ADVENT 2024

photo by Anne Nygård

Dear Parishioners,

Welcome to Advent, my favorite season of the year. Advent is a time of quiet excitement, as we prepare, through prayer, music, decorations, lights, special foods, and a variety of family celebrations, to make a place for God’s love. In Advent we call God’s love Emmanuel, a name which means that God is with us. Through the birth of Jesus, the word of God becomes flesh and lives among us. Jesus is Emmanuel.

Jesus is like the lens of a camera. We need to look through this lens to clearly see his love among us. When we allow our selves to look at the world through Jesus; his light dispels the darkness around us. And as John tells us in the prologue of his gospel, “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” St. Paul, in Romans: 5:20 writes, “where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more.” Thus, Advent becomes a season of God’s overflowing grace that gives us the means to prepare a way for the Lord.

May we receive the grace to prepare in our hearts, and in our world, a place for our God. May Emmanuel, God with us, be with us in our struggles with the forces of darkness and allow us to shine with the light of God’s love for all who are need.

May our sharing of our time, treasure, and talent be the voice that cries out in the wilderness, prepare a way for the Lord.

Father Gagne