In This Issue:
Silent Auction Donations New Name Ideas St. John Vianney - Feast St. Ignatius of Loyola What was Old is New Again Book Review: Girl Meets God Announcements Weekly Readings

Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples.

Silent Auction Donations

Some additional auction items have been donated for our Silent Auction to raise funds for our Multipurpose Building. The auction will take place at the upcoming Parish Picnic. 

What are you donating? What service can you offer? Tutoring? Organizing closets? Shopping? Computer training? Dancing lessons? Gardening assistance? Artwork? Painting a room?

To see the items already offered for auction (as presented in past issues of this newsletter), click here. This week, we add the following new items for auction:

Spanish Paella Dinner for Eight: Enjoy an evening in Manoli Kelly's beautiful garden with eight of your friends listening to Spanish guitar music and feasting on a delicious dinner. Menu will include Manoli 's authentic Spanish Paella and her famous Sangria. Dinner will be served by Manoli and Pat Garcia. $150 mimimum bid.

Computer Tune Up and Training: Ray Turner offers two hours of computer assistance (Windows only) in your home.

Italian Dinner for Eight: Enjoy an evening feasting on an Italian dinner prepared for you by Manoli Kelly and Pat Garcia. Relax, visit with your friends while we serve a delicious meal to you. Appetizers, salad, ravioli, chicken alla cacciatora and dessert to be enjoyed while listening to opera. Dinner will be served at Pat Garcia's home. $150 minimum bid.

What service can you offer?

To offer a service for our Silent Auction, email newsletter@sjvnews.net or phone Ellen Turner at 272-9234. If we all pitch in, we can make that building a reality while learning and sharing with fellow parishioners.

Parish Picnic Shindig ! Sunday, August 28 St. John Vianney Rectory Gardens Potluck 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM

Please bring your favorite dish or food item that corresponds with the first letter of your last name:

Note: Beverages, plates, utensils & napkins will be provided.

If you would like to help out, please contact Pat Garcia at 926-3826, Ann McEntee at 923-5788 or Ray & Ellen Turner at 272-9234.

New Name Ideas

The SJV Communication Team is working on a new look for the weekly parish email newsletter and we thought it would be good to have a new name to go along with the new look.

So, what name do you think we should apply to our weekly newsletter? Send us your suggestions. The Communication Team will take all suggestions until August 15. Then we will cull through them and narrow the selection to a small number.

At the parish picnic, on Sunday, August 28, we will let parishioners vote on their favorite choices. The new name will be announced in our first anniversary issue, at the start of October.

Some names that have been suggested so far:

To submit a name for the newsletter, send an email to newsletter@sjvnews.net.

St. John Vianney: Feast August 4

St. John Vianney, our patron and the patron of all parish priests, was a man who overcame many obstacles and accomplished deeds many thought to be impossible. He had a vision, that he was to be a priest, but his poor education did not prepare him for the challenges of the seminary. He was never really able to master Latin. At that time, (1786-1859) All classes were in Latin, so he found a private tutor to assist him. He failed his examinations twice before finally being accepted for ordination. The bishop was so convinced he was incompetent, they sent him to an out of the way village where he could do no harm, the little village of Ars. He was known as the Curé of Ars. ("Curé" means "parish priest.")

John Vianney lived a very austere life, but in spite of his poor education, he turned out to be very much in demand. Hearing confession is rarely a priest's favorite job. He was a man dedicated to this challenging responsibility. People came from all over Europe to confess to him. He had a gift for hearing confession and reading the hearts of penitents. He often heard confessions all day long, 13-17 hours at a time.

St. John Vianney had a great sense of parish/community responsibility. He is quoted (*) as saying "Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there: If you set it on fire it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them, and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky; public prayer is like that." Perhaps our patron is one of the reasons that our parish is known as such a strong community.

There will be a bilingual liturgy to celebrate his feast day on Thursday, August 4, at 7:00 PM.

*Quote from Saint of the Day, Leonard Foley, OFM

St. Ignatius of Loyola: Feast July 31

St. Ignatius of Loyola was born in the Basque area of northern Spain in 1491, the youngest of thirteen children. As a young man he loved being at court, dressing well, and flirting with the ladies. At the age of thirty, he was wounded in a battle against the French. As he endured his long convalescence, he found himself with no romantic novels to read, only two books to read: a Life of Christ and a book about the saints. As he read, he began to see the saints as people worth imitating. This time was the beginning of his change of heart as well as the foundation for spiritual discernment which is the hallmark of the Jesuits.

