Pastor’s Note 1/18/26

Dear Parishioners:

Someone once told me that our lives can essentially be thought of as arrows. That’s right, you and me are arrows, and our lives can point in a whole lot of different directions. On a day-to-day basis, it’s perfectly normal that our lives “point” to a diversity of goods, goals, and values. At work, we aim toward efficiency and excellence. At home, we seek to point toward peace, communication, and relationship. With our friends, we want our encounters to point toward relaxation, encouragement, and support. And if we step back, we also recognize that throughout everything we do and experience in life, there’s the larger sort of arrow: where is all of my life, in all of its complexity, pointing toward? Is it pointing to me, or to something outside of me? Is it pointed solely at the passing things of this world, or at something more eternal? Today in the Gospel John the Baptist presents himself as an arrow: the prophetic arrow who points entirely to Jesus, the Son of God. John understands everything about his life as pointing out and paving the way for the Lord. He makes us ask the heart-stirring question: where does the arrow of my life point?

God’s peace,

Fr. John