Below is our full Christmas Liturgical Schedule with:

• Confession times for Dec 17 to Dec 24
• Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Masses
• Solemnity of Mary Masses and Vigil for Dec 31 and Jan 1

During the Season of Advent, we will have a special Mass at 6:30 am on December 6, 13 and 20. This Mass is traditionally known as the Rorate Caeli Mass, in honor of the Blessed Mother. These Masses will be bilingual (Latin and English) and will be celebrated “Ad Orientem,” meaning that the priest will face the same direction as the congregation.

This Advent, we are invited to countdown the days to Christmas by reading the Gospel daily.

The Diocese has prepared a list of daily Gospel readings to help us prepare our hearts as we celebrate and remember the coming and birth Jesus. The readings begin on November 30 and end on Epiphany January 4, 2026.

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today, we celebrate the Third Sunday of Advent, also known as “Gaudete Sunday,” which comes from the Latin word, “gaudere,” a word that means “rejoice.” We rejoice because we are quickly approaching the coming of Jesus at Christmas, and our time of waiting during Advent will soon come to an end. The priest today wears rose colored vestments as a sign of our joyful anticipation of Christ’s birth.

Just a few days ago, we also celebrated a great feast of much rejoicing, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. What a consolation to know of Mary’s tender love for us when she appeared to St. Juan Diego in 1531 in Mexico and gave us her beautiful image on his tilma. In just a few years, we will celebrate the 500th anniversary of this great apparition of Mary, and I imagine that it will be a time of great celebration and joy, especially to the Church in the Americas.

In this week’s letter, and in light of the celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I invite us to continue in our journey through the four major dogmas of Mary by learning about her title, Mary the Mother of God. For many of us, we take this title of hers for granted because we hear it many times in the liturgy and in our daily prayers. In the “Hail Mary,” we say the words, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen,” but we can often miss the significance of the words, “Mother of God.” How can it be that Mary is the Mother of God? Does that make her greater than God?

To answer these questions, it is always helpful to go to Sacred Scripture for clear evidence of this doctrine. In St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, we hear Paul indicate how Jesus was born into this world just like any other human being. He writes, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption” (Gal. 4:4-5). Additionally, when we look to the Gospel of Luke, at the moment of Mary’s visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, we hear Elizabeth say, “Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk. 1:43). Both St. Paul and St. Elizabeth bear witness that who Mary conceives in her womb is truly God, and that she is truly the mother of Jesus.

So if we see in Scripture that Mary is the Mother of God, does this make her greater than God? The answer is “no,” because she is not the source of Jesus’ divinity, but she is the source of his humanity. This doctrine was formally defined at the Council of Ephesus in the year 431 where the Church defended her title as theotokos, or “God-bearer.” Because Je-sus is both fully God and fully man, and because he was truly born of Mary, we can fittingly call her, “Mother of God.”

May Christ’s Peace be with you,

Fr. Donahue