Rachael will receive a copy of The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth, Third Edition, a $22.95 value.

The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth, Third Edition is an understandable and down-to-earth guide to all things Catholic. This book is an eye-opener and a page-turner, whether you are brushing up on specific Catholic terms and concepts or learning them for the first time.

The Subcommittee on the Catechism, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has found this catechetical text, copyright 2013, to be in conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Now Available! Online correlation to the U.S. Bishops' High School Curriculum Framework: Click here!

The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth, Third Edition
ISBN: 978-1-59982-160-3, paper, 480 pages

by Joanna Dailey

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. . . ." We all know this song! ("My Favorite Things" from the musical The Sound of Music.) Let us give due credit to its authors, Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers. This song is a meditation on the little things in life, the little things that give us joy and keep us going, no matter what is happening around us.

If you are a little bit worn out from thinking globally and acting locally, it may be time for giving thanks for the small joys of life. A change of season can give us a metanoia, a change of mind, about the way we live our own lives. We may need to carve out some quiet time to make a list of favorite things of fall. [See the activity in Make It Happen in this newsletter for a nature walk, appreciating God’s natural gifts at this time of year.] As we name our favorite things in this new season, we can turn each simple joy into a prayer of thanks. Let’s start a list of "favorite things" for this autumn season. Maybe you would like to start a classroom list, or ask your students to keep their own lists. Here is mine, just for a start:

Favorite Things of Fall

• Apples
• Caramel apples with nuts
• Apple crisp with whipped cream or ice cream
• Crunching leaves
• Sweaters and sweatshirts
• Goldenrod in the ditches and fields
• Hot coffee in the cool mornings
• Afternoon sunshine
• Blue skies and brisk wind
• Sunflowers (sometimes whole fields of them!)
• Pots of chrysanthemums at front doorways
• The flaming red maple tree in front of my house
• The honking V-formation of wild geese flying south

"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world."*

What would you add to this list? What would you subtract? (Maybe you are allergic to goldenrod?)

Blessings on your ministry!

Peace and joy,

Joanna

*"What a Wonderful World," by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss, administered by Memory Lane Music Group, Carlin Music Corp. and Bug Music, Inc.

Materials Needed
Index cards, markers or crayons (optional)

Overview
Help the students appreciate the season of autumn by taking a short nature walk. Before the walk begins, ask the students to be prepared to notice "the gifts of God in autumn" outdoors. Among the gifts they notice, ask them to remember one that they will mentally "bring back" with them. Ask them not to mention to their neighbors the gift they are bringing back, as we want to be surprised later with the variety of gifts. Instruct them that if they want to pick up something from the ground, they may, as long as it is not an insect or animal and not something a neighbor has planted in a yard. Emphasize that nature is bigger than what we can touch with our hands. The gift could be a cloud formation, the shadow of a leaf, a squirrel gathering nuts, a caterpillar, anything in nature that is noticeable this season.

When the group returns to the classroom, distribute an index card to each student. On the side with lines, ask them to write down the gift that they are bringing back. On the other plain side, you might ask them to draw the gift—with pen, pencil, markers or crayons if you choose.

Begin this prayer, and then have the students read aloud the gift that they remembered and wrote on the card:

God our Father,

Thank you for the season of autumn, the season of change and preparation. Thank you for giving us time to prepare for winter. Thank you for the beauty we see around us. And thank you for the gifts we found today. (Each student reads aloud a gift.)

End the prayer with: For all of these gifts, we thank you, God. Amen.

If you wish, you may display the cards in the room on a banner or poster, with Thank You, God! written on the top.

Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 28, 2014
Matthew 21:28-32

Opening Prayer

Loving and merciful God, we thank you for second chances as we grow in our faith. Through the Holy Spirit, shower us with your grace and guide us to do your will here on earth. Give us the strength to persevere and the courage to come to you when we fail. With contrite hearts, we stand ready for the journey before us. Amen.

