Corpus Christi Blog

A Testimony of Healing

02-23-2020Weekly ReflectionAnonymous Parishioner

Dear Father Chad King,

Some time ago, it was actually Mercy Sunday, I went to Confession with you and shared my Lenten journey. You recognized the work of God in my life and asked if I would be willing to share my story. (I thought who or what group at Corpus Christi would I be talking to?) But you said, “Could you write two pages that I could have in our bulletin? I believe many people would benefit from hearing your story.”

Because I knew it was God working in my life, I agreed. We never discussed a timeline, but I had no idea that it would take this long to get the job done!

I realize now why I was not able to write this letter sooner. You are asking me to reveal a family secret. Even though you had told me that I could be anonymous, somehow, I couldn’t trust that the “secret” be known.

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Corpus Christi Parish Picnic

02-16-2020Weekly ReflectionFr. Chad King

Thank you to everyone who helped make our 2020 Parish Picnic a huge success! I would especially like to recognize the following people for all their hard work!!

VIEW PARISH PICNIC PHOTOS

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Charity & Development Appeal 2020

02-09-2020Weekly Reflection

Learn more at dphx.org/cda.

The Presentation of the Lord

02-02-2020HomiliesFr. Chad King

Every year on February 2nd the Church celebrates a feast known today as the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. It is a feast where we celebrate Jesus being presented in the temple when he was a baby by Joseph and Mary. Another traditional name of the feast in the West is the Mass of Candles, because it was at this feast that they developed the custom of a solemn blessing of candles that would symbolize the light of the world, that is Christ, coming into the world and His being presented in the Jerusalem temple.

Let us look at the prayer read outside at the beginning of our procession. Today is the blessed day when Jesus was presented in the Temple by Mary and Joseph. Outwardly fulfilling Jewish law, but in reality Jesus was coming to meet his believing people. Prompted by the Holy Spirit, Simeon and Anna came to the Temple where they recognized the Lord and confessed him with exultation. So let us also, all of us gathered here by the same Holy Spirit proceed to the house of God to encounter Christ. There we shall find him and recognize him in the breaking of the bread.

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What is Candlemas day?

02-02-2020Weekly ReflectionFr. William P. Saunders

Candlemas Day is another name for the feast of the Presentation of the Lord. Forty days after His birth, Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple for the rites of purification and dedication as prescribed by the Torah. According to the Book of Leviticus (12:1-4), when a woman bore a male child, she was considered “unclean” for seven days. On the eighth day, the boy was circumcised. The mother continued to stay at home for 33 days for her blood to be purified. After the 40 days, the mother and the father came to the temple for the rite of purification, which included the offering of a sacrifice — a lamb for a holocaust (burnt offering) and a pigeon or turtledove for a sin offering, or for a poor couple who could not afford a lamb, two pigeons or two turtledoves. Note Joseph and Mary made the offering of the poor (Lk 2:24).

Also, Joseph and Mary were obliged by the Torah to “redeem” their firstborn son: “The Lord spoke to Moses and said, ‘Consecrate to me every first-born that opens the womb among the Israelites, both of man and beast, for it belongs to me’” (Ex 13:1). The price for such a redemption was five shekels, which the parents paid to the priest. This “redemption” was a kind of payment for the Passover sacrifice, by which the Jews had been freed from slavery.

However, St. Luke in the Gospel does not mention this redemption, but rather the presentation of Our Lord: “When the day came to purify them according to the law of Moses, the couple brought Him up to Jerusalem, so that He could be presented to the Lord, for it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be consecrated to the Lord’” (Lk 2:22-23). So the focus is on Jesus’ consecration to God. The verb “to present” (paristanai) also means to “offer,” which evokes Jesus is presented as the priest who will offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice to free us from the slavery of sin, seal the new and eternal covenant with His blood, and open the gates to the true promised land of heaven.

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