_ As I was saying last week, I am away this week for continuing education but be back this next weekend. I do look forward to seeing you at Holy Mass!
I hope that you will come to the Catholicism series by Robert Barron. I have only seen in this series how the gargolyes of the grand churches of Europe inform us of the simplicity of our faith, but they do! A gargoyle is a depiction of a demon – a contortion of reality where a goat's lower half is mated to a fierce face. Yet, the irony that the builders incorporated was that though demons are real and terrifying, they are laughable as well because the sound they make is no more fearsome than gurgling water in the face of Christ’s all powerful and encompassing Lordship over creation
Inheritance – what an awesome thing. To have a piece of furniture, a cherished gun, a fine china set, or large cash fund be dropped into your lap is really a shocking event. We do nothing to earn it, but we still receive it.
After receiving the inheritance, we can ding the chair, rust the firearm, chip the dishes and squander the money and they are forever damaged. Some restorers can repair them, but they are never quite the same.
It would be nice if someone could, but someone can restore damages.
Jesus came in the flesh to restore our damages and make us whole. He came as a humble little child; with great gentleness, he comes daily.
If you’ve been away from the Church and sacraments for a long time, give a call or drop in. I’d like to see you get restored.
– Fr. Bob Lacey
No Room at the Inn … or seemingly so but not in reality.
If you have had exposure to large families, you will find a welcoming spirit, an undefinable but tangible expression of hospitality: there is always room for one more at the table, there is always soup enough to go around. One mother said, “well, I’ll just through another cup of water in the soup!”
We approach the great feast of our Church, of our Christian faith, that God who has everything, wanted to share his abundance with our lowly humanity and did so by sharing in our humanity. He then was born in the rudeness of a stable, in a sense, sharing in our most abject poverty.
I invite you to share your abundance with the unfortunate at Christmas time in these, if not other ways: offer something to the Advent Baby Shower in the entryway; OR to give financially to the hospital in Haiti, the poorest country in the world. We will not fix the pandemic corruption, but we can share in their poverty.
At the Christmas Masses, our second collection, UNLESS MARKED AS FOR BUILDING FUND will go to Haiti mission relief. Thank you for your generosity.
It is all about the hands….
I want to Thank Bishop Swain for coming to our parish to give the gift of the Holy Spirit to our confirmands. Giving a gift requires hands – hands to fold paper, to apply tape, to hand it over to the recipient – and this only for a physical thing.
The gift of the Holy Spirit at confirmation is a very tangible sacrament: it requires hands to apply the oil of Chrism and for the laying on of hands.
To think, the apostles “laid hands” and imparted the Holy Spirit, then those successors did the same to their successors. There are hundreds of pairs of hands passing the Holy Spirit through the ages. It is no mere chance or coincidence that Bishop Swain is here to give the Holy Spirit to our confirmands, he is here by the providence of God and I am thankful to be a part of this tradition!
_ It is all about the hands….
I want to Thank Bishop Swain for coming to our parish to give the gift of the Holy Spirit to our confirmands. Giving a gift requires hands – hands to fold paper, to apply tape, to hand it over to the recipient – and this only for a physical thing.
The gift of the Holy Spirit at confirmation is a very tangible sacrament: it requires hands to apply the oil of Chrism and for the laying on of hands.
To think, the apostles “laid hands” and imparted the Holy Spirit, then those successors did the same to their successors. There are hundreds of pairs of hands passing the Holy Spirit through the ages. It is no mere chance or coincidence that Bishop Swain is here to give the Holy Spirit to our confirmands, he is here by the providence of God and I am thankful to be a part of this tradition!
