Christmas
Bishop’s Corner
A Blessed Christmas, a truly Merry Christmas, to you all! Christmas, “Christ’s Mass”. Some days how we love to remember the origin and true meaning of this word, Christ’s Mass, which is the means of every grace and blessing from above, and which we share with one another here below, during these happy, these holy days, of the Child’s birth.
Some who read these lines and receive these greetings hear Mass regularly throughout the week, or faithfully every Sunday. Others only long for the consolation of Christ’s Mass this Christmas, for they have it not. Since charity is much a part of this season, adopt some soul or family far away from Mass, and longing for it, or those who have left this precious gift long unopened beneath Calvary’s Christmas Tree, never considering its value, busy with the ephemera of life.
Always have an intention for your Mass and Holy Communion. Have several. Share the wealth. Be filled with holy desires. Don’t stop there. “Send your angel to Holy Mass,” and unite yourself daily with Christt Sacrifice of sublime submission and atonement, every good and holy Mass throughout the world. Make a sincere, even if short, Spiritual Communion at least daily, but many times a day. What a treasure is yours! Deplete it. Spend it. Lavish it on unlovely and unloving souls, whom Jesus loves, and for whom He longs.
We often think of our dear dead at Christmas, and do well to do so. They are too often forgotten, who made for us our “Christmas past” so often. But what of truly forgotten souls, who barely made it to Purgatory and have no one to pray for them there? Sometimes God permits these souls to trawl for prayers, in some obvious, physical way. This accounts for many house hauntings, and ghost sightings. Our Fr. Larrabee just this Advent delivered a home from such hauntings, through the house blessing, and the Exorcism of Pope Leo XIII, as well as the expedient of receiving this non-catholic family’s alms for Masses for the souls involved, and offering them. He’ll tell you the wholesome lessons involved, when he returns from California, where he is assisting Fr. Zapp for the Holy Days.
Many thanks to many elves, large and small, who helped to put our Christmas together in the printery, sacristy, the church with its shrines and decorations, as well as by cooking and singing and cleaning and serving and praying. All of this, all of it dear faithful, is fed and furnished by Christ’s Mass which is our purpose and which is thus prepared for fittingly, and celebrated worthily at this season of Christmas. It’s always Christmas at Mass.
A Blessed Christmas! Forgive and be forgiven! Be good! Come to Mass!
In the Mother and her Child.
-Bishop Dolan