My simple resolution for New Years is to be open to God's plan for me in 2016.

The life of Jesus begins with Mary at the Bethlehem crib.  Therefore it is most appropriate we begin the New Year with Mary on this her feast day of Mary the Mother of God.

Perhaps this year following the example of Mary, instead of filling your plate with your plans, your resolutions for the New Year, simply try to be open for what God has planned for you in 2016.

Live this year with open hands and a trusting heart. As with Mary, say YES to God’s plan for you this year.  You may not hear the voice of the angel Gabriel as Mary did, but when you make room for God in your life, you will discern God’s call.  Yes, we may be surprised at what will happen.  It may not be what you expect.  There may be interruptions to our plans.  But know this, God won’t leave us alone.

You won’t need to make new plans for your family life, your work life, or your neighborhood life.  All that is necessary is to follow the example of Mary: 

The evangelist tells in today’s Gospel:  “The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger.  When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child.  All who heard it were astonished by what had been told them by the shepherds.  And Mary kept all these things, pondering on them in her heart.”

My goal, my prayer for this New Year is to simply follow the example of Mary:  “She kept all these things, pondering on them in her heart.”  My simple plan is to take a few minutes each evening -- It could be any time of the day – and simple be aware of my day, what has happened, who I have encountered, and most importantly to be grateful for how God has been present in my life this day. 

This simple act of awareness, of reflection, of pondering, naming the feelings of the day is Mary’s pattern of prayer.  This also is recommended by St Ignatius in his SPIRITUAL EXERCISES.  It is called the awareness examen.  A simple example:  What beautiful thing did you see or experience today?  It came from God of course.  Why not say thank you.

For me, I visited today my brother-in-law today as he is a patient in Unity hospital.  To pray with him and his two beautiful daughters and to share with him the Sacrament of the Sick was truly a God moment for me today.  God was present to all of us.

Mary’s prayer was to ponder in her heart all that was happening to her.  To ponder means more than thinking, planning, organizing, worrying, doing, procrastinating, scurrying, etc.  To ponder means that we pray with a faith-filled heart over the joys and the struggles and challenges of the day.  It means to meditate, quiet down and know that we live surrounded by God’s unending love.  We give thanks for the blessings of the day.

  

May we pray as Mary prayed.  May we pray each and every day – and not just to ask God for a favor.  Seek to make your life a conversation with God.  Listen and ponder in your heart what God has to say to you.  God is speaking to you in all that is happening in your life – in both life’s joys and in life’s sufferings.  They are all part of the conversation God is having with you.  God desires for you to ponder these things in your heart and to say YES to the plan of God in your life.

What is life going to be like for yourself and for myself in 2016?  We may end up like our parish patron St Joseph in situations that are not of our own doing.  Joseph’s flight into Egypt from Bethlehem was unexpected and meant leaving behind the comfortable and the familiar and opening himself to new possibilities.  Like Joseph, we need to trust that God goes with us and our future is full of hope.

Along with the prayer of Mary of pondering in our hearts the events of our lives, I also commend to you the beautiful practice of asking for a blessing.  Before going on a trip or in dealing with illness in life, I am often asked to give a blessing for a person.  This blessing places our lives in the hands of our loving God with much trust and much gratitude. 

May the blessing that the Lord said to Moses be the blessing the Lord speaks to each of us:

The Lord bless and keep you.

The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace.

May your lives be blessed in all of 2016.

The power of God comes to us in a tiny infant.

In one simple unassuming sentence, the Christmas mystery is revealed.  From the evangelist Luke:  “While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son.”  The power of God comes to us in a tiny infant.  God is with us in the Bethlehem infant born to Mary and Joseph.

The mystery of Christmas happens for us  when we connect the story of our lives with the story of Christmas.  The Christmas message is the story of God’s unconditional love for us.  As his disciples we are to fill this world with many other stories that mirror and give witness to God’s love for us.  That is the meaning and wonder of the Incarnation.

A couple of stories that speak the message of Christmas:

In Africa, a tale is told of a boy called Amazu, who was always very inquisitive. One day he asked, "What language does God speak?" But no one could answer him.  He traveled all over his country questioning everyone but could not get a satisfactory answer. Eventually he set out for distant lands on his quest. For a long time he had no success.

At length, he came one night to a village called Bethlehem, and as there was no room in the local inn, he went outside the village in search of shelter for the night. At last he came to a cave and found that a couple and a child also occupied it. He was about to turn away when the young mother spoke, "Welcome Amazu, we've been waiting for you."

