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St. Albert The Great Parish
1130 Washington Street (Route 53) East Weymouth, MA 02189 Ph: 781-337-8778, fx: 781-335-5850 Parish e-mail address: parishoffice1130@verizon.net contact the website webmaster: contact@stalbertsweymouth.org The United Nations World Memorial Day of the Holocaust service, held on January 27, 2009 was a memorable night for all that attended, and there were a lot of folks attending for the first time. The comments that I heard ranged from 'I can't believe this happened to so many people, 11 million,' to 'I can't believe that it's still happening today, and we didn't even know it'. Today, there are areas of the world where genocide is happening but it's called 'ethnic cleansing' or other politically correct names but the bottom line, they're modern day holocaust's and again who knew? Corrected date on the UN World Memorial Day of the Holocaust (that's what happens when you don't check what you write but just cut and paste) 'THE UNITED NATIONS WORLD MEMORIAL DAY OF THE HOLOCAUST, Monday, January 28, 2008: The U.N.World Memorial Day of the Holocaust will be observed in our church on Monday, January 28, at 7:30 p.m. Congregation Sha’aray Shalom of Hingham and the Weymouth Clergy Association will take part. The second part of the program will focus on the present day holocaust in Bosnia. Please take part in this most important memorial. As always, all are invited and there will be refreshments following the service in the church hall.''' Happy New Year Can you believe another year has passed. They come and go to quick, so make sure you take advantage of every day that is given to you. They are gifts from God and He gives us a new one every day to do with as we see fit. Let's make sure we thank Him for this special gift! We, the parishioners of St. Albert the Great parish family, continue to pray for the victims of abuse of all kinds. In our continuing struggle to promote social justice, in our parish, our city and our archdiocese, we try to keep in sight our greatere concern for the world at large. Can you believe that the season of Advent is here already. Why just looking over the last few entries, I see that Lent was the hot topic, celebrating the risen Lord. As we enter into the season of Advent, we call to mind those things that are gifts from God and how best to give those gifts and share them with those that we love and those that mean the most in each of our lives. With the third week of Advent upon us, we pause for a moment to reflect upon the anticipated birth of our lord and savior, knowing that something special is about to happen, the arrival of our savior. Let's hope the 'oil' holds out. Let's hope that we have prepared for the coming of Christ. In conjunction with our "10 Days of action for Darfur", which we held during the first 2 weeks of September (see below for the details,) St. Albert the Great Parish will be hosting a discussion Sunday October 22nd at 1PM on the genocide in the Darfur region of the Sudan, featuring as our guest speaker BU student filmmaker Andrew Karlsruher. Andrew was one of three students from American universities who traveled to Chad to film interviews with refugees in the camps along the border between Sudan and Chad - their documentary was aired last year on MTV on the 11th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. All are welcome to come, see the documentary, and listen to Andrew talk about the on-going genocide in Darfur. 10 DAYS OF ACTION FOR DARFUR: Sept. 7th – Shine a Light for Darfur! – Join in a candlelight vigil in front of St. Albert the Great Church at 7:30 PM on Thursday, Sept. 7th to begin our 10 days of prayer and action to bring increased attention to the genocide in Darfur! Sept. 8th – Prayer Service for the People of Darfur! Come together on Friday, Sept. 8th at 7:30 PM to listen to the word of God, to consider how we are called to act on behalf of those suffering in Darfur, to pray for those who have died and for those who try to survive. As the '10 DAYS OF ACTION FOR DARFUR' conclude, 11 buses of concerned people will be traveling from Boston to New York City's Central Park for a celebration of Global Day. To learn more about what you can do, click on the following link "Save Darfur". It's never to late to help! The Lord is Risen!! Let all the world rejoice!! Happy Easter This season of lent has been a spiritual season for many. In the world Caholic Church, we're celebrating our first Easter under the leadership of Pope Benedict XVI. Locally, it's the first Easter celebration under the leadership of our newest cardinal, Cardinal Sean. It's also the first full season of lent for our recently re-opened parish. While in vigil, we enjoyed lay lead services, which seemed to more than just a celebration of the season of the risen Lord. We learned the why of what we do and were more able to personalize the experiences for ourselves. I'm sure that each one us learned or re-learned the real meaning of Lent and the Lenten season. The santuary is fully decorated with the beauty of the flowers and the vibrant colors that remind us of what the season represents, re-birth and that of new life. Enjoy the sesaon, enjoy life!! The tables have been set since Thurday (Jan 26, 2006) evenings Holocaust Rememberence Service and never more filled with food for the