Last Sunday was just beautiful, as some of our CCD kids put on a Miraculous Medal play. The play was put on primarily for the CCD kids, but we are probably going to present the play for the entire parish in the spring. Beforehand, we prayed the rosary as usual, and after the play one of our parishioner's father gave a witness as to the miraculous intervention of the Blessed Mother of Our Lord in his life, via the Miraculous Medal. Following this, we prayed the Miraculous Medal Novena and the Junior Choir sang beautifully during Mass. Here is a slideshow of the little play. You will see children depicting the priest confessor of St. Catherine Laboure (who, in real life, believes that he has a vocation to the priesthood!), the Blessed Mother, the guardian angel of St. Catherine, St. Catherine Laboure herself, and her Mother Superior. The girl at the podium is the narrator.

Created with flickr slideshow.

"I shall spare myself neither care nor labor nor earnest prayers for the salvation of souls. My hope is in Christ."

(How refreshing. Sigh.)

Here is a slideshow with just a few pictures from Christmas Eve mass 2009. (Actually many of the pictures are from after mass.) It was a beautiful mass and it was packed to the gills, something we always welcome at St. Mary's. Thanks to all those who worked with the children, decorated the church, and who served at the altar. A Merry Christmas season and Blessed Epiphany from all of us at St. Mary's.



Created with flickr slideshow.

St. Mary's current pastor has decided to axe our annual Christmas midnight mass for no apparent reason. The only thing we can come up with is that he wants us to get used to not getting what we want. Apparently, we're like spoiled children, wanting mass all the time. The nerve of us!

To us, using mass as a cudgel is never a good idea. As is the case in so many other churches, this is one of our most highly attended masses of the entire year, and one of our prime opportunities for evangelism.

So why would a pastor choose to end a many decades long tradition of midnight mass?  Fr. Namiotka says it's because no priests are available - he has reserved himself for midnight mass at the parish he repeatedly refers to as "my" parish, Queen of the Angels in Landisville/Minotola.  (By contrast, he only refers to us as "St. Mary's in Malaga"...as if we don't know what town we're in.) 

In fact, when asked about the lack of midnight mass, Namiotka specifically responded that "no priests are available." However, we inquired with one particular priest who regularly assists with masses and Namiotka had never even asked him if he wanted to say midnight mass.  And another priest, who has said many masses at St. Mary's in the past, actually requested to say midnight mass and was told "NO" by Namiotka. 

To add insult to injury, a longtime, elderly parishioner of St. Mary's was told by Namiotka that, "The pope is saying midnight mass. You can watch it on tv."* There's a shepherd of souls for us! Ya want mass? Go watch it on tv.

*Extended footnote/follow-up below:

Supposedly, according to Fr. Namiotka in a letter received February 4th, over a month and a half after the incident, he "actually said, 'Not even the Pope is having Midnight Mass this year (in Rome). The Mass is at 10 PM. You can watch the TV to see that this is true.'" He follows up by saying "I did, in fact, celebrate Midnight Mass as I annually do--just not at St. Mary's Malaga." This is precisely our point, and he made it for us. It's a shame that we don't a priest who truly wants to be at St. Mary's.

Further, the EWTN Christmas Mass to which he refers was, in fact, repeatedly billed by EWTN as "Midnight Mass." CLICK HERE here for just one example of this "to see that this is true" and the Vatican's rationale for "moving up" the time. Besides, it was a rude comment to make to an elderly, long-time parishioner.

In our view, either version of what was said is pretty terrible and demonstrates how little he cares for us since allowing another priest to say mass at St. Mary's would have required no effort on his part and would not have cost us anything. If anything, it would have brought the church money and perhaps a few souls would have returned to the Church for Christmas.

St. Mary's has no intention of merging! We are completely united in this.

We're as "vibrant" as ever, so join us for mass. You'll find a great community of people, all with their feet planted firmly in the ground. Heels dug in, actually.

It is sad that in our current era of church closings and widespread corruption, many of us have witnessed something we have never heard of before. Too often, mass and church are being used as weapons held over the heads of the laity. If we do not go along with or agree with the closure of our beloved churches or tactics and practices employed by the "new catholicism," we are repeatedly threatened with lack of holy mass and with the closure of our ancestral houses of God. Completely inappropriate and unholy strong-arming tactics abound, most notably in core team "processes" but also elsewhere. We have several specific incidents we could relay involving different people, but we will not do this since the principle stands on its own. The bottom line is that one should never threaten to withhold the things of God from people as a means of securing one's own wishes. This is immoral. The people of God have a right to the things of God, to the sacraments, to holy mass, and to the churches which they have built and maintained as fruit of their labors and sacrifices for the love of God. When this sort of threatening occurs, it causes one to wonder about a sad estrangement from the original call of God to holy orders. Have some lost that Vision? Let us remember to forgive those who have decided to employ such horrendous tactics since they are severely misled. We pray, as always, that we all are continually converted in heart and mind and remember to Whom our allegiance is owed, for in the end, it is before His throne we will be judged.

