St. Veronica Church

January 2, 2011

The Epiphany of the Lord

“Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.” Psalm 72:11

The Adoration of the Magi, Peter Paul Rubens 1617

434 Alida Way, South San Francisco, CA 94080

Phone: 650-588-1455 www.stveronicassf.com Fax: 650-588-1481

St. Veronica Parish Rectory Office Hours

Monday to Friday 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Phone: 650-588-1455 Fax: 650-588-1481

Parish Staff Fr. Charles Puthota, Ph.D., Pastor Fr. Linh Nguyen, Parochial Vicar Fr. Joe Walsh, In Residence

http://rico50.blogspot.com Deacon Roger Beaudry Deacon Joseph LeBlanc Sandy Kearney, Parish Manager Patricia Spiteri, Parish Secretary Karen Guglielmoni, Faith Formation & Wedding Coordinator Christopher Lindstrom, Music Director 209-952-0209

St. Veronica Catholic School Phone: 650-589-3909

Kathryn Lucchesi Janet Burke Principal Vice Principal

Rectory email: churchoffice@stveronicassf.com

Please remember the sick and the care-givers in our community.

Pray that they may find comfort and healing in Christ.

Please contact the rectory office if Homebound Eucharistic services are needed.

SACRAMENTAL PREPARATION

Sacrament of Baptism Baptismal Preparation classes are held once a month.

Call the Parish Office 588-1455

Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) Classes from October through Pentecost.

Call the Parish Office to register 588-1455

Faith Formation: 650-588-1455 Catechetical instructions (1st to 8th grades)

2011 Confirmation Classes: 588-1455

Reflection on Our Cover

They were men in love with the lights of night -- astrologers, star-gazers, meaning-makes tuned in to the signs in the heav-ens, as Matthew tells it. A strange star moving across the sky led them into Israel. Arriving in Jerusalem, they asked where the newborn king of the Jews was, so they could offer homage. The star reappeared and led them to the house where the child and his mother were. Falling down in worship, they offered gifts, and went back home.

Mass Intent ions WEEK of January 2 , 2011

Sun 01/02 6:45 † Roger Slagle 8:00 † Mari & Alexis Zaragoza-Calica 9:30 Marcelina Solema 11:00 † Isidro Sacco 12:30 People of St. Veronica

Mon 01/03 8:30 † Mickey & Steven Hart Tue 01/04 6:30 † Saniata “Sunny” DeSantis 8:30 † Patrick Dunleavy Wed 01/05 6:30 † Jose Amado 8:30 † Patrick Dunleavy Thu 01/06 6:30 † Aldo & Gertrude Bignardi 8:30 † Salvador Tolosa Fri 01/07 6:30 † Marina Lavarias 8:30 † Nuala Boyle Sat 01/08 8:30 † Michael Cummings 5:00 † Patrick Cooney Sun 01/09 6:45 † Cesar M.& Rosario M. Cerdena, Jr. 8:00 † Steven Dub 9:30 † Emanuel Borg 11:00 † Mary O’Neill 12:30 People of St. Veronica

Mass Schedule

Saturdays: 8:30AM & 5:00PM Sundays: 6:45, 8:00, 9:30, 11:00AM, and 12:30PM

Holy Days: 6:30, 8:30AM, & 6:30PM Monday—Friday: 6:30 & 8:30AM

Confessions

Saturdays: 4:00—5:00PM

Liturgy of the Hours Monday—Friday: Morning Prayer at 6:00AM

Eucharistic Adoration

Monday—Friday: 9:00AM—9:00PM Sunday: 1:30 PM—9:00PM

Parish Registration

Please complete and return form to the parish rec-tory, or simply drop it in the collection basket.

Kindly print all information

Name(s) ____________________________________

Name(s) ____________________________________

Address ____________________________________

City & Zip ___________________________________

Phone ______________________________________

E-mail: _____________________________________

Updating Current Parish Registration

Moving / Please remove from mailing list.

___This is a new registration

Please call me.

Next Baptismal Class will be January 11, 2011 from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at St. Veronica Church

Next available baptismal date is Saturday, March 5, 2011

Saturday 12/18 5:00PM 1348.00 208.00 1556.00

Sunday 12/19 6:45AM 684.00 163.00 847.00

8:00AM 534.50 142.00 676.50

9:30AM 1187.00 196.00 1383.00

11:00AM 912.00 176.00 1088.00

12:30PM 896.00 207.00 1103.00

TOTALS: 5561.50 1092.00 6653.50

Day Mass Time 1st. Collection

2nd. Maintenance

Totals:

Once again, holiday printing schedules did not give us ample time to submit Christmas offering totals. Will be forthcoming.

St. Veronica Catholic School Crab Feed

Save the Date!

