Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
The name Emmanuel is one of my favorite titles for Jesus. It translates from Hebrew as "God is with us." The Son of God, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, becomes like us in every way but sin to show us how to truly be alive. He comes to offer us a true vision of who God the Father is and shares his own life with us. He offers us true hope, peace, joy and love.
In all that we do here at St. Mary's, we try to remember that our main goal is to be Emmanuel to others. Our hope is that our catechists, parents, students, and all of our parish families may experience God's hope, peace, joy and love in our classrooms, at our family gathering events, at our celebrations, at Mass, and in every encounter that we may have with them.
We have been blessed with so many great opportunities to encounter Christ through one another so far this year. Here are just a few highlights from the past few months:
- We have welcomed 60 new families into our Religious Education Program and our program has grown to over 450 students
- Our Peer Leadership Team has grown to 23 high school students. The team meets each week to prepare to work with our Confirmation candidates and Religious Ed students, share their faith and to pray together
- Our Family Gathering Event at the TurtleBack Zoo, where Fr. Rich celebrated Mass, and then we had the chance to spend the day learning about animals
- Our 7th Graders came together to learn about how the saints are our truest superheroes
- We have 14 new youth altar servers (and more coming) to serve at our Liturgies
- Our families came together to make Advent wreaths to remind us of God's hope, peace, joy and love and to help us prepare for Christmas
- 81 young people received the Sacrament of Penance for the first time on December 10th, and many of their parents were able to receive God's mercy and forgiveness through this wonderful sacrament too
