103 Walker Street, Manchester, NH 03102

OFFICE HOURS

Monday—Friday 9am to 12 pm; 1:30 to 4pm

WWW.ST-RAPHAEL-PARISH.ORG

Saint Raphael Parish

Welcome to the Benedictine Catholic Community of

PARISH OFFICE 603.623.2604

PASTORAL TEAM & SUPPORT STAFF

Rev. Jerome Joseph Day, O.S.B., Ph.D., Pastor

Kerri Stanley, Parish Secretary, Director of Liturgy Nina Lukens, Catechetical Coordinator

Therese Dame, Religious Education Consultant

Dorene Turner, Director of Food Pantry & Hope Chest

Ray Clement, Director of Facilities Don Provencher, Facilities Assistant

Lyle Hamel, Director of Choir & Principal Organist

Jonathan Cote, Gerry LeBlond, Organists

Tom Larson et al., Catholic Basics Choir;

Amber Byron, Judy Costigan, Erin McCahon, Caresse Mailloux, Melanie

Noonan, Cantors

@SaintRaphaelParish

saint_raphael_parish_nh @SaintRaphaelManch

Founded in 1888, Saint Raphael is a Roman Catho-lic parish, confided to the care of the Benedictine monks of Saint Anselm Abbey, in the Diocese of Manchester. The first Benedictine foundation in New England, the parish is a tithing community, endeavoring to return to the Lord in time, treasure and talent some of the blessings He bestows upon us. The parish strives to return 10 percent, the bibli-

cal standard, of gifts it receives to outside charities.

DAILY LITURGY SCHEDULE

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: 12 noon

Thursday: 8:30am

Friday: 6pm

WEEKEND LITURGY SCHEDULE

Saturday: 4pm (Vigil)

Sunday: 7:30am, 9:30am, 5pm

RECONCILIATION

‘CONFESSION ON THE PORCH’

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4 — 5pm.

Ring bell of front door rectory and take a seat on

the bench to the left.

Saint Raphael Parish

Manchester NH

June 21, 2020

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The sanctuary candle burns this

week for Bob Breault by Florine

Breault.

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

Saint Benedict Academy (Pre-K—6): Brandy Houle, principal 603.669.3932 85 Third St., Manchester, NH 03102

Saint Joseph Regional Catholic School (7—8): Dawn Florino, principal 603.624.4811 148 Belmont St., Manchester, NH 03103

Holy Family Academy (7-12): Mark Gillis, head of school 603.644.7247 281 Cartier St., Manchester, NH 03102

Trinity High School (9-12): Steven F. Gadecki, principal 603.668.2910 581 Bridge St., Manchester, NH 03104

Monday: 2 Kgs 17:5-8, 13-15a, 18; Ps 60:3, 4-5, 12-13; Mt 7:1-5 Tuesday: 2 Kgs 19:9b-11, 14-21, 31-35a, 36; Ps 48:2-3ab, 3cd-4, 10-11; Mt 7:6, 12-14 Wednesday: Vigil: Jer 1:4-10; Ps 71:1-2, 3-4a, 5-6ab, 15ab and 17; 1 Pt 1:8-12; Lk 1:5-17 Day: Is 49:1-6; Ps 139:1b-3, 13-14ab, 14c-15; Acts 13:22-26; Lk 1:57-66, 80 Thursday: 2 Kgs 24:8-17; Ps 79:1b-2, 3-5, 8, 9; Mt 7:21-29 Friday: 2 Kgs 25:1-12; Ps 137:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6; Mt 8:1-4 Saturday: Lam 2:2, 10-14, 18-19; Ps 74:1b-2, 3-5, 6-7, 20-21; Mt 8:5-17 Sunday: 2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16a; Ps 89:2-3, 16-17, 18-19; Rom 6:3-4, 8-11; Mt 10:37-42

On Monday, June 15, the food pantry served 13 families and gave out 25 bags of groceries. The need is greater than ever in our current situation, and we

appreciate your ongoing support of pantry items and monetary donations.

of June 21, 2020

eGiving ... Did you know you can use your credit card or elec-tronic check to support the mis-sion of Saint Raphael Parish?

This is especially helpful during this period and for anyone who is unable to resume at-tending mass in person due to health re-strictions. Go to our website (www.st-raphael-parish.org) and click on the Giving button. In a few minutes, you can be sure that your gift will work every day of the year to help your parish.

