Mass for the victims of the Haiti earthquake

In our diocese. Heck, in our neck of the woods:

"Msgr. Carl Kemme, Diocesan Administrator will celebrate a Special Mass for the many victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti.

"The mass will be held on Sunday, January 24th at Ss Peter and Paul Church in Alton at 5:00 p.m.

"Fr. Delix Michel, a native priest from Haiti will be homilist. Fr. Michel is the pastor of Ss Peter and Paul. People from the Diocese of Springfield are invited to attend. Please remember those who have died from this natural disaster and those left to rebuild their lives."

Folks, this is right up in Alton. For those of us in Granite, it's 15-20 minutes. Couple it with a drive up the river road to see the eagles and a stop at Pere Marquette for a chilly hike.

A map to the church:
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Trinity Koinonia 7: Community in Christ

For all of our friends and family (particularly parishioners of Holy Family, St. Elizabeth, and St. Mary/St. Mark parishes here in Granite City):

Registration is now open for Trinity Koinonia 7. TK-7, as it's called in shorthand, will be held at Holy Family Parish on March 19-21 of this year.

“Koinonia” is a Greek word meaning “community.” Koinonia is a community experience in Christian living designed especially for adults. In a Koinonia weekend, you encounter Christ first-hand in the community of fellow believers that forms and experiences the weekend together.

The purpose of Koinonia is two-fold. The first is to offer a time and place for experiencing the reality of Christian community, fellowship, and sharing. The second is to provide a depth of faith-sharing support that allows and challenges inner renewal for each participant.

The weekend is designed for anyone who wants to deepen his/her relationship with God, enhance his/her own spirituality and for anyone who would like to spend time with a group of people with like interests. Participants come from various walks of life, age spans, and faiths.

It's a weekend of great food, awesome talks and testimonials, of worship and good new friendships, of music and fun and laughter.

You could call Koinonia a retreat, but it's more than just a retreat.

You could call Koinoina an encounter weekend, but it's more than just an encounter weekend.

I am honored and humbled to have been called to be the lay director for this weekend, and am pleased at the team members that Christ called to join me in this effort. Two priests, Father Larry and Father Chris, will be with us through the weekend to preside over the sacraments and spiritual matters.

TK7 is March 19-21, 2010. It begins on Friday evening at 5:00 p.m. and concludes at 4:00 p.m. Sunday evening. Participants return home at the end of each day and return the following morning. Participants are required to commit to the entire weekend community unless there is an emergency.

The theme of the Koinonia weekend is the Paschal Mystery; the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This central teaching of our faith is discussed and shown how it can be applied to our daily lives. During the weekend the church year – Lent, Easter, Pentecost – is expressed in the three days.

Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you and help you in your decision to commit to this grace-filled weekend.

I sincerely hope you'll join us.

Registration forms are accepted on a first-come-first-served basis, and can be downloaded and printed (in PDF form) here.

Barely 3″

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

"4-8" of snow is on the way!"

It was nice to wake up to barely 3" of light, soft, beautiful snow.

And Thomas is great at helping me shovel.

Hello world!

Yeah, I figured it was about time to do a little Halbrook.net overhaul. Drupal was just too much, yet not enough, at the same time.

Over time, I'll add the old Halbrook.net content as pages here. I've imported BreadAlive.com content below... I'm still trying to decide how to treat this space vs. that space.

Sleeping Beauty

On the phone this morning, before I headed from my suite to the office:

THOMAS:
Dad, do you know my middle name?

ME:
Of course. It's Xavier.

THOMAS:
No. It's Sleeping Beauty.

ME:
Nuh-uh. It's Xavier.

THOMAS:
No. It's Cinderella.

RSS Feed Issue Resolved

Thanks to Father Robert who emailed to point out that there's been an issue with the RSS feed since the "USA Tagline" post mid-week. One evening in the hotel room on my trip, I updated my feed service, migrating from FeedBurner to Google as asked to do by them (since they're moving everyone over to the one service now.) I hadn't noticed that it had stopped working, but wondered where my subscriber counts had gone!

If you're migrating from FeedBurner to Google and use branded feed URLs, don't miss this post by Tim Heuer. You've probably already found it, since it's high in Google results for this issue, but it was the magic bullet. Don't miss the part at the bottom about having to deactivate your branded feeds and then reactivate it and add them back in.

Don't forget that you can subscribe to BreadAlive via your RSS reader - the link is over there on the top-right of each page.

For those who are wondering what this is all about: Check out WhatIsRSS?

Recipe: Gooey Butter Cookies

Suzanne made these the other night for some meetings we had this week, and so many friends have asked for the recipe as a result... so here goes:

One of
our favorites, Michael's grandma Mennerick discovered this recipe in
the St. Louis Post Dispatch a few years ago. Friends and family have
been requesting it for parties ever since. Michael always makes them
with love, although the complexity of the recipe (especially once the
batter starts to warm back to room temperature and becomes unimaginably
messy in one's hands) makes it one of the most frustrating to make and
always makes the kitchen very messy.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter (we use Imperial or Parkay margarine)
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1 - 8 ounce package cream cheese
• 1 box Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Butter Recipe Golden cake mix
• Powdered sugar for dipping/rolling drops of dough
• Powdered sugar for sifting on top of cookies after you take them off of cookie sheets
• Nonstick cooking spray

Directions:

• Beat softened butter, vanilla, egg, and cream cheese until light and fluffy.
• Mix in DRY cake mix.
• Chill for 30-40 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 350.
• Lightly coat cookie sheets with cooking spray.
• Drop dough by teaspoonfuls in bowl of powdered sugar, lightly roll into balls.
• Bake for 12 minutes or until light golden brown underneath.
• Makes about 4 dozen. If you make the balls slightly smaller the batch will make about 65 cookies.
• When cool, sift powdered sugar on top of cookies. (Use different powdered sugar than hat you rolled the dough balls in.)

Welcome to Bread Alive

Through Baptism we became members of the Body of Christ (CCC 1267), like branches grafted onto the True Vine (c.f. John 15). Apart from him we can bear no fruit. Apart from him we have no life (c.f. Jn 15: 5-6, 6:51). And in order to sustain this life, Jesus, "the living bread come down from heaven" (Jn 6:47) commands us to eat his flesh and drink his blood (Jn 6:53, 1 Cor 11:24-25). Through our reception of this august Sacrament and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are able to fulfill our Baptismal calling (CCC 1396), and so the many are made one (1 Cor 10:16-17), the bonds of charity are strengthened. Then, having received the Living Bread, we are sent forth (Ite missa est, Mt. 28:19) to be the light of the world (Mt 5:14), the yeast (Mt 13:33) which will enable the Kingdom of God to reach its fulfillment. Indeed, we are sent forth to be Christ for others, to be for them the Living Bread for which they hunger. With God's grace we can be Bread Alive.

As married Christians, we have a special responsibility to be Bread Alive because our married love gives witness to the love between Christ and his bride, the Church (LG 11, Ef 5:21-32). This love reached its fulfillment on the cross when the Son of God layed down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13, Rom 5:8). And so our lives must imitate this love (1 John 4:11, 21). Our lives must be as bread, broken and given, so that others, through the grace of God, may join with us in the heavenly feast already being celebrated here on Earth.