Dec 27, 2022

Greetings,

And a Happy and Blessed New Year to you! This year the Holy Day of Obligation and Sunday align on the same day! The Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God will be celebrated this Sunday, January 1, so we will follow the regular Sunday schedule.

Christmas was quite a day here at St. Sebastian! Of course, the weekend before and the weekend after found us in the mid-fifties, but the Christmas weekend saw temperatures plunging below zero and some of the worst wind we have had in quite a while.

As always happens, we had a couple of minor emergencies on campus. They never occur during the week when there is a full staff on hand to handle such situations. They always amazingly happen on weekends and holidays and in the case, a coupling of both! The power went out long enough to knock off the boilers in a couple of buildings, one of the bathrooms sprung a leak, my key broke in a testy lock and several ministers called in sick. But all of that is sign to me that things were going to go very well and I thought it did.

Thank you to everybody who worked with such love to make our Christmas celebrations beautiful and worthy and thank you to everybody who came and gave thanks as we marked the birthday of our Lord.

It was also great to see so many faces that have been away at school or who have moved out of town but came back for the holy day. Sending a prayer with you as you take off in various directions. God bless.

IN OTHER NEWS:

OFFICES CLOSED: Please be aware that the parish offices will be closed on Friday, December 30-Monday, January 2 for the New Years holiday.

GOINGS ON: Here are some of the bigger events coming up for you:

• 14 January Night at the Races
• 23 January Theology on the Rocks (with Fr. Valencheck)
• 29 January School Open House
•  4 February International Festival
• 11 February SPECTACULAR
• 22 February Ash Wednesday
• 26 February Organ Concert

God bless,

Fr. Valencheck