At the Threshold of Christmas

12-18-2020Weekly Flocknote MessageFr. James Aboyi, V.C.

Welcome to the final weekend of preparation for Christmas. If you are familiar with liturgical settings and official prayers of the Church, you will notice that prayer book settings are specifically different from December 17-23. This is because December 17 marks the beginning of the tradition of the “O Antiphons.” These are 7 antiphons that accompany the Magnificat canticle of Evening Prayer from December 17th-23rd, recalling the seven Messianic titles, based on the Old Testament prophecies about Christ. This tradition dates back to around the fourth century AD. You may incorporate the antiphons into your evening prayers up to December 23rd. Find out more here.

Exciting Week at SJB

Despite the low-key preparations for Christmas this year, our SJB community was able to develop some creative ways to make this week exciting and memorable for everyone in the school community. One of the highlights of the Christmas events was the Christmas play by the Kindergarten class. This year, they built their nativity scene/manger in the courtyard for their Christmas play. I was honored to be invited and I watched with amazement as they reenacted the Christmas story and sang several Christmas songs. I was touched by their level of confidence and the way they memorized the play parts and songs. I am so proud of our SJB children and the quality of education they are receiving.

Another memorable event was the virtual Christmas concert organized by the sixth graders. I really marvel at the creativity of our SJB teachers and students by inventing many creative ways of keeping the community connected while at the same time maintaining physical distance between classes and cohorts. The final exciting event I witnessed this week at SJB was the carpool pick-up, marking the Christmas break on Thursday, December 17th. I was very impressed to learn that SJB uses Apps and radio systems to coordinate and track each child from the classroom to the vehicle. This is incredible! I thank our school administration, the teachers, and parents for the amazing teamwork and a very successful 2020. I look forward to welcoming everyone back to the campus in January.

A Million Thanks to Our Parish Staff

Please join me in thanking our parish staff for their excellent job and personal sacrifices through the year. I thank God for granting our prayers, as none of our staff was sick throughout the year. Through the personal sacrifices of each staff member, we were able to keep the parish office and ministries open, even during the general public shutdown. To navigate through the challenging time, we reinforced our teamwork and strategically developed teams among ourselves such as the media team, editorial team and liturgy team to ensure an effective engagement with the community. Through these efforts, we were able to coordinate the live-streaming of Masses, hold virtual meetings, webinars, continue religious education and support the different ministries in the parish.

I thank our staff for their understanding and willingness to make financial sacrifices through salary cuts to keep our parish running through this challenging time. We will be going on Christmas break on Tuesday, December 22nd at noon until Monday, January 4th. Please Note! We will still have daily Mass throughout the break except on December 24 and 25. The priests will also be responding to emergency calls during the break.

Christmas Mass Schedule Survey

I thank everyone who responded to the survey we sent out on December 14th. Your feedback was very helpful. Please find time to respond to the survey if you have not done so yet. Using the responses we have received so far, we are planning to keep all of the Christmas Masses as indicated in the survey and on the parish website. We are also looking at the possibility of offering a concurrent Mass in the St. John Bosco MPR for any Mass that has more than the allowed capacity in the Church in order to avoid turning anyone away.

Church’s Stand on the Vaccines

I know many of us have been wondering about the ethical standard and any moral issues involved in the COVID-19 approved vaccines. The Diocese of Phoenix has made a statement to clarify the Church’s stand on this issue.

Please click on this link to find out about the statement. The link also leads to other links from the U.S. Bishops Conference (USCCB) and National Catholic Bioethics Center and its stand on the vaccines.

Declaración de la Diócesis de Phoenix acerca de las vacunas COVID-19.

Have a wonderful weekend and Remain Blessed.

Fr. James Aboyi, VC
Pastor

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