As we celebrate Christmas on Friday, the season will undoubtedly evoke many memories of Christmases past and recall the loved ones who made our celebrations very special. My most enduring memory of Christmas was decorating the house. Central to this end was the placing of the Nativity scene under the tree. My mother always placed the figures in just the “right spot,” placing them as though she “knew” exactly how it all took place.

And, of course, she would never allow the infant Jesus to be placed until Christmas Eve. The “fuss” bespoke of her deep devotion to the Holy Family and her own not-so-holy family. Even now, our family Nativity scene is set up as she did it and hopefully with at least half the devotion that my mother had for it.

The popularity of the Nativity scene, one of the most beloved and enduring symbols of the holiday season, originated in Italy and is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. St. Bonaventure tells the story the best in the “Life of St. Francis of Assisi”:

“It happened in the third year before his death, that in order to excite the inhabitants of Grecio to commemorate the nativity of the Infant Jesus with great devotion, [St. Francis] determined to keep it with all possible solemnity; and lest he should be accused of lightness or novelty, he asked and obtained the permission of the sovereign Pontiff. Then he prepared a manger and brought hay, an ox and an ass to the place appointed. The brethren were summoned, the people ran together, the forest resounded with their voices, and that venerable night was made glorious by many and brilliant lights and sonorous psalms of praise."

“The man of God [St. Francis] stood before the manger, full of devotion and piety, bathed in tears and radiant with joy; the Holy Gospel was chanted by Francis, the Levite of Christ. Then he preached to the people around the nativity of the poor King; and being unable to utter His name for the tenderness of His love, he called Him the Babe of Bethlehem.”

Perhaps, like St. Francis, you have your particular traditions, be it a nativity scene or a special recipe. Whatever it may be, may it bespeak of our faith and devotion to the Gospel. The Holy Family, though marked by many challenges and trials, remained faithful to God’s Word. As you peer into your own Nativity scene and live out your traditions of Christmas, may you recognize that all our trials find their resolution in the simplicity of the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem.

May every person and family in our parish remain safe and healthy and come to know the warm joy of a vibrant faith in Jesus our Lord.

Approaching the Lord with a sense of reverence and respect is something in which all of us can use a refresher course. Of all the parish activities in which we are involved -- and there are many! -- nothing is tantamount to the liturgical and spiritual life of the parish. We are all grateful at Immaculate Conception and Assumption for your consistent participation and for your prayerfulness.

Currently, we live in an environment that tends to deemphasize things more formal and to have a general disdain for ritual, i.e. casual Fridays. Oftentimes, the attempt to make things more relaxed often leads to disorganization and even sloppiness. The ritual of the Church is no exception.

Here, we continually work to make our liturgies both beautiful and prayerful experiences. Take, for example, our new Chapel of Divine Mercy in the Parish Center. We could have just put some chairs in a simple room, with perhaps a cross and small statue, and called it our chapel. Instead, this new jewel in the crown of our Parish is a work of sacred art and will lift the mind, heart and soul to prayer in the greatest of Catholic traditions.

Reverence for God often begins with things that are quite practical and simple. For example, we should arrive to church on time or even early. This allows us to spend a few minutes to reflect and prepare for Mass in a more relaxed and prayerful manner. Our need to move into a pew when Mass has already begun disrupts others. Such activity is also distracting to the celebrant.

Connected to this, when we rush in to get a seat, we often neglect to greet our God properly. We, for example, would never enter someone’s home without greeting our host and, in turn, receiving his or her welcome. Similarly, we should approach the Lord as we enter Mass with a simple genuflection or bow, acknowledging His presence in the tabernacle.

I know that we will be hearing about these and other things throughout the year to improve the sense of reverence at Mass. We should remember that such things help us and our children to enter into the presence of God, to acknowledge His awesome power and to imbue us with a greater sense of respect for each other.

