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Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
Every year I have the best intentions of writing out Christmas cards. It hasn’t happened in a few years, the last time I accomplished it I spent most of the holiday up until Epiphany and sent cards with the three wise men on the front. It has just become too much of a task, so this year I sent email cards. I particularly like this image of the Holy Family, they look so beautiful. I searched for its source but could not find anything on it. So here is my Christmas card to all of you.
This year, what if we were to live as if we actually believed:
—that everything we do can bring benefit or harm to all of God’s creation, whether publicly known or in secret?
—that Jesus’ law is a law of love, not judgement? Just love, and leave the judgement to a just and merciful God.
—that there is no place for fear? I hear increasingly from people in my generation who are realizing that life in the Church when we were children was based more in fear of God than in love. Unconditional love was not a concept, really. And I am surprised at the number of adults who are finding the courage today to say that they want more. They want a real relationship with God. Let’s work on this in the new year.
—that we can’t ever fully exhaust knowing God until we are with him in eternity, and eternity is really worth working toward, looking forward to? It is the most important thing. Because we can’t understand all the mysteries of faith doesn’t mean we are somehow deficient, only that we are human. We have the ability to learn, to know more. In the coming year let’s commit to studying and growing together as a community in the knowledge of God and his Son, Jesus.
—that we have already received our superpowers? It is the Mass: we actively participate in the offering of Jesus, as Jesus to the Father, for the salvation of the world. You can save the world, with God, in Jesus. If people really believed this, I mean, really believed this, there would not be enough Catholic churches in the world and not enough Masses in the hours of the day. Just think about it. We have already received everything we need to be powerful, and effective, and holy. You are holy.
This holiday I am cleaning out my office from the boxes of stuff we moved there when we turned my old office into a second Preschool classroom. The offices were only going to be temporary as we were going to renovate the space with the new Parish Hall. When the budget got cut, so did the office renovation, so I am going through stuff that has been packed away in my small office for seven years. I came across a whole box of cards that I had printed in various colors - the cards say YOU ARE HOLY.
When I came to Saint Bernadette I was struck by the sense that you didn’t believe this. For whatever reason, you either were told otherwise or not treated as holy people. But holiness isn’t something you can lose. It is because God made you that you are holy. Our actions can overshadow the truth and we can choose darkness, but that has no power over the fact that you are still holy. I’m going to put a basket of these cards in the vestibule. Take some, and give them to everyone you know! Happy new year.
The Lord be with you.
Worship Aid for the Feast of the Holy Family
Celebrating the Christmas Season
Dec 29 - FEAST of the HOLY FAMILY
Regular Saturday Vigil / Sunday schedule
Jan 1 - MARY, MOTHER of GOD
(IS a Holy Day of Obligation this year)
Regular Holy Day schedule:
Tuesday Vigil 7:30pm
Wednesday 7 & 9am, Noon, 7:30pm (bilingual)
Jan 5 - EPIPHANY of the LORD
Regular Saturday Vigil / Sunday schedule
Jan 12 -The BAPTISM of the LORD
The Christmas season ends today with our regular Saturday Vigil / Sunday schedule
Parish Office are closed for the Christmas holiday through January 1. We will reopen Thursday, 2 January.
Join fellow parishioners at this prayerful, peaceful event on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Friday, January 24. Saint Bernadette will provide a bus if there are enough reservations. Please sign up at https://tinyurl.com/42tnedb4 by January 5. There won’t be any cost to ride the bus, but we would like to ask you to bring items for the Baby Supply Drive (flyer coming soon). Questions? Call the office.
Saint Bernadette School will celebrate the start of Catholic Schools Week with an Open House being held on Sunday January 26. More details to come. See what Saint Bernadette School has to offer your family.
All volunteers involved in parish ministry and their spouses are invited to our annual celebration. The Night of Stars will be held on February 8, 2025. Please contact the parish office to RSVP. Details on page 12.
Please note that there is NO Taizé Ecumenical Prayer Service this month due to School Christmas Pageant in the Church. We will resume next month on January 20 at 8:15pm.
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
Creator and creature, divine and human... look and see that already in Jesus creation is being restored, to be completed on the Cross and empty tomb, but well underway. Why? because God is Love, and Jesus is love incarnate, completely humble, helpless, and absolutely, irresistibly loveable. We study more about the how as time unfolds. Time is the invention of human science, which seeks to explain the unexplainable.
