It is the day after Christmas and it’s a Sunday. That means that a lot of us don’t have to go to work today. And so today will undoubtedly be one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Gifts will be brought back to the stores, gift certificates will be spent with wild abandon and all the Christmas decorations and cards will be at bargain prices.

The Church calendar has the Christmas season just beginning while too many people think this is the end. Visiting families return home. The post-holiday routines set in. Christmas celebrations are packed away in our memories like the ornaments from the tree. Life gets busy again. Interesting that Mary and Joseph have no time to enjoy the Magi and their gifts. They are forced to flee to Egypt. It will be a while before this displaced family is able to go home to Nazareth.

Every responsibility we put off because of the holidays now stares us in the face. Bills must be paid, appointments must be made, work that piled up must be completed. There is no time, all of a sudden, for ourselves, much less our families.

It is a good idea to make some time just to be with our loved ones. It is our chance to pick up the pace or to enjoy what the feast of the Holy Family is all about. This is the final, important gift of Christmas that we should give to ourselves and our family on this day we honor the Holy Family.

Some families honor their members and some do not. What kind of family we come from affects how we relate to God, others and ourselves. Some questions for reflection:

Did your parents honor you as a child?
How do you (or did you) honor them?
What kind of dreams or plans did your parents hold for you?
Were the expectations and plans realistic?

Saint Paul has great insight for his “brothers and sisters” his “holy family” of faith, the church. As the ones chosen by God, he says, we are to respond in certain ways. In response to the forgiveness the Lord has shown us, we must forgive others. Be compassionate, kind and patient with one another. This is the way Christians are called to act. Paul puts his finger on a basic truth of faith: Worship is an act gratitude, Eucharist, “thanksgiving”. And it extends into all life. Whatever you do, Paul says, in word or in deed, gives thanks to God through the Lord Jesus. What people do in church shows them what to do in everything else.

As the holiday season reaches its climax, you may feel the craziness. Remember you can always come to Church and visit with God to find some peace. You will find St. Robert's Church open from 6:30am Mass until 5pm. As you're going to or from work or school or on your way home from shopping why not come in and thank the Lord for the gift of his love.

Applications for Kindergarten for the 2005/2006 school year will be accepted at the school office January 10th thru January 14th from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Child must be 5 years of age by September 1, 2005. Please have copies of the child’s birth certificate, baptismal record, Social Security card and a check for $30 to cover the testing fees.

Slow me down, My God!
Ease the pounding of my heart
by the quieting of my mind.
Steady my hurried pace
with a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me amid the confusion of the day,
the calmness of the everlasting hills.
Teach me the art of slowing down
to look at a flower,
to chat with a friend,
to pet a dog,
to read a few lines from a good book.
Remind me each day
of the fable of the hare and the tortoise,
that I may know
that the race is not always to the swift….
That there is more to life than increasing its speed.

Slow me down, my God,
and inspire me to send my roots deep
into the soil of life’s enduring values
that I may grow toward the stars
of my greater destiny,
that I may find you, my God.

On Saturday, December 18th your St. Vincent de Paul volunteers visited 51 families assisting 70 adults and 100 children. They were given bags of food; Christmas presents; and script amounting to $1,500. All our food came from parishioners that left bags of various non-perishable items in our vestibule of the church. The gifts came from the many members of the “In-Betweeners” as well as Rob Aveson’s “Giving Tree” that were in the vestibule. Scrip and money came from donations and the 2nd collection on the 5th Sunday of October.

Many thanks to the Elves that sorted all the presents in Santa’s Workshop (better known as Mary Shypertt’s garage). His six hour sorting was done by:

The 10 teams that distributed these items were:

Tim & Joan King, Janet Aldinger & Agnes Doherty,
Bill Curtis & Rick Olson, Bruce Chester & Jim Preble,
Nancy McMahon & Liz Cesca, Bill Root & Jamie Bell,
Carlo & Marie Noce, Sandy Mangold & Barbara Tursi,
Nora Khoury & Cara DeLuca, Gerry & Carmen Huddleston,
Pat Davini and Fred Farr.

With this many volunteers, it took under two hours to cover all of San Bruno. Thank you all and have a Very Merry Christmas and a Great New Year.

Applications for Kindergarten for the 2005/2006 school year will be accepted at the school office January 10th thru January 14th from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Child must be 5 years of age by September 1, 2005. Please have copies of the child’s birth certificate, baptismal record, Social Security card and a check for $30 to cover the testing fees.

As always you are reminded to use good common sense in the reception of Holy Communion during the annual cold and flu season.

If you are feeling ill or think you may have exposed to a virus, you should refrain from partaking of the Blood of Christ from the communal chalice. In the same way, you should refrain from offering your hand to others at the sign of peace. Likewise if you are not comfortable sharing the sign of peace or receiving Holy Communion from the communal chalice or fear of infection, you should feel no pressure to do so.

We will list the names that we have been asked to pray for during the week. We continue to ask each week that parishioners pray for the chronically ill of our parish.

If you have a friend or loved one in need of our parish prayers please call the Rectory at 589-2800.

Also, please remember our Emergency prayer network that prays for specific intentions that require a concerted effort due to their critical nature. To facilitate the network, please call Michele Pipinich. The network then pray frequently for the next 72 hours. We would appreciate a return call with the outcome so we can praise God for His faithfulness:

Saturday, January 1st, besides being New Year’s Day, is also the Feast of Mary the Mother of God and the World Day of Prayer for Peace. Since it is the First Saturday of the month, we have the privilege of celebrating Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. In this world of unrest and war, the most powerful weapon we have is prayer and trust in God’s mercy.

Our Holy Families
By the time you read this, we will have celebrated Christmas with our parish family as well as other family and friends. We’ll have eaten too much, most of us, received many presents, renewed old friendships and spent quality time with family members. For some in our parish, it will have been a difficult time, remembering a loved one who was here last Christmas and has gone home to God. If there are family members absent due to distance or disagreement, there is a special kind of sadness to the holidays. For families split or blended, there are many awkward moments. Yet in the midst of our messy lives, God becomes flesh in Jesus. So what does his coming mean to me?

The Holy Family which we see in lovely paintings on Christmas cards had a rough time of it. Mary was an unwed mother; one has to wonder what the neighbors who might not have known of her holiness thought. Joseph has the courage not only to go against the prevailing moral code of stoning for pregnancy outside of marriage, but he actually accepts her into his home and marries her. On this feast which we can easily romanticize, they are fleeing for their very lives, undocumented immigrants on their way into Egypt. None of us would describe our families as “holy,” but maybe that’s because we don’t understand what “holy” means. What if it means trying our best in the midst of hardship, illness, underemployment, and misunderstanding? What if it means being faithful to God, praying as we go through divorce or the pain of watching grown children making decisions we’d rather they not make? What if being holy means believing that God is always with us, guiding us even if, at times, we don’t follow the Spirit’s lead? I see many “good and holy” families in this parish (to borrow Fr. Joe Healy’s phrase). Perhaps, a good New Year’s resolution would be to try to imitate the Holy Family by our faithfulness in the midst of our daily reality, whatever it may be. A blessed New Year to each of you!

A Consistent Ethic of Life
“Our moral political and economic responsibilities do not stop at the moment of birth. Those who defend the right to life of the weakest among us must be equally visible in support of the quality of life of the powerless among us: the old and the young, the hungry and the homeless, the undocumented immigrant and the unemployed worker.”