Dear St. Raphael Parishioners,


Annual Catholic Appeal Follow-up: Thank you to our parishioners who helped us come very close to meeting our target for this year’s ACA Campaign! While we have not quite reached the goal of $20,151.88, we came within a few hundred dollars. A few of you have not yet sent in your pledges; this is (hopefully) a polite reminder. Payment can be made online at either the parish or Archdiocese website, or with ACA envelopes in the narthex. Acknowledgement letters will be coming from Cardinal Cupich this month.

Office Project: Work on the downstairs office construction continues slowly but steadily. Drywall, electrical wiring and ceiling work are underway, or maybe even complete by the time you read this. Remember that your donations to the St. Raphael Building Fund directly support this project, and the upcoming completion of the Fellowship area. God bless you,

The Weeks of Ordinary Time: The Church season of Ordinary Time typically runs through the Summer and early Fall. As the Sunday readings proceed through late summer, we continue with Gospel readings that focus on the sayings and parables of Jesus. These make up most of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and in fact these three Gospels are often quite similar in these passages. They are called the Synoptic Gospels for this reason, meaning they “look alike” to some degree.

The sayings and parables of Jesus differ from the other parts of the Gospels, in that they are not given a historical context, such as the infancy or Passion accounts in the Gospels. When the Gospels describe Jesus telling a parable, they usually don’t tell us if it was early or late in His public life, or what tme of day it was etc. This may be because the words of Jesus have a timeless quality; they ring as true today as they did when they were first spoken. How many other teachers from 2000 years ago can that be said of?

The sayings of Jesus are normally brief, often a single sentence. The parables on the other hand are longer, usually having a story line. There are a few very short parables that could be considered simply a long saying, so the two categories might overlap. The more we understand these words of Jesus, the better we will understand the Gospels overall. There is much more to say, so I will continue next week.

May God Bless, 
Fr. Matthew