St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church

St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church
TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY
IN ORDINARY TIME
SEPTEMBER 4, 2016
“Whoever does not carry his own cross and
come after me
cannot be my disciple.”
Luke 14:27
CLERGY
PRIESTS: Rev. Salvador Guzmán
Rev. Dominic Colangelo
DEACONS: George Polcer, John Rapier,
Juan Jorge Hernández, Sid Little
Parish Office: 972-542-4667 Fax: 972-542-4641
Faith Formation Office: 972-542-4685
Mailing Address: 411 Paula Road
McKinney, Texas 75069
Email: frguzman@stmichaelmckinney.org
Email: frdominic@stmichaelmckinney.org
Website: www.stmichaelmckinney.org
Office Hours:
Monday - Friday: 9:00am - 5:00pm
Office is closed on Saturday & Sunday
After Hours
Sick Call & Funeral Request: 469.667.7324
Daily Masses
Monday, Wednesday & Friday: 8:00 am
Tuesday and Thursday: 5:30 pm
Weekend Mass Schedule:
Saturday: Vigil Mass 5:00pm
Sunday: 8:00am & 11:30am
Spanish: 9:30am & 1:30pm
VIGéSIMO TERCER DOMINGO DEL
TIEMPO ORDINARIO
4 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2016
“Y el que no carga su cruz y me sigue, no
puede ser mi discípulo.”
Lucas 14:27
Confessions
Adoration
Thursday
6:00pm - 7:00pm
Saturday
3:00pm - 4:00pm
Thursday
6:00pm - 7:00pm
1st Friday of the month
8:30am - 12noon
Holy Family (Quasi-Parish)
919 Spence Road  P.O. Box 482
Van Alstyne, Texas 75495  903.482.6322
Website: www.holyfamily-vanalstyne.org
Mass Times:
Sunday 9:00am English
12 noon Spanish
Thursday 9:00am English
Holy Family Hall
Food Distribution is held
on the Tuesday & Thursday
Open: 2:00 - 4:00 pm
2nd Saturday of the month 8:30am - 9:45 am
Helpline: 214-314-5698
Thrift Store Pickup: 214.373.7837
Email: stvdp@stmichaelmckinney.org
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
When we think about the difference that love can make,
many people very often think of one person: Blessed Mother
Canonization on
Teresa of Calcutta. A tiny woman, just under five feet tall, with
no tools except prayer, love and the unique qualities God had
Sunday, September 4, 2016
given her, Mother Teresa is probably the most powerful symbol
of the virtue of
charity today.
Mother Teresa wasn’t, of course, born with that name. Her parents
named her Agnes—or Gonxha in her own language—when she was born to
them in Albania, a country north of Greece.
Agnes was one of four children. Her childhood was a busy, ordinary one.
Although Agnes was very interested in missionary work around the world, as
a child she didn’t really think about becoming a nun; but when she turned 18,
she felt that God was beginning to tug at her heart, to call her, asking her to
follow him.
Now Agnes, like all of us, had a choice. She could have ignored the tug
on her heart. She could have filled her life up with other things so maybe
she wouldn't hear God’s call. But of course, she didn’t do that. She
listened and followed, joining a religious order called the Sisters of Loreto,
who were based in Dublin, Ireland.
After two months in Ireland , spent mostly learning how to speak
English, Agnes got on a boat (in 1928, hardly anyone took trips by plane)
and 37 days later she arrived in the beautiful busy, complicated country of
India.
In India, Agnes took her final vows as a sister and took the name Teresa,
after Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower. She spent 15 years teaching in a
girls school in Calcutta, a job that she loved and was very good at. But then
one day, she heard that call again. The voice in her heart was telling her
that she was to make a very big change in her life - that she should leave her
teaching position and go into the streets of Calcutta and care for the poor.
So Sister Teresa listened and said yes. She had lived in India for years ,
and she knew how desperate the poor of that country were, especially in the
big cities. It was these people, the dying poor, that Sister Teresa felt a
special call to love. After all, these were people who had absolutely no one
else in the world to love them. Not only were they poor, but they were also
dying. Why did their feelings matter? Wouldn’t they be gone soon enough?
