Dear Parishioners,

We are only hours away from the official (liturgical) beginning of the Christmas season, even though the culture has been celebrating Christmas since October. No doubt most of us are tending to last minute holiday details such as, buying last minute gifts, wrapping presents, preparing food, cleaning homes, adding one more decoration to the tree or writing one last Christmas card. The excitement is almost tangible and so is the energy required to welcome in this “most wonderful time of the year.”

Are you a Cubs fan? Or are you a White Sox fan? If you have any roots in Chicagoland, you instinctively understand that you must declare one or the other. It is common practice to choose one team — one is never a fan of both!

During these past two years, throughout our country and within the Catholic Church, that same principle seems to have been applied to the National Eucharistic Revival and the Synod on Synodality.

Dear Parishioners,

Christians describe the season of Advent in a variety of ways. These descriptions usually include the notions of watching and waiting, preparing for the celebration of Christmas and making ourselves ready for the final return of Christ at the end of time. All of these are correct. I would like to suggest that another way to think of Advent is with a focus on the themes of absence and presence.

Dear Parishioners,

On this First Sunday of Advent, as the Church begins a new liturgical year, it is especially fitting that we recognize the tremendous success of the Capital Campaign in which we were engaged this past year. You will recall that this campaign was designed to raise the necessary funds that would allow us to repair and enhance the interior of our parish church for our Centennial Celebration that will begin on December 16, 2023 and conclude in December of 2024.

From podcasts and youth events to service and prayer cards, visit diojoliet.org/75th for the full list of events and activities surrounding the 75th anniversary.

A "jubilee" is a special anniversary, marking a certain time period. For example, a twenty-fifth anniversary is universally recognized as a silver jubilee, whereas the fiftieth is known as the golden jubilee. This month, we are officially launching the 75th Anniversary of the Diocese of Joliet, or the celebration of our diamond jubilee.

As they say, “diamonds are forever.” This celebration gives us the opportunity to honor our past, commemorate our present, and look forward to the future with hope. Our year-long celebration will officially begin in December 2023 and end in December 2024. However, we have a few things happening in November that I would like to share with you and encourage your participation.

Dear Parishioners,

In his insightful commentary on the Sunday Scripture readings, Food for the Soul, the philosopher and lay person Peter Kreeft makes the following observation, The very first thing Jesus did when he instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, according to the Gospels,  is this: He looked up to heaven and gave thanks to his Father.

Besides celebrating Mass on Sundays, a question people frequently ask me is, “What do priests do during the week?” My initial response is that priesthood is so much more than a 9-to-5 job—it is more like a 24/7 vocation.

A priest is called to serve God and His people, and to assist his bishop by governing, teaching, and sanctifying. In modern times, it may seem like a priest is expected to be able to administer with an MBA, counsel with the spirituality of the saints, offer a love for the poor of Saint Mother Teresa, maintain the constant energy of a newly ordained priest, and resolve issues with the wisdom of a seasoned pastor.

Dear Parishioners,

Just in time for the celebration of All Saints on November 1, was the installation of the 18 glass panels depicting saints from various times and places throughout Christendom. These panels were part of the overall re-design of the devotional space in our church that included the recent addition of a new statue of the Virgin Mary holding the child Jesus. Both, the statue and glass panels, are the creative handiwork of Wiktor Szostalo, a universally acclaimed sculptor from Poland, whose artwork adorns sacred and secular spaces throughout the world.

In the romantic comedy, Wild Mountain Thyme, that debuted in 2020 and which takes its name from the Irish tune woven throughout the film, one of the main characters played by Christopher Walken laments the possible loss of the farm that has been in his family for generations. At the deepest moment of his fear, another character, played by Dearbhala Molly, said to him, "Things end when God wants them to." Her words were intended to provide comfort and assurance to this elderly man that if he is to lose his ancestral farm, it is because God believes it is the proper time for that loss to happen. In the end, it becomes a matter of trusting that God’s providential will is always designed for our best interests.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We, the Catholic bishops of Illinois, write with a sense of urgency. Unless the General Assembly acts to renew the Invest in Kids scholarship program, more than 9,000 children currently relying on this program to attend a non-public school may have their educational path disrupted. Without an extension of the program in Illinois law now, no scholarships will be awarded for the school year that will begin in September 2024. Most of these children will have to leave the school their families determined was their best chance to receive a high-quality education in a safe and wholesome learning environment. This is an injustice that should and can be avoided, but only if the General Assembly acts when it reconvenes on October 24, 2023.

Dear Parishioners,

The back cover of this quarter’s Notre Dame Magazine features the following quotation by James Carroll,

The very act of storytelling, of arranging memory and invention according to the structure of the narrative, is by definition holy. We tell stories because we can’t help it. We tell stories because we love to entertain and hope to edify. We tell stories because they fill the silence death imposes. We tell stories because they save us.

Recently, some friends and I were debating if “milleversary” is a real word. I’d never heard of it, but some insisted it is a legitimate word that means 1,000-day anniversary. Some cleverly invented alternatives like “kiloversary,” or “k-day.”

This summer I celebrated my “milleversary” here in the Diocese of Joliet. September 29 will mark three years since I was installed as your bishop. I still remember my installation Mass as if it were yesterday. It was in the midst of the pandemic. Even though my heart raced with joy and excitement as I walked down the aisle and looked around, I thought to myself, what strange days these are with the pews only 20 percent filled with masked people.