Happy Spring! Did you survive the changing of the clocks? Do we keep praying for rain?

March is always filled with more things than basketball madness and baseball’s spring training and NFL free agents. For St. Theresa, March brings the Corazon build, Irene Crosetti ravioli dinner, parish workday and Lenten practices. 

If you haven’t already signed up for the ‘parish workday’ that is set for March 29, please consider doing so. We want to have an approximate number so we can order a good lunch, and the parish and school staff are creating wish and task lists that we may or may not get to. Please bring your work gloves and tools and no task is too insignificant but helps shine our parish site, saves us some of your generous donations that can and will be placed when there are tasks, we volunteers cannot perform and bring a sense of pride for us in the beautiful parish/school site God entrusts to us. We want it to serve many in the next hundred years!

 I am happy to report that last weekend another safe and successful expedition of forty or more built a house through the Corazon agency. Again, thanks to all who contributed to making this a success, but more importantly for the benefit it has brought to a family that has waited many years for a house. This marks the twentieth year that individuals from the parish when our diocesan insurance allowed us to sponsor the build and more recently when individuals have done this on their own with the support of our prayers and some individual donations.

Each year this exercise has given hope to families who often lived in nothing more than a primitive shelter that often was composed of cardboard and salvaged pieces of brick and wood. It has also energized and brought hope to those who have participated both from our Confirmation candidates and many adults some of whom have gone each year. This one place where we find hope underscores the universal Church Jubilee focus declared by Pope Francis that we now are part of by our prayer and pilgrimage efforts.

I encourage you to look at the diocesan website: oakdiocese.org for many details about events, pilgrimage sites in our own diocese and communal celebrations of the sacrament of Reconciliation and times for adoration and other prayer.

I also encourage you to look at the Vatican website that also offers many insights about this year of hope. The logo below has been reproduced around the world and if you are going on a trip to Rome in the coming year, make sure you go through the ‘holy  doors that were opened for this jubilee year. Below is the official logo and prayer that I encourage you to pray each day.

Father in Heaven, may the faith you have given us in Your Son, Jesus Christ, enkindled in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, reawaken in us the blessed hope for the coming of Your Kingdom. 

May your grace transform us into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel. 

May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos in the sure expectation of a new Heaven and a new Earth, when, with the powers of Evil vanquished, 

Your glory will shine eternally. 

May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of Heaven. 

May that same grace spread the joy and peace of our Redeemer throughout the earth.

To You our God, eternally blessed, be glory and praise for ever. Amen.

The after-hours emergency line will remain active (510) 610-7715 until the AT&T issue is resolved.

St. Theresa Parish Lenten Opportunities

Sunday's, April  6 & 13

10:15 am in the church

Enriching our Lenten Observance with Insights from Esther

March 25, April 1, 8, 15

Zoom link:  https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89196571494?pwd=PM6lk78cGHalwKjypW6d1eaca5ai7T.1

“Walking with Mary to Jerusalem”

Weekly Flocknote Reflection

Sign-up for weekly reflection at:

https://sttheresaoakland.org/pray/lent-2025/lenten-companion-walking-mary-jerusalem

March 21, 28, April 4, 11

Provided by the school

9:30 am & 2:30 pm

These booklets are available at the back of the church for your use in praying the stations of the cross.

Pick up a Rice Bowl in the church vestibule

Pick up a bag at the Lenten table in the church vestibule

April 6, 9:00 am Mass

April 9, 6:00 pm

Make a reservation or volunteer to help: 

https://sttheresaoakland.org/pray/lent-2025/seder-dinner

We have firmly set Saturday, March 29 as the ‘parish workday’,  Please sign up for an hour, or two hours or three with the 9am start and 2pm conclusion.  Bring your garden clippers, wheelbarrow, work gloves and join a great team who will replenish the school garden, make the windows clean again in the meeting rooms, and re-secure sandbags that keep the hall from flooding and other tasks. There is something for anyone who shows up, and we need a count so we can order enough water, beverages, and a great Mexican style lunch for all who work.

You can sign-up on the parish website at

https://sttheresaoakland.org/about-us/workday

or the vestibule of the Church.

*Catholic Relief Services  (CRS) -- Operation Rice Bowl and other funds

*Jesuit Refugee Services

*Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) 

“It is the historic policy of the United States to respond to the urgent needs of persons subject to persecution in their homelands. . . . Congress further declares that it is the policy of the United States to encourage all nations to provide assistance and resettlement opportunities to refugees to the fullest extent possible.”