Teresa saw these people differently. She saw them through God’s eyes,
which means that she saw each of them as his dear child, suffering and
yearning for some kind touch or word, some comfort in their last days on earth. She heard that call and chose to live it
out - to let God love the forgotten ones through her charity.
As is the case with all great things, Teresa’s efforts started out small. She got permission to leave her order, to live
with the poor, and to dress like them, too. She would be white with blue trim, the blue symbolizing the love of Mary. She
didn’t waste time, either. On her very first day among the poor of Calcutta, Mother Teresa started a school with five
students, a school for poor children. That school still exists today. She quickly got some training in basic medical care
and went right into the homes of the poor to help them.
Within two years, Teresa had been joined by other women in her efforts, all of them her former students. She was
soon “Mother Teresa” because she was the head of a new religious order: The Missionaries of Charity.
The Missionaries of Charity tried to care for as many of the dying as they could. They bought an old Hindu temple
and made it into what they called a home for the dying. Hospitals had no room or interest in caring for the dying especially the dying poor - so the dying had no choice but to lie on the streets and suffer. The sisters knew this, so they
didn’t wait for the poor to come to them. They constantly roamed the streets, picking up what looked from the outside
like nothing but a pile of rags, but was actually a sick child or a frail old person.
When a dying person came or was brought to Mother Teresa and her sisters, they were met with nothing but love.
They were washed and given clean clothes, medicine, and - most important - someone who could hold their hand, listen,
stroke their foreheads, and comfort them with love in their last days.
One of the most feared disease in the world is leprosy. It’s a terrible sickness that deadens a person’s nerves and
can even cause their fingers , toes, ears and nose to eventually fall away. You know that in Jesus’ time, lepers were
kept away from communities. Lepers in poor countries like India, where they have a hard time getting the medicines to
treat the disease, are often treated the same way.
So Mother Teresa saw people with leprosy in the same way - through God’s loving eyes. She got the help of doctors
and nurses, gathered lepers from the slums, and began treating and caring for them in a way that no one before her had
tried to do. Mother Teresa’s work of love started out small, but it isn’t small anymore. There are more than four
thousand Missionaries of Charity today, living, praying, and caring for the helpless in more than a hundred different
houses around the world, including the United States.
Mother Teresa died in 1997, but even now, when we think about her work, we can learn all we need to know about
love: It doesn’t take any money or power to love. It doesn’t take great talent or intelligence. It simply takes love.
Mother Teresa did wonderful, brave work in caring for the forgotten, but if there’s one thing she would want you to
remember about love, it’s that you don’t have to travel to foreign countries to practice the virtue of charity. In fact, love
has to start where you live.
- Taken from loyolapress.com
“Do not think that love
in order to be genuine
has to be extraordinary.
What we need is to love
without getting tired.
Be faithful in small
things because it is in
them that your strength
lies.”
- Mother Teresa
We think sometimes
that poverty is only
being hungry, naked
and homeless.
The poverty of being
unwanted, unloved and
uncared for is the
greatest poverty.
We must start in our
own homes to remedy
this kind of poverty.
- Mother Teresa of Calcutta
We pray for those in need of healing
 May the Holy Spirit Light Their Way
Mercedes Peltz, Kay Dayton, Irma Avila,
Antonio Garcia, Leonor Dominguez,
Alejandro Gomez, Kristina Greer,
Frank Stevens, Art Burke, Al Frettoloso,
Joseph Bell, Kay Stevens,
Starnes Family, Andrew Hernandez,
Elizabeth Sanchez, Jose Arturo Ramos,
Gabriela de la Torre,.Bertha Villasana,
Bonnie Wilkerson, Maria Faz Hernandez, Casimiro A. Diaz,
Madeline Prugh, Priscilla Rodriguez, Narciza Bravo,
Cipriano Castillo Aguilar, Cheri Mills, John Christopher Cortes,
Patricia Trejo, Luis Gonzalez, Florene Hendricks,
Susie Alvarez, Fabiola Afanador, Narcisa Bravo, Lourdes Diaz,
Maria Louise Sanchez, Dan Crum, Collville Bain, Judy Coenen,
Andrew Karl, Kelly Claffey, Alexandra Venegas, Maria Niño,
Yuritza Huerta Ibarra, Antonio Garcia, Andrew Hernandez,
Christy Lane, Erin Knapik, Walker Phillips, Carroll Family,
Marcy Roberts, Cathy Greise, Maria Nerios, Mary Williams,
Maria del Rocio Garcia Calles, Evan Flores,
Terry Hanoski, Emiliano Peña, Jason McCune,
Susy Martilla, Paula Carrion, Pat Guidry, Toni Hawley,
Lupe Gomez, Jeff Frazier, Francisco Morales, Steven Neville,
Franziska McGinty, Steve Macias, Bettye Holmes,
Margarita Rodriguez, Lorenzo Vasquez, Lilia,
Carlos Enrique Lopez, Kenadi Pearson, Hunter Starnes,
Gina Portillo, Maria Bueno, Judith Lopez, Milagros Balderas,
Isidra Arrellano, Rick Hart, Rose Marie Snell, Brenda Bulot,
Sherry Campbell, Marguerite Martin,
Francisco Olvera, Jeff Hull, Natalie Alexander, Mike Sullivan,
Sherry Matthews, Roberto Segura, Angela Soto,
Andrew Sanchez, Graciela Espinoza, Nina Roger, Alejandra
Moreno, Jennifer Peck, Ana J. Ruiz, Karen Beaty,
Patrick Greise, Juanita Beasley, Terry Good
To add someone to the prayer list for healing, please
kindly call the parish office.