Weekend of June 14, 2020 Regular Offertory $3,278.00 Online Offertory Prev Week 654.00 Loose Offertory 275.00 Total Offertory $5,031.00

Holy Day Make up $ 15.00

Stewardship $1,193.00 Stewardship Online 35.00 Total Stewardship $1,228.00

Food Pantry $ 810.00

Thank you to all who have continued to send in offertories and donations to support our

parish expenses. We are very grateful.

Last Year Weekend of June 16, 2019 Total Regular Offertory $ 4,457.80 Total Stewardship (6/9/10) $ 1,573.10

Year A

Saturday June 20 The Immaculate Hart of the BVM

4:00 PM Deceased of the Lally & Moran families by Margaret-Ann

Moran

Sunday June 21 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

7:30 AM Arthur & Shirlene Linehan by Maureen Linehan-Othot

9:30 AM Alfred K. Hobbs, Jr., by Cynthia Hobbs

5:00 PM ❖Our Parish Family

Monday June 22 Saints Paulinus of Nola, John Fisher, Thomas More

12:00 PM Greg & Kerri Stanley (24th wedding anniversary)

Tuesday June 23

12:00 PM Claire White by Malachy McCarthy

Wednesday June 24 The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

12:00 PM Theresa Avard by Marge Gosselin

Thursday June 25

8:30 AM Available intention

Friday June 26

6:00 PM Dorothy Belanger (8th Anniv) by Janet Belanger

Saturday June 27 Saint Cyril of Alexandria

4:00 PM Peter Fleming by Barbara & Al Heidenreich

Sunday June 28 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

7:30 AM Mary Marszal; Ernest, Carl & Jeanne Bienvenue by

Richard Bienvenue

9:30 AM ❖Our Parish Family

5:00 PM Piotre & Stanislawa Kubel by Agnieszka & Eugene

Trzcinski

Suicide Prevention Lifeline If you or someone you know strug-gles with suicidal thoughts, you can call the U.S. National Suicide Pre-vention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK

(8255) any time of day or night.

June 21, 2020

Paul Barnes, Sue Beauchemin,

T. Michael Collins, Jeannine Cote,

Lillie Duquette, Kathleen & Harold

Eagan, Eric Featherman, Lou Marcel-

lo, Christine McMillan, Max Mendez,

Kathy St. Pierre, Marcia Santos, Marie

Sullivan, Vincent & Maddie Traynor.

If you or a loved one would like your

name on the prayer list, please call Kerri

Stanley at 623.2604, or email admin@st-

raphael-parish.org. Please call each

month to have the name put back on the

list. Thank you!

WSR P News in Granite Square! Check out

WSRP News on our YouTube channel. Reaching

Rome! Ireland and the U.K.! California! Chicago!

Boynton Street! Pinardville! All segments can be found on our

YouTube channel. Edition #5 coming soon!

Class of 2020! Congratulations from all of us at

Saint Raphael to our graduates.

Do you have a college or high school graduate? We

want to hear about them! Email info to admin@st-

raphael-parish.org, so we can acknowledge them.

COVID-19 SAFETY For health author-ity recommendations, we have removed the hymnals, missalettes and prayer cards from the church pews. If you would like to access the mass readings both during the week and weekend -- please go to the home page of the Na-tional Conference of Catholic Bishops at http://www.usccb.org/about/ Then follow the prompts to Bible, then to Daily Readings. If you would like to purchase a Missalette, for $2 please call the office. You would be asked to keep this and bring it with you to and from mass.

If you plan to attend one of the weekend Masses and do so on a regular basis, please call Kerri at

623.2604 if you can assist with the dis-infecting of pews following each Mass. We especially need assistance at the 4pm masses. Many hands make light work. We will provide the sup-plies and instructions for safe volun-teering. Thank you!

Per diocesan directive, all parishioners MUST wear a face mask in order to attend mass. We regret the in-convenience this may cause some people. If you are unable to comply, we are still live streaming our Sun-day 9:30am Mass, which can be accessed via our YouTube channel and Facebook page. The face mask

is an act of prudence and charity!

Religious Freedom Week 2020: For the Good of All Join us June 22—June 29, as we pray, reflect and take action on religious liberty, both here and in this country and abroad. Religious freedom means that Catholics, and all people of goodwill, are free to seek the truth,

and so to strengthen our common life as a nation.

