May God bless you and yours throughout this year

A blessed, happy and safe new year to all! This year of 2023 will see some changes as well as some beautiful events in our Diocese of Bismarck, and I hope you will be able to participate in them.

A most notable change is found on the front page of this issue of the Dakota Catholic Action. We are going to a new printing company and a new format for our diocesan newspaper, but the same excellent and informative content will remain. I do hope you enjoy our newspaper and its newness.

With this month of January, we will begin the diocesan year of the Eucharistic Revival which was described in the last issue of the Dakota Catholic Action. I will be traveling to all five of our deaneries for a period of exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, during which there will be a sermon preached on one of the beautiful aspects of the Most Holy Eucharist. This will be followed by benediction and then a time for discussion and fellowship. All of this is intended to strengthen and deepen our understanding and appreciation of the very source and summit of our lives as Catholics, the Holy Eucharist. Also, it is meant to help us all be better, intentional disciples of Jesus and evangelizers of our world. There is no better way to do this than by a true and faithful love and devotion for Our Blessed Lord, present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Most Holy Eucharist.

The Diocesan year will culminate with our Eucharistic Congress in June at the Bismarck Event Center. I do hope that as many as are able will come and participate in this wonderful and holy event.

Speaking of the month of June, not long after our Eucharistic Congress our diocese will be blessed in abundance with the ordination of three men to the sacred priesthood. It is my hope that by our participation in the Eucharistic Revival we will come to a deeper love for the priesthood of Jesus Christ, because without the priesthood we do not have the Holy Eucharist, we do not have the forgiveness of sins in the sacrament of penance, and we do not have the final anointing and consolation of the Lord in the sacrament of the anointing of the sick as we pass over to eternity.

When we include the great penitential season of Lent and the joyous Easter season, our new year of 2023 will be filled with abundant opportunities to grow and extend our faith for ourselves, our families and friends and for our Church. This will be a truly holy and happy new year if we choose to make it such. May God bless you and yours throughout this year!