From the Vicar — November 30th, 2025
Happy Thanksgiving from the Eternal City!
As we celebrate Thanksgiving and enter into the Season of Advent, I am writing to you from the Eternal City, Rome! I spent Thanksgiving with my older brother, Fr. David Fons (pictured below), who just recently moved to Rome to work in the Dicastery for Clergy, which is one the departments in the Vatican. He handles Canon Law cases from around the English-speaking world. Please keep him in your prayers as he does this important work for the Church.
As you might guess, Thanksgiving is not an Italian Holiday, but it certainly is still a holiday for all the Americans here in Rome! There is a Turkey Trot 5k that circles the Vatican. Various groups of American Priests get together for large Thanksgiving feasts, and even some football gets watched! Now that there is an American Pope, maybe it will catch on amongst the Italians too. I don’t know whether it was intentional or not, but on Thursday, Pope Leo left Rome to go visit Turkey! TURKEY!! On Thanksgiving!! It’s his first international trip, and I can’t imagine the timing and destination is a coincidence!
(My brother and I)
Advent Preaching Series on Intentional Discipleship
Our parish mission statement says that our parish exists to make spirit-filled missionary disciples of Jesus Christ for the glory of God the Father. But, what does it look like to be a disciple of Jesus? Throughout the 4 Sundays of Advent, Fr. Mathias and I will be preaching a series on this very question. The purpose is two-fold. First, it is a reflection for ourselves: “am I following Christ fully? Have I surrendered my life to him? Where am I still called to grow?” But second, it is to help us better walk with and minister to those in our lives who are on a journey towards the Lord.
A pivotal book of the past decade in this field is “Forming Intentional Disciples” by Sherry Weddell, and pulling from this book, we will explore the 5 Thresholds of Conversion. These are 5 stages that each person goes through on the way to being an intentional disciple of Jesus. In the Church, our tendency is to assume people are further along then they actually are. The problem with this is that people are often stuck on the 2nd or 3rd threshold, and it actually isn’t in their best interest to remain stuck there, when the Lord has so much more in store for them! As a parish, we want to help every single person here make it all the way, to be the spirit-filled missionary disciples that God has made them to be!!
One Last Security Reminder
If you are reading this after Sunday Mass (or during the Homily), I hope you made it into the Church before the doors were locked. As a reminder, for security reasons, we will be locking all entrances 5 minutes after Mass begins except Door A, which is the entrance under the carport. To be clear, you are not locked in: if you need to get something from the car, you can exit out of any door, you simply need to reenter through Door A. This, along with other measures being implemented at all weekend Masses by our Safety team, helps provide a peaceful and secure worship experience for everyone who comes to St. Pat’s each week.
Hosting German and Austrian College students over the Holidays
As you might have seen in the Midweek, we are still looking for folks willing to host college students and FOCUS Missionaries from Austria and Germany for 4 days: December 28th through January 1st. They will be spending 4 days in Michigan before they head down to the SEEK Conference in Columbus, Ohio. We are expecting over 100 people, and so we are looking for folks generous enough to host a few students. They won’t need any meals, and they will be out and about all day: they really just need a place to sleep. If you are willing to host, please fill out this jotform. This is a beautiful opportunity to show hospitality to those in need and to help these students have an encounter with the Lord through the SEEK Conference, and through our parish community.
Please contact Fr. Joshua (frjoshua@stpatchurch.org) or Casey Mangan (caseymangan@gmail.com) with any questions.
Your servant in the Lord,
Fr. Joshua