Context Connection
The parable of the two sons must be examined within the context of chapter 21. The chapter begins with Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The crowds proclaim that Jesus is the Son of David. Upon entering the city, Jesus goes to the Temple and cleanses it of those selling and buying within it. Referring to the Temple, which Jesus describes as "a house of prayer," he says, "You [the sellers and buyers] are making it a den of robbers" (21:13). The religious authorities, the chief priests and elders, demand to know on what authority Jesus has done this. In other words, they hadn't commissioned him or given him a license, and they wanted to see his credentials. Jesus does not respond to them directly but puts forth a few parables for their consideration.

In this Sunday's Gospel, one of those parables is before us. Jesus tells us of two sons and how they responded to their father's request. The father asks both sons to go and work in his vineyard. The first son says to his father, "'I will not'; but later he changed his mind and went" (21:29). The second son responds in this way, "'I go, sir'; but he did not go" (21:30). Jesus poses this question to the chief priests and elders who had challenged his authority, "Which of the two did the will of his father?" (21:31). Without hesitation they answer, "The first" (21:31). Here Jesus places great emphasis on doing the will of the Father, which shaped his life and should shape ours. Matthew makes this same point earlier in the Gospel, in chapter 7, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven" (7:21).

Jesus affirms the answer given to him by the chief priests and elders and then goes on to speak of who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Though these men are the officially designated religious authorities, others, such as repentant tax collectors and prostitutes, who actually carry out God's plan in their daily lives, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven before the authorities. The chief priests and elders must have been astonished to hear Jesus make this point. Tax collectors and prostitutes, long considered to be immoral individuals, heard the call for repentance; they took the message proclaimed by John the Baptist and Jesus to heart. They dared to believe in the forgiveness of sins and, as a result, completely changed their way of life. The chief priests and elders heard the same message but refused to open their hearts and minds; sadly, the course of their lives remained unchanged. By comparing the chief priests and elders to tax collectors and prostitutes, Jesus exposes their deep hypocrisy, their willingness to condemn others while failing to examine and change their own behavior.

Whereas the chief priests and elders traveled the path taken by the second son, who said yes but did not do his own father's will, the social outcasts followed in the footsteps of the first son, who at first said no but went on to work in the vineyard just as his father requested. After telling this parable, Jesus surely did not gain any friends among these religious leaders.

Tradition Connection
Though Jesus did have conflicts with the religious elite who, according to the Gospel, turned him over to the Romans for crucifixion, some of them listened, taking to heart his teaching and the preaching of John the Baptist. Jesus challenged the religious leaders of his day to free themselves from the past, which included an attachment to hollow ritual, and open themselves up to the ongoing revelation of God in their lives. If a dynamic and ever-evolving relationship with God, who is love, shapes our lives, we will not be imprisoned by the past but will look for contemporary and relevant ways to share the love of God.

Many of Jesus' deeds and words constituted a "sign of contradiction,"¹ but more so for the religious authorities in Jerusalem, whom the Gospel according to John often calls simply "the Jews,"² than for the ordinary People of God.³ To be sure, Christ's relations with the Pharisees were not exclusively polemical. Some Pharisees warned him of the danger he was courting;⁴ Jesus praises some of them, like the scribe of Mark 12:34, and dines several times at their homes.⁵ Jesus endorses some of the teachings imparted by this religious elite of God's people: the resurrection of the dead,⁶ certain forms of piety (almsgiving, fasting, and prayer),⁷ the custom of addressing God as Father, and the centrality of the commandment to love God and neighbor⁸ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 575).

When people are able to allow God's love for humankind to be the compass for their life, then they become fully alive in Christ. Both Jeremiah and Paul write of God's law of love being able to create in us hearts of flesh capable of caring deeply for others rather than hearts of stone incapable of caring about anyone.

The perfect fulfillment of the Law could be the work of none but the divine legislator, born subject to the Law in the person of the Son.⁹ In Jesus, the Law no longer appears engraved on tables of stone but "upon the heart" of the Servant who becomes "a covenant to the people," because he will "faithfully bring forth justice."¹⁰ Jesus fulfills the Law to the point of taking upon himself "the curse of the Law" incurred by those who do not "abide by the things written in the book of the Law, and do them," for his death took place to redeem them "from the transgressions under the first covenant"¹¹ (Catechism, paragraph 580).