These opening lines of the Refugee Act of 1980—the law creating the statutory authority for the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP)—communicates the importance of responding to the needs of those forced to flee their homes because they are persecuted on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Carrying out the Gospel’s mandate to care for the “least of these” (Mt. 25:31-46), the Catholic Church has served refugees in the United States since well before USRAP’s creation. Learn more about USRAP and the Catholic Church.

Today, no refugees are being resettled through USRAP. This ban impacts thousands of refugees who had already been fully processed, undergone extensive security checks, and approved for refugee status by the federal government while outside of the United States. This includes many persecuted Christians, as well as Afghans who had been approved for special immigrant visas because of the assistance they provided to the U.S. mission and U.S. service members in Afghanistan. 

The indefinite suspension of USRAP is the result of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on January 20. The order requires the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to submit a report by April 20, 2025, regarding whether refugee resettlement is in the national interest. However, the order leaves the decision about whether to resume refugee resettlement to the President alone, without any timeline stated for that decision. 

On January 24, the State Department issued suspension notices to domestic resettlement agencies, including the USCCB, impacting their ability to carry out services under the Reception and Placement (R&P) Program. The R&P Program provides crucial assistance to refugees and Afghan special immigrant visa holders during their first three months in the United States to support their successful integration and help them to achieve self-sufficiency as quickly as possible. Services provided through the R&P Program include help finding initial housing, securing employment, enrolling children in school, scheduling medical appointments, and English language classes. 

The chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration, Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, addressed the suspension of USRAP on January 22, stating: “Indefinitely halting refugee resettlement is unmerited, as it is already proven to be one of the most secure legal pathways to the United States.”

Ask your members of Congress to lift up their voice in support of upholding our nation’s bipartisan legacy of refugee resettlement. 

Send this Message to Congress

Support Refugee Resettlement to Protect the Persecuted

As a Catholic and your constituent, I urge you to engage with the Administration to resume the resettlement of refugees and Afghan special immigrant visa (SIV) holders. 

Being a place of refuge for those fleeing oppression, including Christians and other people persecuted for their faith, is fundamentally American. The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program has safely and effectively fostered this, with strong bipartisan support, for almost 45 years. 

The President’s recent executive order providing for the indefinite suspension of refugee admissions leaves thousands of thoroughly vetted people, who in some cases have waited years to experience freedom, in a state of grave uncertainty. Stop-work orders issued to domestic resettlement agencies also threaten the support promised to recently arrived refugees and SIV holders, undermining their prospects of self-sufficiency. 

Protection of people fleeing persecution and those who risked their lives to support our country is not only in the national interest but a moral responsibility. Please urge the Administration to immediately resume refugee resettlement.                                  

Click the link below to log in and send your message:

https://www.votervoice.net/BroadcastLinks/YserWGk94GHOgzS7fAtZ2w

Join the Social Justice committee as we pray and meditate on the Themes from Catholic Social Teaching **

The dignity of work and the rights of workers: Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected.

Solidarity: We are one human family whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences. Loving our neighbor is important. We are called to be peacemakers. We must promote peace in a world surrounded by violence and conflict.

This weekend we invite you to reflect on the good work of an organization called Corazon whose mission is “Exhibiting God’s love by building community, by strengthening families, enabling service, promoting self-sufficiency, and inspiring mutually beneficial relationships across Borders.” This is an organization that some people from our parish, have dedicated volunteer time towards helping construct homes and unlocking doors of opportunity across borders. 

Join Corpus Christi’s Living Our Faith Group and St. Theresa’s Social Justice Committee in an Evening of Prayerful Reflections on the Virtues of  Mercy and Compassion on Wednesday, March 26^th from 7-7:45pm at Corpus Christi Church.

We have also been invited to join Corpus Christi, in reading – All is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day by Jim Forest from now thru the month of March. Join Corpus Christi’s Living Our Faith Group on Sunday, March 23^rd after their 8am mass. The gathering will take place in Corpus Christi church. 

Stay tuned for more happenings. Peace from The Social Justice Committee.

It is that time of year when notices of expiring Virtus training will be arriving in your email. Please uuse the link in the email to lob into Virtus and take the training that have been assigned. Training must be renewed every three years.

To renew or register for the first time, click on the link in your email or go to https://www.virtusonline.org or click on the link in the upper right corner of the parish website sttheresaoakland.org.

Please remember that in order to volunteer at the parish or school in any capacity (Lector, Eucharistic Minister, Catechist, Choir Member, St. Vincent de Paul, Legion of Mary, CYO etc.), you must complete the training.

If you have any problems or questions contact Cathy Brady at cathy_b@sttheresaoakland.org.