
(we) didn’t do anything wrong.”
The almost forgotten stand of those seven N.Y.U.
students 60 years ago was a courageous, prophetic act. It is fitting that we remember such courage
today as we celebrate the birth of the last great prophet of Scripture - John
the Baptizer. Like John, we are called
to the work of the prophet - “one who proclaims.” By virtue of our baptisms, we are all called to be agents of
integrity, illuminators of the light of truth in every arena, consciences of
our homes, our schools, our workplaces.
Despite the “deserts” of doubt we find outselves wandering through,
despite the ridicule we must endure, despite the “grasshoppers” we may have to
swallow, God asks each one of us - whether we are parents, children, teachers,
students, presidents or football players - to be his prophets of compassion,
justice and foregiveness.
MASSES FOR
THE WEEK
SATURDAY, June 23rd
5:30 pm Elizabeth
Mary Marando - Family
SUNDAY, June 24th
7:30 am Pat
& Josephine Alteera - Sisters
9:00 Thomas Cunniff - Mary Cunniff
10:30 People of the Parish
12:00 Noon Regina
McGinley - Linda & Janice Collins
MONDAY, June 25th
7:00 am Bobbie
Jordan - John & Trisha McNulty
9:00 Mary Cunniff - Court Trinity 337
TUESDAY, June 26th
7:00 am Peter
Pinto - Wife, Theresa
9:00 Mary Cunniff - Ron Stanley
WEDNESDAY, June 27th
7:00 amMarguerite & William Wright - Family
9:00 Jenny Rapuano - Madeline &
Frank Garofano
THURSDAY, June 28th
7:00 am Edward
Demarais - Wife, Dorothy
9:00 Stack & Givley Families -
Catherine Gilvey-Manning
FRIDAY, June 29th
7:00 am Thomas
A. Griffith - Nora
9:00 Mary Cunniff - Mary Hand
SATURDAY, June 30th
8:30 am Joseph
Hofbauer - Daughter
5:30 pm Thomas
A. Griffith - Nora
SUNDAY, July 1st
7:30 am Robert
A. Babetski - Karen, Al, Erica & Natalie Pulido
9:00 Joseph Szeliga - Anita & Jack
Dazzo
10:30 People of the Parish
12:00 Noon Marion
Dillon - Marie & Anthony
BAPTISM at HOLY TRINITY
Parents must arrange for the
Baptism of their child. Please call the
Rectory (232-8137). Arrangements may also be made during pregnancy.
Baptismal Instruction - Both parents (at least one must)and
godparents are cordially invited to attend the Baptismal instruction, which must be completed before the Baptism
and which may also be done during pregnancy.
INSTRUCTION BAPTISM SUNDAY
MAY 29TH JUNE 10TH & 24TH
JULY 1ST JULY 22ND
AUGUST
5TH AUGUST 26TH
MARRIAGE
Couples should arrange their
pre-marriage preparation with one of the priests or deacons of the parish a year before the wedding.
To REGISTER AS A PARISHIONER, please call the Rectory number
(232-8137).
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