Father’s Notes: June 15, 2025

I remind you, there are 5 Holy Days of Obligation which we uphold in the dioceses of the United States: Mary Mother of God (Jan1); Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Aug 15); All Saints (Nov 1); Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Dec 8); the Nativity of the Lord (Dec 25). This would also include the Ascension of the Lord, however in almost every diocese in the United States, this solemnity is moved to Sunday.

Because these five solemnities and their meaning are of utmost importance, we Catholics are asked to attend Mass on these days, even if the feast does not occur on a Sunday. NOTE: occasionally, one of these holy days falls on a Saturday or Monday, thus it may be declared ‘not an obligation’.

Nevertheless, because of their importance, we, as a parish, have a responsibility to ensure that we provide the people opportunity to attend Mass, thus we would schedule Masses in the morning, but also in the evening, in consideration of those who work during the day.

So now, I’m going to focus on the evening Masses for these holy days of obligation (excluding Christmas, since it already includes numerous Masses). As you are surely aware, up to this point, it has been the practice to have bilingual Masses (English-Spanish) on our holy days of obligation. In my consulting with people over the years, I’ve generally heard from English-speaking people that they would prefer to attend Mass in English, and from Spanish-speaking people that they would prefer to attend Mass in Spanish, yet they are willing to attend a bilingual Mass, because that is all that is offered.

Now that we (St. Thomas and St. Philomena) have taken first steps in working together, we can think of ourselves as a larger parish that functions on two different campuses with two church buildings. I realize that for many (most?) of us, we may not yet see any connection with ‘the other parish’ or its people. With this in mind, and after consultation with several members of our parish(es), I would like to propose that for these evening Masses on holy days of obligation, we will begin to use one site for an English Mass and the other for a Spanish Mass (rather than bilingual). English and Spanish would alternate sites. For example, if we have Mass in Spanish at St. Philomena for the Assumption, we would then have Mass in Spanish at St. Thomas for All Saints.

You would likely have three or four occasions each year that you would travel (about 20 minutes’ drive between St. Philomena and St. Thomas) to the other worship site for Mass in the language in which you prefer to pray. More on this to come.