
Monday Message, January 13, 2025
KNOW
Meetings continue this week for the parents of confirmation candidates. All letters and information can be found here. So far, our numbers have been pretty good:
- Fairfield – 59
- Wilton – 112
- Greenwich – 159
- Stamford – 152
Please forward the names and email addresses for all those you invited to the meeting (not just those who showed up) to Carmela as per the bishop’s request so he can follow up.
We have a Parish Leader Check In tomorrow. Lots to discuss. Link is here.
The invitation for catechists (those enrolled in 2.0 only) to dinner with Bishop Caggiano and Sr. Johanna Paruch will go out again this morning. Space is limited, so please have folks register today or tomorrow before we close the list. If you plan to attend the meeting with principals on Friday, January 17, 2025 at Notre Dame in Easton, please email Carmela. Note: the meeting on Thursday night includes the bishop and a presentation to and about catechists. You are welcome to attend. The meeting on Friday is specifically for principals and parish catechetical leaders.
Chris Otis is inviting all youth ministers to an evening of gratitude, including prayer and fellowship on Tuesday, January 21, 2025. Please read all the details here.
If you are participating in the regional confirmation retreat on February 8, 2025, Todd Kellogg has probably already been in touch with you. In case you missed his email, Liability Forms are here and here.
A new process for requesting dates for Confirmation was announced this morning. The memo from the bishop is here. We can discuss it tomorrow on our parish leader check in.
SAVE THE DATE – On May 1st Bishop Caggiano will invite all parish faith formation leaders to a strategy session to discuss how to best engage parents in the formation of their children. He will host a similar summit with principals in March. Details to follow.
REFLECT
We relish the fact that in baptism we receive the Holy Spirit. The danger is that we may reduce the Spirit to a merely private encounter, a personal status symbol. Today’s readings reflect on the transforming power of the Spirit and challenge us to release that power for those who are most in need.
The prophet we call Second Isaiah, writing around 540 B.C., exhorts the exiled community in Babylon to return to the land of Israel. In this poem he speaks of the servant (himself) and all believers who are willing to participate in this new and daring challenge. The challenge will be to receive God’s spirit and thus respond to the task of reviving and transforming the brokenhearted.
Luke, the author of Acts, shows in the second reading that salvation is for everyone. Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee after the baptism preached by John. The anointing is a prophetic one that empowers Jesus to exercise his office on behalf of others. For Luke this anointing is specifically a call to labor for the disenfranchised. Private belief is public service.
In the gospel account, Luke describes the wonder of the people as they experience John’s baptism. John tells of one far greater than he, one with a more powerful baptism.
Our baptism is a prophetic and royal anointing. We receive the life of the Church and are called to sustain that life. Faith is about concern for others. Faith is a public — not private — responsibility.
LAUGH