News - December 2024 RSS Feed

Dear Parishioners, On January 1, I will mark six months as pastor of St. Peter’s & St. Hubert’s. I can’t really say that time has flown or that it seems a long time. I guess because I’m in a very familiar place - back here in Reserve after over 45 years since going off to college for a year, and then to the seminary. Back in July 2017 I began my three-years as pastor at St. Hubert’s in Garyville – a somewhat equally-familiar place since I grew up in Reserve. In late 2021, when Hurricane Ida damaged the rectory at St. Gertrude’s where I was pastor, I moved in with my mother on Central Avenue and drove the 40- minute commute to Des Allemands every day for almost two years until I was able to move back into the repaired rectory. So for the past seven years, I have reconnected in a more direct way with my hometown, family, and longtime friends, and again, for the past six months, have literally become the pastor of my lifelong home church parish. As you may know, priests were not sent back to their home parishes for ministry because of the familiarity, and in small towns, that familiarity is even more heightened. But times and practices change, even in the Catholic Church, and here I am – literally back home and pastor of the parish where I, like almost all of you, received my initial sacraments. My return to St. Peter’s and St. Hubert’s has been a interesting yet good one for me, and yet your welcome and reception of me has been wonderful – I certainly knew that would be the case. There was only one or two other parishes that I was being considered for with the reassignment of pastors this past July, yet Archbishop Aymond chose me. With my knowledge and experience of both St. Hubert and St. Peter parishes, I feel I can be a good pastor and spiritual leader with the coming-together of the Reserve and Garyville communities. I’d like to conclude with a favorite Gospel passage of mine - the Annunciation. The Angel Gabriel tells Mary that nothing is impossible for God, and Mary responds that she is the handmaid of the Lord, and for His plan for her to take place in her life. I embraced Mary’s words and am the servant of the Lord. May His will be done in me, according to His Word.

Dear Parishioners, As I mentioned in an earlier article, Advent of 2023 was exactly three weeks long, the shortest possible time for this liturgical season since Christmas Day was on a Monday. If 2024 was not a leap year, Christmas 2024 would be on a Tuesday, still shortening the Fourth Week of Advent significantly. Yet we will celebrate Christmas 2024 on Wednesday, December 25, and this same sequence of days and dates will repeat every six or seven years. Yet the season of Advent is more than just a four-week time on a physical calendar – it is a time that we are called to observe and not just “slough-off” or “brushoff” because “we have Christmas to prepare for!” I know well that physical preparation for Christmas is important for individuals, families, our church parish family, and friends, but a spiritual preparation and observance can’t be just thrown to the side, because, for us Catholics, doing that is totally “missing the point.” And what point is that? Well, for one, we can’t get sucked into the majority of the Christian world view that the celebration of Christmas is one or two days at the most. The liturgical Christmas season for the Catholic Church is sometimes half as long as Advent: from the evening of December 24 until well into January, ending on the evening of the Baptism of the Lord – after the Epiphany, traditionally the “Twelfth Day of Christmas.” So, if we literally “do the math,” we literally can and should celebrate Christmas for almost two full weeks after December 25. Don’t hold your breath and wait to see if the rest of the world does that, because they won’t. But did Jesus ever say for us to just “go with the flow?” No, I don’t think so, and our faithfulness to the observance of our Catholic traditions are certainly more important than being like the rest of the world.

Dear Parishioners, Testing and experimentation give us valuable information with which to make future plans and decisions. Such was the case this past Monday when we gathered in the “north arm”, the daily Mass chapel of St. Peter Church. I wanted to see if this space would provide enough seating for the noon and the 6 p.m. Masses for the holyday of obligation. I’d like to first say “thank you” to you Massgoers who readily moved to the chapel after your arrival, and to all who attended Mass here at St. Peter’s on this transferred feast of the Immaculate Conception. My test/experiment results tell me that, for future holydays of obligation, we will use the entire church rather than just the north chapel. Even though there actually was space for all attendees to sit down, and people were really not packed like sardines in the pews, the space was quite full, but I needed to see and know this before making the decision for future holyday Masses. Hopefully, our numbers for all our Masses here might increase. May I mention at this time that our 6:30 a.m. weekday Masses always have room in the chapel for anyone who would like to start their day and join us for Mass – there is ample room for more, and we still won’t be packed like sardines. So don’t let the fact that we were quite full in the chapel this past Monday deter you from coming to St. Peter’s for Mass on any day or at any time. I was conducting a test, an experiment, and I needed to actually have the attendees there in the chapel to see if it was feasible and practical to have holydays Masses there. I conducted the test, got the result, and made my decision: Masses on holydays will continue to be held using our entire church, our full worship space.

Dear Parishioners, We can never be too well-informed about important things, especially in our spiritual lives as members of the worldwide Catholic Church. And there is a saying that goes “everything old is new again,” indicating that practices and ways of doing things go out of use and come back into use. Such is the case with the celebration of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception this year. For quite a while now, the bishops of the United States, the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops – the USCCB – have lifted the obligation for Catholics to attend Mass if the holyday falls on a Saturday or a Monday; however, since the Immaculate Conception has been transferred this year from Sunday 12/8 to Monday 12/9, and Mary under the title of the Immaculate Conception is the Patroness of the United States, Rome has instructed the bishops to uphold the obligation for Catholics to attend Mass on December 9 this year because of the importance of this dogma of our faith. In addition, since 12/8 – always the Immaculate Conception – falls on a Sunday this year, the Second Sunday of Advent takes precedence as a Sunday over Immaculate Conception, which has been transferred to Monday 12/9 this year. Therefore, from our “headquarters” in Rome, to fulfill our Sunday obligation and our Immaculate Conception obligation, we need to attend Mass twice between 4 p.m. Saturday 12/7 and by midnight Monday 12/9. There will be no vigil Masses for the Immaculate Conception on Sunday evening 12/8, but a Sunday evening Mass on 12/8 will fulfill the obligation for the Immaculate Conception even though the Mass readings and prayers will be for the Second Sunday of Advent. This obligation does not apply to Catholics who are unable to attend Mass due to old age, illness, mobility issues or work obligations. Even only 25 to 30 years ago, we may have had to go to Mass two days in a row for a Sunday and a holyday of obligation, but that certainly didn’t “kill us.” Rome is just giving us a little nudge to remind us that we can never “do too much for God,” yet it is for our own spiritual benefit and growth that sometimes we are called to “go the extra mile” in our faith journey. Our Mother Mary will help us.