We may be more familiar with the French term Mardi Gras -- Fat Tuesday, but in many cultures the period leading up to Lent is called Carnival. That word literally means "goodbye to meat." We have a little relic of this banishment of meat in the abstinence from meat that we practice on Ash Wednesday and all the Fridays of Lent. (Isn't it interesting that everyone from environmentalists to your doctor is recommending going light on meat? Maybe the Church has been guiding us well all along!) It is OK to celebrate a bit before Lent begins, especially if you intend to keep a good Lent, but keep the emphasis on your interior preparation. What can you say goodbye to that will help you to grow in the love of God and neighbor?

Faithfully,

Fr. Baker

After our parish mission, I have been thinking of how to make our celebration of the Mass more of an encounter with the Lord Jesus. For our English Masses, we need to concentrate on finishing Mass well. First of all, everyone needs to stay until the end of Mass. What does it indicate about what we believe if we leave Mass right after receiving Holy Communion? Remember, no one should leave Mass before the priest does! Also when we remain until the end of Mass, we need to say thank you to God for the gift we have received or at least to be quiet so that others can do so. Mass is something that we are doing as the Mystical Body of Christ and so we need to have that "team" attitude and not an individual one.

I commend our Hispanic community at the Spanish Mass for staying until the end of Mass, but I do want to encourage reverence after Mass in the church so that it remains a time and place for prayer. Visiting with one another can take place in our large vestibule after Mass.

The Church celebrates and exalts the role of husband and wife within the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. She reminds us that marriage is a part of creation. In other words, marriage is something that God made. We did not make it. Like all of God's creation it is beautiful and powerful. Literally, the life of the world depends on marriage. Also like all of God's creation, marriage is fragile and requires constant love and care.

A project that I am working on for our parish is a comprehensive marriage preparation program, involving married couples, as well as the priests and deacons of the parish. Pope Francis has suggested that marriage preparation should be thought of in the same way as preparation for priesthood or religious life with robust and thorough formation. I am very excited about this project.

This past week, ministry leaders and staff of Saint Rose met for an introduction to the Amazing Parish process.

All ministries and staff are asked to engage in three key behaviors in their work in the parish.

1. Culture of Prayer: before we do anything, we need to be praying with and for each other.
2. Culture of Active Discipleship: before we do anything, we need to commit to follow Jesus in everything.
3. Culture of Healthy Teamwork: before we do anything, we need to commit to healthy collaboration.

We also discussed our core purpose as a parish: to be the place of encounter with Jesus Christ in his fullness in this community.

Next weekend, we will have Fr. Eusebius Martis, O.S.B. with us to preach at the Masses and to introduce our Parish Mission that will follow on Monday - Wednesday, with talks at 10 a.m. and at 7 p.m. for the three days. The same topic will be covered at the morning and evening sessions.

A mission is a time for us as a parish to focus on our faith in an intentional way. The mission talks this year will help us to experience the liturgy as an encounter with Jesus in our lives. We are blessed to have Fr. Eusebius with us for these days. He is indeed an expert on the sacraments and the liturgical life, and he is a master teacher. Some of you might be familiar with Father from the video series: Elements of the Catholic Mass. He was the director of sacred liturgy at the seminary where I served before coming to St. Rose. I can therefore recommend that you attend the mission from my personal experience.

With the renovations coming to a close in the church, we are getting used to some new routines and locations. The confessionals, for example, are in the back of the church, and the line forms along the back wall. The bulletin board and table that had been in the vestibule are now in the Shepherd's Hallway, where additional information can be found, as well as the lost and found, the "drop box'' for parishioners -- pretty much everything that was on that table and board before. The vestibule itself is now primarily for those who need to step out of Mass for some reason, particularly for parents dealing with a fussy child -- and for overflow crowds, which occur not infrequently. As long as there is room in the church, I ask that you come and find a seat in the church itself. Then the vestibule is available for those who need it. We will get used to the new situation soon enough!

When working on leaks that were coming from the church tower, we discovered that the mounting of the cross atop the tower was in bad shape -- so bad that we had a structural engineer analyze the mounting and redesign it. For the cross to remain lifted high above St. Rose, we need to remount the cross. Otherwise, the cross will have to come down as a hazard. This is an unforeseen and unbudgeted expense, but it is also one that I hope we will support and undertake.

