Download December 20, 2015

“Blessed are you who
believed that what
was spoken to you
by the Lord would
be fulfilled.”
Luke 1:45
St. Lambert Parish
Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord
December 20, 2015 ~Fourth Sunday of Advent
Page 2
St. Lambert Parish
Masses for the Week
4th Sunday of Advent
December 20, 2015
O LORD of hosts, look down from heaven and see;
take care of this vine, and protect
what your right hand has planted.— Psalm 80:15–16
Saturday, December 19
5:00 † Ed Nemmers
Sunday, December 20
8:00 † Josef Kepes
10:00 † Dscd. Members of the Lantin/Lojo Families
12:00 People of St. Lambert
Monday, December 21
7:15
† Dscd Members of Eufracio Family
Tuesday, December 22
7:15 † Chau Tran
Wednesday, December 23
7:15 † Chau Tran
Christmas Eve - December 24
7:15
People of St Lambert
5:00 † Surath Gunawardana
9:30
Christmas Carols
10:00 † Pedro & Victoria Alvarado
Christmas Day - December 25
8:00 † Gannon & Weides Families
10:00 † Pulido Hernandez
12:00 † Luis & Carlos D’Avis
Saturday, December 26
8:00 Donato Gonzales Jr.
5:00 † Dentzer & Poglitsch Families
Sunday, December 27
8:00 People of St. Lambert
READINGS FOR THE WEEK
Monday:
Sg 2:8-14 or Zep 3:14-18a; Ps 33:2-3, 1112, 20-21; Lk 1:39-45
Tuesday:
1 Sm 1:24-28; 1 Sm 2:1, 4-8abcd; Lk 1:46 56
Wednesday: Mal 3:1-4, 23-34; Ps 25:4-5ab, 8-10,
14; Lk 1:57-66
Thursday: 2 Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16; Ps 89:2-5, 27,
29; Lk 1:67-79
Friday:
Vigil: Is 62:1-5; Ps 89:4-5, 16-17, 27, 29;
Acts 13:16-17, 22-25; Mt 1:1-25 [18-25]
Night: Is 9:1-6; Ps 96:1-3, 11-13; Ti 2:11-14;
Lk 2:1-14 Dawn: Is 62:11-12; Ps 97:1, 6, 11 12; Ti 3:4-7; Lk 2:15-20
Day: Is 52:7-10; Ps 98:1-6; Heb 1:1-6;
Jn 1:1-18 [1-5, 9-14]
Saturday: Acts 6:8-10; 7:54-59; Ps 31:3cd-4, 6,
8ab, 16bc, 17; Mt 10:17-22
Sunday:
Sir 3:2-6, 12-14 or 1 Sm 1:20-22, 24-28;
Ps 128:1-5 or Ps 84:2-3, 5-6, 9-10;
Col 3:12-21 [12-17] or 1 Jn 3:1-2, 21-24;
Lk 2:41-52
NATURE RESTORED
Christ is born, that by his birth he might restore your
nature.
10:00 † Chester Kizior
12:00 Joseph Dunne Family
—St. Peter Chrysologus
Rectory
Pastor:
Religious Education :
8148 N Karlov Avenue
Skokie, IL 60076
Phone:(847) 673-5090
Rev. Richard Simon
[email protected]
Jonathan Rivera
saintlambertsyouthchurch
@gmail.com
St. Lambert Parish - Skokie, IL
E-mail:
Rev. Know-it-all:
www.rev-know-it-all.com
[email protected]
Deacon:
Mr. Chick O’Leary
Website:
Music Director:
www.StLambert.org
Mr. Steven Folkers
Sunday Masses:
Ministry of Care:
(5 PM Saturday) 8am, 10am, 12pm
Weekday Masses:
7:15 am (Mon-Fri) 8:00am on Sat.
Mrs. Carol Glueckert
(847) 674-6456
To Register as a Parishioner
Baptisms:
Third Sundays of the month
at 1:30 pm. Baptismal Prep
Class is the first Tuesday of
each month at the rectory.
Please call to register.
of St Lambert, please call
the rectory or email us.
Confessions:
Office Staff:
For Online Giving:
Debbie Morales-Garcia
[email protected]
Mr. George Mohrlein
Weddings:
Arrangements must be
made 6 months in advance.
Saturday at 8:30am
www.givecentral.org
Bulletin Guidelines:
Submissions should be
received 10 days preceding
the date of bulletin publication.
Send electronic formats to
[email protected].
December 20, 2015
Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord
The Reverend Know-it-all
“What I don’t know…
I can always make up!”
Dear Rev. Know it all,
I heard in a lecture at my church that
the whole story about Jesus being
born in Bethlehem was just
mythology. Could this be true?
