Monday Message, December 1, 2025

KNOW

We have a parish leader check in on Tuesday. Link is here.

We discovered a few boxes of unclaimed Catechist Journals. If you did not receive any, would like more, or wish to gift them to volunteers, please get in touch with Laura. Priority will be given to those who did not get any. Then volunteers. Then the people we like best (kidding).

We have a quarterly face-to-face meeting on December 11th. We can talk about the agenda on our call on Tuesday. You can see more here.

Please reserve January 24th on your calendar for a special meeting. All youth ministry leaders, safe environment coordinators, and parish catechetical leaders will be invited to a dinner and conversation about updates to the safe environment manual, volunteer covenants, and communication with parents. More details to follow, but the event will take place at Notre Dame in Easton around 6:30 pm.

Our friends at St. Catherine of Siena in Trumbull asked us to pass along this information about an event with Scott Hahn and others in January.

Continuing the Journey was created to bring the spirit and quality of a national conference to our local area — providing professional development that’s both substantive and affordable. It takes place in April in Newark, NJ.  This weekend experience is open to Parish Youth Ministry Leaders, Diocesan Staff, Volunteers, Clergy, Religious, PCLs, DREs, Catechists, Campus Ministers, and anyone who walks and serves the young church.

To track your catechists in Catechists 2.0, go to LEAD, then My Learners, then filter by Groups, and choose Catechist 2.0. From there, you can add filters to see whether people are authorized to serve (have completed formation and are VIRTUS-compliant) or need a gentle reminder. If you have people who are teaching and are not yet enrolled in formation (you shouldn’t be), please share this link with them.

All Advent resources are now online, including the digital calendar image for you to print if you missed your share of the 10,000 we printed. Click here for details.

REFLECT

Welcome to Advent. The days are shorter, and the darkness comes earlier, and earlier it seems. Yet, Advent reminds us to look for the light.

We pray for hope. We look for love. We long for peace. We seek the joy.

This week, let us avoid the darkness that comes into our lives when we are not watching. It creeps in when we are not paying attention. The person who stops by our office to chat, only to tempt us into gossip and discord. The email thread that has us reacting instead of thinking straight. The project that we cannot finish. It comes in all forms: this darkness – injustice, people who annoy, family who will not listen. You know it. I know it.

This is the season for waiting. Sometimes, it means waiting for that which will lift us rather than drag us down. We wait for patience. We wait for the arrival of the child who will save us all, and we wait with anticipation for solace to come, for the long-awaited peace in our lands, and we wait for the soul to find its worth.

Together, this week, as we wait, let us also look for the Light. More than that, let us be the Light to one another. Maybe then we can dispel the darkness for good.

LAUGH