Bellarmine Chapel Bulletin

Bulletin Archive

To receive the Bellarmine bulletin by email, please send your name to Liz Keuffer at Keuffer@xavier.edu.   Thank you!

May 16, 2010

Ascension of the Lord

BELLARMINE CALENDAR

Sunday, May 16 

Children’s Liturgy of the Word

Outreach Collection for CoEd

Monday, May 17 

7:00 PM St. Vincent de Paul - Activity Room

Tuesday, May 18 

7:00 PM JustFaith - Activity Room

Wednesday, May 19 

7:00 PM Advisory Committee - Alumni Center

Thursday, May 20 

6:00 PM Grief Support Meeting - Activity Room

Saturday, May 22 

9:00 AM St. Vincent de Paul - Activity Room

Sunday, May 23 

Infant Baptism

Fair Trade Coffee for Sale

5:00 PM Dismantling Racism Team - Activity Room

CoEd COLLECTION TODAY

The Outreach Collection for CoEd is this weekend!

The Cooperative for Education (CoEd) is a Cincinnati-based non-profit with the mission of helping Guatemalan schoolchildren break the cycle of poverty through education.

Establishing computer centers in rural Guatemalan middle schools creates opportunities for Mayan children to gain the skills they need to continue their education, find higher wage jobs, and permanently raise their standard of living. For every $1,000 donated through the outreach collections after all masses today, Bellarmine can sponsor a sustainable computer workstation in a rural Guatemalan school. Please make checks out to Bellarmine Chapel with CoEd in the memo line. Visit www.coeduc.org for more information.

We are hosting an opportunity for those in the parish who have experienced the loss of their spouse through death, to gather and have an evening of sharing and support. We will meet on Thursday, May 20, from 6:00 - 8:00 PM in the Activity Room at the chapel. We will have light dinner refreshments, so please RSVP, ASAP! RSVP to Karen Brandstetter at brandstetter@xavier.edu or 745-3349 so we can be prepared for everyone. The goal of this evening will be to provide sharing and support to one another based on this common experience of loss at such a close and personal level.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Please join us today as we celebrate the following sacraments:

At the 9:00 liturgy Jade Smitherman will receive her First Eucharist and Christian Conway will complete his initiation into the church through the sacrament of Confirmation.

At the 11:00 liturgy Adam Hampel, Zach Wells, and Christopher Kearney will also complete their initiation through Confirmation.

The altar flowers today are provided in memory of Gary Brandstetter and in loving support of Karen by the members of their Bellarmine Small Faith Community: Peg Dillon, Karen and Dan Hurley, Connie and Firmin Widmer, and Ginny and Zeke Zimmerman.

"Brothers and sisters, why are you standing there looking at the sky?" We can almost hear Gary addressing these words from the Acts of the Apostles to us as we mark the three-month anniversary of his death. Always a man of practical action, eager to get the job done, his spirit continues to challenges us on Ascension, and every day, to get busy building up the kingdom of God.

Thanks for your steady support of our operations here. All budgets are on the edge, in your house and in our ours! What you can give now, through June, will help us know how to plan a realistic budget for 2011.

BID SOUGHT FOR NEW WEBSITE

Bellarmine Chapel is accepting bids for development of a new website. Please contact Liz in the chapel office at 745-3398 or keuffer@xavier.edu for information.

Sunday, June 6. Sign up in the narthex. For every pint of blood you donate through June 30, 2010, you're entered into a drawing for prizes such as a laptop, Nintendo Wii, Sony PSP, Garmin GPS, Xbox 360, gift cards and the grand prize of an all-expense-paid cruise for two including airfare!

June 21-25, 2010: This is an opportunity for children from preschool age through grade 6. Our theme this year is "God’s Big Backyard" and we will learn about service to others through classroom time, music, craft activities and drama. The times are 9:30 AM – Noon. We still need many parents and teens to help make this program work. We especially need classroom leaders. If you would like more information about volunteering, please call Jim Crosby at 745.3317. Registration is open now by visiting www.knox.org and clicking on the Vacation Bible School link on the right hand side. There is also a link on Bellarmine’s website.

This year's theme is Service. The students will be creating painted flower arrangements and wooden building blocks for local charities. The arrangements will be given to a charity to brighten up their office/meeting space. The building blocks will be given to children in need.

RECYCLE AND BRIGHTEN SOMEONE'S DAY! Please give us your round 1/2-liter, 1-liter, and 2-liter plastic bottles (without handles). A collection box is located in the narthex.

Rectangle, square, arch and triangle shaped cut wood pieces no larger than 4X8 are also needed. Contact Jackie Baumgartner at jacksjma@earthlink.net to coordinate drop-off/pick-up.

