02.17.19

Blessed Are the Poor This Sunday in the Gospel we hear Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, which differs significantly from Matthew’s version. The first difference is the setting.  Matthew’s Gospel has Jesus giving the “Sermon on the Mount,” establishing him as the “new Moses,” who went up Mount Sinai and delivered the law. Luke’s version says that Jesus “came down...and stood on a stretch of level ground,” and so this is sometimes called the “Sermon on the Plain.” There is a beautiful, incarnational sense of “Divine condescension” here - our God is coming down to be with us and to teach us. Then, in the first of Luke’s Beatitudes Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor,” whereas Matthew’s version says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Those two little words - “in spirit” - make a big difference. To be “poor in spirit” (often interpreted as “humble”) is one thing, but to be materially poor is quite another.  How can we both proclaim the poor to be “blessed” and work to end poverty? The key is, of course, that poverty in itself is not a good, but something we should work to alleviate and eliminate.  What Jesus is telling us here is essentially that the poor hold a special place in God’s heart, and in that sense they are “blessed.”  This is the basis for the Church’s understanding of the “preferential option for the poor” in Catholic social teaching.  This also got me thinking about the concepts of simplicity of life (to which I believe all Christians are called) and even voluntary poverty. I don’t claim to have any “one size fits all” answers, but I think this passage certainly calls us to reexamine our relationship to material wealth if we would inherit the kingdom of God.  Fr. Thom Service on Saturdays Local service projects every weekend!  Contact Kaitlin to learn more. Saturday, February 23 8am - noon Davenport Community Food Pantry Thursday, February 28 Between noon - 5pm Help a refugee family move into a new home. Justice and Immigration: Catholic Responses to Detention Wednesday, February 20 - 7 pm - Rogalski Center Ballroom The Rev. Kokjohn Endowment for Catholic Peace and Justice will be hosting a panel on Immigration and the proper Catholic response, featuring a variety of speakers on the subject of Immigration.  All are welcome! Busy Student Retreat February 24-28 APPLICATIONS DUE WEDNESDAY Need to take some time away in the midst of your busy week?  The Busy Student Retreat is for you!  All it takes is a half hour of prayer and a half hour meeting with a spiritual director over 4 days.  A retreat experience that fits into your schedule!  Click here to sign up! CCHD Internship Applications Due February 22 The Diocese of Davenport is looking for an intern for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.  This intern will work with the Social Action office of the Diocese, along with Quad Cities Interfaith.  The internship is 16-20 flexible hours per week for 24 weeks during the school year, with a $14/hour salary.  Click here to learn more or contact Loxi Hopkins. LAST: Life Advocacy Student Training Saturday, March 2 @ 9am - 1pm SIGN UP DUE MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25 Campus Ministry is hosting a pro-life advocacy training right here on campus on March 2.  All students interested in pro-life issues are encouraged to join for LAST: Life Advocacy Student Training.  Click here to register! Eucharistic Adoration & Praise and Worship St. Paul the Apostle Church Tuesday, February 26 from 7:00-8:30 pm Join for a night of praise and worship music before the Blessed Sacrament at ADORE, at St. Paul the Apostle Church (916 E Rusholme Street).  Contact us if you would like to carpool there.                    QUICK BUZZ                    Take part in the Sacrament of Reconciliation before every weekday mass!  Confessions are offered from 11:15 am - 12 noon Monday/Friday; 3:45 - 4:30 pm Tuesday/Thursday; and 8:30 - 9:15 pm Wednesday.   BeesKnees is our prayer chain for the needs of our St. Ambrose community.  Email BeesKnees@sau.edu Have a prayer request, or want to join.

Have a question about a program or event going on in Campus Ministry? Got an idea for something you'd like to see happen? EMAIL US at ministry@sau.edu. Follow us online for news, events, prayer and spiritual resources, plus much more: Twitter Instagram Facebook

