Looking back at the weekly messages of Father Paul Counce, first published in The Carpenter, our weekly Parish Bulletin
Published: November 27, 2016
This week our Parish along with the rest of the worldwide Catholic Church enters into the holy Season of Advent. It is a time of preparation for Christmas, so that our observance of the Lord Jesus’ birth will be as spiritually fruitful as possible. So in this season deliberately try not to “be like everybody else.” Purple is our color before we splash gold all over red and green! Resolve to prolong preparation for Christmas. Make it a time of extra prayer, rediscovery of the “real” Christmas story of the Bible (Mt 1-2 and Lk 1-2), appreciation of beauty (I’m thinking seasonal music, art and food here!) and of giving not just to family and friends but to the broader category of needy as well. Rushing to finish decorating or shopping or visiting will result in little more than an exhausted, impoverished frustration; taking the time to savor moments with the Lord and with loved ones are always “worth it” in the end.
I do have a bit of very good news this week. Recall that almost halfway through last fiscal year, the diocesan Finance Office had converted some of the monies that had been given to us over the preceding three years, as we renovated and expanded our Parish Hall, into a loan? I’d reported this in many places, most recently in the September 18 Parish Bulletin. Well, last week we found out that this decision was changed. Further examination of the diocese’s accounting for the Cathedral Parish Hall project revealed that since it came in under budget there were no monies owed by the Parish to the diocese. Indeed all payments of principal and interest paid to date to the diocese have been restored to the parish, retroactive to the date the “loan” was recorded.
It’s always great to discover you have a little more money than you thought you had! I wish to thank those in the finance departments of both the diocese and Parish for this welcome clarification, and all of the work they did verifying it.
Finally, this past week has also been a week of moans and groans. Back when Pope Francis asked that there be a Holy Door in every Cathedral and other special sacred places throughout the world for the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, he directed that all of these be closed a week before the Holy Year itself ended in Rome on November 20. So we did. And here and everywhere else outside of the Vatican City people who waited until the last week of the Jubilee Year itself discovered that they were too late to walk through a Holy Door! And believe me, they let the local pastor know how disappointed they were that they missed it! So say a prayer for them, like I did! (Thank goodness they can always still receive divine blessings by visiting the Cathedral through any door!)
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Paul Counce
