By Ruth Ann Ruiz
The Post Newspaper Features Editor
Archbishop Joe S. Vasquez celebrating midnight Mass in Galveston had a profoundly soft and loving impact on the people who attended.
“I walked in when he was speaking of God almighty coming to us in love as a vulnerable infant,” said Gabe, a college student who was in town to visit his family.
“I just loved his message of the infant Jesus Christ being tenderly cared for by his mother and others,” said another attendee.
“I really liked the way he spoke of his own family, and the tenderness of love and the baby Jesus,” said still another attendee.
It was the first midnight Mass Vasquez celebrated at the St. Mary’s Cathedral Basilica since being installed as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston. As he entered the church, it felt as though a blanket of love had been draped over the entire building and its occupants.
His homily began with him recalling the excitement he and everyone in his home experienced as they awaited the arrival of his final sibling. He shared that his mother had six children, and everyone in the house was eager to see and touch the new baby.
As he delivered his Christmas homily, his voice conveyed the love and tenderness that one would use in the presence of a newborn child.
He spoke about a baby being dependent on parents for care and the extraordinary mystery of God choosing to serve mankind by becoming an infant.
“God chose to save us by becoming an infant,” Vasquez said.
Vasquez explained that despite the original sin in that Garden of Eden, humans were not left without God.
“God in his infinite goodness does not allow sin to separate us from God,” Vasquez said.
It was through God almighty becoming an infant that God allows all humankind to experience the mystery of God’s love.
When concluding the Mass in prayer, he prayed for those who were homebound and those who had strayed from their faith, and this, too, was another aspect of the Mass that some attendees cherished.
The congregation exited the church and entered the fog of an early Christmas morning ready to head to where they would sleep, and the archbishop and his staff made their way back to Houston.
