Mary, Mother of God 2023

 
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