February 12, 2011 Details will follow soon

Planning Your Summer Wedding at St. Veronica Church?

The policy of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Fran-cisco states that arrangements for marriage are to be made at least six months in advance. These months are meant to give couples the opportunity for prayerful reflection on Christian marriage and for consideration of their future life as "two who will be made one." Your first step is to call our rectory office at 650-588-1455 to schedule an appointment to meet with a member of the clergy. During the initial meeting preliminary information will be taken and an evaluation of your readiness to marry will be as-sessed. Other information will be provided regarding the Mar-riage Preparation Program and FOCUS questionnaire. You will also have the opportunity to set up future meetings with clergy, our wedding coordinator and music director who will all work with you in preparing your special day. Calendars fill up quickly and schedules get busy, so don't delay in setting up your initial wedding appointment.

FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK Be Thou My Vision

Be thou my vision, my blessed Lord, Almighty God and King of the seven heavens, Be thou my thinking from dawn to dusk, In the brightest of days and the darkest of nights. Be thou my speaking in each word that I say May it reflect the depth of your wisdom. Be thou my Father, may I be thy child. May we be together as one. Be thou my vision. Be thou my protector, be thou my shield, Comfort me in my hour of need. Be thou my guardian, my guiding light, Console me in my time of loss. Be thou my savior, my special angel, Heal me when I’m broken. Be thou the love of my heart, All that I am, I am because of you. O Lord, be thou my vision. Dallan Forgaill, rendered by Roma Downey, in “Healing Angel” (CD) Reflection: Standing on the threshold of 2011, we view the New Year as flushed with freshness and possibilities. The sun rises on it as never before. The wind blows away the old year and ushers in the new one, whispering hope. The new path lies ahead, beckoning us to take it and make our destiny. We can hear the invitation: plunge into it boldly, armed with faith and great expectations. It is up to us to embrace this new gift with the enthusiasm and newness that it deserves, and find our niche in the world.

Have you heard the story of a man in a Chinese restaurant who was given a fortune cookie at the end of the meal? Opening it, he found, to his great disappoint-ment, the little piece of paper blank. When he com-plained, the owner said disarmingly, “You are really the lucky one. Since you found it blank, you could write on it whatever you want. You could choose your fortune; you could create your own destiny.”

The New Year is undoubtedly like that fortune

cookie. It’s blank, a tabula rasa. We can fill it with what-ever we want; we can bring our longings, desires, tastes,

and talents to create a period of 365 days, a time when we can attain peace and fulfillment. On to the New Year’s total of 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds, we are free to write our fortune. As the saying goes, “Your future depends on many things, but mostly on you.”

Of course, we are products of 2010 in many ways. Even our moments of pain and sorrow, our agony and heart-break have been messengers of truth and growth. We carry with us whatever has contributed to our maturity and build up on it as we embrace 2011. The sad and bad things---we try to leave them all in the grave of 2010 and bury them. They are dead weight with no use for us who want to travel light into the New Year as we look for a new vision and voice. As T.S. Eliot says, “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.” Can we find a new voice to give utterance to our soul? Will it be possible for us to grapple with the truth of the New Year and discover the new woman or new man inside of us? Can we see clearly, as G. K. Chesterton says, “The object of a new year is not that we should have a New Year. It is that we should have a new soul.”

As we welcome the New Year with the desire to say yes to all that shall be, we invoke God’s presence, which is the greatest power, the gentlest force, the kindest influence in our lives. No matter who and what we are, no matter how and where we shall be in the New Year, we need God. Without God, we cannot succeed; with God we cannot fail. The longer we live on this planet earth, the more we grow in the awareness of God and the need for Him. Our quests, passions, and desires for this earth are symbolic of our deeper longing for God who alone can satisfy our innermost needs. As we start the journey of the New Year, we keep God on our side. More truly, be-cause God is always by our side, we place ourselves next to God. This will be our way of discerning His presence in the midst of our multifarious preoccupations in 2011. As St. Igna-tius of Loyola would say, we shall strive to find God in all things and all things in God. We shall put our trust in him and face the dawn of the gift of another year. If God is for us, who can be against us?

Let us plunge into 2011with the consciousness that God is with us. As Dallan Forgaill seeks in the 8th century Irish hymn, we ask God to be our vision. This vision may be under-stood as His presence, His apparition, His revelation, which is around us, surrounding us all the time. There is no end to God’s presence among us. This vision may also be taken as our way of seeing. We see everything in the New Year through God. We see as God sees, we feel as God feels, we think as He does, we speak as He does. If this might seem difficult or ab-stract, He has given us His son Jesus Christ, who has become one with us. In Jesus, we know that God is with us always and everywhere. Therefore, there are no excuses for us not to see God. God is as close to us as Jesus Christ is. In him we see God’s face, reach His heart, delve into His mind, and touch His body. In Jesus, God has identified with us perfectly and com-pletely. In this way, we’ll truly be able to carry the spirit of Christmas throughout the New Year.

