My dear parishioners, we speak of celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Mass is rightly called the “sacrament of love”. We say that we love Jesus Christ, that we love the Mass. And this certainly involves an effort, indeed an affirmation on our part. You have to step forward to say I love you or I love the love we share. To realize this is to grasp the heart of the matter. One may only genuinely say I love you or I love the love we share if he or she is confirming “something already accomplished” by God!  [Joseph Pieper, ANTHOLOGY 1989] 
 
It is God who accomplishes! We love the Mass given to us by Christ and safeguarded by the Church— a celebration of extraordinary beauty and mysteriously already accomplished each and every time we celebrate it. Yet Mass is always a gift newly given. Nevertheless, we must remember that the act of receiving the Mass -- even as we participate in it -- is also sacred. It is never passive. To receive the Mass is to receive that which is priceless.
 
One cannot thank God for the blessings of life if he knows no peace in his heart and little or nothing about the meaning of rest as leisure. The experience of leisure sets the scene for the human person’s capacity to love both God and his world ( however broken this terrestrial vessel of blessings may seem to be!) Hence, to the extent that one is distracted or exhausted in life may serve as a measure of how far that person is from God and disconnected from “things as they really are”.  [St. Therese of Lisieux] 
 
This is why, even in this unbelieving generation, Holy Mother Church calls her children together to celebrate great feasts and solemnities in honor of our Lord Jesus Christ, Mary the Mother of God and Church, the saints, the sacred events and places of faith and the great milestones of Christianity’s living Tradition. There is no more perfect expression of human life and love than to praise God in his sanctuary. This is our immersion into the abyss of supernatural hope!
 
The Mass is the Church’s open door to the anxious people of the world. But this is not all. We proceed forward as we glance backward to the marvelous events of Bethlehem. We behold the incarnation of the Christ, born in Bethlehem, a man like us in all things but sin. Moreover, we look backward to the passion, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, we journey forward, but we can’t turn our eyes away from the manger, Golgotha’s cross and the God-man of these events.
 
Our hope is no ordinary hope. After all, these events mark the birth of Christianity and the beginning of the great pilgrimage we know as the Church. Unless one is willing to look backward even as he or she walks forward in the communion of the Church, there are no grounds for hope.  [cf. Pieper ANTHOLOGY]  For the victory of Christ was won in a manger and on a cross, once for all time.
 
Therefore we approve of God’s creation, we receive God’s great gifts, we celebrate God’s love, and we contemplate God’s infinite wisdom and mercy. “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. /My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and be glad. /O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!”  [Psa 34:1-3]  Sincerely in the hearts of Jesus and Mary. Your pastor, Reverend Richard Barker.