Dear Brother Knights,

By the time that your receive this bulletin, we will be in the Christmas season.  This is one of the greatest feast days in our liturgical years.  The Christmas season celebrates the birth of the Lord Jesus, and the ways he manifested the presence of God among us.  For the Church, only the Easter celebration of the Lord’s death and rising is more important than the Christmas season.  The statutes that you will see in the nativity scenes which are set up everywhere at this time of year, are figures of hope for a world that desperately needs hope.  I believe that we are all drawn to this scene because at this scene, we find peace, hope and love.  This can get lost in the hustle and bustle that is part of our North American Christmas.

The sanctuaries in our Churches will be decorated not only with the Nativity scene but also with flowers and other articles from our culture.  The Christmas season ends with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  Please think on this.  When the song of the angel is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, when all of this is gone, the work of Christmas begins—to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoners, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among us, to make music in our hearts.  This is the challenge of Christmas.

I want to thank you for all that you do in our Church and in our wider community.  May you and your families have a Merry Christmas and receive many blessings in the New Year.

Your Chaplain,

Fr. Dick Bester