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With today being “Quinquagesima” (one of my most favorite of ecclesiastical words to say!) Sunday, it’s time to look to Ash Wednesday this week, followed by our Friday Night Stations of the Cross and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

Today is the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter. It is the Patronal Festival for the North American Ordinariate. It takes the place of the usual Septuagesima Sunday for Ordinariate Parishes. An Ordinariate patronal feast day refers to the special feast day celebrated by a particular “Ordinariate” within the Catholic Church, usually commemorating the saint or title associated with that specific jurisdiction, which in the case of the “Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter” in the United States and Canada.

With the Feast of  Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (aka Candlemas) last Sunday, Christmas has definitively come to an end, and we have sung our last “Alleluia" until Easter. You can see their “burial” spot off to the side of the patio as you enter the Church. The grocery stores now remind us that (the secular/pagan versions of) St. Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s Day are upon us. By the time St. Patrick’s Day  comes around this year, the Catholic Church will be well into Lent. Then, in turn, the wonderful season of Easter with its feasting and joy in the Resurrection of Our Lord will be upon us. It is a busy four months, but thankfully, the Church, in her wisdom, has given us a pause these next three weeks — before Lent, we enter into Gesimatide.

Two or three times a year, I like to use this column as a vehicle for ‘Housekeeping” issues. These are mundane issues in some ways, but important for us to pay attention to.  I like to refer to these as some “Ordinariate Etiquette” examples for us to implement. Each of these has been brought to my attention  (since my last article about this) in one way or another, and I thought this letter  on the last Sunday of Epiphany would be the most appropriate way to address all them before we move into the busy liturgical seasons of Lent and Easter.

If you are on the Parish “email list’ you will have received an email last week about today’s celebration of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple/The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary/Candlemas. This feast celebrates the ceremony of purification of Our Lady on the fortieth day after the birth of our Lord, and of the presentation of offering of our Lord to the Eternal Father in the Temple, as also prescribed in the Law of Moses for first-born male children.