We are already in the second week of Advent and before we realize it, Christmas decorations will be going up! We have just a couple of weeks to focus once more on the banners in our main church which recall our Rector Major’s theme for the year: Holiness for you too! This month, a number of celebrations remind us of this great truth.

This past week on December 5th, we celebrated the feast of Blessed Philip Rinaldi, the third successor to Don Bosco. When we walk into the church of Corpus Christi on the left-hand side, near the altar of Our Lady is a huge, beautiful mosaic of Don Bosco with Don Rinaldi. There are many things that can be said about this wonderful uncle of our own Fr. Peter Rinaldi. In many ways, Don Philip Rinaldi was very special to Don Bosco, who accompanied him in his vocation every step of the way — following him even after Philip said “no”! Don Rinaldi is especially known for the way he imitated the fatherliness of Don Bosco. One thing about him that I think we can all imitate: his fidelity to confession. Every week, when in Turin, he would walk to the Oratory to make his weekly confession to Don Bosco! In this Advent season, we are called to the conversation by making a good confession before Christmas. Blessed Philip Rinaldi invites us to do that in imitation of him! December 16, our Advent Day of Penance will give us the chance to imitate him by making a good Confession!

This year we celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception and on a Monday since the actual day is Sunday in Lent. Our Blessed Mother teaches us the importance of purity and of obedience to God’s will. On December 8, 1841, Don Bosco met his first boy and the Salesian mission began. Don
Bosco refused an easier job with a nice place to live and a big salary because he knew if he left his boys they would have no one. Not only, but he also knew his own salvation depended on responding to God’s call to help these poor kids. Like Mary, he obeyed God’s call even though it was not easy to understand and he didn’t know where it would lead. The Immaculate Help of Christians became his guiding light in fulfilling God’s will. In this Advent, Mary invites us to pause, go deeper into ourselves and say “yes” to God’s demands in our daily lives.

On December 12, we celebrate the beautiful feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe! On the 11th we will have our procession and the enactment of the apparitions. Since December 3, we have been singing the mañanitas to Mary at 5:15 every morning! On the 12th we will celebrate a beautiful Mass at the Corpus Christi Gym. Our Lady of Guadalupe stands as an icon of life in a culture of death. Through St. Juan Diego she reminds us we have nothing to fear because she is our mother! In this Advent season, watching with her we realize the great gift of Jesus entering our history!

And then we have the saints of these days: St. Juan Diego who teaches us the importance of being humble if we want to encounter Christ in the manger; St Francis Xavier, who teaches us once we meet Christ we are impelled to proclaim to Him as true missionaries. St. Lucy who teaches us to see with the eyes of faith; St. Ambrose who teaches us the importance of being clear in our faith that Jesus is the God/Man, the Word made flesh who we encounter in a manger; St. John of the Cross who remind us that in the manger we encounter love, but love is not loving if there is no sacrifice!!

As we reflect on the great figures of Advent, we are reminded by John the Baptist— to spend these weeks not in useless running, but in peaceful soul searching, in the desert of our hearts, so that on Christmas Day we can say with the Baptist: He has increased; I have decreased! 

Holiness is for you, too and Advent is a time to both reflect and act on this truth!

God bless you!
Fr. Pat Angelucci