Weekly Update from CCM

April 7, 2015 by Deacon Matthew Newsome

Dear Students,

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter Break. The bad news is that the next break is not until Summer break. The good news is the next break is Summer Break! For some of you, this will be your last semester at WCU. We want to honor anyone graduating; if this applies to you and you are interested in participating in a Baccalaureate Mass, please email me. I would need to know which Commencement you are participating in, approximately how many family/friends you’d have coming, and when they would be arriving in town (i.e. are they coming up the Friday before?).

We are back in the swing of things at CCM. Here is this week’s schedule.

TUESDAY (today)

Adoration in the chapel from noon till 12:30.
Community Table volunteer service from 3:30-6:00pm. Meet at CCM by 3:15 for a ride over.

WEDNESDAY (tomorrow)

Adoration in the chapel from 5:30-6:15.
Evening Prayer (vespers) in the chapel at 6:00.
Supper @ the Center from 6:30-8:30. Jackie and Pasquale are cooking, and our program is being led by Mairenn and Bekka. They have a special CCM scavenger hunt game night planned for us, so you don’t want to miss this week!

THURSDAY

Adoration in the chapel from noon to 12:30.
Small Group Bible study on the UC balcony from 5:30-6:30.
Simply Stitched knitting & crochet group meets at CCM from 8:00-9:30.

SUNDAY

This Sunday at the 11:00am Mass at St. Mary’s, our own Jessica McLawhorn will be received into full communion with the Catholic Church with the sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist. Please join us if you can to celebrate with Jessica!
This Sunday is also Divine Mercy Sunday. Our schedule on campus will be slightly different. We will begin at 4:00pm by praying the chaplet of Divine Mercy together — for those who have never done so, it is super easy and we’ll have guides on hand. Mass will begin immediately after the chaplet (approximately 4:15 or so).
Our Credo discussion after Mass will be about the Eucharist. Come with questions!

NEXT MONDAY

Small Group Bible study meets at 10:30pm in Starbucks.

FUNDRAISING DINNER – HELP NEEDED!

One of the ways we celebrate the end of the year at CCM is with a Fundraising Dinner at St. Mary’s. It’s a wonderful way to not only raise funding so that our ministry can continue, but also to showcase our students and the good work we are doing. We can’t do the fundraiser without student help! Our dinner is being catered by Half Past, and they need student volunteers to help pull it all together. Our dinner is Friday, April 24, at 6:00pm. We need student volunteers to help prep food the day before (Thursday) and also on Friday afternoon. We also need students to help set up and decorate the hall at St. Mary’s, to be on hand to serve food and meet & greet our guests. Finally, we need all the help we can to clean up after. If you can volunteer to help, please sign up via the Facebook Event we have created for our volunteers. Thanks!

FAITH FACTS – OCTAVE OF EASTER

Today is Tuesday in the Octave of Easter on the Church’s liturgical calendar. What does that mean? Octave means “eight days.” Major celebrations in the Church year such as Easter and Christmas are celebrated with octaves, meaning instead of just one day we rejoice for eight full days. Moreover, on the liturgical calendar, these eight days are in many ways treated as one. So each day this week is Easter Sunday, in a way of speaking. In praying the breviary, the psalms and antiphons are the same each day this week. Why celebrate octaves? Is it because these celebrations are so special they simply cannot fit all in one day? Partly. But the octave also points to the reality that Jesus does something very special for the world in His Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection. The number seven was always very significant for the Jewish people because of the seven days of creation. Jesus brings us into the “eighth day” of creation — the new creation — which is why Sunday is such a special day for us. Sunday was counted by the Israelite as the first day of the week. So for us it is the first day of the new creation — the eighth day. This is why baptismal fonts traditionally are made with eight sides, because the newly baptized are being brought into this mystical eight day. Read more about octaves here.

FAITH FACTS – DIVINE MERCY

In the year 2000, Pope St. John Paul II declared the 2nd Sunday of Easter (the Octave of Easter) to be a special feast in honor of God’s Divine Mercy. The devotion to the Divine Mercy had grown since the death in 1938 of Sister Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun who had been granted many visions of Christ who spoke of the importance of accepting His mercy. St. Faustina wrote of these visions and her devotion in her diary, which was published after her death. From this, the prayer of the Divine Mercy chaplet was introduced to the world. We will be praying this chaplet together this Sunday at 4:00pm before Mass. To learn more about the devotion to Divine Mercy, click here.

Until next week!

Pax Christi,

Matt

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