All Saints Catholic Church

Some people hate surprise parties. There are those who are uncomfortable with a last-minute vacation or even an unexpected travel upgrade. If it wasn’t part of the plan, it’s a cause for consternation. But I think if we’re being honest, there’s a little bit of the surprise-averse in all of us.

When you have an event or program coming up, you want to make sure that everybody in your parish knows about it. In order to help you cover all of your marketing bases, we created a checklist to use whenever you are planning to market one of your parish’s events.

We don’t have much familiarity with kingship in modern American society. Kings tend to make us uneasy. Presidents, on the other hand — we can handle those, because we know we are a president’s boss. No matter how much power he has, we are the electorate. We are the source of that power. We’re comfortable with this arrangement.

The story of John the Baptist is familiar to us. But we might have glossed over one simple line in today’s text, “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance” (v. 8). How, during the merriment of the ‘most wonderful time of the year,’ do we do this?

Our team has been working hard behind the scenes to produce some brand new, updated content for our WeCreate library of resources! We outline it here with some examples as well as ideas for how you might use it.

During Advent, I think I ask myself, “Am I ready?” about 400 times, but it’s rarely in reference to anything that really matters. I’m worried about the gifts, the food for the family party, the delayed shipping on the Christmas cards. For what am I preparing here?

It’s never easier to despair than when you glance up and take a good look at what’s going on in the world: disasters, natural and contrived, wars, resentments, rivalries, and divisions. It is almost too much sometimes, isn’t it? The twenty-four-hour news cycle doesn’t help.

LPi is pleased to present a new writer for our weekly Gospel Meditations available in WeCreate starting this Advent season — Fr. John Muir, pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Avondale, AZ. Fr. Muir is a published author and speaker in the Catholic community. We interviewed him about his life and his parish community.

On this Solemnity of Christ the King, let us contemplate the example of the Good Thief. He recognized the Messiah, acknowledged his need for a Savior, and entered the Kingdom of God — are we ready to do the same?

“Sic transit gloria mundi,” is what they used to say at papal coronations. “So passes earthly glory.” Everything is fleeting. Nothing is here to stay. But in reality, some things are forever. Our actions on earth do have the potential to reverberate in eternity.