The weekday Mass schedule with be:
Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 12:05 p.m.
 
 The weekend Mass schedule will be:
Saturday evening (vigil Mass) at 5:30 p.m.
Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m.
 
This schedule will be in effect until further notice.

CONFESSIONS
Saturdays 4:00—5:00pm  Held inside the church vestible area in the Pieta Room, please enter the church through the  south handicapped door.  

The parish office will operate with limited office hours of M-F 10:00am-2:00pm.

Just a reminder about our new weekend Mass schedule. We will have one Mass on Sunday, at 10:00 a.m. The Saturday schedule is as usual: Confessions from 4:00 to 5:00 and Mass at 5:30.
Do not come to Mass is you are particularly vulnerable! There is only so much we can do to alleviate the risk. Please wear a mask if you are coming. You may be the one who is asymptomatic!

PUBLIC MASSES RETURN TO SAINT BENEDICT PARISH

The St. Benedict Soup Kitchen is in operation Monday through Friday 11:30am-12:30pm for To-Go Lunches, all are welcome!
 To inquire about voluteering in the Soup Kitchen please call            812-232-8421. 

Feast of Sts. Philip and James, Apostles

(1 Cor. 15:1-8; Jn. 14:6-14)

One of the tendencies of the Christian tradition is to smooth things out.  When you are trying to bring the Good News to diverse peoples and nations it helps to keep things simple.  At times that can result in a bit of confusion, however, like when two people have the same name, but we don’t know that much about either one of them.  The various Marys in the gospels, for example, easily get confused until we start assigning all we know about any of them to one person, Mary Magdalen.  There are a number of characters named James, too, and it’s hard to keep track of which James we are talking about.  Among the Twelve themselves there were two named James:  James the Greater (or older) and James the lesser (or younger). And this feast has to do with James the Younger.  Most likely, he is paired with Philip because their relics were brought to Rome at the same time and housed in what is now known as the Basilica of the Twelve Apostles, a church served by the Conventual Franciscans.

St. Paul’s list of the appearances of the risen Lord, when read closely, is a good place to start for determining the diversity of all those involved in that first generation of followers.  Paul lists Peter at the top (even though Jesus had appeared to Mary Magdalene before he appeared to any of the Twelve); then the Twelve, which would have included Philip and James; then to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at once; then to James, probably James, the brother of the Lord and the head of the Jerusalem community who was not one of the Twelve; and then “all the Apostles,” indicating that there were more apostles than just the Twelve; and finally to Paul himself. 

Studying the scriptural record in this way opens up new avenues for understanding and can spur us beyond old familiar approaches to re-embrace the call of the Gospel.  The apostolic vocation, for example, is one shared by all Jesus’ disciples in one form or another.  The Twelve is a closed group, but the work of spreading the Good News is not reserved to them alone.  We can fall into the same category of those early disciples, who just started talking to the Gentiles, without anything like letters of recommendation, because they were responding to the movement of the Holy Spirit.  Who are we talking to about the Good News?  There are still people in our midst who have not heard it, or not heard it in a way that speaks to their need.  Maybe we’re the ones to bring it to them.  The Holy Spirit will show us how.

Masses for St. Benedict Church are on the YouTube Channel (search St Benedict Catholic Church Terre Haute, IN OR click on the YouTube icon below.

Province of Indianapolis
Extension of Dispensation
19 October 2020
While commending our pastors and pastoral life coordinators who have gone to great lengths to assure safe worship spaces in our churches, given the continued increase of Covid-19 cases in our state, the Indiana bishops hereby extend the dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of obligation beyond 1 November 2020 until further notice.  The Indiana bishops will continue to monitor the situation to determine when it might be advisable to modify or lift the dispensation. 

