General: That children may be respected and loved and never be the victims of exploitation in its various forms.

Mission: That at Christmas the peoples of the earth may recognize in the Word Incarnate the light which illuminates every man and that the Nations may open their doors to Christ, the Savior of the world.

Remember to pray for the Pope and his health and intentions at Mass, when praying the Rosary, and whenever!

Happy December! Happy Advent!

You can listen to the two most recent Catholic Center Dinner talks at ilovepants.com/talks, or by clicking the ‘talks’ tab at the top of the site.

If you’d like to have the talks delivered to you automatically each month, you can subscribe to the Catholic Center Dinners podcast. Subscribe in iTunes.

You’ll be able to find them here at ilovepants.com, and you can also find (and subscribe to) them in iTunes if you search for: uvm catholic center.

I went to support Brandon, Mitch, and Ben. If you complete the Big Fatty’s Challenge (which Mitch did) you get your picture on the wall and the food for free. I tried to tackle the Big Fatty in April, and lost. Saturday night, I ate the “Little Piggy,” which is an eight ounce sandwich. If you find yourself in Burlington and want some BBQ, you could do worse than Big Fatty’s.

Until they start, enjoy this summertime music:

This post consists of a very informal, unorganized reaction to the Mass. I didn’t have time to organize the post nor do a lot of research, so it’s just a short write-up about today’s Mass, which was amazing. I hope you enjoy.

As it was on the Feast of Saint Joseph, all the priests from the Diocese of Burlington (which is all of Vermont) were at the Co-Cathedral. The Knights of Columbus color guard was there, and the Co-Cathedral was PACKED. One of my favorite parts of these huge Masses are when all the priests go up for the Consecration. It’s an amazing sight. Bishop Matano delivered a beautiful homily, which like on the Feast of Saint Joseph, was directed mainly to his brother priests but was able to speak to all in attendance.

The blessing of the oils of the catechumens the sick were blessed along with the chrism. This was my first Chrism Mass, and it was awesome. The Co-Cathedral has huge pillars and one of them blocked my view of most of the blessing of the oils, but what I saw was amazing. When blessing the chrism, the Bishop does a number of things, one of which was breathing on it. It was (I’m assuming here, so don’t take my word for it) a figure of the breath of God, like when God breathed life into Adam and when Christ breathed upon the Apostles, giving them the Holy Spirit. It was AWESOME.

We renew our baptismal promises during the Easter Vigil. The priests renew their ordinational promises during the Chrism Mass. I’ve never been to an ordination, so this was pretty great. I’d imagine it’s still pretty cool if you’ve been to an ordination.

I love huge Masses at the Co-Cathedral. We have another on Holy Thursday and for the Easter Vigil.

I love Holy Week!

Holy week starts with Passion (Palm) Sunday and concludes with the Easter Vigil on Saturday night. Holy week takes us from the excitement of Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem to his Passion and death, and ends with his glorious Resurrection.

This week, I’ll be writing a little bit about the different days and events of Holy Week.

Tomorrow’s post will cover the Chrism Mass at which the Oils are blessed for the upcoming year because we are celebrating it tomorrow here in the Diocese of Burlington.