News - November 2025 RSS Feed

This weekend we begin the Season of Advent and a new liturgical year. In the three-year cycle for our Sunday readings we return to Year A. This First Sunday of Advent focuses our attention on the second (or final) coming of Jesus and the establishment of God’s kingdom. Jesus exhorts us to “Stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come… Be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come” (Matthew 24: 42, 44). St. Paul exhorts us, as well: “It is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer than when we first believed… Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light… But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh” (Romans 13: 11-14).

Our American culture places a high value on fitness, that is, physical fitness. People spend lots of money on gym memberships, personal trainers, sports equipment and nutritional supplements to reach or to maintain physical fitness. These things must also be accompanied by time and energy actually exercising. Such is the way to physical fitness. But what about our spiritual fitness?

I invite everyone to prayerfully reflect on the core values of Stewardship this weekend. Consider the treasure the Lord had entrusted to you. Express your gratitude to God for this treasure. Then ask Him how much of it He would like you to share with our Parish Family. He is calling all of us into a leap of faith, to trust that, after we make this sacrifice, He will continue to provide for us. Then, as an expression of love for God and for our Parish Family, fill out a pledge card and bring it forward during Mass this weekend. Entrust a portion of your treasure to the Lord for the calendar year 2026.

My wife Marilyn and I were blessed recently to go on a pilgrimage to Portugal, Spain and France. The trip included visits to Fatima and Lourdes, the sites of Marian apparitions. In 1858, in Lourdes France, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous. Our Lady of Lourdes revealed herself as “the Immaculate Conception” and directed Bernadette to an underground spring. The spring’s water is believed to have healing properties, and Lourdes has become a major pilgrimage site visited by millions each year. Then in 1917, in Fatima, Portugal, the Virgin Mother appeared over a period of six months to three shepherd children and identified herself as “Our Lady of the Rosary.” Our Lady urged the children to pray for the conversion of sinners. The apparitions culminated in the “Miracle of the Sun” on October 13, 1917, witnessed by tens of thousands. Today, millions of pilgrims gather each year in Fatima.