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Finally it feels like we are back to normal. Typically I write these letters early in the week – the deadline for the printer is noon on Wednesday – but the early deadlines for the holidays meant that even last week’s letter was written before Christmas. Now, at least, I feel like we are current. Read more.

“Little Christmas” – the celebration of the Epiphany of the Lord, stands as a highlight of the Christmas Season. Unlike the rest of the world that begins decorating and celebrating Christmas long before, but then ends Christmas on December 25th, the Church begins Christmas then and concludes on the Feast of the Baptism (Sunday, January 12th). This means we get the time to celebrate this great mystery. In what is now called the Extra Ordinary Form of the Mass – the old Latin calendar which was revised fifty years ago – Christmas lasted until February 2nd, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. Read more.

We made it through the Christmas Holy Day/Holiday and now the New Year’s celebrations commence; funny to think that 2020 looms upon us. Does it seem that long ago that we were caught up in the Y2K furor and all of the excitement related to the new millennium? Now we stand on the cusp of the third decade of the century (although, technically the new decade doesn’t start until 2021). Read more.

Allow me to extend sincere “thank you” for your remarkable generosity this Advent Season. The Narthex was overflowing with gifts to fulfill the commitments we made this year. It is sad that such a need still exists, but as long as it does, we will be there to make someone’s celebration of Christmas a joyous and grateful one. Read more.

As I wrote in the bulletin a few weeks ago, the nature of charitable giving has changed significantly over the past few years. As the end of the year is upon us, many of us seek avenues compatible with our philanthropic interests. Your continual dedication to St. Benedict’s Church and School shows that we are in your scope, but for understandably grave reasons, you might be hesitant to make an undedicated gift to the parish outside of your regular envelope contribution. To be blunt, many are concerned that money from ordinary parish income is being used by the diocese to pay for settlements from lawsuits. While this is not the case, the reticence of many to be as generous as usual or as they might want to be, is often clearly stated, and definitely very real. Read more.

Advent moves quickly. This Sunday we are wearing the rose colored vestments as a sign that the penitential period is almost at an end. We are called to “Rejoice” this day, for the Day of the Lord is near at hand. Read more.

What a blessed beginning to Advent! Let us keep the momentum going. The Daily Reflection is still available, if you didn’t get a start last week, it isn’t too late to pick up the book and spend some time each day reflecting on the meaning of the seasons of Advent and Christmas. Read more.

Happy Advent! The season of Advent draws our focus to repentance and renewal in our lives in anticipation of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. While on the one hand we are looking forward to Christmas – the annual celebration of the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity in the person of Jesus of Nazareth some two-thousand years ago – we are also looking at the preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus as the Judge of the World at the end of the age. The first image is rife with sentiment, the second sounds more ominous and fearful. Both images and both responses are honest and to be expected. Read more.

Happy Thanksgiving week! I hope and pray that each of you has the opportunity to spend time with people whom you love and to give due thanks to our Heavenly Father for the many blessings he has bestowed upon you, your families, and our country during this past year. Of course, for some of us these days are more difficult than they are easy. You may not even be feeling all that grateful given the circumstances and situations in your own lives or in the life of our country and our world. Yet gratitude, even in the midst of fear, sadness and even despair, can help to turn our hearts and minds around, even just a little. Read more.

Our parish is one noted for the generosity of the community. The many efforts and hard work of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society here is amazing. We are ever-grateful for the generosity of the time of our many volunteers, and certainly for the donations of food, household and personal items, and money that is donated to the food pantry each week. As the Advent season approaches we will again be offering opportunities to provide for those who are in need. More details will be rolling out in the next few weeks. The annual Raine Foundation Thanksgiving dinner will be on the Monday before Thanksgiving (Nov. 25). All of this serves as a lead-up to a huge note of thanks to the parishioners of St. Benedict’s who have contributed to the Annual Catholic Appeal this year. Finally, after a few weeks of just being under, we have passed the $100,000 mark this year! Many parishes have this year struggled to meet goal and we are grateful to be now $10,000 over goal. Read more.

As a follow-up to last week’s launch of “Called By Name” we wish to thank those of you who offered to call a Zacchaeus out of his tree, and certainly if you find or know of any more out there, please let us know. This is not an easy time to consider a religious vocation, and a religious vocation is itself never easy, but then nothing great is ever done by only taking an easy road. We are all on the journey to eternal life, and we need the assistance and support of a community of faith – a family of faith – to help us to get to Heaven. Read more.

As Zacchaeus is called out of his tree in the Gospel passage for this weekend, so each and every one of us is also in our own trees. We go there for many reasons. Sometimes we are there to hide from God. Sometimes we are there to hide from the crowd. Sometimes we are there to get a better perspective in life. Read more.

Our “Rediscover the Eucharist” event last Saturday was very successful. Thank you to the Faith Formation staff and their team of volunteers, as well as the presenters. We had a good turnout, though like anything else, you always hope for more. Read more.

One of the most poignant and difficult times of our lives is dealing with the passing of a loved one. Often times, we are lost. It is not uncommon that when speaking with the surviving spouse or children in a hospital room after death has occurred that I am asked the question: “what do we do now?” I then gently walk them through the process of calling a funeral home and explaining to them what will happen over the next several days. Read more.

Next Saturday we are hosting a series of talks and events entitled “Rediscover the Eucharist.” Our planning for this event began before the recent survey indicating that only about one-third of Catholics believe in the Real Presence. However, since that survey was released this past summer, the need for such a day has taken on even greater urgency. Read more.

Today at the Co-Cathedral of St. Robert Bellarmine, Bishop O’Connell will celebrate a Mass for couples who are observing significant anniversaries of marriage this year. While I am always happy to attend, as we have a few couples each year who are celebrating an anniversary, this year we are blessed to have sixteen couples attending. Not only is that a statistic itself worth celebrating, it is also very impressive that these couples – and the many other hundreds from around the diocese, choose to gather with our bishop for this Mass. The celebration will be repeated at the Cathedral in Trenton on October 20th. Read more.

As autumn digs in – at least we hope soon the weather will become season appropriate – the faith formation programs in our parish ramp up in earnest. Much planning and attention has gone into the preparation of these programs, and we hope that you will be able to take advantage of some of these opportunities to grow ever deeper in faith. Read more.

Thank you! We had an absolutely spectacular carnival weekend. Yes, the weather was perfect all three days, but the response in attendees and participation of all the volunteers served to make this a wonderful weekend. While I cannot possibly thank everyone by name, there are a few we need to point out for their tireless efforts. Read more.

After much work, planning, haggling, and worry we have made it to carnival weekend. This “last blast of summer” event now only relies on good weather and good attendance. Hopefully it has all been going well. There are so many wonderful people we are indebted to for their dedication to the success of the weekend. We will address more of that next week. Suffice to say, if you spent enough time at the carnival, they are easy to spot and identify. Read more.

Summer “ended” on a strong note and now September is getting into full swing. There are many interesting parish programs which we will be undertaking as we move forward this month, and I hope that you will be able to take advantage of them. Please read through the bulletin to discover the many exciting things we have planned. Read more.