News - December 2019 RSS Feed

The hispanic tradition of re-enacting Mary and Joseph's search for shelter in Bethlehem lives on in many parishes in Eastern and Central Washington

Though the beloved diocesan girls’ school closed its doors for the last time in 1979, Marycliff’s alumnae express a fierce loyalty to the mission and ideals of their school.

THE ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS SEASONS are a time of traditions: familial, cultural, those in the Church.

LOS TIEMPOS DE ADVIENTO y Navidad son una época de tradiciones familiares, culturales, y de la Iglesia. Si bien lo que hacemos año tras año es importante, las tradiciones en sí mismas no son lo que estamos celebrando. Todas podrían terminar y tanto Navidad como Adviento aún tendrían sentido. Si decoramos un árbol o no, si cantamos villancicos o no, podemos decir con alegría y esperanza que Cristo nació en Belén. Al crecer en San Francisco, la tradición más importante de mi familia fue el tiempo que pasamos con la familia. Después de la Misa el día de Navidad, mis padres y los siete niños íbamos a la casa de mis tíos y tías, con sus seis hijos, para la cena. Esas grandes cenas familiares fueron una parte importante de cómo pienso acerca de la Navidad.

THE PARISH HALL at St. Mary Presentation Catholic Church is always bright and full of natural light. In December, there is an added gleam as the hall becomes home to Father Tom Connolly’s Nativity Fair. Thousands of figurines fill tables and displays, all celebrating the birth of Christ.

A NEW ENDOWMENT has recently been created from an estate gift left to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes by Ms. Katherine O’Sullivan. Ms. O’Sullivan passed away in June 2018. She was a parishioner at the Cathedral in the 1970s and came to admire Father Paul Vevik, who was assigned to the Cathedral at that time. Father Vevik’s pastoral care many years ago inspired Ms. O’Sullivan to remember the Cathedral in her estate planning. 

HOW DOES A MOTHER’S HEART find peace after losing a baby before birth? A father’s heart also mourns. What does pregnancy loss do to marriage? And where is the Church in all this?

Christmas is a time to celebrate blessings. We exchange gifts and reenact family traditions to express how our friends and loved ones have blessed our lives, and we attend Mass to remember how God blessed us by sending Jesus Christ to live among us.

Every Christmas, we celebrate God’s coming into our world. He chose a very specific avenue to make His entrance—the family. It was within the Holy Family that the Word Made Flesh was born into the world and the young Jesus “increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.” (Lk 2:52) When Christ performed His first miraculous sign, it was at the behest of his Blessed Mother. (see Jn 2:3)

On Sept. 12, 2019, when the Church celebrates the Holy Name of Mary, Mother Kathryn Joseph and Sister Mary Elizabeth of the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Church, celebrated their Golden Jubilee of religious profession at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes. The opening prayer of the Mass expressed why the evening was filled with joy and solemnity as the Church rejoiced over the “gift” these two sisters first received from God.