Bulletin Board with News and Events

 Once again this season, Holy Name Cathedral will participate in a pre-Thanksgiving Interfaith Prayer Service. In 2008 the Prayers will be offered right here at Holy Name at 7:30pm on Tuesday, November 20. Pastoral Associate Ann Klocke and I hosted our Presbyterian and Jewish partners in a recent planning meeting. The preacher will be Rabbi Evan Moffic, spiritual leader of our neighbors just up State Street at Congregation Sinai. Adam Fronczek, Associate Pastor for Adult Education and Worship at Fourth Prebyterian Church on Michigan between Delaware and Chestnut, represented his congregation in making the arrangements. John W. W. Sherer, Fourth Church’s Music Director will be in touch with Dr. Ricardo Ramirez at Holy Name about the musical parts of the service. Other members of all three faiths will have roles in the annual prayer hour. Each year we switch locations, preachers, and music responsibilities. This year we will pray at Holy Name Cathedral. Mark the date. Join us in a prayer of thanksgiving remembering God’s presence in our section of Chicago.

The Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) will hold its monthly meeting Tuesday evening. The PPC consists of 13 parishioners each of whom hold 3-year terms of office. Approximately one-third of the membership rotates off the Council each year. I choose a chairperson and a secretary from the veteran membership annually. They join the Council via a discernment process that begins in the spring when they nominate themselves for PPC consideration. The PPC advises me on parish issues; coordinates the four commissions which develop many of the programs, ministries, and services of our parish in concert with the parish staff; organizes special events; promotes the programs of the parish; acts as my “eyes and ears” in parish activities; and cooperates with the lay leadership of our neighboring parishes. What does a typical PPC agenda cover? This coming meeting will begin with prayer followed by approval of the previous meeting’s minutes. Then I will report on various activities and concerns of the parish. Ann Klocke, staff liaison to the Council, will review staff activity. Under “Old Business” the PPC will evaluate the recent The Mission is Magic fund raiser and party; plan to promote Cathedral Christmas, the Music Ministry’s December 14 spectacular; discuss plans to communicate better with area hotels; and update members on a proposed plan for database of volunteers. “New Business” agenda items include plans for PPC hosting Catholic Charities Supper on Nov. 30; scheduling “Parish Life Day,” a springtime ministry fair; planning for next New Parishioner Party, for the first time on a Sunday morning, Feb. 10; and taking part in the Interfaith Prayer Service on Nov. 20. Then the Council will have time to consider open forum issues, questions that the members bring from the parishioners. That Open Forum is a new feature added this year, an effective way to increase the Council’s role in strengthening the pastor’s bridge to the many parishioners. After the Forum, the PPC members who serve as liaisons to each of the four commission groups will report on the activity of the Education Commission, the Parish Life Commission, the Evangelization & Spiritual Life Commission, and the Human Concerns Commission. The Chairperson finally asks for volunteers to lead the opening and closing prayers at the next meeting before the closing prayer is said. Each meeting lasts 90-minutes. However, so much of the work is done by the busy volunteer members outside the meeting time. I believe I am in Pastor’s Heaven with the Parish Councils who have provided the volunteer lay leadership at Holy Name Cathedral since I arrived in 2002. The present PPC roster is exceptionally strong with President Donna Ciszewski; Secretary/Vice-Chair Mary Canavan; Monica Tynan & Michelle Peltier (the Cathedral Council’s representatives to the Deanery Archdiocesan Council delegation); Milli Striegl; Lawrence Palmer; John Wolf; Chris Manns; Lou Casa; Dennis Johnson; Betsy Paulose; and Dorothy Sipiora. I cannot imagine a stronger Parish Pastoral Council. Keep them in your prayers. They help to set the direction of our parish. I am proud to work with them.

Veterans Day, November 11, is an American holiday honoring military veterans. Both an annual federal holiday and a state holiday in all states, it is celebrated as Armistice Day, the date of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles ending the hostilities of World War I between Germany and the United States at the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month in 1918. This year November 11 is a Sunday. Therefore, the Frances Xavier Warde Catholic School is moving their recognition of Veterans Day to Friday, November 9, and will commemorate the day with an assembly at 9:00am in the parish auditorium. If you are a military veteran and would like to attend or to be honored, give me a call – 312-787-8040 – leaving your name, your phone number, your military rank, the branch of the service in which you served, and the years of your service. I will relay your information to Lauren Roberts, FXW teacher in charge of the event. I hope that Cathedral military veterans can help the students honor all who served America.

Ministers of Care will be commissioned next Sunday at the 11:00am Mass. The Ministers of Care visit the sick especially those at Northwestern Hospital and at the Warren Barr Pavillion. A new crew recently completed their training and formation under the guidance of Cathedral Pastoral Associate Mary Ann Hoban. I thank all the Ministers of Care who bring the Eucharist to the sick and homebound. They make Holy Name Cathedral look good by doing very basic Christian work in the name of all Cathedral parishioners and in the Holy Name of Jesus.

Occasionally, the translation of the Bible into English runs risks in raising more questions than are necessary. This weekend’s gospel is the best case for a review of the present translation to clean up the grammar. “Now a man named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature.” Who was short in stature – Zacchaeus or Jesus? Looking at an English sentence with an indefinite pronoun, a reader unfamiliar with the story might have a picture of Jesus the size of Danny DeVito lost in a mob of Jerichonians. Let the record show that the former translation read, “There was a man named Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector and a wealthy man. He was trying to see what Jesus was like, but being small of stature was unable to do so because of the crowd.” Cutting the complex sentence into two separate sentences seems to clear it up. Jesus can stand tall again. Now, what color were Jesus’ eyes? 

Fr. Dan Mayall