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December 21, 2018
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Catholic Advance
The Catholic Advance
(ISSN 0008-7904)
Official Catholic Newspaper of the Diocese of Wichita Published by the Catholic Diocese of Wichita,a non-profit corporation 424 N. Broadway, Wichita, KS 67202 Phone: (316) 269-3965 Fax: (316) 269-3902 e-mail: criggs@cdowk.org http://www.catholicadvance.org Publisher: The Most Rev. Carl A. Kemme Business Manager: Bryan Coulter Communications Director: Matt Vainer Editor: Christopher M. Riggs Communications Assistant: Gemma Rajewski Production Manager: Donald G. McClane, Jr. Art Direction: Nicholas Poirier Circulation: Megan Real
Published semi-monthly on the first and third Fridays of the month. Periodicals postage paid at Wichita, Kansas. Member Catholic Press Association, Catholic News Service. Postmaster: send address changes to The Catholic Advance, 424 N. Broad- way, Wichita, KS 67202. Deadlines: classified ads, noon Monday; news and display ads, 5 p.m. Friday
Here is Bishop Carl A. Kemme's calendar for the next several weeks. December Dec. 21: Curia Christmas Party Dec. 22: Private Mass with Carmelite Sisters of St. Teresa Dec. 23: Confirmation Mass at 8:30 a.m. for St. Anthony Parish in Strong City Dec. 24: Christmas Eve Mass at the Cathedral at 9 p.m. Dec. 25: Christmas Mass at Hutchinson Correctional Facility Dec. 30: Mass for Quo Vadis: Priest and Seminarian Christmas Party January Jan. 2-6: U.S. Catholic Bishop's Retreat at Mundelein Seminary Jan. 8-21: India Pilgrimage Jan. 22-23: Kansas Catholic Conference of Bishops in Topeka
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
Dec. 23: Micah 5:1-4, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-45 In today's Gospel passage we hear about the second Joyful Mys- tery of the Rosary: the Visitation. In the person of Mary we see someone bearing her Lord and God within her. We also see Mary as someone who brings him into the lives of others. This scene, as simple and joyous as it is, preaches two powerful mes- sages for those who want to be faith- ful disciples of Jesus. These messag- es lie at the heart of Advent. The first is a call to recognize the role that our Blessed Mother played from the very beginning of Christ's life. If she was Christ's protector, she is ours, also. If the Holy Spirit moved her to bring Jesus to Elizabeth and John, why should she not continue to bring her Son to others in our own day? Her role did not diminish as Je- sus grew older. Neither can we ever outgrow our devotion to our Blessed Mother. We honor Mary not because of her own power, but because she bears Christ within her. What was physi- cally true for nine months is spiritual- ly true forever. This is a Gospel truth, recorded by St. Luke the Evangelist in the hymn called the Magnificat, where Mary proclaims: "all genera- tions shall call me 'blessed'" [Luke 1:48]. She is blessed through all gen- erations, because through all genera- tions she continues to bear her Son to those whose live in Christ through baptism. The second message Mary bears is that Christ must be received in the flesh. Our second reading re- veals what this means. God took no delight in the sacrifices of the Old Testament. The sacrifices of the Old Testament had no more power to save a person's soul than the sacrific- es of the Aztecs of Central America. Even if the Jewish priests of the Old Testament were sacrificing to the right God, they were still offering the wrong sacrifices. The Jewish priests of the Old Tes- tament offered bulls, rams, and ce- real grains. They offered things other than themselves, things that God has no interest in. God only takes interest in what is inside a person, in what is part of a person: indeed, ideally, one's very person. Even when we as Christians make sacrifices, we don't give up things because God somehow wants those things. God doesn't need or desire meat, candy, coffee or tobac- co. The only way that a practice of penance is pleasing to God is when you sacrifice a desire: a desire that's so rooted within you that it's part of you. God wants the desire that you sacrifice because-even if in small measure-it is a form of self-sacri- fice. Eventually, all our desires must be sacrificed to God, either before or after death. If we willingly offer our desires to God in sacrifice, such of- ferings are a means to sanctification. This is what Christ proclaims to God the Father in the second read- ing: "Behold, I have come to do your will." If we were to use our imagination, we could hear God the Son saying this at the "moment" before the Annunciation. Imagine: God the Son had lived with the Fa- ther and the Holy Spirit in the Para- dise of Heaven from before time be- gan. But when the Father was ready to send his Son to earth, to enter Mary's womb in the flesh and to begin the life that would end some 30 years later on Calvary, God the Son, knowing everything that was to come, said "Father, I have come to do your will." Then he descended from Heaven, to be conceived and born as one of us, and for us and for our salvation.
