Our faith life revolves around how we relate to others -- especially those closest to us: our family

God broke the silence of the centuries to reveal himself to us in the helpless infant of Bethlehem.  The power of God is revealed through a baby.  This is the Christmas mystery.

 As we continue the Christmas season in celebrating the Feast of the Holy Family, the Evangelist Luke tells the story of Jesus, Mary and Joseph – not as individuals, but as a family.  The dawning of our salvation is revealed to us in the context of family life.  This is such an important dimension of the Christmas mystery.  This family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is the holy family.  As we ponder the Scriptures today, we reflect on our own family life as well.  The message is that our family is a holy family.  We need to claim who we are.

One of the most difficult things for some Catholics to admit is that no Christian biblical author seems to suggest that the contemplative life is the ideal way to live one’s faith.  This is not to say that the contemplative lifestyle is not valid, but we see in both OT and the NT that our faith revolves around we relate to others.  Thought our relationship with God is always a first priority, the first step in forming that relationship is to connect with the people around – especially those closest to us: our family.

It is in family that we live our faith.  It is in our family we discover our holiness.  Our faith is interwoven, for better or for worse, with our family life.

There is a special presence of God in the family.   In the love that is such a beautiful part of family, God is present.  In fact, God is present in all aspects of family life.

God isn’t very fussy!!!  This is such an important dimension of who God is.  God is not fussy.   God isn’t very fussy where He lives and moves and has His being.  God desires to be part of our wonderfully imperfect family.

As we know, family life is very varied:  divorced and separated parents, gay parents, widowed parents.  All are welcome.  While all are welcome the church does clearly and unmistakably propose that the family of mother and father is the most beautiful expression of the sacrament of marriage.

No matter what stresses there are in family life – the sacrament of marriage promises the help of God and the faith community.

The church encourages family prayer, like visiting the crib.  The Gospel today is about the life of Jesus growing in humanity and wisdom in his family life.  He was brought to the temple.  Mary and Joseph taught him to pray.  May the prayer of Mary and Joseph help us in our family life.  Bless us, O Lord, with the joy of love, and strengthen all families in your loving care.

f Mary and Joseph bringing Jesus to the Temple.  There they encountered the elderly Simeon and Anna.  They were like grandparents in this moving story.

Simeon teaches us how to grow old.  He lives in the light of the Word of God. For this reason, even though he realizes that his days are coming to an end, he does not fear death.  He is happy and asks the Lord to welcome him into His peace.

Simeon took the child from the arms of his parent.  This moving scene depicts the task of transmitting the faith within each family.  They hand it on to their children and grandchildren.

May I suggest what I believe to be a profound truth in family life.  In families where there is not an elderly person, life can, at times, be easier.  But they also may be missing the wisdom of our elderly.  The eyes and the hearts of our elderly teach us faith and the real meaning of life.

In the Gospel, Simeon speaks the words of much faith and wisdom:  “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples, a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.

As I said that where there is not an elderly person in a family, life can seem to be easier but so much love and wisdom can also be missing.

So too, in having another child.  My niece Emily and her husband Josh have welcomed into their family their fifth child.  Their infant Taylor Mae may keep them from doing some beautiful outdoor events as a family.  There life might be more convenient in some ways without a fifth child.  But the love this child brings into their family life is simply priceless.   There is nothing more important than the precious gift of love we receive from our children.

But at the end of the day, your family is not meant to be anyone else’s family life.  God’s plan for your family is to be exactly who you are.  Your particular family dynamic is not an accident; it is by God’s design you are who you are. 

God is present in your family life – with its joys, with its challenges, with its beauty and with its messiness.

Further, may we commit ourselves as a Church to reach out beyond our own family life.  May we be about finding solutions to homelessness and poverty in family life.  We need to be aware of the stresses of other people’s family life, to understand them and find funding for caring for them, especially children.

Yes, family life is always a challenge.  Our religious ancestors had advice about how to make it work.  Family life in the Bible is both difficult and grace filled.  Joseph’s brothers planned to kill him and then decided instead to sell him into slavery, but their reunion years later is among the most touching scenes in the Bible. 

In the first Scripture reading, Abraham and Sarah saw the birth of their son Isaac as the culmination of their own faith in God’s promise.  Isaac’s birth proved that God was alive and at work in the world.

Many of us might have difficulty finding such grace in our own families.  We may think of our own family as being so different from the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  But they, like us, struggled to understand what they were being called to.  We are more alike than we think.

Today’s feast reminds us to seek God’s love anew through our loved ones in our own family.  It may be hard to spot at times.  The key to finding God in our family is for us to find God in our own lives.  God is within us and God is with us in our family life.

Lord God, we ask for the spiritual sightedness to recognize your presence in each and every family relationship we are gifted with.

Have a blessed day.

In the inn of our own hearts, there is an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. We are missioned to be the bearers to the keepers of the mystery of Christmas.