Readings for the week of: Sept. 4th - 11th
4th of September, Sunday: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Wis 9:13-18b; Ps 90; Phlm 9-10,12-17; Luke 14:25-33
5th of September, Monday: LABOR DAY
1 Cor 5:1-8; Ps 5:5-7, 12; Lk 6:6-11
6th of September, Tuesday:
1 Cor 6:1-11; Ps 149:1b-6a, 9b; Lk 6:12-19
7th of September, Wednesday:
1 Cor 7:25-31; Ps 45:11-12, 14-17; Luke 6:20-26
8th of Septmeber, Thursday:
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Mi 5:1-4a or Rom 8:28-30; Ps 13:6; Mt 1:1-16, 18-23
9th of September, Friday: St. Peter Claver
1 Cor 9:16-19, 22b-27; Ps 84:3-6, 12; Luke 6:39-42
10th of September, Saturday: Blessed Virgin Mary
1 Cor 10:14-22; Ps 116:12-13, 17-18; Luke 6:43-49
11th of September, 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Ex 32:7-11, 13-14; Ps 51; 1 Tm 1:12-17; Lk 15:1-32
OUR OFFERING
Sunday, 28th of August - 1st Collection: $15,195.00
Online Giving: $2,180.00
Total Giving: $17,375.00
Sunday, 28th of August - 2nd Collection:
(Mortgage Reduction): $5,289.00
Online Giving: $547.00
Total Giving: $5,836.00
Attendance: 3,113
Thank you for your constant giving.
“Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not
grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
2 Corinthians 9:7
Mass Intentions for the week of:
September 3rd - September 10th
Saturday, September 3
5:00 pm
 Deceased Family Members of Emile Haydel
Sunday, September 4
8:00 am
Deceased Burblis Family Members
9:30 am
For the People
11:30 am  Arthur Paul
1:30 pm
Hermanos Galvan
Monday, September 5
8:00 am
Isabel P. Lopez
Tuesday, September 6
5:30 pm
Claudio Espinoza Mesita
Wednesday, September 7
8:00 am
 Mike Sullivan
Thursday, September 8
5:30 pm
 James W. Pazora
 All departed and forgotten souls 
Friday, September 9
8:00 am
Claudio Espinoza Mesita
Saturday, September 10
5:00 pm
 Leonard Perles
The parish office will be closed on
Monday, September 5th
in observance of Labor Day.
How can we show others the
mercy of God? We say that God is
compassionate, but we ignore the
poor. We say that God loves us
and has mercy on us, but we hold
grudges against our friends. Our
actions need to authentically
reflect God's mercy.
Monthly Mass for Catholics in Recovery
This month’s Diocesan Calix Mass will be offered at
8:30 am on September 10th in the St. Jude Parish
chapel (1515 N Greenville Ave, Allen).
The Mass, and meeting that follows, is open to
members of all parishes who are recovering
alcoholics, addicts, and their families and friends. For
more information on the Calix Society, call your parish
or 214-906-0605, or see www.calixsociety.org.
