Christ The King Catholic Community-

UPDATE March 24, 2020
We Frs. Tims will be live streaming the Liturgy of the Hours and Evening Prayer and daily Masses beginning March 24, 2020, in addition to weekend Masses for the Christ the King Catholic Community in Carroll County. We think this means of communication is vital to providing ministry to as many parishioners as we possibly can during this surreal time.

The Masses will be live-streamed on the Christ the King Catholic Community Facebook page by clicking on the Facebook Live image above or you may also access the page from the Facebook icon at the top right of this website

Morning Prayer will begin at 7:45 am followed immediately by Mass.  Evening Prayer will begin at 5:00 pm.
Saturday Mass will continue to be live-streamed at 5:00 pm and Sunday Mass @ 10:00 am.

Due to the Coronavirus crisis, the parish office is closed to the public.
 
The following conditions are effective March 20th: 

• The parish office will continue to be staffed from 9:00 AM to 4:00 pm Monday through Friday.

• Please use the maildrop slot to leave your church support and any other items for the parish(es) attention.

• Walk-in traffic is accepted only by appointment. Please call 673-2582.

Thank you for your understanding.

FROM THE PRIESTS: We Frs. Tims miss seeing you, our parishioners, in person. We are grateful that we were able to figure out what we needed to do in order to live-stream Mass- es and other prayer times on the Facebook page for Christ the King Catholic Community. Fr. Tim “the younger” figured out the software issues. Fr. Tim “the elder” worked on the hardware end in order to extend our rectory WiFi to St. Bernard Church. This is what we are live-streaming:

•   Tuesday–Friday, 7:45 am Morning Prayer, 8:00 am Mass, 5:00 pm Evening Prayer;

•   Saturday evening Mass at 5:00 pm;

•   Sunday morning Mass at 10:00 am.

  If you would like to pray Morning/Evening Prayer along with us, two free apps for smartphones or tablets are iBreviary (we Frs. Tims use it; see the tutorial video on the FB page of CTKCC) and Laudate. Both have all the prayers of the Breviary each day, readings of the day, and many additional prayers and resources. For those who are able to access these, we hope they will be valuable resources even after we’re through this time.
  For those who do not have access to the internet and the live-streaming that we’ve been doing, we Frs. Tims want you to know that you are in our thoughts, hearts and prayers. We hope you are able to “participate” in Masses that are on TV or the radio. In case you’ve not seen these listed:

•   EWTN on TV or Radio: Mass at 7 AM, 11 AM, 6 PM;

•   Sioux City area, 88.1 FM Radio: Mass at 9 AM on Sunday;

•   Carroll area, 103.1 FM, Trinity Radio Station: EWTN programming.

  Thank you to those who found a way last week or are working on ways to continue their support of their parish. We Frs. Tims know that some of our faithful will be in circumstances which hinder their regular giving. Each of us can only do what we are able to do in the spirit urged by St. Paul: “Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7). As noted last week, here are suggestions for ways to make your “offertory”, so that your parish will be able to meet her obligations:

•   use the parish-addressed envelope in your packets to mail in your offering;

•   mail your offering in by using your own envelopes;

•   drop your envelopes in the slot right of the main doors to St. Bernard office or the slot of St. Augustine’s Rectory, Halbur;

• see this as the time to start automatic payments from your bank to your parish—form is available on our website—first one, right side!
  
  The diocese is also offering a great service during this time; they have set up a way to give online—100% of your contribution goes to the parish you designate. Just click the picture “Online Offertory” on the right side of our website. That will take you directly to the online giving portal.

• Thank you for your faithfulness and your support. May we all continue to pray for each other, our nation, and the entire world! May the Archangel St. Raphael, "God's healer", stir up healing waters on our behalf!!

Ezekiel prophesied to a people in exile in a foreign land; we might connect just a bit to that experience, for we are exiled to the foreign lands of “sheltering-in-place” and “cyber-space” by the coronavirus. Like the exilic people of Israel, we cannot go into our “Temple”— theirs, however, was destroyed. We cannot go about our regular lives of work and social interactions—they were an exiled people, trying to manage living as unwilling foreigners in a foreign land. The leadership they had from the Kings of David’s line—the good, the bad, and the downright ugly leadership—no longer existed. They even wondered if the God of their ancestors who had led them to the “promised land” could even be present and hear them in the foreign land of Babylon. The prophet and priest Ezekiel led them to a new way of being God’s people in this time. Now Ezekiel assures them that the Lord God will revive them; the grave of exile will be opened and the spirit will be renewed in them. Their exile will be at an end, for once again God tells them: “I will settle you upon your land.”

Connecting the exile of God’s people with our own pandemic caused exile, we can be assured by the hopeful promise that God will revive his people. We can be even more hopeful than they, because of St. Paul’s reminder to the Romans and all of us that we “are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in [us].” Unlike the people in Ezekiel’s time, we don’t worry whether God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—can be present to us, even as we are hunkered down in our homes, and locked out of our Churches for a time. For with St. Paul, we believe that “the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in [us].” So even though much has changed during this time and we grieve the losses that are part of it, that Spirit can raise us up to renewed faith, hope, and charity!

With the assurance of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we can move from Ezekiel’s metaphorical graves and our metaphorical exile to Lazarus’ real grave and the ultimate exile, death. This long drama, which actually goes twelve verses longer than the “long-form” of today’s Gospel, is a story second in length only to the Passion Narrative in the Gospel of John (18:1–19:42; Good Friday). Today’s story points to and beyond the Passion Narrative. Much like the Samaritan Woman at the Well and the Man Born Blind, this narrative moves through stages of faith in Jesus the Christ for Martha and Mary—especially Martha. Like the Samaritan woman and the man healed of his blindness, Martha will come to a deep faith, but not yet the full faith foreshadowed in the story of the Raising of Lazarus. For that, stay tuned through Easter and the Second Sunday of Easter (aka, Divine Mercy Sunday).

