In This Issue: Mark Your Calendars Transition Team Report St. Elias Melkite-Greek Catholic Church St. John Vianney - Feast August 4 Prayer for Peace Announcements Weekly Readings

"They shall eat and there shall be some left over."

This Sunday is St. Vincent de Paul Sunday: Bring non-perishable
foods to refill the food pantry for our neighbors in need.

Mark Your Calendar

As we come to know Fr. Francisco, our new pastor, our parish is also coming to a new life, with new and renewed programs and committees expected in the near future. The  change gives us all a chance to look anew at our involvement in parish activities. It is a time to reevaluate our Parish Mission and our personal commitment to Time, Talent, and Treasure.

St. John Vianney Parish has some important dates coming up. These events are aimed at involving the entire community, so mark your calendars now and plan to join other parishioners, enjoying each other and working to make a better community. The four events listed below are all important ways for us to contribute and benefit from our parish:

Transition Team Report
By Ellen Turner

The St. John Vianney Parish Transition Team has been working hard for weeks to prepare the Transition Team Report. The mission of this team of parishioners is to facilitate the process of changing to a new pastor. The team will continue to work with Fr. Francisco for the rest of the year, but we will be issuing our report next week.

To prepare this report, the members of the Transition Team provided twenty-two separate opportunities for parishioners to express their concerns about the parish. We used a standard set of questions provided by Sr. Pat Mitchell, from the Diocese of San Jose:

• What did you feel when you first heard that our pastor was leaving?
• What do we need to keep?
• What do we need to let go of?
• What do we need to develop, begin, create for the future?
• What gifts, qualities, talents do the people of this parish bring to such a process?

The Transition Team consists of:

		Ann McEntee
Nicholas Adams		Helen Arreola		Vic English
Pat Garcia		Rich Haro		Ann Kangas
Fernando Pena		Patricia Pena		Armando Rivera
Toni Rossi		Ellen Turner		Ray Turner

The opportunity to serve on this team presented us with a special challenge and special joys. Listening to so many parishioners gave us an intimate picture of this amazing community. Some of the things we heard were very disheartening, but much was very enriching. This is indeed an awesome community.

There are a number of issues and concerns that need to be dealt with. Some of them are very challenging. But we also feel a real sense of renewal or rebirth in this parish. We hope that many of you will step forward, called by your Baptism to share your Time, Talent, and Treasure, to serve this parish as we enter a new stage in our development.

We presented the final report to Fr. Francisco on Wednesday evening. The report was also given to Fr. Tim, to Sr. Pat Mitchell at the Diocese, and to Fr. Eddie Samaniego at Most Holy Trinity, who is the new dean of our Deanery 6. The report is currently being translated into Spanish.

Since we listened to you, the parishioners, and the report is about our parish, we will also do our best to make it available to you. It is a six-page document, so we are trying to figure out how to get it to you without incurring much cost to the parish budget. One member of the Communication Team has volunteered to pay for 100 copies, but that won't take care of everyone. If you would like to donate toward the printing expenses, email me at newsletter@sjvnews.net, or take a check to the Parish Office Center making it clear that your check is for the Transition Team Report. We have been debating about charging $1.00 per copy, which would cover the cost, but it would be nice if someone would donate the full amount so we would not need to charge. (50 copies = $50) (300 copies = $200) (1200 copies, to insert one into each bulletin = $475)

Next week's newsletter will consist almost entirely of the report, so those of you who are reading this will have access to it quickly. We will also post it to our parish web site, www.sjvnews.net. We will post a copy, in English and Spanish, on the bulletin boards in the vestibule. Printed copies may be available after the weekend liturgies, if we can figure out how to pay for them. Inserting the six pages into the bulletin would be very expensive. After the weekend, printed copies will be available at the Parish Office Center.

St. Elias Melkite-Greek Catholic Church
www.StEliasTheProphet.org

Right down the street from St. John Vianney Parish is the local Melkite-Greek Catholic Church, St. Elias Melkite-Greek Catholic Church. This little church, at the corner of Hyland and Talmadge Avenue is the parish for Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo counties, as well as parts of Solano county. It encompasses the Roman Catholic Dioceses of San Jose, Oakland, and Monterey, and the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The majority of the congregation live in the San Jose and Fremont urban area, within a 20-mile radius of the church.

The congregation of St. Elias Church is mainly Greek Catholics from various parts of the Middle East - Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Syria. But parish membership is not limited to Arabic-speaking Christians; St Elias parish welcomes everyone interested in the Bible-based, family-oriented Christian tradition given to the Apostles and handed down by them in the lands of the Byzantine Empire.

Father James Graham, Pastor of St. Elias, is active in the East Side Clergy Fellowship in the church's neighborhood. It comprises pastors from Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Covenant churches as well as our Melkite parish.

St. Elias hosted the annual service for the Week of Christian Unity in January 2001. Fr. James is also active in the Eastern Catholic Pastoral Association of Northern California and maintains good relations with the Roman Catholic Dioceses of San Jose and Oakland.

