St. Clement of Rome Parish One of the 100 Great Catholic Parishes of the United States

4317 Richland Avenue, Metairie, Louisiana 70002  |  Phone (504) 887-7821  |  Fax (504) 454-3906  |  stclement@archdiocese-no.org

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Father Ralph

Pastor's Desk Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time August 24, 2008

Dear Sisters and Brothers, Today is the Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus confronts the Apostles on who do people think He is; then He further inquires whom do they think He is. Peter responds that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. The question for us is what it means for us that Jesus is the Christ, that He is the Son of God. How do you answer that question? On Thursday of this week, we will hold our first official School Mass of the year. It also marks the 40th year of St. Clement of Rome School. We have entered our fourth decade of Catholic education at St. Clement of Rome School, and we want to thank God for what He has done for us in all these years. We are especially appreciative for what the Irish Presentation Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary have done for us and the thousands of boys and girls whose lives they have influenced. Further, we are also grateful for all that the lay teachers have done for us. May the Lord continue to bless our teachers, parents and most especially the children in future years as well. At last week's Pastoral Council meeting it was decided to reverse an earlier decision of rejecting a gift of a defibrillator we got for our church. The possible good that this machine may do for individuals in cardiac distress outweighs the problems it may pose. The cardiac defibrillator is user friendly which any lay person can use, not to mention the doctors and nurses that regularly attend our Masses. By way of this announcement, I would like to invite, those who would be willing to use the defibrillator, when needed at one of our Masses. Please let me know what Mass that might be. We will provide an introduction to our model and simple training, when we have a sufficient response. We are grateful to Dr. Jerry Cvitanovich for this life-saving machine. We all know the destruction that Hurricane Katrina caused our parish, the $2,000,000 cost of rebuilding our nine parish buildings in addition to the damage to so many of the homes in our parish. All this in addition to the even greater devastation in the New Orleans area. We are also aware of the many gifts and contributions from Jewish communities and parishes through the United States, especially from the diocese of Rochester the Webster-Penfield Catholic Connection. Further, businesses and individual parishioners have helped us to rebuild too. In recognition of all our benefactors, we have appropriately memorialized them with a special statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus including a plaque. We have plans to dedicate the plaque on Sunday, October 19 at our 10 a.m. Mass. We will invite our donors, especially from Rochester, to attend if possible. We would like to provide living quarters for some of them if possible. Any parishioner who has a room or rooms that might be utilized for that weekend, please contact me. Thank you. It is most appropriate, that we in turn assist a parish in the Iowa area that has been flooded this spring. A devastated parish has been chosen, pictures of which are found in our bulletin. We will have a special collection for this parish on September 6 and 7. Please be very generous in this collection. Have a good week in the Lord.      Your brother in Christ,           Msgr. Ralph E. Carroll      Send e-mail to Father Ralph

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