Dear friends at St Francis Xavier,
We are excited to welcome you as our Sister Parish! We look forward to exchanging stories, messages, prayers, and blessings with you over the months and years ahead.
Our Parish is located in the city of Saint Paul which is the capital of our State, Minnesota. Saint Paul and Minneapolis are referred to as the Twin Cities since the cities share a common border. Although our metropolitan area is small by Indian standards (our region has 3.3 million people), we are the hub for finance, health care, manufacturing, and higher education in the State. We have a vibrant arts scene (an orchestra, opera, museums, and multiple theatres).
Our cities host 12 universities and four major league, professional sports teams: the Timberwolves (basketball), Twins (baseball), Minnesota United FC (soccer), and Vikings (American Football). We are also home to multiple lakes and waterways. Minnesota is known as the “land of 10000 lakes”. And one of the world’s great rivers, the Mississippi River, originates in Minnesota and flows through our two cities on its journey to the Gulf of Mexico.
We love our outdoors, riding bicycles, hiking, canoeing, hunting, fishing, cross country skiing and snow shoeing to name a few. And, during the winter, we are one of the coldest places in the United States. Snow covers our ground typically from December into March. Our coldest month is January when the average temperature overnight is 4.3°F (-16 C) . In July, the warmest month, the average day time temperature rises to 83.3°F (28C).
We look forward to strengthening our partnership with everyone at St Francis Xavier in the New Year. Please share stories, news and pictures from you Parish and we will post the information on our website.
May God bless you with much peace and joy during this Christmas season. Khublei Shibun.
- Steve Thomas, on behalf of the Parishioners at St Thomas More
THE THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY IN AMERICA
Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday, celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. It marks the end of the fall harvest season. And it coincides with the end of the Church’s liturgical year. It is a time to celebrate the fruits of the harvest and the blessings of the past year. Thanksgiving is a time for families to gather (in America, families are often scattered across many places). It is the least commercial of all holidays in America. The Catholic Church has allowed for a special liturgy for mass on Thanksgiving morning. One special feature of the mass is that people bring to the altar food for the Thanksgiving meal. The holiday and the family meal are modeled on a harvest feast shared by the newly arrived settlers from England and the Wampanoag Native Americans in the year 1621.
This family meal is the central feature of the holiday. And the focal point of this meal for most families is a roasted turkey (a bird that is more popular and more plentiful in the United States than anywhere else – and Minnesota farmers are among the largest growers of turkey in the world). Most families then have several side dishes that are served – these side dishes are traditional within families and remain the same year after year. Among the most popular are sweet potatoes, cranberry relish, mashed potatoes, stuffing (cooked in the turkey), bread rolls, macaroni and cheese, and a green bean/mushroom soup casserole. Pumpkin pie is a common dessert.
PASTOR’S MESSAGE
Dear Brothers and Sisters at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Umbir, India,Fraternal greetings to you from Minnesota! We want you to know that you are in our prayers as we hear about the protests going on in your country resulting in the closing down of the Internet.
I want to write to you, as our sister Jesuit parish, about what we do to make our parish distinctive as a Jesuit Parish. First off, I want to acknowledge that from what I have learned about your parish, our parish circumstances are very different. However, I think we can learn from each other. I am looking forward to our visit to your parish in late February.
We try to infuse Ignatian spirituality in all we do - particularly in our Faith Formation efforts. One of the main things we do is run three different kinds of Ignatian retreats for our parishioners. The first is that during Advent and Lent we offer small group retreats based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. One of our parishioners who is expert in the Spiritual Exercises produces little booklets for these retreats with daily meditations from the Spiritual Exercises that we come back and discuss as a small group one a week. One of these retreat groups is targeted especially for young adults (people in their 20s and early 30s). These are a sampling of some of the main mediations of the Spiritual Exercises that fit well with Advent and Lent. The second kind of Ignatian retreat we offer is another small group retreat that meets for the entire year (September - May) and goes through the entire Spiritual Exercises. In this retreat, participants commit to pray daily moving methodically through the Spiritual Exercises. They come back and discuss their prayer every other week for the year. The third format is to go through the entire Spiritual Exercises individually with a retreat guide who is expert in Ignatian spirituality. These retreatants commit to pray daily through the Ignatian meditations from the Exercises and meet with their retreat guides weekly to discuss their prayer experiences. All together these three types of Ignatian retreats involve over 70 of our parishioners.
We also try to incorporate Ignatian spirituality in our Masses including our preaching, music and prayers. We have speakers talk on themes of Ignatian spirituality. We also have a number of social justice efforts including offering housing for undocumented immigrant families in danger of deportation, Ignatian retreats for homeless people and recovering addicts, and clothing and meals for the poor.
Of course, our twinning with your parish is another part of our being an Ignatian parish.
Have a blessed Christmas!
- Fr. Warren Sazama, S.J., Pastor, Saint Thomas More Catholic Church
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