Dear Friends
Just how proud I am of you all for your unstinting support of our parish is beyond belief. You are amazing. Thank you for your support of the Children’s Hunger Project. This year on Saturday, 16th November 2019 we packed 5250 food packages for the Children who go hungry on weekends. You can pat yourselves saying, “I did help the hungry children in our neighborhood.” Christmas Giving Tree is up and it is one more opportunity to share our Love and Joy of Christmas with the children and the elderly who are in need.
We now change our Liturgical Gear as we enter into another Advent Season of joy and expectation and celebrations. Advent ushers in a new Church year and the Season of Advent lasting about 24 days gives us an opportunity to not only prepare physically and materially for the great feast of Christmas but above all spiritually. How ready am I for the birth of the Savior in my heart?
To do precisely that our parish will engage you in three beautiful ways:
- Celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation along with our parishioners on Tuesday, 3rd December at 7 p.m. Going to confession on such days has its magic. It truly reflects our penitential attitude silently witnessing to one another, “I am a sinner just like anyone else.” I don’t pretend to be pure or sinless or holy. I stand in need of God’s mercy just like any other person.
- Attend the Advent Mission. This year we will have one of the biggest personalities in the media world dedicated to welcoming back Catholics who have left the church for various reasons. Remember the slogan: Each One Reach One. Please think of someone who you know had stopped coming to Church and how starved they could be spiritually without realizing it. It is like the Children’s Hunger Project where some children go hungry on weekends because there is no food for them at home. The children have no choice. But our friends who don’t go to Catholic Church do have a choice and yet are starving for lack of food. I urge you to consider inviting at least one person who has been a former Catholic to come and see how much richer spiritually we can be if we had them join us to worship. The mission will be offered on 9 and 10th December at 7 p.m. by Tom Peterson, the founder of Catholics Come Home.
- Absorb the beauty of the soul soothing Stations of the Crib where all the significant events in the life of Mary and Joseph as they go through those 9 months of pregnancy leading up to the iconic moment in the History of Salvation, the Birth of Christ, are brought alive through Scripture, Music and Song. It will be held on Tuesday, 17th December 2019 at 7 p.m.
Please take note of all the programs offered by the parish and make good use of them. The men of our parish have another additional bonus. Please join us on Monday December 2nd 2019 at 6 p.m. for SJE Men’s Night with speakers from Adventure Catholic.
Have a Blessed Week!
With Love,
Fr. John