With New Year’s Eve on Monday and all of us reflecting on resolutions for 2019, I read a wonderful article by Gretchen Filz, who proposes 8 Catholic Resolutions. Let me summarize them:

1. Increase your Marian devotion

In 2019, commit yourself to increasing your Marian devotion so that she may lead you to deeper conversion, to follow God’s will for your life more perfectly, and to increase your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

2. Make more me for spiritual reading

The brilliant St. Athanasius once said, “You will not see anyone who is striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed in his [lack of] progress.” If you want to make progress in your walk with God in 2019, spiritual reading should be high on your list.

3. Make good stewardship a lifestyle

This means good management of our “me, talent, and treasure” for the greater glory of God. Prayerfully evaluate how you will spend your me, talents, and income in 2019 to see what lifestyle changes will posively impact your spiritual life.

4. Share your Catholic faith with others

With so many people far away from God today, the culture is ripe for evangelism. Modern Catholics aren’t usually great about sharing their faith with others, but this is something that can change with practice. If someone you know is going through a difficult time and you hand them a Miraculous Medal or a prayer card, it might be for them the touch of God in that moment.

5. Bring back regular penances

Living a penitenal life, even outside of Advent and Lent, is the Catholic way of life. What penitential practice can you do each Friday in 2019? Maybe it is tried-and-true abstinence from meat, or perhaps another penitential practice such as praying the Stations of the Cross, or acts of service for the less fortunate. Be creative.

6. Go an extra day to Mass

Mass is not only the source and summit of our faith, it is the source and summit of our very life. For 2019 think of ways you can arrange your schedule and activities so that you can make it to Mass either an extra day each week, or a few extra days a month.

7. Pray the rosary

No Catholic list of New Year’s resolutions would be complete without a daily rosary added in. If you already pray the rosary, that is fantastic. Your resolution can then be to spread devotion to the rosary in 2019.

8. Pick a new Saint buddy

Why not begin the tradition of walking along your pilgrimage of faith with a different Catholic saint each year? Pray about your New Year and the goals you have for your spiritual life, family, relationships, career, etc. Then choose a patron saint whose virtues you would like to emulate in the New Year.

Reprinted with permission from GetFed.com,
a service of The Catholic Company.
 

Santa María de Guadalupe appeared to San Juan Diego in 1531 between December 9 and 12 on the hill of Tepeyac. She asked him to build her a Catholic church on the plain, at the foot of the mountain.

When presenting the request to the Bishop of Mexico, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, San Juan Diego took with him his tilma tunic which was full of roses that had miraculously bloomed on the usually barren Tepeyac. When the tilma was opened, the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared and has been seen to this day on the garment.

I would like to explain the wonderful meaning of the name “Santa Maria de Guadalupe,” Patroness of the Americas. First the name “Mary” has at least three meanings: the one chosen by God, the enlightened one, and she who is most beautiful. Mary is not the light; Jesus Christ is the light. She is the illuminator, the one who illuminates through Jesus Christ Our Lord.

Guadalupe has an Arab origin and it is derived from the word for riverbed. The Virgin Mary is not the living water, but she carries the living water like a riverbed to the world through her Son, Jesus. All documents mention the name Santa María de Guadalupe as given to the Lady during these apparitions and ever since.

The tilma of San Juan Diego with the original image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is preserved today in the Basilica of Guadalupe, Mexico City, for the world to see. The Feast Day of St. Juan Diego is December 9, the date he first saw Our Blessed Mother. The Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe is December 12.

Santa María de Guadalupe pray for us who await the coming of your Son!
 

With so much going on in our vibrant parish, I thought my letter this week should touch on several different topics.

THANKSGIVING FAMILY MASS

On Wednesday, November 21 at 7:30 PM, we will celebrate a Thanksgiving Family Mass at Immaculate Conception. I am asking all of our parishioners to come together to pray and thank the Lord for all of His blessings. Please invite all of your family members, including those that do not often come to Church. Invite them for me personally.

There will be two Masses on Thanksgiving morning, November 22 at 7:30 AM (Assumption) and 8:30 AM (Immaculate).

CANNED GOODS AND BLESSED BREAD

Our Parish provides non-perishable food to many families all year long but we want to fill
our storage bin during the Thanksgiving season. Please bring to our Thanksgiving Family Mass a can of food, a pound of pasta, or any nonperishable item that is not expired. Our youth will accept the gifts before Mass and fill the baskets that grace our Altar. Later, it will be transferred to our storage area until our Keogh Council of the Knights of Columbus distribute the food.

At each Thanksgiving Mass we will bless bread that has been prepared with a blessing for your own Thanksgiving table. This is a way for all parishioners to bring a bit of our Parish home.

MARBLE STATUES FOR IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Four beautiful white marble statues carved in the early 1900s will soon be placed in Immaculate Conception Church.

On July 26, 2015 the magnificent Church of St. Joseph’s on Monroe and Catherine Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan had its last Mass and the church was closed. When I was a boy, I would go to St. Joseph’s with my Sicilian grandparents, who worshiped there since it opened in 1925.

When I asked the Vicar General if I could have some of the appointments, namely the monstrance, a side altar and a few particular statues, he graciously said “yes.” Normally, when a church closes everything goes into warehouses, is sold, distributed or forgotten. But these precious objects are here in Tuckahoe and I want you to know that you will be seeing them soon in our Church. More to come.

Pictured: The three statues - Sacred Heart of Jesus, St. Joseph with the Child Jesus, and Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception - above the High Altar are here in Tuckahoe being cleaned. La Madonna Annunziata (Archangel Gabriel and The Blessed Mother at the Annunciation)