On Monday, September 1st we will participate in the Gaithersburg parade. Please wear any red youth group t-shirt (WYD, Benedict XVI or Pro-Life). You should arrive at the Girard business center in Old Town by 10:45am. We will be meeting in the blue zone (same place as last year) on the parade route. Navigate to Gaithersburg's website to see a map of the route and to get more information.
http://www.gaithersburgmd.gov/poi/default.asp?POI_ID=773&TOC=107;84;99;773
A party will take place at the Gorres' house after the parade. Please be prepared to arrange transportation. All family members are invited.
Feel free to call Erin for more information.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Labor Day Parade
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Mark Your Calendars....
Courage...I love you this much! "Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong.
Your every act should be done with love." 1Corinthians 16:13-14
CA #29 High School Youth Retreat
October 31st- November 2nd, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
No youth group the last week of summer...
Last night at youth group we prayed the rosary outside together by candlelight. This marks the end of our summer youth program. Now we will take a little time off to prepare for the school year. Please join us on Friday, September 5th from 7:30-9:30pm for our Friday night kick-off!
Latin the Language of the Church
Fr. Avelino is teaching us how to say the rosary in Latin! If you'd like to practice at home, here are the prayers....
(Our Father) PATER NOSTER, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.
(Hail Mary) AVE MARIA, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
(Glory Be) GLORIA, Patri et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Listen with the ears of your heart.
Is God calling you to a radical life of love
as a religious sister?
Pray. Reflect. Discern.
Check out www.VocationGuide.org
Today's Saint
St. Maximilian Kolbe
Feast Day: August 14th 
"I don’t know what’s going to become of you!” How many parents have said that? Maximilian Mary Kolbe’s reaction was, “I prayed very hard to Our Lady to tell me what would happen to me. She appeared, holding in her hands two crowns, one white, one red. She asked if I would like to have them—one was for purity, the other for martyrdom. I said, ‘I choose both.’ She smiled and disappeared.” After that he was not the same.
He entered the minor seminary of the Conventual Franciscans in Lvív (then Poland, now Ukraine), near his birthplace, and at 16 became a novice. Though he later achieved doctorates in philosophy and theology, he was deeply interested in science, even drawing plans for rocket ships.
Ordained at 24, he saw religious indifference as the deadliest poison of the day. His mission was to combat it. He had already founded the Militia of the Immaculata, whose aim was to fight evil with the witness of the good life, prayer, work and suffering. He dreamed of and then founded Knight of the Immaculata,, a religious magazine under Mary’s protection to preach the Good News to all nations. For the work of publication he established a “City of the Immaculata”—Niepokalanow—which housed 700 of his Franciscan brothers. He later founded one in Nagasaki, Japan. Both the Militia and the magazine ultimately reached the one-million mark in members and subscribers. His love of God was daily filtered through devotion to Mary.
In 1939 the Nazi panzers overran Poland with deadly speed. Niepokalanow was severely bombed. Kolbe and his friars were arrested, then released in less than three months, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. 
In 1941 he was arrested again. The Nazis’ purpose was to liquidate the select ones, the leaders. The end came quickly, in Auschwitz three months later, after terrible beatings and humiliations.
A prisoner had escaped. The commandant announced that 10 men would die. He relished walking along the ranks. “This one. That one.” As they were being marched away to the starvation bunkers, Number 16670 dared to step from the line. “I would like to take that man’s place. He has a wife and children.” “Who are you?” “A priest.” No name, no mention of fame. Silence. The commandant, dumbfounded, perhaps with a fleeting thought of history, kicked Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek out of line and ordered Father Kolbe to go with the nine. In the “block of death” they were ordered to strip naked and the slow starvation began in darkness.
But there was no screaming—the prisoners sang. By the eve of the Assumption four were left alive. The jailer came to finish Kolbe off as he sat in a corner praying. He lifted his fleshless arm to receive the bite of the hypodermic needle. It was filled with carbolic acid. They burned his body with all the others. He was beatified in 1971 and canonized in 1982.
Quote:
“Courage, my sons. Don’t you see that we are leaving on a mission? They pay our fare in the bargain. What a piece of good luck! The thing to do now is to pray well in order to win as many souls as possible. Let us, then, tell the Blessed Virgin that we are content, and that she can do with us anything she wishes” (Maximilian Mary Kolbe, when first arrested).
- from http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1107
St. Maximilian Kolbe- Pray for us!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Don't Forget to go to Mass on Friday
The Assumption of Mary into Heaven
August 15th is a Holy Day of Obligation.
This is a day on which all Catholics are required to attend Mass.
The Catechism teaches us that:
“Finally; the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death.” The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians.” -CCC #966“
You'll find St. Martin's Mass schedule on our parish website at www.stmartinsweb.com.
Come and eat at the Table of the Lord. Learn about Mary's life in Heaven and the place that God has prepared for each of us in our life to come.
Mary, Queen of Heaven, pray for us!
I Have Called You By Name
Thinking about serving Christ
as a priest or a
religious brother?
Check out:
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Story from a WYD Pilgrim
ZE08073110 - 2008-07-31Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-23391?l=english
What the Media Missed in Sydney
Pilgrim Reveals Real Youth Day Story
By Sophie CaldecottOXFORD, England, JULY 31, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A couple of weeks ago, more than 223,000 Catholics gathered together in Sydney to celebrate their common faith in the largest event Australia has ever hosted -- World Youth Day.Despite the fact that a representative from almost every corner of the world could be found at this dynamic event, despite the atmosphere of elation, energy and love, and despite many interesting talks, the main -- perhaps only -- interest of the English media was the relatively small group of protesters who wanted to make sure that their objections to the Catholic Church didn't go unheard.
