Over the past couple of weeks, I have been asked this question several times. Simply put, the answer is yes, although I would always prefer for us to understand that we get to go to Mass twice in one weekend rather than we have to go.

This year is unique in that the Fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve fall on the same day; this happens about every six or seven years although a leap year might render a longer interval. According to the law of the Church, which is based on divine law, Catholics are required to participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Sundays and on other days of precept which we know as holy days of obligation. Christmas is a day of precept whose obligation is never lifted, the same Sunday. Therefore, all Catholics must attend Mass the weekend of December 23/24 for the Fourth Sunday of Advent and also for the Solemnity of Christmas on December 24/25.

The following was recently published by the Committee for Divine Worship of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: “The prevailing view of many canon lawyers is that each obligation must be fulfilled with a separate Mass. Thus, when consecutive obligations occur on Saturday-Sunday or Sunday-Monday, the faithful must attend Mass twice to fulfill two separate obligations….Aside from canonical requirements. It would be hp[ed, of course, that Catholic foster a love for the Sacred Liturgy and hold a desire to celebrate the holy days as fully as is reasonably possible.”

While for many there will be many things happening over the days of December 23-25, we must remember why we gather and celebrate: the birth of the Lord Jesus. Be sure to make the Masses of the Fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas a part of your Christmas plans.

 

As we enter into Advent, we enter into a season of waiting. It is not often that we enjoy waiting. Waiting in a long line, waiting for test results to come back, waiting for a new job opportunity; waiting is a challenge for many of us. We get impatient, anxious, or needy. What we are waiting for makes it all worth it, right?

This Sunday’s readings from Mark tell of Jesus
providing caution to his disciples:
May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.
What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’
-Mk 13: 36-37

He is speaking to the need to be watchful. This is not just in reference to Jesus’ birth, but for Christ’s return in glory at the end of time. We are to be alert to God’s call for us, watchful of temptations that can distract us. Just as the disciples were to be prepared, we are to prepare.

So, how does being watchful relate to waiting? Think about the last time you were waiting for something… you were mindful of the car ahead of you in the drive-thru; you were tracking the package online to see the delivery time, your son or daughter practicing driving before the driver’s test. While these examples are insignificant, they can remind us that preparation is part of waiting. When you are prepared, you are watchful and situationally aware. How are we watchful in our faith experiences? Are we in a deep relationship with God through daily prayer? Are we participating in the sacramental life of the church, particularly the Eucharist and Confession? Are we serving others, just as we were reminded to do so in last week’s Gospel to serve the least?

This Advent, let us embark on a more watchful and prayerful journey through the season, waiting with open and joy-filled hearts for the Christ child!

Katie Price is the Coordinator for Discipleship and Stewardship at the Cathedral. She comes with an extensive background in this field after helping dioceses and parishes across the nation meet their goal of making discipleship a priority in their parishes. If you would like to learn more about the work she is doing, email her at [email protected].

This weekend the church year begins anew as we begin the holy season of Advent, a name derived from the Latin word adventus, which means “the coming.” This holy season looks to the two comings of Christ; first, we look forward to our Lord’s return in glory at the end of time, and, second, beginning December 17th, we look back remembering that our Lord came to us in time to be one with us in all things but sin. While it may not have the same depth of austerity as Lent, Advent is a penitential season where the words of the prophets echo to us from ages past to prepare a way for the Lord in our hearts and lives.

I know that this time of year is a busy time for many of us, but I encourage you to not get swept away in the commotion. Advent is a beautiful season and even though it is penitential (thus the use of the color violet), it also possesses a subdued joy and peace. I encourage you to make use of this season and set aside some time for yourself with the Lord. May every nation, home, and heart make room for Christ, the Prince of Peace.

The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

This Friday, December 8th, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This day remembers that Mary, from the very first moment of her conception in the womb of her mother St. Anne, was kept free from all touch or stain of sin, thus the Latin inscription above the great mosaic in the Cathedral macula non est in te (no stain is in you). This great gift of grace was to prepare her to be a perfect vessel in which the Lord Jesus would take on our human nature in all things but sin, taking his flesh and bone from Mary. This great solemnity is a holy day of obligation; Masses will be at 5:15PM for the vigil on Thursday the 7th and at 7:00AM, 12:05PM, and 5:15PM on Friday the 8th. Come and honor Mary our Blessed Mother, the Immaculate Conception, who is patroness of our
cathedral, diocese, and nation.

Greetings from the Holy Land

As you read this I am in the middle of my time in the Holy Land, serving as spiritual director for the diocesan pilgrimage. Last week saw us in Galilee for a few nights and as of Saturday we
arrive in Jerusalem for six nights, returning home on the 8th. I am praying for all of you; please pray for the safe journey of the group. God bless you!