The world needs to see anew this unfolding story of salvation, not as some kind of problem to be solved, but as an act of love from God, who is Love Itself.
Let’s reflect on what we have seen. Theologians often refer to Jesus as the second Adam and Mary as the second Eve. Like a reboot of the system. Part of this includes the understanding of the early century Fathers of the Church that we are all intimately interconnected: God created us as one unity not as humans, but as humanity. In language that is now misunderstood as non-inclusive, it is easier to use men, and Man (capital M meaning mankind). God made us one and everything we do, good or evil, somehow touches every person in humanity, past, present, future. Think of the saints and how we still benefit from their virtue and holiness. We pray for our ancestors and have the power to alter the course of their final disposition. Also consider the generational damage that our social, corporate, and environmental sins have on all. The sin of one touches all, as did the original sin of the first Adam.
If we fast forward to the exulted, the ancient blessing of the Easter candle at the Easter vigil, we hear chanted:
“O wonder of your humble care for us!
O love, O charity beyond all telling,
to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!”
The only thing that can undo the original sinfulness of Man is the absolute sinlessness of God become Man. Similarly, the yes of Mary, the second Eve, reboots the no of Eve. In the manger lies a new being completely, truly God, truly Man.
In our desire to relate to what is happening, we often like to imagine ourselves in that circumstance. In our meditation at this moment, however, we can’t imagine ourselves infants, and certainly not as God. We can only imagine what it must have been like to behold this miracle Child as Mary who certainly couldn’t explain any of this, or as Joseph, who was holding onto the lifeline of faith with what he was told by an angel.
So what we have seen in Bethlehem started literally with creation. Did God know all of this was going to unfold like this?
This is where many people fall into the misunderstanding about predestination. If God had all this planned out -- original sin, incarnation, redemption -- what does it matter? Do my choices matter?
There are a few pillars of thought that need to come together at once. Of course, God’s will was totally free to share himself and create. God made Man with a totally free will to choose him, and therefore imperfect. Otherwise, love would be meaningless. Many would say that despite the fact that God foreknew what happens, he didn’t tamper with the free will of Adam and Eve, or of Mary the Mother of God, or the free will of his own Son in offering himself on our behalf, for us and for our salvation.
You must remember that for God, there is no time. This is a hard one to wrap your mind around. God sees all of it all at once. Can you try to imagine what it looks like if creation and redemption and salvation are all in one infinitely small moment? It unfolds for us because we have invented time to chart seasons and cause and effect. We record things as history. One thing necessarily must follow the other. But not with God.
And it is perfectly okay not to be able to explain it. An old friend long ago liked to say it isn’t true because the Church says it’s true. The Church says it is true because it is. Some things permeate and endure through it all, through all time: what is good, or true, or beautiful. The point is not not to get stuck on how it happens, but why? And the only answer can be Love.
And so this infinite, perfect Love which keeps us all in being is now seen in the beautiful face of a human child.
The Lord be with you.
Worship Aid for the Feast of the Holy Family
Celebrating the Christmas Season
Dec 29 - FEAST of the HOLY FAMILY
Regular Saturday Vigil / Sunday schedule
Jan 1 - MARY, MOTHER of GOD
(IS a Holy Day of Obligation this year)
Regular Holy Day schedule:
Tuesday Vigil 7:30pm
Wednesday 7 & 9am, Noon, 7:30pm (bilingual)
Jan 5 - EPIPHANY of the LORD
Regular Saturday Vigil / Sunday schedule
Jan 12 -The BAPTISM of the LORD
The Christmas season ends today with our regular Saturday Vigil / Sunday schedule
Parish Office are closed for the Christmas holiday through January 1. We will reopen Thursday, 2 January.
Join fellow parishioners at this prayerful, peaceful event on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Friday, January 24. Saint Bernadette will provide a bus if there are enough reservations. Please sign up at https://tinyurl.com/42tnedb4 by January 5. There won’t be any cost to ride the bus, but we would like to ask you to bring items for the Baby Supply Drive (flyer coming soon). Questions? Call the office.
Saint Bernadette School will celebrate the start of Catholic Schools Week with an Open House being held on Sunday January 26. More details to come. See what Saint Bernadette School has to offer your family.
