Bulletin Greeting: November 16, 2025

Bulletin Greeting: November 16, 2025

When I was a child and our family would go on a road trip or vacation, I, like so many children, would inevitably ask that age-old question: “Dad, are we there yet?” No matter how many times I asked, my father always gave the same patient reply: “It’s just over the next hill.”

There’s something about being on a journey that fills us with both excitement and impatience. We long to reach the destination, even though the journey itself shapes and prepares us for what lies ahead.

Over the past several weeks in our Sunday readings, we have been accompanying our Lord on His journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. Now, as we draw near to the end of Ordinary Time and approach Advent, we stand with Him on the threshold of His final destination, Jerusalem, the place where His earthly journey will reach its fulfillment.

As Christ nears His destination, we too are invited to reflect on the purpose and end of our own journey: that day when the Lord will return in glory, and we who have followed Him faithfully will see Him face to face. The Prophet Malachi foretells this moment, saying, “The day is coming… but for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.” We recognize that “sun of justice” as Christ Himself, the light of the world.

During the month of November, the Church pauses to remember the faithful departed, those who have completed their earthly pilgrimage and await the final resurrection. In our Eucharist, we are united with them, strengthened in faith and hope by the Paschal Mystery. As the Order of Christian Funerals reminds us, “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.”

St. Paul, at the end of his own journey, proclaimed, “I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” His words remind us that the goal of our pilgrimage is eternal communion with God, the “full and lasting happiness” for which we prayed in today’s liturgy.

The day is coming. Our destination is heaven. Let us then run to the Lord of Heaven and Earth with the confident hope of being united with him in glory.

Fr. Scott Morgan