By the time you read this note in the parish bulletin, we will be in the New Year, 2017. We will have celebrated the great Feast of the Birth of Jesus the Messiah and we will have ended 2016. If you have not taken time to review and to reflect on the months and days of 2016, I encourage you to take some quality time to do so soon. In a year’s time, there are so many things to do, places to go, people to meet and activities to plan, that it is very easy to miss out on what really matters to us and to our loved ones. In calendar 2016, many families at St. Elizabeth Seton had children, there were many First Communions and First Confessions, there were many weddings and there were many of our loved ones whom the Lord called to himself in the mystery of death. There were many graduations, promotions and advances in the lives of our children and families. There were many blessings, graces and gifts as well as challenges of health, struggles and problems to face. Take time to let the Spirit of the Lord help you to appreciate and to understand how the Lord has guided you and your loved ones during the days of 2016. May we learn from the past as we trust in the Lord today and be confident that the Lord will be with us in the future days of 2017.

2016 had some interesting events: we had a new Bishop in the Diocese of Lafayette; in March 2016, Bishop Douglas Deshotel replaced Bishop Michael Jarrell who had been our shepherd since 2002. Our nation had an election for President that was strained, contentious and unusual; Donald Trump was elected President in November to replace Barack Obama who has been our President since January 2009. We completed the Jubilee Year of Mercy on the Feast of Christ the King on November 20 that Pope Francis had begun on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, 2015. In 2016, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was canonized; Great Britain left the European Union, Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. Last year, Antonin Scalia, Muhammad Ali, John Glenn, Fidel Castro and Nancy Regan passed away.

On Wednesday, January 4, we celebrate the Feast day of our parish’s Patron, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821). St. Elizabeth was a convert to Catholicism, a wife and a mother of five children, a widow, a teacher, a Religious and the founder of a Religious Order, an educator and founder of many schools in the Midwest and as far south as New Orleans. Her life was exemplary in so many ways. St. Elizabeth Seton was the first person born in the United States to be canonized a Saint in the Catholic Church on September 14, 1975 in Rome by Pope Paul VI. It was on that day that our Church Parish was established by Bishop Gerard Frey. Father Gene Lafleur was appointed the founding Pastor or St. Elizabeth Seton Church Parish.

Mother Seton as she was called the last years of her life had a deep abiding faith in God, a passion for the Holy Eucharist, a desire to imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary and a thirst for reading and understanding the Sacred Scripture. Her favorite passage was Psalm 23 which sustained and guided her, especially in her times of adversity and family struggles. Among her greatest crosses was the death of two of her children. St. Elizabeth Seton is a wonderful model for us as parishioners of our parish named after her. May the example of Mother Seton inspire us to live our Catholic faith in the responsibilities, in the opportunities, in the challenges, in the relationships of our families, community and church. Mother Seton is a woman for all time: a convert, a wife and mother, an educator, a foundress of a religious order and a saint.

As we end 2016 and begin 2017, I extend to all of you my prayers and very best wishes for a holy, peaceful, healthy and blessed New Year. And as I said at the Masses for New Year’s Day, I pray the words I first heard from Father Viateur Desilets on January 1, 1980: ‘Je vous souhaite une bonne et bienheureuse annee et le paradis a la fin de vos jours.’ I wish you a good and very happy New Year and heaven at the end of your days. My prayers, best wishes, love and gratitude to you and to your loved ones for who you are and for all you do for the Lord and for the good of St. Elizabeth Seton Church Parish.

SHALOM!
Fr. Gary

Homework for the week of January 1 – January 7
Colossians 3:12-17