Dear Friends -- 1st Sunday of Advent (December 1)

Welcome to the First Sunday of Advent. Once again, we begin anew to reflect on the first of the great mysteries of our faith: the Incarnation. As you'll recall, God was perfectly happy being God and living up in heaven (metaphorically speaking, of course). And then He (I use that pronoun only because it is also used in the Bible), decided that His marvelous creation and His absolutely stellar yet very dysfunctional production called humanity needed, what we would call an intervention. So (here comes the mystery) God decided for reasons only God knows, to become a human being. Little did humanity know (or accept)  that this Incarnate Son of God would save humanity from its ridiculously dysfunctional lifestyle (a.k.a. "sin"), by destroying death itself, and then promise to return to gather all humanity, both the living and the dead, into an eternal Kingdom.

We are now in the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany Season They are all interconnected. This advent (Latin for “coming”) is all about how Jesus, as the Son of God has become one like us in all things--except that dreadful dysfunctional part of human nature we call sin. Advent, then, is all about new beginnings.

So, did you notice anything new about this week's parish bulletin? Thanks to the efforts of our bulletin editor, Maura Walsh we now have one bulletin for BOTH the Church of the Assumption and the Church of the Resurrection. Of course you may ask why? Well, as you may recall when Sr. Joan Cawley, then Pastoral Administrator for the Church of the Resurrection, reached the mandatory retirement age (a youthful 75) she had to submit a letter of resignation to Bishop Matano. In his wisdom, our Bishop asked Fr. Ed Palumbos, the sitting pastor of the Church of the Assumption, to assume the pastorate of the Church of the Resurrection as well. Fr. Ed gladly and generously accepted the invitation from the Bishop, and voilà! Almost overnight, two of the wonderful Fairport Catholic Churches were now in a unique relationship. Yours Truly succeed Fr. Ed when he retired in June of 2018. I like to describe this unique relationship (which has been used many other times for other parish configurations in our Diocese) as follows: Resurrection and Assumption are two autonomous, completely independent, financially separate parish corporations (under New York State Law) who happen to share one Pastor and are learning to share more!

And when you think about it for a second, two entities working together can be so much stronger and more vibrant that one working alone. So, several years ago, our two communities (sharing one Pastor and learning to share more) developed a (1) Joint Parish Pastoral Council, with membership from both communities. (2) A shared Finance Director, Karen Webb oversees budgeting, spending, and income at both Churches (special note here: while we share one Finance Director, both parishes still have to keep their finances completely separate because we are still two independent corporations) with our shared Bookkeeper, Diane Olson.  (3) Sharing our Facilities Director, Adam Jablonski, only makes sense for the care of our buildings. (4) In addition to her outreach efforts, Sr. Barbara Baker is our shared Director of the R.C.I.A. process. And (5) lastly, we have a shared Communication Director (Maura Walsh) who, as the title implies, keeps communication (internal and external) ever-flowing.

So, at this point, it makes sense that we share one bulletin. Why? So that people from both parishes can see what's going on (We encourage you to try going to your sister church for Mass or a program – hey, you might enjoy it, you never know!) Why should we be concerned with what's happening over there? Well, that's simple—because Assumption and Resurrection are two completely independent, financially separate parishes sharing one Pastor and (here comes the best part) we're learning to share more. And, I know that my mom, God rest her soul, always taught me that sharing was simply the right thing to do!