The New Covenant that Jesus revealed to us is governed by the law of love, to love God fully and to love our neighbors as ourselves. This covenant is one of relationship with God the Father who wants to be known by all human beings.

This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach one another
or say to each other, "Know the Lord,"
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
(Hebrews 8:10-11)

Wisdom Connection
In this parable, first appearances do not account for everything. The son who behaved badly, by saying no, proved to be obedient in the end, and the son who behaved ever so righteously, by saying yes, showed himself to be woefully disobedient. The response of each son reflects a particular faith journey. Some people experience God's love and say they are going to share it with others, but never do. Others resist God's love, saying no to God over and over, but later they reconsider and go on to share God's love with all around them. Even if our hearts and minds are open for only a short moment, the grace of God's forgiveness can bring about an abrupt change of direction in our lives.

This Sunday's Gospel tells us to find security in a dynamic relationship with God, not in religion. Jesus argues vehemently with people who place their trust in the things of religion—the rituals, the rules, and the security of doing what is prescribed—instead of placing their trust in the God who invites them into an intimate relationship.

Jesus' words are hope-filled; we always have an opportunity to change our hearts and minds and do the will of the Father. Just as the first son took this opportunity, we can too. After all, isn't conversion about the ability to change and follow God more closely?

Acknowledgments
The scriptural quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition. Copyright © 1993 and 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

The quotations labeled Catechism are from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America. Copyright © 1994 by the United States Catholic Conference, Inc.—Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

Endnotes Cited in Quotations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church

1. Luke 2:34.
2. Cf. John 1:19; 2:18; 5:10; 7:13; 9:22; 18:12; 19:38; 20:19.
3. John 7:48-49.
4. Cf. Luke 13:31.
5. Cf. Luke 7:36; 14:1.
6. Cf. Matthew 22:23-24; Luke 20:39.
7. Cf. Matthew 6:18.
8. Cf. Mark 12:28-34.
9. Cf. Galatians 4:4.
10. Jeremiah 31:33; Isaiah 42:3, 6.
11. Galatians 3:13; 3:10; Hebrews 9:15.

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
October 5, 2014
Matthew 21:33-43

Opening Prayer

Jesus, as laborers in your Kingdom, may our lives always be examples of Christian virtue. Through your grace, strengthen within us the virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Amen.

Context Connection
In this Sunday's Gospel Jesus shares another parable with the chief priests and elders who earlier called his authority into question. The parable concerns a landowner who "planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower" (21:33). After completing this rather involved project, the landowner then leased the vineyard and departed for another country. At that time and place it was not uncommon for tenants to rent land for the purpose of working it. At harvest time the absent landowner expected to be paid the agreed-upon amount, usually a set percentage of produce from the year. We learn from the story that the landowner sends his servants to collect the rent, which causes the tenants to respond very violently: "The tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another" (21:35). The landowner then sent his own son, believing that the tenants would leave him untouched and pay their rent. The tenants, however, acted in the same violent way toward the landowner's son. "But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, 'This is the heir, come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.' So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him" (21:38-39). According to some scholars, the tenants concluded that the landowner had died, which in their minds explained why his son had come to collect the rent. By killing the landowner's son, they believed that ownership would revert to them.

In verse 40 Jesus, upon finishing the parable, poses this question to the chief priests and elders, "Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" (21:40). They respond, "He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time" (21:41). The chief priests and elders both indicted and sentenced themselves with this statement. Jesus goes on to quote from the Book of Psalms, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone" (118:22). Jesus used these words to tell them that God had chosen him, not them, to be the cornerstone of the new order in the Kingdom of God. "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom" (21:43). Jesus turns the tables by challenging the chief priests and elders to reveal the source of their authority to speak and act. Verse 45 indicates that Jesus' words were not lost on them. "When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them" (21:45).

