St. James Catholic Church

The Catholic community of St. James Church is made up of loving and sensitive members seeking to meet their spiritual needs, strengthen their faith, and affirm their continued existence as the church of Jesus Christ today and tomorrow.  In their quest to evangelize, it is their mission to assist everyone toward a more abundant experience of the riches of their liturgy and scaraments, and to convince all of Christ's sheep that the Lord's Day is indeed for all.

Wednesday at 12:00 Noon, please bring your announcements and notices to the office in legible and written form for insertion into the bulletin. Thank you!

St. James parish welcomes all newcomers.  Please contact the parish office to register.

The Fathers’ role in the family and in the society. Some recent studies have demonstrated how important a father is to his child's development. Children with fathers present have lower rates of delinquency, drug and alcohol use, teen pregnancy, and so on, than those with absent fathers. The father's presence is also a significant positive factor in children’s getting a college education, finding a satisfying job, and making a lasting marriage. Psychotherapists today are saying that both parents are vitally important to the stable development of their children; the mother's input is invaluable in the formative pre-adolescent years but the father's most important influence is at adolescence. Single mothers tell us that it is terribly difficult to teach their children about the meaning of God the Father Who seems so impersonal because their children have been abandoned by their natural fathers. Adolescent daughters long to hear from their fathers that they are beautiful and loved. In fact, a girl's choice of partner and satisfaction in marriage is often directly related to the relationship she has had with her father. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the vital importance of the father’s role comes from the fact that, with his wife, he cooperates with God the Creator in bringing a new human life into the world. There is no power greater than that (#2367). (A few Biblical references to fathers: Genesis 2:24, Exodus 20:12, Ezekiel 19:19-20, Sirach 3:1 16, Matthew 19:16-22, John 1:14, 2 Cor. 6:16-18, Ephesians 6: 1-4, 1 Thessalonians 2:11 – 12).

The ideal and the reality: Many fathers today are role models like St. Thomas More and St. Louis Martin (father of the Little Flower), heroes of our faith. Even in these days, fathers are expected to be the providers for, and the protectors of, the family. They are also supposed to be attuned emotionally and spiritually to their wives and children and to be able to balance careers with family life. Fathers struggle to overcome temptation and conflict. They make sacrifices day after day for their families. They try to give their youngsters the kind of model that surely they deserve above all else, a model of goodness, holiness, faith, trust in God and fidelity to the teachings of the Church. This is what Father's Day should remind us of. This is a time for all fathers to reflect upon their duties as responsible and well-integrated men. Truefatherhooddemandscommitment. Commitmentdemandsmaturity,sacrifice,and love. Fatherhood also demands responsibility. Every true father will take responsibility for all of his actions. Our nation has an urgent need for good fathers.

But while the idea of fatherhood is a good one, the reality we see on earth is sometimes quite different. Some fathers abandon their children, beat them, ridicule or ignore them, abuse them and damage them psychologically for life. Even good fathers have their limits. Unfortunately,weundulysentimentalizefatherhood,themediaoftenridiculeandmake fun of it and we treat it with contempt. We are reminded time after time of the number of children growing up fatherless because their fathers have abandoned them or their fathers have been unfaithful.

1) “I never hugged my dad”! In his book My Father, My Son, Dr. Lee Salk describes a moving interview with Mark Chapman, the convicted slayer of Beatle John Lennon. At one point in the interview, Chapman says: "I don’t think I ever hugged my father. He never told me he loved me...I needed emotional love and support. I never got that.” Chapman’sdescription of how he would treat a son if he had one is especially tragic, because he will probably never get out of prison and have a family of his own. He says: “I would hug my son and kiss him...and just let him know...he could trust me and come to me...and (I would) tell him that I loved him.” Dr. Salk ends his book with this advice to fathers and sons. It applies equally well to mothers and daughters. “Don’t be afraid of your emotions, of telling your father or your son that you love him and that you care. Don’t be afraid to hug and kiss him. Don’twait until the death bed to realize what you’ve missed." (Mark Link in Sunday Homilies)(http://frtonyshomilies.com/ )

2) "Wait until you see sister!" A bald man and his wife one night decided to go out to dinner and hired a babysitter to take care of their kids. While they were gone, the babysitter got interested in TV and wasn't watching the kids very carefully. The couple's little boy got into his father's electric shaver and shaved a big landing strip right down the middle of his head. When Dad, got home, he was furious. He said, "Son! I told you never to play with my shaver. Now you are going to get a spanking that you will never forget!" He was just about to give the spanking when the boy looked up at him and said, "Wait until you see sister!" The Mom and Dad were both horrified. They went into the next room and there was their little four-year-old daughter with the hair shaved off of her head. She looked like a skinned rabbit. By this time Dad was furious. He grabbed his son and said, "Now you're really going to get it." Just as Dad was about to begin administering discipline, his son looked up at him with tears in his eyes and said, "But Daddy! WE WERE JUST TRYING TO LOOK LIKE YOU!" [Parables, Etc. (Saratoga Press, P.O. Box 8, Platteville, CO, 80651; 970-785-2990), October 2001.] And that's key to whole parenting thing, isn't it? Many of our kids just want to look like us. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/ )

3) Once upon a time: A few of you remember the days of black-and-white television when television networks carried shows like Father Knows Best and Ozzie and Harriet. The norm for these programs was a family with a working husband and a wife who stayed at home, lovingly devoted to her husband and her children. At least that was the image the media portrayed. Most families even then were not as idyllic as the sitcoms portrayed them. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/ )

# 1: “Have you ever seen a saint praying?" St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Teresa of Avila have their own stories about the influence their fathers had on their lives as role models. The Little Flower used to ask an innocent question of her first grader classmates: “Have you ever seenasaintpraying?" Shewouldadd:"Ifyouhaven't,cometomyhouseintheevening. You will see my dad on his knees in his room with outstretched arms, praying for us, his children, every day.” She states in one of her letters from the convent: “I have never seen or heard or experienced anything displeasing to Jesus in my family.” In the final year of her high school studies, St. Teresa of Avila was sent by her father (against her will), to a boarding house conducted by nuns. Her father took action at the moment he discovered bad books and yellow magazines hidden in her box. These had been supplied to Teresa by her spoiled friend and classmate, Beatrice. St. Teresa later wrote as the Mother Superior: “But for that daring and timely action of my father, I would have ended up in the streets, as a notoriouswoman.” Father's Day challenges Christian Fathers to be role models to their children. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/ )

2) "Paco, meet me at the Hotel Montana noon Tuesday. All is forgiven." In ErnestHemingway’s short story “Capital of the World,” a Spanish newspaper, El Liberal, carried a poignant story about a father and his son. It went like this. A teen-aged boy, Paco, and his very wealthy father had a falling out, and the young man ran away from home. The father was crushed. After a few days, he realized that the boy was serious, so the father set out to find him. He searched high and low for five months to no avail. Finally, in a last, desperate attempt to find his son, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read, "Dear Paco, Meet me at the Hotel Montana noon Tuesday. All is forgiven. I love you. Signed, Your Father. On Tuesday, in the office of Hotel Montana, over 800 Pacos showed up, looking for love and forgiveness from their fathers. What a magnet that ad was! Over 800 Pacos!! We all hunger for pardon. We are all “Pacos” yearning to run and find a father who will declare,“All is forgiven.” Father's Day reminds us that we need more loving, forgiving fathers. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/ )

#3 "I love you, Dad. Happy Birthday. A friend tells about how when he was a small boy, his father's birthday rolled around, and he did not realize it until it was too late to get his father a birthday present. So, he went through all his resources and came up with 17 cents. He put the dime, the nickel, and the two pennies in an envelope and gave it to his father with a note: "I love you, Dad. Happy Birthday. Thanks for being the best dad in the whole world. Sorry I did not get you a gift. This is all I've got." Years later, at his father's death, when he was going through his father's possessions, he discovered within a special compartment of his father's wallet, the envelope, the note, the dime, the nickel, and the two pennies that his father had carried all those years. (Donald Shelby, "Love is Gratitude"). Why? Why of all the things the father and son had experienced together was this token kept as the most precious reminder of their relationship? Why? It was pure love, and pure gratitude. And that's what we have in our second Scripture lesson today. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/ )

# 4: “And if you don’t pass the test you have to be the Daddy?” A mother was out walking with her 4–year-old daughter. The child picked up something off the ground and started to put it into her mouth. The mother took it away and said “Don’t do that!” “Why not?” asked the child. “Because it’s on the ground,” said her mother. “You don’t know where it’s been. It’sdirty, and it’s probably loaded with germs that could make you sick.” The child looked at her mother with total admiration and said, “Mommy, how do you know all this stuff? You’re sosmart.” The mother said, “All Moms know this stuff. It’s on the Mom’s Test. You have to know it or they don’t let you be a Mom.” There was silence for a minute or so as the child thought this through. “Oh, I get it,” she said at last. “And if you don’t pass the test you have to be theDaddy?” (The Jokesmith). Welcome on this Father’s Day. As someone has said, “Father’sDay is like Mother’s Day, except the gift is cheaper.” And that’s true. But there are some fine Dads in our congregation, and we want to honor them. After all, it’s not easy being a Dad. (http://frtonyshomilies.com/ )

1)      Vatican website: http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html

2)      Monks of the desert video: https://youtu.be/U5YY684ZXDE

3)      Catholic League: http://www.catholicleague.org/ 

4)      Community in mission blog: http://blog.adw.org/author/cpope/

5)      Church teachings index: http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/teach/index.html

6)      Catholic liturgy library: http://www.catholicliturgy.com/

7)      Church cartoons: http://www.toonfever.com/