Dear Parishioners of St. William, 

I pray you have a blessed and fruitful Advent. Advent is a time of prayer and reflection on the greatest gift of Jesus whom we have been given through the Fiat, of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This year Advent will pass by quickly as the Fourth Sunday of Advent and the Christmas celebrations collide (this happens every 7 years or so).  

Beginning with the first Sunday of Advent, I would like to introduce to you our new hymnals and lectionary. I will start by stating that there are no perfect hymnals, but our Liturgy Team, some of our choir members, and I spent the past year reviewing many different hymnals in English and Spanish for use in our Liturgy. Some of the criteria we used was sound Catholic theology, proper pronouns for the Lord, and the functionality of the hymnal for our choir members, musicians, and parishioners who participate in each Mass. Out of the many hymnals we reviewed, we chose the St. Michael Hymnal 5th Edition for English, Cantoral for Spanish, and a new bilingual pew lectionary titled Word & Eucharist. My desire is that these new books will help us to participate fully in the Mass each weekend. 

In the Word & Eucharist book, you will find that instead of dates, the titles for each weekend are listed (for example “The First Sunday of Advent”). The reason I decided to go with this beautiful lectionary is primarily because of the functionality it offers to our diverse community, but also as a cost-cutting measure. The paper missalettes that we dispose of once a quarter costs the parish over $10,000 a year. With these new permanent books, we will eliminate this annual expense, after covering our initial cost to purchase the books.  

The new books will be in the pews beginning the first Sunday of Advent. I ask that you take care of them as we would like our books to be with us for a decade or longer. This could be done by keeping the books closed when not in use and using the ribbons in the book to mark pages. This is a significant investment by our parish for years to come and I pray that the new hymnals and lectionary help us to join in our worship more profoundly.  

As I mentioned at the start of this letter, these books are not perfect, but we believe they best fit the essential criteria we were looking for. I am grateful to God for the all the work that was done to get us to this day. May God continue to bless our parish and may Saint William truly become a place of encounter with our Risen Lord! Happy Advent! 

 

Ad Jesum per Mariam, 

 

Fr. Francisco Rodriguez III
Pastor 
 

 

Preparing for Mass  

Before Mass begins, let us familiarize ourselves with the new lectionary and hymnals in the pews. Please grab the song sheet located in the pew. Right below the title of each Mass you will find a page number of the Lectionary where all the readings, antiphons, and psalm are located.

For example, on the First Sunday of Advent (12/3 weekend), turn to  page 426 in Word & Eucharist (red book). Once located you can use the ribbon to bookmark the readings for the Mass. All music for this Mass is in the St. Michael hymnal (blue book). Hymn numbers can be found on the song sheet. 



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Lectionary - Word & Eucharist (in English and Spanish)

Hymnal 1 - St. Michael Hymnal 5th Edition (in English)

Hymnal 2 - Cantoral (in Spanish)