The Third Sunday of Lent March 7, 2021

The Third Sunday of Lent March 7, 2021 Mass Intentions for the Week

SATURDAY 3/6/2021 4:00pm

Beatrice and Leo White, birthday remembrance

~By the family

SUNDAY 3/7/2021 11:15am

Marion DeHeer

~By Mr. & Mrs. Harold S. Pechette, Jr.

Ellen M. Stellmar, 1st anniversary

~By Peg Hajos

Mary Peters, 10th anniversary

~By Ann, James, and Patricia Peters

Liturgical Ministries

Saturday, 3/6: Lector- Vince Anatriello

CM- Donna Jennings

Sunday, 3/7: Lector- Pat Peck

CM- Lorraine Thompson

MASS ATTENDANCE

STATIONS OF THE CROSS 2/26- 9

SATURDAY, 2/27- 40

SUNDAY, 2/28- 31

Our Gifts of Treasure Reg. collection: $2101.05

Maintenance: $217

Heat: $70

Ash Wednesday: $52

Black & Indian Missions: $62

Easter: $50

Easter Flowers: $55

The total Saturday was $409. The total from Sunday

was $242. The total mailed in/dropped off was $1850.

Online giving was $106.05.

HOW CLOSE ARE WE TO GETTING A PASTOR?

This week, no news. Keep praying.

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME BEGINS Next weekend on

Saturday, March 13th, remember to SPRING your clocks

FORWARD 1 hour before bed! The days are getting longer once

again…..now if it would just warm up!

$$$ DOLLAR –A-WEEK CLUB $$$

Drawings will resume on March 5th, 2021.The

winners will be posted here in the next bulletin! In

case you’re wondering what this club does for our

parish, this week a hole in the ceiling of Fisher Hall

(due to a leak in the sacristy sink drain) will be

professionally repaired with money from this club!

Thank you for all you all do for our parish!

PRAYERS ANSWERED The Healy Family asked that

this be included in the bulletin this week: “The friends and

family of Sean Healy would like to thank everyone for

their prayers and support during his last hospital stay. He

is feeling so much better and has returned to work.”

CRS RICEBOWL PROJECT Visit crsricebowl.org to

learn more. Return your alms to the Parish Office!

FAITH FORMATION

Faith Formation Facilitator: Stephanie Andrejcak

FFNotreDame-Visitation.Schuylerville@rcda.org

Readings for the Week March 8- 2 Kgs 5:1-15ab & Lk 4:24-30

March 9- Dn 3:25,34-43 & Mt 18:21-35

March 10- Dt 4:1,5-9 & Mt 5:17-19

March 11- Jer 7:23-28 & Lk 11:14-23

March 12- Hos 14:2-10 & Mk 12:28-34

March 13- Hos 6:1-6 & Lk 18:9-14

Sun March 14- 2 Chr 36:14-16,19-23 &

Eph 2:4-10 & Jn 3:14-21

HOLIDAY MASSES The schedule of services for Palm

Sunday and Holy Week are as follows:

-PALM SUNDAY, Saturday 4:00pm and regular Sunday

Mass schedule, 10am St. Joseph’s and 11:15am ND-V.

-HOLY THURSDAY at ND-V at 7:00pm,

-GOOD FRIDAY at ND-V at 7:00pm, Stations of The

Cross at St. Joseph’s at 3:00pm

-EASTER VIGIL at St. Joseph’s, Greenwich at 8:00pm

-EASTER SUNDAY will follow the regular Sunday Mass

schedule of 10am St. Joseph’s and 11:15am ND-V.

We are going to be taking required reservations by

telephone and email beginning on March 15th, 2021 for all

the Masses and services listed above. The phone number at

the parish Office is 518-695-3391 and email is

NDVSchuy@rcda.org. The following information is

required when making your reservation: Name, phone

number (for contact tracing), and the number of people

attending with you. One call does it all: if you’re planning

on attending a single service, all of them or any

combination, just let me know. If you’re planning on

attending the Easter Vigil at St. Joseph’s in Greenwich,

please call Ron at 518-692-2159. They are utilizing

reservations forms which need to be returned to them. As

always please remember facemasks are required on church

property, you’ll be asked to sanitize your hands at the

door, and there is limited seating due to social distance.

NEWS FROM YOUR FAMILY The best news from the

week is that many of the people who I contacted who were

struggling to find available local appointments for COVID

vaccinations have been SUCCESSFUL, both in getting an

appointment and in getting their first and sometimes

second dose of the vaccine!

The Third Sunday of Lent March 7, 2021

FROM THE INTERIM PARISH ADMINISTRATOR Why we do what we do #1: Sundays

I have been asked to give a presentation about “The Mass”

to the 8th & 9th Grade Faith Formation group at Notre

Dame-Visitation. As I have been thinking about what I will

talk to the teens about next Sunday evening, I realized that

some of this would be helpful as a reflection of sorts for our

parishioners. So, starting today we will be embarking on a

three-week journey about “why we do what we do”. Today,

we’ll consider why Sundays are so important to us (fitting

with today’s first reading recounting the presentation of the

10 Commandments). Next weekend we will look at how we

ended up with the Mass that we celebrate today as we mark

the sad first anniversary of Bishop Ed having to temporarily

dispense with the obligation to attend Sunday Mass and

suspend public liturgies due to the coronavirus. Then, on

March 21 I’ll wrap this series up by looking at what we’re

doing now in the midst of the pandemic to allow the faithful

to, once again, gather around the Table of the Lord, albeit

keeping our six-foot social distancing intact.

