From The Pastor’s Desk

Last weekend we began the beautiful season of Advent. It is a spiritual time of walking with the prophets as they pointed the way to the coming Messiah. The prophet Isaiah is the prophet most read during the Advent Season. He had the difficult task of calling the people back from their sinful ways of idolatry and immorality to the one true God. This was not an easy task as the Northern Kingdom had been destroyed by the Assyrian Empire and only Judah was still free and the people had turned away from God.

Advent is a time for us to strengthen our faith, our love for God as we prepare to celebrate Christmas. Isaiah, in fact all the prophets longed to see the Messiah and did not see him. They could not have imagined the great love of God in sending His son to suffer and die for all the human race. In that suffering, Jesus the Son of God left us the greatest gift, the Eucharist.

St Teresa of Avila once marveled at the vulnerability of Our Lord in the Eucharist. She once said, “One might be overcome by the chance to meet a king, however it should never be forgotten that the King of the Universe has made himself available to us at all times, in every Catholic church. In every chapter of the story of salvation, Our Lord seeks us out and draws ever closer to us, to be with us in the most radical way in the Eucharist.”

As we walk through the Advent Season do not surrender to our culture, to the social pressure to celebrate the man in the red suit. The mission of the church, in fact each of us is to hand on the faith from one generation to the next. The celebration of the Eucharist, the receiving of the BODY and BLOOD of Christ is the way He left us to receive His strength, guidance and love. The Eucharist is the food for our journey with all the pressures and stress of our daily life. Bread and wine is served at our dining room tables, the BODY and BLOOD of Christ is given to us freely from the altar of our church.