December 31st, 2023 – Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
Dear friends,
Merry Christmas!
We have arrived at the end of the calendar year and our hearts are filled with gratitude for the many blessings received in the year of 2023.
This season of Christmas, we are especially grateful for the blessing of Jesus Christ. He was born on Christmas day and is now celebrated as a child for the duration of the Christmas season, a season that ends not on December 26, but with the feast day of the Baptism of the Lord next week.
On January 1, as we begin the new year, we celebrate the feast day of Mary, Mother of God.
The Church wants us to begin the year thinking of Mary. She is our sweetness and our hope. Our sweetness is delightful to see the extent to which one of us can be loved by God. Mary is also our hope for we hope we would be as loved by God as she is with the help of her own intercession.
As we begin the year 2024, may we find solace and strength in the thought that God is good and that he loves us. May we also find joy in knowing that whatever we face in the next year, good or bad, we can always count on the glorious intercession of so great a mother, Mary, the Mother of God and our mother.
Your priests Fr. Tim, Fr. Joseph and I send you many blessings on this New Year!
With love,
Fr Carlos
December 24th, 2023 – Fourth Sunday of Advent
On behalf of Fr. Carlos, Fr. Joseph and our amazing staff:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
We look forward to being together at Holy Mass, so please see the schedule.
All of our Christmas Masses have a special extra intention: Peace in our world.On New Year’s Eve, the Cathedral of St. John will be open from 6:00pm until midnight for prayer with Adoration of the Holy Eucharist, concluding with Benediction at midnight. Please stop in to say a prayer to the Prince of Peace for justice leading to true peace!
God bless us, every one!
Fr. Tim
December 17th, 2023 – Third Sunday of Advent
Rejoice! Rejoice!
The Third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday, which means rejoice.
We are still eagerly awaiting the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, both the celebration of his Nativity and his triumphant return.
As we await our Lord, we are reminded that we do not wait in fear. We eagerly await in joy. As baptized people, we are in union with God, and we desire the full union experienced in heaven. We can do so with joy.
As we make this final push to celebrate the Nativity of the Lord, remember to rejoice and be thankful for every blessing the Lord has provided. I recommend that we all spend some time this week thanking the Lord for the blessings he has bestowed on us and rejoice in His grace.
Happy Advent!
Fr. Joseph
December 10th, 2023 – Second Sunday of Advent
Dear friends,
We continue to journey through the beautiful season of Advent, asking the Lord more and more eagerly to come quickly and save the world.
This weekend we are given this beautiful Advent image that fills us with much hope:
“Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain
and hill shall be made low; the rugged land
shall be made a plain, the rough country, a
broad valley.” (Isaiah 40:4)
“I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5) said the Lord. There is no reality that God cannot intervene and make new, even the most challenging ones.
Sometimes we witness with dismay the decisions of the powerful people in the worldwide arena or at more local, personal levels. How much suffering comes out of the pride and thirst for power of a few!
It is consoling, however, to hear the prophet Isaiah say that the “mountains” and “hills” where the powerful stand today will be made low one day, and “all people shall see the glory of the Lord together.”
This week, we will have an opportunity to come together as the body of Christ to celebrate the one whose lips praised the Lord for “scatter[ing] the proud in their conceit.”
On Tuesday, December 12, we will celebrate Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, at the Cathedral, with a bilingual Mass at 7pm, followed by a celebration in the Atrium. All are welcome to join!
With love,
Fr Carlos
December 3rd, 2023 – First Sunday of Advent
“No ear has ever heard,
no eye ever seen,
any God but you doing such deeds
for those who wait for him.
(From the prophet Isaiah, Ch. 63)
Dear Friends,
As we begin Advent, in a time in which we need to experience the ever-present love of God shown to us in his Son Jesus through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, know of our deep support and prayers as we walk the Way together!
In all the problems we are facing, in our own lives, the life of our country, and a world so broken in violence, we wait for the slightest glimmer of hope. Advent, whose middle name is “Waiting”, seems the best season for us this year to practice the art of waiting; more precisely, expectant waiting.
We seem to have fearful waiting as our template, but our prayer and worship this season asks us to consider that perhaps hope is our real template, not hope as a passing feeling so often leaving us at best frustrated, at worst, heartbroken.
Our hope is not a feeling but a Person whose name is Jesus and, as we hear in Scripture, this hope will not leave us disappointed for it is rooted in the promise of Hope Incarnate, Jesus!
Have a blessed Advent. Let’s hope together as we welcome the Hope named Jesus to the world “in sin and error pining!”
Sincerely, with love,
Fr. Tim
Your Pastor
“My soul, find rest in God;
my hope comes from him.” (Psalm 62:5)
