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Now that the pandemic is behind us, and after prayerful discernment and consultation with the parish clergy, I believe the time is right for us to restore the reception of Holy Communion under both forms.

The Church of the Immaculate Conception invites you to come and see! No obligation. CATHOLIC INQUIRY FOR ADULTS STARTS IN JANUARY 2024 • Come to ask your questions • Find out more about the Catholic faith • Get help to discern God’s action in your life FOR ADULTS WHO: • are not baptized • or baptized Protestant Christian • or baptized Catholic but not raised in the faith For more information or to participate, contact the Parish Office at 908-725-1112 or Linda Wass, OCIA Team, at [email protected] Please share this invitation with interested friends and family!

All are invited to sponsor a tree, as the Church of the Immaculate Conception once again illuminates hundreds of Christmas trees on the parish campus during the Advent and Christmas seasons.

Our parish has been blessed with three men who are answering the call of God to serve His people as deacons. Please keep these men and their families in your prayers.

“His mercy is from age to age” (Lk 1:50). This is the theme of the Third World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, and it takes us back to the joyful meeting between the young Mary and her elderly relative Elizabeth (cf. Lk 1:39-56). Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth addressed the Mother of God with words that, millennia later, continue to echo in our daily prayer: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (v. 42). The Holy Spirit, who had earlier descended upon Mary, prompted her to respond with the Magnificat, in which she proclaimed that the Lord’s mercy is from generation to generation. That same Spirit blesses and accompanies every fruitful encounter between different generations: between grandparents and grandchildren, between young and old. God wants young people to bring joy to the hearts of the elderly, as Mary did to Elizabeth, and gain wisdom from their experiences. Yet, above all, the Lord wants us not to abandon the elderly or to push them to the margins of life, as tragically happens all too often in our time.

As a parish and school community in Somerville, the county seat of Somerset, with an expansive campus that serves as an active focal point for many in our county, it has been requested that our parish campus serve as a training site for the Correctional Emergency Response Team (CERT) for the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office, a request which I have obligingly granted.

There are many ways we can describe the Mass. It can be a banquet, a celebration, a gathering – “church” in Greek means not a physical building but an assembly of believers. Traditionally, we refer to the Mass as a Sacrifice.

The Bishops of the United States have called for a Year of Eucharistic Revival, which began nationally on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi this past June. The parish phase, implementing this Year of Eucharistic Revival, begins this Sunday, June 11, 2023, the Solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord.

Early in the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke, who is the author, tells us that the community of believers was “…of one heart and soul…there was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.”

Scholars aren’t sure where Emmaus was located. There are no less than four sites in Israel that claim they are the New Testament town of “Emmaus.” But where Emmaus was is not really important, nor should it be. In recounting what happened to those two very disillusioned disciples on the road, Luke wants us to understand that “Emmaus” is not a place at all, really.

SOMERVILLE – The Church of the Immaculate Conception has hired a former police captain as its first director of security to oversee safety and security measures for the parish and its two parochial schools, Immaculate Conception School and Immaculata High School.

SOMERVILLE – Students and their families, together with the faculty and staff of Immaculate Conception School, recognized the service and sacrifice of law enforcement at its annual Blue Mass, celebrated this year on April 21 at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Somerville.

Long ago, I learned to always follow my spiritual director’s advice, even if what he asks me to do may be a little odd. So, when I had casually mentioned that the following Sunday I was planning to go down to the shore for the afternoon, he asked me to do a spiritual exercise on the beach. It involved a rosary and a teaspoon.

St. Mary Magdalene, the first to encounter the Risen Lord, is called “the apostle to the apostles” since she was the first to proclaim the resurrection of the Lord from the dead. Traditional Christian art and iconography portrays her in many ways, but it is not uncommon to see her depicted with a small egg in her hand.

The events commemorated during Holy Week stand at the very heart of our faith. It is in the death and resurrection of Jesus that Paschal Mystery – the mystery of human salvation - is accomplished, opening for us the hope of heaven through faith, conversion, and the sacraments.

My grandfather was blind. Whenever the family got together for Sunday dinner, I was given the responsibility of walking him from his chair in the living room to the dining room table. The distance was only a matter of feet, but I could have been a mile as far as I was concerned. I was a small boy then and my grandfather was very tall, well over 6 feet. He would take my hand and the long journey to the table would begin. I became very aware of the small but potentially dangerous obstacles along the way, the edges of carpet, a newspaper left on the floor by a recliner. Once I got him to the table and in his chair, he would pull me close and pat me on the head as his way of saying thank you. I just breathed a sigh of relief that I got him there safely.

In 1888, a man picked up a newspaper and was shocked to see his own obituary in the headlines. It was an error, of course. His brother was the one who died, but the newspaper mistakenly ran the story about him. However, he was even more shocked when he read in his obit that he had made his fortune by finding new ways to kill people. It was true; he was a wealthy munitions manufacturer, the inventor of dynamite in fact.

A few years ago, a Franciscan Sister of the Renewal attended a baptism I celebrated with another sister from her community. Both sisters were in their early 30’s and missioned in the South Bronx to work with the poor.

When you look at the monstrance, what do you see? You see the Sacred Host, the Real Presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, in the Eucharist. But on the altar, the Lord seems inactive and immovable. I assure you He is neither. In this sacrament, He continually pours Himself out in love for you and for the world He came to save.

In the early centuries of the Church, the forty days before Easter were known as the “Purification and Enlightenment”. It was the time when the catechumens (those preparing for baptism) underwent a period of intense spiritual discipline and moral self-examination in preparation for their baptism at Easter.