My Dear Friends,

This week we celebrate our 100th Christmas here at Little Flower. We welcome all our visitors who will be joining us to celebrate the Nativity of our Lord. Many of you have probably not been in our church since it was painted and refurbished this past summer. We pray you find the same welcoming home that you have always encountered: a church that is peaceful, prayerful, and always leading us towards our Lord.

Back in 1926, our founding parishioners celebrated their first Christmas without a building (our first church that is known as Comber Hall today was not finished until 1927), so much like Mary and Joseph, our founders did not have a posada to offer up the first Christmas Mass. Now we have a beautifully refurbished church ready to welcome in the thousands of people who will joyfully join us for Mass this Christmas to celebrate the birth of the Messiah.

This has been a year of tremendous grace here in our parish and in the Universal Church. In a few weeks, Pope Leo XIV will close the Jubilee Year of Hope that was opened for our dearly departed Pope Francis just one year ago. This global jubilee coincided with our own parish and school centennial year which began this past September 15th on the day the school was founded in 1925, and it will run through October 2026 which is the month we celebrated the foundation of our parish back in 1926. In just three months, we have had so many graces celebrating our centennial. We had a day of celebration for the school children, celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving with the Archbishop on the school grounds, and as a parish received the relics of St. Therese, our patroness, early this month. And we are not done yet because the new year has lots of exciting surprises in store for us: some planned and some unplanned because the graces that God surprises us with are eternal.

For now, we focus on Christmas and give thanks to the Almighty for the opportunity to celebrate together as a parish family during this milestone year and at the close of this Jubilee of Hope.

Earlier this month, Pope Leo XIV offered these words: “…how much the world needs this hope! Nothing is impossible to God. Let us prepare ourselves for his Kingdom, let us welcome it. The little child, Jesus of Nazareth, will lead us! He who placed himself in our hands, from the night of his birth to the dark hour of his death on the cross, shines upon our history as the rising Sun. A new day has begun: let us arise and walk in his light!” (Angelus, 12/7/25)

Christmas allows us to emerge from the darkness of sin, to cast off the things of this world, and to walk as God’s children who have been enlightened by the light of the Child born in Bethlehem. We stand before the manger in awe, and thank our Savior for coming to save us. To follow The Little Way of St. Therese: let us be small like Him, let us be meek like Him, and let us rejoice in the small blessings God bestows on us each and every day, not only on Christmas.

The priests, Carmelite Sisters, and staff of Little Flower and St. Theresa School wish all of you a merry and holy Christmas and an abundance of God’s blessings in the new year. Allow yourself to caught up in the beauty of the Christmas story. Allow yourself to become little like our Savior.

Merry Christmas,