All volunteers involved in parish ministry and their spouses are invited to our annual celebration. The Night of Stars will be held on February 8, 2025. Please contact the parish office to RSVP. Details on page 12.
Please note that there is NO Taizé Ecumenical Prayer Service this month due to School Christmas Pageant in the Church. We will resume next month on January 20 at 8:15pm.
Worship Aid for the Christmas Vigil
Worship Aid for Midnight Mass and Christmas Day
Merry Christmas to all! Wishing blessings for the new year.
Dec 24 - CHRISTMAS EVE VIGIL MASSES
4:30pm,
8:30pm (preceded by Choir Carol Prelude at 8pm)
Midnight Mass • 12am (preceded by Choir Prelude of Carols at 11:30pm)
Dec 25 - CHRISTMAS DAY MASSES
Midnight Mass
7, 9, 11am & 1pm (en español)
Note: There is NO 5pm Mass
Dec 29 - FEAST of the HOLY FAMILY
Regular Saturday Vigil / Sunday schedule
Jan 1 - MARY, MOTHER of GOD
(IS a Holy Day of Obligation this year)
Regular Holy Day schedule:
Tuesday Vigil 7:30pm
Wednesday 7 & 9am, Noon, 7:30pm (bilingual)
Jan 5 - EPIPHANY of the LORD
Regular Saturday Vigil / Sunday schedule
Jan 12 -The BAPTISM of the LORD
The Christmas season ends today with our regular Saturday Vigil / Sunday schedule
Parish Office are closed for the Christmas holiday through January 1. We will reopen Thursday, 2 January.
Join fellow parishioners at this prayerful, peaceful event on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Friday, January 24. Saint Bernadette will provide a bus if there are enough reservations. Please sign up at https://tinyurl.com/42tnedb4 by Jan. 5. There won’t be any cost to ride the bus, but we would like to ask you to bring items for the Baby Supply Drive (flyer coming soon). Questions? Call the office.
Saint Bernadette School will celebrate the start of Catholic Schools Week with an Open House being held on Sunday January 26. More details to come. See what Saint Bernadette School has to offer your family.
All volunteers involved in parish ministry and their spouses are invited to our annual celebration. The Night of Stars will be held on February 8, 2025. Please contact the parish office to RSVP by 31 January. Details on page 12.
Please note that there is NO Taizé Ecumenical Prayer Service this month due to School Christmas Pageant in the Church. We will resume next month on January 20 at 8:15pm.
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
(continued from Sunday, December 22)
We want so badly to think that we are all we need and we can have God all figured out, but we aren’t, and we can’t. And that is okay because that is who God is and who we are, but it doesn’t mean give up. It means go to work on that relationship and try to find the reason why all this is happening.
We are frustrated in our failure to learn how, when we should be focusing on why. Not how Christmas, but why Christmas? And, by extension, not how Eucharist, but why?
Not how God is a friend, a companion, a savior, but why: God is Love Itself. And how unlikely and relatively impossible that would seem from our human perspective!
God is not a being. God is Being Itself.
If God stopped thinking of us we would cease to be.
But God chose to do everything for us because God is Love. Because of his giving us life and of his love, we must go to work rather than give up. (Did you know that in the Greek of Jesus’ time the word for “work” was “liturgy?”)
So, to become us he became who we are, not who we would like to be. He became a human baby, completely humble, helpless, and absolutely, irresistibly loveable. He reveals to us how he regards us and who we are in the way in which he becomes us in Jesus Christ.
When you look at Jesus in complete poverty in a trough for feeding animals who do you see? Hopefully, I see myself. Also I realize there is a plan because the One whose plan is unfolding contains a lot of unknowns, but the one thing certain is that he is Love. Don’t waste time on how, just focus on why.
As I have been reflecting on the nature of salvation in recent bulletins, the work of God’s redemption was not something new. It was a restoration of what was already the intention of God’s creation interrupted by our sin. The first Adam and the first Eve walked with God in the garden. (Again, let’s not focus on the how, but the why.) They beheld God, but they didn’t really know him and were swayed (maybe easily, or maybe with great deliberation) by the temptation of the devil to think they had God all figured out. The snake-thinking was pride, and they decided they were greater than they were. God was trying to keep them from being like Godself, to keep all the power for himself. That is what the devil does, he twists the truth and calls it truth. If God is the same as us, then why not? We can be him. The irony was, and I think this is important, they already were in union with their Creator, though creatures, according to God’s plan. To be human is to be okay: look at Jesus in the manger, Creator and creature. (Again, let’s not focus on the how, but the why.)