Father Christopher House is the Rector-Pastor of the Cathedral and serves in various leadership roles within the diocesan curia, specifically Chancellor and Vicar Judicial.

First, we prepare ourselves for the anniversary of Christ’s nativity, called Christmas through fasting and prayer. Second, we renew our desire to be reborn in Him, in fulfillment of the promise of Christmas through fasting and prayer. Third, we ready ourselves for His coming again, in the end of days, to judge the quick and the dead through fasting and prayer.

It will be seen, that apart from merriment and indulgence, Advent is a season of fasting and prayer. Not on the scale of Lent, before Easter, and barely half the duration of Lent; nor filled with the quality of sorrow and ashes, that marks the Lenten season. Still, fasting and prayer. There will be time enough to celebrate through the twelve days of Christmas, when irreligious men and women are recovering from their own celebration of they know not what. (They have their reward.)

In previous years, I made something like these points at Christmas, but it strikes me now that the first Sunday in Advent would be a more appropriate moment to express regret, and exhortation.

In England, once, I was invited for Christmas to the house of old family friends in north Oxfordshire. I was very poor then, and had thus had a sober and humble Advent, if largely against my will. It was in fact my first Advent as a believing Christian. The train ticket I’d bought, to take me from London to Banbury, was a major expense, and a luxury. Surprise: the train stopped at Oxford town, twenty-something miles short of my destination, and I was turned out on the platform. I hadn’t realized that, under the laudable old socialist regime that Lady Thatcher later swept away, all British Rail trains shut down in a kind of general strike, wherever they happened to be, as midnight approached on Christmas Eve.

Don’t get me wrong: it is one of the things about socialism I miss. England in the 1970s was quite dysfunctional. This made it cheap to live there. And around, you could see the decay of what
had once been a great capitalist nation, and the seat of a vast Empire. There is beauty in decay. I miss the chill of the English winter, when the coal miners all went on strike. I miss the candlelight, when the electricity went down. I miss the rotting Brussels sprouts from New Covent Garden. I even miss the pomposity of the working class heroes, running the country into the ground. I remember it all through the pink lens of nostalgia. Ah to be young again, and in England.

And on that platform at Oxford. The couple of miles from Banbury to my friends cottage in the village of Adderbury would have been a fine evening’s stroll. But I would now have the pleasure of
walking right through the brisk clear winter night, without even the companionship of the crescent moon that was sinking on the western horizon. I found the Banbury Road, and set along on foot. There were no cars on it, either. None.

I remember it as one of the happiest evenings of my life. Just me, and the stars, and the dark world around me, mediaeval under starlight. And the sense that I was walking towards Christmas. (Which of these is the star of Bethlehem?) When I was cold, I sang carols to myself.

I arrived in Adderbury, some time towards dawn. Having no watch, I could guess the time only by the constellations. I knew it was too early to knock on my friend’s door. The whole village was sleeping, and the only light was in the sacristy of the ancient church. I went into the churchyard, among the gravestones. I felt at one with forty generations of the English dead.

Suddenly there was a peal of bells, some miles away in the direction from which I’d come. Then another, nearer, at Bloxham. And then, right above me, the bells of St Mary the Virgin, Adderbury, pealing out, deafening in their joy. Bells, everywhere right across England! The bells were pealing, to announce Christmas Day.

This is what I want to share today the bells of Christmas morning with my reader, who is Christian, or lapsed; or never having been a Christian, wonders what it might be like. To hear their glory, we must fast and pray

Many of us will celebrate the annual tradition of this coming Thursday as Thanksgiving Day. Our national tradition goes back to 1621 to the giving of thanks by pilgrims and their Native American neighbors at Plymouth (although history argues that many of the details of the first Thanksgiving are more myth than anything else). The tradition continued through the years finally being fixed by President Lincoln by decree in 1863 that a national fay of thanksgiving should occur on the last Thursday of November. The date was fixed again in 1941 by an Act of Congress declaring that the fourth Thursday of November would be the date for Thanksgiving each year. This was a compromise between Republicans and Democrats. President Roosevelt had wanted Thanksgiving on the second to the last Thursday of November to provide for a longer Christmas shopping season to help the American economy. Republicans wanted to keep Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November, as Lincoln had declared, as an honor to the former present. The compromise allowed for both sides to get what they wanted, depending on how many Thursdays were in November in a given year.

No matter what Thursday the holiday is celebrate on, what is important is why the day is celebrated. This is the one federal holiday that is designated as a day of offering thanks to God for the gifts and blessings that he has bestowed on the nation. While many of us will gather with family and friends to give thanks in the afternoon or evening, I invite you to first come to Mass at the Cathedral at 9:00AM as there is no better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than with thanksgiving. It is through the prayer of the Mass that we are given the Eucharist and the Mass is sometimes referred to as the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The word Eucharist in Greek means “thanksgiving.” Every time we gather for the Mass, we are gathering to offer thanksgiving to God for his goodness, his mercy, and his love.

