ABVM PARISH COMMUNITY

  NEW GUIDELINES FOR PARISHES FOLLOWING THE LIFTING OF PANDEMIC RESTRICTIONS As has already been announced, if you have been fully vaccinated you are not required or expected to wear a face mask or covering while attending Mass or participating in any parish activity.   The Office of Worship of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia advises but does not mandate those who are not vaccinated to continue to wear a mask.   Please be respectful of a person’s choice to wear or not to wear a mask. Social distancing is no longer necessary .   Apart from the school, our buildings are at 100% capacity. The Archbishop has not yet reimposed the obligation to attend Sunday Mass and Holy Days of Obligation.   However, everyone who is healthy is encouraged to consider returning to Mass in person if they have not yet done so.   The benefits of in-person worship far outweigh other options for Sunday worship.   Consider the words of St. John Chrysostom:   You ca...

  THE SOUL OF THE CHURCH             The Church is the Body of Christ, with Christ the Head and we the members (cf. Colossians 1:18; Ephesians 1:22 & 5:23). Every human body needs a soul.   Its members are useless without the soul.   The Holy Spirit gives life and vigor to the Church, as the human soul animates a body.   By him, all of the members are united to the Head and work together for the same purpose.   Ipse armonia es .   St. Basil the Great boldly states that “He is harmony .”   The Holy Spirit makes the Church one in faith, in mission, in worship, in destiny, and in charity.   Because of his abiding presence the Church’s unity is assured by what the Catechism calls “the visible bonds of communion”: the “profession of one faith received from the Apostles”; the “common celebration of divine worship, especially of the sacraments”; and the “apostolic succession through the sacrame...

MOTHER OF CHRIST & MOTHER OF THE CHURCH             By virtue of becoming the Mother of Christ Mary also became the Mother of the Church.  St. Augustine states that she is “clearly the mother of the members of Christ.”  The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council state in their Dogmatic Constitution on the Church ( Lumen Gentium ) that by her charity Mary has “joined in bringing about the birth of believers in the Church.”  In this way she is our Mother in the order of grace.  She began to act in this role when she responded to the invitation of the angel to become the Mother of the Messiah by saying, “Be it done to me according to your word.”  “This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the Cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect.  Taken up to heave...

               The Book of Revelation has enhanced Christian worship with beautiful hymns sung by angels and saints.   After the conclusion of the seven messages to the churches in Asia Minor, the sacred author ushers the reader into a worship service where two beautiful hymns are sung: “And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all round and within, and day and night they never cease to sing, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (Rev 4:8).   While they sing the twenty-four elders, representing the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles, fall down in adoration and sing, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev 4:11).   One might consider the Book of Revelation to be a book of worship.   Some of its hymns have found their way into the M...

  MESSAGE TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES The second and third chapters of Revelation consist of messages from Christ to the seven churches in the Roman province of Asia Minor, all located within the modern nation of Turkey.   Jesus has the apostle John write to the “angel” of each of them, a term used most likely for the presiding bishop.   We ought to consider these messages carefully, for they reveal a lot about how Christ relates to his followers on earth.   I think at different times all of us can be found in one or more of these congregations.   Each message is distinct, but I notice four major themes:   1-      God’s approval :   Five of the seven churches are praised for their willingness to suffer for the faith.   I find it moving that Christ readily admits the difficulty of their situations.   He says to the Christians in Pergamum, “ I know that you live where Satan’s throne is, and yet you hold fast to my name .” ...

Due to the obscurity of the imagery in the Book of Revelation it was not universally acknowledged as Sacred Scripture in the first few hundred years of Christianity. However, the conviction that it was written by the apostle John eventually overcame opposition to its inclusion in the New Testament. Anyone reading Revelation today can understand why there was a controversy, and why there are so many divergent interpretations. There are basically four ways to interpret it: the futurist, which sees the book as a prophesy regarding the end of the world; the preterist (from Latin meaning “last”) which interprets the Book of Revelation as using apocalyptic imagery to describe first century conflicts; the historicist, which sees the work as presenting different stages in the history of the Church; and the idealist, which considers it as colorfully portraying aspects of the spiritual life and providing encouragement for the persecuted followers of Christ I believe that edifying ...

From a merely human perspective it would appear that mercy and justice are opposed to each other. It would seem that, in some situations, one must choose one or the other. To Pope St. John Paul II, however, this is not an acceptable option for the Christian. On the first Sunday of Advent in 1980 the Holy Father promulgated the second encyclical of his pontificate, with the Latin title Dives in misericordia (“Full of Mercy”). In it he writes, “Mercy differs from justice, but it is not in opposition to it.” He quotes the Book of Wisdom, which affirms that God does not hate anything which he has made. These words reveal “the profound basis of the relationship between justice and mercy in God” (cf. Wis 10:11). The pope refers to mercy as love’s second name. To believe in the love of God is to believe in mercy. Mercy is “the specific manner in which love is revealed and effected vis-à-vis the reality of the evil that is in the world.” Divine love is expressed by God’s w...