St. Vincent’s Christmas Mass Schedule ~ 2024

🎄 St. Vincent’s Christmas Mass Schedule ~ 2024 🎄

Fourth Sunday of Advent — Regular Schedule

Tuesday, Dec. 24 — Christmas Eve

4 pm, 6 pm, 10 pm, 7:30 pm (Spanish), Christmas Carols 9:30 pm

Wednesday, Dec. 25 — Christmas Day

7:30 am, 9 am, 10:30 am, 12 noon (Spanish)

(For a complete schedule, see the Bulletin to the right)

Pastor’s Desk ~ December 15, 2024

Dear Parishioners,

From its beginning at the first Pentecost, the Church has relied on its members for material support. While coins and precious metals pre-exist even the Church – we know that at least from the Parable of the Talents, the Parable of the Lost Coin and the Coin of Caesar – the manner and form of material support has varied greatly over the centuries. Agricultural barter – donations of farm animals, harvested crops, and farm-made goods, all of which can be used or sold – still exist today in agricultural areas of the U.S. Even now, I’m surprised by the coins and currency that appear from time to time in our collection plate, from foreign currency to old American coins.

Over 30 years ago, on my first visit to Assisi, a young-ish friar told our group about an ancient friar in his community who arrived as a 7-year-old child, a gift to the monastery from his parents. He was mounted on a small donkey with two large vessels of olive oil as a “dowry”– i.e., a gift for receiving him into the monastery, where he would spend his life. (And thus a vocation was born…)

Fortunately, we don’t do such things today. However, we are in the midst of a financial revolution on a scale not seen since the conversion to trade and mercantile economies in the Renaissance. I’ve become aware that increasingly few people under age 50 have any cash transactions anymore, and that the writing of personal checks is even more rare. When I’m at the grocery store check out, I see more and more people either touching their credit cards to a little screen, or by scanning a QR (Quick Response) code through their smart phones. (QR codes are those weird little variegated squares stamped on everything these days.) No cash or checks change hands. Many men’s wallets advertised this year as practical Christmas gifts no longer have any place for paper folding money – just cards and ID cards. More and more businesses now refuse, or charge extra, to receive cash. More and more banks refuse to accept deposits of coins, even when we count and roll them. They’re just too awkward and expensive to process.

During the recent pandemic, our parish survived better than any other regional parish I’m aware of simply because we were already well established for receiving on-line contributions. Other parishes came to us then to find out how to “catch up” to this new technology.

Now, SV is taking its latest technological leap by making it possible for our parishioners to make donations, whether one-time or recurring, by using their smart phones to scan our parish QR code and contributing the amount you choose through your existing PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Pay or credit card account. The insert in today’s bulletin explains this expansion of parish service in more detail for those who are interested.

In the days of Advent that remain to us, we all still have time to “prepare for the birth of the Lord with good works at his coming,” as the liturgy tells us. This may take the form of the Advent Giving Trees in church, to our own private good works in the humble spirit of the first Advent, to reaching out to someone who may have no one to pray or care for them. With the Third Sunday of Advent – Gaudete Sunday – we are now focused on the joy of anticipation of the coming of the Lord. May he hurry, and not delay.

Blessings, Fr. Bill Donahue