Hello everyone! Happy almost Christmas! Happy winter as well, although it will not feel like winter on Christmas day. There goes our dream of a white Christmas! However, Christmas is not one day, but a season which goes for about 16 days, from December 25th until January 9th, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. My mother was fretting earlier this week about getting all her Christmas cards out so people will get them by Christmas Day. When I reminded her that people can get them during the Christmas season, she felt much better. So, if the cards and presents get there after Christmas day, fear not, it may be a good way to explain the meaning of the Christmas season. We celebrate for a season precisely because of what it means.
We celebrate Jesus choosing to come and be with us, God’s expression of the depth of His love for us. Even if our life is messy, that is what God has come into. Even for the Holy Family, life was a mess, just to bring Jesus into the world: no place to stay for Joseph and Mary who is about to give birth, having to go into the stable with all the smelly animals, no place to lay the baby Jesus except in a manger. The symbolism of Jesus in a feeding trough can’t be missed, as he would later give himself to be our food for eternal life.
Even at Christmas Mass, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we end with him feeding us in the Eucharist. He nourishes us, he feeds us, he cleans up the stable of our souls.
Just as this Christmas day may not feel wintry as we would expect, we may not feel the joy of the birth of Jesus, as we would expect. Perhaps this time of year is lonely for some. For others, they may be remembering loved ones lost. Still for others, it may simply be that we have forgotten what Christmas is about. We may have lost that appreciation and it is simply another year of looking at others celebrating while wondering why we don’t feel the same way. Yet, true joy is not just a heightened emotion, but rather something we feel in the depths of our being, even if the surface emotion is not there. How do we have this true joy?
I’d like to offer you a reflection of Pope Francis that he gave yesterday in his general audience address on the birth of Jesus. He said, “This is the reason for our joy: we are loved, we are sought for, the Lord seeks us to find us, to love us more. This is the reason for joy: knowing that we are loved without any merit, we are always loved first by God, with a love so concrete that He took on flesh and came to live in our midst, in that Baby that we see in the crib. This love has a name and a face: Jesus is the name and the face of love—this is the foundation of our joy…The message of the Gospels is clear: the birth of Jesus is a universal event that concerns all of humanity.”
Jesus did not come only for the Catholics. He did not come only for other Christians. Jesus came for all of us, so that even those of us who feel like outsiders can know the personal love of God. Our joy is not found in the things of this world, though they may help, but our greatest joy is found in Jesus Christ. Praised be to God that everyone has access to Jesus. Everyone can find Jesus if they look for him.
The Pope concluded, “Brothers and sisters, I wish you a Merry Christmas, a happy and holy Christmas. And I would like that – yes, there are well wishes, family reunions, this is always very beautiful – but may there also be the awareness that God comes “for me”. Let’s everyone say this: God comes for me. The awareness that to seek God, to find God, to accept God, humility is needed: to seek with humility the grace of breaking the mirror of vanity, of pride, of looking at ourselves. To look at Jesus, to look toward the horizon, to look at God who comes to us and who touches our hearts with that restlessness that brings us hope. Happy and holy Christmas!”
I wish you all a very happy and holy Christmas! I hope to see you at the Christmas Masses, but if not, may God bless you! Thank you in advance to the musicians, servers, lectors, decorators, and all involved in making our Christmas Masses beautiful! Thank you as well to all who donated for the Christmas flowers!
Christmas Mass schedule
Our Lady of Lourdes
5:30pm Christmas Eve (with children’s choir) (Livestreamed)
12am Midnight Mass
10am Christmas morning
Immaculate Conception
6pm Christmas Eve
8pm Christmas Eve (Livestreamed)
9am Christmas morning
The additional Masses are meant to help with social distancing. The Christmas morning Masses are usually lightly attended.
Masses for Sunday, December 26th Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Because Christmas is on Saturday and all Masses for Christmas must be only for Christmas, there will be no Saturday evening Masses on December 25th for the Sunday obligation. The Sunday obligation Masses for Sunday, December 26th must be fulfilled only on Sunday this year. To help with social distancing, both parishes will have two Masses each on Sunday.
OLL will have Masses at 9am and 11am.
ICC will have Masses at 9am and 10:30am.
Life is Messy books
Thanks to the Knights of Columbus, and a donor at Our Lady of Lourdes, we have Matthew Kelly’s latest book give-away. It is called Life is Messy. They are a Christmas present to each person that wants one. They are available to be picked up as you leave church.
Attached are the bulletins.
Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us!
Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, pray for us!
God bless!
Fr. Ed