On Advent...

                                ADVENT 2019

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 see clearly his love among us. When we allow ourselves 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, who is Emmanuel.

        May we receive the grace to prepare in our hearts, and in our world, a place for our God.

        Please go on line and sign up for, Best Advent Ever.Com. You will be provided with a variety of daily reflections through this holy season of grace and expectation.

        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 to 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.

- Fr. Gagne