As I mentioned last week in my Words, each week during Advent I will be sharing an excerpt from The Coming of God by Maria Boulding, a contemplative Benedictine nun in Great Britain. I read this wonderful book each Advent to prepare for the coming of our Lord.

“The eternal begetting of the Son who is the Father’s glory is beyond our understanding and imagination, because it is the innermost mystery of God. Yet we can hear and speak, even of God, because God has made us in his image, as creatures who communicate, and our clumsy efforts to understand and love are an echo of his Word. Every movement of self-surrendering love in human relationships, every response of beloved to lover, every real personal communication and meeting of minds, is a shadow of that glory. Every utterance of passionate beauty proclaims it. All that we know of the dignity and joy of parenthood on earth points towards it. Life and love in our experience are flow and reflow, giving and receiving; the more we give, the more we receive and the more there is to give, and this is because we are a little like God. His life is not solitude, self-sufficiency or a frozen, static perfection. He is eternal exchange, infinite unselfishness. Love is never cornered, pinned down, halted in its flow, because it never finds a self to trap it and appropriate it. The three Persons of the Trinity are a dance of utter delight: they exist for one another.”

Our Parish Advent Penance Service will be held on Tuesday, December 15th at 6 p.m. It will be held either

in the church or on the football field, depending on weather. Once the location has been determined, a

notification will go out via email and social media.

This Monday is our Evening of Adoration for the women of the parish. This is a very hectic time for

moms so, gentlemen, please give your wives the opportunity to spend a couple of minutes of peace

with our Lord. Offer to provide supper for the family so she doesn’t have to even think about it. If you

can’t cook, pizza or McDonald’s will make you a hero! Ladies, hope to see you on Monday.

In this week’s bulletin, we inadvertently failed to change the Mass Intention Schedule. Below are the correct intentions for December 12-19. Please be assured that the requested Mass Intentions were celebrated on the proper date as requested, it just wasn’t changed in the bulletin from the previous week.

Saturday, Dec. 12 5:30 p.m. - John Zitzelberger †

8 a.m. - Pro Populo Mass (St. Anne parishioners)

10:30 a.m. - Albert Basler †

12:30 p.m. - Nicholas Weidner †

Monday, Dec. 14 7:30 a.m. – Bob Deslauriers †

Tuesday, Dec. 15 7:30 a.m. - Robert “Bobby” Thompson †

Wednesday, Dec. 16 7:30 a.m. - Franciscan & Diocesan

Thursday, Dec. 17 7:30 a.m. - Charles Bohon †

Friday, Dec. 18 7:30 a.m. - Werner Aguilar (spec. int.)

Saturday, Dec. 19 9 a.m. - Ranez Lyrsher Pascua †

Stewardship of Treasure

Attendance

This week's gift of bread and wine was donated by Jino Jose in loving memory of his mother, Rose Jose. If you would like to offer the bread and wine for Mass in honor of or in memory of a loved one, please call the Parish Office to schedule your weekend. Your offering of $50 will help defray the cost.

In good times and in bad, senior Catholic sisters, brothers, and religious order priests have dedicated themselves to service and acts of mercy. Today, they pray for an aching world. Yet years of serving for little or no pay have left their religious communities without enough retirement savings. Your gift to the Retirement Fund for Religious helps provide medications, nursing care, and other necessities. Although we are not physically taking up 2nd collections during Mass, we hope you will be generous to this very important collection.

Each year, the Catholic Schools Collection is taken up at all Christmas Masses to benefit Catholic schools in the Diocese of Savannah. Our school, St. Anne-Pacelli, will greatly benefit from this collection.

You may give online, drop your donation in the collection box at Mass or mail it to the Parish Office.

This year we are adding an extra Mass on Christmas Eve. We will have Masses at 2 p.m., 4 p.m., 6 p.m. and midnight on Christmas Eve and at 10 a.m. on Christmas Day. Please use this survey to tell us what Mass you hope to attend. This will help us determine if we will be able to accommodate everyone or if we will need to add another Mass.