Gospel Joy in Advent
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families and friends. It was a beautiful time for me also. There is so much I am grateful for in this past year!
I also had the blessing of celebrating the conclusion of the Year of Faith with a Mass at our historic San Buenaventura Mission. In God’s Providence, the Year of Faith ended on the 300th anniversary of the birth of Blessed Junípero Serra, the great apostle of California and one of the spiritual heroes of the first evangelization of the New World.
As many of you know, I have long had a devotion to Blessed Junípero. So it was a moving experience for me to celebrate the Eucharist near the spot where he offered the Eucharist to consecrate San Buenaventura — the last of the nine missions he established in California.