A Glorious Easter!

From the Pastor:    A Glorious Easter!

       This year it seemed that no sooner had the Octave of Epiphany ended than the 40 days of Lent began. The season of fasting had no more started than Archbishop Cordileone stopped by. No sooner had he departed than the Easter Triduum was upon us. And that, of course, meant early morning prayers and late night Masses leading into Easter Sunday itself. All without a breather, or so it seemed. What an exhausting but spiritually amazing way to begin the new calendar year! This year at the Easter Vigil and Mass we had 7 people come into the Church through Baptism and/or Confirmation and Holy Communion. Another wanted to enter but could not make it so we have rescheduled his entrance and he will be baptized next month. I am also scheduled, if the Bishop allows it, to confirm a few adults who are already Catholic but have missed receiving Confirmation for one or another reason. If you fit that category, call the office right away and maybe you can also receive the sacrament at that time. We bring people into the Church throughout the year, for, instead of forcing them to wait until fall to begin RCIA classes so that they can enter during the Easter Vigil, they simply each get on their own schedule of individual convert studies and when they are ready to enter, they enter. This year none of those entering were even aware of the others’ studies or readiness but somehow they all decided that they were ready to become Catholic all together. Nice!
       I haven’t yet seen the diocesan statistics on parish Mass attendance for February. As you know, I hang up the new stat sheet in the social hall twice a year (each parish reports Sunday Mass attendance figures in October and February) and Epiphany has been steadily rising. We started out in July of 2015 with 87 total in attendance before the Traditional Latin Mass began being celebrated here and now regularly exceed 800 or 900 people each Sunday. I am not sure why we sometimes have a greater than 10% change in numbers for any given Sunday but we will often see 950 people one Sunday followed by 830 people the next. Once in a while some of it can be attributed to the American Heritage Girls or the Troops of St. George going on camping trips, but they have never had 100 people on their participation rosters. And, in case you are wondering, we do not count them in our official tally if they are gone during February or October, even if I go to the camp to celebrate Mass for them that weekend. We only count those physically present in the pews. All of that is just a lead-up to the new record attendance for Easter Sunday Masses. We broke the 1200 people mark for our three Easter Masses (one Vigil and two on Easter Sunday) for the first time.
       The Easter Vigil this year was 4 hours+ long. The Traditional Rite of Baptism includes a lot of questioning of each sacramental candidate, a lot of blessings and exorcisms, plus other amazing signs and symbols in the ritual. A good portion of it can be done earlier in the day in order to shorten the length of the Vigil, but since we already have Tenebrae, confessions, and the Blessing of the Easter Baskets on Holy Saturday morning, it would have been more work than possible to arrange such a thing. It also would have deprived all of the parishioners the joy of experiencing all of that wonderful ceremonial baptismal preparation and Profession of Faith. Cutting corners and making things shorter or easier does not necessarily (or even usually) lead to a fuller grasp of—or desire for more of—the Faith! Of course, it makes for a late night when the Mass ends after midnight and the people don’t just race for their cars to go home. There were 50 or more people still in the church and social hall when I finally went back to the rectory about 1:30 am. Several groups had brought picnic baskets with them and were breaking their Lenten Fasts with friends, new and old, something that has been a wonderful tradition in a parish where they can’t simply walk to one of the neighboring parishioner houses down the block. But as for me, I simply told them that the last one to leave had to lock the doors and turn off the lights, for I still had to finish my breviary and try to sleep for a few hours before getting up to prepare for the morning Mass. I am now 60 years old and the early mornings followed by the late nights are getting to me more than they ever did when I was a “young” priest of 40 or 50. Fr. Mangiafico has twenty years on me and I am amazed at his stamina. He doesn’t live at the rectory and doesn’t ever accept the offer to spend the night even for big feasts like this but rather drives nearly an hour across the bay to his house, where he then has to finish his prayers as well, and then, after very little sleep, prays his morning prayers and makes the return trip to celebrate the 10:30 Mass. What a priest!
       Thank you all for making the beginning of this year such a holy one! I am hopeful that we will be able to continue to celebrate these spiritual seasons and feast days in the traditional manner that we have been doing for the past nine years. None of this is possible without you, the Faithful, eagerly embracing it and growing in holiness through it.

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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