RANDOM QUOTE

Our Scriptures have spoken to us, and our lives ought to speak back. That's how we love our religions, challenge them, care for them, transform them, and help them deliver their promises to the world.     ~ Samir Selmanovic, from his book, It's Really All About God

...within the parish: a way to take part, and get to know people around you too!

Ministry to Engaged Couples This is a call to married couples who would like to help younger brides and grooms grow in their capacity to communicate, share values, and build a lasting marriage. You would set up time for them to work through a values inventory, (called FOCCUS), and then come back for one or two further evenings of discussion together. As ministers of this work, you and your spouse have the role of helping the engaged couple listen and speak up, and to share from your own backgrounds and experience, too.

There is a two-evening training for this work coming up: June 10 and 17. Call Kathy Kohl (745-3376) or Richard (745-3398) to talk further if you are interested.

And our Finance Committee is in need of two new members who: know the parish and its values; have an affinity for interpreting financial data and budget reports; and want to help us all come to a deeper appreciation of our role as stewards of all we've been given here. More and more the key question for our finance team is how to better support our ministry for the future, the outreach and the growth in faith that we all want, through the generations. It's a three year commitment, about 8 meetings a year.

If this person might be you, call or email Richard, or Kevin Berlon, our current chairperson: kberlon@usavingsbank.com.

Please indicate your interest by June 1.

Summer Quest books (Summer Reflections) are in for those small faith communities that use them. Please contact Liz or Karen in the office to arrange pick-up.

Volunteers are needed to help serve lunch at Tender Mercies on Saturday, June 12. This is a great opportunity for a family, a group of friends or a small faith group. Time period is about two hours. If you can help, please contact Rita Pritchard at 325-1579 (please note corrected number from last week).

RANDOM QUOTE

Life is about using the whole box of crayons.     ~RuPaul

Last call for Summer Service volunteers! Please get your paperwork in this week for either trip. Forms are on line and at the Youth Info Table. Please try to have all payments in by the end of the May.

St. Jude Parish on the Navajo Reservation in Tuba City, AZ., June 8 - 17, 2010, $350 plus airfare. Forms and the $150 deposit are due now.

Harlan, KY July 4-10, 2010, $265 inclusive. Building projects continue helping the working poor maintain decent housing in Harlan County. Forms and the $125 deposit are due now.

There is some scholarship money available for teens who would like to help but for whom paying is difficult. Please contact Sue Antoinette at 745-4224.

"You Too Go Into My Vineyard." The Athenaeum of Ohio’s Lay Pastoral Ministry Program has been educating Catholic men and women for over 35 years. Sponsored by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, this program is grounded in Catholic doctrine and forms faithful disciples to be engaged in the mission of the Church. Classes are now forming for the Fall of 2010.Call 513-231-1200 or email kboss@athenaeum.edu for more information.

PAINTING EXHIBITION
Adsum: Contemporary Paintings on Ignatian Spirituality

Xavier alumnus Holly Schapker ' 92 is exhibiting her 25 works based on Ignatius Loyola; his life, mission, and the Spiritual Exercises at the Xavier University Art Gallery located in the A.B. Cohen Center (behind the Cintas Center). She is hosting an Artist Reception today 1:00-4:00 PM and invites Bellarmine Parishioners to get an early preview immediately following the 11:00am Mass that same day. Light refreshments will be provided. Please contact Terri Yontz at 745-3811 or yontz@xavier.edu for more information.

RANDOM QUOTE

If you really want to be powerful, if you really want to be influential, then just serve.    ~ Rev. Willie Barrow

Pope John Paul II once remarked that "Christian love is not simply an act of charity but also an encounter with Christ Himself in the poor". That comment resonated with our Vincentians, who on a rainy Saturday morning climbed up steep decaying concrete steps to visit "Louie" in his Norwood apartment. Having no family, he lives alone. He had always been able to support himself until the recent economic downturn. After receiving his last unemployment check, he was now looking at an overdue rent payment and told the volunteers that he had only half of the rent to give the landlord who was coming to collect it the next day.

Louie showed the team his neatly typed resume and explained how, having no bus fare, he rode his bicycle up and down Montgomery Rd. handing out copies to businesses along that route. Impressed with his determination and realizing how alone he must feel with no family to support him, Vincentians gathered to pray with him, reciting aloud the God Loves You prayer sheet that is given to each person we visit. Louie was so touched by the prayer that he announced that he was going to frame it and hang it on the wall. He requested our continuing prayers for a job, and was elated to receive bus tokens to aid the job search and a promise to help pay his rental balance.