St. James the Apostle Catholic Church is located in McDonough, GA

St. James the Apostle Catholic Church

1000 Decatur Road

McDonough GA 30252

770-957-5441 Office 770-957-0383 Fax

stjammcd@bellsouth.net

Parish Headlines

Second Annual Mardi Gras Dinner slated for February 12

Confirmation classes begin 2/9 at 7 pm. Confirmation letters mailed to eligible candidates. Call Mara at 770-957-5441 x108 if you did not get a letter.

Stop by the SVdP Connecting Hearts Food Pantry Table after weekend Masses February 13 - 14 for a thank you gift

Are you a singer, videographer, photographer or sales person? St. James needs your talent!

Adult Bible Study starts a new session on February 24

Scouts collecting food for SvDP Food Pantry

Parish SVDP Food Pantry profiled in Georgia Bulletin

Squires Circle Program for Young Men starts at St. James

Start saving your clean, gentle used items! Our Annual Yard Sale will be held on Saturday, March 27. We will not be accepting clothes.

Corinthians 15:10. St. Paul writes, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been ineffective. Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them; not I, however, but the grace of God (that is) with me.” We talk a lot about grace. We sing about grace. We pray for grace. But do we ever stop to consider what grace is? The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines grace as “favor, free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. (CCC 1996) It is “a participation in the life of God.” (CCC 1997) Grace is a supernatural GIFT from God that surpasses our human intellectual capacity. It is a gift that is unmerited. It is a gift we cannot earn. Grace “depends entirely on God’s gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. (CCC 1998)

There is, of course, a catch to all this free and undeserved grace. In order for grace to be “effective” as it was for St. Paul, we have to respond to it. “God’s free initiative demands [our] free response” because God created us in his image by giving us freedom and “the power to know and love him. (CCC 2002) We can, if we are foolish, deny God’s grace. We can say no. We can make all kinds of excuses for why we cannot possibly respond to God’s call to be a part of his life. Both St. Peter and Isaiah tried, unsuccessfully, to excuse their way out of God’s work. Isaiah claimed he was “a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips.” (Isaiah 6:5) And Peter asked Jesus to “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” (Luke 5:8) Their excuses amounted to nothing because God’s grace, working in them, helped them overcome their unworthiness just as God’s grace working in St. Paul turned him from being a persecutor of the Church of God into an apostle of Jesus Christ.

All of us are unworthy, undeserving, and sinful yet God offers all of us the blessed gift of grace. The best thing we can do is accept God’s grace thankfully; by doing so, we have the opportunity to become gracious people. Then, when God calls us to work in his kingdom, when God asks, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” we can respond without fear, “Here I am...send me.”

Continued in this week’s Bulletin

My Dear Brothers & Sisters,

As I reflected on today’s readings, one phrase stayed with me for several days. The phrase is in the second reading from 1

Thanks to your generosity, we have collected $10,782 for relief efforts in Haiti!

The need will continue for months to come. If you didn’t get a chance to donate during our special collections at Mass, you can make a donation to Catholic Relief Services directly by clicking on the CRS banner above.

Read about CRS’ work in Haiti in the days following the earthquake