And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, And we saw his glory, The glory as of the Father s only Son, Full of grace and truth.

Transcription

1 And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, And we saw his glory, The glory as of the Father s only Son, Full of grace and truth. JOHN 1:14 WINDOWS LOCATED IN SOUTH BAY 2 CHRISTMAS Mass Times Weekdays Saturday Confessions 4:00pm 5:00pm Sunday 8:00am 9:30am 11:00am Clergy Most Rev. William E. Lori Archbishop of Baltimore Msgr. Richard W. Woy Rector Fr. Andrew T. DeFusco Associate Pastor Msgr. Robert Armstrong Rector @CMOQyouthmin N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD

2 Dear Friends, Christmas December 24/25, 2016 Merry Christmas and welcome to the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen for Christmas Mass! It is a pleasure for Fr. Defusco and me to welcome you to this magnificent Church that serves as the spiritual home of the Catholics of the Archdiocese of Baltimore and parish church to a vibrant faith community of 1,500 families. Please know you are always welcome at CMOQ. Please visit us on our website at for more information about the parish and at to learn more about our nationally-recognized Blue Ribbon School. My heartfelt thanks for another spectacular response to the Adopt-a-Family Appeal! Christmas gifts and dinner were delivered last Saturday afternoon (in spite of the ice) for 111 families served by our sister parish of Immaculate Conception in Baltimore s inner city. A special thanks to Willis Gunther Baker for coordinating the effort again this year and Boy Scout Troop 1000 for providing the truck and muscle for the deliveries. This week s poor box proceeds will benefit Immaculate Conception, which services some of the poorest of the poor in Baltimore. Finally, please remember the parish in your holiday giving. Our Christmas collection is one of the major sources of revenue in support of our programs and ministries. As always, I am very grateful for your generosity to the parish. Merry Christmas! Msgr. Woy Photos courtesy of Alex Lowitt (top) and John J. Coyle, Jr. (bottom).

3 Last week Offertory $16, Poor Box $ Pres. Trust $4, Food Program $80.00 Attendance 1,131 Faith Direct Faith Direct is a convenient way to support the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen using direct debit for your offertory giving. Register: CMOQ Code: MD500 Thank you to our parishioners who already use Faith Direct! As we reflect and share in our many blessings this Christmas, we are deeply grateful for the Cathedral community; the time you spend in ministry with one another, the talent you invest in creating a joyful, welcoming community of believers, and your faithful stewardship of the treasure God has blessed you with. May you and your families savor these blessings and enjoy the miracle of Christmas. Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you join the angels in this festive time and sing Glory to the newborn King! One of my joys of serving in music ministry is hearing the large numbers of people singing enthusiastically. God gifted you with a voice. Be sure and use it to share the Good News. The original version of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing written in 1739 by Charles Wesley has ten verses and began Hark, how all the welkin rings. Welkin, meaning heaven or sky, is not part of our modern vocabulary. George Whitefield altered the text in 1753 to the line we know today. The original tune intended by Wesley was the same as for his Easter text Jesus Christ Is Risen Today. While I know of one other tune with both Christmas and Easter texts, this is one combination I find hard to make. Have a look at #442 in Worship for the melody if you want to try it yourself! The tune that we now sing for Hark! The Herald was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840 for the second chorus of his Festgesang, op. 68. This was a secular three-movement work written to celebrate the anniversary of Gutenberg s invention of the printing press. Mendelssohn once said of the melody that it will never work with sacred words. William H. Cummings apparently did not know Mendelssohn s opinion when he paired Wesley s text with the tune in It was published in Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861 and has become one of the most popular Christmas carols. David Willcocks was director of music and organist at King s College, Cambridge, from 1957 to He arranged numerous carols for their annual service of Lessons and Carols. Hark! The Herald is the traditional closing hymn for the service. The harmonization and descant that Willcocks wrote for the tune is one of his most popular and well-known. We use it at the end of our own Lessons and Carols service and again for our Christmas celebrations. Hoping to hear your heavenly voices sing Gloria in excelsis Deo!