body. The Mass upstairs in the church was filled with food for the spirit. Father Bob Bowers, who has been helping out Father Borges celebrate weekend Masses, served his last official Mass as an active priest in the archdiocese. He has requested permission from Archbishop O'Malley to take a year sabbatical from the priesthood to pursue a course that he feels the Lord has presented to him. The service was filled with hope and promise for the future of St. Albert the Great and also for Father Bowers. He has reminded us where we have been and asks us to keep the faith strong and go where the spirit leads us. The Patriot Ledger had a wonderful article, "St. Albert’s, popular priest say goodbye" and Father Bowers reminds us that we are not saying "goodbye but only farwell for now." It has been pointed out to me that, after all these months since we have been recognized once again by the Archdiocese of Boston, that we never put our Mass schedule on the web page. Although it is in the attached bulletins, we never had it right out front for you. Please join us in our celebration of the Eucharist, Mass Schedule: Saturday: 4:30 pm Sunday: 9:00 am, 11:00 am and 6:00 pm Weekdays (Mon, Tues, Thurs & Fri): 9:00 am Holy Days will be announced in the Bulletin. Lay-lead Communion/Prayer Service: Wednesday 9:00 am Family Prayer Service onFriday 7:30 pm A warm welcome to all parishioners and friends that gather in prayer and faith sharing on Wednesday mornings @ 9am and Friday evenings at 7;30 pm. These are lay led services of scripture and song. Be part of the vital prayer life of our parish. Happy New Year!! Let all try to keep in mind our past and use it to move forward in the future. Remember that those who forget their past, are doomed to repeat it. In the past year and a half, we have had many great moments that we should never forget. Using these experiences and sharing them with others in the same prediciment will hopefully prevent repeats of the past. Happy New Year and may God continue to bless each and every one of us with him many graces. One year ago, we were celebrating our Christmas Masses as a closed parish. Now we have been re-established and are once again celebrating the birth of Christ in our still opened church as a christian community. The bulletin is now up and running again. After many technical problems, I was finally able to get the bulletin working again. It's in a document form so it's real easy to open. Go to the who we are, click on the bulletin date you wish to view and there it is. The Hurricane Katrina relief collection went well. Our parishioners continue to show their generosity by supporting this worthy cause. With our sincere gratitude to the wonderful people of St. Albert the Great parish, we will be send a check to the All Saints Catholic Church in the Algiers section of New Orleans in Louisiana for their relief efforts. During the hurricane, All Saints continued to minister to all who needed comfort in one fashion or another. Father Weiss, the pastor of All Saints Church has been extremely busy since the first hurricane struck New Orleans. Although their church wasn't hit that bad, the surrounding areas were devistated. Located in the Algiers section of New Orleans, which is on the west side of the city, they were spared partially because they are a whopping 12 feet above sea level and the water just never got up that high in their area. We have a special connection to All Saints Church because our previous pastor, Father Coyne spent time there some years ago and continues to keep in touch with them. Also, we share the All Saints name with them in our Girls Color Guards. We are linked and with this link, we have found a parish to funnel our support to, for them to use as needed for their area. Being right at 'ground zero', they know what is needed for their surrounding area. On Sunday, August 28, 2005, we enjoyed a Mass of Celebration which was attended by about 550 parishioners, family and friends of St. Albert. In a beautifully penned article in the "Weymouth News, 9/7/05", our own Rose Barrett's article describes our feelings wonderfully and for me to try to do better would just be inadequate. Yes, Saint Albert's re-established !!! With the official re-establishment of St. Albert the Great Parish, our vigil has finally come to a close. We have accomplished what we had originally set out to do, namely, save our parish. In addition to saving St. Alberts from the chopping block, we also opened the eyes of many of the other parishes that thought they had no options when the decree's of suppression were issued. We will continue to support all those in vigil and push for a positive resolution to their requests. We thank all whose lives have been turned and twisted in every direction by doing everything possible to prevent the closing of our vibrant and faithfilled parish family. We succeeded! Final count for days in vigil: 306 as of July 1, 2005. To those parishes still in vigil, we support your efforts and hope that the persistance pays off as it did for us. In the bulletin of June 26, 2005 is the 'Letter to the St. Albert's parishioners' from Father Borges' homily from Sunday, June 19, 2005. It was so kind and thoughtful that we felt it had to be in the bulletin, (go to who we are) for all of us to see and pass on to our friends and relatives. We are truely blessed to have Father Borges as our pastor. Well, we finally have something in writing from the archdiocese. Knowing what's happened over the past year will make it difficult to go back to life as it used to be. Seeing churches re-opened that never should have been closed in the first place is hopefully a sign that the archdiocese is becoming more 'pastoral' and perhaps the laity will have a voice in the future of our church. 