In this story, the evangelist John introduces us to three new characters, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. This sibling trio appears to be stay-at-home disciples of Jesus. They provide Jesus hospitality— although the story has not yet been told, the evangelist refers to Mary as the one who anointed and dried Jesus’ feet (12:1-8). Lazarus is gravely ill; so much like we would do, his sisters send word to Jesus. The request is respectfully put to the “Master” (the word could also be translated “Lord”); they report that Lazarus is ill, and remind Jesus that Lazarus is his friend (the word “love” [phileō], is the same root that Jesus uses of his disciples when he calls them his friends in 15:14-15). Jesus opens the disciples to trust that this will all show “ the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Yet Jesus, who “loves” all three siblings (v. 5; agapaō), with the love the Father has for him, and with which he loves his disciples, i.e., the love we thus are to have for one another (cf. 15:12, 17), delays two days!! How—I think we hearers can ask—is that the “loving thing to do”? Perhaps Jesus should have asked, “What would Jesus do?”!

The time to get the message to Jesus, his two-day delay, and Jesus’ return trip to Judea, where his life was already threatened (10:31ff) and where he will ultimately be crucified, results in Lazarus being four days in the tomb. Martha (v 21), Mary (v 32), and some of their Jewish sisters and brothers (v. 36) all believe that had Jesus been there, Lazarus would not have died. And we know Lazarus is dead, for Jesus himself said that “clearly” (v. 14). So what now—Martha believes that God will do whatever Jesus asks—she tells Jesus that. But what is that she thinks Jesus will ask? Martha

also informs Jesus that she believes in “the resurrection on the last day”. But Jesus has been inviting his disciples, and now those in Bethany, to another level of believing: “I am the resurrection and the life”; Jesus transcends their understanding of time and even resurrection. He is the very way to both resurrection and life now and eternally. Martha jumps in, ‘Yea, yea, I believe so much about you—Christ, Son of God, the coming one!’ And the final word she will have to Jesus—and in the Gospel—will indicate to Jesus that she doesn’t believe that he has authority over someone dead for four days.

Martha seems frustrated so she goes to her sister Mary; she even fibs a bit that the “teacher” (a term that shows less than an optimal understanding of Jesus) is calling her (using the verb phoneō, the word John uses for the voice of the Shepherd). Second sister, second round—If Jesus had only been here. There are a couple of dif- ferences: Mary is weeping and the audience expands to weeping neighbors. Their weeping is loud wailing. Jesus is twice “perturbed”, but when he has been shown the tomb, Jesus weeps; the evangelist uses a different word. Jesus’s weeping is drenched in tears!

What brings about this gift of tears in Jesus? Does he mourn like Martha and Mary at the death of his friend? Does he cry because he sees the pain that the sisters have—and that the neighbors share? Does he weep as he perhaps gets a glimpse of his own stone- hewn, rock-enclosed tomb? He no doubt weeps out of concern that no one seems capable to come to the belief to which Jesus has invited them. Perhaps—let’s look at this from Lazarus’ point of view— Jesus weeps for if he revives Lazarus, then Lazarus will again know suffering, sickness, and physical death. Unlike Jesus’s resurrection, Lazarus comes forth from the tomb bound in his burial clothes; Lazarus needs to be untied and let go—back into his life which will again end in death. Before that comes to pass, however, I think we can trust that Martha, Mary, and Lazarus will truly believe what Jesus had said: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and
believes in me will never die” (vv 25-26).

Exile, death, fear in the face of a pandemic and so many challenges in life are opportunities to affirm our faith in Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the life. May we know in the depths of our being that united to him in baptism and living lives of faithful discipleship, we already share eternal life. Nothing is more powerful than our Lord and the Spirit of the Father who raised him from the dead—and that Spirit who dwells in us. We will know dark times— grief, fear, anxiety; it is then that our faith can raise us from those graves and revive our faith, hope, and love.

All liturgies will be Facebook
live-streamed. Click on the
Facebook Live icon above left.

Holy Thursday
Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper
5:00 pm
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Good Friday
12:00 pm (Noon)
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Holy Saturday -Easter Vigil
8:00 pm
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Easter Sunday
10:00 am
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Have a Blessed Easter!

Registrations are now being accepted for students in 3rd through 12th grades. This year’s theme is focused on Mary, Mother of God, Mother of Mine. When: June 7-9th for students entering 3rd -6th grade and June 10th -12th for students entering 7th -12th grade and will be held at Twin Lakes Bible Camp in Manson, IA.

Check out their website https://www.twinlakesbiblecamp.org. for more information.
Cost: $200 per camper; $50 per chaperone

Adult Volunteers: For every 1-5 campers of each gender registering, The parish must register one adult chaperone of the same gender. Young Adults who are over the age of 18 can apply to be Missionary Volunteers. Volunteers who are 18 and older will need to complete VIRTUS training and a background check.
Teen Leaders: Teen Leaders help at the first camp for elementary students. This is a great opportunity for High School students entering 10th, 11th and 12th grades and under 18 yrs. of age are encouraged to experience a leadership role in connection with spreading their faith and be Teen Leaders.
The deadline for camp registrations and leadership applications is May 7, 2020.
Contact the parish office for more information or to register, as all registrations must be made through the parish. More information about Camp is available on the website www.scdiocese.org/camp-cayoca.