ΑDVENT 2025

 

The Church’s new year begins on the first Sunday of Advent. May this year find us ready and waiting for the power of the Holy Spirit to renew our local church.

In the coming year, I have asked your parish to hold an assembly.  This will not be a one-off event, but the beginning of a process aimed at widening the circles of participation in each parish and eucharistic community.

We are developing ways to help parishes prepare for, celebrate and follow up these assemblies, each in its own way. Please contact your parish priest if you are willing to help. I hope that each parish will think about what it could do better; consider what it should stop doing; and imagine what it could start doing.

This path begins in Advent, with a parish penitential service to prepare the way for the coming assembly. This will serve as an early announcement of the work that is about to start, as well as an orientation in a spirit of humility and openness to the grace of God.

As Pope St John Paul II put it, The recognition of past wrongs serves to reawaken our consciences to the compromises of the present, opening the way of conversion to everyone.

I encourage all parishioners to participate in their local penitential service; and give their support to this work of renewal.

+Michael McKenna
Bishop of Bathurst