Yours,
Nathaniel “Nat” Yvitei
Dear Nat,
I suppose it could be true, but I, for one, doubt it. To
understand what is going on here you have to go
back to the Age of Enlightenment. The
Enlightenment was a European philosophical
movement in the 18th century. The gulf between
the aristocracy and the poor reached a pping point
in Europe, and much of the hierarchy of the Church
seemed to be just part of the aristocra c
government. Reason, scien fic progress and the
ques oning of state and church authority were at
the heart of the enlightenment. In most countries
church and state were anything but separate. The
Enlightenment was all about free individual thought,
experience, and empirical knowledge. Religious
orthodoxy was par cularly mistrusted by the
philosophers of the enlightenment. So it was, that
the Bible, the sacrosanct text on which the culture
of the West was built, became fair game for cri cal
scholarship. The enlightenment began in 1715, the
year Louis XIV died and it exploded onto the
European and American stage in the years following.
The enlightenment begot the American Revolu on,
the American Revolu on begot the French
Revolu on which begot Napoleon which begot the
Franco Prussian War which begot the First World
War which begot the Russian revolu on which
begot the Second World War which begot the
Chinese Revolu on, etc. etc. When Napoleon spread
the Revolu on to much of the rest of the world, it
found its way into the established religious world as
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well. Catholicism was almost obliterated by the
French Revolu on, but survived because Napoleon
thought it wise to make peace with the pope. There
was no pope in non-Catholic northern Europe,
whose Chris anity was based on the principle of
sola scriptura, Bible alone. When the lens of the
enlightenment was focused on the text of scripture,
the result was earth shaking.
The enlightenment philosophers did not easily
believe in things supernatural, and so discounted
the miraculous nature of the Chris an faith as a
remnant of Dark Age supers on. Combine Bible
Only theology and Enlightenment skep cism and
the Bible becomes problema c. In 1804, or
thereabouts, Thomas Jefferson, one of the great
lights of the Enlightenment in the Americas, wrote
“The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” also
called the Jefferson Bible, as represen ng the true
teachings of Jesus in which he cut out sec ons of
the New Testament. He removed all the miracles of
Jesus including the resurrec on and any passages
which supported the divinity of Jesus. He created a
New Testament acceptable to the most materialist
enlightenment thinkers. Fast forward two centuries
to the a ermath of World War I.
In the 1930’s, the post-World War I turmoil in
Germany produced Hitler as well as a movement for
a German Chris anity purified of its Jewish
influences. This movement in turn, produced the
“Ins tute for the Study and Eradica on of Jewish
Influence on German Church Life.” In 1941, the
Ins tute published “Germans with God: a German
Catechism.” It le out miracles, the virgin birth,
incarna on, resurrec on, and portrayed an Aryan
Jesus, just a human being who died martyred by the
Jews. They wanted to make the faith acceptable to
the Nazis, but the Nazis were opposed to
Chris anity even in its mildest most materialist
forms. The Nazifica on of the Bible was of a piece
with prevailing Chris an enlightenment thought
however. The enlightenment spawned numerous
a empts to conform Jesus to the prevailing poli cal
and cultural need, to create an acceptable form of
Chris anity that a well-educated post
enlightenment man could use to occupy his Sunday
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St. Lambert Parish
mornings. The Scriptures were not a superior
revela on, but to those who were enlightened, it
was a text like any other, something that they could
purify of its unenlightened catholic supers ons.
The German theologian Rudolf Bultmann was not a
collaborator with Nazis. He was especially opposed
to their an - Semi sm, but nonetheless he was part
of the move to demythologize the Scriptures. In his
1941book “New Testament and Mythology” he
claimed that it is no longer plausible for Chris ans
to believe the mythical view found in the New
Testament.
“We cannot use electric lights and radios and, in the
event of illness, avail ourselves of modern medical
and clinical means and at the same me believe in
the spirit and wonder world of the New Testament.”
New Testament mythology must be replaced by a
more human understanding that “discloses the
truth of the kerygma (a Gospel proclama on) as
kerygma for those who do not think myth
logically…. There is nothing specifically Chris an
about the mythical world picture, which is simply
the world picture of a me now past which was not
yet formed by scien fic thinking.” It was a er the
Second World War that Catholics really started to
pay a en on to the enlightenment currents in
Scripture study. Many adopted the prejudice that
miracles are impossible, and thus seemingly
accurate prophecy must be an anachronism, a later
text wri en as if previous to the event, or if a
prophecy, such as the prophecy regarding the birth
of the messiah in Bethlehem, it must be invented.
These scholars point out that the journeys and place
changes between Bethlehem and Nazareth are
impossible, and that the possibility of a virgin birth
is completely nonexistent. These ideas rest en rely
on the assump on that people who went before us
were stupid or dishonest or both. The effort to
rescue a sort of Chris anity from the swamp of
stupidity that they believe the Bible to be, just
seems sad to me. If it is just a pile of myths with a
few good slogans, why not give up the whole thing?
