An amazing year
In 2024, our collaborative- our parishes- offered hundreds of weekend and daily Masses, celebrated scores of baptisms and brought over a hundred people to their rest in Jesus Christ, including our beloved Fr. Mahoney.
We married dozens of happy couples, brought three young adults into the fullness of the Catholic Church, and gave first reconciliation and communion to more than 40 boys and girls and celebrated as two dozen young men and women received the sacrament of Confirmation. We watched great movies, learned about our faith through Symbolon and prayed for our country on Election Day before the Blessed Sacrament.
We fed thousands of people week after week at Harvest on Vine and made the lives of hundreds easier with more dignity through our St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Giving Trees and a mind-blowing collection of cereal and socks, rejoiced in the years of faithful ministry of Sr. Nancy, said goodbye and hello to priests in residence, prayed the rosary in honor of our Blessed Mother, and heard confessions and celebrated the Sacrament of Anointing countless times.
We went on a 10-day odyssey to Italy and kicked off the Christmas season early with the Rockettes at Radio City, hosted concerts and a world-class actor for a Lenten Mission- and excellent speakers and welcomed a new regional bishop and Archbishop, and that was just prelude for what lies ahead.
It was a year for the record books, and now we look up and look ahead to what the Holy Year 2025 has in store for us. I am grateful to our staff members, ministers, councils and committees, volunteers, donors, and everyone for every gift given this amazing year.
May God bless you and all you love as we wait in joyful hope for the blessings heading our way. Mary, Queen of peace, bless our parishes, our collaborative.
Pray for us all.
Jubilee Year 2025
As the Universal Church celebrates the Jubilee Year 2025 (the 2,025th anniversary of the Incarnation of our Lord), we support the Holy Father in this “event of great spiritual, ecclesial, and social significance in the life of the Church.”
Pope Francis stated in his February 2022 letter announcing the Jubilee 2025: “We must fan the flame of hope that has been given us and help everyone to gain new strength and certainty by looking to the future with an open spirit, a trusting heart and far-sighted vision. The forthcoming Jubilee can contribute greatly to restoring a climate of hope and trust as a prelude to the renewal and rebirth that we so urgently desire…”
The Jubilee Year will offer the faithful opportunities to participate in various jubilee events at the Vatican and in their own dioceses. The great tradition of opening the Holy Door began when Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on December 24, 2024.
Other holy doors will be opened at the Rome basilicas of St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls. For pilgrims who cannot travel to Rome, bishops around the world are expected to designate their cathedrals or a popular Catholic shrine as special places of prayer for Holy Year pilgrims, offering opportunities for reconciliation, indulgences and other events intended to strengthen and revive faith.
-United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Jubilee Prayer from Pope Francis
Father in heaven, may the faith You have given us
in Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Brother,
and the flame of charity enkindled in our hearts
by the Holy Spirit, reawaken in us
the blessed hope for the coming of
Your Kingdom.
May Your grace transform us
into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel.
May those seeds transform from within
both humanity and the whole cosmos
in the sure expectation of a new heaven and a new earth,
when,
with the powers of Evil vanquished,
Your glory will shine eternally.
May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us,
Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven.
May that same grace spread the joy and peace
of our Redeemer throughout the earth.
To You our God, eternally blessed,
be glory and praise for ever. Amen!