{"id":6617,"date":"2025-12-19T08:52:42","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T14:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/?p=6617"},"modified":"2025-12-19T08:53:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T14:53:26","slug":"pastors-letter-december-21-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-december-21-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastor&#8217;s Letter: December 21, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Dear St. Philomena Parish Family,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A fruitful last few days of Advent and Blessed Christmas to you all! This past week our Men\u2019s Club worked together to help get our Christmas trees and manger scene set up in the church\u2014I 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\u2026! =)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">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\u2026and 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\u2014a little baby in the manger. The Baby Jesus invites all of us to come closer and we recall His great love for us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">For an extra Advent meditation this year, I have been enjoying: <em>Advent and Christmas with Fulton J. Sheen<\/em> (Liguori Publications, Edited and Compiled by Judy Bauer, 2001). Each day is laid out with a Scripture passage, a quote from one of Sheen\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">From Day 11, including a Sheen quote from <em>In the Fullness of Time<\/em>:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cAccording 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\u2026turn time backward, make old things young again\u201d (p.23).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">From Day 19, including a Sheen quote from the <em>Bishop Sheen Catechism<\/em>: \u00a0 \u201cMary 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?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Certainly, thought Joseph, there would be room in the village inn.\u00a0 There was room for the rich; there was room for those who were clothed in soft garments\u2026.But when finally the scrolls of history are completed down to the last word of time, the saddest lines of all will be: \u2018There was not room in the inn.\u2019 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\u2019s moods, the rendezvous of the worldly, the rallying place of the popular and the successful. But there\u2019s 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\u201d (p.39).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">From Day 9, including a Sheen quote from Simple Truths:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThe 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\u201d (p.19).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">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!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Know of my prayers and blessing for a joy-filled Christmas and a blessed 2026 ahead!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In Christ,<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Father Luke<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear St. Philomena Parish Family, A fruitful last few days of Advent and Blessed Christmas to you all! This past week our Men\u2019s Club worked together to help get our Christmas trees and manger scene set up in the church\u2014I am especially thankful to all those who were able to help, along with a couple &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-december-21-2025\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Pastor&#8217;s Letter: December 21, 2025<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176,40],"tags":[179,131,130],"class_list":["post-6617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fr-luke-spannagel","category-letter-from-pastor","tag-archbishop-fulton-j-sheen","tag-catholic","tag-christian"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Pastor&#039;s Letter: December 21, 2025 - 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\/pastors-letter-december-21-2025\/\" \/>\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=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-december-21-2025\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-december-21-2025\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"chadmin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/5e00f5f2ab9dc0c9672d91f3666e7572\"},\"headline\":\"Pastor&#8217;s Letter: December 21, 2025\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-19T14:52:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-19T14:53:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-december-21-2025\/\"},\"wordCount\":804,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-december-21-2025\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Fr.-Luke-Spannagel_9358-Copy.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Archbishop Fulton J Sheen\",\"Catholic\",\"Christian\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Fr. 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