The boy, amazed that the woman knew his name, was even more amazed when she went on to say, "For a long time you have been searching the world over to find out what language God speaks. Well, now your journey is over. Tonight you can see with your own eyes the language God speaks. He speaks the language of love."

The woman in the cave spoke the language of love to Amazu in calling him by name.  Amazu knew in his heart he was loved by a person he had never met before.

This I know God is present among when we speak the language of love to each other.  I have reached that age in life when the gift I most appreciate is a smile that speaks the language of love.

When Jesus became an adult and on the night before he died, he said:  “By this all shall know that you are my disciples, the love you have for one another.

May the language of love be in your heart, in your family, in our parish life, in our work place, in our political discourse, in our attitude with Muslims and with all people who believe and act differently than we do.  Jesus came to fill this world with His love and we are to be the witnesses of the Gospel of Jesus.

Another story:

Long ago, there ruled in Persia a wise and good king who loved his people. He wanted to know how they lived, and he wanted particularly to know about their hardships. Often dressed in the clothes of a worker or a beggar, he visited the homes of the poor. No one whom he visited ever thought he might be their ruler.

Once he visited a very poor man who lived in a cellar. He ate the coarse food the poor man ate, and he spoke cheerful, kind words to him. Then he left.

Later when he visited the poor man again, he disclosed his identity saying, "I am your king!" Then the king thought the man would surely ask for some gift or favor, but he did not.

Instead, he said, "You left your palace and your glory to visit me in this dark, dreary place. You ate the course food I ate. You brought gladness to my heart! To others you have given your rich gifts. To me you have given yourself!"

This is the true meaning of Christmas.  As is said in the creed we profess together:  "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man."

With much joy and with great anticipation, the Christmas season is the season of gift giving --  most, most especially the gifts we give our children.  May our family Christmas tree be surrounded by the gifts we wish to share.  But at the end of the day,  what we know in our hearts, far greater than any gift we can give our children is the gift they give us  -- the gift of themselves, the gift of their love.  Our children bring out the magic of Christmas.  They speak to us of the presence of Jesus in our lives.

Christmas are my favorite liturgies.  As the pastor, I have the great privilege of presiding at our 2:00 and 4:00 Christmas children’s liturgies and the solemnity of our midnight liturgy.  At the risk of being schizophrenic, the presence of Jesus is revealed fully both in the blessed chaos of our children and in the solemnity of the midnight liturgy.   God is present in the youthful enthusiasm of our children and in the more solemn reverence of our other liturgies.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that our children are the bearers of the mystery of Christmas to us, that is say, they are the bearers of the presence of Jesus to us even though the gift of silence is not part of the liturgy.  However, there is equal experience of the presence of Jesus among us in the  gift of silence, the gift of singing the Christmas mystery, the gift of reverence that is part of our other liturgies..

To celebrate Christmas with our children and to celebrate Christmas with those of us who know the Christmas story is ageless and needs to be told and retold with solemnity and reverence is the best of both worlds.  From the darkened hills of Judea in the dark of night long ago to this liturgy celebrated, Jesus is present in our midst when we speak the language of love to each other, when we share the gift of self, and when we gather around the Table of the Lord in awe and mystery to give thanks to the Lord our God.

I hope your Advent preparation includes Visitation moments when you simply share and laugh and pray with those you deeply love.

Christmas is on the horizon, and today’s Scriptures may be lost amid the merriment as well as the Christmas pageants and the busyness of the season.

The prophet Micah in the first Scripture reading speaks of a coming ruler who will restore peace to the world.  Emerging from unlikely Bethlehem, this leader will walk in the ways of peace and bring true security to the people. Can the prophetic dream of Micah calm our spirits and mobilize us to move from fearful reaction to hopeful action in facing the moral and political dilemmas of our time?   We have been dominated by fear and the terrorists’ threats in San Bernardino, California and in Paris and the Los Angeles school system.  As we watch the presidential debates in the significant questions about our security as nation, we wonder whether guns and our military might can save us, whether banning Syrian immigrants can save us, or closing the door to Muslim immigrants can save us?  Without waging into political debates, this I deeply believe:  only a heart open to God and our brothers and sisters can bring healing to us and our world.  May we pray for the coming of the Prince of Peace into our hearts and into our world.

In some ways, we have been in darkness of fear too long.  Fear has ruled us and we are in need of light to find our way.  Let the light of your countenance shine upon us, God, so that we might find peace and hope in the future.

