Events, Videos

Community Mass – Pentecost

| St. Charles Borromeo

Please join us to celebrate Pentecost on Sunday, May 23rd.

Our current Mass times are:

Today’s readings and hymns are available to download below.

2021-05-23-PentecostDownload

News

Updated COVID Safety Protocols

| St. Charles Borromeo

The Diocese of Brooklyn has issued new COVID guidelines for Masses. We will implement the following changes beginning this Sunday at St. Charles:

  • Churches can return to 100% capacity. We will no longer be roping off pews, but we ask you to maintain social distance from those not in your household.
  • Mask mandates are still in place as not everyone in church has been vaccinated.  
  • The regular Communion procession will resume directly up the center aisle. After receiving the host in your hand, please step to the side to the marked area, remove your mask, consume the host, then replace your mask. 
  • We ask that you continue to sanitize your hands as you enter the church. 
  • Sunday obligation will resume on June 6 (Corpus Christi Sunday). We will continue to stream the 11:15 AM Mass. 
  • 7 PM Mass will resume on June 6.

As always, we appreciate your continued help in keeping us all safe. If you have any concerns or questions, please contact the rectory.

Scriptual Commentary

Pentecost – Bright Tongues of Fire; Tighter Bonds of Community

| Fr. William Smith

Impromptu Gathering on Church Steps after the 9 AM Mass last Sunday

Fr. Smith’s Commentary on the First Reading
Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:1-11
May 23, 2021

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Disciples is one of the determining events of Christianity, yet it is dramatized in four verses in the “Acts of the Apostles.” This certainly reveals Luke’s literary skill but also that he could rely on his readers or listeners recognizing the scriptural references and making a commitment to studying his work intensely and often. In preparation for Pentecost, we will rely more heavily on quoting from the scriptures, both the Old Testament and Luke’s Gospel, than usual to make it more understandable.

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Homilies, Videos

7th Sunday of Easter – Homily (Fr. Smith)

| St. Charles Borromeo

There is nothing more important in life than who we love, yet it has been well said that we cannot explain why we love someone. If a husband were to say that he loved his wife because she was beautiful, she might indignantly answer “What happens if I lost my beauty?” “Would you still love me?” If she however told her husband that she loved him because he was a good provider he could well respond, “Would you still love me if I lost my job?” Why we love is a mystery because there is simply too much meaning to express in questions and answers. It is the stuff of poetry and drama not philosophy and science and the best even the most subline literature can accomplish is the hinting at the fullness. 

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Events, Videos

Community Mass – 7th Sunday of Easter

| St. Charles Borromeo

Please join us to celebrate the 7th Sunday of Easter on Sunday, May 16th.

Our current Mass times are:

Today’s readings and hymns are available to download below.

2021-05-15 7EDownload

Bulletin

7th Sunday of Easter – Treating All as Brothers and Sisters

| Fr. William Smith

Christ Taking Leave of the Apostles, Duccio di Buoninsegna, c. 1308 – 1311,
Museo dell’Opera metropolitana del Duomo (Siena)

Fr. Smith’s Commentary on the Second Reading
Seventh Sunday of Easter
1 John 4:11-16
May 16, 2021

Paraphrasing an old Italian saying the 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote: “Man is neither angel nor beast, and unhappily whoever wants to act the angel, acts the beast.”

John the Presbyter (elder) shares this concern. (For background on the authorship of John’s letters, see the commentary for April 11, 2021) We have followed him these six Sundays of Easter and saw that the community his great predecessors the Evangelist and the Beloved Disciple formed and inspired had become fractured and divided over the nature of sin and redemption. The differences had become so complete that he referred to his opponents as “antichrists.”

As we come to the end of our reading of the first letter of John, is there a lesson for us? Unfortunately, there is, and it is both timeless and timely.

Continue reading “7th Sunday of Easter – Treating All as Brothers and Sisters” →