306 Days of prayerful vigil so far (as of July 1, 2005) To see more about what's happening in the life of our parish, be sure to look at the latest bulletin, in who we are. The best is still to come! On this Friday, June 10, 2005, our thoughts and prayers go out to our friends and neighbors from the Sacred Heart Parish in the Weymouth Landing. A devestating fire has left ravaged their 134 year old church and left it in ruins. The fire, which is thought to have begun in the boiler room, quickly spread to 7 alarms and burned until the early hours of Friday morning before it was brought under control by Weymouth and Braintree firefighters with the assistance of many of the surrounding towns. One year ago, May 25, 2004 we started our journey of faith. We are constantly reminded of the 'roller coaster ride' and it couldn't be truer than right now. Since we received the 'good news', we still have received no official notification from the Archdiocese of Boston. The only 'official' word was relayed to us from the External Review Committee. We do understand that with the selection of the new pope, Pope Benedict XVI, there may be some delay in the process but two months worth of delays, with absolutely no contact from the RCAB, is a little tough to take. We will remain patient, but it certainly brings up more questions as to: Does anyone know the process? or is this something that has never happened before and nobody knows how to reverse a decree of suppression. For now, we are being 'allowed' to have one Mass a week, on Sunday at 11am, until we're officially (re)opened. This is something we cannot figure out. We have supposedly been re-opened, according to Archbishop O'Malley, and we had been told that we could return to our original Mass schedule with our pastor 'in residence' back on March 31, 2005. Now the decision to allow our services to resume with some sort of normalality has been reversed. In a press release, posted on the archdiocean website on 3/31/05, Archbishop O'Malley is quoted as saying "My commitment to the people of the Archdiocese when I established this committee, was to give serious attention to their work and their commitment to use their various skills to help me understand what had gone well up to that time, what had not gone well and what might be done better going forward." It appears now that the External Review Committee is being snubbed and their 'valued' opinion isn't as valued as everyone first thought. Perhaps only a select few in the archdiocese value their opinion. The article goes on to say "In one case, the Archbishop will open the process required by church law to re-establish or establish a parish at the site of a previously closed parish." We were closed just about over night utilizing this 'process' so how long does this process take to reverse. All that is needed is to issue a decree declaring the decree of suppression as 'nullified' and re-establish the parish as it was on Aug. 31, 2004. One big question remains unanswered, WHEN will we be re-opened? We have been told that we have a pastor but he's not allowed to move in to the rectory until after we have been 'officially' re-opened. This is not only unfair to the faithful parishioners of St. Albert but also to Father Borges and the parishioners of St. Stephen's who don't know what the immediate future holds for their Spanish ministry will be. Saint Albert's Open!!! A wonderful day in the life of our parish has arrived. As the word spreads of our parish re-opening, we are all reminded of the song we sing at the end of every service 'We Will Rise Again'. We Have! As we receive word from Peter Meade and Sister Janet Eisner about the archbishop's decision to re-open St. Albert the Great Parish, it's the reason behind the decision that rings clear. We have been reestablished as a parish because of our show of faith. By always taking the high road and broadcasting to the Catholic community that we have gained strength in faith and learned how to become a parish lead by christian values by the laity of the church, we have been given an opportunity to show the archdiocese what we are capable of. In the past couple of weeks, we have experienced so many different emotions that it seems difficult to try to sort through them in a reasonable fashion. I guess when you're trying to deal with emotions, though, there really is no way to rationalize them. To change all the things in this website now would be denying that we are still on a journey. Our journey is chronicled here among our news articles, pictures and attachments. This, in a small way, is my dealing with emotional turmoil. If I can put my thought and emotions in black and white, then perhaps I can put some order to the chaos. You are my sounding board and I look forward to your input.
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Page last modified on February 12, 2009, at 03:08 PM
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