In the second Scripture reading from the book of Hebrews, the coming of Christ changes everything.  The sacred writer proclaims that we need God’s presence in our midst.  Plain and simple, we are saved by grace, not by human achievement.

The Gospel is our family story – the story of our salvation.  It is a tale of the early days of our own religious clan.  We can claim Elizabeth and Mary as our ancestors in our faith history.  As both were pregnant through the grace of God, they came together as friends, as cousins, as soul mates.   We see Elizabeth’s great act of faith in the words she spoke to Mary:  “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

Today’s readings invite us to treasure fond memories of these two women who are our ancestors in faith, these two whose faith freed them enough to believe in what reason told them could never happen.  These two knew they were only women.  Not only that, but Elizabeth was too old and Mary too inexperienced; there could be no rational expectation that God’s promises would be fulfilled through them.  But that impossibility, their utter incapacity, was precisely their advantage.  Because they knew they could not accomplish it by themselves, they did not limit God to their abilities or expectations.  They were empty enough to become full of grace.  

Today, as we prepare to celebrate the feast of the Nativity, we are invited to contemplate the example of Mary and Elizabeth.  They offer us a model of friendship rooted in shared faith, a faith so deep that it risks everything and can even rejoice in the adventure of an unknown future.

What about our family stories that are rooted in friendship and in shared faith?   May we treasure our family history and our family stories and increase our awareness of the spiritual dimension of these stories.  I very treasure my relationship with my two sisters, Anne and Jean, and my brother John.  In my family, as I willing to bet in your families, my siblings and nephews and nieces have different ways of living out their faith.  I don’t pretend to say we all are pray in the same way.  But I do know we love each other and treasure the times we are together.

Most recently, 55 of us were together on Thanksgiving Day at my brother John’s home.  We have celebrated marriages, baptisms, first communions, deaths of my parents and older brother and sister, and the priesthood ordination of my nephew Jason at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome by St. John Paul II.  There have been many, many treasured and special events in our family history.

But when I reflect on the Gospel visitation of Mary and Elizabeth in trust and gratitude, I don’t think of a most significant family event – a milestone event; rather I think of a very personal intimacy between two good friends who were sharing their love and faith with each other.  I know for myself it is such a gift when my sister and I share the Eucharist and then share a cup of coffee at Starbucks.  It is a very ordinary coming together of siblings – no big deal; but in another sense, what is more important in life than the gratitude and trust and love that my sister and I share with each other.  At the end of the day, this is what is lifegiving for me and for my sister as well.

I hope your Advent preparation includes Visitation moments when you simply share and laugh and pray with those you deeply love.  In that context, God is present and we will be led to pray as Mary did:  “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

Mary and Elizabeth are helping us to enter the Christmas mystery of God’s unending love for us.  God chooses to come to us in the context of family, as a tiny child.  May you value your family life and discover how Jesus seeks to be born again in family life – in your family life.

The Scriptures tell us that in the dawn of our salvation, the Savior was born in the humble insignificant town of Bethlehem; his mother was a young humble woman from Nazareth.  She chose to visit her elderly cousin Elizabeth.  In their sharing and trust in each other, we come to pray a beautiful story of our spiritual family history.

May you reflect in this Advent-Christmas season on your personal family story  --- the spiritual dimension of your family history.  God chooses to come among in humble places and among humble people.  May you recognize the birth of Jesus in the ordinary, humble dimensions of your family life.  Maybe the youngest of your family is the birthing place of the Savior once more.

We are a Church that accepts everyone and refuses no one.

This past Tuesday, Pope Francis opened the Holy Door at St. Peter’s to begin the Jubilee of Mercy.  Francis said this Holy Year will focus on the topic of mercy.  He says he wants this church of 1.2 billion members to more merciful and less rigid toward sinners.  The Jubilee would be an occasion for all members – and for the church itself – to rediscover the need to be forgiving and generous.  The church is the home that accepts everyone and refuses no one – the greater the sin, the greater the love that the church should toward those who repent.

In that spirit, we have begun the liturgy of the third Sunday of Advent – Gaudete Sunday – by blessing the holy door – sancta porta – of our church.  This door between the church and our Blessed Sacrament chapel celebrates for our parish community God’s limitless mercy.   This door that connects our Eucharistic altar table with the Blessed Sacrament chapel is indeed a holy door.  May all who pass through this door celebrate God’s merciful love for us.  May we who pass through this door be confirmed in our vision of church that accepts everyone and refuses no one.