Dallas Ministry
Conference
Sept. 29 – Oct. 1, 2016
Join us at the 10th annual UD Ministry Conference and be a part of the South’s largest annual
Catholic ministry conference opened to the public. Attend some of over 170 breakout sessions in English,
Spanish and Vietnamese, presented by nationally, local and international known speakers. Participate in
Mass and prayer services, peruse the exhibits, admire the liturgical art display, and
listen to Catholic musical performances. This three-day event only costs $66!
Find out more at our website: www.udallas.edu/dmc
GOD’S NATURE – EXUBERANCE OR THE CROSS?
AUGUST 22, 2016
It’s funny where you can learn a lesson and catch a glimpse of the divine. Recently, in a grocery store, I
witnessed this incident:
A young girl, probably around 16 years of age, along with two other girls her own age, came into the store.
She picked up a grocery basket and began to walk down the aisle, not knowing that a second basket was
stuck onto the one she was carrying. At a point the inevitable happened, the basket stuck to hers released
and crashed to the floor with a loud bang, startling her and all of us around her. What was her reaction? She
burst into laughter, exuding a joy-filled delight at being so startled. For her the surprise of the falling basket
was not an irritation but a gift, an unexpected humor happily fracturing dram routine.
If that had happened to me, given how I’m habitually in a hurry and easily irritated by anything that disrupts
my agenda, I would probably have responded with a silent expletive rather than with laughter. Which made
me think: Here’s a young girl who probably isn’t going to church and probably isn’t much concerned about
matters of faith, but who, in this moment, is wonderfully radiating the energy of God, while, me, a vowed
religious, over-serious priest, church-minister and spiritual writer, in such a moment, too often radiate the
antithesis of God’s energy, irritation.
But is this true? Does God really burst in laughter at falling grocery baskets?
Doesn’t God ever get irritated? What’s God’s real nature?
God is the unconditional love and forgiveness that Jesus reveals, but God is also the energy that lies at
the base of everything that is. And that energy, as is evident in both creation and scripture, is, at its root,
creative, prodigal, robust, joy-filled, playful, and exuberant. If you want to know that God is like look at the
natural exuberance of children, look at the exuberance of a young puppy, look at the robust, playful energy of
young people, and look at the spontaneous laughter of sixteen-year-old when she is startled by a falling
basket. And to see God’s prodigal character, we might look at billions and billions of planets that surround us.
The energy of God is prodigal and exuberant.
Then what about the Cross? Doesn’t it, more than anything else, reveal God’s nature? Isn’t it what shows
us God? Isn’t suffering the innate and necessary route to maturity and sanctity? So isn’t there a contradiction
between what Jesus reveals about the nature of God in his crucifixion and what scripture and nature reveal
about God’s exuberance?
While there’s clearly a paradox here, there’s no contradiction. First, the tension we see between the cross
and exuberance is already seen in the person and teachings of Jesus. Jesus scandalized his contemporaries
in opposite ways: He scandalized them in his capacity to willingly give up his life and the things of this world,
even as he scandalized them equally with his capacity to enjoy life and drink in its God-given pleasures. His
contemporaries weren’t able to walk with him while he carried the cross and they weren’t able to walk with
him either as he ate and drank without guilt and felt only gift and gratitude when a woman anointed his feet
with expensive perfume.
Moreover, the joy and exuberance that lie at the root of God’s nature are not to be confused with the
bravado we crank up at parties, carnival, and Mardi Gras. What’s experienced there is not actual delight but,
instead, a numbing of the brain and senses induced by frenzied excess. This doesn’t radiate the exuberance
of God, nor indeed does it radiate the powerful exuberance that sits inside us, waiting to burst forth. Carnival
is mostly an attempt to keep depression at bay. As Charles Taylor astutely points out, we invented carnival
because our natural exuberance doesn’t find enough outlets within our daily lives, so we ritualize certain
occasions and seasons where we can, for a time, imprison our rationality and release our exuberance, as one
would free a caged animal. But that, while serving as a certain release-valve, is not the ideal way to release
our natural exuberance.
