Dear Parishioners:
Did you make a New Year’s resolution? How is it going? I read that gym memberships surge in January due to the amount of people resolved to get in shape. Apparently it is a big money maker for heath clubs as they collect new membership fees and the new members drop out quickly!
What about a spiritual resolution for 2017? Did you make one? Confession once a month? More faithful attendance to Sunday Mass? More time for family and less on career? How about more time for prayer? Perhaps even committing to stopping by Church once a day or once a week for some quiet time of prayer and reflection with the Lord? These are all good spiritual resolutions you can add to the usual resolutions we make like getting in shape and stopping bad habits!
Bishop Tobin has declared 2017 to be a Year of Mary here in the Diocese of Providence. This takes on particular significance for our parish which under the patronage of Mary under her title, Our Lady of Mercy. Perhaps we might resolve as individuals and as a parish to pray more for her intercession for our world, our Church, our Parish, our family and our community. We might also try to pick up our Rosary Beads more often and turn to our Lady for her help and guidance in 2017.
Let each one of us resolve to make this new year a year of prayer. Let us pray for more than simply our own needs and concerns. Let us turn to Our Lady of Mercy and resolve to pray once a day for her powerful intercession this year. In this Year of Mary for our local Church there is no better intercessor than the Mother of God, Mary our Mother!
Pray for those you know and those you don’t. Pray for Pope Francis, Bishop Tobin, and Bishop Evans. Pray for the clergy and religious of OLM. Pray for the priests of the Diocese of Providence. Pray that more young men and women might answer God’s call to serve the Church as priest and religious. Pray for Deacon Brian Morris from this parish who is to be ordained a priest of Providence this June.
Pray for world leaders. Pray for peace among nations. Pray for our new President, our new congress, our new General Assembly and all our newly elected leaders. Pray for wisdom and justice, charity. Pray for all refugees, migrants, the many victims of war and violence. Pray for an end to terrorism and hatred of any kind.
Pray for marriages, that they will be strengthened. Pray for families who are struggling and parents who are overwhelmed. Pray for mothers. Pray for unborn children. Pray for fathers. Pray for those who grieve the loss of a loved one.
Pray for those who feel they are alone and who suffer in silence. Pray for those people we often forget and those we often overlook or even avoid. Pray for the homeless, the jobless, the addicted, the mentally ill and all those who suffer in any way. Pray that the new year might truly give them a new beginning.
Pray for people who live in hope, that they never lose hope. Pray
that more people will come to know Jesus Christ, the hope of the world. Pray that Catholics who have fallen away from the faith might come back to Mass and the Sacraments. Pray that more of us might spread the Gospel of Joy with our words and deeds.
Yes, by all means let us resolve to drop some pounds and give up some bad habits this year. But please resolve to make 2017 a year of more prayer. May it be a year truly dedicated to our patroness, the Blessed Virgin Mary, as we turn to her in prayer and beg for her most powerful intercession.
St. John Vianney reminds us: “We do not have to talk very much in order to pray well. We know that God is there in His holy tabernacle; let us open our hearts to Him; let us rejoice in His Presence: This is the best prayer.“
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Epiphany and the end of the Christmas Season. Epiphany means manifestation. What the Church celebrates today is the manifestation of our Lord to the whole world. Having been made known to the shepherds of Bethlehem, Christ is revealed to the Magi who have come from the East to adore Him. Christian tradition has always seen in the Magi the first fruits of the
Gentiles. They lead in their wake all the peoples of the earth, and thus the Epiphany is an affirmation of universal salvation.
Fr. Connors and Fr. Ricci have returned to Rome to resume their studies. We thank them for their priestly service to our parish during the Christmas Season. It was a joy to have them here and we were truly blessed. I have again resumed my duties lobbying at the Statehouse this past week, please pray for my work there! Happy Epiphany! Be well. Do good. God Bless. Go Pats!!! Resolve to pray more in 2017!
What a grand celebration of Christmas was had at Our Lady of Mercy! Crowds of people coming to worship and praise God for the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. Beautiful singing and music in the spirit of the season. Reverent and solemn celebrations befitting the King of Kings! Christmas at Our Lady of Mercy was truly terrific. Of course, none of this is possible without the hard work of lots of good people. The OLM Parish Staff and our many wonderful volunteers put lots of time and talent into getting ready for the Birth of our Savior!
