Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We continue to celebrate the feast of Christmas. It is called the Octave--the eight days beginning with Christmas Day and ending on New Year's Day. There are two ways to understand this word as it applies to the liturgy. Each day of the Octave is considered a little Christmas or in the case of Easter, a little Easter. We conclude the Christmas Octave with the celebration of the Motherhood of Mary, to honor her and ask her intercession over the entire year. Mary is our model of discipleship and so it is fitting that we ask her to help us ring in the new year. Mary has always been a person who is admired and revered in the Catholic community. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, there is a photo of what is considered the oldest adoration picture of Mary. It is from the catacombs of St. Priscilla and while rudimentary, it is still something that we can see is a celebration of Mary.
We also continue the Christmas season with the Feast of the Magi (Jan. 8) and the Baptism of Jesus (Jan. 9). On January 8, we will finish our celebration of the Christmas season with a return of all the children and adults baptized this past year. We will offer to them a blessing and after Mass, a small reception in the hall.
The New Year is typically marked by the tradition of making annual resolutions, from stopping old and potentially bad habits, to starting new, often healthier ones. For example, exercising more frequently, eating better, or staring a diet, etc. This year in our parish life, we hope that everyone will become a member of a small group. A small group’s purpose is to gather in community, to support one another on the discipleship journey, study a bit to deepen one’s understanding of the faith, and continue to strengthen the parish. I invite you to look at the array of groups that are forming. If you have an idea, consider forming a group and invite your friends and neighbors to join with you to meet regularly, pray, learn, and share as we continue to evangelize and heal. There are some great “plug and play” programs that allow anyone to lead a group and then have a lesson with questions for dialogue. Several parishioners are already doing this and presently we are forming new groups. Christine Williams is the contact for this project. She is curating several group themes related directly in the Church into other topics of interest. They are as broad as mental health, to a yearlong study of the Bible, to a Marian Consecration group. Our goal is to offer everyone the opportunity to be in a small group according to their interests. The basic structure for every group will be to gather and pray to start off, share a meal, if possible, then have a presentation with discussion, and end with a prayer of thanksgiving. We hope people will meet for an hour or hour and a half, depending on the discussion. Each group will have a leader who will gather people together and help keep the group in regular contact. It is an easy leadership role we hope to see throughout the parish.
This is part of the vision of the parish that I laid out in October. Our goal is to have everyone in a group of some kind connecting, learning, praying, and growing. We hope this will lead to our ultimate goal, to have all of us more deeply connected to our relationship in Jesus and to one another in our community. If we achieve this, it will be a happy new year.
We always need prayer and I hope you will continue to pray for the success of the parish, our programs, and our evangelization and healing programs.
Peace,
Father Murray
Before we end the Christmas season, we need to say thank you to all who were involved in planning during the Advent season. I am grateful to the Advent retreat team, led by Charlie. It was a bi-lingual/bi-cultural effort and I am thankful. Thank you to the arts and environment people, led by Lorrie Card and Janice Lebel. Both churches wear the seasons well and so with the right touch, the natural beauty their glory shine. Thank you to Jennifer, our music person, for organizing and gathering us at St. James to hear the organ. Thank you to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, who again responded to the needs of so many, assisted by the Knights. To Mari Alix, who took responsibility for the pajama project for the orphanage in the Dominican Republic, thank you. Congratulations to the three couples who were married at our churches: Mr. and Mrs. Jordan & Madeline Kolb, Mr. & Mrs. Ryan and Megan Person, Mr.& Mrs. Robert and Kristen Pasquale, Welcome to Nathalie Castillo, who was baptized this past month. It was quite and Advent that also included the First Communion and confirmation programs. Thank you to Steve and Charlie for their work on these projects.