Ralph Young was married to his wife Mary Ann for 56 years and they have 2 children: Jim & Lisa. Ralph died on New Year’s Day and we celebrated his Funeral Mass last Saturday. He was honored by his son’s words who learned so much from his dad. Ralph also served in the Army and so received military honors. We commend him to the Lord who has promised to raise us up to new life. May he Rest In Peace.
We return now to the Ordinary Time of the Church year until we enter Lent on Ash Wednesday, February 14th. The colors of white, green & violet signal what liturgical time we are presently in. So we’ll be seeing green for a few weeks...at least inside. I don’t suspect we’ll be seeing green outside for a couple more months. Green inside, white outside.
Congratulations to Kevin & Karyn on the baptism of their twin girls, both of whom have first names that also begin with...K: Kamryn & Karson. My mom used to use the wrong name for us when she was flustered and upset with one of us. She would either call me by my brother’s name (fine with me if I was the one causing the trouble!) or even by the name of her brother “Nunzie (from the Italian “Nunzio.”) Either way, I’d just pretend she was talking to someone else. But I hope that Kevin & Karyn will keep Kamyrn & Karson straight. God’s blessings on these two beautiful children and their wonderful parents.
I mentioned in last week’s column that we are celebrating our 70th Anniversary as a parish this year. You will see a logo to this effect on the front of our bulletin and on our website. So here’s a little information that I got from our 1988 anniversary booklet (when the parish celebrated it’s 40th anniversary): The first Mass of St. Leo’s was celebrated in the Ben Franklin School Auditorium (since there was no church yet) on Sunday, October 17, 1948. There was a simple announcement made in the bulletin of the former Our Lady of Good Council parish which said that St. Leo’s was a new parish in the area & then it gave the territorial “boundaries” which determined if you were to belong to this parish or not. In those days, it was expected that you would register and attend the church that was determined according to where you lived. Today, Catholics are still encouraged to attend the church in whose boundaries they live, but they are also free to register and attend whatever church (or churches) that is of their choosing. The reason for territorial boundaries is more for the Pastor than it is for the people. It tells the Pastor: “You are responsible for the spiritual and pastoral care of the Catholics who live in these boundaries, on these particular streets.” There are also parishes which are meant to serve not those in a certain territory but those of a particular ethnic background. Next week I’ll suggest reasons for why it’s a good idea for you to be a registered member of the parish.