When I was a child, my parents would often warn me about false exuberance, the exuberance of wild
partying, false laughter, and carnival. They had this little axiom: After the laughter, come the tears! They
were right, but only as this applies to the kind of laugher that we tend to crank up at parties to keep
depression at bay. The cross however reverses my parents’ axiom and says this: After the tears, comes
the laughter! Only after the cross, is our joy genuine. Only after the cross, will our exuberance express the
genuine delight we once felt when we were little, and only then will our exuberance truly radiate the energy of
God.
Jesus promises us that if we take up his cross, God will reward us with an exuberance
that no one can ever take from us.
- Ron Rolheiser, OMI, Speaker, Columnist and Author, www.ronrolheiser.com
Children’s Liturgy Corner
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jesus teaches about the demands of discipleship.
In this week’s Gospel, Jesus is giving us two examples of what it means to put first things first.
What are the two examples? (a person building a tower; a king marching into battle)
What does the person building a tower need to think of first? (how much money he has)
What does the king going into battle need to think of first? (how big his army is)
What does Jesus want us to put first in our lives? (God)
What does it mean to put God first in our lives? (to love him, to love others, to go to Church, pray and so on)
If we don’t put first things first, we make things much more difficult. In the Gospel this week, Jesus said we
must put him first or we will never be happy.
- Taken from Sunday Connection, Loyola Press
NUESTRA OFRENDA
Tú, Señor, nuestro refugio.
- Salmo 89
Lecturas de la Semana: 4 a 11 de septiembre
4 de septiembre: 22° Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario
Sab 9:13-18; Sal 90; Flm 9-10, 12-17; Lucas 14:25-33
5 de septiembre, lunes: Día del Trabajo
1 Cor 5:1-8; Sal 5; Lucas 6:6-11,
6 de septiembre, martes:
1 Cor 6:1-11; Sal 149; Lucas 6:12-19
7 de septiembre, miércoles:
1 Cor 7:25-31; Sal 45 ; Lucas 6:20-26
8 de septiembre, jueves:
La Natividad de la Santísima Virgen María
Mi 5:1-4 o Rom 8:28-30; Sal 13; Mateo 1:1-16, 18-23 [18-23]
9 de septiembre, viernes: san Pedro Claver
1 Cor 9:16-19, 22-27; Sal 84; Lucas 6:39-42
10 de septiembre, sábado: Santa María Virgen
1 Cor 10:14-22; Sal 116; Lucas 6:43-49
11 de septiembre, 23° Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario:
Ex 32:7-11, 13-14; Sal 51; 1 Tim 1:12-17; Lucas 15:1-32 [1-10]
domingo, 28 de agosto - Primera Colecta: $15,195.00
Donaciones Online: $2,180.00 Total: $17,375.00
domingo, 21 de agosto - Segunda Colecta
(Reducción de Hipoteca): $5,289.00
Donaciones Online: $547.00 Total: $5,836.00
Asistencia: 3,113
Gracias por su apoyo constante.
“Que cada uno dé como propuso en su corazón, no de
mala gana ni por obligación, porque Dios ama al dador
alegre.” - 2 Corintios 9:7
Salón Sagrada Familia
Despensa de Comida cada
martes y jueves de 2 pm a 4 pm
El segundo sábado del mes de
8:30 am-9:45 am
Teléfono: 214-314-5698
Correo Eletrónico: stvdp@stmichaelmckinney.org
Tel. para Donar a Thrift Store 214.373.7837
Los Bautismos en español se
celebran el segundo y el cuarto
sábado del mes a las 11am.
La próxima clase de bautismo
será lunes, 24 de septiembre en la
iglesia de 7:00pm – 9:00pm.
Por favor sin niños.
Pasen a la oficina para
registrarse antes de la fecha.
Los requisitos se encuentran en
nuestra página web: ww.stmichaelmckinney.org
(Oprima SACRAMENTS y luego Bautismos)
Próximas Fechas y Horarios Para Bautismos:
10 de sept., 11:00am
24 de sept., 11:00 am
8 de octubre, 11:00am
22 de octubre, 11:00am
¿Tienes la sed de saber mas
de la fe católica?
¿Quisieras saber que se
requiere para poder recibir los
sacramentos que todavía no
has podido?
El programa de RICA es para ti. Están
invitados a participar en
nuestro programa de instrucción.
Cualquier persona interesada en
acompañarnos este otoño, por favor llame a la
oficina de la parroquia, 972-542-4667 x0,
y pida hablar con el Padre Salvador.