The celebration of Sunday goes back to the very earliest

years, and even possibly months and weeks, of Christianity.

It is the oldest and most fundamental of all Christian

activities. That is why it is so sad that even before the

coronavirus that this most basic of all religious traditions

was being dropped by nearly half of Catholic families. But it

was understandable. Before the mid-1960s a powerful

motive – or threat – was the understanding that an unexcused

absence was tantamount to serious sin. This was

accompanied in previous generations by social and

community pressure in smaller, self-contained ethnic

parishes. Truly, they were places where everybody knew

your name, and noticed if you weren’t present.

Sundays evolved around assemblies on the weekly

anniversary of Christ’s resurrection. They were called the

weekly “Pascha”, a weekly commemoration of the Paschal

Mystery. Sundays kept alive his memory and presence. They

are the foundation and nucleus of what would become the

church year, serving as pivotal points for the unfolding of

the tradition rich seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent and

Easter.

The first followers of Jesus were Jews. For a while they

continued to observe Sabbath traditions. They dedicated this

seventh, or last day of the week to the one God, Yahweh, in

accord with the Genesis creation story (Gn 2:1-3) and the

Third Commandment – which we heard as part of this

Sunday’s 1st Reading – “Remember to keep holy the

Sabbath day”. The Jewish Sabbath provided a regular

rhythm to life with traditions that emphasized rest and

absence of work and physical activities. It was also a day of

assembly and a feast day. Special sacrifices were offered at

the temple in Jerusalem. During the centuries preceding

Christianity, attendance at local synagogues, which had

come into existence during the Exile, became a popular

practice. There the people prayed and listened to readings

from Scripture and instruction. This one day of the week

also sanctified the home life of the Jews with detailed

ceremonies surrounding the Sabbath meal.

From the very beginning those who believe Jesus was the

Christ gathered weekly on the first day of the Jewish week –

what we call “Sunday” – the anniversary of his being raised

from the dead. This fundamental theme of Sunday as the

first day of the week runs counter to our popular cultural

thinking that Sunday is part of the weekend, an ending rather

than an all-important beginning. This special day was

reckoned by early Christians from sunset to sunset, as were

all days according to Jewish custom. The first Christian

assemblies were, therefore, most probably in the evening of

the Sabbath Day (Saturday).

In time Christians began to gather on Sunday evenings at the

end of a regular workday in one of their homes, a primitive

house-church, for a meal. According to Paul’s First Letter to

the Corinthians (1 Cor 11:17-22), a ritual of blessing a

Eucharistic cup and bread highlighted this meal. In this way

Christians kept alive the memory and presence of Christ as

he had requested. By the early second century, this

Eucharistic ritual was moved to before dawn on Sunday.

This may have been due to the Roman persecution of the

Christians, which, among other things, forbade suspicious

gatherings in the evening. This Sunday morning assembly

combined features of both the traditional Jewish synagogue

service, a Service of the Word which now introduced the

Eucharistic ritual. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The importance of Sunday is captured by the name given to

it before the turn of the first century. In the Book of

Revelation (Rev 1:7) It is called “the Lord’s Day.” This title

does not dedicate the day to God in some general sense, but

precisely to the resurrected Christ whose proper title is now

“Lord”. The day belongs to Him. This title has a special ring

to it for Christians of those first generations since It called to

mind Christ’s kingly glory earned through death and

resurrection. In using this title for the day, Jesus was being

defined as victor over the other “lords” of those times,

specifically the Roman emperors who claimed divinity and

were persecuting Christians. The Lord’s Day – dies

dominica or dominicum – remains the church’s official title

for Sunday. “Sunday”, our popular title for the day,

originally comes from the Germanic peoples of northern

Europe. These pre-Christians worshiped the sun. When

Christianity was introduced their customs were Christianized

and the pagan sun god was replaced by Christ who is “the

Light of the World”. This association of the Christian’s

greatest day with the sun is also fitting because the sun is

life-giving and never defeated, an annual lesson experienced

ND-V Church, 18 Pearl St., Schuylerville NY 12871 (518)695-3391

at the winter solstice in December.

Catholic Relief Service collection next weekend

Next weekend, March 13-14,our parish will be taking up the

Catholic Relief Services Collection. Funds from this

collection provide food to the hungry, support displaced

refugees, and bring Christ’s love and mercy to all people.

Spanning the globe, the “CRS” collection helps families on

every continent by addressing a myriad of needs. To learn

more about the collection, check

out www.usccb.org/catholic-relief

Thank you, in advance, for your generous support for this

effort.

- Stephen Mawn, Interim Parish Administrator