Grand Rapids Serra Club Newsletter, November 2007

Calendar of Events for November, 2007 and Beyond.

November 12, 2007. Luncheon Meeting, Louis Benton Steak House, 12:00 p.m.

November 19, 2007. Board Meeting, Louis Benton Steak House, 12:00 p.m.

November 26, 2007. Prayer Service and Luncheon, Sacred Heart Parish, 12:00 p.m.

Mark these dates on your calendar:

December 6, 2007. Vocations Dinner at Noto's. Chairman Bob Paul reminds all Serrans to R. S. V. P. as soon as possible. Reserve a table, invite guests, or at least send in your own reservation now! Please keep in mind that our club has guaranteed attendance at 200. Also, please refer to President Mark Kubik's address at the conclusion of this newsletter.

Seminarian Luncheon. TBA.

January 10-13, 2008. Super Weekend, to be held at Mariott-O'Hare. Make reservations no later than December 14, 2007. Serrans may register online at http://www.serraus.org/, but because the address is not a secure site, someone from the USA Council office will call you to get your credit card information. Forms may also be obtained by calling the USA Council of Serra International at 888-777-6681.

January 14 and 28, 2008. Of course, you will put these dates on your calendar because they are the regular meeting dates for our club. HOWEVER, PLEASE NOTE THAT BOTH WILL BE EVENING MEETINGS, AND THE LOCATIONS OF THE MEETINGS WILL BE REVERSED. The January 14 meeting will take place at Sacred Heart and will feature the installation of our new members, with a reception to follow in the rectory. Hors d'oeuvres will be served. The January 28 meeting will be a Member/Guest reception at Louis Benton Steak House, beginning at 5:30 p.m.

News from the Board: Tim Hile, Bob Paul, Pat Leikert, Nancy King, and Mark Kubik attended the October 15 meeting. They discussed updating our membership records with Serra International, the Vocations Dinner, and possible dates for the Seminarian Luncheon and the induction of our newest members. The Board also approved sending a check to the Saginaw Club to defray expenses for the recent Regional Conference. Depending on the available funds in our treasury, the Board agreed on an amount ranging between $150 and $250.


Congratulations are in order! Congratulations to our newest member Carolynne Etheridge, who, along with her friend Pat Polega, joined Fr. Ed, Mark Kubik, and Nancy King on a recent pilgrimage to Rome. Welcome to our club. Also, congratulations to Nate and Pam McKenzie, who were married on October 13 in a beautiful ceremony at St. Anthony's Parish. And finally, congratulations to Father Peter McCormick, who was inducted into West Catholic High School's Hall of Fame on October 10, 2007. For those who would like to send Fr. McCormick a card, his mailing address is Holy Cross Vocation Office, P. O. Box 541, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556.

Meet Our New Members: We welcome new Serran Leonard Grotenrath, who is a member of the Latin Mass community of Sacred Heart. Although he now resides in Ada Township, he grew up on the north end in a home his father built on Dean Lake. He and his family were members of St. Jude Parish.

Receiving his primary schooling at the parish school, Leonard then attended St. Joseph's Seminary to discern a vocation to the priesthood. Although coming from a family who boasted of two priests belonging to the Congregation of the Most Precious Blood, Leonard did not follow in their footsteps; instead, he went on to attend Northview High School and the University of Michigan, graduating in 1971. Deciding against a doctoral program in Constitutional history, to which he had been invited personally by one of the university's more celebrated professors, he came home and took a summer job with the City of Grand Rapids in the Public Works Department. He retired from the Public Works Department in 2004.

In 1978, Leonard took a leave of absence and went to Spain, where he was privileged to study under the inimitable Thomistic philospher, Dr. Frederick D. Wilhelmsen. It is to Dr. Wilhelmsen that Leonard attributes his understanding that Catholicism is (to quote G. K. Chesterton), "not a thing like a theory, but a thing like a love affair."

Leonard has served in a variety of capacities over the years. He was Family Life Commissioner on the St. Jude Parish Council; Vice-president of Michigan Right to Life Political Action Committee; Chairman of the Mary, Seat of Wisdom Chapter of Catholics United for the Faith, RCIA catechist, and founding member of ACCORD, a local group of Catholic professionals and intellectuals dedicated to the defense of the Catholic faith in the public square.

If asked to encapsulate his vision of the Catholic faith, Leonard is quick to respond with the following lines from Chesterton's, "The Ballad of the White Horse":

Out of the mouth of the Mother God
Like a little word come I;
For I go gathering Christian men
From sunken paving and ford and fen
To die in a battle, God knows when,
By God, but I know why.

National Catholic Register sends us the following information about the latest in Vocations. Vocations Awareness Week will be observed the week after January's Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. Good Shepard Sunday will be celebrated on the Fourth Sunday of Easter. SerraUS.org offers the parish-based program, "Called by Name." Vocation.com
offers a parish-based adoration for vocations program that is promoted by the U. S. Bishops.
EPriest.com offers "Best Practices" and "Vocations Promotion" for the following:

"Traveling Chalice and Statue Spur Vocations" is an article about St. John's Parish in Foley, Minnesota, in the Diocese of St. Cloud. "Knights Energize Youth & Churn Out Vocations" gives information about St. Boniface Church in Lafayette, Indiana, Diocese of Lafayette.

Other web sites to note are FranciscanFriars.com, which tells some great vocation stories, while Hawthorne-Dominicans.org features a video about religious women's vocations. Finally, USCCB.org allows viewers to watch the excellent "Fishers of Men" video online.
Source: National Catholic Register, October 7, 2007.

