Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Our Catholic Church has just concluded the Year of Faith. Many places have ended the Year with celebrations and special rituals. In the past Year of Faith, our parish has journeyed with the universal Church by participating in catechetical studies, flourishing devotion to Mother Mary in each of our parish’s districts, and promoting Family Movie Night. Amidst these activities, we did not get a chance to organize a pilgrimage. Therefore, the Door of Faith is still open for us, beckoning us to enter more deeply into the heart of Christ.
In this new year of 2014, our parish family will continue to walk upon the road of faith in the spirit of the New Evangelization of our individual lives and of our families with the theme: “Bringing the Scriptures Alive in the Family”!
The Word of God in Scripture is a treasury of hope, faith, and saving joy. Yet, if we were to sincerely ask each other: “Besides hearing the Word in church, how many of us have once read the whole Bible? How many of us really delve into the riches of Scripture and experiences its abundant blessings?”
From this year forth, our parish invites each one of us to study Scripture through reading it, hearing it, and living it consciously.
Hopefully, a large percentage of our parish family owns the complete Bible, which includes the Old Testament and New Testament. In the past year, our parish gave away 500 English Bibles to our youth. Our parish’s website and weekly bulletin has improved greatly. Consequently, our parish is determined to support each of us to dive into the riches of Scripture so that our lives will overflow with graces.
We are pleased to introduce to you “100 weeks of Scripture”, an audio class held by Bishop Kham Nguyen, Auxiliary Bishop of Archdiocese of Saigon. It is a class that has received much praise for its depth and accessibility. If one consistently participates in active listening, he or she will have acquired a precious storehouse of treasures.
We have posted this audio class to our parish’s website which can be download-able to an iPad and iPhone. CDs of the talks will also be distributed at church. At the same time, a summary will be provided of each week’s talk in the “Lời Chúa và Suy Niệm” section of our weekly bulletin (parish districts can read the summary together at their prayer gatherings). In this way, we hope you will participate in this exciting challenge of reading and learning Scripture at your home, office, car, or wherever you may be.
In addition, our parish will have monthly game quizzes on our website and in our bulletin.
- Every three months, 5 prizes will be given for 3 age groups (under 25, 26 – 50, and 50 and above). There are two criteria: taking the quiz early and answering the que