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Worship Aid for Second Sunday in the Octave of Easter
Now accepting applications for PRE-Kindergarten in our school. Interested in joining our school community? We focus on faith formation, academic excellence, and community service. Visit our website: www.stbernschool.org/admissions-process/
Adults who, for whatever reason, are catechized but have never received the sacrament of Confirmation are invited to contact the office. Fr. Don will be planning a series of classes during the Easter Season in preparation for Confirmation with Bishop Burbidge on Pentecost Sunday.
All Saints Church Multi-Car Raffle is still in full swing. Four vehicles will be raffled along with a $20,000 cash drawing, plus other cash drawings. The final deadline for ticket returns is April 29th. The drawings begin at 1:00pm Saturday, May 3rd, at All Saints Parish in Manassas. Please return all tickets by mail directly to All Saints in the envelope provided.
We will celebrate our parish, Saint Bernadette, Feast Day on Monday, April 28, with a bilingual Mass at 7pm.
Worship Aid for Holy Thursday
Worship Aid for Good Friday
Worship Aid for Easter Vigil
Worship Aid for Easter (begins on page 7)
Holy Week is here. Celebrate with us the most beautiful and meaningful liturgies of the year as we enter the Mystery of our salvation in the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Principal liturgies are the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday at 7:30 pm, The Passion and Veneration of the Cross on Friday at 4 pm in Spanish, 7:30 in English, the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday at 8:30 pm. The Easter Sunday Mass schedule will be the same except for NO 5:00 pm Mass. Please see the bulletin for a complete schedule of the Sacred Triduum. Join us as we approach the Joy of Easter.
Join us for “Tre Ore,” the Seven Last Words of Jesus, in meditation and song on Good Friday from 12 to 3 pm. Limited confessions will be offered during the Tre Ore.
The Blessing of Easter foods will be on Holy Saturday at 10:00 am and we will pray together Morning Prayer and Office of Readings at 8AM Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Remember no Masses on Thursday morning, Friday or Saturday, except for the Vigil at 8:30 PM.
Please return your Rice Bowls. We would appreciate it if you could change the coins and bills into a check, but we will accept coins.
The ECHO Yard Sale returns to the school gym on Saturday, April 26, starting at 8 am.
Now accepting applications for PRE-Kindergarten in our school. Interested in joining our school community? We focus on faith formation, academic excellence, and community service. Visit our website: www.stbernschool.org/admissions-process/
Adults who, for whatever reason, are catechized but have never received the sacrament of Confirmation are invited to contact the office. Fr. Don will be planning a series of classes during the Easter Season in preparation for Confirmation with Bishop Burbidge on Pentecost Sunday.
All Saints Church Multi-Car Raffle is still in full swing. Four vehicles will be raffled along with a $20,000 cash drawing, plus other cash drawings. The final deadline for ticket returns is April 29th. The drawings begin at 1:00pm Saturday, May 3rd, at All Saints Parish in Manassas. Please return all tickets by mail directly to All Saints in the envelope provided.
The Parish Office will be closed on Good Friday and Easter Monday.
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
He claimed he is the Son of God. They crucified him. He knew it was coming.
The Friday Gospel before Palm Sunday has stayed with me as I write this letter. They picked up rocks to stone Jesus. They were going to take care of this business themselves; Pilate was a last resort.
Jesus asks them what good works from his Father earned him this judgment? They replied that it wasn’t for good works that he deserved to die, but for blasphemy. “You, a man, are making yourself God.”
“Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, ‘You are gods”’? If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be set aside, can you say that the one whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world blasphemes because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
“If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
The Apostles, on this day of resurrection, today, come to realize that what Jesus was saying was literally true. Is it possible that, knowing Jesus so well, that they wanted to believe this holy man but never really accepted the fact that he is the Son of God? I would imagine that came with a lot of hand wrenching and soul searching. It probably wasn’t just their persecutors whom they were hiding from in that upper room, it was from themselves.
Is this not the point to which we are confronted today? Do you really believe? Do we just take our parents’ word for it? Remember, God has no grandchildren. Or does it just seem to make more sense than all the other nonsense in the world, so we go with our best bet?
Do you really, deeply believe that Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead? He had raised others back to life, Jairus’ daughter, the widow of Nain’s son, Lazarus... these works might have been enough to bring people to faith. It would certainly be something no one had seen before. The Gospels and Epistles are filled with things that had never been seen or done before by men and women. Consider his transfiguration, for example.
Now we know his tomb is empty and he is again walking with us, appearing before us, eating meals with us. What part of this do we not believe?