On Saturday afternoon, October 17, in Immaculate Conception Church, we will unveil and bless a unique shrine and reliquary for a unique woman. Blessed Clelia Merloni was Beatified on November 3, 2018. She founded the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in May 1894 in Viarregio, Italy and sent her young community throughout Italy and to the U.S.A. and Brazil. Mother Clelia was born on March 10, 1861, and died on November 21, 1930. She had a tumultuous life, but Pope Francis recognized her heroic virtue and the miracle worked through her intercession; this led to her Beatification and now we are praying for her Canonization.

I do not have the space here to give you her life story. There are articles, books and summaries of her life online and available for purchase. I highly recommend all. Here, though, I want to tell you simply why our church received a first-class relic from her body, commissioned the magnificent artwork of her image (right) near the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and recommends to pray through her to Jesus for our needs and those of the world.

Our own Sr. Cora is an Apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and has been for more than 50 years. My grandmother, Josephine Sorgie, welcomed the Apostles to Santa Maria Parish in the Bronx in the 1930s and helped to raise a young girl who would become Sr. Letizia Micalizzi, ASCJ. Despite the closeness to the Sisters, it is Mother Clelia’s incredible love, spirituality and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and her love of our Church, despite false accusations and a life of misunderstanding, that inspired me to ask for a first-class relic of her. The relic is embedded in a beautiful wooden Mission Lamp (left), a gift of the Apostles to Immaculate Conception and Assumption.

Let us pray through Mother Clelia to Our Lord for all our intentions and say a special prayer to the Lord for her Canonization.

Blessed Clelia Merloni, Pray for us.

On Friday evening and Saturday morning, the Church celebrates, with great joy, the Assumption of our Blessed Mother. It is a certitude that, at the end of her earthly life, the Mother of Jesus was taken up into heaven, body and soul. Just as our Lord Jesus rose from the dead, in His own body, and subsequently ascended into heaven, where He, with His glorified Body, is seated at the right hand of the Father, so too, Mary is in Heaven with her glorified body. She is in Heaven, crowned in glory. When we die and are judged to be worthy of Christ -- as those now in heaven or on their way have been – we must wait for the end of time, at the final judgment, to have our souls and bodies reunited. Not so for Our Lady! Her Assumption is a cause for great hope and joy, not only for ourselves, but the saints in Heaven. Ultimately, like Mary, we shall have a glorified body following the pattern of Christ’s own Risen Body.

St. John Paul II tells us: “The Solemnity of the Assumption, body and soul of Mary into heaven at the heart of the summer season reminds us of what our true and ultimate dwelling place is: heaven. In the mystery we contemplate today, we find clearly revealed the destiny of every human creature: the victory over death, to live forever with God. Mary is the perfect woman in whom even now the divine plan is fulfilled, as a pledge of our resurrection. She was the first fruit of Divine Mercy since she was the first to share in the divine covenant sealed and fully realized in Christ who died and rose for us ... O Mary, Mother of hope, strong with your help, we do not fear obstacles and difficulties; fatigue and sufferings do not discourage us, because you accompany us on the path of life, and from heaven you watch over all of your children, filling them with grace ... Dear brothers and sisters, however dark the shadows that sometimes gather on the horizon, and however incomprehensible certain events may appear to be in human history, we must never lose trust and peace. Today’s feast invites us to entrust ourselves to Mary, assumed into heaven who, like a shining star from heaven, directs our daily journey on earth.”

I must begin this first article after 16 weeks saying how wonderful it feels to be celebrating Mass in our churches. It is wonderful to see people who are safely worshiping God and once again receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. The most difficult thing about all these weeks has been the absence of our terrific parishioners, families and children from the churches.

As you know, we are allowed to have 25% of our seating capacity during this portion of our slow return to the full, active life of the parish. Every day we sanitize the churches, refill the hand sanitizer dispensers, clean the bathrooms and make it easy to sit safely and with social-distancing in our two churches.

In this Sunday’s bulletin, you are going to see some of the projects that we have been able to  complete or are nearing completion during these 16 weeks. Although many of our buildings have not been used since March, we keep them clean and work on projects within them. I have often spoken in my many messages online that, while the churches have been reopened, the parish and all of its many ministries, apostolates, and activities are far from  being reopened.

