News - December 2019 RSS Feed

Article 130 - Catechism of the Catholic Church Series Paragraphs 1699 -1709 As Director of the Propagation of the Faith for the Diocese of Metuchen, I often make appeals for the poor in missionary lands. I once made this suggestion in an appeal talk: “Imagine as you place your monetary gift into collection basket that you are really placing it into the pierced hands of Jesus, who died on a cross to save you...”

Each year, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. The baby in the manger is an image we hold dear to our hearts — but, the image only has meaning for us because we have been told what the world was like before the incarnation. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we have seen his glory: The glory of an only Son coming from the Father, filled with enduring love.” (Jn1:14) Until this moment, ours was a world that could never conceptualize the divine. Now, we can actually put a face on the infinitely transcendent God, who mediates our matter to himself and embraces fully our humanity in the person of the Holy Infant. Still, we have to remember that we can only begin to grasp the impact that the incarnation had on our world because our faith has been tweaked by what followed the infancy of the Christ-child, Jesus’ ministry, his Passion, Death and Resurrection. It is in light of what follows the incarnation that we can look back and say “this birth is different from all others.” Then and only then, can we pause and give thanks to God for the gift of his Son, for the glory of his incarnation and subsequent birth of Jesus.

What a blessed time for our Diocese! I certainly count it among my blessings in life to be a part of this Church of Metuchen, and I thank God for all of you each morning. Our Year of Spiritual Awakening of Faith bore much fruit, as we strove to wake up and become even more aware of God’s love and desire for us. Just as St. Juan Diego was prepared for the encounter he had with our Mother Mary, so we have been preparing ourselves for our encounter, our consecration to Jesus through Our Lady of Guadalupe. Our students participated with a consecration in each of their schools on her feast day, and in the evening, we gathered in our beautiful Cathedral, filled to capacity, with Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Pope’s representative to our country, presiding at Mass. At the end of the Mass, I led our faithful in our consecration and on the following weekend, each of our parishes was asked to recite the prayer of consecration together in a great moment of prayer as we entrusted our whole Diocese to Our Lady of Guadalupe asking her to bring us closer to Her Son.