Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Merry Christmas! The Great Feast is finally here! Let us rejoice and be glad! Our God has offered us salvation through the birth of His Son! The world will never be the same.

We welcome all of our visitors and guests who join us this weekend. It is a blessing for us to have you here with our community for this Feast. May God bless you and watch over you as you continue your travels.

I would like to offer my sincerest thanks to all of those who have worked so hard to make our celebrations this weekend so very nice. Once again, our decorating committee has done an outstanding job of making our church look even more beautiful for the Christmas season. Jolene McCann, Diane Denardo, and their amazing crew of decorating angels have done such a beautiful job of putting the spirit of joy and wonder that we celebrate, into tangible form with lights, and flowers, and trees, and material. Thank you all so much for sharing your decorating talents with us all! Thanks also to Cathy Rund and ALL of our extraordinary music ministers who share their musical talents with us this weekend, and so many weekends out of the year. Here at St. Maria Goretti, we are SO blessed to have such a wide-range of talented musicians that provide us with music that many other parishes our size and in our situation, could only dream of having. Today, Catholic liturgical music must incorporate the beauty and richness of our past and our treasury of traditional music, as well as incorporate modern worship music, and stay open to an ever-increasing body of new music that is being produced all over the world. It is not an easy task. Our music ministry works very hard to keep a balance that keeps us where we need to be as a Parish. I am most grateful for both our Decorating Committee AND our Music Ministry, because these are not gifts or talents that God blessed me with, and so I am so glad that He sent us people who so generously and selflessly share their talents in these areas. You don’t want to see what our church would look like if I decorated it. Nor do you want to hear what our music would sound like, if I sang it or played it. Thank God! That’s why God gave us all different gifts.

I wanted to also take the opportunity to thank Carla Erickson and our Liturgy Committee who plan and execute all of liturgical celebrations all year long. I also thank all of our Lectors, our Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, our Ministers of Welcome, and our Altar Servers who so generously help out at all of our Masses. Your generosity in service is an inspiration to us all. Special thanks go to Gina Ressler, our Sacristan, who does so much behind the scenes that nobody ever sees. It takes an army of people to have quality liturgies. Thank God that we have so many generous souls here at St. Maria Goretti to make it happen all the time. Thank you.

This is a very different week around here this coming week. Parish and School offices are closed tomorrow, Monday, December 26 th, and are also closed on Thursday and Friday, December 29 th and 30 th. We will be having Daily Mass on Thursday at 5:30 PM and on Friday at 8:00 AM as usual. This Friday, December 30 th, is Fr. Dale’s birthday. Please sneak an extra prayer or two in for him on Friday. We are so blessed to have him helping us out here at St. Maria Goretti, in addition to all of his duties at Blessed Theodore Guerin High School.

Next Sunday is the Feast of Mary, Mother of God. It is usually a Holy Day of Obligation, but because it falls on Sunday, which is ALWAYS a Holy Day of Obligation, we get a two-for-one deal this year. How can you pass that up? We’ll see you here next Sunday. We will be back on our regular Sunday schedule next weekend.

From Fr. Dale, Deacon Steve, our Seminarian Josh Bennett, and myself and our entire Parish and School staffs, we wish all of you a Blessed and Holy Christmas, today and throughout the Octave and Season. We have much to rejoice about. God bless you and your family!

In Christ,

Fr. Kevin

2005 years ago, Heaven touched earth. The rest is His Story!