From our Pastor’s Desk

Dear Family:

Every Liturgical Year is an opportunity to speak about Christ, to live in Christ, to deepen our faith in, hope in and love for Christ, to enter into the mysteries of Christ, the mysteries of our Salvation and to experience anew the ever-abiding presence of Him. Every Liturgical Year is a period to celebrate Christ the Emmanuel, sent by the Father and made known to us and ever present in our midst by the Holy Spirit; and to make ever present the merits of His Salvific Mission through all the History of Salvation.

The Advent Season opens the door unto us in this journey of faith as we strive to make Christ palpable to our brothers and sisters, in the spirit of His holiness, in the fullness of His power, in the perfection of His ways, in the truth of His virtues, in the communion of His mysteries by the assistance of the unmerited graces of the Holy Spirit and for the glory of the Father. Like other years, the Year A of the Liturgical Cycle is unique in various ways, especially for the fact that the greatest percentage of the Gospel Readings of the Sunday of this year, with the exception of the Easter Season, is taken from the Gospel of Saint Matthew. Hence, it is also known as the Year of Saint Matthew.

The word Advent is a term derived from the Latin “Adventus” which means coming. This season has it main focus as the preparation for the two comings of Christ; first His coming at the end of time “in glory to judge the living and the dead” (From the First Sunday of Advent to the 16th of December) and second, the first coming of Christ over two thousand years ago in the town of Bethlehem in Judaea which will be commemorated at Christmas; “for us men and for us our Salvation He came down from heaven and by the Holy Spirit, was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.”

The Advent Season is a season of expectation, preparation and penance, and most importantly of hope which is seen in the color purple worn throughout this Season. St. Augustine summed up the mood of this season well when he prayed: “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you.” Our hearts are made for God. Our souls long for communion with God. During Advent we are meant to taste this restlessness and this longing, to take stock of our lives, to check our direction and to await with expectation the special grace that God promises to offer us at Christmas. Charged by this mood, the Responsorial Psalm invites us to sing with a joyful hope “I rejoiced because they said to me, ‘We will go up to the house of the Lord.’”

The readings of today lift our minds and heart in expectation towards the One Who will “come again to judge the living and the dead” and at the same time charge us to prepare always to welcome Him in a worthy manner. This admonition is very important in order to stand against all those who purport, in different forms and manners, to know the exact date the world will end. The Lord Himself made it clear in the Gospel Reading of today, “stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.” Staying awake means to be ever ready, never succumbing to the promptings of the devil, the prince of darkness; always prepared to meet with the Lord. The mission of the devil is to transform us into opaque objects. On the other hand, God is Light and He comes to make us luminous and transparent. The graces of God, emanating from Light Himself, never flourish in opaque vessels.

Hence, the Season of Advent is always an invitation to transparency; pitching of our tents in the light for in the words of Saint Paul in the Second Reading, “the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day.” This invitation to be illuminated and be transparent is very basic because the One we are expecting is the Light and in Him there is no darkness and surely darkness has nothing to do with the Light. It is this Light that establishes the House of God and makes it the light of the world (Lumen Gentium); and the rays of this Light fills the heart of all those invited to this House with joy. It is this same Light that transforms all those who belong to this Household of the Light into agents of light. Hence, at the end, those who will live with Him forever are those who follow the path of light; “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”

With these thoughts in mind, I want to invite you to come to this year’s Advent Reflection on Tuesday, December 2nd at 8:00 pm. The theme and title of the reflection is. “The Eternal Bethlehem of the Tabernacle,” that Fr. Saul and I will present to you. We find that in general, the faithful need to understand better who Jesus is. He is in the Eucharist that remains waiting for you in the Tabernacle. He is the Sacred Meal that we are all invited to partake. He is the Source and Summit of our faith. I hope to see many of you that night; come and learn. “Come and see,” as the Lord himself said.

May our pilgrimage throughout the Liturgical Seasons of this new Liturgical Year bring us nearer to God, and make our relationship in faith with Him stronger, our love for Him deeper and heighten our hope on Him and widen and make clearer our knowledge of Him. As we journey through this Liturgical Year, may we be faithful and luminous followers of Christ and fruitful in works of charity as we wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we may be One Body, One Spirit, One Family!

Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Katharine Drexel, Saint Michael the Archangel, St. José Gregorio Hernández, Pope Saint Pius X, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Charbel, pray for us.

Yours in Christ Jesus!
Fr. Omar