A Happy and A Healthy New Year
My Dear Church Family,
A Happy and Healthy New Year to all of you and your wonderful families! I pray that y’all had a wonderful Christmas celebration and enjoyed all the other holidays, New Year’s, Theophany, and the Feast of Saint John the Baptist, with your families and friends! May that Great Spirit of the Nativity of Our Lord, and all His gifts and blessings be with y’all every day!
In our Church, we started our New Year with God by getting together and giving thanks to the Lord for all the blessings that we received in the past year, 2024, and with prayers to Him to bless us with all the health, prosperity, and all His gifts that He abundantly bestows on us and all our families! It is our sincere hope that all of you will join us in worshipping the Lord and will help us to fill His house according to His words: “Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” (Luke 14:23)
I’m sure that when you’re at your jobs y’all always give 100% in order to be productive and to be recognized and appreciated by your bosses and superior hierarchies from your companies make you happy that your work is rewarded appropriately. And that is very important for all of you! In the same time, you should be aware, that equally important to that it is to be an active participant in all our Church services, to come closer and closer to God, and to “change our status”, if you wish, from the faithful person from the pew, into becoming a Disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ! How are we going to accomplish that? How can we become Disciples of Jesus Christ? First of all, through the participation in the Church services, to see, out of the 52 Sunday Liturgies, that are served here, during one year, how many we can attend? Then our personal life and family life needs to be a life dedicated to Jesus Christ Our Lord, and His Church in every aspect of it! We have to pray continuously, without ceasing, and most importantly, to partake of the Lord’s Body and Blood, offered to us in an unbloody way, through the Holy Eucharist, Holy Communion, as well as partaking from all the Holy Sacraments of the Church!
In the same context, we need to be good stewards of our Church, contributing with time (volunteering), talent (creating things and initiating new programs and projects) in our Church, and treasure (financial support) to our Church! We thank very much to all of you, who take very seriously your responsibilities and obligations to help our Church prosper in every aspect and every ministry, and invite/encourage every one of you to do the same! I just wanted to remind all of you that our Church experiences an ongoing financial struggle and it only depends on us to correct that and to give our Church what she deserves to move forward and to minister to the needs of the 21st-century people!
Please try to understand that and help us accordingly!
Praying for all of you for good health and well-being in this New Year 2025.
I remain, prayerfully yours, in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior,
His humble servant,
+Fr. Catalin