YOU CAME TO MASS TO RECEIVE THE WORD OF GOD TURN THE PHONES OFF.....NO E-MAILS, NO TEXTING AND NO GAME PLAYING

The Season of Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas (December 2, 2018) and ends after the mid-afternoon prayer on Christmas Eve (December 24, 2018). The Christmas Season begins with Evening Prayer on Christmas Eve (December 24, 2018) and ends with Evening Prayer on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (January 13, 2019).  Read more here.

The Archdiocese of Washington produces a weekly Sunday TV Mass filmed in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It is a wonderful ministry for those members of our Catholic family who are unable to be physically present with a local worshipping community for the Sunday Eucharistic Liturgy.

Landings2 is a resource for anyone wishing to deepen their spiritual life and develop as mature disciples of Christ. Landings 2 meets every other Saturday, at 1:00 p.m. If you are a graduate of the Landings program or completed RCIA, or if you are seeking spiritual growth, I urge you to consider our new program and explore the possibilities. Contact Freddie Poole for more information at: 3013350048.

PLEASE, do not take large gulps from the chalice, one small sip is all that is necessary. IF,  you encounter a small bit of the Host while taking the chalice, CONSUME IT!   During the consecration, a small piece of the Host is placed in the chalice.  The Body & Blood of Christ.

Plantation owner, Michael Morris Healy, and his bi-racial slave, Mary Eliza, had ten children during the1830s. The Healy family lived in Georgia where the law prohibited the education of slave and mixed-race children. The Healy children were sent north by their wealthy father to be free, white and to receive a Catholic education. The children were fair-skinned enough to be identified as white Irish-American and their mixed race ancestry was not widely known.  

Although African American Catholics are among the smaller constituencies of the Catholic Church in the United States we had over recent years some several hundred black priests from which these aforesaid bishops were chosen. Most of the ordinations of black priests in this country took place in the 1970s and 1980s; vocation numbers tapering off thereafter. Right now priestly numbers in the African American community across the country hover around two-hundred.

Did you know that in 1886, Augustus Tolton became the first publicly known black Roman Catholic priest in the United States? A former slave who was baptized and reared Catholic, Tolton studied formally in Rome, because he was rejected from every American seminary. Later assigned to Chicago, Tolton led the development and construction of St. Monica’s Catholic Church in 1893.

The Our Mother of Africa Chapel is located in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. It was dedicated on August 30, 1998 during the National Black Congress VIII. The Chapel was presented by the African American community as a gift to the national shrine and to the Catholic community. The Chapel expresses the values, hopes, dreams, aspirations, and history of African American Catholic people. The completion of the chapel provides the shrine with 60 chapels, and six oratories reflecting the ethnic and cultural diversity of the United States church.

SERVANT OF GOD MARY LANGE: Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore opened a formal investigation into Mother Lange's life  and works of charity in 1991, and the cause of her sainthood was approved in 2004. If the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints approves the positio being written, Mother Lange, currently considered a “Servant of God,” would be given the title “Venerable.” A confirmed miracle attributed to her would then be necessary for her beatification, and a second miracle for her canonization.