Looking back at the weekly messages of Father Paul Counce, first published in The Carpenter, our weekly Parish Bulletin
Published: December 13, 2020
With Advent season halfway done this weekend, the Church traditionally uses rose-colored vestments. The pinkish color instead of the deeper purple expresses the growing joy in our hearts as our remembrance of the Lord’s birth grows near. And if you’re making extra effort to grow in virtue and be forgiven of your sins – the best ways to get ready for Christmas! – you should be more joyous!
Remember, please be safe planning your Christmas schedule. You may wish to avoid super-crowded “in person worship and share in televised liturgies instead. If your household is more flexible but you’re drawn to church (as you should be!), try to come before or after Christmas Eve. Remember, Christmas this year is not a holy day of obligation, just like Sundays are not either as the virus pandemic continues. But whenever you come, mask-wearing is mandatory: we want to keep our beloved Cathedral as safe as possible for everyone. We just can’t predict how many guests from elsewhere, who don’t know of our insistence on caution, might join us.
At the risk of mentioning money too often – you’ll remember I did last week too – I feel I really need to mention two special appeals now being made that really deserve your consideration. In fact we’ve put special envelopes in the back of the church to help you in giving to both.
First, this weekend the Church in the USA is taking up a collection for the Retirement Fund for Religious. While in this year’s pandemic we won’t have a visiting sister or brother make the appeal in person, please don’t forget about it. In fact, so many members of religious orders are elderly and so are almost “locked away” from everyone else in the middle of this Covid crisis. They need our assistance more than ever.
(And don’t worry about me and the other aging priests of the Diocese of Baton Rouge. There’s a special annual collection which benefits our Diocesan Priests’ Retirement Fund, but it’s not until Easter!)
And second, Bishop Duca certainly wants me to draw your attention to this year’s Bishop’s Annual Appeal. This was started by Bishop Stanley Joseph Ott back in the 1980s, to help him meet special needs: “one time only” expenses (like setting up our diocesan TV station, known as CatholicLife Television), emergency funding following disasters such as hurricanes and floods, and special requests for particularly worthy projects, often involving Catholic education in our parishes and schools. This annual appeal helps build up two trust funds – the “Works of Mercy” trust and another one for Catholic Schools and Religious Education programs.
Well, this year’s BAA is no different. Its theme is Continuing the Mission, for Bishop Duca wants to keep developing what Bishop Ott started. If you keep a sharp eye on your own family finances – and you should! – you know how you always seem to need “extra” money, not to waste but to deal with occasional but inevitable necessary expenses that crop up more suddenly. In a simple, practical sense, that’s what the Bishop’s Annual Appeal does in our diocese: it helps us meet sudden, emergency, or just occasional needs that wouldn’t get done right away. (In fact, the now-infamous “great Covid pandemic of 2020” has made the need for emergency funds all the more acute. You probably read the letter the bishop mailed to you a few weeks ago, and so you know about this already. I hope you can be generous!
Yours in the coming Christ,
Very Rev. Paul D. Counce
