12/25/2025
Greetings from Our Pastor
What shall we wish for those we will meet during the holiday season? What shall we wish for the members of our families for Christmas and the New Year? Wishes we often express automatically, like the “Happy Holidays” exchanged in shopping centres or during brief, detached encounters. What shall we wish for our friends, our colleagues at work?
What if, in offering these wishes, we committed ourselves to helping make them come true? If I hope health for you, can I contribute to your balance of life, to your well-being, to the quality of your daily life? If I wish you happiness, can I collaborate in creating moments that will affirm your dignity and enhance your self-esteem? Can I offer you my attentive listening, with respect for what you are going through? Can I be present in your moments of joy as well as in those darker periods that mark our lives?
Let us look at the Nativity scene… it speaks to us… it tells us of these parents who, after a long journey, far from home, will bring into the world “God-with-us.” Far from the family nest, far from relatives. And since they are not nomads, they do not even have a tent to serve as a home. “There was no room for them in the common room,” says the evangelist. Thus, a desert of security, a desert of what is known or familiar. Only those already there are present: the donkey from the journey, an ox, sheep, shepherds… In Sacred Scripture, it is this emptiness, these lacks, that reveal what truly matters. Nothing is revealed in opulence.
Therefore, I wish you simplicity during this Christmas and New Year season, so that the focus may be on the people you will invite or encounter.
Together with all those who collaborate with me in the responsibility entrusted to me, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Holy New Year 2026! May this time strengthen the bonds between us through our various celebrations and in the encounters that will mark our parish and community life. We need this so much in these difficult times.
May the Child Jesus bless each and every one of you, as well as your families.
Sylvain Lauzon, prêtre modérateur
