Social Justice

We will be collecting toys and gift certificates for the churches of Blessed Kateri and Holy Rosary and for our local food shelf through Salvation Army's Operation Joy.

Angels will be on the trees in St. Paul's Plaza, and gifts can be returned to The Plaza anytime between now through Sunday, December 14.

Gift certificates can be mailed to St. John's or returned to the   Parish Office.

Please Note: December 14 is the last day  to return gifts and certificates because the agencies need time to deliver their gifts! 

Delivering the gifts to Ralph Reeder Food Shelf on Monday mornings, December 8 & 15, at 9:00 a.m.

Please call Judy, 651-633-8333, ext. 1229, if you can help.

Council of Catholic Women

St. John's Council of Catholic Women will hold its annual Christmas Party, December 15, in St. Joseph's Hall. Social hour starts at 6:30 p.m.; dinner at 7:00 p.m. Food will be catered by Ollie's Kitchen; entertainment by the Girl Scouts. ALL ladies of the parish are invited.  Cost is $7.00, and tickets may be purchased after Mass today, December 7; no tickets will be available after today. A $5.00 donation will be collected for the Our Lady of Good Council Cancer Home. Contact Theresa for information, (763) 786-7051. 

& Our Lady of Guadalupe

    This Feast of Mother Mary as Queen of the Americas & Patroness of the Unborn is Friday, December 12. Rosary & Mass begin at 8:00 a.m. in the Chapel; join us!

Connections:  December 7, 2003    Second Sunday of Advent

† "… the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert."

"Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill be made low.  The winding roads shall be made straight, and rough ways made smooth…"              Luke 3:1-6

THE COLOR OF GRACE

One Christmas, a priest bought each of the children at the city shelter a coloring book and a box of crayons. The children eagerly opened the gifts, and then looked up at him blankly.  It wasn't that they didn't like the gift, they didn't know what to do with it.
The priest had to sit down and actually show them what the crayons were for; how they could bring the pictures in the book to life with color.  After about an hour, the children were happily enjoying their new gifts. Some even started to show a special talent, long hidden and almost never realized.

[Rev. Paul Kelly S.C.J., SCJ News]

CONNECTION:  Like children discovering the colors they can bring to life on a piece of paper, John the Baptizer comes to show us how we can bring the "color" of justice, reconciliation, and peace to the hopeless valleys and overwhelming mountains of our lives.  There are so many wastelands and barren places into which we can bring the life of God, so many crooked roads that we can transform into highways through our charity and forgiveness.  The work of Advent is to pick up our "crayons" and bring richness and brilliance to the empty spaces between life's hard thick lines; the fulfillment of Christmas is to realize a world transformed by color:  God's color and light.