WEEKLY PARISH BULLETIN

PRAYER LISTS

Fr. Vincent Kelly, CSSR, Fr. Leo Dunn, CSSR, Fr. Lawrence Buckley, CSSR, Maureen Adams, Nancy Ago, David Bell, Anne Brennan, Charlie Capodanno, Egerton Chang, Liz Conroy, Ann Corley, Cleo Crayton, Amanda Daly, Bernadette DeGrandis, Marguerite DeJoie, Katie Dimanto, Joseph Doughtery, Mary Dowd, Mary Doyle, Patricia Eng, Tom & Kathy Finn, John Geary, Jack Gibbons, Susan Gury, Helen Hallissey, Nowell Hanibalsz, Thomas Hardiman, Daniel Harrington, John Hegarty, Mary Horgan, Brian Humberd, Mary Jewell, Joan Joseph, Daniel Kelly, Esmi Littleton, John & Margaret Lynch, Mary McMahon, Susan (Jewell) Merner, Mickey Monahan, Helen Moreau, Michael Nardone, M. Louise O'Brien, Patrick A. O'Brien, Sr. Evangelus O'Brien,SSND, Daniel O'Donnell, Mary O'Donnell, Dolores O'Halloran, Billy O'Hara, Maria Piemonte, Theresa Poirer, Caitlin Marie O'Sullivan, Barbara Power, Margie Reed, Terry & Glen Richmond, Al St. Cyr, Helen St. Cyr, Rita Sullivan, Michael Very and Joseph and Brenda Waible, Tommy Walsh

Dear Parishioners:

This week the Church throughout the United States begins the observance of Christian Unity Week (January 18-25) whereby we celebrate the great diversity that lives in and under the umbrella of Catholicism here in the United States.

This coming Monday we will commemorate the significant contributions of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in advancing the civil rights movement in this country. One of the most visible advocates of non-violence and direct action "as methods of social change" is Dr. King.

He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929, and was the grandson of a famous Southern Baptist pastor and founder of Atlanta's NAACP chapter. Reverend King attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, then did his seminary training in theology in Pennsylvania and finally came to Boston where he studied at Boston University. While here in the northeast, he deepened his understanding of theological scholarship and explored the teachings and methodology of Gandhi's non-violence strategy for social change. Reverend King would go on to receive his doctorate in systematic theology in 1955, just after Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery,Â Alabama, where Dr. King had just been named pastor. In many ways, Dr. King's rise to prominence was due in part to his God-given blessings and being at the right place at the right time. In Alabama Dr. King was able to integrate his theological training, Christian tradition, and the lived experience of a suffering and segregated South with Gandhi's teachings.

   World peace through non-violent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Nonviolence is a good starting point.
    Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred, and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.
       Martin Luther King, Jr., December 1964

According to the Martin Luther King, Jr., Institute at Stanford University, Dr. King and the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), in the spring of 1963, led mass demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, where local white police officials were known for their violent opposition to integration. Clashes between unarmed black demonstrators and police armed with dogs and fire hoses generated newspaper headlines throughout the world. President Kennedy responded to the Birmingham protests by submitting broad civil rights legislation to Congress, which led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Rev. King's renown continued to grow as he became Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1963 and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. In 1968, while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, he delivered his final address, "I've Been to the Mountaintop." The next day, April 4, 1968, Rev. King was assassinated.

Rev. Richard S. Bennett, C.Ss.R.

PRAY THE ROSARY

THE CRANES AND THE ABBESS FROM ORFORDAcross the river from Orford, I saw a flock of cranes arise.
With straightened necks and legs like stilts rising before my eyes.
The cranes came in the Springtime but did not long bide.
They would make their nests on some distant stretch along the riverside.
The town of Orford like other towns is a restless place at best.
Young folks leave as the cranes left for a final place of rest.
One day, a young girl from Orford set out at break of day
And drove to a hill near St. Botolph's town. A score of miles away,
She joined nuns working in a field, praising God night and day,
She left all things behind her, even the clothes she wore,
And clothed herself with rough Trappist robes to wear forevermore.
The cranes came in their season as long as they could fly,
But the years roll on and it may be their coming has long gone by.
The young girl is now abbess like abbesses of old,
Chosen to rule with mother love and not with power or gold.
The Orford folk love the abbess though she left for the cloistered hill,
They know that she prays for them night and day and so is with them still.
The abbess prays for the young folk seeking a place of rest,
That they find their own road to the heart of God and that will be the best.

- John E. Doherty, C.Ss.R.