In the gospel of this third Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist is asked by the people what they should do to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.  John’s response starts out with what we have come to call the corporal works of mercy.  “Let the person with two coats give to the person who has none.  The person who has food should do the same.”  In other words, show mercy to those in need – without conditions.

Still others asked John what they should do to prepare for the Messiah.  John’s response was that they should not take advantage of others; treat others honestly and with respect; be satisfied with what they are given. Mercy is a component of these behaviors, for in them we treat others equally and without judgment.

This Advent is the perfect time for us to establish during this jubilee year of mercy our parish holy door of mercy.    As we pray in our Blessed Sacrament chapel and in our church, may we with grateful and joy-filled hearts celebrate the presence of Jesus among us.

As we gather this Wednesday evening for our Advent penance service with individual confession, may the door leading into the confession be also a holy door for us celebrating God’s limitless love for us.

In the first Scripture from the prophet Zephaniah, we are told that sin occurs when we search for happiness apart from God, when are too caught in the busyness, the commercialism, the fleeting pleasures of life.  The prophet reminds us that the Lord, your God, is in our midst.  The Lord wishes to rejoice with you and renew you in his love.

We confess the times we have searched for happiness apart from God.  Sometimes we search for happiness in our wealth, in our successes, in our desire to control people and manage what happens in life, in our pride, in our sexuality and so on and so on.

  

May the apostle Paul be an example for us.  The apostle Paul in the second Scripture tells the Philippians and all of us:  “Rejoice in the Lord always, I shall say it again: rejoice!”  Now mind you Paul is writing from his prison cell.  Paul was not rejoicing in the things of this world; rather Paul was rejoicing because God was with him in his prison cell as he wrote to the Philippian church.

The apostle Paul, even from a prison cell, knew that joy was the basic mood of a Christian.  This is the theme of Gaudete Sunday.  However, at times one gets the impression that it is not the experience of many Christians, who somehow have come to believe that religion is a serious business, that one is not living a good Christian life unless it is full of sacrifices, that a Christian means giving up many of the pleasures that are available to non-Christians.  They seem to think that being a Christian means living a half-life as the price for a better to come.

There is a saying:  “A sad saint is a sad kind of saint.”  A sad Christian is a contradiction in terms.  That is not to say that there is not sadness in any Christian life – as in any normal person’s life – times of pain, of sickness, of failure, of great loss.  Grieving and letting go is an important part of life but these experiences do not ultimately define as the disciples of Jesus.  Even in the midst of tears, the works of Jesus to us are:  “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Have faith in God and also in me.”

Every experience, if we can only realize it, is touched by God and has its meaning.  Once that meaning is found and accepted, inner joy and peace can return.  The great truth of our life is we have everything we need here and now to be happy.  Amen.  The problem is that we identify our happiness with people or things we don’t have and often can’t have.    Many of us people who are poor, people who don’t the things of life we take for granted, and yet they are filled with joy.  There joy comes from within.  It is the joy that is a gift of God to one and all.

May John the Baptist be an Advent guide for us.  Our aim, our mission is to lead people to the feet of Jesus that they may know him personally as Saviour, Lord, brother and Friend?  Our role is, like John the Baptist, to step aside once the introductions are over and leave Jesus to do his work.

At the same time, Jesus does need our cooperation.  Jesus works through every parent and every teacher and every parishioner who has a call to form people.  Saturday morning, we celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation with 139 of our younger parishioners.  To prepare these beautiful young people, we need the commitment of their parents, the parish catechists and staff,  the priests, and the example of the whole community.  Our commitment as a parish is to bring people to know and experience Jesus.  That is the pattern and meaning of evangelization, of bringing the Gospel to others.

In this Advent season, as we joyfully prepare for the coming of Christ, may we lead others to Jesus.  This is our mission as Catholics – to experience Jesus in our hearts and to share the love of Jesus with others.

The Word of God was spoken to an outsider (John the Baptist) in the desert. Who speaks the Word of God to us today?

We are an Advent people.  We are given the gift of time to prepare the inn of our hearts and to prepare our faith community for the coming of Christ Jesus.  I suggest we will value the true spirit of
Christmas to the degree that we have prepared as an Advent people for the joyful coming of the Saviour into our lives.

