Dear Friends,
Last Sunday was a dreary and drizzly afternoon but love and joy shone brightly forth on our front lawn as our young people brought the Nativity of our Lord into this present moment. Our live Nativity was by all accounts a truly major success. So many braved the drizzle, damp, and cold to come out and witness it. The live animals were quite a success with the children, both young and old. Our youth group provided lots of hot chocolate and hospitality throughout the time. It was a beautiful way to remind ourselves of what we are all about these days.
Thank you to our parish staff, Elizabeth Calabro, Jane Watson, and Matt Kirsch for their leadership and coordination. Thank you to Sean Buruschkin who created and built the creche with wood from used pallets. Thank you to the young folks who were participants in the live Nativity and those who served the hot chocolate. Thank you to all who came and spent some time together sharing with one another faith, hope, and love, remembering and rejoicing in Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
December 12 was the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We know the story of Saint Juan Diego encountering our Blessed Mother in December of 1531. She sends him on a mission to the Archbishop to have a church built at Tepeyac Hill. The Archbishop seeks a sign. Our Lady agrees and miraculously Castilian roses, not native to Mexico, grow on the Hill. Juan Diego collects them into his tilma and carries them to the Archbishop and as he opens the folds of his tilma, the roses fall out and miraculously there is imprinted on his tilma the image of our Lady pregnant with Jesus. That tilma is enshrined still at the Basilica almost 500 years later.
Our Lady brings Jesus with her in this appearance in Mexico. Millions of people are converted to Catholicism in a matter of ten years. Our Lady continues to bring Jesus to all of us her children and she desires to bring us to her Son Jesus. Mary is truly the first Tabernacle of the Word made Flesh. And Jesus humbly continues to make Himself available in all the Tabernacles of the world in His most Holy Eucharist. At Holy Mass, Jesus through the priest celebrant changes ordinary bread and wine into His very Body and Blood. It is no longer what it was. It is transubstantiated ~ really, truly, fully changed into Himself.
When we receive Holy Communion, Jesus enters our bodies and our souls. We become tabernacles of His very life and presence. We are sent forth from Mass to bring Jesus to the world we live in. But let us linger in quiet and silent prayer, contemplating in awe of this miracle, of God-with-us, Emmanuel. As we continue to prepare to celebrate our Lord’s Birth and anticipate His coming in glory at the end of time, may we more intensely focus ourselves on His Real Presence to us here and now in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
O Sacrament, most holy. O Sacrament, divine. All praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine.
God bless you, God love you,
Monsignor McCulken
