Dear Parish Families,

   Throughout the course of history, our world has been filled with visionaries, people who see in their mind’s eye where they want to be in the future and who take the necessary steps to get there. People like Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs. Visionaries are people who do more than just dream, they dream and then they ask what they need to do to make their dream into a reality. Visionaries aren’t content to just sit back and wait for someone else to make a dream happen, they roll up their sleeves and get to work themselves on making their dream a reality.

     As we continue to celebrate the birth of Jesus in this Christmas season, we celebrate a true visionary leader. One who, throughout his life had a vision of a world of justice and peace, a world of love and com-passion, a world of kindness and mercy. But Jesus didn’t just have the vision, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work making that dream happen, making that world a reality.

     That baby’s vision is continuing to be unveiled, continuing to be revealed today. His vision is called to be our vision. In a world so divided, so torn apart. In a world where we more often focus on what divides us rather than what unites us, we’re called to be visionaries like Jesus today. We’re called to con-tinue to illuminate the darkness of the world with the light of Christ today. The temptation is there to compromise our faith. The temptation is there to hide who we are and the values we hold dear, especially when our world tries to tell us that believing is out-dated, out-of-touch, a fairy tale. But rather than sit-ting back and waiting for someone else to make the baby’s vision a reality, it’s our turn, our call to roll up our sleeves and get to work. What can we do to make the Kingdom of God an even greater reality here and now, today? Don’t wait for someone else to do it, do what you, what we can!

   -Fr. John