Laudetur Iesus Christus! Blessed Advent Embertide. As noted in Sunday’s e-mail, this week (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) are the seasonal ember days – when the traditional Church sets aside 3 days each season for prayer, fasting and partial abstinence (the latter two now voluntary) to thank God for his gifts of creation and to use them in moderation. It’s a good time to also pray for sanctity for the upcoming season. Fisheaters has more commentary here: https://www.fisheaters.com/customsadvent11.html

Ember Week Masses:

• Ember Friday: St. Ann 7am (Low) & St. Mark, 12:30pm (Low)
• Ember Saturday: NEW: St. Michael the Archangel, Gastonia 8:30am (Low)

New weekly Saturday Latin Mass at St. Michael

As noted above, we are pleased to report that a new weekly Saturday morning Latin Mass is starting up at St. Michael the Archangel. Fr. Rossi will offer a weekly 8:30am Low Mass on Saturdays. We understand he started doing it last weekend. This is good news and great to see the Latin Mass returning to St. Michael. Please offer prayers of thanksgiving for Fr. Rossi for generously offering this new Latin Mass time. The website is: https://stmccg.org/

Annual Blessing of Religious Objects – This Sunday December 20

This Sunday December 20, St. Ann parish, after 12:30pm Latin Mass: Just a reminder,  as custom, the Sunday before Christmas, Father will kindly bless any objects immediately after 12:30pm Mass. This includes Rosaries, statues, images, scapulars, icons, chaplets, candles, crucifixes, medals, etc. This will be done in the traditional Latin blessing. We should have the table

We will have a blessing table in the narthex to place your religious items prior to Mass beginning. We again want to emphasize – please have your items on the table before Mass begins. Please do not place any items on the table after Father begins his blessing – we can’t guarantee they are blessed.

Prayers for Our Nation

Lastly, speaking of prayer, please continue to pray the Rosary for our nation and let us continue to heed Father Reid’s advice on the day after Election Day: dig in and continue to pray.

Things remain unsettled and now is the time to continue praying. These are ominous times, but as we Catholics know, the Light of the World comes at the darkest time of the year, and God ultimately reigns over this world.