Happy Advent! Our four-week journey to the Christmas Season begins this weekend. We are fortunate this year to get four full weeks of Advent as Christmas falls on a Saturday. Thank you all for your contributions to the giving trees and for the success of the annual RAINE Foundation Thanksgiving celebration. It is good to see all of these annual events continue to thrive during these challenging days. The Advent Season comes with a few important events that we should put on our calendars. Next Friday night, December 3rd we have our annual Christmas Tree Lighting event here in the parking lot at 6:00 p.m. This is always a fun evening – a good family event and one that happens quickly enough as the children don’t get too antsy! There is a “special guest” arriving in style to make the evening even more exciting. That same guest will appear again to spend some time visiting with the children at the Knights of Columbus Breakfast on Sunday, December 12th.
The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the patronal feast of the USA, is a Holy Day of Obligation. Masses will be held on Tuesday, December 7th at 7:00 p.m., and on Wednesday, December 8th at 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
On Monday, December 6th at 7:00 p.m. our Bereavement Ministry will host a prayer service of remembrance of lost loved ones. This provides an opportunity for hope, consolation, and fellowship during the challenging holiday season.
Our Advent Penance Service will be Sunday, December 12th. We will have a dozen priests here for Confessions from 4 – 6:00 p.m. This is a very good way to prepare ourselves spiritually for the coming of the Christmas Season. The students in our RE program will receive First Penance that day. Everyone is invited to come at some point in the afternoon for confession.
On Tuesday, December 14th at 7:00 p.m. I will present Mary in the Old Testament, a reflection on the various Scriptural passages in the Old Testament that prefigure the role of the Blessed Mother in salvation history.
In conjunction with the Monmouth County Simbang Gabi group, we will host Mass for the Filipino community on Thursday, December 16th. This beautiful novena in anticipation of Christmas has been celebrated here for many years and we are happy to host an evening this year. As always, all members of the parish are invited to attend.
On Tuesday, December 21st we will host an evening of Song and Scripture. This evening, will include music and scriptural reflection on the Advent and Christmas Season. It should prove to be a prayerful and relaxing way to prepares ourselves for the Christmas holiday.
As we prepare for the holydays, Tom O’Brien, musician and choir director, is hoping to find some more voices – male and female – to build up the choir. We have gone without a choir here since the pandemic began, but now we are gearing up for Christmas Midnight Mass and the weekly Masses going forward. Please see Tom after any of the Masses to talk about joining your voice to others to make a joyful song unto the Lord.
This week the second grade students in the school receive their First Penance. We ask your prayers for them on their journey in faith towards First Holy Communion next Spring.
As we are making our way through the Advent Season, and we get caught up into all of the preparations for the secular holiday, let us not forget to prepare ourselves for the coming feast in a manner that reflects the truth of our faith as realized in the Christmas Season.