It is important to understand what each part of the parable, which can be considered an allegory, represents. The landowner is God, the vineyard is Israel, the tenants are the religious leaders of Jesus' day, the servants sent by the landowner to collect the rent are the many prophets of the Old Testament, and the landowner's son is Jesus. In the Old Testament Israel is often represented as a vineyard. This Sunday the first reading, which comes from Isaiah, uses this very image. In the Gospel Jesus introduces an important change. In Isaiah the vineyard was destroyed because it did not produce quality fruit. In Jesus' parable the vineyard was not destroyed; rather, those in charge of it, the religious leaders of Israel, were replaced so the vineyard, Israel, could once again supply good fruit.

Tradition Connection
In concluding his Letter to the Philippians, Paul says to them, exhorting them, "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you" (Philippians 4:8-9). Paul encourages his followers to be virtuous people by imitating the life of Jesus Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines virtue in this way:

A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions.
The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God¹ (Catechism, paragraph 1803).

What a noble goal to order one's life so that it truly models the example of Jesus, who invites us to be holy like God is holy. Virtues function as the guiding lights in our life but come about only through hard work. The results of this hard work are beneficial to many people. "The moral virtues are acquired by human effort. They are the fruit and seed of morally good acts; they dispose all the powers of the human being for communion with divine love" (Catechism, paragraph 1804).

In our Catholic Tradition the four key virtues, or cardinal virtues, are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. They are called cardinal virtues because all the other virtues, the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit, depend on or blossom out of these four virtues.

Four virtues play a pivotal role and accordingly are called "cardinal"; all the others are grouped around them. They are: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. "If anyone loves righteousness, [Wisdom's] labors are virtues; for she teaches temperance and prudence, justice, and courage.² These virtues are praised under other names in many passages of Scripture (Catechism, paragraph 1805).

Wisdom Connection
By preserving this parable, Matthew reminds us to be fearless in the face of corruption. We are called to imitate Jesus by confronting those who fail to lead people down the paths of goodness and peace. Leaders who cease to serve will witness their power slip away. Jesus knew that the days of the chief priests and elders were numbered. Indeed, all of Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70. It is important to remember that the Jesus of Matthew's Gospel takes issue with the leadership of Israel, the chief priests and elders, not the people of Israel. Interestingly, many of the individuals who made up Matthew's own community were converts from Judaism. Matthew affirms their goodness and invites them to continue to grow in faith through Jesus the Christ. The invitation is ongoing, and it is ours to accept and share with others.

Acknowledgments
The scriptural quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition. Copyright © 1993 and 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

The quotations labeled Catechism are from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America. Copyright © 1994 by the United States Catholic Conference, Inc.—Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

Endnotes Cited in Quotations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church

1. St. Gregory of Nyssa, De beatitudinibus, 1: PG 44, 1200D.
2. Wisdom 8:7.

Saint Mother Theodore Guerin is the most recently canonized saint who ministered in the United States. She is the eighth American saint. She was born in France in 1798 and, as a French Sister of Providence, won government awards for teaching. She arrived in the United States in 1840 with five other Sisters of Providence. Expecting to be led to a bustling city in which to establish a school, she was instead sent to a rural area, consisting of vast forests and small farms. Yet, before the year was out, she and her sisters had established the first academy for young women in the State of Indiana, now Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College.

Mother Theodore grew to love her woodland home. Having been taught by her mother and other herbalists, she looked to the forest to provide the raw materials from which she made medicines and poultices, which she shared freely with her neighbors who were ill and in need of care. During Mother Theodore’s lifetime, the Sisters of Providence offered a free pharmacy for those in need.

She remained a model for teachers, and one of her favorite sayings was, "Love the children. Then teach them." She preferred to use rewards and prizes rather than punishments to motivate her students, and, after her death, a book of instruction for teachers by Saint John Baptist de La Salle (published in French) was found among her books. So we might say that Saint Mother Theodore was a Lasallian!

For more information on Saint Mother Theodore, visit the Saint Mary's Press Liturgical Calendar, and the Web site of the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods.