Sat., May 11 4:00 PM … Tom Tullgren (30th Anniv) by Scott & Peggy Coppez

Sun., May 12 Fourth Sunday of Easter 7:30 AM … Therese Paris by Nelson & Lillie Duquette 9:30 AM … Our Parish Family 5:00 PM … Nelson R. Kelly by Virginia O’Brien Kelly

Monday, May 13 Our Lady of Fatima 12 PM … Lawrence Young (25th Anniv) by Nelson &

Lillie Duquette

Tue., May 14 Saint Mathias, Apostle

12 PM … Charles Young (4th Anniv) by Dotty Young

Wed., May 15 Saint Isidore

~MASS TIME CHANGE; this week only~

8:30 AM … Marguerita and Lucia Angcon by Nelly Huntington

Thur., May 16

8:30 AM … John & Theresa Grady by the Melvin family

Fri., May 17

6:00 PM … Heritier Bosa (3rd Anniv) by the Bosa family

Sat., May 18

4:00 PM … William Canty, Jr. by Jack & Colleen Byrne

Sun., May 19 Fifth Sunday of Easter

7:30 AM … Mary Marszal; Ernest, Carl & Jeanne

Bienvenue by Richard Bienvenue

9:30 AM … Denny Smith by Sean, Elaine and Abigail Smith

5:00 PM … Nelson R. Kelly by Virginia O’Brien Kelly

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Mon., May 13 7—8 PM … Food PantryTue., May 14 12:45 PM … Parish Nurse Wed., May 15 7 PM … Best Foot Forward Rehearsal Thur, May 16 7 PM … Best Foot Forward Rehearsal 7 PM …. Book Group Discussion 7:30 PM … Choir Practice

May 12, 2019

Weekend of May 5, 2019 Reg-ular Offertory $4,793.00 Loose Offertory 557.10 Online Offertory Last Wk 1,035.00 Total Offertory $6,385.10

Easter Make up $ 40.00 Total Easter $6,923.35

Food Pantry $ 0.00 ********************** Last Year: Wknd of May 6, 2018 Total Offertory $4,549.00 Total Easter $8,039.85

Thank you for your sacrificial gift!

Sanctuary candle The sanctuary candle burns this week for Eva Whitmore by Lisa Ruppel.

READINGS FOR THE WEEK of May 5, 2019 Monday: Acts 11:1-18; Ps 42:2-3; 43:3, 4; Jn 10:1-10; Tuesday: Acts 1:15-17, 20-26; Ps 113:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8; Jn 15:9-17; Wednesday: Acts 12:24 — 13:5a; Ps 67:2-3, 5-6, 8; Jn 12:44-50; Thursday: Acts 13:13-25; Ps 89:2-3, 21-22, 25, 27; Jn 13:16-20; Friday: Acts 13:26-33; Ps 2:6-7, 8-9, 10-11ab; Jn 14:1-6; Saturday: Acts 13:44-52; Ps 98:1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4; Jn 14:7-14; Sunday: Acts 14:21-27; Ps 145:8-9, 10-11, 12-13; Rev 21:1-5a; Jn 13:31-33a, 34-35

On Monday, April 29, the food pantry served 21 fami-lies by giving 42 bags of groceries.

Wanted: Lectors Have you ever considered

serving God and your fellow parishioners as a reader? Service in this important role is by appointment, but you can help Saint Raphael ex-

pand our roster by volunteering. We are looking to increase our roster at all weekend Masses. If interested or if you have questions, please contact Kerri at 603.623.2604/admin@st-raphael-parish.org. Thank you!

Sound Investment If you attended Mass Feb. 2-3 weekend

Masses, you likely were impressed with the demonstration sound

system we had. We hope you will consider the great need at Saint

Raphael for a new and updated system. Through generous parish-

ioner donations, we have raised half of the cost towards this pro-

ject and are $10,000 away from our goal. Our SRP Finance Council and our

Parish Pastoral Council have endorsed this project at recent meetings. Please

consider making a donation so that we can proceed with the installation. No

amount is too small, and every little bit ads up. Please specify your intention of

the funds on the check memo line or envelope. Thank you!