Primer Clase será el jueves, 8 de septiembre
a las 7pm en el salón de Santa Rosa.
La Oficina Parroquial estará cerrada
el lunes, 5 de septiembre en observancia
del “Labor Day”. ¡Regresamos el martes!
Este Día del Trabajo, volcamos nuestra atención a nuestros hermanos y hermanas que enfrentan crisis
paralelas: profundas pruebas tanto en el mundo del trabajo como en el estado de la familia. Estos tiempos
difíciles pueden empujarnos a la desesperación y a los muchos peligros que trae consigo. Dentro de esta
realidad, la Iglesia comparte una palabra de esperanza, dirigiendo los corazones y las mentes a la dignidad
de cada persona humana y la santidad del trabajo mismo, que es dado por Dios. Ella busca reemplazar la
desesperación y el aislamiento con la preocupación humana y la solidaridad verdadera, reafirmando la
confianza en un Dios bueno y bondadoso que sabe lo que necesitamos antes de que se lo pidamos (Mt 6:8).
La Buena Nueva sigue siendo buena
Jesús dijo: "Vengan a mí, todos los que están fatigados y agobiados por la carga, y yo les daré alivio.
Tomen mi yugo sobre ustedes y aprendan de mí, que soy manso y humilde de corazón, y encontrarán
descanso, porque mi yugo es suave y mi carga, ligera" (Mt 11:28-30). Empecemos acudiendo al Señor,
poniendo nuestras cargas al pie de su cruz y entregando nuestros corazones para que podamos encontrar
descanso.
El papa Francisco describe la imagen de una respuesta duradera al creciente aislamiento y
desesperación que vemos a nuestro alrededor. Para contrarrestar la desesperanza, nos dice que la
comunidad cristiana "se mete con obras y gestos en la vida cotidiana de los demás, achica distancias… y
asume la vida humana, tocando la carne sufriente de Cristo en el pueblo".3 Ante una actividad interminable y frenética y el interés individuaTú eres, Señor,
lista, la Iglesia "sabe de esperas largas y de aguante apostólico", así
nuestro
refugio.
como "tiene mucho de paciencia, y evita maltratar límites".4 El tipo de
encuentro que ofrecemos puede ser transformador, llenar a los demás
con el sentido de su dignidad dada por Dios, y ayudarlos a saber que no están solos en sus luchas. La
historia de la Iglesia está llena de comunidades que se tomaron en serio el llamado a ser el "guardián de su
hermano" (Gn 4:9), que enfrentaron desafíos juntas, y que elevaron el "clamor de los pobres" (Salmo 33:7).
Aquellos que hoy en día se sientan abandonados, sepan que la Iglesia quiere caminar con ustedes, en
compañía del Dios que les formó sus "entrañas" y que sabe que ustedes están "formados
maravillosamente" (Salmo 138:13-14).
El trabajo digno está en el centro de nuestros esfuerzos, porque a partir de él percibimos lo que somos
como seres humanos. San Juan Pablo II nos ha recordado que el trabajo humano es una clave esencial para
comprender nuestras relaciones sociales, vital para la formación de la familia y la construcción de la
comunidad de acuerdo con nuestra dignidad dada por Dios. Escribió que el trabajo es la dimensión "...de la
que la vida del hombre está hecha cada día, de la que deriva la propia dignidad específica".5 Sabemos que
el trabajo tiene dignidad porque Jesús "dedicó la mayor parte de los años de su vida terrena al trabajo manual junto al banco del carpintero. Esta circunstancia constituye por sí sola el más elocuente 'Evangelio del
trabajo', que manifiesta cómo el fundamento para determinar el valor del trabajo humano no es en primer
lugar el tipo de trabajo que se realiza, sino el hecho de que quien lo ejecuta es una persona".6 La pobreza,
por tanto, aparece "como resultado de la violación de la dignidad del trabajo humano: bien sea porque se
limitan las posibilidades del trabajo —es decir por la plaga del desempleo—, bien porque se deprecian el
trabajo y los derechos que fluyen del mismo, especialmente el derecho al justo salario, a la seguridad de la
persona del trabajador y de su familia".7…..
- Tomado de la Declaración del Dia de Trabajo 2016
Arzobispo Thomas G. Wenski de Miami
Presidente del Comité de Justicia Nacional y
Desarrollo Humano
Conferencia de Obispos Católicos de los Estados Unidos
Septiembre 2016
Canonización de la Madre Teresa de Calcuta - 4 de septiembre 2016
(Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu; Skopje, Capital de Macedonia, 1910 - Calcuta, 1997) Religiosa albanesa nacionalizada
india, premio Nobel de la Paz en 1979. Cuando en 1997 falleció la Madre Teresa de Calcuta, la congregación de las
Misioneras de la Caridad contaba ya con más de quinientos centros en un centenar de países. Pero quizá la orden que
fundó, cuyo objetivo es ayudar a "los más pobres de los pobres", es la parte menor de su legado; la mayor fue erigirse
en un ejemplo inspirador reciente, en la prueba palpable y viva de cómo la generosidad, la abnegación y la entrega a los
demás también tienen sentido en tiempos modernos.,
Nacida en el seno de una familia católica albanesa, la profunda religiosidad de su madre despertó en Agnes la
vocación de misionera a los doce años. Siendo aún una niña ingresó en la Congregación Mariana de las Hijas de María,
donde inició su actividad de asistencia a los necesitados. Conmovida por las crónicas de un misionero cristiano en
Bengala, a los dieciocho años abandonó para siempre su ciudad natal y viajó hasta Dublín para profesar en la
Congregación de Nuestra Señora de Loreto. Como quería ser misionera en la
India, embarcó hacia Bengala, donde cursó estudios de magisterio y eligió el
nombre de Teresa para profesar.
Apenas hechos los votos pasó a Calcuta, la ciudad con la que habría de
identificar su vida y su vocación de entrega a los más necesitados. Durante casi
veinte años ejerció como maestra en la St. Mary's High School de Calcuta. Sin
embargo, la profunda impresión que le causó la miseria que observaba en las
calles de la ciudad la movió a solicitar a Pío XII la licencia para abandonar la
orden y entregarse por completo a la causa de los menesterosos. Enérgica y
decidida en sus propósitos, Teresa de Calcuta pronunció por entonces el que
sería el principio fundamental de su mensaje y de su acción: "Quiero llevar el
amor de Dios a los pobres más pobres; quiero demostrarles que Dios ama el
mundo y que les ama a ellos".
En 1948, poco después de proclamada la independencia de la India, obtuvo
la autorización de Roma para dedicarse al apostolado en favor de los pobres.
Mientras estudiaba enfermería con las Hermanas Misioneras Médicas de Patna,
Teresa de Calcuta abrió su primer centro de acogida de niños. En 1950, año en
que adoptó también la nacionalidad india, fundó la congregación de las
Misioneras de la Caridad, cuyo pleno reconocimiento encontraría numerosos
obstáculos antes de que Pablo VI lo hiciera efectivo en 1965…..
El enorme prestigio moral que la Madre Teresa de Calcuta supo acreditar con su labor en favor de "los pobres más
pobres" llevó a la Santa Sede a designarla representante ante la Conferencia Mundial de las Naciones Unidas celebrada
en México en 1975 con ocasión del Año Internacional de la Mujer, donde formuló su ideario basado en la acción por
encima de las organizaciones. Cuatro años más tarde, santificada no sólo por aquellos a quienes ayudaba sino también
por gobiernos, instituciones internacionales y poderosos personajes, recibió el premio Nobel de la Paz.
Finalmente, tras superar varias crisis, cedió su puesto de superiora a sor Nirmala, una hindú convertida al
cristianismo. Pocos días después de celebrar sus 87 años ingresó en la unidad de cuidados intensivos del asilo de
Woodlands, en Calcuta, donde falleció. Miles de personas de todo el mundo se congregaron en la India para despedir a
la Santa de las Cloacas. Seis años después de su muerte, en octubre de 2003, y coincidiendo con la celebración del 25º
aniversario del pontificado de Juan Pablo II, la Madre Teresa de Calcuta fue beatificada en una multitudinaria misa a la
que acudieron fieles de todas partes del mundo. A finales de 2015, el Papa Francisco aprobó su canonización; el 4 de
septiembre de 2016 es la fecha prevista para la ceremonia que ha de elevarla a los altares.
- Tomado de http://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/t/teresa_decalcuta.htm