Long before the pilgrims at Plymouth gathered for the “first” Thanksgiving, thanksgiving had already been offered on these American shores in the Mass. When that happened exactly, no one is quite sure. If you ask the Irish they will tell you it was by St. Brendan all the way back around the year 512 (one of the windows on the south side of the Cathedral commemorates this tradition). We know that Mass was offered on Epiphany on the island of Hispaniola as a part of Columbus’s second voyage in 1494. Finally, most likely by 1498, Henry Cabot’s expedition was exploring Newfoundland and Augustinian friars were among those in his party so Mass was surely offered on the continent.

What is important for us is the need for our lives to be marked by thanksgiving. Thanksgiving must be a way of life for the Christian and not simply a day on the calendar. Acknowledging that God is the giver of all good gifts and that our talents and resourcefulness emanate from him keeps us humble and open to receiving the continued graces that he wants to bestow on us. On behalf of Bishop Paprocki, Father Maher, Father Stock, Deacon Smith, Deacon Keen, and all of the Cathedral Parish and School staff, I wish you and yours a blessed and happy Thanksgiving. God bless you!

The colors of fall seem to have exploded this past week, but the beauty of creation in autumn is also a harbinger of the coming of winter when much of creation will enter into its deep sleep. While the winter may be cold and dark, we know that light and warmth will return again as springtime will call creation back into new life, yet we still must face the winter. The same is true in our lives as this earthly life must come to an end. We must be mindful of that reality. As we continue through the month of November, the month of All Souls, it is good for us to be reminded of what the Church terms the Four Last Things: death, judgement, hell, and heaven.

They say that there are two unavoidable realities in life: death and taxes. That statement is only half true. You can avoid taxes, I don’t advise it, but people do try and some are successful. Some people try to avoid death but no one has succeeded there. Life is the time and opportunity for us to accept God’s grace and to cooperate with it. While death is perceived as the natural course of life, death is also seen from a religious perspective as an aberration, as a consequence of sin. A disciple should be able to see a distinction between death and Christian death. The notion of Christian death points to the underlying belief that death is nothing more than a doorway to a new and greater life with God in Christ.

This year on the Solemnity of Christ the King (two weeks from now) we will hear the Gospel of the Last Judgement proclaimed to us at Mass. While the Scriptures speak of this general judgement the Church also speaks of particular judgement that all of us will face at the moment of death. Our own innate sense of justice moves us to believe that there must be some final reckoning concerning what good, or lack thereof, that we did in our earthly life. This judgement is not so much about God rendering a decision regarding us but rather fulfilling the choice we made by how we lived, as St. Paul teaches us “for we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each one may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor 5:10). From this judgement, we then enter into one of two destinies: eternal life or eternal damnation.

For those who live and die in God’s friendship, they can be assured of everlasting life with him in heaven. This eternal destiny may be entered into immediately for those who die without any attachment to sin or after a period of purification for those who die, not in mortal sin but, with an attachment to venial sin. This process of purging is known as purgatory. Every soul in purgatory is destined for union with God in heaven. The pain of purgatory is not an intentional punishment inflicted by God but rather it is the result of the pain of separation experienced by the soul until it achieves perfect union with God.

For those who die in a state of mortal sin, having made a clear, manifested choice against God, the Church teaches that those souls suffer the eternal torments of hell. The suffering of hell is not one of fire and brimstone, but one of complete and everlasting separation from God, having full knowledge of what has been lost. The Church teaches that hell does indeed exist, as the Lord Jesus warns us of in the Scriptures, but the Church does not formally teach that anyone is there except the devil and hi fallen angels.

Death and judgement are realities that all of us must one day face, but for those who strive daily to live in God’s friendship, sinners though we are, we have nothing to fear for we have a loving and merciful God. Let us keep our hearts open to that love and mercy every day.

This month is a good time to reflect on the blessings we have and how we can share those blessings with the community around us. As intentional disciples, we tend to give more, pray more, and serve more. As we come closer to the Giving Tuesday , a national day of giving, we are encouraging all within the parish to consider how they can live out their faith as stewards this Giving Tuesday, Nov. 28th. Consider how you can #Give1Hour to pray, serve, or generously give an hour of you pay with us. More details coming!

Our Veteran’s Day Ceremony was a heart warming experience for our students, and many were moved to tears. We are so grateful for those who have served our country! Cathedral School says THANK YOU for your service! A special thank you to Mrs. Janine, Mrs. Wellman, Mark Gifford, Debbie Ross, Heath Erwin, Dan Wellman, and Karl and Cheryl Lercher for putting on our ceremony this morning!