St. Helena Catholic Church

Daily Mass November 13 2020 at 8:30 AM

TODAY IS FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH Today, it's taken for granted that Friday the 13th is an inauspicious day, but that wasn't always the case. Until the late 1800s, no one felt that Fridays that happen to fall on the 13th day of the month were anything special at all. Exactly how the date became mired in the mind as an unlucky one is murky. Certainly, the idea was firmly implanted in the cultural consciousness by 1980, when the slasher flick "Friday the 13th" was released. The h...ockey-masked villain of that tale, Jason Voorhees, has taken on a life of his own, driving 12 films as well as multiple novellas and comic books. Thus, it's no surprise that a Google Ngram search of the phrase "Friday the 13th" finds the term shot up in use in books in 1980. Credit for popularizing the Friday the 13th myth often goes to Capt. William Fowler, a noted soldier who rubbed elbows with former presidents and other high-profile people of the late 1800s. Fowler noticed that the number 13 was woven throughout his life (he went to Public School No. 13 in New York City, for example, and fought in 13 Civil War battles), so he decided to combat the "popular superstition against thirteen," according to his obituary. Fowler started a society called the Thirteen Club, which held its first meeting on Friday, January 13, 1882, in room 13 of Fowler's Knickerbocker Cottage. Guests walked under crossed ladders to a 13-seat table festooned with spilled salt. It was a notable party and repudiation of superstition. That idea that 13 was an unlucky number may go back to ancient mythology. A Norse myth told of a dinner party for 12 gods at which a 13th guest showed up uninvited. The gatecrasher the trickster god Loki shot the god of joy and happiness, Balder. The Christian tale of the Last Supper likewise holds Judas, Jesus' betrayer, as the "unlucky" 13th guest. Friday has also been considered an unlucky day in Western tradition. E. Cobham Brewer's 1898 "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" claims Friday as the day that Jesus was crucified and perhaps the day that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, according to Christian beliefs. In 1882, poet John Godfrey Saxe published a poem called "The Good Dog of Brette," about a poodle that roams the city with a basket, bringing donations home to his blind master. On a Friday, "a day when misfortune is aptest [sic] to fall," a cruel butcher chops off the dog's tail. In 1907, author Thomas William Lawson put together the notion of unlucky Friday and unlucky 13 with the novel "Friday the 13th," a tale of an unscrupulous broker taking advantage of superstition to game the stock market on that date, described as "Wall Street hoodoo-day." Lawson may not have invented the idea of the unlucky date, but he likely spread the notion.

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini - November 13 This saint, the first United States citizen to be canonized, was born in 1850 in Lodi, Italy, which was then part of the Austrian Empire, of parents who were farmers. She was the thirteenth child, born when her mother was fifty-two years old. The missionary spirit was awakened in her as a little girl when her father read stories of the missions to his children. She received a good education from the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jes...us, and at eighteen was awarded the normal school certificate. For a while, she helped the pastor teach catechism and visited the sick and the poor. Due to her frail health, she was refused admission to the order of sisters who had taught her. She then taught school in a nearby town, and for six years supervised an orphanage assisted by a group of young women. The bishop of Lodi heard of this group and asked Frances to establish a missionary institute to work in his diocese. Frances did so, calling the community the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. An academy for girls was opened and new houses quickly sprang up. One day Bishop Scalabrini, founder of the Missionaries of Emigration, described to Mother Cabrini the wretched economical and spiritual conditions of the many Italian immigrants in the United States, and she was deeply moved. An audience with Pope Leo XIII changed her plans to go to the missions of the East. "Not to the East, but to the West," the Pope said to her. "Go to the United States." Mother Cabrini no longer hesitated. She landed in New York in 1889, established an orphanage, and then set out on a lifework that comprised the alleviation of every human need. For the children, she erected schools, kindergartens, clinics, orphanages, and foundling homes, and numbers of hospitals for the needy sick, including Columbus Hospital in NYC and Columbus Hospital in Chicago. At her death, over five thousand children were receiving care in her charitable institutions, and at the same time, her community had grown to five hundred members in seventy houses in North and South America, France, Spain, and England. The saint was frail and diminutive of stature but showed such energy and enterprise that everyone marveled. She crossed the Atlantic twenty-five times to visit the various houses and institutions. In 1909 she adopted the United States as her country and became a citizen. After thirty-seven years of unflagging labor and heroic charity, she died in 1917 from complications of Malaria alone in a chair in Columbus Hospital at Chicago, Illinois, while making dolls for orphans in preparation for a Christmas party. Cardinal Mundelein of Chicago officiated at her funeral and in 1938 also presided at her beatification by Pius XI. She was canonized by Pius XII in 1946. She lies buried under the altar of the chapel of Mother Cabrini High School in New York City.

Dear Parishioners, As New York State experiences a surge in COVID cases and hospitalizations, today Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced new restrictions that will go into effect on Friday, November 13th, at 10PM. The new restrictions include:... Bars, restaurants, and any establishment with a state liquor license will be required to close in-person service from 10PM to 5AM daily. Restaurants can continue to provide food-only pick-up or delivery after 10PM, but will not be permitted to serve alcohol to go. Gyms and fitness centers must close daily from 10PM to 5AM. Indoor and outdoor gatherings at private residences must be limited to no more than 10 people. According to the Governor’s office, local governments will be responsible for enforcing these new restrictions. While I urge you to remain calm, it is important to remember that the pandemic is not over yet our communities must stay vigilant and continue to take the necessary precautions to keep flattening the curve. This includes wearing a mask outside of your home, maintaining six feet apart from others, frequently washing your hands, staying home if you are sick, and following New York State travel and quarantine guidelines. I also encourage you to keep utilizing the free COVID diagnostic and antibody testing sites in District 34. St. Helena will become a COVID-19 Self-testing Site from November 30-December 12. Test and Trace staff will be onsite and will assist you in using self-swab testing kits. These tests are less invasive and more comfortable, and self swab tests provide results within 48 hours. The tests are commercially available but provided free of charge through the city and will be a great resource for St. Helena parishioners as well as Parkchester residents.

Daily Mass November 12 2020 at 8:30 AM