Dear Friends,
We have stepped into the New Year 2024 with the assurance of God’s blessings as spoken through the Scripture: May God let His face shine on you, in His Mercy! And so, we carry on with the task at hand, confident of God’s presence with us and of your active participation.
Once again, I wish to say that I am indebted to all those who participated in Our Catholic Appeal (OCA) 2023. You should have received my personal note thanking you for the way you have made us proud. Because of your participation, we achieved our goal AND increased our participation level. My one remaining wish is that ALL had participated. Well, I guess most would say that this will never be possible! But I am man of HOPE, and I keep my hope alive for OCA 2024.
This year is very special to the Congregation of Holy Cross. On 20 January, we celebrate in gratitude the 150th Death Anniversary of Blessed Basil Moreau, the founder of the Congregation. Moreover, on 20 January 2018 we dedicated our beautiful sanctuary here at St. John the Evangelist. To mark both of these blessings, we will spend time in prayer and thanksgiving to God during 40 hours of Adoration beginning at 6 p.m. on Thursday, 18 January. This will continue until we conclude with a Holy Mass at 10 a.m. on Saturday, 20 January. This will be followed by a luncheon. Please sign up (see page 4 in the Bulletin) and be part of this unbroken chain of Adoration offered to our Loving God. You can find the link to sign up for Adoration during the 40 Hours on our website (stjohnviera.org).
We are also hosting an Exhibition on the Eucharistic Miracles compiled by the holy teen sensation, Blessed Carlos Acutis. We will bless and inaugurate the exhibition after the 11 a.m. Mass on 14 January. I pray that this time of grace will help increase our faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and enhance our participation in our Eucharistic celebrations.
Married couples: please get ready for the Marriage Enrichment Retreat, entitled RE-FOCCUS, to be held here on Saturday, 27 January from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Please remember to set aside your time for two most wonderful Pilgrimages that are offered for this year: Ireland in July and Montreal in September.
This weekend, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord. The traditional date of Epiphany is 6 January. However, in the United States it is celebrated on the Sunday that falls between 2 January and 8 January. There are many traditions connected with this great feast. One particular tradition that might be of interest to you is the Blessing of the Home and Household on Epiphany. The Church extends itself on Epiphany to the homes of the faithful.
The custom of blessing the home on this day probably originated from these words in the Gospel, ‘And entering into the house, they found the Child with Mary, His Mother, and falling down they adored Him.’ You can find a home blessing prayer at this link:
https://www.usccb.org/prayers/blessing-home-and-household-epiphany
On the Solemnity of the Epiphany:
The young Messiah is revealed as the light of the nations. Yet, as the antiphon for the Magnificat at Second Vespers reminds us, three mysteries are encompassed in this solemnity: the adoration of the Christ Child by the Magi, the Baptism of Christ and the wedding feast at Cana. Extra candles and/or lamps may be placed around the sanctuary and in other parts of the church to honor Christ revealed as the Light of the Gentiles (Ceremonial of Bishops). It is customary to replace the images of the shepherds at the crib with the three Magi and their gifts. —Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year, Msgr. Peter J. Elliott, Ignatius Press.
The feast of the Epiphany, which was kept in the East and in certain Western Churches before being observed in Rome, seems to have been originally a feast of the nativity; January 6, for those churches where it was kept, was the equivalent of Christmas (December 25) in the Roman Church. The feast was introduced at Rome in the second of the sixth century and became the complement and, so to say, the crown of the Christmas festival.
Epiphany means manifestation. What the Church celebrates today is the manifestation of our Lord to the whole world; after being made known to the shepherds of Bethlehem He is revealed to the Magi who have come from the East to adore Him. Christian tradition has ever seen in the Magi the first fruits of the Gentiles; they lead in their wake all the peoples of the earth, and thus the Epiphany is an affirmation of universal salvation.
[The Church sees] this same thought of universal redemption . . . in the union with Christ [as] typified by the wedding feast at Cana, [and] by the baptism of her children foreshadowed by that of Christ in the waters of the Jordan. Formerly the Epiphany was an additional day for solemn baptisms.
The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord will be celebrated on Monday, 8 January this year. With this Feast, the Christmas Season comes to an end. On the 8th, you may now pack away your Christmas Creche and other decorations to be safely stored until Christmas 2024. Congratulations to those who keep the Christmas Season intact and their Christmas Decorations on display until then. I was pleased to see this in a number of the homes that I visited during this Christmas Season.
Have a Blessed Week!
With love,