Year C Hymnal #909

Book Discussion Group Please join the par-

ish Book Group on Thursday, May 16, at 7 PM for a discussion of Sr . Helen Prejean's Dead Man Walking. Copies of the book and discussion questions are available at the parish office for $10.

Goal: $23,000

Raised: $ 200

Balance: $22,800

Your gifts will help our parish reach our Catholic Charities goal. If you haven’t had a chance to give, there are envelopes available.

The New Saint Raphael Follies ~ 5th Edition ~ June 1, 2019, 7 PM at the Dana Center, Saint

Anselm College. Tickets on sale at the rectory M—F 9am—4pm or at the door the night of the event.

Belated Easter

thanks from our pas-

tor, P. Jerome, O.S.B., to

all those who sent good

wishes, prayers and remembrances this Easter. May

the Risen Christ wrap you in his light, light and love!

Congratulations to parishioner Claude Morin, who, at a recent Catholic War Veteran Convention, received the National Commander's medal for out-standing work done for the organiza-tion, as well as the "NH Hall of Fame

Award" for work done within the state of NH.

Class of 2019! We

want to hear from you

and share your

achievement with our

parish family! Please

email Kerri at admin@st-raphael-

parish.org with your graduation info.

Join us for the Crowning of the B.V.M. statue in Our Lady’s Bower, the parish garden, Wednes-day, May 22 after the 8:30 AM Mass. (In case of inclement weather,

we will crown our indoor statue.)

For a long time, I’ve thought that using the Bible as the basis for a communication class could be an interesting, even fascinating experi-ence. This past fall, at long last, I had the requi-site Saint Anselm College authorizations to debut “CM-326-A: Textual Analysis and Communication Principles: The Bible and How It Got That Way.” The students, who just finished their work this past Friday, were pioneers, but they jumped at the chance to critique and help shape a course. While theological and religious thinking cer-tainly were regular parts of lecture and discus-sions, the aim of the course was to examine the Bible as a cultural artifact that, beyond ques-tion, has been the single most formative text in the experience of Western civilization. We began by looking at the Bible as a “sacred text,” the revealed Word of the Living God, a gift, sometimes called a “love letter” from the Lord to mankind. That is why the Church treas-ures the biblical text. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) wrote: “The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly re-ceives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God’s word and of Christ’s body.” (Dei Verbum, 21) Among sacred texts, however, the Bible is one of several, so we examined what other traditions have and how they use them. We also looked at some fascinating theories that help shape the study of communication, or message-sending and meaning-making in our culture and world. For example, what doest feminist theory say about var ious passages in the Scriptures? Does their thinking make sense? How does it square with traditional interpreta-tions? Are they missing something? Are we? Cultural studies, another theoretical ap-proach, examines the way power and perspec-tive are situated in a society. Who has it? How do they use it? Can others obtain power – and what, exactly, constitutes power, influence and position? What is the right way, and wrong way, to use power? Do we find examples of power, control, manipulation, exploitation and oppression in the Bible? The answer is, of course! The way the Jewish people over the centuries have suffered is a case in point. The first persecutions of Christians by, among others, Saul of Tarsus (Saint Paul) is another. We saw how the Bible has been written, col-lected, organized and formed. We discovered the fascinating – and sometimes dangerous world of biblical translation, translation theo-ries and printing technology. We learned about William Tyndale and the birth of the English language Bible, its evolution into the famous 1611 King James Version – a version that, in fact, depended upon the Catholic trans-lation completed at Douai in France some years earlier by English Catholic exiles. We spent time with the Bible as a liturgical text, because that is the way most Catholics and many others engage the Word of God. Stu-dents discovered how the Church uses Scripture

in the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. They learned about lectio divina, a characteris-tic form of Benedictine prayer. To their sur-prise, they were invited to attend a Mass or other kind of church service where a homily or sermon was delivered, get the text, study its use of the biblical text and, finally, its message to the congregation. Then, to their shock, they learned they had to write their own homily! Because my courses are within the Depart-ment of English, it is a safe bet that there will

be literary considerations even in a communication class. Liter-ature is an artful form of com-munication in which the beauty of sound, structure and sense combine with symbols and the-matic concerns to make mean-ing. For our purposes, we read