So sin happened, pride, “human” was no longer good enough, and they had to hide.
Creator and creature, divine and human... look and see that already in Jesus creation is being restored, to be completed on the
Cross and empty tomb, but well under-way. Why? because God is Love, and Jesus is love incarnate, completely humble, helpless, and absolutely, irresistibly loveable. Worry about how as the gift of time unfolds, the invention of human science, which seeks to explain the unexplainable.
The world needs to re-see this unfolding story of salvation, not as some kind of analytical crisis, but as an act of love from God, who is Love.
Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones!
The Lord be with you.
Worship Aid for the Fourth Sunday in Advent
Celebrating the Christmas Season
Dec 24 - CHRISTMAS EVE VIGIL MASSES
4:30pm,
8:30pm (preceded by Choir Carol Prelude at 8pm)
Midnight Mass • 12am (preceded by Choir Prelude of Carols at 11:30pm)
Dec 25 - CHRISTMAS DAY MASSES
Midnight Mass
7, 9, 11am & 1pm (en español)
Note: There is NO 5pm Mass
Dec 29 - FEAST of the HOLY FAMILY
Regular Saturday Vigil / Sunday schedule
Jan 1 - MARY, MOTHER of GOD
(IS a Holy Day of Obligation this year)
Regular Holy Day schedule:
Tuesday Vigil 7:30pm
Wednesday 7 & 9am, Noon, 7:30pm (bilingual)
Jan 5 - EPIPHANY of the LORD
Regular Saturday Vigil / Sunday schedule
Jan 12 -The BAPTISM of the LORD
The Christmas season ends today with our regular Saturday Vigil / Sunday schedule
Please note that there is NO Taizé Ecumenical Prayer Service this month due to School Christmas Pageant in the Church. We will resume next month on January 20 at 8:15pm.
Join fellow parishioners at this prayerful, peaceful event on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Friday, January 24. Saint Bernadette will provide a bus if there are enough reservations. Please sign up at https://tinyurl.com/42tnedb4 by January 5.
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
Now, in the middle of the Christmas Mystery, we need to stop for a moment and consider: “What is actually happening here?” Most people are not looking for some kind of theological presentation, although a little knowledge can change your life. Book knowledge is good (and we should be reading what we can), but we can only begin to imagine the immensity of God and his love. Saint Thomas Aquinas, after a life of writing many volumes of theology, realized that all he wrote is “just grass” when compared to the reality, the truth of God. God is ultimately inscrutible, unfathomable, totally other than we are. We are made by him simply in his “likeness” which means we get a glimpse of him in ourselves. What is most important is to look inside our lives, our hearts, and ask what is really happening with me in my life with God and this community?
Most people have an elementary school understanding of God, at best. No wonder the average age of people who have left the Church is 12 years of age...but how can that be, that such a profound decision can be made (or allowed to be made by their parents) without any real reflection or understanding. We can understand God, by the way, by what he has revealed to us in our own existence from him, his Word, and his powerful deeds in human history. These are real and reliable. The problem is that for many, “behold” means we must also explain, but human beings simply don’t have the words sufficient to describe God’s self-revelation or the eyes to endure the infinite horizon of God.
I’m writing this on December 11 due to bulletin printing deadlines, and I want to print (at left) this morning’s first daily Mass reading, from the prophet Isaiah. God has no equal has created the ends of the earth, his knowledge is beyond scrutiny.
So why, then, do we tend to think of him as an equal, or even an adversary, as if we could begin to compare to him in even the smallest sense?
Yet, it is the same prophet Isaiah who is the one who speaks most about the divine redeemer, the Messiah, the suffering servant who will come from God to save us. How do we reconcile these two revelations? Or are we even supposed to? You see, we are trying to apply science, which is merely the human attempt to explain and make sense of that which simply can’t be explained. For this reason we have faith.
We want so badly to think that we are all we need and we can have God all figured out, but we aren’t, and we can’t. And that is okay because that is who God is and who we are, but it doesn’t mean give up. It means go to work on that relationship and try to find the reason why all this is happening.
