While most College students are opening gifts with their families on Christmas morning, Assumption College freshman Grace Clark ’19 will be delivering presents, along with much needed food and water, to members of Haiti’s destitute communities.

Clark is one of a dozen individuals traveling to Haiti with the Be Like Brit (BLB) organization for the Christmas break (Dec. 19-27).  BLB was founded by Len and Cherylann Gengel to honor the memory of their daughter, Britney, who was killed in a 2010 earthquake that devastated the island nation. The orphanage the organization has established there, which houses 66 Haitian children, provides a safe, nurturing environment where children can grow, learn and thrive.

O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it, grant, we pray, that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity. Amen.

( Mass During the Day, Collect)

Richard Cardinal Ezzati opened the Jubilee Year of Mercy in the western region of the archdiocese by traveling to the Assumptionist basilica of Lourdes on this Third Sunday of Advent.

By Francisco Morón

“Pope Francis did something wonderful by inaugurating this year of mercy. It's something missing in the world and especially in our country. The Holy Door is an opportunity that we Christians have to start things all over again," commented René Contreras, one of the faithful who was preset at the opening ceremony which took place at 5 PM on the Third Sunday of Advent.

Miami was the site of a recent fall retreat for a Young Adult Group called Regina Coeli. Fr. Claude Grenache, A.A., from the Assumptionist Center in Brighton, was their spiritual guide for the weekend.

This was the second time that Assumptionist presence reached out to these faith-filled young people in the Miami area. Last summer several of them came north to visit the congregation's communities in Brighton, Worcester and Sturbridge.