Merry Christmas

by Fr. John Granato  |  12/24/2023  |  Words from Fr. John

My Dear Friends,

Merry Christmas!!!! Christmas is tied into other major feasts of the Catholic Church, beginning with the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary on December 8th. Following this important feast day, the next important feast is the Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary on March 25th. It is on the Annunciation that God has become man, which our Catholic Church commemorates during the recitation of the Nicene Creed. It is on the Annunciation and on the Nativity of our Lord that we are obliged to kneel when we pray, “and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”

We kneel here at these two Masses because we recognize as a Church, both theologically as well as scientifically that life begins at conception. Jesus is truly human at the moment of conception on March 25th. After the Annunciation, the next major feats day is the Nativity of our Lord (Christmas), followed by the Epiphany. Then we jump ahead to Easter Sunday (the day of the Resurrection) and the Ascension, culminating in the great feast of Pentecost. Beginning with the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, God brings fulfillment to salvation history, which began in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and follows through the great patriarchs of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and King David. With the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are invited by God the Father to enter into the last covenant, the final covenant, the covenant that joins mankind to Jesus Christ in Holy Communion Jesus asks us to “do this in memory of Me,” and every time we do this in memory of him we proclaim his death until he comes again, first in the Blessed Sacrament, then at the end of time. We renew our covenant with Christ at every Mass we attend and when we receive his precious Body and Blood.

May the same Christ child who is laying in the manger this day and who is the same Christ who hung upon the cross on Good Friday and is the same Christ who ascended into Heaven be with you this Christmas season and every day of the year.