We are frustrated in our failure to learn how, when we should be focusing on why. Not how Christmas, but why Christmas? And, by extension, not how Eucharist, but why?
Not how God is a friend, a companion, a savior, but why: God is Love Itself. And how unlikely and relatively impossible that would seem from our human perspective!
God is not a being. God is Being Itself.
If God stopped thinking of us we would cease to be.
But God chose to do everything for us because God is Love. Because of his giving us life and of his love, we must go to work rather than give up. (Did you know that in the Greek of Jesus’ time the word for work was “liturgy?”)
So, to become us he became who we are, not who we would like to be. He became a human baby, completely humble, helpless, and absolutely, irresistibly loveable. He reveals to us how he regards us and who we are in the way in which he becomes us in Jesus Christ.
When you look at Jesus in complete poverty in a trough for feeding animals who do you see? Hopefully, I see myself. Also I realize there is a plan because the One whose plan is unfolding is a lot of unknowns, but the one thing certain is that he is Love.
For that reason we must seek humility, we must recognize our helpless and complete dependence on him, our origin in the Holy Spirit and children of our Mother, Mary. We must admit our poverty and our absolute need for God who alone can be our help, and our hope for eternal life, where all will be known, all will be understood, all will be explained. On that day, not now.
The Lord be with you.
Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,
It has been a crazy season, crazier than ever. And I don’t know if you noticed, parish life has become non-stop. I included a photo of last week’s breakfast with Santa/classroom Christmas tree raffle/Christmas shop below because I have never seen so many people packed in our cafeteria/gym for such a successful and joyful parish family event. People just came coming all morning! It underlined how badly we need a parish hall (page 9)! Thanks to all our PTO leaders, teachers, parents, and staff who brought so much Christmas joy to our parish. I am definitely a proud Father of my amazing family!
As things are busy and our spaces are pretty much completely booked, I wanted to give some reminders about time limits and security. Last year we invested much in programmable keys for many of the doors on the property to allow access to various buildings and zones of buildings as well as to limit access so people aren’t in the building when they are not scheduled. This is for liability as well as to make sure the wrong people aren’t gaining access to the buildings. We ask -- whatever the meeting might be, Women’s Group or CYO, please do not leave doors propped open.
Also, you may notice during the week (at least during school hours) that only one door is unlocked at either end of the church vestibule. This added security is not intended to frustrate anyone. Coming up the steps for daily Mass you will find the right-hand door open. On rare occasions the church also may be locked temporarily for special school use
Another big item in our security plan was installed this fall, the security gate on the road alongside the rectory leading to the school. The gates are closed during the school day (after morning carpool and open before afternoon carpool), and then close at 9pm. Use of buildings is to end at 9pm regardless of who is using them. This has always been the rule. If, for some reason, you need to go to the school after 9pm, you will need to park in the lower lots and walk up. If you are leaving after hours, drive up to the gate slowly; when you are near it will open so you can exit. If you need special access during the school day when the gate is closed, there is a video callbox on the left which will connect you with staff on call who will provide entry.
It is a shame that in today’s world we must be so aware of security issues, but it is all about the safety of the children.
You are our eyes and ears as people who help with security. As always, if you see something strange don’t overlook it, and inquire of a stranger if there is something you can do to help them, or contact parish staff who will be standing by.
The Lord be with you.
Today's Live-Streamed
Worship Aid for the Third Sunday in Advent
The Springfield Council of the Knights of Columbus will be selling Christmas trees in the lower parking lot from November 30 through December 20. Please support the charitable work of the Council by purchasing your tree from the Knights. The lot is open from 5pm to 9pm on weekdays and 9am to 9pm on weekends.
Saint Bernadette Music Ministry and Lector Ministry present carols, hymns, choral music and scripture readings from the rich treasury of the Advent Season. The event free, please bring family and friends! Friday, December 13 at 7:30pm in the Church.
Everyone is encouraged to participate in our Parish Bake Sale December 14 - 15 by contributing baked goods, helping with setup and cleanup, or shopping during the sale. All proceeds support our Capital Campaign.
Our Parish will celebrate the sacrament of Reconciliation as a parish with 16 priests present on Tuesday, December 17 at 6:30pm. Please mark your calendars and plan to join us.
Please note that there is NO Taizé Ecumenical Prayer Service this month due to School Christmas Pageant in the Church. We will resume next month on January 20 at 8:15pm.