Dear Friends,
Our “Spread the Light” is on! With our Christmas Trees lighting and Manger blessing this weekend, we are making our festival season more visible and charming. We are so very grateful to all those who happily sponsored the Christmas trees. They will be excited to see the names of their dear ones memorialized with a laminated plaque on each tree. As it happened last year, I’m sure that this year too we will see numerous people – parishioners and visitors alike – stopping by to enjoy the enchanting sight, especially at night, reminding all what these trees surrounding the manger symbolize: the love of God manifested at the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.
This huge project became a reality due to the hard work of so many. JoAnn Piagentini and Pat Cullen took the lead to make this a reality with their indefatigable spirit, hard work, and optimism. The parish staff, especially Vinnie Natale, Nathalie Godet, Mary Pat Burke-Grospin, Julio Montero, Anthony Baio, Sue Lenczewski, Joan Seamon, Amy Hanna and Kelly Counts contributed much to this project. Many volunteer groups like the Knights of Columbus, Boy Scouts, youths from our parish, St. Joe’s and even from Seton Hall gave their time and energy on two Saturdays to set up and decorate them, enduring the cold and windy weather. We are glad that Patrick Gianotto from Franklin Electric is providing us with the electrical services. Numerous other volunteers – too many to name here – gave their time to make this happen. We were blessed to receive a substantial amount as seed money for this endeavor from Bill Gleason of the Gleason Funeral Home. In the name of the parish community, I am truly grateful to all people of good will who helped in one way or other with this wonderful project that lights up not only our church compound but also our hearts.
This year the annual feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary – December 8 – falls today. Since Sunday takes precedence over other feasts, this solemn feast is transferred to tomorrow. This dogma proclaims that our Blessed Mother was conceived without original sin. It refers to the conception of Mary in the womb of her mother Anne, even though the gospel we hear at Mass this day is about the conception of Jesus. The relevance of this feast for us is to see in Mary an example of what God can do in a person and what we can do, if we put ourselves in God’s hands and at God’s service as Mary did. It will enable us to remain free from sin as much as humanly possible with God’s grace. I invite you to attend the 8 am Mass. Being a working day, it is understandable that many cannot attend. But when you come home from work, why not access our YouTube channel and join that Mass as the concluding act of this important day?
It is interesting to note that there are two more feasts of our Blessed Mother this week. On 10th is the feast of Our Lady of Loreto. According to tradition, the Holy House of Loreto is the birthplace of Mary, the home of the Holy Family, and the site of the Annunciation. Then we have the very poplar feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on 12th. This Catholic holiday honors Mary, Mexico’s patron saint who is also referred as the Lady of the Americas. Mary’s appearance to Juan Diego, a peasant, in 1531, is a powerful reminder that Mary – and the God who sent her – accept all peoples and that we are all God’s loving children.
Your brother in Christ,
Fr. Abraham Orapankal