I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Bulletin deadlines required me to write this column before Thanksgiving, so I can’t tell you how mine went. I can tell you that I was looking forward to it as I wrote these words!

Today we begin the holy season of Advent. While it’s easy to think of Advent as a time to prepare for Christmas, it’s really much more than that. The word Advent means ‘coming’ – and Advent is indeed a time to get ready for the coming of Christ.

As Catholics, Advent makes us think about not just one, but two, of Christ’s comings. While we are certainly getting ready to celebrate His first coming at Christmas, Advent also reminds us to get ready for His Second coming on Judgement Day.

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Can you believe that Thanksgiving is this Thursday? Time really does fly these days.

Thanksgiving is a good time for us to take stock of the blessings God has given us, and be sure to thank Him. This, of course, is something we should do in our prayers each and every day. We should also remember that we thank God by remembering those who may not enjoy all the blessings that we do, and practicing Christian Charity towards them.

Today (Sunday) is the Solemn Feast of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe! It is a day to remember that, in addition to everything else He is for us, Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Rev. 19:16). Christ the King Sunday is also a good time to remember that Jesus is very different from the Kings of this world.

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Last Sunday I had the pleasure of joining some of my family to celebrate my mother’s birthday. We had dinner and cake at my sister Natalie’s home in Hillsborough. It was so good to be with both of my sisters and their husbands, and some other family as well. I hope the coming holiday season affords everyone some time to be with family and friends.

By the time you read these words, we will have celebrated Veterans Day. I want to make a special point of thanking all the veterans in our parish. We owe you a debt we can never repay. Thanks for all that you’ve done to ensure our freedoms, especially our freedom of religion.

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This year our diocese will celebrate its 40th Anniversary. While there will be many celebrations and events during the year, I want to speak specifically about our parish celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s feast this year. We will celebrate Our Lady’s feast day, Sun, Dec 12, with special devotions at the 11:00am and 1:00pm Mass that day.

You may recall that our Bishop reconsecrated our diocese to Jesus through Our Lady of Guadalupe a few years ago. I had the blessed privilege of attending the Mass at which this happened. It was celebrated by Archbishop Christoph Pierre, the Apostolic Nuncio (or pope’s representative) to the United States. This consecration established a special relationship between our diocese and Our Lady of Guadalupe. For this reason, I believe it is important for us to observe her Feast Day.

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