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Timothy Perkins, who died May 11 and for the repose of the soul of Kenneth Provencal,

who died June 11. Both of their funeral masses were celebrated last week by P. Jerome, our pastor. Pray also for James Brunette, who passed away last week. Please keep them and their families in prayer.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading I: Jeremiah 20: 10-13 In the midst of the prophet’s gloomy mood, there comes this passage, expressing his deep confidence in the Lord’s strength and protection. He is “like a mighty champion.” Reading II: Romans 5: 12-15 Adam, one man, brought sin into the world. Jesus, one new man, brought God’s grace into the world. By Him, all people can be saved. The Gospel: Matthew 10: 26-33 This passage, part of Christ’s “Mission Discourse,” speaks of appropriate versus inappropriate fear. In their somewhat frightening new task of preaching, the Twelve listen as Jesus allays their fears. He tells them to “fear no one.” even those who might kill you in body but not the soul.”

“…the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion”. Is the

Lord leading you to be a champion in the service of His

Church as a priest or in the consecrated life? If you are

discerning your vocation, call Father Matthew Mason

663-0132, or write: mmason@rcbm.org.

Catholic Charities NH Update: All Programs Continue to Offer Support During COVID-19 Cri-sis In this challenging and unprecedented time, Catholic Charites NH continues to serve the needs of the vulnerable across New Hampshire. While most of our physical locations are closed, all of our programs remain operational. Our staff is working remotely and is accessible to serve individuals and families facing increasing hardship during this difficult period. If you

have any questions or require assistance, please contact 603-669-3030 or visit us online at www.cc-nh.org/programs.

CONNECT WITH CHRIST Your gifts to the Catholic Communication Campaign (CCC) bring the message of the Gospel to people from all walks of life, here in New Hampshire and all around the world. Where do your donations go? Fifty percent of all funds collected remains in our diocese to fund local communications projects. In the past year, CCC funds have made possible: Over 661,000 page views on the catholicnh.org website in 2019. We manage our website with you in mind. It's mobile friendly, has a robust online directory, and beautifully captures the Catholic faith in New Hampshire. Over 103,000 eNews e-mails were sent in 2019. We've designed eNews so that it's easy to read and stay on top of the events, programs, and news. Nearly 1,000 e-mails were sent in 2019 for the Diocese of Manchester Vocations Newsletter, The Call. 42,000 house-holds received Parable, our award winning magazine that tells the faith stories of your friends and neighbors. Thousands of Catholics have been engaged throughout the year through our social media channels, including our Insta-gram account. Hundreds have subscribed to our YouTube Channel to view our videos, including messages from Bishop Libasci. By supporting the CCC, you help bring the gospel message to "everyone, without exception," as Pope Francis asks.

Envelopes are available in the piano bench on the front porch of the rectory. Thank you!

Information from the Diocese of Manchester regarding the corona virus can be found on the diocesan website (www.catholicnh.org). For more information, visit https://www.catholicnh.org/community/outreach/health-care/coronavirus/

At Saint Raphael, we're doing what we can to uplift and reassure our parish family in Christ during the COVID-19 outbreak. We pray you will be drawn closer to God and find comfort in His Word. Romans 10:17 (NKJV) says, "So then faith comes by hear-ing, and hearing by the word of God". We urge you to write down, share and commit to memory any verses that speak to you, inspiring faith and hope for all during these difficult times.

There is a voice that suddenly

resonates in Abraham’s life. A

voice that invites him to undertake a journey

that he knows is absurd: a voice that spurs him

to uproot himself from his homeland, from his

family roots, in order to

move toward a new, dif-

ferent future. And it is all

based on a promise, in

which he needs only to have

trust. And to have trust in a

promise is not easy. It

takes courage. And Abraham had trust.

The Bible is silent on the steps of the first

patriarch. The logic of things leaves us to

presume that he had worshipped other divini-

ties; perhaps he was a wise man, accus-

tomed to observing the heavens and the

stars. The Lord, in fact, promised him that his

descendants would be as numerous as the stars

that speckle the sky.

And Abraham sets out. He listens to the

voice of God and trusts in His word. This is

important: he trusts the Word of God. And

with this departure of his, a new way of un-

derstanding the relationship with God arose. It

is for this reason that the patriarch Abraham

is present in the great Jewish, Christian

and Islamic spiritual traditions as the per-

fect man of God, capable of being submissive

to Him, even when His will proves arduous, if

not completely incomprehensible.

Abraham is thus the man of the Word.

When God speaks, man becomes the receptor

of that Word and his life the place in which it

seeks to become flesh. This is a great novelty

in man’s religious journey: the life of a be-

liever begins to be understood as a voca-

tion, thus as a calling, as the place where a

promise is fulfilled; and he moves in the

world not so much under the weight of an

enigma, but with the power of that promise,

which one day will be fulfilled. And Abraham

believed God’s promise. He believed and he

set out without knowing where he was going

— thus says the Letter to the Hebrews (cf.

11:8). But he had trust.