John Milton’s famous 1667 epic poem Para-dise Lost, which was a challenge for students but one that rewarded them. I bet they won’t forget passages from the archangels, along with Satan’s famous speeches, the predicaments of Adam and Eve or the merciful love and strength of Christ, who promises to save man-kind. I hope they remember some of the semiot-ic theory we examined too—for signs and symbols matter. Literature gave way to politics as we thought about the Bible as a text that has shaped the way the U.S. has developed. We looked at theories surrounding colonialism, imperialism and, eventually, revolution, resistance and post-colonialism. The American concepts of “the city on a hill” and “manifest destiny” have their roots in the biblical text. Students were amazed to learn that slavery in the U.S. before the Civil War was justified, in the minds of some, by the Bible, and excoriated and despised by others, also on the basis of the Word of God! We read speeches from Puritan Gov. John Win-throp of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, U.S. John F. Kennedy, D-MA, later president of the U.S., from President Ronald Reagan and from Gov. Mario Cuomo, D-NY, as well as work by some of the abolitionists. We read Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible to see what a misunderstanding of evangelical zeal coupled with colonialism can do to thwart the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ. Still another area of our concern was the Bi-ble as an economic text. Max Weber’s famous work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, shows how Calvinist thinking about grace, works and freedom could morph into a justification of hard work, material bless-ings and upright behavior as signs of divine favor and likely predestination to eternal life

and everlasting happiness. All that could be so, but a Catholic response would be, “What about forgiveness? What about conversion? What about free will and our response in love to God’s mercy?” The exploration of the Bible to see what can be done to whom, for whom and for what is fascinating! Politics is never very far from econom-ics – which means, in the Greek, man-

agement of the household – and we had some engaging discussions about capital-

ism, socialism, communism, totalitarianism, democracy, Marxism and globalization. What’s a fair wage? How much profit is too much? What is the obligation to a community? Who gets to control wealth? Is health care a right or an advantage due to income and posi-tion? What impact does an economic system have on human freedom and responsibility to oneself and others? Before our time together ran out, we had just enough opportunity to look at the Bible as a prophetic, social justice and environmental text. The role of the ancient prophets, the vision of the end of the ages in the Book of Revelation, and demands for all manner of social justice initiatives – elimination of the death penalty, gay marriage, financial repara-tions for racial discrimination, etc. – all have connections to the Scriptures. Advocates and opponents each can find something in the biblical text to support their claims. We saw how, for example, the environmental movement looks to the concept of stewardship as por-trayed in Genesis to argue for careful manage-ment of the earth’s resources – a position that the students generally adopt but not without a question about what particular policies and initiatives will that cost me?! We read two works on civil rights by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his famous “I Have a Dream” speech and the “Letter from Birming-ham City Jail.” Finally, we returned to the Scriptures as sa-cred text because we believe they come from the very heart of God’s love — for our guid-ance, understanding, inspiration, consolation and formation. We can observe and critique the biblical artifact and those that have come from it. Society uses them in nearly every conceiva-ble fashion (including fashion!), and we have a right and responsibility to assess their applica-tion and impact. But in the end, we stand before the Word of God and it judges us!◄

© Rev. Jerome Joseph Day, O.S.B.

From the Pastor: Fr. Jerome Joseph Day, O.S.B.

Western world’s most significant cultural artifact? Collecting dust at home?

Saint Jerome, 5th Century, works on translation of Bible into Latin.