St. Augustine and St. Joseph

Please Welcome Father Larre from February 18 - 23, 2012.

The Parishioners of St. Augustine's in Taber and St. Joseph's in Vauxhall are very pleased to have Father Larre preaching their 2012 Parish Mission.  Father will speak at all Saturday & Sunday Masses on the weekend of February 18th and 19th to introduce the Mission and will give Mission Talks each evening from Monday, February 20th to Thursday, February 23rd in Taber.  There will be Mass each evening at 7:00 p.m. followed by the Mission Talk at 7:30 pm.  Reconciliation will be available starting at 5:00 pm each weekday evening. Then on Thursday morning, February 23rd, there will be a special 3-hour workshop on understanding and helping children with their problems.  Everyone is Welcome and you are encouraged to bring a friend.

The talks will be as follows:

Introductory Mission Sermon (Weekend Masses) The Most Important Decision in Life:   The most critical decision is whether to choose Christ's loving Way of the Cross, or the soft, popular diabolical road of selfishness, evil and violence.

Monday, Feb. 20th - Clinging to Faith in a Godless Society:   The greatest challenge is to live your faith, at all costs, within a materialistic, hedonistic, secular society that ignores God.

Tuesday, Feb. 21st - Maintaining Hope in Hopeless Situations:  The most difficult task is to never lose hope, to fight off discouragement and depression even when you feel totally helpless in hopeless situations where nobody seems to care.

Wednesday, Feb. 22nd - Building a Loving Home in a Selfish Society:   The most demanding goal is to create a Faith-filled, secure, lovig, nurturing family environment in a confusing, selfish, overly busy, materialistic society that is struggling to cope with stress, drugs, discipline problems, violence, pornography, discouragement and depression.

Wednesday morning, Feb. 22rd - 9:30 - 12:30 am - Understanding & Helping Children with their Problems:   On Children's Problems with learning disabilities, emotional disorders, behavioural problems, auditory/visual processing difficulties, attention/concentration disorder, brain damage, etc.  Admission is free.  Everyone is welcome.

Thursday evening - Feb. 23rd - Final night and Special Blessing - Bringing Love to a Violent, Hateful Society:  The most rewarding task is to become a missionary of the Love of Christ and bring His Love to your family, school, parish community and the workplace.

This Advent, newly translated prayers will be used at liturgy in the dioceses throughout the English-speaking world. This is a new translation of the Mass, not a new ritual for celebrating the Eucharist. The Mass will still have the same parts, the same patterns and the same flow as it has had for the past several decades. It is only the translation of the Latin that is changing, but this change is happening in some key spots in the liturgy.

Beginning the First Sunday of Advent, you will notice these changes in specific parts of the Mass – the Penitential Rite, the Holy, Holy and the Memorial Acclamation.

The Penitential Rite is a form of general confession that takes place at the beginning of Mass. There are three forms of the rite. We are most familiar with the third form of this rite, with the various invocations of Christ (e.g., ―You came to call sinners). The new translation will be much the same, though an option is added to conclude each invocation in Greek: ―Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison, rather than the English: ―Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy.

The Confiteor (I Confess) has been revised to match the Latin more closely. Those who are old enough to remember reading along in their Sunday missals when the Mass was celebrated in Latin may recognize the new wording, which puts more stress on our unworthiness than the current text. It now says, ―I have greatly sinned and later adds ―through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.

There is only one change in the Holy, Holy. Where we now say, ―God of power and might, the new text has ―God of hosts. While this may make many people think of round Communion wafers, the meaning here is ―armies, and it refers to the armies of angels who serve God.

The memorial acclamation is part of the Eucharistic prayer, where the community acclaims the mystery of our salvation. There are several forms that we use in today‘s Mass and these have all been changed. The one that is most familiar to us (Christ has died, Christ is risen...) has disappeared completely. The three remaining ones are similar to those in the current missal, but the wording is different in each case.

Over the next few weeks, we will begin to learn as a community the new prayers of our Mass through song and spoken word. We will take some time to practice the new parts prior to each Mass and provide screen projections to help us learn.

The hope and prayer of translators is that the new translation will help all of us to pray at our best. The People of God, gathered in liturgical assemblies, will be attuned to God‘s presence and able to express themselves in a way that fosters a right relationship with the Lord. Isn‘t that why we go to Mass?

The St. Vincent de Paul Society is in need of gently used Blankets of all sizes as well as Single/Twin sized sheet sets. These may be dropped off in the church basement. Please mark the boxes or bags, St. Vincent de Paul. Also, the Taber Food Bank is in need of Egg Cartons. These can be left at the back of the church or delivered directly to the Food Bank.

Thank you to our Sugar Beet Growers who faithfully deliver sugar beets for St. Joseph’s and St. Augustine’s every year. Thank you for your generosity.!

Thank you to all that came to our Lectors and Eucharistic Ministers workshop that was held last Tuesday evening at St. Augustine’s Church. There were many individuals that were unable to attend and we will be hosting a another evening for these people. Please watch the bulletin for upcoming details.