Our Lady of Lourdes Church and School

Some people have been asking me these past two weeks about whether or not their going to mass on Christmas Eve would also satisfy their obligation to attend mass on Sunday? With this year Christmas falling on a Monday, our Christmas Eve masses will be on Sunday evening, so is it possible to get a “two-for”? Oh the creativity of the Catholic mind! I’m never unimpressed with how we can approach certain difficult questions. I was even presented with a story about a priest in Pittsburgh who offered a “dispensation” from the obligation to attend mass on Sunday, if parishioners met certain criteria. However, since then, the dispensation has been revoked.

One of our younger parishioners asked me this question about having to go to mass two days in a row, and I offered a math problem in response. Given our mass schedule, how many different possible combinations of masses would allow a person to satisfy both their participation in Sunday mass and mass for Christmas? The fifth-grade mind immediately wondered how a question designed to get them out of having to go to mass twice in two days became a math challenge. That’s the problem with having a troublesome Irish pastor… ;-)

Let’s just agree that there are bigger challenges confronting us in our lives than figuring out how we can avoid celebrating Eucharist together two days in a row on the very rare occasion when calendars bring together a Sunday and a major Holy Day such as Christmas. Check out our parish schedule of masses for next weekend, and enjoy the possibilities. Make plans with family for the best celebration.

On this third Sunday of Advent, the scriptures invite us into awareness of how God is present and at work in our lives… “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” The echo of Isaiah is familiar on our ears for two reasons, this Advent. Firstly, this is the passage that Jesus read at the beginning of his public ministry (cf Lk 4:14-21), and secondly, it is echoed in Mt 25:31-46 which was heard in our church a few short weeks ago. The idea that the quality of our relationship with God is made manifest in our relationships with “others”, with those on the “peripheries” of life of whom we are reminded by Pope Francis so often, is evident in the verses from the prophet:

“he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor,

to heal the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives

and release to the prisoners”

As we move headlong into the festivities of the season, it is good for us to remember that Christmas is not so much about being great, as much as it reminds us of how God comes among us in the most vulnerable of ways, not with power and triumph, but as an infant, totally reliant on the care and love of others. Christmas is less about noise and parties as much as it is about stillness and calm in our lives, prompted by focusing on those things and those relationships that are most important to us and most dear to us in life. Christmas is less about how great everything is in our lives and more about how we can embrace the God who comes towards us, emptying himself of everything so as to become utterly like us, to become utterly human. What humility God reveals as an integral part of what it means to be fully human.

Advent prompts us to pause, to reflect, to consider. All the many ways in which we engage in this season offer us wonderful opportunities to dig deeper within ourselves and to allow ourselves to explore meaning and significance in our lives. Enjoy the parties and the holiday chaos, certainly. But remember why we have them, and that for which we strive in raising up the best of our humanity amidst all the sometimes frenetic moments of these days.