(unless, of course, you are a tenured professor of
theology with a nice office and a good parking space
on campus.) In a fit of enlightenment honesty, most
4th Sunday of Advent
of Europe has given up its belief in the Jewish
mythology that is the Bible. And Europe is dying.
I was rigorously schooled in the enlightened
demythology of the 60’s, that hold over from the
pro and an -Nazi demytholigizers of the early
twen eth century. I half believed them ll I met
someone named Amer, a tour guide from the Holy
Land who was a graduate of the University of
Albuquerque, New Mexico. He convinced me that
Jesus really did mul ply loaves and fishes and that
he really was born in a cave in Bethlehem. I’ll tell
you about him in my next installment.
Sunday Offertory Collection
Dec 5/6, 2015
Envelopes:
Loose:
Total:
$6,812.50
1,052.28
$7,864.78
YouthChurch: $207.00
SVD: $100.00
Thank you!
The Coffee Hour will be hosted
by the FFOS and the contact is
Teresita Decilio . She can
be reached at
847-675-0183.
Your donations and participation
are always welcome!
As we continue to prepare our hearts for the coming of the
Christ-child at Christmas let us live in his love in all we do,
especially in our marriage relationship. The next Worldwide
Marriage Encounter Weekends are February 12-14, 2016 or
April 8-10, 2016 or June 10-12, 2016, all at Elk Grove Village,
IL. Early registration is highly recommended. For reservations/
information, call Jim & Kris at 630-577-0778 or contact us
through http://wwme-chicagoland.org.
December 20, 2015
Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord
Page 5
Attention Youth Church Parents
THE SAINT LAMBERT YOUTH CHURCH PARENTS REQUEST THE PLEASURE OF YOUR
COMPANY AT THE
First Annual Youth Church Social
TO CELEBRATE PARISH LIFE AND THE SUCCESS OF YOUTH CHURCH
On Saturday, the ninth of January
Two thousand sixteen from seven o’clock until eleven o’clock in the evening
Maggiano’s Little Italy
4999 Old Orchard Shop Center East Ring Road Skokie IL
Tickets: $20.00 per guest
Cocktail Attire
Child care provided by Youth Church staff
Free. Only serving children potty-trained and up. Dinner included.
Please RSVP guest count and the number of children attending child care by Saturday,
January 2, 2016. As families may receive multiple invitations, we ask that you confirm your guest
count before you RSVP to help us avoid duplicates.
You can RSVP at [email protected]
RESURRECTION ENTRANCE EXAM AND SHADOW DAYS
Resurrection College Prep High School invites eighth grade girls to
take the Class of 2020 Entrance Exam on Saturday, January 9, 2016
from 7:45 am to noon. No pre-registration is necessary – students
should bring #2 pencils and a $25 testing fee. Water and snacks will
be provided to testers. Calculators are not permitted. Students must test at Resurrection to be eligible for the Block
Scholarship for Top Testers and other scholarships opportunities at Resurrection College Prep. Information regarding
limited accommodations on the Entrance Exam may be requested by Tuesday, January 5 by contacting Registrar Mary
Kaye Ulczak at [email protected] or 773.775.6616.
Parents are welcome to attend an optional Parent Information Session at Resurrection at 8 am on the day of the Entrance
Exam. Parents can learn about the curriculum and programs at Resurrection, including AP and college credit classes,
technology initiatives, the advantages of single gender education and the unique Resurrection Practicum Job Shadowing
Program. Information will also be presented about athletics, tuition assistance and scholarship opportunities.
Shadow Days are available for girls to spend the day at Resurrection to experience the school first-hand. Select days
remain for eighth grade girls to spend the day at Resurrection to shadow a current student. Seventh grade girls are
invited to a special “Experience Res” Day on Friday, February 12, 2016. As seventh graders rotate through the nine
academic areas at Resurrection, students meet with teachers, learn about the curriculum, the block schedule, clubs and
activities and get a taste of life at Resurrection. Registration and additional information is available on the Resurrection
website at www.reshs.org or by contacting Nancy O’Leary at [email protected] or 773.775.6616 Ext 129.
Resurrection College Prep High School, located at 7500 West Talcott Avenue in Chicago, is the largest all girls’
Catholic, Christian college preparatory high school for young women on the north side of Chicago. Since its founding in
1922, Resurrection has graduated over 14,000 alumnae. For more information about Resurrection College Prep High
School, call 773.775.6616 Ext 129 or visit www.reshs.org.
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St. Lambert Parish
4th Sunday of Advent
Can you help Mary
& Joseph find a
place to stay?
Bethlehem
Have a Blessed
Christmas!
The FFOS Christmas Party With Santa & Friends!