Happy New Year!

Praise be to Jesus Christ, the answer to all of God’s promises! This weekend we begin our new liturgical year with the start of Advent. It is a time for new beginnings. We join in the hopeful longing of the whole world for the Lord Jesus to return. During Advent we participate with the ancient prophets in the loving anticipation of the promised Messiah, but we also look forward to that Messiah’s triumphant return. Advent is a time of both celebrating the answered promises to the children of Abraham and asking the Lord to come back soon to establish His Kingdom.

Even though this is not the beginning of the calendar year, it can be a time to make “spiritual New Year’s resolutions”. We ask the Holy Spirit to help us to experience some renewal as we prepare for the great celebration of Christmas. Advent can be very busy with preparations for the holidays. We need to consciously examine our lives to seek spiritual growth. Once we arrive at the joy of Christmas, our hope is that we will have experienced some revival to make it even more powerful. Now is the time for us to foster and nourish that revival.

Lastly, you may notice a few things that we are giving away at the beginning of Advent. The first is our 2024 Advent devotion booklets. We hope that you use them to feed your spiritual growth during this holy season. Also, you will find in the bulletins our annual financial summary for the 23-24 fiscal year. This report would reflect Fr. Firestone’s last year as pastor. As you can see, and as I mentioned recently in a weekend homily, our income is falling below our expenses. We have some investments with the Diocese of Lansing that help us to make up some of that deficit, but the markets will not always increase, sometimes they fall. We would be on much more solid ground if we could balance that out. I appreciate those of you who responded generously. It is my hope that Saint John Vianney Parish and School, with Saint Mary’s Mission, will continue to be used by the Lord to minister to the people of Flint and beyond.

God bless you all and have a most inspirational Advent!!

Rev. Matthew S. Bonk