Dear Brothers and Sisters, Fall has arrived in force! Between the jacket weather this past week and seeing the leaves falling, it’s definitely a new season. And we have many seasonal events coming up, as well. I would especially mention All Saints’ Day (Friday, November 1st), when we gather as a community to celebrate the legacy of faith we have received and our “cheer team” in heaven—we will have Mass at 6am, 9am, and 7pm (bilingual). There will be candy for kids who come dressed as saints or Bible characters! Our All Souls’ Day celebration will be on Saturday, November 2nd, at 10am. I would also like to extend an invitation to our Parish Fall Festival on Sunday, November 3rd (12pm to 5pm), which will include many fun events for the whole family. Those moments of community fun point to another important virtue in stewardship: joy. Maybe the best place to start is by thinking about how joy always wants to be shared. Just think about a time when something good happened in your life that filled you with happiness. I bet that for most of us, our first reaction was to tell a friend, maybe by picking up our phone and giving them a call, or even unexpectedly showing up on their doorstep! Joy has a way of overflowing out of us, and happiness shared is happiness doubled. Each of us has received so many good gifts from God, and when we reflect on them, we should feel joyful and look to share joy with others. We aren’t good stewards out of some grim sense of obligation, but because we want everyone to feel what we feel, when we find ourselves delighted by God’s goodness to us. This is why St. Paul wrote that “God loves a cheerful giver” (II Corinthians 9:7). It’s not that he rejects our gifts when we’re feeling blue. It’s that true generosity of heart comes from a deep joy that no worldly circumstance can take away, a bigness of spirit that sees through the hard times to the eternal happiness to come. As we celebrate together this weekend as a parish family, please know of my prayers that God will fill all of us with joy, this season and always. Through the intercession of Our Lady of Joyful Hope and our patron St. Thomas, let’s rejoice in God’s goodness. God bless,