First of all I want to wish all of you a Blessed Christmas Day and Christmas Season. Please remember that in the Octave Days of Christmas, we celebrate many great Feasts throughout the Church and at Mass (which is 9:00 a.m. Monday through Friday here at Sacred Heart Church). Besides the feast of martyrs, Stephen (December 26), The Holy Innocents (December 28) and Thomas Becket (December 29), we also celebrate the Feast of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist (December 27), and this year, (due to Christmas falling on Sunday) the Feast of the Holy Family will be celebrated on Friday, December 30. Please make a special effort to join us as we continue on a high note to celebrate the 12 days of Christmas (though this year it is 15 days since the Solemnity of the Epiphany falls on January 8).
If you are reading this on Christmas, no doubt you have attended one of our three Christmas Masses (and if you are in our choir, two of them). Thanks for making a Christmas Mass a priority in your life and activities! Don't forget the chapel, with Jesus visible in the Monstrance, is open for all to "Adore Him."
I might need to backtrack on a statement I made in a recent homily that the National Football League (NFL) doesn't allow anything (even the tradition of the Rose Bowl falling on January 1), to stop it from playing a full set of games on Sunday, January 1, which in fact, bumped the Rose Bowl this year to January 2. I was shocked and happy to find out recently that this year the NFL is actually deferring to the tradition of families gathering together on Christmas morning and into the afternoon, to share presents, fellowship and usually, a delicious meal. There are, in fact, only two NFL games on Christmas and the first one doesn't start until 3:30 p.m. I guess even the NFL did not dare conflict with the "family time" of Christmas morning and, at least, the early afternoon.
I ask us to consider a Christmas family tradition that was observed by many (including most of you) for much, much longer than the NFL has been around. That tradition was gathering with the family of believers (brothers and sisters of the Lord) at Midnight Mass or a Christmas morning Mass, and then, gathering with some of our biologial family after that. What a lesson that taught young people about the priority of God and my family in Christ, before anything or anyone else.
I know that the Christmas Masses have come and gone for this year, but I invite everyone to store what I have said somewhere, and consider next year, participating in the longstanding tradition of Mass on Christmas Day (if that is not too difficult for you at this point of your life); and at least encourage the younger members of your family to start this tradition. I believe many blessings will flow from it.
If you are reading this on Christmas, no doubt you have attended one of our three Christmas Masses (and if you are in our choir, two of them). Thanks for making a Christmas Mass a priority in your life and activities! Don't forget the chapel, with Jesus visible in the Monstrance, is open for all to "Adore Him."
I might need to backtrack on a statement I made in a recent homily that the National Football League (NFL) doesn't allow anything (even the tradition of the Rose Bowl falling on January 1), to stop it from playing a full set of games on Sunday, January 1, which in fact, bumped the Rose Bowl this year to January 2. I was shocked and happy to find out recently that this year the NFL is actually deferring to the tradition of families gathering together on Christmas morning and into the afternoon, to share presents, fellowship and usually, a delicious meal. There are, in fact, only two NFL games on Christmas and the first one doesn't start until 3:30 p.m. I guess even the NFL did not dare conflict with the "family time" of Christmas morning and, at least, the early afternoon.
I ask us to consider a Christmas family tradition that was observed by many (including most of you) for much, much longer than the NFL has been around. That tradition was gathering with the family of believers (brothers and sisters of the Lord) at Midnight Mass or a Christmas morning Mass, and then, gathering with some of our biologial family after that. What a lesson that taught young people about the priority of God and my family in Christ, before anything or anyone else.
I know that the Christmas Masses have come and gone for this year, but I invite everyone to store what I have said somewhere, and consider next year, participating in the longstanding tradition of Mass on Christmas Day (if that is not too difficult for you at this point of your life); and at least encourage the younger members of your family to start this tradition. I believe many blessings will flow from it.