Henri St. Louis and the OLM Choir provided beautiful music at Masses. Our OLM Soloist, Deirdre Donovan sang beautifully the great hymns of Christmas! The Children's Choir sounded truly terrific at the 4:00pm Vigil Mass. Their angelic voices add such grace to the Mass! If you couldn’t attend the Midnight Mass then you missed the Choir accompanied by our majestic organ, brass, timpani, and strings! The Concert of Christmas Music prior to Midnight Mass was spectacular. We are so blessed to have such talented and gifted musicians at OLM. If you’ve never been to Midnight Mass, make the effort next year as it is truly an outstanding celebration of Christmas.
We must thank our hard working OLM Sacristans who ensure all the Mass linens, sacred vessels and vestments are cleaned, polished and ready to go for Christmas! We thank also our great Altar Servers for serving God at Holy Mass with dignity, grace and reverence. We give thanks for the Lectors who proclaimed God’s Word so profoundly and the Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion who ensure that the Body of Christ is distributed with reverence. We are grateful for our many Ushers who offer a warm welcome to visitors and see to the good order of Mass. Yes, God is good and we rightly give Him thanks and praise. We thank Him for the blessings of Our Lady of Mercy Parish. We thank Him for the beautiful celebration of Christmas. We thank Him for the gift of His Son born on Christmas Day!
God. We begin the New Year dedicating our lives and our parish to the protection and guidance of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is a great start to the New Year as we give praise to the Mother of God and seek her maternal intercession.
In this New Year of 2017 the world marks the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, Bishop Thomas J. Tobin has proclaimed that the Diocese of Providence is to commemorate this historic anniversary to a special Year dedicated to Mary our Mother. In declaring the Year of Mary, Bishop Tobin stated: “Mary is part of our family and our spiritual family. So we honor her, we love her, we keep mementos of her around us and we turn to her for help whenever we need it. So our devotion to Mary is really a family celebration in our Catholic family .”
Merry Christmas! This year we are blessed to have the great feast of the Nativity of our Lord on a Sunday. This means we’ve had an extra week of Advent prayer and preparation for Christmas. So celebrate the birth of our Savior!
1223. Christmas was coming and St. Francis of Assisi longed to do something to help the people of the small Italian town of Greccio to feel close to the infant Jesus who born for them in a stable in Bethlehem. The Saint knew these good folks would never have a chance to visit the Holy Land so he wanted to make the Nativity a real and personal experience for the faithful.
Christmas Eve, people came from miles around for Midnight Mass, all of them willingly climbing the steep and rocky hillside in the bitter cold.
Mass,he had a vision in which he saw a baby asleep in the manger. As he watched, he saw St. Francis pick the baby up, holding Him very lovingly in his arms. The man understood this to mean that the child Jesus had been forgotten by many people, but through St. Francis, that Christmas night in Greccio, the Baby Jesus came to life in the hearts and minds of all those who saw the crib.
Saint Francis, I invite you to enter on a journey on this
Christmas 2016, a journey to Bethlehem. We may not be able to make the physical pilgrimage to the land of the Savior’s birth, but we can make the journey interiorly, that is, in our hearts, praying before the Nativity sets displayed in our homes and here at Church as spiritually we travel to Bethlehem to adore Him.
journey to Bethlehem to behold the face of God in Jesus Christ, I note that the word Bethlehem means “House of Bread.” The child Jesus came not only to redeem us through His death and resurrection, but to nourish and sustain us with His very Body and Blood, as He does at every Mass we celebrate and each time we worthily receive Him in Holy Communion.
One of the most popular songs of this time of preparation for Christmas is the hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” The word ‘Emmanuel’, as you know, means “God is with us.” This is the great message of Christmas. Christmas is not just a remembrance of a past event where God was with us when He was born and then for the next 33 years. Nor is it just our hopeful anticipation of His coming at the end of time. Christ is with us here and now, at all times and in every circumstance.
remain with us. His birth has brought a great light to “the people who walked in darkness.” As we hear in the Gospel on Christmas morning, that “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” No darkness can ever overcome the light of Christ dwelling among us. Christmas is a time for us to renew our faith in that promise and to remain steadfast in following that light which leads us to Him in Heaven. During this final week of Advent, let us open our hearts that we might be prepared to welcome Emmanuel, God with us, at Mass, at Christmas, and every day of our lives. Let us truly believe in the meaning of Christmas, that God is with us yesterday, today and forever.
we have added an extra hour of Confession time at Our Lady of Mercy. Beginning at 6:00pm until 8:00pm there will be two priests available each hour to hear Confessions. We’ve invited some guest priests to help. So take the time to examine your conscience, confess your sins, and receive God’s mercy and forgiveness. It is the best gift you could get for Christmas!
