Today in the gospel, Luke tells us about the shepherds who received a heavenly message about the birth of a child who would be there savior. They quickly went off to see if the message that they received was true. When they found the child just as the angels had said, they gave glory to God and sang his praises. We hear about Mary, who was probably exhausted and overwhelmed, taking time to reflect and treasure all that was happening. Mary, Joseph, the shepherds all took time to be grateful for this truly blessed occasion. Their hearts were full of joy and gratitude for the ways that they were able to encounter God's love at this 1st Christmas.
We hope that your Christmas was a time of peace and joy! As we celebrate the New Year, we hope that you can take a moment to reflect, treasure, and give praise and thanks for all the ways that you and your family have encountered the love of Jesus this past year. We pray that your new year is blessed with the hope, peace, joy and love of the new born King.
We have so much to look forward to in 2017, but before we look ahead, we took some time to look back at the past few months of the Religious Education year. Here are some of the highlights:
- 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
- Santa visited our parish as our children and families enjoyed breakfast together