4 Sunday, December 25 Monday, December 26 Tuesday, December 27 Friday, December 30 9:30am 11:00am Steve Palkovitz Daniel Beckenholdt Mary Josephine Archer Wanda Zebrowski Earle Wolfe Thomas Palermo Wednesday, December 28 Kathryn Elizabeth Keenan Crane Frances & Phyllis Della Vecchia Gloria Melanson Thursday, December 29 Gemma Sedini Catherine Sweeney Patrick McCurdy, III Anita P. Ward Joseph Kershaw Michael Hugh Bagley Saturday, December 31 Lindsay & Chris Vest* For the Parish Living* Masses will be held on Christmas Day at 10am and 12noon. In the St. Joseph s chapel resides the Cathedral s manger scene. It is a serene scene with Joseph and Mary lovingly beholding Jesus. The shepherds look on with a holy awe and wise men arrive to pay their homage. This scene is one that can engender a sense of warmth, peace, and calm. But if we leave it there, we may miss the deeper messages of this scene. First consider Jesus in the manger. He is Emmanuel, God with us, and a king. As foretold by Isaiah, he comes from the line of David. Matthew s and Luke s genealogies trace this lineage. He is not a temporal king though. Instead, he rules through the establishment of the God s Reign of peace and justice on earth. His is a non-temporal kingdom which favors the poor and the outcast on the margins of society. Photo courtesy of John J. Coyle, Jr. As representatives of those on the margins, Luke s gospel gives us the shepherds. We may think of shepherds as nice guys, but they were rough characters who lived in the wild with their sheep. They were dirty and not particularly gentle. For Jews, they were perennially, ritually unclean and therefore outcasts. They would not be the people you would think of calling to welcome your baby, and yet here they are. The Magi, who later come as part of Matthew s narrative are representatives of the Gentiles. They signify that His reign will have implications not just for the Jews, but for all of humanity. Jesus placement in a manger has symbolic meaning as well. The manger is the feeding trough for the animals. It is the appropriate place for Jesus theologically. His body will become the bread for the life of the world. The price he pays to become life giving food is one of a cruel and torturous death on the cross. This threat to his life is foreshadowed by Herod s campaign to kill all first born males which drives Jesus family into exile and make him an outcast, an exile. Despite these elements, this is not a dower story. This is a story of hope. This is Emmanuel, whose light will shine in the world and conquer the darkness. This Christmas let us pause to take stock of our own darkness. Let our prayer to the Christ child be a request to touch our lives with His saving light. May the grace and mercy of His life help us find our way to the manger where we, too, might be fed. The next Baptism prep class will be Sunday, January 8 at 12:30pm in the baptistery. For more information on the Sacrament of Baptism, please contact: Lori Ryan lryan@cmoq.org Photo courtesy of Alex Lowitt CHANGE IN PARISH CENTER HOURS: CLOSED Friday, Dec. 23 and Monday, Dec. 26 OPEN from 9am to 12noon: Tuesday, Dec. 27 through Friday, Dec. 30 CLOSED: Monday, Jan. 2 For all who have wedding a n n i v e r s a r i e s i n January, join us after any Mass December 31 / January 1 in the Lady Chapel to renew your vows. For more info, contact: Lori Ryan lryan@cmoq.org We keep in prayer those who have recently departed as we ask for the repose of their souls. May they rest in peace. For more information about the Bereavement Ministry, contact: Lori Ryan lryan@cmoq.org

5 SCOUTS: Troop 1000 scouts braved the recent ice storm to collect hundreds of Adopt-A-Family packages at the Parish Center and deliver them to Immaculate Conception parish on Druid Hill Avenue. There were plenty of warm smiles to thaw the otherwise wintry day! We are getting excited for a January trip to New York City, and plans are proceeding for a scuba trip to Florida Sea Base in 2017, a return to Philmont in 2018, and a trip to Ireland in Sound fun? To join Troop 1000, you must be 11 years old or entering 6th grade. Call Membership Chairman Andy Fish at This week, our entire school gathered for a Christmas Convocation. Highlights of the day included: A Christmas card exchange between Prayer Buddies (a mentoring experience help our Middle School students develop leadership skills as they serve the younger students of our school) A special Pre-K Christmas pageant Performances from our beginner and advanced bands Announcements of the winners of the Keep Christ in Christmas poster contest Choral performances from each grade Stations of the Nativity, featuring two middle school students as lectors and students from each grade in the live Nativity Missed the Christmas Convocation, or want to re-live the magic? Watch it on School of the Cathedral s Facebook Live video! We hope you will join us at our next Coffee with Prospective Families on January 17, where you can meet the School Principal and learn about the School s focus on spiritual strength, academic excellence, and 21st-century learning for students in grades K through 8. For more information about the School of the Cathedral, please contact Fiona Diemer at fdiemer@cmoq.org or

6 ADOPT A FAMILY: Neither rain, nor snow nor dark of day could keep our amazing supporters from delivering Christmas to almost 600 people Saturday! Hats off to Boy Scout Troop 1000 as they played Santa's helpers in moving hundreds of boxes in icy conditions so that the Immaculate Conception Community could enjoy some Christmas joy! We provided food and gifts for 111 families and contributed over $3,000 for Brother William to give to the additional families that we were unable to match. Thank you so much to all of our amazing donors who make this ministry possible! If you were unable to participate, it is not too late to make a financial contribution through Faith Direct or by check to the Parish Center, marked AAF in the memo line. Immaculate Conception uses the funds to assist families we were unable to match and for outreach in the Druid Hill/Sandtown-Winchester Community of West Baltimore. CASSEROLES: Please join fellow school and church friends in kicking off the new year and to help feed Baltimore's hungry! The Cathedral Casserole Club will gather on New Year's Day 2017 after the 9:30am Mass in the church undercroft kitchen to prepare casseroles for Our Daily Bread. The casseroles made Sunday, together with the many collected here at the parish on the first Tuesday of the month, will be delivered frozen to the soup kitchen to serve as hot meals in the coming weeks. Hope you and your family will consider joining the fun! The more the merrier. Just bring the ingredients for the dogs & beans casserole - one 48-oz can of baked beans, one 10-oz. can of tomato soup concentrate, and two packages of hot dogs (16 total. The recipe, pans, utensils, and fellowship will be provided. Can't make it this time? Pans and recipes will be available at the narthex tables Friday through Monday for the first Tuesday frozen casserole collection. CARES: The CARES food pantry would like to thank the parishioners for their generosity in donations of food and toiletries in Please remember that your donations may be tax-deductible consult your tax advisor. A wonderful Christmas and New Year s to all! BABY BOTTLE CAMPAIGN: So far the generous parishioners at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen have returned 56 baby bottles filled with cash, checks and coins totaling $1,300! This will go a long way in helping Pregnancy Center North provide free services to abortion vulnerable women. You may also go online to and make a contribution that will help save lives! Thank you so much for your support. FOR ALL VOLUNTEERS: The Cathedral of Mary Our Queen and the Archdiocese of Baltimore have a commitment to maintaining the trust of the faithful by providing our children and youth with safe environments characterized by healthy relationships. All parishes and Archdiocesan schools use Shield the Vulnerable for any volunteer/employee who works with minors to facilitate compliance with archdiocesan child protection requirements. Please visit our website ( for details and instructions for compliance.