Advent 1 2026

Maybe this will be the start of something good (AGAIN).

The end of the Liturgical Year 2025 is today.  Tonight begins Liturgical Year 2026.

I cannot believe Advent is upon us, having officially begun six minutes ago.  It's November 29, 2025.  We officially also had Chicago's first measurable snowfall -- and it's still coming.  The snow began sometime overnight and has not let up.  I don't know how much snow there has been so far, but I had to clean my car off three times already just to drive -- morning, late morning, and early afternoon.  It's a nightmare for many; yet so many people in Chicago practically shrug it off.

I've never been ultra-confident driving in the snow.  People ask me why I still live in Chicago.  My answer is simple -- it's Chicago.  Sure, the Cubs have something to do with that too, and others would say that I can be a Cub fan anywhere.  True, but as another priest told me when I was getting started at Holy Name Cathedral back in 2006, I would be working 5 Red Line train stops from Chicago's "other" cathedral -- Wrigley Field.  I'm not ready to give that up, nor do I ever hope that I would consider leaving Chicago for good.  However, just a month from this Monday, I will be on my way out of the Archdiocese for six months in San Diego, CA.  After almost 25 years of ministry, it's time for a recharge we call "sabbatical."

Sabbatical is exactly what the heart of the word sounds like -- sabbath.  It's time to fill the spiritual gas tank again.  My body and my mind and my soul are tired.  I've known it for a long time in retrospect but little did I ever believe that I would need to go on sabbatical.  In all honesty, some of you already know this (most of you, probably), much of this began at my pastorate in Matteson, IL.  St. Lawrence O'Toole was indeed the "best kept secret in the Archdiocese of Chicago."  We had a great school, long time parishioners devoted to the parish, and always a great vibe.  However, that changed when, after my first term, the school enrollment collapsed.  We were just too expensive to keep open. Tuition just could not keep up with the rising teacher salaries.  It's a downright shame.  Closing that school was the beginning of my devastated soul.  I failed in a great parish.  But that was just the beginning.

While I kept the parish together for another 7 years, it was never the same.  So many great parishioners had either moved away or died.  It's the same story everywhere, but, despite some heroic instances, St. Lawrence O'Toole was not going to survive with an Archdiocesan-wide conglomeration of parishes that had begun shortly after the pandemic of 2020.  But that still doesn't tell the whole story behind my fall.

Once the parish closed in June 2022, I had to change parishes.  Another source of stress.  I was not in any frame of mind to pastor another parish at the time.  But that also had a caveat.

In December of 2021, my best friend of 25 years told me he was not feeling great and wanted to come to live with me for a short time.  It would be a move that was not going to be reversed.  In January 2022, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  It may not have been super-advanced at the time, but anyone with knowledge of the disease knows that it is practically a "death sentence."  For many years, ANY cancer would have been bad.  My own father experienced it 6 or 7 times.  He was certainly an anomaly.  Eventually, he finally proved he was not a cat with nine lives.  But this was different with my best friend.  A year after his diagnosis and treatments, he died in late January 2023.   I was literally at my breaking point.  At least that was what it felt like.  Losing my father in January 2009 hurt.  This loss was worse.  Much worse.

Once my friend got sick and I was going to be closing my parish, I thought it might have been a good thing for me to take a leave of absence from ministry to take care of him.  The vicars of the Archdiocese didn't think that would be good for me because many who had taken leave for a sick family member or friend had not ever returned to active ministry.  When I look back, I would have to agree with their assessment and reasoning.  It was difficult enough, but I don't know what I would have done.  Would I have returned?

Now that his passing is coming up on its 3rd anniversary in under two months, and the sabbatical is a month out too, I have to have a different level of hope.  My friend still guides my thoughts and decisions (which he tended to do quite often).  I take my own advice I would give family members of their deceased loved ones - keep talking to them.  They answer too.  Their job is to pray for those of us still living.  I know that is not always the immediate comfort people want to hear, but it helps.  Why?  Another lesson my father taught me when he told me that he read my 60 page Holy Land Journal in an afternoon - he could hear me telling the story.  I STILL listen to the voice of my dad, my best friend, and several others whom I know are with me.  It's the great thing about the communion of saints.  They don't need a halo to be connected to us.