Participants in the Spiritual Adoption Program pledge to pray for nine months for a baby in danger of abortion. While this child will remain unknown to his or her “spiritual parent,” God knows who the child is. We will celebrate with a “Birth-Day” party at the end of the nine months.
5:00pm Adoration
6:00pm Holy Mass
6:30pm Advent Lessons and Carols
Join us for the Parish Christmas Gathering after the 8:30 and 10:30am Masses.
These handcrafted crucifixes were made by a long-time parishioner and gifted artisan here at the parish from the 140-year-old bell tower wood and copper. These crucifixes are one-of-a-kind and priceless. Each ticket is $20.00. The crucifixes can be viewed in the display case in the back vestibule. Instructions on how to purchase a raffle ticket are outlined on the display case. The raffle drawing will take place when we reach $5,000.00 in sales.
Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth
Word on Fire Catholic Ministries is a nonprofit global media apostolate that supports the work of Bishop Robert Barron and reaches millions of people to draw them into - or back to - the Catholic Church.
Items for our ongoing food drive are now to be dropped off in the black bins in the hospitality room of the school building ONLY after the Sunday morning Masses. Items dropped off in the church will be immediately disposed of.
Unexpired items needed:
PLEASE—no items in boxes or bags at this time!
Thank you for your generosity to those who are in need.
In 2019, the Pew Forum released the results of a survey of Catholics that revealed that only one-third of those questioned subscribed to the Church's official teaching that Jesus is really, truly, and substantially present in the Eucharist under the signs or appearances of bread and wine.
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Come pray the Divine Office with us on Friday evenings before the 6:00 p.m. Mass and on Sundays at 9:40 a.m. (between the 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Masses)
WHAT IS THE LITURGY OF THE HOURS?
From the apostolic constitution Divino afflatu of Saint Pius X, pope
(AAS 3 [1911], 633-635)
The collection of psalms found in Scripture, composed as it was under divine inspiration, has, from the very beginnings of the Church, shown a wonderful power of fostering devotion among Christians as they offer to God a continuous sacrifice of praise, the harvest of lips blessing his name. Following a custom already established in the Old Law, the psalms have played a conspicuous part in the sacred liturgy itself, and in the divine office. Thus was born what Basil calls the voice of the Church, that singing of psalms, which is the daughter of that hymn of praise (to use the words of our predecessor, Urban VIII) which goes up unceasingly before the throne of God and of the Lamb, and which teaches those especially charged with the duty of divine worship, as Athanasius says, the way to praise God, and the fitting words in which to bless him. Augustine expresses this well when he says: God praised himself so that man might give him fitting praise; because God chose to praise himself man found the way in which to bless God.
The psalms have also a wonderful power to awaken in our hearts the desire for every virtue. Athanasius says: Though all Scripture, both old and new, is divinely inspired and has its use in teaching, as we read in Scripture itself, yet the Book of Psalms, like a garden enclosing the fruits of all the other books, produces its fruits in song, and in the process of singing brings forth its own special fruits to take their place beside them. In the same place Athanasius rightly adds: The psalms seem to me to be like a mirror, in which the person using them can see himself, and the stirrings of his own heart; he can recite them against the background of his own emotions. Augustine says in his Confessions: How I wept when I heard your hymns and canticles, being deeply moved by the sweet singing of your Church. Those voices flowed into my ears, truth filtered into my heart, and from my heart surged waves of devotion. Tears ran down, and I was happy in my tears.
Indeed, who could fail to be moved by those many passages in the psalms which set forth so profoundly the infinite majesty of God, his omnipotence, his justice and goodness and clemency, too deep for words, and all the other infinite qualities of his that deserve our praise? Who could fail to be roused to the same emotions by the prayers of thanksgiving to God for blessings received, by the petitions, so humble and confident, for blessings still awaited, by the cries of a soul in sorrow for sin committed? Who would not be fired with love as he looks on the likeness of Christ, the redeemer, here so lovingly foretold? His was the voice Augustine heard in every psalm, the voice of praise, of suffering, of joyful expectation, of present distress.
These two brothers spent over a decade in various forms of Protestantism, only to make an arduous intellectual and spiritual journey back to the Catholic Church. Tune into their lively dialogues, penetrating interviews, thoughtful film reviews, and sacred travels within the context of our ancient Faith.
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- Parishioners of St. Mary's.