I cannot adequately thank those on my staff who have worked so hard to keep our parish safe,  solvent, and communicating with our people. We have our mini-bulletin and our website –  icaParish.org -- cared for nearly every day so that our communication will be thorough and abundant. Many of you had praised our parish for remaining available to you through live-streaming, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Flocknotes has been such a good communications vehicle that in the fall we will have a campaign to sign up all of our parishioners for its  messages.

Lastly, your continuing  financial support of the parish has been nothing short of miraculous!  You dropped off your envelopes, mailed contributions and contributed online through WeShare (our electronic giving program). We are grateful.

Please invite families back to Church and, in the meantime, while we await the ability to have 50% in Church, you are invited to:

• Check our website (icaParish.org) for updates
• View our daily (Mon.-Fri.), live-streamed Masses at 12:00 Noon
• View live-streamed Mass on Saturday morning at 8:30 AM
• View live-streamed Mass on Saturday afternoon at 4:00 PM until August 2 (after that, it will return to 5:00 PM)
• Experience live-streamed, Sunday Mass at 10 AM

This is what the season of Lent is about: being born again, following the path of death and resurrection, and participating in Jesus' final journey. To be somewhat more concrete, we may need to die to a specific thing in our life: perhaps to a behavior that has become destructive or dysfunctional; or to a relationship that has ended or gone bad; or perhaps to unresolved grief or a stage in our life that it is time to leave; maybe to our selfpreoccupation. It is possible to leave the land of the dead and so the journey of Lent is about being born again -- about dying and rising, about mortality and transformation.

On Ash Wednesday, we Christians are traditionally reminded of our own mortality in a very vivid way, by the ashes marked on our foreheads in the Sign of the Cross. In the Sign of the Cross, we hear the words spoken over us, "Remember that you are dust and unto dust you will return." This is a reminder not just of our physical mortality, but also of the very path of Lent itself. We begin this season of Lent not only reminded of our death but also marked for death with the Cross. If we died with Him, we shall also rise with Him.

The journey of Lent is about being born again by participating in the death and resurrection of Jesus and about that journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. The journey of Lent, with its climax on Good Friday and Easter, is about embarking with Jesus on that path of mortality and transformation that is at the very center of the Christian life. When you think about it, which of us does not yearn for this? Who does not yearn for a fuller connection to life? Who does not yearn for an identity that releases us from anxiety and self-preoccupation? To be born again, it seems to me, corresponds to our deepest yearning.

Our Parish has a very full program for Lent, with activities and liturgies for everyone. Please commit to coming to daily Mass or the entire Parish Mission; perhaps spend Friday evenings walking the Stations of the Cross. You will find a full list of activities here -- just print it out and keep it as a reminder of the events, dates and times. Also, the page will be distributed on Ash Wednesday as you leave church. May we experience this Lent that internal transformation that is at the center of the Christian life and rise with Jesus Christ.

Last week on January 22, we marked a somber anniversary of one of the darkest days in American history: it has been 47 years since the 1973 Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, which opened the floodgates to legalized abortion on-demand in the U.S. Abortion has killed more than 50 million unborn children in this country. The numbers are incomprehensible.

The choice to abort a child has also devastated the lives of millions of women. Many—if not most—suffer from some form of post-abortion mental, emotional, and spiritual trauma. Women, of course, are not the only ones: men who have been involved in abortion suffer as well. Attempting to live with the unresolved guilt of abortion takes its toll over time. Those whose lives have been impacted in one way or another by this tragedy are very much in need of support, forgiveness, and healing. They should know that there is help available to them.

If your life or the life of someone you love has been touched by abortion, a good place to start is by talking with one of your priests here at the parish. In addition, the programs and contacts listed in the box can provide you with counseling and healing information.

We should continue to pray for a judicial reversal of Roe v. Wade. Also, we continue to hope that our society, having initially accepted abortion on-demand, may be waking from its culture-of-death slumber to a new day of affirming the value of life.