It may seem I am belaboring this point, but if we truly, actually believed that Jesus is the Son of God, and that out of his unconditional love he has become one of us, and then offered himself in our place to the Father for the atonement of our sins – even if only we were partly able to grasp that this were true – would we not orient our every word, act, thought with Jesus at the center? Our study, activities, entertainments, occupations – wouldn’t they be led by this gratitude and joy because God has worked these wonders for us and for our salvation?
Jesus calls us to live faith authentically, with integrity. He is our life.
But, if I didn’t believe Jesus is the Son of God and I owe my life to him, it would make sense that the celebration of his resurrection on Sundays would be optional for me. I could choose the moments when I wanted to acknowledge him or not. I could lack generosity with my time, my talent and my treasure. I could live life some days as if he didn’t really matter to me, because maybe he doesn’t.
It was, after all, Jesus who said, “I came, not to be served, but to serve.” Imagine the difference Christianity could make in the world if it were used authentically, with integrity. To the people of Philippi Saint Paul writes:
Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Happy Easter!
The Lord be with you.
Dear Good People of St, Bernadette,
At the beginning of Holy Week, I thought I would provide a guide to parish liturgies so you figure out what you can fit in your schedules.
The Sacred Triduum is considered one continuous liturgy. It begins with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper (“As I have done, so you must also do”) on Holy Thursday night (7:30pm), and you will notice there is no blessing at the end: it continues. We process to the gym (the garden of Gethsemane) to pray with Jesus (“Father, let this chalice pass from me; your will be done”). At midnight he is taken from us, adoration ends, and Good Friday begins.
There are no sacraments celebrated on Good Friday. The Triduum liturgy continues with the reading of the Passion according to Saint John and the Veneration of the Cross and Communion service (7:30pm) with Eucharist that was consecrated at the Mass of the Last Supper the night before. The liturgy on Good Friday does not begin, it is a unity with the Mass on Holy Thursday, simply beginning with the symbol of the death of Jesus as the priests are prostrate on the floor and, after, simply disperses as the ministers randomly leave.
The liturgy of the Sacred Triduum continues with the Easter Vigil after sunset as we build a sacred fire with which we light the Paschal Candle, a sign of Jesus’ enduring presence with us. The light enters the church, and we listen to the ancient proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus, the Exsultet. In the ancient Tradition of the Church, we then sit in waiting, listening to the story of salvation throughout the Scriptures. In the ancient Church this would have lasted from sunset to dawn. Today we have seven readings and responses which represent that ancient vigil awaiting the resurrection. When we sing the Gloria (something we haven’t sung throughout the season of Lent), we witness the moment of resurrection and the Church rejoices with the proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus and the celebration of the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist. The Mass continues as usual and the liturgy of the Sacred Triduum ends with a final blessing and solemn alleluia.
Everything else we do during the three days are only supplemental to this one great observance of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus in three parts.
There are no Masses at any time between the Opening Mass of the Lord’s Supper and the Easter Vigil.
Extra things we include are Morning Prayer and the Office of Readings each morning (8am), and the Tre Ore, or Three Hours’ meditations on the the seven last words of Jesus in Scripture, song, and preaching from 12 to 3pm, the time we observe Jesus’ crucifixion. There is also a Stations of the Cross at 3pm on Good Friday (same as all the Fridays of Lent), but I wish there weren’t, because it seems like an alternative to the important service in the evening with the Veneration of the Cross and Communion. Some parishes have the Good Friday service at 3pm, but that would exclude all those who have to work on Good Friday, so we observe it in the evening at Saint Bernadette. Finally, there is a blessing of Easter foods according to the Eastern Rite tradition on Holy Saturday, something of an aberration, because the Easter holy water has not yet been blessed at the Vigil. In the Middle Ages, the Eucharistic fast from midnight was instituted, so the Easter Vigil was celebrated at 8am. At that point the Easter season began... so there would have been water. Vigils were restored by Vatican II.
The Lord be with you.
Worship Aid for Palm Sunday
Lenten Observances
Fasting: Food equivalent to one regular meal, one small meal – Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
Abstinence: No meat – ALL Fridays
Parish Soup Suppers: Fridays in Lent, 6pm
Stations of the Cross: Fridays, 7pm in English, 8pm in Spanish, in the church
Lent Confessions: Wednesdays, 6:30-8pm, Saturdays, 3:30-4:30pm (as usual). Please plan confessions early in the season to avoid running out of time.