If any parishioner(s) can help to underwrite this expense, please contact the church office. The project is quite complicated for a structure so tall as our tower. The estimate for remounting the cross is $10,000. Lifting high the cross is a great witness in our community, as well as an iconic emblem of our parish itself. Let's keep the cross lifted high!

By the time you are reading this, I will be in Guatemala. I am enrolled in an intensive immersion course in Spanish at the Priorato de San José in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. I will be taking instruction for several hours each day while living in a Benedictine community and participating in Mass and prayers with the community. My hope is that this will help me with conversational skills, in particular, and with liturgical Spanish. These are both important to me to be able to minister more effectively in a pastoral role for our Spanish-speaking parishioners. I will be in the program for two weeks, returning on January 18.

Before the end of the year, I need to thank the parish for so much, both personally and as your pastor. First in my mind is the end of the Jubilee of 25 years of priesthood, which the parish celebrated with me so joyously in March. That celebration included the truly astonishing gift of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with my sister, Sr. Margaret Andrew, O.P. We were able to make that trip in July, and it is still resonating in my heart. This Christmas time, for example, I could not stop thinking of being in Bethehem and seeing the place of Jesus' birth and the Shepherd's Field with little caves like those that the Holy Family must have sheltered in.

As your pastor, I am grateful for the stability in faith of the parish in a year of many challenging circumstances. I have tried to deal with these situations prudently, and I appreciate your spiritually mature response as well. At the same time, there have been many positive developments in the parish. We have many new parish structures, for example: finance council, pastoral council, strategic planning committee, facilities committee, etc. I am grateful for the willingness of so many to serve and to be engaged. We have also just about completed some needed maintenance and upgrades in the church that I hope will serve us well for years into the future.

One important thing to remember about liturgical prayer is that it is expressed not only in words. Gestures are also prayers. We see this in the first prayer of the Mass: the sign of the cross. There are words accompanying this prayer: ''In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." But equally important as prayer is the gesture that actually gives the name to the prayer: the signing of the cross on our bodies. This gesture interprets the words for us. To accept the call to life in the Holy Trinity, it is necessary for us to be conformed the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross is the way to the fullness of life, and there is no other way.

"Why do you chant so much? Why do you use incense so much? Why do you..." Let me offer you an explanation.

The liturgy is an enhancement of ordinary life. In the liturgy, we leave time and enter eternity; we leave earth and enter Heaven. The liturgy elevates us to greater heights of existence. Singing elevates speech. Incense elevates smell and symbolizes our prayers rising to Heaven. Vestments elevate ordinary dress into Heavenly attire. Ritual and symbolic actions elevate and provide meaning to our movement. If the rituals of a birthday party (including singing Happy Birthday and not just saying it) or of a football game matter, then how much more do those of the Mass?

The liturgy is not supposed to be ordinary. It should be as extraordinary as we can make it. To be present at the sacrifice of Calvary is extraordinary. To consume the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ is extraordinary. In the Mass, we intimately encounter Jesus. That's worth pulling out all the stops for! As an old evangelical hymn puts it, how can I keep from singing?

As the Procession reaches the sanctuary, the priest reverences the altar by kissing it. This might seem a bit odd as a way to reverence a piece of furniture, but that is exactly what the altar is not! The altar is the focus for the presence of Jesus at the Mass and so that kiss is a greeting for Jesus. Everything about the altar should be treated with the dignity we want to show to the Lord. The altar should be the focal point of the sanctuary. Even when the Blessed Sacrament is present in the sanctuary, the highest reverence is paid to the altar during Mass. One should never pass in front of the altar without bowing, for example. The altar is where Heaven meets Earth, when Jesus becomes present in the Eucharist. We should never treat or consider the altar as an ordinary piece of furniture. The altar is Jesus!

This is the beginning of the Responsorial Psalm for this weekend:

R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord. I rejoiced because they said to me, "We will go up to the house of the LORD." And now we have set foot within your gates, O Jerusalem.

R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord. Jerusalem, built as a city with compact unity. To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD.

R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.