Christmas approaches and we celebrate our parish's anniversary

This Sunday we celebrate a special anniversary on December 17th 2010, then Bishop Pates announced the creation of a new parish for the diocese located in Ankeny, our Parish of St. Luke the Evangelist. The parish began with a few families meeting in the basement of the Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart rectory to discuss the plans for the new parish. Wow have we grown in these last 13 years. We now have over 800 families here and we continue to grow by eight or nine new families each month, as I outlined in last weeks article, it does have some challenges with the level of growth that we continue to have.

Anniversaries are a wonderful time in which we can look back on the things that have happened in the years past. Just like wedding anniversaries, when couples look back at the wedding and the years that have happened in between. In my over four years here, the parish has grown and continues to be a wonderful place with many young families, and I feel so blessed to be here.

This weekend we will also be lighting the pink candle as well as we will be using the rose or pink vestments. One of the things that this means is that Advent is over half way over and the coming of Christ in Christmas is getting closer! We only will wear the rose vestments for two weekends a year; Gaudete Sunday for the third Sunday in Advent and Laetare Sunday in the fourth Sunday during Lent. It is only an option to wear the rose color vestments and not required to wear it, but it is nice to have something visual to see the difference. The words Laetare and Gaudete mean the same thing; they mean rejoice! This is because we are rejoicing that Christ is near. The word Laetare comes from an option introit or introduction to the Mass that is either said or sung which goes “Rejoice, O Jerusalem: and come together all you that love her: rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation. (Psalm) I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: we shall go into the house of the Lord…”

You have heard me say this many times, but we are called to be joy-filled or joyful Christians in the world, no matter what is happening in our lives. As we continue to prepare ourselves for that wonderful coming of Christ again in the Christmas season, let us always remember to rejoice for the Lord is coming because that is the whole reason that we are celebrating this season of preparation. Preparing ourselves for that coming of Christ, even though we often get caught up in the material preparation. But we still need to take some time to prepare for the coming of our Savior in a spiritual way. In the last week or so of the Advent season let us remember to be ready for that great coming of Jesus our Savior in the world.

God bless,
Fr. Ken