Christmas Mass during the day
Dec. 25: Isaiah 52:7-10, He- brews 1:1-6, John 1:1-18 It's telling that the Gospel passage on Christmas morning is repeated just six days later, on Dec. 31. This Gospel passage speaks to the beginning and end not only of our salvation, but in fact of God's entire work of creation. The English author G. K. Chesterton wrote in his book The Everlasting Man that: "Any agnostic or atheist whose child- hood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether he
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
Dec. 30: Sirach 3:2-6,12-14, Colossians 3:12-21, Luke 2:41-52 The Holy Family were still weary from their journey to Bethlehem, and from their search through Bethlehem for suitable lodging. They had been forced after Christ's birth to flee their own country for the foreign land of Egypt, out of fear for Jesus' life. But these experiences were only the start of many sorrows for the Holy Family. Many years later, as we hear in today's Gospel passage, Jo- seph and Mary were bewildered when they could not find their child amongst all the family and friends who had journeyed with them to Jerusalem. When they found Jesus, his words surprised them: "Did you not know that I had to be in my Father's house?" Jesus was pointing out to Joseph and Mary that it was from his divine Father that He had come to earth. It was this Father who likes it or not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars. His instincts and imagination can still connect them, when his reason can no longer see the need of the connection; for him there will always be some savor of religion about the mere picture of a mother and baby; some hint of mercy and softening about the mere mention of the dreadful name of God." Chesterton was a master of paradox, and through paradox he insightfully explained the depth of the Christian myster- ies. Christmas and Easter are intimately related to each other, by means of a divine paradox: was his goal in life, and the goal of those He was sent to lead. Just as Joseph and Mary recognized Jesus' divine wis- dom, so all parents and children should recognize this same truth: Jesus was born and died in order to lead us to our Heav- enly Father. By and large, the first thirty years of Jesus' life were simple ones in which his mother and foster father made ordinary sacrifices for Jesus' well-being, day after day. The Holy Family prayed together as a devout Jewish family, and they took the steps necessary to care for one anoth- er. When Joseph died, Mary and her son carried on alone. Yet no matter what God the Father asked of them, they prayed and acted as one according to God the Father's will, not their own. When parents bring their child to the baptismal font, God adopts their child. While that mother and father do not cease to be parents following this adoption, within the ritual of baptism they submit themselves to that same truth that Jesus had to explain to Joseph and Mary in today's Gospel passage. Each child ultimately comes as a gift from God the Father.
Are we being led for death, birth? The home is the domestic church
Christ was born for us, so that He might be able to die for us. Christ rose from the dead so that you and I might find the strength to die, so as to live forever. The great Anglo-American poet T. S. Eliot captured this paradox in his poem titled "The Journey of the Magi." Towards the end of this poem one of the Three Wise Men asks, many years after the epiphany they had witnessed: "were we led all that way for birth or death? There was a birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like death, our death." May this Christmas Season lead you to the gift of dying to everything in this world.
All generations honor the BVM
Reflections on the Sacred Liturgy
Subscribe at ReflectionsOnThe SacredLiturgy.com. Extended reflections at HPRweb.com It is the Father who has a plan for each child's life on earth, and parents are responsible for helping that child to discern that vocation. Each child is meant for the life of Heaven, not the pleasures of earth. This world is our means, not our end. Yet we all know that our world is troubled, and that our country is troubled. We don't have to dwell on that. The cure is before us. The cure is to strengthen the family-to build up the family and to strengthen family life-which in turn builds up the life of our community, country, and world. The home is a treasure if it is based upon our heavenly Father's house": if prayer is at its center. The home is "the domestic church", "the school of discipleship" where to live in peace, a person has to learn how to be humble and how to serve the needs of others. As you of- fer up your own sacrifices with Christ in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, make it your prayer that you might imitate him in your daily life: to know the needs of others with the wisdom of God, and to serve the needs of others with the Love of God. Bishop Carl A. Kemme is ask- ing the faithful to join him and the priests of the diocese to consecrate the Diocese of Wichita to the Im- maculate Conception on New Year's Day. Bishop Kemme will make the formal consecration at the 10 a.m. Mass Tuesday, Jan. 1, at the Cathe- dral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita. He has also asked the priests of the diocese to consecrate the dio- cese to the Immaculate Conception at their Masses on that Holy Day. Prayer cards will be made available to the faithful so that they can join the bishop in the prayer of consecration at the Mass. Over the past several months and in light of the sexual abuse crisis we face once again in the Catholic Church, I have felt an intense desire to deepen my own devotion to the Blessed Mother," Bishop Kemme said, adding, "The Memorare prayer states it so beautifully: 'I fly unto thee, O Virgin of Virgins, my Moth- er, to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful.'" He is inviting all the faithful, together with me their bishop and our priests to consecrate them- selves, their marriages, their fami- lies, their vocations, all our minis- tries and all our households to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. For never was it known that anyone who fled to thee for protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided.'" Bishop con- tinued: "May Mary's heart, the heart of the Lord's first and most devoted disciple, love us as she loved her own Son; may Mary inter- cede for us and guide us to true and authentic holiness, the real key and solution to every human crisis and tragedy." Bishop Kemme said he intends to make the diocesan consecration each year on Jan. 1.
Bishop invites the faithful to join him in consecration to Immaculate Conception Protection of youth information online
The Diocese of Wichita is committed to protecting children and young people. For information about how the diocese is working to cre- ate a safe environment for children and young people, or to report sexual abuse of minors by a church employee, go to www.cdowk.org, pull down the Resources link and click on "Protection of Youth." La Dicesis de Wichita est comprometida a proteger a nios y jve- nes. Para obtener informacin sobre cmo la dicesis est trabajando para crear un ambiente seguro para los nios y jvenes, o para reportar un abuso sexual de menores por un empleado de la iglesia, puede ir a www.cdowk.org, vaya al botn de Recursos (Resources) y presione Proteccin de la Juventud" (Protection of Youth). a phn Wichita cam kt bo van ton cho trem v tui tr. Mun bit chi tit thno to bu khng kh an ton cho tui tr, hoc cch thc khiu ni vtrng hp nhn vin hot ng cho a phn lm dng tnh dc vi trem v tui tr, xin xem hoc gi qua internet theo a chwww.cdowk.org, tm xung bng lin kt v nhn vo mc Protection of the Youth.
Bishop Kemme's calendar
The Prayer of Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary appears on page 19.
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