Holy Week is here. Celebrate with us the most beautiful and meaningful liturgies of the year as we enter the Mystery of our salvation in the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Principal liturgies are the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday at 7:30 pm, The Passion and Veneration of the Cross on Friday at 4 pm in Spanish, 7:30 in English, the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday at 8:30 pm. The Easter Sunday Mass schedule will be the same except for NO 5:00 pm Mass. Please see the bulletin for a complete schedule of the Sacred Triduum. Join us as we approach the Joy of Easter.
Join us for “Tre Ore,” the Seven Last Words of Jesus, in meditation and song on Good Friday from 12 to 3 pm. Limited confessions will be offered during the Tre Ore.
The Blessing of Easter foods will be on Holy Saturday at 10:00 am and we will pray together Morning Prayer and Office of Readings at 8AM Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Remember no Masses on Thursday morning, Friday or Saturday, except for the Vigil at 8:30 PM.
Please return your Rice Bowls. We would appreciate it if you could change the coins and bills into a check, but we will accept coins.
The ECHO Yard Sale returns to the school gym on Saturday, April 26, starting at 8 am.
Now accepting applications for PRE-Kindergarten in our school. Interested in joining our school community? We focus on faith formation, academic excellence, and community service. Visit our website: www.stbernschool.org/admissions-process/
Adults who, for whatever reason, are catechized but have never received the sacrament of Confirmation are invited to contact the office. Fr. Don will be planning a series of classes during the Easter Season in preparation for Confirmation with Bishop Burbidge on Pentecost Sunday.
All Saints Church Multi-Car Raffle is still in full swing. Four vehicles will be raffled along with a $20,000 cash drawing, plus other cash drawings. The final deadline for ticket returns is April 29th. The drawings begin at 1:00pm Saturday, May 3rd, at All Saints Parish in Manassas. Please return all tickets by mail directly to All Saints in the envelope provided.
Thank you to all of the volunteers who made our Spring-Cleaning Day a tremendous success. The church looks fresh and clean as we enter into our Easter celebrations.
The Parish Office will be closed on Good Friday and Easter Monday.
Worship Aid for Fifth Sunday in Lent
Lenten Observances
Fasting: Food equivalent to one regular meal, one small meal – Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
Abstinence: No meat – ALL Fridays
Parish Soup Suppers: Fridays in Lent, 6pm
Stations of the Cross: Fridays, 7pm in English, 8pm in Spanish, in the church
Lent Confessions: Wednesdays, 6:30-8pm, Saturdays, 3:30-4:30pm (as usual). Please plan confessions early in the season to avoid running out of time.
Parish Penance Service: Tuesday, April 8, 6:30pm
Bishop’s Lenten Appeal continues we are currently 78% of our parish goal of $ 560,000. Pledge envelopes can be found in the pews of the church or visit : www.arlingtondiocese.org/BLA. Please indicate you are a parishioner on the envelope.
Now accepting applications for PRE-Kindergarten in our school. Interested in joining our school community? We focus on faith formation, academic excellence, and community service. Visit our website: www.stbernschool.org/admissions-process/
Come one, Come all! Saturday, 5 April 10am-2pm. Please come help spruce up the church in preparation for Easter. Many hands make light work. We will be working on pews, floors around the pews, candle areas, altar, and choir loft. https://signup.com/go/gOiQRAS
All Saints Church Multi-Car Raffle is still in full swing. Four vehicles will be raffled along with a $20,000 cash drawing, plus other cash drawings. The final deadline for ticket returns is April 29th. The drawings begin at 1:00pm Saturday, May 3rd, at All Saints Parish in Manassas. Please return all tickets by mail directly to All Saints in the envelope provided.
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
This past week we celebrated the Solem-nity of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It always surprises me because every year it is deep in the season of Lent and we are focusing on being reconciled to God preparing for the upcoming passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Doing the math, of course, Jesus is con-ceived by the Holy Spirit nine months before his birth — March 25. We just aren’t thinking about Christmas right now.
It occurs to me that the day deserves more significance than it receives, and could even qualify as a holy day. Culturally, we are conditioned to think of Christmas and Easter as the high feastdays the Church gathers around with special solemnity. Think of it: although Jesus’ birth and resurrection are central to faith, would not the incarnation, God entering into our humanity in Christ be as important, if not more, than his birth? By the time he is born, Jesus has already been living our humanity for nine months.
The feastday is titled the Annunciation because it makes very clear that Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit and this was confirmed by the message of the angel Gabriel, thus strengthening the dogma of the one person/two natures of Jesus. But it is the moment of conception that is the beginning of this new life of incarnation.
