The song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is an English Christmas carol. From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of the church.
On the evening of Dec. 24, Catholics in Alaska and around the world will gather in their local parishes to celebrate the traditional Christmas Midnight Mass. At Our Lady of Guadalupe Co-Cathedral, Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz will celebrate the Midnight Mass beginning at midnight, and it will be broadcast live on KTUU Channel 2.
I travel a lot for my mission in Magadan, Russia, always wearing my religious habit or a clerical cassock to identify me as a priest. Exceptional encounters and conversations arise that would not otherwise happen if people didn’t know I was a priest. I jokingly say that I witness many conversions on plane trips as I walk down the aisle looking for my seat. I can see the fear in the eyes of many who are quietly praying, “Please God, don’t let that religious fanatic sit next to me.”
I had just returned from a meeting of Ignatian Associates, a faith-based group centered on prayer and apostolic activity. When I arrived at the meeting, I noticed the table was piled with loaves of bread, oatmeal bread, French bread, baguettes, none of them wrapped. They looked like someone had just dumped them.
But recently at mid-morning someone told me that a young gunman at Umqua College in Roseberg, Oregon, killed 10 students. It is so utterly tragic. And yet, an ounce of sense would have reminded me that bad news never ceases. If it were not bad it wouldn’t qualify for breaking news. Walter Cronkite made that clear years ago when he would end his evening news broadcast with the words: “That’s the way it is, folks.”
Here is a sampling of upcoming events and news briefs from across the Archdiocese of Anchorage, Alaska.
Simbang Gabi is a series of special Masses leading up to Christmas. The celebration of the nine-day novena is one of the longest-running and most popular Catholic Filipino religious traditions, enduring more than 600 years. At the Masses, the faithful especially focus on the Blessed Virgin Mary and ready their hearts to worthily welcome and receive the Child Jesus at Christmas.
The fallout since the attacks is what has been most surprising to my brother bishops and me. Here in America, a land of immigrants, governors from across our nation announced that they would refuse to take in Syrian refugees. Here in Alaska, Governor Walker has not supported this, for which I am grateful.
The funeral Mass and memorial Masses for Father Thomas Weise have been finalized. Father Weise, 46, served as a priest for the Diocese of Juneau, Alaska. He died on Dec. 6 after suffering a Nov. 25 heart attack while visiting with family in California for Thanksgiving.
Kathleen is quick to point out that deteriorating marriages don’t all look the same. The reasons for marital breakdown are many. “Retrouvaille isn’t just for those who are contemplating divorce. It’s for couples who are experiencing disillusionment, or even misery, in their marriages. They may be living with it and not contemplating divorce.” Marriage, according to Retrouvaille, consists of four stages: romance, disillusionment, misery and awakening to joy, with most couples getting divorced in the misery stage.