Fr. James was ordained priest in November 1993, after studying at St. Gregory the Theologian Melkite Seminary in Newton, MA, and receiving the M. Div. with highest honors from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA. From June 1993 to November 1995 he was Pastor of St Ann Melkite Greek Catholic Church in Danbury, CT. Before starting theological studies, he was a member of St George Melkite Greek Catholic Church in Sacramento and worked as a technical writer and editor for 12 years. He also wrote music and book reviews for a community newspaper as well as founding and editing two other alternative newspapers. In 1976 he earned the M.A. degree in English from California State University, Sacramento. He graduated in 1971 from Cowell College, University of California, Santa Cruz, with a B.A. in English and American Literature and College Honors. Father James has served as an associate editor of the Melkite diocesan journal, Sophia, and also contributed to Eastern Churches Journal. He chairs the Melkite AIDS Ministry Task Force and is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries.

Fr. James frequently celebrates daily Mass at SJV and has done presentations for the Adult Faith Formation, Monday night group, for 2 or 3 years. He is perhaps best known in our parish for his Tuesday morning Bible study sessions. In the Diocese of San Jose, he is one of the regular presiders for the Saturday evening Emmaus Community Mass at St. Martin of Tours for gay and lesbian Catholics and their families and friends.

Many members of this sister-parish of ours are Lebanese and have family and loved ones in the area of the current troubles. Keep them all in your prayers. For more information about the Melkite rite, visit www.melkite.org.

St. John Vianney - Feast August 4

Our patron saint, John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, is the patron saint of priests. On Holy Thursday of 1986, Pope John Paul II spoke about St. John Vianney.

John Mary Vianney had to struggle to become a priest. He lacked the basic education expected at that time and he had a very hard time learning Latin, which was essential for ordination. After he was finally ordained, he was sent to an obscure little village, where few people attended church. He immediately began to visit his lax parishioners and brought them back into regular participation in his parish church.

John Vianney was especially well known as a confessor. By the time of his death, the little village of Ars had become an important pilgrimage for Christians from all over Europe hoping to confess to the humble Curé of Ars.

St. John Vianny Feast is celebrated August 4. To read Pope John Paul II's statement, click here. For more information about St. John Vianney, click here.

Prayer for Peace

A special prayer service for peace in Lebanon and Israel will be held at St. Elias Melkite-Greek Catholic Church at 7:30 PM on Friday, August 4, 2006. The service, called the Paraklisis, is traditionally sung in churches of the Byzantine tradition in times of danger and distress. The name comes from the same Greek root as Paraclete, the Holy Spirit as consoler.

Since almost all of the members of St. Elias Church have roots in the Middle East, especially Lebanon and Palestine, the current hostilities there are for us a special time of danger and distress. We invite our Christian neighbors in the Alum Rock neighborhood to join us in praying for an end to the destruction and enmity, and for the safety of the people.

St. Elias Church is located at 4411 Hyland Avenue, on the corner of Hyland and Talmadge. For more information, contact Father James K. Graham at 259-0259 or frjamie@earthlink.net.

Announcements

PARISH AND DEANERY:

Food Collection: On the fifth Sunday of the month, July 30, St. John Vianney Parish traditionally takes up a second collection for our local St. Vincent de Paul Society. This year, our parish Social Justice Team decided to add a special food collection on each St. Vincent de Paul Sunday. At the moment, our food pantry is very low on canned goods, rice and beans. Please be generous with your donations of food and dollars.

The Next Meeting of the Adult Spirituality Team is set for Monday, August 21, 7:00 PM, in the Parish Office Center. At that meeting we hope to put together a solid plan of action which we will then present to the Parish Pastoral Council at their September 20 meeting. The subcommittees will be meeting prior to the August 21 meeting, so if you want to help out, (and we really need your help) contact Ellen Turner at newsletter@sjvnews.net or (408) 272-9234.

COMMUNITY AT LARGE:

Worldwide Marriage Encounter Convention, "In God We Trust", is coming July 28-30, Friday at 8 PM through Sunday at 12 noon, at Santa Clara University. For more information contact Dennis and Carrie Crawford at dennis.crawford@wizwire.com. To register, go to www.LoveMoreDeeply.org. Couples, priests and religious from all over the northwestern United States will gather at Santa Clara University for the Section 12 and 13 Marriage Encounter Convention. If you've been on a Marriage Encounter Weekend, you don't want to miss this chance to get together with other couples, religious and priests who have shared that experience!

Weekly Readings

This Week: 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time: July 30   2 Kings 4:42-44   Ephesians 4:1-6   John 6:1-15 Next Week: Transfiguration of the Lord: August 6   Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14   2 Peter 1:16-19   Mark 9:2-10

Praying the Scriptures:   Visit this web site for ideas   on praying the Scriptures:   www.liturgy.slu.edu   Take a Moment to Pray:   Visit this web site for ideas   on the Ignatius way to pray:   www.sacredspace.ie

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