Ignatius  decided to dedicate his life to  Christ. He felt he could do this best by going to Jerusalem. He went first to Barcelona where he knelt all night at the Benedicatan shrine of Our Lady of Montserrat. Much as his former self would have become a knight, he dedicated himself to the service of the church, leaving his sword and knife at the altar. He gave away his fine clothing and proceded toward Jerusalem as a pilgrim.

At a place called Manresa, Ignatius lived in a cave for ten months, spending hours in prayer and working at a hospice. He also experienced a vision that enlightened the rest of his life. At Manresa, he further developed the ideas that we now call the Spiritual Exercises. At the center of the exercises is the grace to find God in all things.

Ignatius founded the group known as the Company of Jesus or the Society of Jesuits, known all over the world for their fine schools.

For more information on St. Ignatius of Loyola, visit the web page, www.luc.edu/jesuit/ignatius.bio.html.

What was Old is New Again
by Bruno Martinez

As you have probably noticed by now, there is something new in the vestibule of the church. But it really isn’t new at all. With a new stand, designed and built by Richard Haro and John Zavala, and installed by Raul Navarette, a gorgeous marble Baptismal Font that has not been used in 20+ years is now in use again. These three men generously donated their time, materials and labor to make this project happen, "Thank you" to them all for their generous stewardship.

This Font is nearly as old as the church and is made of solid marble. We will now use it to hold Holy Water for people to bless themselves as they enter and exit the church. A few people have asked why we chose to use wheels or build a stand at all. The answer is simple, in order to accommodate a funeral, the font had to be mobile.

Since this font was installed in the vestibule, the old Baptistery has been cleaned and the Infant of Prague, or Santo Niño, has returned to his alcove in the Baptistery. Many pray devotionals to the Infant, and now they can pray while they view the statuary in the Baptistery.

Take some time to admire the time, talent and generosity that went into restoring some of Saint John Vianney Parish’s history.

A Book Review by Robert G. Leroe
adapted by Judi Miel

"Girl Meets God", by Lauren F. Winner, is difficult to categorize because it is several books in one. It is a personal memoir, a devotional book, a study of the sad tension between Judaism and Christianity, a commentary on Scripture, a reflection on sacrament and liturgy, a look at the often slow process of conversion, and a celebration of reading (the author being a confirmed bookaholic).

An unlikely book to pick up -- you're likely to find it wrongly placed in the Teen section of your bookstore -- yet hard to put down. Winner's first effort (a second, Mudhouse Sabbath, is about Jewish traditions) offers brilliant spiritual insight throughout. A sign of a good book is when you keep thinking about it after you put it down. If the adage that readers make good writers is true, it applies here. Winner is a gifted wordsmith and wise beyond her youth. The pace is happily fragmented, not always chronological, spiritual, and down-to-earth at the same time.

Winner is a free-thinker, so her writing departs from the typical style of devotional books. Her story reinforces the truism that believers are works-in-progress, and God's steady inward grace is on display as she shares her faults, struggles, and lessons learned on her journey. "My life is like a disciple's nap in Gethsemene." She lives with a distinctly Hebraic-tinged grace: "I hadn't given up the shape in which I saw the world, or the words I knew for God, and those shapes and words were mostly Jewish."

The daughter of a Jewish father and a Christian mother, and raised Jewish, Winner learned that she had to formally convert to Judaism, which she did...but gradually she is drawn to Jesus and another conversion. Winner wasn't entirely embraced by the Jewish community (yet I wonder if those who rejected her knew as much about Judaism), which perhaps was a factor that led her to Jesus, although she makes it clear that her faith came not by one influence or event but rather by many factors.

Winner is without question someone who would provide a substantive discussion of life, books, faith, and struggle. Trained at Columbia and Cambridge universities, and a contributing editor for Christianity Today, she is now pursuing her Doctorate. The title and cover may be mistaken for a teen devotional, but this is a book for serious Christian disciples and devout Jews who may want to consider Winner's love affair with both Orthodox Judaism and Christianity.

Announcements

Parish Picnic Shindig: Sunday, August 28, St. John Vianney Rectory Gardens. Potluck 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM, and Silent Auction too. If you would like to help out, please contact Pat Garcia at 926-3826, Ann McEntee at 923-5788 or Ray & Ellen Turner at 272-9234.

The San Jose/Milpitas Chapter of Singles for Christ, website at www.sfcsanjose.org, is presenting a theater production, "A World Apart," benefiting Gawad Kalinga on Friday, July 29, and Saturday, July 30, at 7:00 PM at the Mayer Theatre at Santa Clara University (500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA). Doors open at 6:15 PM. For more information or to buy tickets, please click here.

Weekly Readings

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