Dear Parishioners of St. Vincent de Paul,
I pray you and your loved ones are staying healthy and blessed as we approach Christmas this year. A year ago, many of us did not have a place to celebrate Christmas due to the pandemic. For a number of us Christmas consisted of Mass over livestream and a “virtual dinner” with family members over Zoom. At the time, I was tempted to call last year’s celebration of Christmas as the worst one ever! However, speaking for myself, the experience of being alone instead of with family offered me a powerful spiritual consolation.
You see, the first Christmas was not easy for the Holy Family either. Luke’s Gospel tells us that Joseph and Mary were required to be in the city of Bethlehem for the Roman census at the time Mary was due to give birth. There was no room at the inn so they had to settle for a stable filled with farm animals. Can you imagine? This is how Jesus was born into our world. The first Christmas was not easy to say the least. I also received encouragement by meditating on why the celebration of Christmas matters in the first place. Celebrating Christmas makes no sense without our Easter Hope. If it were not for Jesus’ life and ministry, most especially his passion, death and resurrection, there would be no reason to celebrate Christmas at all.
Even though we are facing another wave of Covid-19 in our community, this year is nevertheless shaping up to be much better than last year. On the other hand, we should also be cognizant that there are still a number of people in our community who will be alone at Christmas, either because they have to work, or because they have cold like symptoms, or because they are far from family and friends, or because they simply need to be careful about their health. We should also take a moment and be thankful for our health care workers, police, fire fighters, our men and women in uniform, public servants, and the list goes on who will all be sacrificing their family time on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so to serve us.
They are true heroes and deserve our gratitude. Because not everyone will have the opportunity to join us for Mass in person or be comfortable with crowds due to the pandemic, we will be live streaming both the 5 PM Christmas Eve Mass and the 11 AM Christmas Day Mass. For those attending these Masses or our other Mass times, please only come if you are feeling completely healthy and please respect the people around you by wearing a mask that completely covers your nose and your mouth.
We live in challenging times to say the least. On the other hand, if we take the time to truly reflect on why celebrating Christmas makes sense at all, this can be a time for spiritual awakening too as we give thanks to God for giving us his only Son as our savior. I wish everyone a truly blessed Christmas.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Fr. Frank Schuster
Pastor