I think this would be the perfect oppor-tunity for the Church to use this feastday as a teaching moment. Didactic feastdays (like the Assumption of Mary or Immaculate Conception) are obligatory because they teach Church dogma through the living practice of the Church. One of the concepts one learns in theology is lex orandi, lex credendi, the law of praying is the law of believing.
This is the absolutely perfect feast for the Church to proclaim the sacredness of human life. A pro-life feastday rooted in the story of Jesus himself, no one would deny that the moment of Jesus’ conception by the Holy Spirit was the event of the Incarnation. All life is precious.
This is the Fourth Sunday of Lent, traditionally known as Laetare Sunday. Laetare, means to rejoice. It is proposed to us as a disposition for today, but it may not be your first reaction to Lent. We tend to tone down our celebrations during Lent to reflect a more meditative, even somber, mood. Sorrow for sin, penance, fasting. You may have noticed we haven’t been lighting the stained glass in the sanctuary, a kind of fasting for the eyes, as no recessional hymn is a kind of fasting for the ears.
But in the middle of it all, if you seek it, there still exists the kind of joy that is unshakeable even in adversity. Jesus certainly wasn’t happy on the cross, but there was a joy he sustained because he knew he was accomplishing his Father’s will. The little sacrifices we make (or the large ones, too) can be united to Christ in his self-gift to our loving Father, and we can know his joy and make it ours.
One last thing — someone asked me last weekend what the rocks were doing in front of the altar. I realized we put out the bucket of rocks and never told anyone about it. It is something I started at my last parish and brought it here, so most probably know about this already. I call it “Living Stones” and here is how it works: During the season of Lent, approach someone who has left or been away from the Church and invite them back. After you have personally made this invitation, you then take a stone from the container and place it in front of the altar.
The other thing I never mentioned is that those stones are there as a reminder that we must pray for these people after the invitation has been made. When you are at Mass, pray for the people represented by these stones. It might just be the prayer that will help them to feel welcome again. And tell them they are being remembered! In a certain sense, it will be like they have already been present to us if they decide to give faith another chance.
Like the feast of the Annunciation, in the silence of Lent allow yourself to be surprised by a moment of joy this weekend as with hope we observe the coming feasts.
The Lord be with you.
Worship Aid for Fourth Sunday in Lent
Lenten Observances
Fasting: Food equivalent to one regular meal, one small meal – Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
Abstinence: No meat – ALL Fridays
Parish Soup Suppers: Fridays in Lent, 6pm
Stations of the Cross: Fridays, 7pm in English, 8pm in Spanish, in the church
Lent Confessions: Wednesdays, 6:30-8pm, Saturdays, 3:30-4:30pm (as usual). Please plan confessions early in the season to avoid running out of time.
Parish Penance Service: Tuesday, April 8, 6:30pm
Bishop’s Lenten Appeal continues we are currently 78% of our parish goal of $ 560,000. Pledge envelopes can be found in the pews of the church or visit : www.arlingtondiocese.org/BLA. Please indicate you are a parishioner on the envelope.
Now accepting applications for PRE-Kindergarten in our school. Interested in joining our school community? We focus on faith formation, academic excellence, and community service. Visit our website: www.stbernschool.org/admissions-process/
Come one, Come all! Saturday, 5 April 10am-2pm. Please come help spruce up the church in preparation for Easter. Many hands make light work. We will be working on pews, floors around the pews, candle areas, altar, and choir loft. https://signup.com/go/gOiQRAS
All Saints Church Multi-Car Raffle is still in full swing. Four vehicles will be raffled along with a $20,000 cash drawing, plus other cash drawings. The final deadline for ticket returns is April 29th. The drawings begin at 1:00pm Saturday, May 3rd, at All Saints Parish in Manassas. Please return all tickets by mail directly to All Saints in the envelope provided.
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
This past week we celebrated the Solem-nity of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It always surprises me because every year it is deep in the season of Lent and we are focusing on being reconciled to God preparing for the upcoming passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Doing the math, of course, Jesus is con-ceived by the Holy Spirit nine months before his birth — March 25. We just aren’t thinking about Christmas right now.
It occurs to me that the day deserves more significance than it receives, and could even qualify as a holy day. Culturally, we are conditioned to think of Christmas and Easter as the high feastdays the Church gathers around with special solemnity. Think of it: although Jesus’ birth and resurrection are central to faith, would not the incarnation, God entering into our humanity in Christ be as important, if not more, than his birth? By the time he is born, Jesus has already been living our humanity for nine months.
