Pastor’s Letter – Fourth Sunday of Advent

Posted on December 20, 2021 View all Pastor's Letter

Dear parishioners,

Happy fourth week of Advent! Time flies by so quickly; we are about to celebrate the Nativity of Our Lord. In this last week of preparation in Advent, the Gospel presents us with two characters, Mary and her cousin Elizabeth. They show us the attitude of faith that must be in our spirit to contemplate the mystery of the incarnation of God at His birth. We must imitate Elizabeth, who expresses gratitude and joy in having faith. And, like Mary, we have to manifest our faith with work and action, because she did not hesitate to go to the mountains to help her cousin and stay with her at the time of her pregnancy. Hopefully during this time we will be able to glorify the Lord and serve our brothers and sisters.

I congratulate in a special way the Hispanic ministries and groups that prepared a very beautiful celebration to Our Lady of Guadalupe. They took great care in preparing the altar, organizing the mañanitas, and the sale of food after the celebration. I am very happy with the attendance! I had never seen the temple almost completely full (there were around 600 people who attended). Blessed be God and His Blessed Mother for such a beautiful response from our parishioners. Congratulations to all the groups for working together and in unity.

I am also very grateful to all those who donated an Angel Tree gift for the children of our parish; we have handed out the gifts. As you know, in our parish there are some families with limited resources and they are very grateful for their gifts that you have lovingly brought them. God bless for your generosity.

Please do not forget to put on your calendar the Christmas Mass schedule. This year we will have three masses on December 24th, Christmas Eve we will have mass at 5:00pm in English, 8:00pm in Spanish and at 12:00am (midnight) we will celebrate the solemn mass of Christmas, you are all invited to participate. On December 25th, we will celebrate three masses; 8:00am and 10:00am in English and 12:00pm in Spanish.

I also want to remind you that for the Christmas holidays the parish office will be closed on Thursday, December 23rd and Friday, December 24th so that our employees can prepare their Christmas celebrations with their families. Therefore, if you wish to carry out anything, please do so before these days.

Finally, on behalf of all the parish staff, priests and deacons, we wish you a Happy and Holy Christmas! May you live it in peace and harmony. May baby Jesus be fully born in your hearts.

May God bless you and keep you always,

F. Alex