Pastor’s Letter: December 21, 2025

Pastor’s Letter: December 21, 2025

19 Dec 2025 | Posted by: chadmin

Dear St. Philomena Parish Family,

A fruitful last few days of Advent and Blessed Christmas to you all! This past week our Men’s Club worked together to help get our Christmas trees and manger scene set up in the church—I am especially thankful to all those who were able to help, along with a couple other dedicated ladies who helped with the rest of our decorations! They work together well and are amazingly efficient…! =)

Every year, as soon as the manger scene is set up, one of my favorite sights begins to happen regularly: young children approach after Mass, looking intently at the different statues…and often noticing right away whether or not Baby Jesus is there (depending on whether it is before or after Christmas Eve). Watching the children approach the crib is a great reminder for all of us that Jesus wants to be close with us. He comes to us so approachable—a little baby in the manger. The Baby Jesus invites all of us to come closer and we recall His great love for us.

For an extra Advent meditation this year, I have been enjoying: Advent and Christmas with Fulton J. Sheen (Liguori Publications, Edited and Compiled by Judy Bauer, 2001). Each day is laid out with a Scripture passage, a quote from one of Sheen’s writings, and then a prayer provided by the Editor. I especially was struck by three of the days which I thought would give us a good Christmas meditation, reminding us to draw near to Jesus, present in our midst.

From Day 11, including a Sheen quote from In the Fullness of Time:

“According to all worldly standards, it is the aged who are learned. And yet when Wisdom came to earth he was a child, and when Wise Men came to Wisdom they were told to be like children. Christmas, then, is the coronation of childhood, the glorification of the young whose hearts are simple, the proclamation to aging hearts that the world need not despair and die, because the Fountain of Youth has come into it to…turn time backward, make old things young again” (p.23).

From Day 19, including a Sheen quote from the Bishop Sheen Catechism:   “Mary is now with child, awaiting birth, and Joseph is full of expectancy as he enters the city of his own family. He searched for a place for the birth of him to whom heaven and earth belonged. Could it be that the Creator would not find room in his own creation?

Certainly, thought Joseph, there would be room in the village inn.  There was room for the rich; there was room for those who were clothed in soft garments….But when finally the scrolls of history are completed down to the last word of time, the saddest lines of all will be: ‘There was not room in the inn.’ No room in the inn, but there was room in the stable. The inn was the gathering place of public opinion, the focal point of the world’s moods, the rendezvous of the worldly, the rallying place of the popular and the successful. But there’s no room in the place where the world gathers. The stable is a place for outcasts, the ignored, and the forgotten. The world might have expected the Son of God to be born in an inn; a stable would certainly be the last place in the world where one would look for him. The lesson is: divinity is always where you least expect to find it. So the Son of God-Made-Man is invited to enter into his own world through a backdoor” (p.39).

From Day 9, including a Sheen quote from Simple Truths:

“The Christmas message is not that peace will come automatically, because Christ is born in Bethlehem; that birth in Bethlehem was the prelude to His birth in our hearts by grace and faith and love. Peace belongs only to those who will to have it. If there is no peace in the world today, it is not because Christ did not come; it is because we did not let Him in” (p.19).

As I continue to reflect on these good passages from Archbishop Sheen, I keep coming back to the invitation to approach Jesus with the wonder and freedom of our children. Take some time to look at the manger scene; take some time to think about the animals and the humble birthplace of the King of Kings; take some time to recognize in joy He wishes to enter our hearts. That is where He wants to stay. Our hearts are where He will bring us His peace. Hopefully He will find room there!

Know of my prayers and blessing for a joy-filled Christmas and a blessed 2026 ahead!

In Christ,
Father Luke