Entries for December 2025

Dear Parishioners,

This Christmas season, we welcome all to the Church of the Annunziata parish as we celebrate 96 years of parish life. Welcome to the stranger, the traveler, the neighborhood visitor, and the guest.

Annunziata Church welcomes students home from college for a good winter’s rest. We welcome parishioners who have moved far away but join us again as old friends. We welcome all who have not been active of late in the Catholic faith, and hope they will come back again and again. We welcome our faithful parishioners—loyal and true—may the Lord bless you for all that you do.

Welcome to all! May our gatherings gladden our hearts and deepen our bonds of Faith, Hope, and Love.

We are, after all, one people of God, redeemed by the Light. May we walk by the Light and live by the Light, together in the Lord’s love, as we embark on this New Year. God bless you for all you have done this past year and for all that awaits this Holy Season.

A Christmas Prayer

Wonderful the dignity
you bestowed, O God,
on human nature
when you created it;
more wonderful still its condition
when you recreated it.

Grant, we pray, that Jesus Christ your Son,
stooped to share our human nature,
so we may share the lot of his divine nature,
through that same Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit
has shared one life and kingly power,
one Godhead, from all eternity. Amen.

Christmas Blessings!

Msgr. John Shamleffer
Msgr. John Leykam

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Dear Parishioners:

Every Christmas T.V. has some movie about a heroic effort made by someone to get home by Christmas.  Following that theme, I thought this year we might make some kind of heroic effort and help someone return home for Christmas, return home to the Church of the Annunziata.

All of us know some person, some neighbor who has stopped actively participating in Church.  Maybe it is time for us to reach out to them, listen to them, and support them in returning to Church.  We know what a precious gift our faith is and like any good gift we wish to share it with others.  So I encourage each and every one of us to reach out to someone and invite him or her to join our community of faith here at Annunziata.

Each of you by living out your faith becomes the greatest ambassador our parish community possesses.  I would also be happy to contact anyone, if you would please send me their name and number; I will invite them to join our community.

" Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice."  This week as we rejoice that the light of the world draws near, with Gaudete Sunday, I also invite you to give yourself any early gift with some quite time.  Time to be with your loved ones and with the Lord.  Let us pray for one another as we continue our Advent journey.

Advent Blessings!

Msgr. John Shamleffer

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Dear Parishioners:

We have begun this season of Advent, which marks the beginning of a new liturgical year and as such provides us a time for renewal, a new beginning. The beginning of the year actually points to the “end.” The end of all creation is marked by the long-awaited return of Jesus, the Son of Man. Our readings point to this end as the day of judgment (“Son of Man” being the scriptural title of the judge of all humanity).

The “end” reminds us that we are on a journey. The voyage through life is not an aimless wandering but has a destination and a goal.

Love is the basis for human life. God, who is love, loved us into being. Love is the force that orders all things toward God and a participation in divine life. When Jesus is asked what is the greatest of all the laws, he replies: “You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love is the basis and starting point. Love also expresses itself as mercy when a violation of love or justice is encountered. Mercy heals and restores. Psalm 25 expresses the desires that lie at the heart of the righteous — to know and live in God’s way. The longing is expressed by the psalmist in this way: “Your ways, O Lord, make known to me; teach me your paths, Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior, and for you I wait all the day.”

The longing is not some abstract or aimless quest, for “good and upright is the Lord; thus he shows sinners the way and teaches the humble his way.” He loves us so much that he wants us to know him and the path to meaning of life. This Way is not a teaching or concept, but a person whose birth we prepare to celebrate at Christmas.

To help give us some guidance this Advent Season I would like to recommend some apps that can be used individually, as a family, or a prayer group to help us pray together and prepare for Christmas. If you look online you will find many of these apps. Engaged / Hallowed, Laudate, ibreviary.

Advent Blessings!

Msgr John Shamleffer

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