In reading Genesis, we discover that Abra-

ham experienced prayer in constant faith-

fulness to that Word, which periodically

appeared along his path. In short, we could

say that in Abraham’s life faith becomes his-

tory. Faith becomes history. Indeed Abra-

ham, with his life, with his example teaches us

this path, this path in which faith becomes

history. God is no longer seen only in cosmic

phenomena, as a distant God, who can instill

fear. The God of Abraham becomes “my

God”, the God of my

personal history, who

guides my steps, who

does not abandon me;

the God of my days,

companion in my adven

tures; the God Provi-

dence. I ask myself and I

ask you: do we have this

experience with God?

“My God,” the God who

accompanies me, the

God of my personal

history, the God who

guides my steps, who does not abandon me,

the God of my days? Do we have this experi-

ence? Let us think about this a bit.

Abraham’s experience is also attested to in

one of the most original texts of the history of

spirituality: the Memorial of Blaise Pascal. It

begins like this: “God of Abraham, God of

Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers

and savants. Certitude, certitude; feeling, joy,

peace. God of Jesus Christ.” This memorial,

written on a small parchment and found

after his death, sewn inside the philoso-

pher’s clothing, expresses not an intellectu-

al reflection that a wise man like him can

conceive of God, but the living, experienced

sense of His presence. Pascal even noted the

precise instant in which he felt that reality,

having finally encountered it: the evening of

23 Nov. 1654. It is not the abstract God or the

cosmic God, no. He is the God of a person, of

a calling, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of

Jacob, the God who is certainty, feeling, joy.

“Abraham’s prayer is expressed first by

deeds: a man of silence, he constructs an altar

to the Lord at each stage of his jour-

ney” (Catechism of the Catholic Church,

2570). Abraham does not build a temple, but

scatters the path of stones that recall God’s

passage. A surprising God, as when He pays a

visit in the form of three guests, whom Abra-

ham and Sarah welcomed with care, and the

three announce the birth of their son Isaac (cf.

Gen 18:1-15). Abraham was 100 years old

and his wife was more or less 90. And they

believed, they trusted God. And Sarah, his

wife, conceived. At that age! This is the God

of Abraham, our God who accompanies us.

Thus, Abraham becomes familiar with

God, even able to argue with Him, but ever

faithful. He speaks with God and argues. Up

to the supreme test, when God asks him to

sacrifice his very son Isaac, the son of his

elder years, his sole heir. Here Abraham

lives faith as a tragedy, as a groping walk in

the night, under a sky

that, this time, is starless.

And many times this also

happens to us, to walk in

the dark but with faith. God

himself will halt Abraham’s

hand, already prepared to

strike, because He saw his

willingness truly complete

(cf. Gen 22:1-19).

Brothers and sisters, let

us learn from Abraham;

let us learn how to pray

with faith: to listen to the

Lord, to walk, to dialogue, up to arguing.

Let us not be afraid to argue with God! I

will even say something that may seem like

heresy. Many times I have heard people say to

me: “You know, this happened to me and I

became very angry with God” — “You had

the courage to be angry at God?” — “Yes, I

got angry” — “But this is a form of prayer.”

Because only a son or daughter is capable of

being angry at their dad and then encounter

him again. Let us learn from Abraham to

pray with faith, to dialogue and to argue,

but always willing to accept the Word of

God and to put it into practice. With God,

let us learn to speak like a child with his dad:

to listen to him, to reply, to argue. But trans-

parent like a child with his dad. This is how

Abraham teaches us to pray. …

I greet the English-speaking faithful joining

us through the media. Dear brothers and sis-

ters in the U.S., I have witnessed with great

concern the disturbing social unrest in your

nation in these past days, following the tragic

death of Mr. George Floyd. My friends, we

cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to rac-

ism and exclusion in any form and yet

claim to defend the sacredness of every

human life. At the same time, we have to

recognize that “the violence of recent nights is

self-destructive and self-defeating. Nothing is

gained by violence and so much is lost.” To-

day I join the Church in Saint Paul and Min-

neapolis, and in the entire U.S., in praying for

the repose of the soul of George Floyd and of

all those others who have lost their lives as a

result of the sin of racism. Let us pray for the

consolation of their grieving families and

friends and let us implore the national recon-

ciliation and peace for which we yearn. May

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of America,

intercede for all those who work for peace

and justice in your land and throughout the

world. May God bless all of you and your

families.◄

From the Holy Father: Pope Francis

Abraham listens, and so provides a key to building racial justice

Derek Chauvin

Abraham prepares to sacrifice his son, Isaac