Dear parish family and friends of St. Julia,

Last weekend, we celebrated Christmas on December 25th.  This is the day we thank God for one of the most humble, loving and generous gifts in our human history: God became one of us. God took on the human condition.  He entered our experience and changed us forever.  We call this “The Mystery of the Incarnation” and it’s so important to us that we bow every time we mention it in the creed.

By becoming human, Jesus took every human experience that is not sin and made it holy.  Our laughter, our pain, our tears…every human experience from the most mundane to the greatest, God has made a part of Him forever. That’s love and that love is ours forever.

In the Feast of the Holy Family that we celebrate today, Friday, we remember with joy that the first experience our God chose to have on earth is the experience of being part of a family.

If we look at the creation account, we see that God, who is a community of persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), immediately created a community of persons when he made us. He made a man and a woman as the first expression of Himself on earth.
For us then, family is everything. Family matters to us, not just in the fact of its existence, but in the duty of our little human families to imitate the community of love that is our origin: God. Pray together, eat together, seize every moment you can to love, serve and be with the family that Jesus has given you.

So many wonderful families join us during this Holy Season and throughout the year, and that is a blessing for our parish.

This weekend, we celebrate Mary, the Mother of God, and it brings the octave of Christmas to its spiritual completion.  There is significance in celebrating Mary during the heart of the Christmas season.  Pope Paul VI, in his apostolic exhortation Marialis Cultus (1974), called the Solemnity of Mary “a fitting occasion for renewing adoration of the newborn Prince of Peace, for listening once more to the glad tidings of the angels (Luke 2:14), and for imploring from God, through the Queen of Peace, the supreme gift of peace.”

I pray that God touches your heart and soul this Holy Season and fills you with His love and peace.  I pray that you find here at St. Julia a place where you feel welcome to join us every week you can as we strive to know and live God’s love and peace.
If you haven’t joined our Parish Family and wish to, simply click here.

Thank you for letting me be your priest.  You are the gift God has given me and I am filled with gratitude and joy.

May God bless each of you and those that you love in 2023.

Fr. Greg

 
Dear parish family and friends of St. Julia,

I am blessed to receive many beautiful Christmas cards every year, and this year is no exception.  One in particular stands out.  It reads:

The GREATEST GIFT to the world was given this day.

Receive Him through FAITH,
rejoice in HOPE,
experience the PEACE of His LOVE
this Christmas season
and always.

What a gift our Saviour Jesus Christ is.  This gift can be found in no store.  This gift is priceless.  It is the most precious of all gifts in the world.  This gift is one for all humankind. 
 
God made flesh.  Emmanuel.  The name given to Christ.  This is the gift that we celebrate every Christmas.  Yet, for us, Christmas is more than just one day.  Christmas for so many is just that, and it is not the CHRISTmas we hold dear to our hearts.  Our faith, and the gift of our faith, allows us to receive and encounter the gift of Christ in the sacraments and in the most beautiful of all ways, the gift of the Eucharist, everyday of the year.  Keep Christmas with you, all through the year from Christmas Eve on Sesame Street is the gift I am thinking of, and humming as I write this.

It is with love in my heart that I welcome you and yours to our Christmas celebrations this year at our parish of St. Julia.  I pray that the peace of the season dwells in your heart, for it is the gift of peace that I pray you receive and take with you, and bring into your homes, schools, places of work, and into our community and world, when we gather and worship together.  Another gift, all through the year.

May God bless each of you and those that you love this Christmas season and always,

Fr. Greg

P.S.  Christmas is more than just one day.  Liturgically speaking, it is a season, it is an octave .  Remember that, and safety always first.  Should weather be an issue this weekend, join me during any of the days in the octave of Christmas.  I will be there to welcome you as we celebrate the birth of Christ together.

Dear parish family and friends of St. Julia,
The Fourth Sunday of Advent has arrived.  We have journeyed together throughout this season of preparation for the coming of Christ this Christmas.  In many ways it is a journey and a calling home.
 
Advent is a joyful celebration of the condition we find ourselves in as Christians.  It announces that God is always moving towards us.  God is at work in the world and in our lives, ever creative and ever renewing.  God continues to create and to reveal his love for each of us.
 
The good news is that we are pilgrims on the move and are going home to God's house.  The only worthwhile baggage to carry on that journey is good works and acts of loving service performed for Christ.

As we light the fourth candle on our Advent wreath, we are reminded of the great love that God has for each and everyone of us.  Never forget this.  May we reflect this same love in our words, deeds, and actions, from the greatest to the least.  Remember, what seems like something small or insignificant to us just might mean the world to someone else.
 
The greatest preparation we just might make this upcoming week might be the one no one on earth will ever see.
 
O come, O come, Emmanuel.

May God bless each of you and those that you love, and I look forward to seeing you at mass this weekend as we celebrate the Fourth Sunday of Advent together.

Fr. Greg

Dear parish family and friends of St. Julia,

As we continue to journey through this season of Advent together as a parish family, we are drawing close to celebrating the birth of our Saviour.  The Lord, our Lord, is very close to us.  Our passages from Scripture remind us of this, and it is the recurring theme in the season of Advent.
 
The fact that our Lord is near to us, I pray, should bring comfort to all believers.  Our Saviour took on our human flesh, to be one with us and to walk with us.  He showed us how to live and how to love, both our God and our neighbour.  He showed us how to be people of hope, peace, joy, and love.
 
As we enter now the Third Week of Advent, may we continue to embrace this season of preparation and the preparing of our hearts.  Consider joining us for our Advent Reconciliation Service Wednesday evening, weekday morning Mass, all either in person or via our YouTube channel.  Make the most of this time, and be the light of Jesus to someone this day.

O come, O come, Emmanuel.

May God bless each of you and those that you love, and I look forward to seeing you at mass this weekend as we celebrate the Third Sunday of Advent together.

Fr. Greg

Dear parish family and friends of St. Julia,

This weekend we will light the second candle on our Advent wreath, in our spiritual home and own private homes.  In three weeks time we will celebrate Christmas and the coming of the Son of God among us as our prophet, our priest, and our king. 

To really know who Jesus is, we must recall the faith of the people who looked out for him.  We must look to the writings of the Old Testament to see what they say about the promise of God to visit his people - and during these coming weeks we will read and break open the Word of God from the prophets.  We will recall those who prepared the way for his coming - and we will recall the work of John the Baptist.  We will reflect on how the Christ child comes to birth in our world through our faith and discipleship, and we will remember Mary whose faith and acceptance of the invitation of God inaugurated the whole Christian era.

Let us find those precious moments, to stop and pause, and in silence note that this moment is an important turning point in our year and in our lives 2022 years later.
 
O come, O come, Emmanuel.

May God bless each of you and those that you love, and I look forward to seeing you at mass this weekend as we celebrate the Second Sunday of Advent together.

Fr. Greg