MASS TIMES:
WEEKDAY MASS:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday:
7:00 am
Wednesday: 8:15 am and 12:15 pm
Saturday: 8:15 am
SUNDAY MASS:
Saturday: 5:00 pm
Sunday: 8:00 am, 10:00 am, 12:00 pm,
5:00 pm (Misa en Español)
CONFESSION:
Saturdays: 3:30 pm-4:30 pm
EUCHARISTIC ADORATION and BENEDICTION:
Fridays: 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm in the Chapel
DAY-LONG ADORATION
First Friday of each month
from 7:30 am to 5:00 pm
CONTACT US:
(707) 447-2354 | FAX: (707) 447-9322
1791 Marshall Road,
Vacaville, CA 95687
OFFICE HOURS:
Monday – Friday, 9:00 am-4:00 pm
WELCOME TO GOD’S ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH!
“Reflection”
Jesus challenges us to turn the other cheek and to love our enemies. These are not our instincts. It is not easy. We get angry, we are upset, we want to do or say something to express that pain and rage. As we approach the season of Lent, let the example of our Lord inspire us to respond to hurt and conflict with mercy and forgiveness.
“God’s Engaged Holiness“
1) Atheism, or a purely secular indifference to the reality of God, might seem to be sweeping away the world of religion as a spidery fantasy. But as soon as an atheist begins to expound his or her beliefs the weakness of the atheist outlook shows up. As soon as anyone becomes impassioned about truth and falsehood, or good and evil, or as soon as they say that life has a meaning and purpose, or that other human beings are sacred, they have already left a strict, waterproof atheism behind, since they have recognized absolute realities and put their faith in them.
But the atheist or secularist may complain that God is too nebulous a being for us to hold any particular conviction about Him (or is it Her, or It?). God is away up there in outer space and everyone has a different idea about who or what God may be. Well, that objection is an improvement on the vulgar mocking about ‘the old man with a beard in the sky’ or ‘flying spaghetti monsters.’ The apparent vagueness of God invites us to revisit Scripture and what theologians and mystics said about God through the ages (often very surprising things), consulting also the witness to God in Judaism and Islam, and the reaching out to divine mystery in Hinduism and even Buddhism.
2) We who gather in church to hear the word of Scripture know that God is not vague. We meet a God who has a strong and clear identity. Not just the sublime ‘I am’ (Exodus 3:14) but the personal God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (3:15). Not just the Creator, the source of all being, but the one who comes, who visits us with his grace and salvation. If we were asked point blank, ‘What is God?,’ we might answer, ‘the holy one,’ or more concretely ‘the holy one of Israel.’ We acclaim his coming as ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’—a phrase that has unfortunately become routine. He is ‘indeed holy, the fount of all holiness’—but we need words or music to voice that more tellingly.
If one kneels in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, one knows that the holiness of God is not something nebulous. It is a warm Presence. It is not just the ‘numinous’ or the ‘sacred’ that religious historians such as Rudolf Otto and Mircea Eliade document and analyze. It is the holiness of a personal God, the Holy One of Israel, the one that Jacob saw in a dream: ‘there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said: “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac…. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go….’” Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said… “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven”’ (Genesis 28:12-17). The holy God of Scripture is always the God of individuals and of his people, the one who stands by them as their protector and shield.
Adoration lies at the heart of Irish piety. We use ‘My Lord and my God’ as an acclamation after the Consecration. I have seen posters in church saying, ‘The Mass is adoration!’ Yet there is another side to the story, which today’s readings bring home to us. Adoration is an attitude that comes from the deepest place in the human heart, and one can never have enough of it. Yet the Bible indicates something else as well, something equally deep and never to be neglected. 3) Besides loving God, with our whole heart and our whole soul and our whole mind and our whole will, we are urged to love our neighbor as our self. Today’s first reading is one of many places in Scripture when God’s holiness is closely linked to the sacredness of one’s human neighbor.
In Leviticus 19:2 God says to Moses: ‘Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.’ Later, in Lv 19:17-18 God says: ‘You shall not bear hatred for your brother or sister in your heart. Though you may have to reprove your fellow citizen, do not incur sin because of him. Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.’
Gospel: Matthew 5:38-48
“The ultimate ideal: Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect“
Jesus said to his disciples, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
CATHOLICISM
The Mystical Union of Christ and the Church
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