Merry Christmas from the Pastor
It has been a blessing and a privilege, as always, to journey with these communities through Advent, this beautiful season of preparation and reconciliation – and now the Christ child has arrived and we have even more to celebrate!
As Catholics, we’ve waited and prepared over the four weeks of Advent and we’re ready to celebrate Jesus’ coming. Our Christmas season lasts for weeks (liturgically through the feast of the Baptism of Our Lord on Sunday, January 12th). Though the miracle of Christmas may seem to disappear with the sight of your neighbor’s Christmas tree on the curb on December 26th, as I mentioned at the beginning of Advent this year, Advent and Christmas are part of the bigger salvation story. Yes, we experience them as a remembrance of 2025 years ago as well as the present season, but we are also always preparing our hearts and minds for Jesus’ second coming.
On that note, our Church, diocese and parishes are preparing to enter into a jubilee year. “Jubilee” is the name given to a particular holy year. Biblically, a jubilee year was to be marked every 50 years. However, in Church history they’ve been every 25 years and even in special years like the 2015 Year of Mercy. Jubilee years are intended as an invitation to slow down and focus. An opportunity for our rushed and pressed world to re-establish a proper relationship with God, with one another, and with all of creation. Biblically, these years involved the forgiveness of debts and grievances, the return of misappropriated land and property, and a fallow period for the fields. Our celebration of the jubilee year will include pilgrimages (physical and spiritual), reconciliation, personal prayer, renewed commitment to Mass, and care for the poor and marginalized.
The opening of our diocesan jubilee year will be January 6th, the Solemnity of the Epiphany and there will be an insert about the jubilee year in next weekend’s bulletin. The theme of this jubilee year is “Pilgrims of Hope.” We will focus on understanding and practicing Christian hope, especially for populations that are marginalized or seeking. You may find yourself among these populations as a young person, an elder, someone who is sick or struggling, or as someone living with and loving someone on the margins. The invitation of both pilgrimage and hope is about returning to loving relationship with God and others so the sacrament of reconciliation will be an important feature of the Jubilee year.
As parishes, we will begin this Jubilee year with planning and input from parish leadership and parishioners to set the foundation of a wider direction for growth and enrichment in our community. As we move in to Lent, we will be hosting a 4-night parish mission and welcome Fr. Jim Nielsen, OPraem and the Missionaries of the Word along with a parish dinner.
Mark your calendars: “A Return to Hope & Heart: A Parish Mission”, March 16th-19th, 2025
If you are here with us for the first time or the first time in a long time, you are most welcome. I invite you to return next weekend and throughout this Jubilee year and I pray that you find a spiritual home within our communities.
Merry Christmas friends – I am deeply grateful to serve as your priest and pastor.
Fr. Mike