Fourth Sunday Of Advent

From the Pastor:    Fourth Sunday Of Advent

       Here it is, all too soon! The 4th and final Sunday of Advent is upon us. That means that Christmas is right around the corner. Tuesday, December 24th, we have a Christmas Vigil Mass in the Novus Ordo rite at 5:00 pm. Later that night the church will fill up for the first Mass on Christmas Day. Yes, people will arrive on Tuesday but Midnight Mass starts at Midnight, which makes it a Wednesday Mass. If history repeats itself, many people will look at our online calendar, the schedule listed in the bulletin, or the Flocknote announcement, and, scouring the Tuesday schedule for the Midnight Mass and not finding it there will panic. The hysterical phone calls, texts, and emails will start pouring in sounding something like, “AAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!! What happened to the Midnight Mass? Aren’t we having one this year?” Of course we are! You just looked at the wrong day. Please look at the first item listed on Christmas Day, Wednesday, December 25th, and voila! There it is! Midnight Mass. At Midnight. On Christmas Day. Not 6:00, 8:00, or 10:00 pm on Christmas Eve. It will be a candlelight Mass. It will be peaceful, prayerful, and beautiful. It will last for an eternity but will seem to be too short when it is over. The people will stay afterward to gather in the social hall as they do on Sundays. This year the altar boys and their families will stay and clean up the mess in the church (I am amazed that people will hold a candle for 90 minutes and then somehow forget to take it with them to deposit into the baskets and/or boxes set out for that purpose). I will probably get to bed just in time to get back up to pray the breviary before heading over for the 7:30 am Mass. Fr. Mangiafico will probably drive back to his house in Largo and get to bed shortly before dawn then return for a second Mass. Many choir members, parish staff, sacristans, and other volunteers will probably also pull double duty, so to speak, and come back for one or both of the two morning Masses. Many adult parishioners attending the Christmas daytime Masses will have also lost a lot of sleep due to family gatherings the night before, last-minute preparations for the Big Day, or being kept up by sleepless children and grandchildren. The children who kept the adults up all night will also be exhausted but will be making up for it with the energy that comes from exuberance. And the Masses will be glorious in spite of it all. Or because of it, as we gather to celebrate the birth of Our Savior, Jesus Christ.
       All that I wrote above is simply a prelude to a simple request that I have for all of you. I ask that on Christmas you keep one eye on the tabernacle and the other eye on those around you. Sounds weird, I know. But on Christmas there are often Catholics (and sometimes non-Catholics) who come to Mass for the first time in months, years, or even decades. Those returning Catholics at the Novus Ordo Vigil Mass might not even know that the Mass responses changed a dozen or so years ago from, for instance, “And also with you” to “And with your spirit.” Those who show up at the Traditional Latin Masses may have expected Mass to be a Novus Ordo (without knowing the meaning of that term) in either English or Spanish (we sometimes get people who mistake “Latin” for “Latino”) and are so completely lost that they even wonder if they are attending a Catholic church or not. Please be on the lookout for them. Not because they are a problem but because they are in need. They will need someone to assure them that this is Catholic. That this is the Mass that the great Saints attended or celebrated. That not understanding the language is not the same as not understanding that Christ is offering His Life on the cross for our salvation. No matter what Mass these “newcomers” attend, they will benefit mentally, emotionally, and spiritually if someone shows them some kindness, offers a few whispered words of assurance, or helps them somehow just feel welcomed home. To their eternal home.
       Please don’t let your lack of sleep or your overexcitement make you grumpy or terse toward the person or family who took “your” pew, who dressed for the beach rather than for Mass, who talked incessantly before Mass or is doing so even during it. Please don’t let your desire to celebrate Jesus’ birth as perfectly as possible make you overly critical of those who don’t know why they (or you) are there, but who seem to be just doing the bare minimum “Catholic thing” that they think that they can get away with. Instead, open wide your heart to them, as Jesus opened wide His Most Sacred Heart to the soldier (and now Saint) Longinus as he thrust his lance into His side as He hung upon the cross. Remember that you, too, once were not the perfect Catholics (cough, cough) that you are now, and treat them in such a way that they wish with all their heart to return to the Lord, to come to Mass regularly, to become fully, faithfully, and joyfully Catholic, as you are now striving to do. 
       What a great Christmas present that will be, when you present to the Holy Family the gift of a newly converted or reconverted soul to the Divine Infant, simply by being nice and helpful! It might even, were it possible, outshine the gifts the Three Magi will bring on Epiphany.

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