I offer my gratitude to the many parishioners who were so generous to the OLM Outreach Collection this month. These funds help us serve the poor and needy locally with Christmas food and gift cards. Also we are able to financially support the homeless and hungry across our state through various Catholic Charities like Emmanuel House and McCauley House.
nothing but the clothing on their backs. The generosity of our school families is greatly appreciated.
On Friday night we celebrated the Annual OLM School Christmas Pageant. It is always a joyful and happy occasion as our talented students gather to sing songs of the seasons. The Church is always overflowing with smiling parents, siblings and grandparents. The highlight of the evening is the reenactment of the Nativity Story by the students. It is always a great event for our parish and school. It really is inspiring to be able to sing beautiful Christmas hymns with the students in a spirit of faith, hope and love. Far too many around us have pushed God out of our culture and removed Christ from Christmas.
Rejoicing. We rejoice because Christmas is coming soon. We have put away the dour purple vestments and wear the bright rose vestments. This is a sign of our rejoicing in Christ who was born on Christmas Day. We do not rejoice because we believe Jesus came to bring Heaven down to earth. Rather, we rejoice because we rejoice because we know that Jesus, the Son of God, came to open a path from earth into Heaven. The joy of the Christian is the joy of a hope guaranteed by God Himself. This is true joy, the joy of hope, and Christ is its source.
This Sunday is called Gaudete Sunday, "Gaudete" being the Latin for "Rejoice!" The given entrance antiphon for this Sunday begins, in Latin, with "Gaudete in Domino semper" or "Rejoice in the Lord always.” Here's the English translation of this beautiful antiphon, a hymn to rejoicing: “Rejoice in the Lord always: I say again, rejoice: let your modesty be known unto all: The Lord is at hand. Let nothing upset you: but in all prayers make your needs known unto God. “ So let us rejoice! This is the instruction we are given at the beginning of Mass today. In these last weeks of Advent, we might become weary and distracted. That’s why the Church tells us to rejoice. Christ is coming! There’s no doubt that the gospel is demanding, but we have the great joy of God’s grace and our community of faith spurring us on toward true repentance and total joy!
Program and the students of OLM School celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Of course, Confession is a great way to prepare for the coming of Christ. Cleansing our souls of sin and receiving God’s powerful grace of forgiveness and mercy is perhaps the best Christmas gift you can give yourself.
certainty help you to truly rejoice in the season.
Christmas is here already! Or is it? If you look around you see the signs of Christmas everywhere. But by the time December 25 arrives, most people are "Christmased" out — too many parties, too much rich food and stretched budgets. We Catholics don't need to sit idly by while the rest of the world is celebrating Christmas in advance. Instead, we are called to celebrate two seasons: Advent and Christmas.
often. Some biblical scholars have described Isaiah as the “fifth gospel” as so many of the themes of the gospels have their scriptural beginnings in Isaiah. The writings of Isaiah are distinguished among the Old Testament writings for their extraordinary literary quality. Isaiah is a prophet of hope and new beginnings. In particular, he speaks of the birth of a new king who will be a “Wonderful Counselor” and “Prince of Peace.” Christians have seen in his words a foretelling of the birth of Jesus. He is a prophet of the compassion of God. Isaiah’s God is a God of mercy, comfort and consolation, much like the Father of whom Jesus spoke.
Isaiah was the first to speak of the God of the Jews is also the God of all people. God’s mercy was to reach beyond the boundaries of Jerusalem and Judah to extend to all peoples in every corner of the earth. Jesus, who brought the gospel to Jew and Gentile alike, exercised his ministry in the spirit of Isaiah. Isaiah is a prophet of peace and justice. Harmony among all peoples and compassion for the poor are the hallmarks of God’s presence. In these matters Jesus spoke out of a prophetic tradition that truly began with Isaiah.
Christmas shopping, card writing, cookie baking, and all the other assorted tasks that take our time and sap our energy this time of year, why not take a little time to read Isaiah and pray and reflect on the real reason of the season. Another Advent practice that the whole family can do is that of having an empty crib or manger, which each family member softens with straw earned by a sacrifice, a prayer or a work of mercy. After Christmas, the family gathers before the Infant Savior, in his now-padded crib, to pray with joy and perhaps read a verse from Isaiah.
holy day of obligation for all Catholics in the United States. On this feast the Church celebrates the solemn dogma defined by Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1854.