The feastday is titled the Annunciation because it makes very clear that Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit and this was confirmed by the message of the angel Gabriel, thus strengthening the dogma of the one person/two natures of Jesus. But it is the moment of conception that is the beginning of this new life of incarnation.
I think this would be the perfect oppor-tunity for the Church to use this feastday as a teaching moment. Didactic feastdays (like the Assumption of Mary or Immaculate Conception) are obligatory because they teach Church dogma through the living practice of the Church. One of the concepts one learns in theology is lex orandi, lex credendi, the law of praying is the law of believing.
This is the absolutely perfect feast for the Church to proclaim the sacredness of human life. A pro-life feastday rooted in the story of Jesus himself, no one would deny that the moment of Jesus’ conception by the Holy Spirit was the event of the Incarnation. All life is precious.
This is the Fourth Sunday of Lent, traditionally known as Laetare Sunday. Laetare, means to rejoice. It is proposed to us as a disposition for today, but it may not be your first reaction to Lent. We tend to tone down our celebrations during Lent to reflect a more meditative, even somber, mood. Sorrow for sin, penance, fasting. You may have noticed we haven’t been lighting the stained glass in the sanctuary, a kind of fasting for the eyes, as no recessional hymn is a kind of fasting for the ears.
But in the middle of it all, if you seek it, there still exists the kind of joy that is unshakeable even in adversity. Jesus certainly wasn’t happy on the cross, but there was a joy he sustained because he knew he was accomplishing his Father’s will. The little sacrifices we make (or the large ones, too) can be united to Christ in his self-gift to our loving Father, and we can know his joy and make it ours.
One last thing — someone asked me last weekend what the rocks were doing in front of the altar. I realized we put out the bucket of rocks and never told anyone about it. It is something I started at my last parish and brought it here, so most probably know about this already. I call it “Living Stones” and here is how it works: During the season of Lent, approach someone who has left or been away from the Church and invite them back. After you have personally made this invitation, you then take a stone from the container and place it in front of the altar.
The other thing I never mentioned is that those stones are there as a reminder that we must pray for these people after the invitation has been made. When you are at Mass, pray for the people represented by these stones. It might just be the prayer that will help them to feel welcome again. And tell them they are being remembered! In a certain sense, it will be like they have already been present to us if they decide to give faith another chance.
Like the feast of the Annunciation, in the silence of Lent allow yourself to be surprised by a moment of joy this weekend as with hope we observe the coming feasts.
The Lord be with you.
Worship Aid for Third Sunday in Lent
Lenten Observances
Fasting: Food equivalent to one regular meal, one small meal – Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
Abstinence: No meat – ALL Fridays
Parish Soup Suppers: Fridays in Lent, 6pm
Stations of the Cross: Fridays, 7pm in English, 8pm in Spanish, in the church
Lent Confessions: Wednesdays, 6:30-8pm, Saturdays, 3:30-4:30pm (as usual). Please plan confessions early in the season to avoid running out of time.
Parish Penance Service: Tuesday, April 8, 6:30pm
Join us for our monthly (third Monday) Taizé Prayer Service on Monday night, March 24, 8 - 8:45pm. Come for a peaceful moment of simple song and silence and pray for unity.
Bishop’s Lenten Appeal continues we are currently 65 of our parish goal of $ 560,000. Pledge envelopes can be found in the pews of the church or visit : www.arlingtondiocese.org/BLA. Please indicate you are a parishioner on the envelope.
Now accepting applications for PRE-Kindergarten in our school. Interested in joining our school community? We focus on faith formation, academic excellence, and community service. Visit our website: www.stbernschool.org/admissions-process/
All women in the parish are invited to a Lenten Night of Reflection with a special talk given by Fr. Don, Saturday, March 29th from 7-9:00pm in the Saint Bernadette School Gym. Please join us for refreshments and for small group discussion.
Come one, Come all! Saturday, 5 April 10am-2pm. Please come help spruce up the church in preparation for Easter. Many hands make light work. We will be working on pews, floors around the pews, candle areas, altar, and choir loft. https://signup.com/go/gOiQRAS
All Saints Church Multi-Car Raffle is still in full swing. Four vehicles will be raffled along with a $20,000 cash drawing, plus other cash drawings. The final deadline for ticket returns is April 29th. The drawings begin at 1:00pm Saturday, May 3rd, at All Saints Parish in Manassas. Please return all tickets by mail directly to All Saints in the envelope provided.