My Dear Friends,

What brings you joy? On this Gaudete Sunday in which we focus on the virtue of joy, it is worth looking into our hearts and asking ourselves what and who brings us joy.

As your pastor, there are so many things that have brought me joy just in the first two weeks of this month with the myriad of events that have happened in the parish.

Yesterday, one of your fellow parishioners, Gustavo Roversi, was ordained as a permanent deacon for the Archdiocese of Miami and of course, he will serve all of you here at Little Flower. This Sunday is his first Mass as a deacon and he will preach at the 12:30pm Mass and right after that Mass, he will baptize children for the first time. What a blessing that our parish has ordained three men to the permanent diaconate in the last six years! Please pray for Deacon Roversi and his family.

The joy of the visit of the relics of St. Therese two weeks ago still have our hearts overflowing. There have been so many spiritual fruits that our community has received, so many witnesses of faith, and so many conversion stories that I could fill an entire edition of this bulletin. But the greatest thing I saw during her visit was how our ministries came together to organize and welcome the thousands of visitors that we received. I cannot thank this incredible team enough. St. Therese has definitely been interceding for our church and school.

The joy that we experienced last weekend during our Parish Fair was something palpable. Hundreds of parishioners came together to put on the biggest fair we have ever had. Seeing the smiles on the faces of our children, and also seeing the great fun that the adults had as well as we rallied to raise money for our centennial campaign and build community.

Whether it was dancing at the fair or watching a sporting event together or enjoying the great food as a family, one could feel the joy that was present on the grounds of our school.

Speaking of the great food, I want to highlight something that is never seen and probably taken for granted. All the delicious food is cooked somewhere, and there is an army of volunteers in the school kitchen that spend months preparing for fair weekend and then they are the first to arrive and the last ones to leave in order to make sure we all have amazing meals during the fair. I have always said in this column that there are so many parishioners who do heroic and saintly deeds every single day that go unnoticed. They do it for love of their church and their school and especially the children of our community. Most importantly, they do it with joy in their hearts!

For the Christian, every action we do must be done with joy! I want to thank every single person who volunteered at our Parish Fair particularly those who labored long hours to put this complicated event together for the benefit of our church and school. The chairpersons of this event go above and beyond making sure no detail is left unnoticed. We are indebted to them.

So these are the few of the things that have brought your pastor joy these last two weeks. This joy will only intensify as we draw closer to Christmas. That is why the Advent wreath is three-quarters of the way lit this Sunday. The light of the wreath is growing, and we are filled with joy. Let us spend these last two weeks of Advent spreading the joy of this holy season, and giving thanks to God for the many blessing we have received as a parish community during this historic month.

God bless you all,