1st Sunday of Advent
Installation of Fr. Jason Worley
St. John the Evangelist, Long Green Valley
November 29, 2025
New Beginnings
I am very happy to return to St. John the Evangelist here in Hydes, officially to install Fr. Jason Worley as your pastor. Fr. Jason, an experienced pastor, has been here for more than five months. In that time you have come to know him as a priest with a pastoral heart, a pastor who is delighted to be in your midst.
The installation of a pastor marks a new beginning, in the life of the priest who assumes the office of pastor, and also in the life of the parishioners who welcome him. Inevitably, there is a period of adjustment and a learning curve, but also, in God’s grace, new opportunities present themselves as a new pastor and his parishioners come to know and trust one another, and begin to work together fruitfully to advance in the parish to spread the Gospel and to build up the Body of Christ.
So, it is appropriate to mark the beginning of Fr. Jason’s pastorate on the 1st Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year, during which we will re-live once yet again what Christ did to save us. Indeed, the beginning of a new year of grace sheds light on the most essential role of your pastor and of every pastor, namely, to lead the people he serves to share every more deeply in all that the Lord taught and did to bring about our salvation: the mysteries of his Incarnation, his life and teaching, and above all, his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. As this happens, both the pastor and the people he serves encounter Christ himself and share more intimately in his love. This encounter is at the heart of any parish community that thrives.
The Meaning of Advent
Since this is the First Sunday of Advent, let us focus on what this season of grace means for the whole Church, and especially for your parish community here at St. John’s.
We first take notice that Advent looks to the future; it looks forward to the second coming of Christ at the end of time. Yes, during Advent we look back in time to the yearnings of the Chosen People for the Messiah. And yes, we do prepare our hearts to celebrate once again the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, some 2,000 years ago. But we look back so that we may look forward to the coming of Christ in glory at the end of time. In other words, we celebrate Christ’s first coming so that we can look toward in hope and joy to his second coming.
So, let me reiterate, the first responsibility of any pastor (myself included) is to prepare the people we serve, even as we strive to prepare ourselves, for that day when Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. The reason we were ordained as priests and the reason the Church grants us any measure of authority is not for our own sake but for yours. It is to lead you, as we ourselves must be lead, ever more deeply into the mystery of redemption. “Christ came to save sinners,” St. Paul says, and he saved us by dying on the Cross and rising from the dead. In his love for us, he made the Redemption he won accessible to us, in the Word of God that is proclaimed and in the Mass and Sacraments that are celebrated.
Everything a priest & pastor does revolves around the mystery of Redemption: his own life of prayer, his daily repentance, his study of the Word of God, his preaching and celebration of the sacraments, his pastoral outreach to those who are struggling, his collaboration with staff and lay leadership – even administration – all this has as its single aim and purpose to immerse the parish family into the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ – so that, when the Risen Lord appears again in his glory, you and he will be prepared to greet him in joy.
Vigilance and Hope
Accordingly, today’s Scripture readings highlight two “Advent virtues” which every pastor strives to develop in his own life and in the lives of those he serves, namely, vigilance and joyful hope. St. Paul writes to the Romans: “You know the time; it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” Paul goes on to urge the Corinthians not to be misled by illicit pleasures, nor to become complacent or presumptuous about their salvation. They are rather “to throw off the works of darkness & put on the armor of light.” Similarly, Jesus warns us to stay awake – for we do know neither the day nor the hour when he, the Son of Man, will come again in glory. Amid this world’s sound and fury, your pastor, by word and example, encourages you to be watchful.
But it is not a watchfulness of fear but of hope . . . and the responsibility of every pastor is to be ‘a witness to the hope that is ours in Jesus Christ.’ The early Christians looked forward to Christ’s second coming – summed up the Aramaic word, Maranatha! – “Come, Lord Jesus!” At every Mass, we say that we are waiting in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. Every day we say, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done!” Yes, we live in this world and we strive to make it a better place – especially by serving the poor and the marginalized. But it is Christ we serve in the poor and it is in the likeness of Christ that we strive to become – all in the hope that one day we will share fully in the victory that Christ won for us by his saving death and resurrection.
So in this new beginning, let us look forward in hope. You are a parish with a storied history dating back to 1822. With your new pastor, may you, in God’s grace, write a new and glorious chapter of your parish history – as you await in joyful hope the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ!