Happy New Year!

It is once again time for Advent, which starts the new year for the Church. We get to start off another liturgical year within the Church with this Advent season. Advent is another preparatory season, one that we are preparing for the coming of our Lord and Savior. He came as a humble child, one that was reliant on Mary and Joseph to take care of Him. He is also relying on us, us to help Him to carry out His mission in this world and that mission is to show the love that God has for us.

This is the time of the year that many people call the season of joy. It is a time in which we are getting ready to celebrate Christmas. But it is still a time in which we prepare for Christmas and it is not the Christmas season within the Church. The stores are trying to push us to celebrate Christmas earlier and earlier because if we do, it makes more of a profit for them.

You will notice that the churches are decorated in purple for the Advent season and then will be decorated for Christmas on Christmas Eve which is the beginning of the Christmas season which will not end until January 6th on the feast of the Epiphany.

The song the 12 days of Christmas is based on the 12 days between Christmas and Epiphany. In many cultures, most gifts were not given on Christmas day, most of them were given on the feast of the Epiphany, which is the day we celebrate the child Jesus being given the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. So please take some time to ready your hearts for the coming of our Lord and Savior during this Advent season and don’t get tired of Christmas, before we celebrate that great season of joy, and have a blessed Advent!

I also wanted to update the parish on what we are calling the 13th street issue. Some of you may have heard that the land to the north and west of us is owned jointly by, Mercy One, Catholic Charities, and the Diocese of Des Moines. They are in the process of selling the land to a developer, with this sale, 13th street will need to be built and currently it is on the land that St. Luke’s owns. This means that if everything happens right now, without anything done, we would have to pay for the construction of the street, and that is expensive. I and a committee have been working with the diocese and the developers to make sure that we are not burdened with that expense. This is the deal that we have worked out: St. Luke’s will give up 7 acres of land to the north and add 5 acres of land to the west which includes a cash payment for the additional 2 acres. This still leaves us with 33 acres of land and plenty of room to make sure we have space for everything we have planned in the years to come.

God Bless
Fr. Ken