Sunday, December 16th 2018
Dear Parishioners,
We are in the Third Weekend of the Advent Season, which is a joyful time for us to be in for the liturgical celebration on our journey of Faith. We gathered around the Table for the Eucharistic celebration with the Presider at the Mass wearing a Rose Vestment for this weekend. The Church is lit up with a little more decoration and the music adds to the atmosphere giving a sense of peace and joy. The Third Advent Candle is lit at the start of our liturgy with the Faith Community. Our parishioners attended the Advent Retreat and many of us have the opportunity to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, such as the communal penance service as well as receiving the sacrament individually in the Reconciliation Room, when we entered in this season of preparation and full expectation for the Lords coming! We learned from the Virgin Mary on how we can prepare ourselves to welcome the Lord into our lives. We also listen intensively to the Words of God from the Prophets in the Old Testament, which gives us comfort and full of Hope. We also learn from, throughout the history of the Church on how Jesus is coming to be with us at Christmas! Emmanuel, God is with us!
We had a wonderful time with our regional parishes staff for their luncheon last Friday, so we have a chance to thank them for their ministry in what they doing to serve our parishes. I thank them on your behalf and made sure that we deeply appreciate them, and they are very happy to serve us. Please remember them in your prayers and let them know how much we appreciate them for their work, if you have a chance! We will host the parish leadership team from each parish a Christmas Appreciation night this Sunday. We thank them for supporting our parishes with their time and talents in assisting me in many different ways to serve us! I hope that we are able to acknowledge them and it will be a wonderful time for them to celebrate the Spirit of Christmas with each other so they can experience among themselves that God is among us and with us, especially when we serve each other. We celebrate Gods blessing upon our parishes by being a good steward of Gods blessing, the leadership teams are able to share by assisting us with what they can do for the parish and the parish can thank them by having this event. We are very happy that we are able to create this event, so we are able to engage with each other from different parishes to share the gift that we have to serve our parishes.
We thank our retreat Masters such as Father Jim who led both weekends and Father Steve for the Vietnamese Catholic Community and the Eucharistic Youth Group Retreat. We also thank other Lay leaderships who assisted us with the Advent Retreat for different ministry groups that we had for this season of preparation. We also thank you for coming to the Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Immaculate Conception feasts. We thank the core team from our parishes that organized the childrens choir to sing at different nursing home and retirement home. They are truly sharing the joy of the Christmas Spirit with the homebound of our regional parishes. We also thank them for organizing the Christmas gathering for social, fellowship, and meal for the senior groups within our parishes. We had a chance to minister the Sacrament of Healing to them when they came for this event. We also celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation with them. We thank the homebound ministers for organizing the Christmas gifts to give to them from our Giving Tree in the Church. We thank you for your participation by buying different gifts from the information from the tree. The outreach ministers assist Sister Anna to sort these gifts, so they can be given to the correct people. Many of them are waiting for these gifts and we have a group of volunteers who assist us to deliver these gifts to them. We will post some of the pictures on our parishes website, so you can join us to thank God who gives us this opportunity to serve this homebound ministry.
We thank you for taking time to pray for those who do not need the material Christmas gifts, but the spiritual gift by praying for them for this season. Please keep them in your prayers for a day, a week, or a month, which means a lot to them. We have many opportunities to do the Divine Mercy and acts of Charity toward the poor. Towards the end of Year, it is the end of the year giving, so I would cordially invite you to remember our parishes by supporting your parish financially with what you are able to give (a special gift), which you are able to share your blessing with your Faith Community. You may already receive many different letters from different charities, which ask you to give, so I am not putting another burden on you. Please remember and support your parishes, so we can continue to share the Good News and able to manage to pay all the bills and operational costs during the winter!
You are cordially invited to join us at the Christmas celebration. We have sent out a Christmas card with information, such as the Mass time and Christmas program, so we hope you can join the parish to celebrate Christmas with great joy. You do not want to miss this special event at our parishs Christmas celebration, so please invite your family to join us to praise and to thank God for all the blessing on this special event of our parishes!
We have to prepare the information for our parishes bulletin a head of time, so the catholic printer has time to print it out for us. There is more information, which is not included in this bulletin letter. I invite you to check our parishes website and engage in our parish, so you can have the information that you need and want to have. You may receive a letter (report) from the Called to Serve as Christs Campaign and another letter from the Stewardship Campaign. We deeply appreciate you for your support and I have heard from our parish leadership meeting that there are some misleading information that has caused some people to be upset, so I am truly sorry for the mistake that we have made.
There are some families within our parishes who experienced the lost of their love one and they are mourning for their love one. Please remember them in your daily prayers and you can invite them to join us at the daily liturgy celebration and Weekend Masses!
Again, we thank you for your continue support of our parishes! May the Lord continue to bless upon you and your family!
Sincerely, Yours in Christ,
Fr. Tuan Nguyen, D. Min
Regional Pastor