We watched for Jesus in Advent; we celebrated His coming in the flesh at Christmas; we praised His worldwide sovereignty at Epiphany, while adoring Him with the magi; and then we found how pleased His Father was in His baptism, we now move on. We now come to Ordinary Time, which, scripturally speaking, is simply a season of following. But first it’s as if the church wants to give us a heads-up. That is, these first two weeks of Ordinary Time point out the purpose of the journey, where we are headed and why.

How Are You A Conduit of Good News?

Today’s Gospel is meant to inspire in us the reality of how we are connected to living the gospel and magnify the presence of Christ in the world through one another. We are challenged to take a long hard look into our hearts and purify them clean with good will.

Who couldn’t use a miracle right about now? For the past month or so, we have been planning, partying, preparing food and exchanging gifts. Now it is time to get back to normal. Christmas for most of us has been stored back into boxes or bins and fruit cakes have either been eaten or given away to others. We are now dealing with dark nights and cold mornings and endless heart-shaped boxes lining the shelves at Walmart.

Dear Parish Family,

Today’s Gospel gives us an account of Jesus’s first miracle turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana.

This miracle is important because it teaches us that with God there always is an appointed time for all things. How many of us realize this with the inner workings of our own lives?

Through the liturgy of the church, we are brought into intimacy with the Lord.

Catholic worship always brings us to the real person of Christ and to His Passion. It should bring us to a sacramental point, to closeness, to a moment in which the Lord looks at us and we at Him, when He washes us, touches us and feeds us. This, to be honest, is the thing that brought me back to the Catholic faith, the belief that Jesus is truly present in the church, that He is sacramentally present.

Dear Parish Family,

There soon will be four avenues of communication used regularly to convey our message--the bulletin, the announcements, the digital marquee, and our soon to launch brand new engaging parish website. These are the only formal means of parish communication.

Our new confessional is in. It is working out nicely. The confessional box is a centuries-old way of providing appropriate space for the sacrament to be conducted.