"Houston, we have a problem." Do you remember that phrase? It comes from the story about Apollo 13, launched in 1970, which suffered an explosion while on the way to the moon that crippled it and set off an unprecedented effort to bring its three astronauts back to earth safely. The drama that unfolded was captured in the 1995 movie that starred Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton as the astronauts Lovell, Swigert, and Haise.
I'm a little sketchy on the original event, but I did see the movie and remember one scene to this day. Mission Control was working on how to restart the systems so that re-entry into the earth's atmosphere would not end up with the space capsule simply disintegrating in the heat caused by contact with earth's atmosphere. One of the engineers on the ground stopped everyone in their tracks when he proclaimed that they had to switch on systems in such a way that the strength of the electric current did not exceed 12 amps. That took a lot of thought and figuring before they came up with an order of switching things on that would work
I see us in a similar situation. Clearly, we are moving toward a post-pandemic reality, but there are still dangers lurking which can scuttle the whole project if we are not careful. For one thing, as of Thursday, two-thirds of the residents of Vigo county over the age of 18 had not been fully vaccinated. As much as those of us who have been are grateful, it would be folly for us to project our experience on the population as a whole. We are not that far along yet. So, due care needs to be given which acknowledges the actual state of the question and resists the temptation to jump ahead to what will be the case in a few months.
At the meeting of the pastoral leaders of the Archdiocese which took place this past week, Archbishop Thompson counseled us priests and parish life coordinators to encourage our parishioners to attentively practice two virtues, patience and charity: Patience because we are not there yet, even though we are moving in a positive direction; and charity because not everyone moves at the same pace. Some members of the parish are by nature more hesitant and will need more time to accommodate themselves to whatever changes are being made. Some parishioners may ultimately opt out of getting vaccinated altogether, but they will still need to feel comfortable coming to Mass by not being placed in a position which takes away the option not to participate in some aspect of the liturgy or another. For the time being, for example, we will continue to offer one another a sign of peace that does not involve making physical contact.
At that meeting of the pastoral leaders the Archdiocesan Office of Worship distributed an updated list of Liturgical Considerations which I and the parish staff will work on adapting to St. Ben's circumstances. Some changes will likely be put into place before the end of the Easter season. Others will take a bit more time. We want to do things right, and not end up with unintended consequences that could be detrimental to some of our members.
For the time being, Archbishop Thompson has emphasized the impor-tance of wearing a mask while in church. That's job #1, as he calls it. He does allow for an exception to be made when reading or leading prayer. Also, the general dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days remains in place until further notice.
To be honest with you, it seems to me that the increased attendance at our Masses over the course of the last several weeks would indicate that people are operating on the basis of an interior obligation, and a desire to be at Mass, more than being compelled to by the church's legal structures. That's a good thing! We want to accommodate that interest as much as possible and build on it going forward.
So, stay tuned! Changes are afoot. But be patient, too. The situation is a bit more complex than you may realize. We will try to manage it well without dragging our feet, but without violating people's need to feel safe when they come to church. We don't want to lose anybody, for any reason.

Capital Prize 2021 Raffle Form

Announcements for the Week of
May 1st - 8th

New Hymnals
The Breaking Bread hymnals for 2021 are now available for your use. Feel free to take a hymnal home with you and bring it to Mass when you come. It's yours to keep. When the 2022 hymnals arrive at the beginning of Advent, we will go back to the old practice of having them in covers and available in church.

Mother's Day Cards
Mother's Day Cards for Living and Deceased mother are available at the doors of the Church. Mother's Day is next Sunday!

Parish Council Elections
Nominations for the St. Benedict Parish Council are now being accepted. If you are interested, please contact a member of the Parish Council, Father Martin, or the Parish office. The voting for the parish council will be on the weekend of May 22nd and 23rd. Nominations should be in no later than May 9th. Brief biographies of the nominees will be posted in the bulletin the weekend before the election.

Soup Kitchen Needs Your Help!
The St. Benedict Soup Kitchen is in need of volunteers to help in its mission of feeding the hungry. The greatest need is on Wednesdays, but help can be used on the other days, too. Please consider donating your time to this important ministry and please spread the word to others you might know who would be interested. Call Judy Hogan at 812-243-0873 if you can help!