Posts by Pat Perkins

Dear Friends in Christ, Many thanks to those of you who have already made a donation or pledge to our Forward in Faith Capital Campaign which will run through the end of 2023 to accomplish two purposes: 1) allow St Mary’s to play our part in the diocesan bi-centennial campaign, and 2) provide us the…

Dear Friends in Christ, Hatch. Match. Dispatch.  Those are the slightly irreverent terms used by clergy to describe baptisms, weddings, and funerals – three of the Church’s sacred rituals in which those who practice our faith regularly interact in the pews with those Catholics who seldom if ever participate in divine worship and with those…

Dear Friends in Christ, The glories of Christmastide are now behind us, and the rigors of the 40 Days don’t arrive until Ash Wednesday which falls this year on 6 March. That gives us seven weeks before Lent to live in the Thirty-Four Weeks of the Year , so-called Ordinary Time, when the Church is…

Dear Friends in Christ, The vast majority of Christians, including almost all Catholics, are baptized when they are infants, and this is most fitting. The sacraments are instruments of God’s grace, and even newborn babies need the grace of God. Moreover, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, “The sheer gratuitousness of the…

Dear Friends in Christ, The Solemnity of the Epiphany is one of the richest feasts in the Christian liturgy, and for this reason, it is also among the most misunderstood. The Greek word which we translate epiphany simply means “appearance” or “manifestation”, and in the Western liturgical tradition the Epiphany is linked most strongly to…

Dear Friends in Christ, Christmas is not just one day on the calendar. Christmas is an entire season, although a brief one, of the Church’s liturgical year. The season of Christmas Time or Christmastide begins with Vespers on Christmas Eve and ends with Vespers on the Feast of the Baptism the Lord, this year on…

Dear Friends in Christ, On every Sunday and most other Solemnities of the Year, the texts for Mass are the same for both the vigil and the day of the celebration. For the celebration of Christmas, however, the Church provides four different Masses, each with its own Scripture readings and proper prayers, and this is…