A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I pray that your celebration of the Nativity of the Lord was joyful. The Christmas season extends to January 11, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord and includes many other important liturgical commemorations. You are well within your rights to keep up your Christmas decorations until then; we’ll be doing that in the church.

As I communicated in an earlier post, I will be on sabbatical from January through the end of March, returning for Palm Sunday Masses. Fr. Gabriel will be joined by various visiting priests to ensure continuity of priestly care, and the parish staff and volunteers are ready to keep everything running smoothly.

One goal I have for my sabbatical is to write a book. It will be a collection of my best homilies as well as a description of my approach to preparing and giving homilies. Preaching has helped me immensely to know and love God more. If I did not have the duty to preach, I do not think I would spend as much time as I do reflecting on God’s word. I hope this book will be of interest to all, and especially to seminarians who are learning the art of preaching. I also intend to pray more, travel a little, and surf.

2026 marks the 50th year anniversary for OLMC. The date of the founding of the parish was November 17, 1976. A team is preparing various activities which will start in July of 2026. In the meantime, we want to reflect on our parish story. You can help by sharing some of your memories with us here.