From the Pastor's Desk - January 4, 2026

Dear St. Martin’s Parishioners,

Happy New Year and Happy Feast of the Epiphany! It is appropriate that we celebrate the Epiphany as we enter into 2026. Flipping the calendar year marks a fresh beginning. Just as the Magi set off on a journey, so we commence our spiritual pilgrimage of 2026 led by our desire to find Christ and adore him anew. The Magi were helped by two principal sources in their search for the newborn King: nature and the Scriptures. The natural world helped them as evidenced by the star that guided them on their journey. The Jewish Scriptures helped them inasmuch as they were told of the prophecy that the king would be born in Bethlehem of Judea.

For the past couple centuries there has existed a narrative that science is quickly displacing religion. According to this ideology, science and religion are at odds with one another. It is thought that science deals with real, hard facts, and religion deals with fantasy or things that cannot be proven. Recent developments in the sciences, though, are pointing to just the opposite conclusion: cosmology, microbiology, quantum physics, the history of evolution, etc. are pointing to the probability of the existence of a Divine Intelligence as the source of everything that exists. I encourage you, like the Magi, to be led by nature (or science, in this case) to the truth of the Christian faith. One great website that deals with the intersection of science and religion is magiscenter.com. Fr. Spitzer and his team have done marvelous work to show how science actually backs the claims of faith and points to God as Creator.

The Magi also used Scripture to find the Holy Family in Bethlehem. We, too, should use Scripture to deepen our relationship with Christ. Try out Fr. Joe’s Bible Study on Saturday mornings in the white house (now renamed the St. Joseph House). The St. Paul Center for Biblical Studies is another great resource that has great online content for discovering the richness of the Scriptures. Lastly, if you’ve never done Fr. Mike Schmitz’s, The Bible in a Year Podcast, this would be a great way to deepen your love for God’s Word. The Bible in a Year is also available in Spanish, led by Fr. Sergio Serrano, O.P.

In Christ, the Newborn King,

Fr. Dave