This week, as we enter into the season of Advent, we begin a new Church year, a new opportunity, a new invitation for the grace of God to be unfolded in our lives. What we celebrate in Advent is not so much our coming to God, but that we have a God who comes to us. What we see revealed in Jesus is that we have a God who takes the initiative, who doesn’t wait for us to make the first move towards Him, but rather who takes the first step towards us.

This Thursday, November 25th is Thanksgiving Day. With everything going on this week, here are a few reminders regarding this week's schedule of events. The Parish Office will close on Wednesday, November 24th at 12 Noon. It will be closed on Thursday, November 25th and Friday, November 26th. It will reopen for normal business hours on Monday, November 29th. The Mass on Thanksgiving Day will be celebrated at 9 AM. All are welcome to attend! If you cannot attend in person, you can join us virtually as this Mass will be live-streamed on our Parish's YouTube page.

Thanksgiving Blessings! This Thursday, we pause to remember all the blessings in our lives. Gratitude is a foundational attitude of the Christian life, remembering & giving thanks for all that God has done for us. There’s not one person who can say that God hasn’t done anything for them, that God hasn’t poured out some blessing in their life.

At least to me it seems like it was just summer a month ago and yet here we are just over a month away from the Christmas & New Year’s holidays. Soon the Advent wreath will be up in Church & the Christmas decorations soon will follow as we celebrate these great events in the life of our faith. I wanted to share with you this weekend our upcoming schedule for Christmas and New Year’s so that we could all start to plan & prepare.

I remember, when I was just starting out playing the flute, taking music lessons. Every week I would go to my aunt & uncle’s music studio (they still own it to this day) & in the room where my teacher & I would practice he had a poster. The poster had a picture of Uncle Sam pointing out & it bore the saying, “I want you to practice!”

Covid-19 has changed our way of doing so many things and our Thanksgiving Distribution of food is once again one of those changes! Last year we helped 310 families have Thanksgiving by sending gift cards for them to fill their tables with food. This year with the help of our Parish Family we will be doing the same.