July 1st marked the beginning of the new fiscal year for most businesses, October 1st marked the beginning of the year for the federal government, and January 1st will be the start of our calendar year. However, the Church year or liturgical year begins on the First Sunday of Advent. It just so happens that this year the date is December 1st.
Each beginning offers new hope for the future as we look forward to good things to come. God tells us in the readings (Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:37-44) that good things will come to us if we make ourselves ready through prayer, penance, and almsgiving to receive them.
Let us prepare the way for the best thing of all, Jesus, to come into our hearts. May this new Church year be a happy and holy one for you and your families.
- Fr. Carl
“Before all else we need to keep alive in our world the thirst for the
absolute, and to counter the dominance of a one-dimensional
vision of the human person, a vision that reduces human beings to
what they produce and to what they consume. This is one of the most
insidious temptations of our time.”
- Pope Francis
