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The 2025 Bishop’s Annual Appeal is well underway. All of our registered households by now have received correspondence from me supporting the appeal and encouraging your participation in it. The funds generated by the appeal, as you know, support many charitable, formational, and educational ministries throughout the diocese. Many have come to rely upon it for the practical help needed to educate our seminarians, provide a variety of social services through Catholic Charities, and maintain a vibrant Catholic campus ministry presence at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

Congratulations to Nadine Burgos of Immaculate Conception Parish, Somerville, for fulfilling the requirements to earn the diocesan Series I Catechist Certificate. Burgos is the first catechist in the Diocese of Metuchen to complete the requirements for this certificate, which involved participation in three in-person training sessions at the St. John Neumann Pastoral Center in Piscataway and the finishing of 11 workshops through the Franciscan at Home formation platform. As a busy 26-year-old professional working in the accounting field, Burgos dutifully dedicated approximately 40 contact hours to fulfill these requirements over a period of about two months, a testament to her desire for formation and her strong work ethic.

This Wednesday, March 5, is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten Season. Lent is a campaign for holiness, both personally and communally, inviting us to turn more deeply to Christ through repentance and ongoing conversion of life. The Lenten season is built upon the three spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and the works of mercy. These disciplines are given to us as a means of making a more personal response to the Lord who Himself calls us to undertake this 40-day campaign. We have various activities and events that our parish sponsors during Lent to help nurture your relationship with Christ in the Church, community, and the service of others.  Please join us this Lent in our striving for Christ, and through Him, renewal in mission and greater holiness of life.

Although this memorial is an optional one on the liturgical calendar, I believe it is good for us as a parish under the patronage of Mary Immaculate to celebrate it since it was to St. Bernadette Soubirous, a poor French peasant girl, that Our Lady identified Herself as the Immaculate Conception. The apparitions began on this day in 1858. Bernadette was collecting firewood for her family's home at the grotto of Massabielle. Suddenly, she saw a young Lady, shining like the sun, standing in a small niche in the grotto. Bernadette would see "the Lady" 18 times altogether. During the final apparition, Bernadette asked the Lady for her name. According to Bernadette, the Lady bowed her head, lifted her hands toward heaven, and said, "I am the Immaculate Conception". Bernadette did not understand what the Lady meant by this. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception - that Mary had been preserved from original sin and its effects from the first moment of her conception - had been defined by Pope Pius IX just four years earlier. The Lady Herself ratified the proclamation of the dogma and confirmed the truth of Her Immaculate Conception.

Once again, let me extend my deepest thanks to Gary Gavula, our combined choirs, our instrumentalists, and cantors for last Sunday’s Advent Evening of Readings and Carols. It was a beautiful evening of prayer, song, and reflection on the Word. I am also grateful to our Light Up The Night team and all those who volunteered to help with the delivery, set up, and decorations. Thank you! We couldn’t do this without you. Thank you, too, to all those who purchased a tree and by doing so help to support our parish and its mission. Thank you to all! Finally, I am grateful to members of our Parish Council for Financial Affairs for presenting you with the annual report to the parish. As I noted in my opening remarks to the presentation, one of the responsibilities placed on me as a pastor is to make an accounting of the stewardship of the resources you entrust to us for the life and mission of the parish. If you have not picked up the report yet, you can obtain it in the church vestibule and online through the parish website.

I am inviting you to join us on Monday, December 16 for prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and the Sacrament of Reconciliation beginning at 7:00 pm. Twelve priests will be available as confessors both in English and Spanish. Please, celebrate the sacrament with us in preparation for the Solemnity of the Nativity. We priests are there to welcome you and to lead you back to the grace Christ offers each of us in this sacrament of His mercy.

Jubilee Years generally occur every 25 years in the Church, the last one being held in 2000 as the Great Jubilee of the Third Millenia. Jubilee years are special years of grace. They are seasons of reconciliation and forgiveness, pilgrimage, and renewed spiritual focus. Pope Francis has called for the Jubilee Year 2025 beginning on Christmas Eve 2024 and continuing through the Epiphany, on January 6, 2026.

Each year the priests of the Diocese of Metuchen gather for an annual convocation in which we spend time in prayer, ongoing pastoral development, and in community with our bishop and each other.

The Sunday Morning Café has been a wonderful experience of fellowship and formation for those who have been participating in it. It was my hope to create an event that both helped us share time together in fellowship on a Sunday morning and provided an opportunity for us to grow in faith through topical presentations covering a wide variety of subjects.

The Church of the Immaculate Conception has purchased a Gift for You! Enjoy a free subscription to formed.org - an incredible online gateway to the best Catholic content, all in one place! With FORMED, you can: Prepare for Sunday Mass by watching an insightful five-minute video by renowned Catholic teachers; Enjoy a movie with your family that is both nourishing and entertaining; Choose from a variety of Faith Formation studies designed to help you better understand, live, and share our Catholic Faith; Help your children grow in character and embrace the beauty and wonder of the Faith; Gain access to Children friendly movies.

We welcome our two new priests, the Rev. Gustavo Rodriguez-Perez, Parochial Vicar, and the Rev. Jay Alquiros, Director of Catholic Identity and full-time faculty member at Immaculata High School. Fr. Gustavo will serve our parish parochial vicar.

El programa de Orden de Iniciación Cristiana para Adultos (OICA) antes conocido como RICA, comenzara de nuevo en otoño para los siguientes grupos: 1. Adultos que no han sido bautizados y quisieran ser recibidos plenamente en la Iglesia Católica a través del Bautismo y los Sacramentos de Iniciación. 2. Adultos que han sido bautizados en otra comunidad cristiana y buscan ser parte de la Iglesia Católica. 3. Adultos que han sido bautizados católicos, pero no han recibido los sacramentos de la Confirmación ni la Eucaristía. Loa que estén interesados en hacer estos sacramentos n comuníquese con el diácono Reynaldo y Julia 973-632-1701

Msgr. Joseph Celano, Clergy and Staff of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, our Parish and Schools extend our deepest sympathy and prayers to all the families affected by the recent fire in Somerville. ​We deeply appreciate the efforts of all the first responders from the area and keep them in our prayers. Parishioners who wish to help those families displaced as a result of the fire, can make a monetary donation to the Somerville Civic League at www.somervillecivicleague.org or can be dropped off at the Parish Office. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.

Parece que fue sólo ayer cuando llegué a Somerville para comenzar el ministerio sacerdotal marcado por tantas primicias: primeras confesiones, primeras unciones, primeras bodas, primeros funerales.

It seems like only yesterday I arrived in Somerville to begin priestly ministry marked by so many firsts: first confessions, first anointings, first wedding, first funerals.

Please be mindful that the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord has been permanently transferred to the 7th Sunday of Easter in the Province of New Jersey. This Thursday, May 9, will be celebrated as the Thursday in the 6th Week of Easter and not Ascension Thursday.

I am pleased to inform the parish that the Most Reverend James F. Checchio, Bishop of Metuchen, has called Mr. Tuan Minh Bui and Mr. David Gerard Lang to the Order of the Diaconate. They will be ordained deacons on Friday, May 3 at the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi in Metuchen. In accord with canon 105.2, I am announcing their upcoming ordination to the parish and commending both Tuan and David to your prayers as they prepare for ordination.