Let this New Year be a special time when we can

New Parent Information Night Thursday, January 20, 2011

7:00 p.m. Falcon Hall

St. Veronica Catholic School Campus

Is your child ready for Kindergarten? Are you think-ing of St. Veronica Catholic School as a new begin-ning for your child’s education? If you answered yes, you are cordially invited to an informational session to learn everything you need to know about enrolling your child(ren) at St. Veron-ica Catholic School. An application packet will be available at this time or can be downloaded from our website, www.stveronicacatholicschool.org. Please note: If you are thinking of enrolling your child for a grade other than kindergarten, availability will be determined after Easter. Please come to information night for an update. St. Veronica Catholic School, mindful of its mission to be witness to the love of Christ for all, admits students of any race, color, and national and/or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, program and activities generally accorded to or made available to students at this school. St. Veronica Catholic School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, and national and/or ethnic origin, age, sex, or disability in administration of education policies, admis-sions policies, scholarship and loan programs, athletic and other school-administered programs.

Have You Ever Thought About Becoming a Catholic Priest?

Attend a Discernment Retreat

January 14 - 16, 2011

St. Patrick’s Seminary & University to better understand if a vocation to the ministry of

God’s priesthood is for you.

Visit www.stpatricksseminary.org for more information.

Afire yet unconsumed she burns, The Virgin who brought forth a Son,

To set the universe alight As God commanded, it was done.

Ablaze with living Word, she shines

In silence while the dark grows dim Before the Voice that summons stars To sing salvation’s glorious hymn.

Aflame with God, enwrapped in cloud, She warms the thinning dark of night As time unwinds toward endless dawn

When shadows yield to Christ, our Light.

In burning bush, in flaming cloud, You speak, O Triune Mystery:

With Mary, may we sing your praise, Great Three in One and One in Three!

write our own fortune and work out our own destiny with God on our side. The best fortune for us is to journey with God. Therefore, let Him be our thinking from dawn to dusk, from week to week, month to month, every moment of 2011, in good times and in bad, in light and in dark-ness, in sadness and in joy. Let Him be our speaking in each word that we say. Words caress and affirm; they encourage and build up people. Words can also hurt and destroy. If God whispers through our speaking, then we shall only be constructive and loving in the words that we speak and write.

As the prayer celebrates, God is our protector, guardian, shield, savior, angel, consoler, and love. Through Him we see, feel, think, and do everything. He is our vision. With God as our vision, the New Year will truly be a new beginning. We will learn to look at things differently and try new, creative ways in dealing with work, relationships, and issues. If God is not our vision, the New Year cannot bring us the newness we are thirst-ing for; it will be a New Year in name only. Without Him as our vision, everything will sadly be the same. We would then be going in circles rather than move forward in a definite direction of progress. Without God, this year cannot be an adventure into the new possibilities for real-izing our potential. As we ring in this New Year, it is customary for us to think of resolutions. They may have to do with our body, to treat it with more respect and love; or with our mind, to keep it alert and away from prejudice; or with our heart, to let it love more unconditionally; or with our soul, to nourish it with the spiritual food. These resolu-tions, however hard to keep, will be meaningful only if we can look at those areas of growth with God as our vi-sion. If we tried to look at these resolutions from our own perspective, it would be hard to sustain them. But if we view them in God’s vision, we shall have the strength and vitality to make them last, to make progress, and to realize our goals as human beings destined for love and for God. Action: Launch the New Year in God’s presence by let-ting Him be your vision. Enlarge your soul, expand your heart, broaden your mind. Let the divine vision renew your life and strengthen your New Year resolutions, if you choose to make any. Your Friend and Pastor Father Charles Puthota

St. Veronica Catholic School Serving South San Francisco Since 1958 New Parent Info Night January 20th 7PM

OPEN HOUSE Sunday, January 30, 2011

after 9:30 Mass Fr. Charles Puthota, Pastor Kathryn Lucchesi, Principal

Directions To St. Veronica Located one block west from

El Camino Real between Ponderosa & Country Club Road

Behind McDonald’s

St. Veronica Catholic School Building Character which fosters Christian values of Compassion, Tolerance, Justice, and Respect for the

Dignity of Life. ♦ Academic Curriculum with Learning Assistance ♦ Outstanding WASC Accreditation ♦ Spanish Language Instruction - K - 8th ♦ Elementary & Junior High Computer/Science Program ♦ Band, Rhythm & Moves P.E. Program ♦ Full Sports Program - Gym & Play Structure

434 Alida Way So. San Francisco, CA 94080 650-589-3909 email: office@stveronicacatholicschool.org

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