A Thank-you Note. October 8, 2007. Dear Serra Club: On behalf of the priests of Grand Rapids I would like to thank you for your generous donation to the 2007 Priest Convocation. It is a wonderful opportunity for the priests of the Diocese to come together for relaxation, camaraderie, and learning. Thank you again for your continued support! Peace, Rev. Mark Przybysz, Director of Continuing Formation for Priests.

News of recent club activities. 44 West Catholic students assisted with the leaf raking day at the Consolata Sisters' headquarters in Belmont. West Catholic freshman raked leaves, with seniors serving as work captains. Serrans who assisted with this project were Abe Rossi, Fred Platte, Bob Paul, and Nate and Pam McKenzie.

Sister Zeila is at home in Belmont resting comfortably from cander surgery and would welcome your prayers. The Serra Club will send her a healing Mass card, but she would appreciate other cards as well.

Grand Rapids Serrans who attended the Regional Conference would award high ratings to the Saginaw Club, who did an excellent job of organizing the event. The Double Tree was a great place to hold the conference, and the food was deemed the best ever.

Last week Dale Hollern and Nate McKenzie enjoyed an excellent visit with Catholic Central principal Steve Passinault. Mr. Passinault is now on board with the Serra Club and our mission of fostering, promoting, and praying for vocations. Nate and Dale will report to the membership regarding this meeting.
Source: Pam McKenzie

Recommended Reading: Serran Bill Bjork recommends the recently published book, Both Prayed to the Same God, by Fr. Bob Miller (born in 1950), who was originally from Grand Rapids.
Both Prayed to the Same God
Religion and Faith in the American Civil War
By Robert J. Miller
Lexington Books, a division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Copyright 2007.

In case you missed this item: Book collector Randy Bergers has donated his copy of "The War in Three Pages," by Dwight Eisenhower, along with 450 other books by U. S. Presidents, to the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies at Grand Valley State University. Bergers chose the Hauenstein Center over other organizations as a tribute to Ralph Hauenstein, who served as colonel and chief of intelligence for the Army's European Theater of Operations, along with Bergers' late father, James Berger. We thank Ralph for all he does for our club and for our community.
Source: The Grand Rapids Press, Thursday, November 1, 2007. Pages A1+

A Message from our President. Dear Serrans: Serra Clubs around the world serve at the pleasure of their bishops. Over the years our club has been asked to lead various projects throughout the diocese as requested by our bishops. We are very fortunate to enjoy the support and participation of Bishop Hurley at many of our club's activities.

The Annual Vocations Dinner, to be held this year on December 6, originated under Bishop Rose's administration as the Sabbatical Dinner. In the past, funds raised at the dinner were applied to the support of priests who went on sabbatical. When Bishop Britt was invested as our bishop, he asked that this event become the Vocations Dinner, whereby the funds we supplied would be used to promote vocations activities at a grass roots level. He suggested that we retain 40 percent of the funds we raised from the dinner for our treasury and allow him to use the remaining 60 percent for diocesan activities to promote vocations. Bishop Hurley's administration has kept the same formula for revenue sharing from this event. We used to proceeds from our portion last year as follows:

* Sponsored the Sisters' Appreciation Dinner for all religious women in the diocese.
* Funded two scholarships for the Notre Dame Vocations Initiative, allowing high school
students to spend a week at the University of Notre Dame discerning what their vocation
in life will be.
* Sponsored the annual Seminarian Luncheon for seminary students and their parents to join
us as we celebrate their journey to the priesthood.

Your efforts will not only ensure the success of this evening but also allow the club to continue its support of vocations activities for the next year. This evening is a wonderful opportunity to introduce potential members to our club, demonstrating one of our major initiatives with work towards the support of vocations. Please invite your business associaties, neighbors, friends, and fellow parishioners to join us on December 6. Call chairman Bob Paul at 616-949-9133 for questions or to make additional reservations.

At the September Member/Guest reception, District Governor Nate McKenzie explained how Serra has made him a better Catholic through participation in regional, national, and international events sponsored by the organization. This past month several of us were fortunate to join our Moderator, Fr. Ed Hankiewicz, on a pilgrimage to Rome. The week was highlighted by an audience with His Holiness, Benedict XVI. I can truly say that our experiences during that week have deepened our faith and added to our knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church.

I look forward to seeing you at our November 12th luncheon at Louis Benton Steak House. Our speaker, Revrend Thomas Simons, will address the topic of Liturgy.

Very truly yours,

Mark A. Kubik, President.

Editor's Note: We, Nancy King, Carolynne Etheridge, Pat Polega, Mark Kubik, and Fr. Ed, are grateful that our recent pilgrimage to Rome, including the papal audience, turned out to be such a blessing beyond our expectations both for our club and for each of us personally. On Thursday I flew to Berlin for a reunion with dear friends whom I first met in 1988 in the former DDR (East Germany). Carolynne and Pat joined a Globus Tour already in progress and continued on to Florence and Venice. Mark and Fr. Ed, who stayed in Rome until the end of the week, experienced two fantastic encounters with friends of Serra. Msgr. Ancona provided the lead for one of those meetings, and the other proved all the more exciting because it was totally unplanned. Stay tuned in subsequent issues for Mark's account of these wonderful people.
Mary, Mother of Vocations, Pray for Us.