While I'm not really a "crafty" person and generally avoid projects that appear to be too messy (aside from Save St. Mary's), I threw caution to the wind and decided it would be fun to make an Advent calendar with my 6-year-old. (And yes, he is in his pajamas in the picture. Bad cold that day.)

I thought I'd share it with you because I realized, when trying to figure the best way of making the calendar, that this particular activity would be especially good for a family with two or more school age children. The more children you have, the less the parent has to do ahead of time. The older children can do the more complicated aspects (like looking for appropriate pictures).

I've been saving up some of my Catholic catalogs in anticipation of some sort of craft project. Last week when I decided it would be a good idea to put together an Advent calendar, I was trying to think of a way that wouldn't require that I do 90% of the work. Not the most attractive way, perhaps, but a simple one. So here's what we did:

1. I cut out a whole bunch of small pictures (saints, crosses, nativity scenes, rosaries, icons, a monstrance, etc.). Many of them were incredibly beautiful. I tried to find pictures most appropriate for Advent. I did all this while the kids were in bed, by the way.

2. Next, I grabbed some pink and purple construction paper and glued the pictures to the paper. After the glue was dry, I cut rectangular shapes around the pictures. Then I folded all these rectangles in half so as to make little doors. These first two steps probably took around two hours, but then again, being fairly late, I wasn't going very quickly.

3. The next day, with my son, I put a dab of paste on each little door so as to hold it shut (he didn't want to catch a glimpse of any of the pictures ahead of time). After I put the paste on the door, I would hand each one to him and he would write the dates on them.

4. As you can see, we pasted all the little doors to the large piece of paper. (I did put faint lines on the paper so the little doors would be vaguely straight.)

5. At the end I had my son put the words on the calendar and I let him decorate the bottom. The parts we did together probably took about an hour.

As it turned out, we had so many of the little door/pictures left (I cut out too many) that we had enough for a "12 Days of Christmas/Epiphany Calendar" (right). Knowing I had too many, I saved the three wise men pictures, some nativity scenes, and baby Jesus pictures for this.

As we open the doors each day the calendar actually looks much more attractive. And who doesn't love the excitement of an Advent calendar? The whole thing, simple as it was to make, has been a huge hit. We plan to make another one next year. He said to me, "Mama, I'm never going to forget this day!" Isn't that funny? Just goes to show, it doesn't always take pain-staking or costly gestures to give your children a sense of satisfaction. Mostly, they just like spending time with their parents.

This year's Christmas Bazaar will take place this Saturday December 5th from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Come one, come all!

 At the Bazaar, you will find

• Chinese Auction (donations of new toys/gifts for needy children enters you in the raffle)
  
• Bake Sale
• Christmas & Gift Items for sale
  

as well as good food, including

• Soup
• Meatballs
• Sausage & Pepper Sandwiches
• Pasta in the evening

and, not to be missed,

• free lunch with Santa Claus at 12:00 noon
  

as well as entertainment

• the Junior Choir and Young Musicians will be appearing between 1:30 and 2:30

and, for no extra charge, as per the bishop's requirements*

• we guarantee a vibrant time
  

See our beautiful church and pay a visit to Jesus while you're there.

Volunteers are still welcome. Call Marlene at 856-694-3154 if you're interested in helping or would like to RSVP for the lunch with Santa.

See ya there!

*whatever!?!

Here is a quick piece on Mother Cabrini (1850-1917), patroness of immigrants and unofficial patroness of Italian Americans. Today, November 13th, is her feast day. This is a wonderful article on her life. She was asked by the pope himself to help the Italian Americans struggling so greatly in the United States. She traveled back and forth from Italy to the U.S. many times, traveled greatly within the United States, and she also traveled to various places in the western world (particularly the Americas). It is difficult for us to remember that this was in a time when travel was much slower and more laborious. Mother Cabrini did not love traveling, but did so out of obedience to the pope's wishes and because she had a clear sense of her divine mission. She opened many hospitals, schools, and orphanages. Miracles were attributed to her not only after her death, but during her life. Mother Cabrini was the first American citizen saint. For those unfamiliar with Mother Cabrini, we'd encourage you to read about her and pray for her intercession in your own life. She is a miracle worker even now from heaven.

For your enjoyment here are two pictures. The top one depicts a young Mother Cabrini and the bottom is the shrine in NY. On a personal note, I had the privilege of visiting this shrine. I did not know until I got there that at the shrine, her body lies beneath the altar. My great grandmother considered it a privilege just to mop the school floors on which this great saint walked and there I found myself, so close to her body. Because of our family's devotion to her, she is the namesake of our youngest son. Mother Cabrini, ora pro nobis!