Offerimus Tibi Domine

Some of the helpers pictured after the Mass - including servers and our multi-talented Director of Music

Yesterday the Holy Father celebrated Mass for the Epiphany
- and so did we!
The Holy Father reflected on the Gospel story of the Magi and their journey to follow the star in search of the Messiah. He exhorted:

We must not let our minds be limited by theories that come only to a certain point and that -- if we look well -- are not in fact in concurrence with the faith and do not succeed in explaining the ultimate meaning of reality.

In the beauty of the world, in its mystery, in its grandeur and its rationality we cannot but read the eternal rationality, and we cannot but let ourselves be guided by it to the one God, creator of heaven and earth.

text of his homily is here: www.zenit.org/article-31368?l=english

The Holy Father offering Mass for the Epiphany

There is an excellent piece in this week's Catholic Herald by Pastor Iuventus pleading for a return for us in this country to rejoin the rest of Christendom and celebrate the Epiphany with them in future. He likens the sense of loss he feels to the awareness people still experience when a limb has been lost - it's gone but you're still aware of it. I can't get to it on line but it's well worth reading. He offers the opinion:

I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that this year the whole rhythm of the Christmas season was destroyed by the change in holy days.

Finally... we blessed chalk for people to take home and inscribe above the doorways of their homes, calling down God's blessing by the prayer that goes with the inscription and a constant herald to them and their guests of the Christian Faith in their household.

The year date surrounds the initials of the traditional names of the Three Magi:
Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar.
The letters are also the initials of the Latin words:

"Christus mansionem benedicat"

("May Christ bless the house").