Dear Parishioners,

Our upcoming celebrations of Halloween (Oct. 31), All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2) remind us of one the most fundamental aspects of our Christian faith – it rests on the belief in the supernatural. This belief is so fundamental that we may unknowingly take it for granted and think very little about it. Or perhaps our culture has tamed or domesticated religion (and its practices) to where we dismiss the notion of anything that is beyond the natural. There might also be the possibility that somewhere deep within our human psyche we fear the prospect of another world besides our own – a world that is unseen and over which we have little or no control. Rather than befriend this unseen reality, we may choose to trivialize it or pretend it does not exist, thereby freeing us from the need to interact with it.

Sometimes I get the impression that many people view the Diocese of Joliet as a "small" diocese. Perhaps this is because we border the mammoth Archdiocese of Chicago. However, to refer to us as "small" is rather misleading and inaccurate. The Joliet Diocese serves over half a million Catholics in a geographic area of 4,218 square miles throughout DuPage, Kankakee, Will, Grundy, Ford, Iroquois, and Kendall counties. We are blessed with 117 parishes, 7 missions, 43 grade schools, 8 high schools, and 3 universities within our diocesan boundaries.

Dear Parishioners,

Autumn is a month when change and transition is poignant. The trees give us one last blast of color and then their leaves shrivel, die and fall back to the earth. Temperatures become cooler announcing the bleak months of winter that are yet to come. Autumn sunsets fill the evening skies with resplendent reds and oranges, which although strikingly beautiful, are the colors of war. In classical Christian mythology the archangel Michael, whose feast day is September 29, is thought to replace the warrior god Mars who was always clothed in red. Not surprisingly, so is the angel Michael.

Dear Parishioners,

The autumn weeks of September and October are especially rich with the unique array of saints’ days that are celebrated during this time. On September 8 we commemorate the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary, only one of three birthdays that are featured in the liturgical year. September 21, is the feast of the apostle and evangelist (once tax collector) St. Matthew.

Given how violently tax collectors were despised by their own Jewish people, this day assures us that conversion is possible for anyone – both those who are despised and those who do the despising. September 23 honors the beloved Padre Pio whose visible signs of Christ’s Passion (i.e., the stigmata) invite us to look beyond what we immediately see in others to discover what sufferings they endure below the surface of the skin.