December 22, 2019

My Dear Parishioners,
   Are you ready for Christmas?  It’s very near.  We have been praying and preparing our bodies, minds and souls to celebrate Christmas--the birthday of our Lord Jesus--with joyful and happy hearts.  Our Holy Masses to worship our Lord Jesus in the manger will be Tuesday, December 24th at 4pm in English and 6pm in Vietnamese, and Christmas Day at 9:30 am in English.  Jesus will bless all of us at these special Masses for we will praise Him, worship Him and adore Him together.  I will offer all these Masses for your personal intentions as my Christmas gift to you all.  May you know the love of God through the voices and hearts of one another and the holy angels and saints with us at our Holy Masses.  Let us love God with all our hearts, minds and souls this Christmas.  Don’t forget to be joyful and wish each other a Merry Christmas from your hearts.
   On Wednesday, December 18th, our All Saints Catholic school children attended Holy Mass, with adoration and confession after Mass.  We were blessed with Fr. Marco A. De Loera, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish, and Fr. Matthew Siegman, assistant pastor of Blessed Sacrament, to help our children receive their sacrament of reconciliation.  A special thanks to the many priests who came to our penance service on Sunday the 15th to help us clean our body, mind and soul for Christmas.  Thank you, Fathers, and may God bless you and reward you with good health and many heavenly blessings.  Also, thank you to our All Saints school children for the Christmas program.  God bless our children!
   Holy Mass in Vietnamese will begin on Christmas Eve at 6pm (thereafter, our 11am Sunday Mass will be in Vietnamese).  Everyone is invited to our Holy Mass and to join us for our special Christmas celebration reception in the Fischer Center with lots of Vietnamese food.  I learned that the best way to know somebody or their culture is to eat their food.  Do you know that Vietnamese love to eat foods that are crunchy, spicy, salty, hot, bitter, sweet, and even sour, all of that in one bite?  Oh yes, we love fish sauce, too.  Come and join us and celebrate Christmas with us.  Of course, I will have candies for everyone to make you a little sweeter to Jesus and to everyone else in your life.  Merry Christmas everyone!  I love you all, Fr. Hien
 
   PS. A special thank you to the family of Agnes Urban who donated $20,000 to our All Saints Catholic School.  I was honored to celebrate Agnes’ funeral Mass with her many family members and friends.  Thank you to the Urban family and to all families that have given memorials to our church & school.  Another THANK YOU to an anonymous family who donated $1,000 to our church after they have sold their small business.  We are blessed because of your love for All Saints, Fr. Hien.