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From the Pastor: Farewell, Father Vincent!
This coming Sunday, February 2, is Fr. Vincent Capuano’s last day with us. He is a Jesuit priest of the Argentina Province, and has been “on loan” to Tampa’s Jesuit High School for a few years but has now been called back home. Due to his other priestly duties on Sundays, he usually celebrates only the 7:30 am Mass, although occasionally is he able to assist at the 10:30. But on this, his final day, he will be able to be at both, so all of you who desire to wish him well will be able to do so. He is an excellent preacher, teacher, and priest and will be greatly missed around here. Please pray for his continued holiness as he begins his new assignment. If you were planning on giving him a gift of any sort, please remember that he is not driving a U Haul to his next assignment but is rather flying. All that he owns has to fit in his checked baggage or carry on luggage. So, as beautiful as that statue of St. Thomas Aquinas is, which you wanted to give him after being in his class on that famous Doctor of the Church, he will have to leave it behind, regardless of whether it is life-sized or fits on a tabletop. Prayers and Masses, on the other hand, don’t take up much room in a suitcase! By happy, holy coincidence, set in motion by Our Lord through Holy Mother Church many centuries ago, his last day will be an extraordinary day for us. It is the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, commonly called “Candlemas” due to the blessing of candles that occurs, and is, in some local traditions (but not “officially,” even in the older liturgical calendars, though much ink has been and still is being spilled debating this!), the ending to the Christmas season. This is the first time since I have been at Epiphany that this feast day falls on a Sunday. Last year it was on a Saturday, which allowed more of you to attend than when it fell in the middle of the week. This year all of you should be able to make it, plus you can bring others with you who won’t get the blessing of candles at their home parish, so I expect a large crowd at both Masses. There will be a small procession at the 10:30 Mass (sorry, 7:30-ers, but only the main Mass gets the most solemn rites according to the old liturgical books) but there will be a blessing of candles at both Masses. So bring in your candles! Bring in beeswax candles for the ominous Three Days of Darkness; scented candles which make the house smell like cookies or Christmas trees; dripless tapers for your romantic dinners; fancy candles for special occasions; birthday candles for all of the cakes you will bake this year; or any other kind of candle you use at home or work. We will bless them all. Due to the size of the congregations (what a great problem to have: too many people!), we won’t even try to have a table to hold all of your candles, since last year we packed a huge table full plus had candles stacked all around and under it and it wasn’t a Sunday celebration. So just keep them with you in the pew and we will bless them where they are. (If you bring in huge bags or boxes, too many to keep in the pew, we will find a place to put them which is out of the way. Don’t worry!) Although in past years you have carried your own candles in procession, this year at the 10:30 Mass we will bless enough tapers for everyone to have one for the procession and to use at Mass so that those who don’t bring in candles won’t be left in the dark. Or as dark as it gets in a daytime candlelight celebration, anyway. Remember that one of the most practical reasons for blessing candles on this day is so that we have blessed candles for the following days’ feast, that of St. Blaise (or Blase), on which we use two crossed candles to bless throats. And, before you ask, no, we will not do the blessing of throats on Sunday just because everyone is there. We follow the liturgical calendar and bless throats on the day they are to be blessed, February 3. Oh, and realize that the 10:30 Mass will be a bit longer than usual due to the extra blessing and procession. On the subject of things being a bit longer, there are five prayers of blessing given this day, rather than the single one used to bless candles during the rest of the year. The blessing of candles takes place before Mass and if you show up late and miss the blessing, do not -- I repeat, do not! -- expect to get your candles blessed after Mass is over! Now that you are aware of what is going on next weekend, it is time to get prepared! Those of you reading this during the homily can open your phone’s Amazon app and start ordering candles... Wait, no, that stuff only happens at Novus Ordo parishes, right? Right? Put that phone away now! I was just joking! I see what you schola members are doing back there! Stop that immediately! Don’t make me turn around and come back there... With prayers for your holiness, Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka Comments are closed.
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