Dear Parishioners of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,

I am excited to invite you to participate in the first Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish and School Endowment Drive!

With your support, we plan to raise $25,000, and with the dollar-for-dollar matching opportunity with our trusted partners at the Catholic Community Foundation, the total can double to $50,000.

Like most liturgical vestments, the chalice veil is a mysterious garment. We may be tempted to dismiss it as a kind of decoration. However, the chalice and the veil not only have a function during the celebration of Mass, but they also remind us of a dignity that is too often veiled.

Beginning February 2, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, a Veil, with its accompanying Burse, will be used to cover the chalice when it is carried to and from the altar during the celebration of Mass.

Dear Friends,

I continue to wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2025. We are already two weeks into the new year. BUT, as I reflected on the events of the past couple of weeks, I found myself going back to the Christmas we have just celebrated. As I did so, I realized that it has been years since this month of January found me in the country, and perhaps that is what triggered this reflection. For many years, I celebrated the first of January in Uganda with my family and friends. So, I found myself thinking about the events surrounding Christmas and my past experiences of it in my village. Hence, the title of this article.

We are excited to announce that beginning on February 2nd, the Sunday 5pm Mass will be the host of a beautiful and prayerful monthly candle-lit Mass!

Forty days after Christmas, February 2nd, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, which is also referred to as Candlemas, as it is traditionally the day in which candles are blessed. This feast is one of the oldest in the history of the Church, with details of its celebration from even as far back as the year 380. This feast, and its association with candles, stems from Luke 2:25-32:

Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Epiphany, when we celebrate the arrival of the Magi to adore the Christ child, bringing Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, representing, respectively, the kingship, divinity, and death of the Christ. As part of the Epiphany festivities, there is an annual custom in the church of blessing homes, marking this blessing with chalk on the lintel above the main door of the house.

Dear Friends,

We are now in the midst of the Christmas season and we recognize, during this time, the presence of the living Word of God in his creation by his miraculous incarnation. In this incarnation (taking on human flesh), Jesus maintains his divinity as consubstantial (of the same substance) with the Father and the Holy Spirit while also taking on human nature in the flesh in all ways but sin: a human will, a human intellect.