02.10.17

Celebrating the Vocation of Marriage February 7-14 is celebrated by the Catholic Church in the United States as “National Marriage Week,” and this Sunday, February 10 is “National Marriage Day.” To observe this, we will have a special blessing of all married people at our Masses this Sunday. When I was the Vocation Director for the Diocese and would ask people what they thought of when I said the word “vocation,” I would often hear “priesthood” or “nuns” in response. To be sure, these are beautiful vocations, but they are not the only vocations within the Church. Occasionally, someone would call out “marriage,” and I always made a special point to give praise for that response. Not only is marriage a true vocation, but it is, in a sense, the first, most natural, and most common of vocations within the Church. It is the primary way that people choose to live out their baptismal call to holiness. And yet, marriage is not somehow “in competition” with those other vocations. I often tell people that I could only say my “I do’s” at the altar the morning of my priestly ordination, because my parents had first said their “I do’s” at the altar many years earlier. My vocation flowed out of theirs.  After nearly 65 years of marriage my parents are still teaching me how to love sacrificially; in other words, how to be a priest. And now, as a priest and as Chaplain here at St. Ambrose, I have the awesome privilege and responsibility of preparing couples for this great sacrament and witnessing their “I do’s’” on behalf of the Church.  It comes around full circle. In this National Marriage Week, let us make a special commitment to pray for married couples, especially those who may be struggling in their marriages, and to pray for all those who are preparing for marriage, especially those who will be married here this year.  Fr. Thom Showing of "The Dating Project" Monday, February 11 @ 7:00 pm Beehive Join us for a showing of the movie "The Dating Project."  This movie follows the lives of 5 single people trying to figure out dating in this world of social media, texting, and hook-up culture.  All are welcome to join - single or dating.  Followed by snacks and discussion. Busy Student Retreat February 24-28 Need to take some time away in the midst of your busy week?  The Busy Student Retreat is for you!  All it takes is a half hour of prayer and a half hour meeting with a spiritual director over 4 days.  A retreat experience that fits into your schedule!  Click here to sign up! Justice and Immigration: Catholic Responses to Detention Wednesday, February 20 - 7 pm - Rogalski Center Ballroom The Rev. Kokjohn Endowment for Catholic Peace and Justice will be hosting a panel on Immigration and the proper Catholic response, featuring a variety of speakers on the subject of Immigration.  All are welcome! CCHD Internship Applications Due February 22 The Diocese of Davenport is looking for an intern for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.  This intern will work with the Social Action office of the Diocese, along with Quad Cities Interfaith.  The internship is 16-20 flexible hours per week for 24 weeks during the school year, with a $14/hour salary.  Click here to learn more or contact Loxi Hopkins. LAST: Life Advocacy Student Training Saturday, March 2 @ 9am - 1pm Campus Ministry is hosting a pro-life advocacy training right here on campus on March 2.  All students interested in pro-life issues are encouraged to join for LAST: Life Advocacy Student Training.  Click here to register!                    QUICK BUZZ                    Take part in the Sacrament of Reconciliation before every weekday mass!  Confessions are offered from 11:15am - 12 noon Monday/Friday; 3:45 - 4:30pm Tuesday/Thursday; and 8:30 - 9:15pm Wednesday.   BeesKnees is our prayer chain for the needs of our St. Ambrose community.  Email BeesKnees@sau.edu Have a prayer request, or want to join.

Have a question about a program or event going on in Campus Ministry? Got an idea for something you'd like to see happen? EMAIL US at ministry@sau.edu. Follow us online for news, events, prayer and spiritual resources, plus much more: Twitter Instagram Facebook

02.03.19

View this email in your browser Stay Warm! Probably from time immemorial human beings have associated love with warmth. (God knows, after the week we have had we could use a little warmth!) There are some very simple anthropological reasons for this. When we embrace a loved one, hold a child, or gather with family and friends, there is physical warmth in that. Just to think of those we love seems to bring a sense of warmth. The risk we run, though, is in thinking of love as merely a “warm feeling.” And so, what happens in a relationship, in a marriage or in a family when, on a given day or perhaps for a period of time, that warm feeling no longer seems to be present? Has the love gone away? This is where we need a deeper understanding of what love is. Saint Paul offers just this kind of understanding in the second reading for Mass this Sunday. You’ll recognize it immediately, as it is without a doubt the number one requested reading for weddings:  “Love is patient, love is kind, etc.” While this reading is probably so frequently chosen for weddings precisely because of its sentimental poetry, to listen to it carefully one is quickly disabused of any merely sentimental notion of love.  After all, Paul describes here a “patient” love, in other words, a love that can ride the waves of emotion.  It is a love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things,” a love that “never fails.” In the end, it is an intentional, chosen, enduring love for the sake of the other, just as God loves us. It is just this kind of love that we strive to cultivate here at St. Ambrose.  With that in mind, stay warm!  Fr. Thom Peer Campus Ministers APPLICATIONS DUE FEB 4   Looking for a way to "bee" a leader on campus next year?  Want to help your fellow students form community and grow in their faith?  Consider being a Peer Campus Minister!  Click here to learn more! SPRING BREAK SERVICE TRIP DEADLINE EXTENDED Due Monday, February 4 @ noon We have extended the deadline to sign up for the Spring Break service trips!  Taking place between March 9-16, these trips are a great way to give back and help those in need!  Click here to sign up, and check out the attached flier or contact Kaitlinto learn more! Service on Saturday Help out our QC community every Saturday!  Click here to sign up. River Bend Food Bank February 2 - 1:00-3:00 pm Pack backpacks with food for schoolchildren. Jesuit Volunteer Corps A representative from the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest is coming to campus Wednesday and Thursday (February 6-7).  Be sure to catch her at Mass & More, or come meet over coffee at a Drop-In at the Beehive on Thursday from 9-11 am. Showing of "The Dating Project" Monday, February 11 @ 7:00 pm Beehive Join us for a showing of the movie "The Dating Project."  This movie follows the lives of 5 single people trying to figure out dating in this world of social media, texting, and hook-up culture.  All are welcome to join - single or dating.  Followed by snacks and discussion. Busy Student Retreat February 24-28 Mark your calendars for the Busy Student Retreat at the end of February.  A great chance to experience some time for retreat in the midst of your busy schedule.  All it takes is a half hour of prayer and half hour meeting with a spiritual director over the 4 days.  Click here to sign up!                    QUICK BUZZ                    BeesKnees is our prayer chain for the needs of our St. Ambrose community.  Email BeesKnees@sau.edu Have a prayer request, or want to join. Have a question about a program or event going on in Campus Ministry? Got an idea for something you'd like to see happen? EMAIL US at ministry@sau.edu. Follow us online for news, events, prayer and spiritual resources, plus much more: Twitter Instagram Facebook