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.

Thursday 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!

https://diocesecc.org

COVID-19 PROTOCOL

Parishioners attending Mass are strongly encouraged to continue wearing masks, keeping six feet social distancing, and sanitizing their hands as they enter the church. 

Parishioners should stay home, if they have COVID-19 symptoms, or if they have had direct contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. If a person has had a secondary contact – not directly exposed to a COVID-19 positive person, but in contact with someone who was in direct contact, they should stay home.

The obligation to attend Sunday Mass is restored for the faithful in the Diocese of Corpus Christi.  Those who continue to be dispensed are those at increased risk of serious illness, compromised immune systems and those responsible for their care. As always, those who are ill should remain home.

Dispensation:
Returning to Mass

Online Mass Resources:
https://diocesecc.org/faith-resources/

CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention)
coronavirus (covid-19) information

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

Cyber scammers are impersonating Priests, CFOs and people in ministry leadership roles. They are asking for money, gift cards and personal information.  DO NOT reply and immediately delete any email or text.  This is NOT a request from our parish priest, deacons, administrative personnel or any of its ministry leaders.

There once was a wise sage who wandered the countryside. One day, as he passed near a village, he was approached by a woman who told him of a sick child nearby. She pleaded him to help this child.  So the sage came to the village, and a crowd gathered around him, for such a man was a rare sight. One woman brought the sick child to him, and he said a prayer over her.  “Do you really think your prayer will help her, when medicine has failed?” yelled a man from the crowd.  “You know nothing of such things! You are a stupid fool!” said the sage to the man.  The man became very angry with these words and his face grew hot and red. He was about to say something, or perhaps strike out, when the sage walked over to him and said: “If one word has such power as to make you so angry and hot, may not another have the power to heal?” And thus, the sage healed two people that day.

The liturgy of the Third Sunday of Lent begins with the acknowledging God´s holiness and his claim on us that we belong to him. It recognizes the fact that we are his own people and must live in a way that reflects his holiness. God offers us the gift of faith as our path towards holiness. At the same time, we all want and desire to live a peaceful life in accordance with God’s will. We all want to make sense of our existence. We all desire to live a life where we can make a positive contribution to ourselves, to our families and to those around us. Challenges are always with us, difficulties surround us. However the more we long, desire and develop a personal and ultimate relationship with Jesus Christ as our best friend, there is absolutely nothing that we cannot face and overcome. Indeed we become the “power and the wisdom of God”. Our first reading tells about the covenant God made with Israel by giving them Ten Commandments to live by.  God gave them to Moses so that his chosen people will live by the norms given by him.  They had to observe them faithfully in order to live the covenant fully.  In the gospel Jesus reacts with anger to abuses in the Temple, which he perceives as the violation of the covenant and shows himself as the Lord of the Temple. He drove the traders out of the Temple and predicted that he himself would be the Temple of the new people of God.  In our second reading Paul calls us to embrace divine wisdom though the world may see it as foolishness.  He tells them that we preach Christ crucified. He tells them that God’s weakness is greater than human strength.

Certainly, the action of cleansing the temple by Jesus was an open defiance of the authorities and naturally led to the building of hostilities with them that ultimately sealed his fate. But for Jesus this was the stand he took for religious practices and the need to protect his Father’s House.  He directly told them that the Temple is primarily the house of God and a place meant for prayer. This had its reaction on his disciples and people standing there. The disciples did not understand the entire event immediately and they could find its meaning only after the resurrection. Yet they did not go away from him nor did they ask him about it.  They had the confidence in him as he was their leader and master. As regards with the people he would not trust himself to them because he knew them all.  He knew that to many of them he was a wonder-worker or a miracle worker.  If he spoke to them of service, or sacrifice, or surrender to God’s will, or carrying their cross, they would not have understood and would have left him on the spot.  The signs that Jesus gave caused many to believe that somehow God is with Jesus but they failed to see his divinity, that he was the Son of God.  To recognize that God is within Jesus, that Jesus is God, would have placed a new understanding of his presence in the world and would have given a new meaning to his preaching the Word. The purification of the temple is a Messianic gesture. Its purpose is to indicate the beginning of the final stage in the history of man´s relationship with God.

One of the most frequent accusations of non-believers against religious persons is that they are “hypocritical”. More often than not, this is either a case of people justifying their own lack of religious commitment, or of the misconception that they profess their faith because they think they live it perfectly. Nevertheless it is certainly true that an individual cannot please God if he praises him with his lips alone while his heart and mind are far from him. Prayers and devotions are quite useless unless we do what God wants us to do; unless we live in conformity with his plan for our life. When God established a covenant with Israel, he gave them in the Decalogue the blueprint for the basic structure of the edifice. Jesus filled in the details with the Beatitudes, and with all he did and taught. He gave his followers a totally new law, the law of Love. To go through Christ is not exhausted by using liturgical formulas. It´s power is only fully unleashed if it defines a person’s whole attitude to God and others, and to all the realities of life. Among other things it involves: Giving a Christ-centered meaning to a person’s professional life. The readings of today tell us that we ought to treat everyone around us as we would treat Christ himself.  A healthy Christian spirituality, or religious practice, has to respect the way to God that he himself has established.

A Coronavirus Prayer

Jesus Christ, you traveled through towns and villages “curing every disease and illness.” At your command, the sick were made well. Come to our aid now, in the midst of the global spread of the coronavirus, that we may experience your healing love.

Heal those who are sick with the virus. May they regain their strength and health through quality medical care.

Heal us from our fear, which prevents nations from working together and neighbors from helping one another.

Heal us from our pride, which can make us claim invulnerability to a disease that knows no borders.

Jesus Christ, healer of all, stay by our side in this time of uncertainty and sorrow.

Be with those who have died from the virus. May they be at rest with you in your eternal peace.

Be with the families of those who are sick or have died. As they worry and grieve, defend them from illness and despair. May they know your peace.

A prayer for first responders during the coronavirus pandemic

Loving God, in the midst of our world’s—your world’s—coronavirus crisis, we beg to bring before you the brave women and men who are closest to the sick and suffering. In earlier times, such bravery appeared in direct service by saints—the young Jesuit Aloysius Gonzaga contracting the plague from the poor of Rome and dying with them at 23, the Belgian missionary Damian of Molokai becoming a leper to live and die with lepers over 16 long years of being theirs for Christ. Today the tools of science—medicine and surgery and, yes, ventilators—have changed the scene but not its anguished human face.

Be with the doctors, nurses, researchers and all medical professionals who seek to heal and help those affected and who put themselves at risk in the process. May they know your protection and peace.

Be with the leaders of all nations. Give them the foresight to act with charity and true concern for the well-being of the people they are meant to serve. Give them the wisdom to invest in long-term solutions that will help prepare for or prevent future outbreaks. May they know your peace, as they work together to achieve it on earth.

Whether we are home or abroad, surrounded by many people suffering from this illness or only a few, Jesus Christ, stay with us as we endure and mourn, persist and prepare. In place of our anxiety, give us your peace. We ask these through Christ our Lord. Amen

1)      Diocese of Corpus Christi:  https://diocesecc.org

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For supporting this ministry please make checks payable to:

St. James Catholic Church
605 S. Alta Vista
Beeville, TX  78102

Thank you for your generosity
May God Bless you and your Family abundently