The angle the media was trying to spin on the story seems absurd to someone who was there, singing and dancing in the brightly coloured crowd. This was not just any crowd -- when else and for what other reason in the world would that many young people get together and be so considerate and friendly toward each other, so joyful and excited and unselfconscious without being drunk or on drugs? There was clearly something else going on at that gathering, something unique and fascinating that the media completely failed to pick up on, and it had nothing to do with protesters.
The protesters who made their presence felt around the events surrounding World Youth Day can be broken down into several main groups: representatives from the gay community, people angry about cases of sexual abuse in the Church, atheists trying to "educate ignorant believers," Protestants who believe that the Catholic Church is the "whore of Babylon" and people who believe that condoms are the solution to AIDS.The smattering of various protesters holding signs and watching thousands of young Catholics pass by probably weren't sure what reaction to expect, but I would imagine they were prepared for the worst. Far from receiving abuse, however, the people holding the rainbow flag sporting the message "Gay, Free, Happy" received cheery waves and smiles, while many people assumed that the protesters holding the signs saying "Think: Don't Be a Sheep" were actually Catholic, and part of the World Youth Day crowd.
It took us a while to figure out that the leaflets handed to us as we walked out of the train station -- about how we are saved by God's grace and not by our own works -- were not actually from fellow Catholics, but from Baptists who were concerned for our souls.Contrary to the expectations of the general public and, perhaps, the people who instated the "annoyance" laws, many World Youth Day goers relished the opportunity for some friendly discussion in the street with people who, on the whole, had little accurate knowledge and understanding of the Church and Catholic teaching.I only wish we had had more time to talk to the protesters, getting to the root of their anger and sharing our point of view with them.Unfortunately, reducing an opinion down to a slogan on a T-shirt or a sign is rarely an adequate means of expressing an opinion. One speaker, Christopher West, delivered a series of talks on Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body during the week in Sydney, and listening, I couldn’t help but be brought close to tears, wishing that the Church’s critics could hear this teaching.This teaching is not the authoritarian, repressive set of rules that it is so widely believed to be. It is teaching of freedom, love and logic. This is the truth that the whole world is searching for, thirsting for desperately, whether or not they fully acknowledge it. John Paul II exposed the flaws of modern thinking about sexuality, answering the deep ache for love that we all experience by pointing us back to the constant teaching of the Church throughout history -- the teaching that the human person has an inherent dignity, that we are created in God's image, and as men and women are described by him as being "very good."
I became deeply convinced that I am called, along with all the people of the Church, to witness to Christ by addressing this ache that the world is feeling. As West put it, there is only so long that you can eat out of the dumpster before getting sick. This world has been eating out of the dumpster for far too long, and it desperately needs to be shown the way to the wedding feast. Benedict XVI commissioned us young people to be bold witnesses of Christ to the ends of the earth, praying for a new Pentecost and an outpouring of the Spirit. I for one am convinced that John Paul II's Theology of the Body holds a vital key for doing this.Being part of World Youth Day is to experience the Church in all her varied glory and youthful energy.
The various flags seen in Sydney that week pointed to the universality of the Church, her children being fed by the sacraments and living and breathing as one body, in Christ. Perhaps the reason that the secular world was inevitably bound to miss the point of World Youth Day is because without Christ there is no way that humanity can be united in truth and love.The great joy with which the young Catholics of the world greeted Benedict XVI proved that the Church is not only alive and growing, but ready to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking through Peter’s successor.
The secular media had to focus on the protesters, missing the real point of World Youth Day, because they didn’t know what to make of the Pope’s powerful words to the expectant youth of the Church: "Our world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises. Our hearts and minds are yearning for a vision of life where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is found in respectful communion.
"This is the work of the Holy Spirit! This is the hope held out by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is to bear witness to this reality that you were created anew at baptism and strengthened through the gifts of the Spirit at confirmation. Let this be the message that you bring from Sydney to the world!" (Address at Sydney Harbour, July 17).
Monday, August 11, 2008
More Pics from WYD 2008
Fun at Barrangaroo!
Praisin' Jesus and Proud 2 B Catholic!
These guys can dance!
"Say Jesus! "
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Road Trip!
Come with us to Kings Dominion!
August 13th, 2008
We'll meet for the 6:30am Mass at St. Martin's.
After Mass, we'll drive to the park where there are roller coasters,
water park rides, and so much more!
We'll return by 9:00pm to the Fr. Meyer Field.
Please contact us if you plan to attend.
Cost is $60.00 and a permission slip is required.
A Sense of Purpose
Ever ask yourself, "Why am I here?" or"What am I supposed to do with my life?"
Do you believe your life has a purpose? If you do, then you already have an important asset. Keep strengthening it by the choices you make and the actions you take. Stay focused on your purpose and don't let anyone or anything distract you from it. On the other hand, know that people and purposes can change. Don't be locked into a goal or a dream that no longer feels right to you.
If you're not sure that your life has purpose or your can't figure out what your purpose might be, find some quiet time to think and pray. Ask yourself what really matters to you. What gets you excited about each new day? What dreams do you have for the future? What are your talents? Interests? Passions? These come from God and they are good.
Where would you like to be- what would you like to be doing-
Five years from now?
Ten years from now?
If you could only do one thing with your life, what would it be?
Questions like these can help you find a purpose, because you do have a purpose. No one is here by accident. Every life has meaning. If you're still not convinced- if you really, truly can't imagine why you're here- then talk with an adult you trust and respect. Try to find someone who seems to have a strong purpose in life. Explain how you feel and ask for help in finding your purpose.
-adapted from What Kids Need to Succeed by Peter Benson
Monday, August 4, 2008
Freedom from Our Fear
OUR DEEPEST FEAR
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who I am to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
- Marianne Williamson
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