{"id":4582,"date":"2022-12-23T08:31:40","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T14:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/?p=4582"},"modified":"2022-12-23T08:31:40","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T14:31:40","slug":"pastor-letter-december-25-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastor-letter-december-25-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastor’s Letter: December 25, 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

The December 25 bulletin<\/a><\/strong> is available online.<\/p>\n

Dear friend,<\/p>\n

Merry Christmas! The miracle of the Incarnation, or the birth of Christ, shows\"\" God\u2019s desire to communicate directly with us and to be ever-present. We often find the health of any relationship is dependent on the strength of communication. Christmas is a reminder that God\u2019s communication to us flows through the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. The celebration of the Mass is the continual reminder that God communicates with us in the Eucharistic sacrifice and the reading of Scripture. For this reason, it is so good that we are here to celebrate Mass together, as a community of believers, who desire to put God first in our lives. As we come out of the Covid pandemic, our Mass attendance is not quite back to what is was prior to the shutdown. I am hopeful that our gathering for Christmas Mass will encourage all of us come throughout the year to celebrate our faith together.<\/p>\n

Every year the celebration of Christmas includes so many cultural and family traditions. This time of year always invites us to reflect upon the love of God and the meaning of family. As we enter this Christmas Season, it is good to reflect on whom we need to offer our time. We may need to emphasize our sentiments of love and thanksgiving for family. We may even need to apologize and ask forgiveness of those in our lives. With the mention of Christmas, many think of shopping, gift giving, music, or Santa Claus. However, Christmas is the celebration of the Christ \u2013 Mass. Christmas is the day when we remember, with the celebration of the Mass, that God came as the Christ or the Messiah to be our savior. While the celebration of Christmas carries many themes in our culture, the primary celebration is that God is here, Emmanuel. Through Jesus, we see \u201cthe image of the invisible God.\u201d The mystery of Christmas is a reminder that we are not alone. No matter our state in life, social status, physical well-being, male or female, Jew or Gentile, the Bible reminds us we are all \u201cone in Christ Jesus.\u201d Christmas is a week-long celebration in the Church. Christmas calls us to celebrate everything that this feast means to this life and the next. Our prayer for one another is that our celebrating leads us to reflect more deeply on the humility of God to be born like us. Let us commit ourselves to deepen our prayer and live in that prayer at the celebration of the Mass. May the Lord guide us, no matter our current joy or sorrow, to seek first the Kingdom of God and all things will lead to His Divine presence.<\/p>\n

As Christmas is certainly a time to rejoice in our faith, the love God has for us, and our loved ones who make our lives so meaningful, I find myself reflecting on the past year. I am so thankful for the gracious support of the St. Philomena community. We are so blessed with an excellent parish staff, school principal, school faculty and staff. Daily I am blessed to witness the true community effort to put the needs of our parishioners, families and students first. I can\u2019t express how grateful I am for the support of each member of this parish family. May we all continue to grow and challenge each other in faith, as all families are called to do by God.<\/p>\n

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas.<\/p>\n

God bless,<\/p>\n

Father David<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The December 25 bulletin is available online. Dear friend, Merry Christmas! The miracle of the Incarnation, or the birth of Christ, shows God\u2019s desire to communicate directly with us and to be ever-present. We often find the health of any relationship is dependent on the strength of communication. Christmas is a reminder that God\u2019s communication … Continue reading Pastor’s Letter: December 25, 2022<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,40],"tags":[154,146,120,131,130,91,63,116],"class_list":["post-4582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-father-david","category-letter-from-pastor","tag-solemnity","tag-holiday","tag-bible","tag-catholic","tag-christian","tag-mass","tag-christmas","tag-scripture"],"yoast_head":"\nPastor's Letter: December 25, 2022 - St. Philomena Catholic Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastor-letter-december-25-2022\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"chadmin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastor-letter-december-25-2022\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastor-letter-december-25-2022\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"chadmin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/5e00f5f2ab9dc0c9672d91f3666e7572\"},\"headline\":\"Pastor’s Letter: December 25, 2022\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-12-23T14:31:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastor-letter-december-25-2022\/\"},\"wordCount\":596,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastor-letter-december-25-2022\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/RICHARDSON-Father-David-P.-Pastor.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Solemnity\",\"holiday\",\"Bible\",\"Catholic\",\"Christian\",\"Mass\",\"Christmas\",\"Scripture\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Father David\",\"Pastor's Weekly Letter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastor-letter-december-25-2022\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastor-letter-december-25-2022\/\",\"name\":\"Pastor's Letter: December 25, 2022 - 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