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Pastor Notes
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The Catholic Hemisphere.
On August 8th/09 The Knights of Columbus met at Phoenix Arizona to celebrate the Guadalupe Festival and at the same time their Annual Meeting. Nearly 20,000 people of different cultures, languages and ethnic origins met at the Sports Stadium. They prayed the Rosary in 26 different languages with people from Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. Our faith has the power of unifying us, but without the need of forcing us or any kind of incentive. Our America Continent is called to share a common history. On a historical level all of its countries are nations of immigrants and Native Americans. On a spiritual level all of these countries share a common heritage of Christianity and baptism. And on a personal level, every person on this continent shares a mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Our Lady of Guadalupe has been unifying this continent for nearly 500 years, when she appeared at the Tepeyac in 1531. Pius XII proclaimed her as “ Empress of the Americans. Our Lady of Guadalupe points us to unity to her Son, and she also points us to unity in her Son. No other place on earth has a many practicing Catholics as the Americas. While some continents, have never been Christian, and while many European churches are nearly empty, ours are still full. What unites us as a Christian family is far greater than anything that divides us. Our Lady of Guadalupe is the mother of each of us, regardless of where we are from or what language we speak. This is the unity that joins us as Knights, that joins us to the Church and to our fellow Christians on this continent. From Canada to Argentina, all of us who live in the Americas are called, like St. Juan Diego to bridge the divide of cultures. We are called to communicate the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe, mother of the civilization of love. It is up to us to make that unity real by living exemplary family and professional lives, and by supporting the faith of Catholic immigrants today so that they become the parents of tomorrow. If we do these things, our legacy will be a Catholic hemisphere that remains Catholic.
( Extracts from COLUMBIA, magazine of the Knights of Columbus, The Catholic Hemisphere by Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson.
Many blessing and may God be always with
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"To work for the family is to work for the dignified and luminous future of humanity and for the building of the Kingdom of God." The family, he concluded, is called "to be evangelized and evangelizer, humane and humanizing."
(Pope Benedict XVI, Vaticano City. January 18, 2009).
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St. Michael's Mission Statement We, the people of St. Michael, are called to live in faith, hope and charity. As Christians we recognize three aspects of this mission:
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