Dear Friends,
We have stepped into the New Year with renewed trust in the Lord and his mercy realizing that our lives are vulnerable and that our attempt to think that we are in charge is but a foolery. The Lord who reveals himself to the entire world on the Feast of the Epiphany invites us to trust him. Our response to the Psalm contains our attitude: “Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.”
The vaccines are ready and thanks to the Lord for hearing our prayers by inspiring the researchers to bring out an antidote to the suffering we have endured during the past year. Some of us might have some questions regarding the moral issues related to the research process? Did the researchers use some morally compromising cell lines at any stage of the production of the vaccine? The U.S. Bishops opine that “Given the urgency of this crisis… inoculation with the new COVID-19 vaccines in these circumstances can be morally justified.” Out of the three vaccines that will be available for us, the bishops noted the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are more morally acceptable than the AstraZeneca vaccine if the option to choose presents itself. They cite the fact that AstraZeneca used an abortion-derived cell line in the design, development, production and confirmatory testing of its vaccine as reasons it’s morally compromised.
Whereas neither Pfizer nor Moderna used abortion-derived cell lines in the design, development or production of its vaccine, although it was used in a confirmatory test. That said, the bishops consider that connection “very remote from the initial evil of the abortion.” For more information about the Catholic take on the use of the Vaccines please read any one or all of the documents given below.
- Memo to Bishops of USCCB re: COVID-19 Vaccines from Bishop Rhoads and Archbishop Naumann (November 20)
- “Points to Consider on the Use of COVID Vaccines,” National Catholic Bioethics Center (December 7)
- “Making Sense of Bioethics: COVID-19 Vaccine Myths,” Rev. Tad Pacholczyk, National Catholic Bioethics Center (August 28).
I take this occasion to thank Deacon Pat Mongan and his wife Ellen for their ministries in our parish for the past few years. They had to make the critical decision to be near their children who live in Georgia. We wish them God’s continuous blessings as they move to a new locality.
Many of our parishioners have been waiting eagerly for a time when we will be able to use the Adoration Chapel for Adoration as we know how hugely important it is for to spend time in gazing the face of Christ in reflective Adoration. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen captured it well when he said: "The greatest love story of all time is contained in a tiny white Host." We have some good news for those who would love to do the Holy Hour. Starting Monday, January 4, 2021 we will have our Adoration Chapel open Monday thru Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and on Saturdays from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. You don’t have to sign up anymore to visit the Adoration Chapel. However, because of the Pandemic we would strongly recommend the number of people staying in the chapel to be limited to 3 to 4 people at a time. I would also request the Adorers to clean the pew after their visit. The disinfectants will be available in the chapel. Thank you for your cooperation in trying to keep everyone safe.
Be Blessed!
With love, Fr. John
Ecclesia de Eucharistia
For this week, we shall reflect on paragraphs 55 - 56 of the encyclical, “Ecclesia De Eucharistia” (The Church draws her life from the Eucharist) by St. John Paul II on the vital role the Eucharist plays in the life of the Church. With these paragraphs we will explore the 6th chapter titled: AT THE SCHOOL OF MARY, “WOMAN OF THE EUCHARIST.” Here Pope John Paul II is making some beautiful parallel between Mary and us, as when we say Amen to the Eucharist being offered to us as “The Body of Christ.”
- In a certain sense Mary lived her Eucharistic faith even before the institution of the Eucharist, by the very fact that she offered her virginal womb for the Incarnation of God's Word. The Eucharist, while commemorating the passion and resurrection, is also in continuity with the incarnation. At the Annunciation Mary conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives, under the signs of bread and wine, the Lord's body and blood.
As a result, there is a profound analogy between the Fiat which Mary said in reply to the angel, and the Amen which every believer says when receiving the body of the Lord. Mary was asked to believe that the One whom she conceived “through the Holy Spirit” was “the Son of God” (Lk 1:30-35). In continuity with the Virgin's faith, in the Eucharistic mystery we are asked to believe that the same Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary, becomes present in his full humanity and divinity under the signs of bread and wine.
“Blessed is she who believed” (Lk 1:45). Mary also anticipated, in the mystery of the incarnation, the Church's Eucharistic faith. When, at the Visitation, she bore in her womb the Word made flesh, she became in some way a “tabernacle” – the first “tabernacle” in history – in which the Son of God, still invisible to our human gaze, allowed himself to be adored by Elizabeth, radiating his light as it were through the eyes and the voice of Mary. And is not the enraptured gaze of Mary as she contemplated the face of the newborn Christ and cradled him in her arms that unparalleled model of love which should inspire us every time we receive Eucharistic communion?
- Mary, throughout her life at Christ's side and not only on Calvary, made her own the sacrificial dimension of the Eucharist. When she brought the child Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem “to present him to the Lord” (Lk 2:22), she heard the aged Simeon announce that the child would be a “sign of contradiction” and that a sword would also pierce her own heart (cf. Lk 2:34-35). The tragedy of her Son's crucifixion was thus foretold, and in some sense Mary's Stabat Mater at the foot of the Cross was foreshadowed. In her daily preparation for Calvary, Mary experienced a kind of “anticipated Eucharist” – one might say a “spiritual communion” – of desire and of oblation, which would culminate in her union with her Son in his passion, and then find expression after Easter by her partaking in the Eucharist which the Apostles celebrated as the memorial of that passion.
What must Mary have felt as she heard from the mouth of Peter, John, James and the other Apostles the words spoken at the Last Supper: “This is my body which is given for you” (Lk 22:19)? The body given up for us and made present under sacramental signs was the same body which she had conceived in her womb! For Mary, receiving the Eucharist must have somehow meant welcoming once more into her womb that heart which had beat in unison with hers and reliving what she had experienced at the foot of the Cross.