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Dear Parishioners,
We are about to embark on an exciting adventure in the coming year. Perhaps you would be interested in being part of the team to evangelize people who are searching for Christ Jesus in their life.
To help us, the Office for Evangelization and Missionary Discipleship is offering a four-week series of Zoom-based workshops for Evangelization Teams and Leads in January 2024. Each session will build upon the next and provide foundational training and practical tools for your work in evangelization.
The topics to be covered will be: ■ Evangelization Basics ■ RMC Vision and Culture of Evangelization ■ Discipleship and Missionary Discipleship ■ Working as a Team for Renewal.
WHEN: January 9-30 (Tuesday mornings) - from 10:00am-12pm OR, Tuesday evenings from 7:00pm-9pm
It is not too late to sign up. Mac Karaban and Missy Keegan are helping me in this endeavor.
The Feast of the Holy Family, the Epiphany, and, indeed, the Christmas season are meant to be a quiet and reflective time — a time to pray and work in the spirit of hope with the Holy Family as our guide and inspiration.
It is a time of hope for lasting peace among nations, to reorient our own lives and to await the fullness of God’s kingdom. The readings of Christmas challenge us to make those hopes into realities.
Hope is the predominant word during the Advent and Christmas season. By definition, hope refers to a desire and expectation in goals that seem difficult to achieve and may somehow be realized.
Thomas Aquinas said it best when he described hope as what is agreeable, future, arduous and the possibility of attainment.
Our scripture readings push us beyond our narrow self-interests and challenge us to hope for understanding and peace among nations of the world, and to look forward to the full coming of God’s kingdom.
The ground and goal of these hopes is God. While this kind of hope involves total reliance on God, it also challenges us to expend serious effort in the present time. Wishing is not enough.
The Christmas Season is a time to hope and work for peace among nations. Isaiah’s hope was that the nations might transform their weapons of war into instruments of peace.
The Christmas Season is a time for reorienting our personal lives. It involves turning our lives more consciously and directly to God and the Kingdom of God. As St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “Let us then, turn and throw off the works of darkness.”
The Christmas Season is a time to await the fullness of God’s kingdom. Matthew provides a series of short parables counseling constant vigilance and good actions in the present as we await the full coming of God’s kingdom.
Sincerely,
Fr. Mike Meany, Pastor
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