Welcome to the Season of Advent! We begin a new Church liturgical year and enter Year C, focusing on the Gospel of Luke for our Sundays. Advent is a bit longer than average this year, 27 days out of a possible 28 (including Christmas Eve), since Christmas Day falls on a Saturday making the fourth week 6 days long out of possible 7. By the way, Christmas on a Saturday makes for quite the full weekend, so heads up now, there will be no Saturday evening Mass or confessions on Christmas Day, Saturday the 25th. It would have to be the Christmas Mass not the following Sunday Mass, so to avoid all that confusion, there will be no evening Mass on the 25th. But don’t jump to Christmas quite yet, let’s preview just some of things we might do this Advent.
Eucharist Adoration. What better way to pray in Advent than to watch and wait expectation in front of the Blessed Sacrament! We have a first Friday on Dec. 3rd, and so we have a Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration with Benediction 6-7pm in the church. On Sunday, Dec. 12th we have another Holy Hour of Adoration w/Benediction 6-7pm following the Sunday 5pm Mass in the church. This special hour on Dec. 12th, which is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, is being offered in thanksgiving for Archbishop Naumann’s term of dedicated service as Chairman of the USCCB Pro-Life Committee. But we also have Eucharistic Adoration in our chapel available for folks to join during the days of Tuesday-Friday 9am-8pm. The interior door from the church vestibule into the chapel will be open for anyone to pray (not the exterior door to the parking lot—that requires a code). There are additional hours of adoration beyond this for those who commit to a weekly hour, inquire at our parish office.
Saints. We have some awesome saints we celebrate during Advent including:
Fri, Dec. 3, St. Francis Xavier, one of the greatest missionaries of the Church.
Mon, Dec. 6, St. Nicholas (aka Santa Claus).
Tues, Dec. 7, St. Ambrose,
Wed, Dec. 8, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, a holy day of obligation, and the close of the Year of St. Joseph
Thur, Dec. 9, St. Juan Diego
Sun, Dec. 12, Our Lady of Guadalupe, but since it falls on a Sunday, we celebrate Mass for the Third Sunday of Advent.
Mon, Dec. 13, St. Lucy
Tue, Dec. 14, St. John of the Cross
Reconciliation. Make room for Jesus in the inn of your heart by clearing out the slop of sin! We have confessions every Saturday at 3:30pm and Wednesday at 12noon with two exceptions (not at 12noon on Dec. 8th since we have a holy day Mass, and not on the evening Dec. 25th). There also will be parish penance services at various parishes the week of Dec. 12 - Dec. 19, so please try if possible to make your confession then. Prince of Peace hosts our penance service on Tue, Dec. 14th at 7pm. We will have a last chance confession time after all that, but it really helps the lines and wait time if you go early!
Social, Service, Studies. There are also many ways to engage in social activities, service to others, and study of the faith this Advent—look deeper into this and future bulletins for more.
I hope and pray you have a great Advent.
Peace,
Fr. Greg