I like to think of Advent as a time of listening to what God is birthing in me.  Need to quiet down and listen.  Tuesday we celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.  She who gave birth to the Saviour calls us to the awareness that Jesus needs to be born again this Christmas.  In what way if God birthing in you?  Our Advent time of waiting for new birth is a labor of patient love.

How do we prepare as an Advent people?  We need to look to the Scriptures for guidance.  The evangelist Luke in today’s Gospel tells us that the Word of God was spoken to John the Son of Zachariah in the desert.  Say that again!  Where was the Word of God spoken and to whom?    Note that the Word of God was not pronounced by the religious and political leaders of the day.  It bypassed them all.  The Word of God did not come from the Palace of the Temple.  The Word of God came from an outsider in the desert.  The Word of God came to John in the desert.  What?  Did I hear that right?

It leaves with the question:  Where is the wilderness in your life in which the Word of God is going to be proclaimed to you?  Is there a wilderness area in your heart?  Perhaps that side of you that never sees the light of day.  Perhaps it is a place of struggle and turmoil and sinfulness.  The Word of God comes in the crosses and in the places of wilderness in our lives.

Where is the wilderness in the world about it?  Certainly we find it in the all too many senseless acts of violence in which innocent lives are lost.  There is the wilderness in the growing treat of terrorists and how to respond to acts of terrorism and the threatening face of war.  There is the wilderness of pornography, and in the lives that are lost in acts of abortion.   Yes, there is much, much wilderness but you may be sure that God is present and the Word of God is spoken to the wilderness.  May we, like John the Baptist, be aware of how the Word of God is being spoken.

Don’t discount any place in your life as a place where the Word of God may be spoken to you.  Into whatever area of your life you seem most vulnerable, most discouraged, that may well be the area of wilderness in which God is speaking to you.  In whatever relationship that is falling apart in your life, in whatever fear and anxiety is most troubling to you, into what political, secular, or moral component of society is most disturbing, the Word of God is present.

Today’s Gospel begins:  “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod the tetrarch of Galilee etc., the Word of God came to John the son of Zachariah in the desert.  I suggest if you daydreamed through the first lines of today’s Gospel, you missed the whole point of Luke’s Gospel.  The evangelist is setting the ministry of Jesus in its wider historical context.  The point is the sacred ministry of Jesus emerged right in the midst of secular history.  Secular history does not get in the way of the proclamation of the Word of God.  Rather, for us to hear the Word of God proclaimed in this moment of history means wen need to know the circumstances of our own history.  God’s word is being spoken in the midst of the mess of our own lives and in the mess of the church and the world we live in.  I know God likes to speak me when I am too busy to listen.  My Advent mantra is the word of the psalmist:  “Be still and know that I am God.”

Who speaks the Word of God today in the context in which we live our lives?    Is it the priest, a ministry person, a politician, a writer, a teacher, our children, a wisdom person we may know?  It is for us to be aware of the prophets in our midst.

The message of John the Baptist to the people of his day as well as to us:  God is about to act.  Therefore prepare the way of the Lord.  His message was and is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  John is talking about an inner change, a metanoia.  Before we can experience the joy of Christmas, John the Baptist calls us to a baptism of repentance.  We need to acknowledge our own sinfulness – our greed and consumerism, the sinfulness that devalues our sexuality, the compulsive busyness of our lives that keeps us from valuing the spiritual dimension of life, and our unwillingness to share more fully what we have with those in need.

May our Advent prayer include the beautiful Sacrament of Reconciliation – this sacrament of experiencing the forgiving love of the Lord Jesus.  On Monday Evening at 7:00 pm, we will have a communal penance service with individual confession.  Frs Amann, Kreckel, Sergio, and I will be available for confessions.  The call to Reconciliation is such a significant component of our Advent preparation for the coming of Christ.

This Advent let us resolve to truly prepare for the coming of Christ by repenting of all that is wrong and living with an openness to God’s grace.  On Tuesday with the wonderful feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, Pope Francis is initiating our jubilee of mercy.  May we both rejoice in God’s merciful love for us, and may we bearers of God’s merciful love in the lives of others.

-          As you pray for God’s help in your life this Advent, think how you can extend God’s compassion to others.

-          Pray for peace and seek reconciliation within your own family, neighborhood, and work place.

-          Pray for healing and take the time to visit someone in a hospital or nursing home.

-          Rejoice in God’s love and rethink your own prejudices.

-          Pray for Christ’s coming and live as though he is knocking at your door right now.

MARANTHA.  COME LORD JESUS.