The 2022 Cardinal’s Appeal is beginning and this year our parish goal is $73,500. It funds the charitable works of the Archdiocese, supports financially fragile parishes, supports the training of Diocesan priests and the retirement of Diocesan priests (but not the training or retirement of Dominican friars), funds various offices, such as the Young Adult Outreach office, and the many other activities of the Archdiocese of New York.

We’re now back in Ordinary Time. For me this time is always the most dreary—we’re fully in the grip of winter but without the cheer of Christmas decorations and celebrations. We await the coming of Spring which seems so far off. However, in what afterwards will feel but a short time we’ll be in Lent and then Easter with Spring just before us. 

I hope that everyone had a wonderful and grace-filled Christmas Season! Today, the Baptism of Our Lord, is the end of the Christmas Season. Yes, that means you can now get rid of any dried-out trees. Today we celebrate Christ’s baptism of repentance by John the Baptist in the Jordan river, when Christ joined Himself to us even in penance and from which His public ministry would begin. 

While most of us know that there are 12 days of Christmas from having been made to sing about them, living in a Protestant country as we do, it is easy to be confused about when those days are. Saturday marks the 8th day of Christmas and therefore the end of the Octave of Christmas.