Dear Parishioners,

Happy Feast Day!

Tomorrow is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi and since you are members of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, it’s your feast day as well as mine!

The life of Francis still has much to say to our world today. He is known as a peacemaker for many reasons. After his failed attempt to participate in the third Crusade, he spent months on a sickbed trying to figure out what God wanted him to do. He experienced the Crucified Christ telling him, “Rebuild my church, which as you see, is falling into ruin.” Taking literally what he heard, he then rebuilt little chapels in the towns. He finally realized that he was to rebuild the Church, challenging its leaders to remember the example of Jesus and discard the trappings of wealth and privilege to which they had become accustomed. He and his followers took seriously the poverty of Jesus - born in a stable, crucified in obedient love of his Father, and poured out in the Eucharist. His poverty and that of his followers was all the more striking since he and most of them were wealthy and well-educated in a society which was very stratified according to one’s class. He spent much of each year in prayer, always experiencing the struggle between a life of contemplation and one of preaching and service. He also spent time with the lepers who lived near Assisi, finding Jesus in the most outcast of his time.

He took the gospel seriously, including Jesus’ admonition to the disciples to greet everyone with a blessing of peace. Anyone who followed his way was forbidden to participate in the armed skirmishes among the various city-states. Francis himself made the dangerous trip to the Middle East (probably Iraq or Iran) to speak to the sultan about peace. The sultan wasn’t convinced to forsake fighting, but did promise safe passage from his territory, so impressed was he with Francis’ message.

How can we be peacemakers today? Is there one person in our circle of friends or acquaintances to whom we can listen this week? Can we include our whole, broken world, including those we don’t understand or whom we may consider our enemies, in our prayers for peace? May the Spirit open us all to that gift which is always being offered by our loving God.

Today, in parishes throughout the United States, Catholics are celebrating Life from the first moment of conception till the last breath is sighed. “The human person is Central, the clearest reflection of God among us.” (U.S. Catholic Bishops). Let us affirm the goodness of God’s creation by valuing the unborn, providing for the economically disadvantaged, rooting out the cause of violence and war and protecting the elderly and infirm.

The RED ROSE imprinted upon our Pro-Life banner hanging in our Church symbolizes the sanctity of life at all its stages. May it help raise our consciousness about the wonder and awesomeness of all human life.

With the coming of autumn, sunrise and sunset arrive earlier. The breeze is a bit cooler and we might change our sleeping attire. Even with the faster pace of post-summer, we might stop to appreciate the beauty around us. After this month of horrendous hurricanes not experienced since 1880, what might St. Francis, the patron of the environment, say to us about our care for God’s creation? Ross Gelbspan is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of the recent book, Boiling Point. He writes of the connection between global warming and terrorism which probably hasn’t occurred to most of us. Development economists all agree that investing in clean energy in poor countries would create far more jobs and far more wealth than the same dollar invested in anything else. If the U.S. led a wholesale transfer of clean energy to poor countries, that would do more than anything else to undermine the economic desperation that give rise to anti-U.S. sentiments.

Unintentionally, we have disrupted the massive systems in the planet that have kept the earth hospitable for 10,000 years, heating the deep oceans, loosing the wave of violent weather, altering the timing of the seasons. Poor governments are now forced to spend more on disaster relief and property insurers have lost 89 billion dollars in 1998 alone, more than during the entire decade of the 80’s. Governments with a fragile tradition of democracy could easily resort to permanent states of martial law in the face of floods, drought, epidemics and environmental refugees. “Climate change is nothing if not an issue of environmental justice and human rights. Secure shelter, food and the tools for basic sustenance are embedded in the international Declaration of Human Rights.” Holland, Germany and England have adopted major efforts to cut emissions 60 to 80% in the next 50 years. Our country is the only one to express doubts about the reality of global warming. As we read the newspaper and magazines this week, we might be aware of efforts made to reverse this trend and pray that they be fruitful.

Women’s Retreat Day

FESTIVAL RAFFLE NEWS

Congratulations!!!
to the winners of our Festival Raffle!
The winners are:

$2,000 Christine Powis
$1,000 Karen Martinez
$750 Gene Wheeler
$500 Tiffany White
$250 Daniel and Sandra Murtagh
$100 each to Aurelia Sese, Coric Family and Mark Gonis

$200 Father Bruce-Early Bird Raffle

Join TIPPS for our Halloween get-together!!

Kids costumes are optional. There will be a potluck-please bring an item to share with six people, and a toy for your child to play with (no balls or weapons please). Feel free to invite new TIPPSters!

TOMORROW
October 4th at 7:40a.m. before school

Join us in the Upper School Yard, 347 Oak Avenue

We are scheduled for the 2nd Wednesday of each month. If you can prepare a favorite cookie, snack or lunch item for 10 to 12 people, please drop it off at the Children's Chapel, in the back of Church, by 9 a.m. on October 13th. Please pack the items in a non-returnable container. Frozen items can be donated.

Saint Robert’s Grief Support Group will hold their next meeting on October 9th and October 23 in the Convent Chapel from 3-4:15p.m. (before the 4:30 p.m. Mass). Anyone who is suffering from the loss of a loved one—spouse, sibling, child, parent friend or relative is invited to come and pray, share, comfort and be comforted. You are invited to bring a companion as for support and strength. God Bless you in your sorrow.

The Youth Group will celebrate its one-year anniversary in the parish with a special Youth Mass at 5 p.m. Fr. Tom Hamilton will celebrate the Mass and I ask anyone in the parish who has given anything to the youth group please join us on that night. No matter how small you thought your gift/contribution was, we would like to recognize and thank you. There have been so many generous people that individual invitations are not possible. Any questions, please feel free to contact me at (650) 255-0791 or SRYOUTHMINISTER@AOL.COM.

This dual calling of faith and citizenship is at the heart of what it means to be a Catholic in the United States. Faithful citizenship calls us to seek “a place at the table” of life for all God’s children in the elections of 2004 and beyond.