Christmas is getting close!

This Sunday evening we begin our Novena in preparation for Christmas. We’ll have music and prayer in St. Stephen Protomartyr Church each evening at 7 p.m. through Saturday, Dec. 23. What a great way to add peace and beauty to your preparations!

We’re also trying something new this weekend: St. Monica Boxes. St. Monica prayed and prayed until her wayward son Augustine came back to the faith. Eventually, he became a saint, too!  In each of our churches, we’ll have a St. Monica box where you can place the name of someone you care about, whom you want to meet Jesus and come to worship him in the Eucharist. This way, we can all pray for each other’s intentions.

We’ll also have Christmas Mass invitation postcards in the back of church; take as many as you like and use them to invite people to join us!

Today there’s also some news about fun and useful things coming in the new year.

First, on Jan. 1 we’re combining the financial accounts we inherited from the three parishes we belonged to before August. You can make all your December donations, including any end-of-year giving, just as you have in the past. We’ll be sending out contribution records reflecting your contributions to SSP, IHM, and SJB in 2023. But starting Jan. 1, 2024, whichever of our churches you attend, please make your donations payable to St. Stephen Protomartyr. If you are registered in our parish, you’ll also see new envelopes coming for the new year, and they’ll say St. Stephen Protomartyr on them.

Second, we want to get your ideas for our music planning for 2024. What are some great, well-known songs that we should use in our worship at Mass? What are some great new songs that we should teach our congregations so we can use them in our worship at Mass? Use our 2024 SSP Songs Survey to tell us! Copies are also available in the church vestibules.

Third, we want to invite you to attend SEEK24. SEEK24 is an amazing Catholic conference happening right here in St. Louis Jan. 1-5. Many of the most inspiring Catholic speakers will be there, plus more than 10,000 on-fire Catholics from all over the country. And, you might be able to attend for free! St. Stephen Protomartyr Parish has a limited number of full scholarships available for SEEK24. We’ll give them out first-come first-served to anyone from our parish who wants to go and needs help to attend. If that’s you, send an email as soon as you can to Maureen at [email protected]. She’ll help you register with one of our scholarship codes, until we’ve used them all up. If you want to learn more about SEEK24, Google it or check out the ad in this weekend's bulletin. 

Have a wonderful third week of Advent! God bless you!