My Dear Friends:
Happy New Year and Happy Epiphany! It is so wonderful to greet all of you in this new year which happens to be a jubilee year not only for the Universal Church, but this September we begin a year of jubilee for our parish centennial when our school turns 100 on September 15, 2025.
On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis opened the Holy Doors of St. Peter’s Basilica which many of us will walk through this year. In his Papal Bull last May announcing the upcoming Holy Year, the Pope wrote: “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5). In the spirit of hope, the Apostle Paul addressed these words of encouragement to the Christian community of Rome. Hope is also the central message of the coming Jubilee that, in accordance with an ancient tradition, the Pope proclaims every twenty-five years. My thoughts turn to all those pilgrims of hope who will travel to Rome in order to experience the Holy Year and to all those others who, though unable to visit the City of the Apostles Peter and Paul, will celebrate it in their local Churches. For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the “door” (cf. Jn 10:7.9) of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere and to all as “our hope” (1 Tim 1:1).
Hope definitely does not disappoint, and it is in that spirit of hope that we enter this important year as a parish. We hope for what our own parish centennial jubilee will bring. We hope for the success of all the projects that we have started. We carry great hopes for what this new year will bring. We enter this year proclaiming Christ who is our eternal hope.
As a parish, we must prepare for the festivities of our 100th year. This is not only done with tangible events or buildings built or parties, but in the ecclesial setting, it is done with spiritual preparation. What do we, as a parish and school, wish to achieve spiritually during our centennial celebration?
As we begin this new year, we begin our immediate pilgrimage as a parish towards our local jubilee. We are after all pilgrims seeking out, like the Magi in today’s gospel, the road to our Lord and King. As Pope Francis wrote: “This interplay of hope and patience makes us see clearly that the Christian life is a journey calling for moments of greater intensity to encourage and sustain hope as the constant companion that guides our steps towards the goal of our encounter with the Lord Jesus.”
With that goal of “encounter” in mind, I call upon all our ministries this year to invite the clergy of parish to give formation talks to your respective ministries so that we can all be “of one heart and mind” as we approach the centennial of the school and parish.
And that is my prayer for this parish as we begin these final months towards our centennial jubilee: that we may be like the ancient church as we read in Acts 4:32, “The community of believers was of one heart and mind.” For this we rely on the Holy Spirit who makes us one in Christ Jesus.
May God’s blessings be upon you and your family during this new year, and may God bless the Church of the Little Flower and St. Theresa Catholic School as we prepare to celebrate our centennial jubilee this coming September.
God Bless You All!