The first Scripture reading from the prophet Isaiah proclaimed:  “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light:  upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shown.  You have brought abundant joy and great rejoicing.”

This is a wonderful, wonderful way of describing the Christmas mystery.  The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel  -- not just a temporary flicker but an eternal flame.   We are indeed a people who wait in joyful hope not because the darkness is over, but because the Light is with us now, and the Light will overcome the darkness.

I see darkness in the halls of Congress where there is a distinct lack of dialogue and honest listening to one another. I see darkness when we cannot trust one another and instead we fear for our safety and security; and I see darkness in the brokenness of too many relationships.

On the other hand, I  see only light when I participate in our children’s lessons and carols and in our school’s Christmas concert.  Our children are beacons of God’s light and love.  There is so much enthusiasm and beauty and love when our parish families gather and speak the language of love to one another.  There is so much potential for us to be the light shining in the darkness.  And so, we gather on this Christmas feast to celebrate the light of Christ – that light that overcomes the darkness of our lives; that light of Christ that brings joy to our Spirit; that light that brings hope and the deepest meaning to our lives.

The message of Christmas is that Jesus comes for people in dark places.  The real, lasting, and deep joy of Christmas is that light shines in the darkness.   The Christmas story affirms that whatever happens, the light still shines.  Because of Christmas, it will never get so dark that you can’t see the light.

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.

This night of mystery had its origins on the darkened hills of Judea.  In a manger, in a town far away, among shepherds, and in the dark of night, Jesus is born.  Our salvation is dawned with the messiness, poverty, and weakness of ordinary human life.  This hardly seems a very auspicious beginning to the dawn of salvation.

“She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”  No room in the inn is not simply a description of the housing situation in Bethlehem at the time.  It is a probing statement that is meant for us to continually reflect upon as we retell the Christmas story.

 And so, may I ask you what is the housing situation in the inn of your heart?   Is there room in the inn of our hearts for the birth of the Savior?    Is there room in the inn of your heart for the family member for whom you have difficulty getting along with?  Is there room in the inn of your heart for people who think differently than you -- politically, religiously, or in any way whatsoever?  Is there room in the inn of our hearts for Jesus who lives in the hearts of the poor, the immigrants, and children of all cultures and of all ways of life?

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.

Our exterior Christmas decorations are up and they are beautiful.  What about our interior Christmas decorations?  May we allow the peace of Christ to enter once again into our lives, calming all of our anxieties and filling with all that is good.

I had a most beautiful Christmas moment earlier this month when we were celebrating First Reconciliation with our second graders.  I just celebrated this sacrament of God’s merciful move in the life of this young seven year parishioner.   After her confession, she said:  “Father I have a question for you.”  I politely asked what her question was.  She asked me:  “Father, do you ever sin?”  The preciousness of her question made me fully realize that yes I am a sinner; I stand in need of God’s forgiveness; and this beautiful Sacrament of Reconciliation expresses God’s desire to share forgiveness and love with one and all.

God desires to be part of my life as Lord and Savior.

Christmas is not simply about Mary and Joseph and the baby.  It is about God becoming part of our daily struggle, transforming the world through us.  We are the people who walk in darkness – the darkness of sin, the darkness of war, the darkness of relationships that are broken, and the darkness of the threat of violence and terrorism. 

You may be sure that to whatever area of our life we allow the Christ child to enter, the darkness recedes.  The mystery of Christmas is allowing the person of Jesus to enter the inn of our hearts.  It is an invitation to look at our present moment through a different lens, the mystery of the nativity of Jesus, the wonder of the Incarnation.  This new lens enables us to see a new and radiant vision, a light for people who walk in darkness.

When the Lord of history, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, broke the silence of the centuries and spoke in the darkness of that first Christmas night, he spoke through a vulnerable infant in a manger.

Yet we may be confident that the final word of the story will be one of light shining in the darkness and life triumphant over death.  The true gift of Christmas is the ability to discover God in the midst of brokenness and darkness.  The spiritual power given to us in the mystery of Christmas is the power of our faith -- the faith that enables us to hear the Christmas story filled with the promise that our future is full of hope and that we always and forever are God’s beloved sons and daughters. 

In the inn of our own hearts, there is an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.  We are missioned to be the keepers of the mystery of Christmas – God is with us. We give birth to Christ when we allow the light that is within us to extend to our family, and our parish family, and to all of creation.

We celebrate Christmas with our children.  We tell the Christmas story that is ageless and needs to be told and retold again and again.  From the darkened hills of Judea in the dark of night long ago to this liturgy we celebrate, Jesus is present in our midst when we speak the language of love to each other, when we share our giftedness with one another, and when we gather around the Table of the Lord in awe and mystery to give thanks to the Lord our God.

Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks.

This third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday --  Rejoice Sunday.  We light the pink candle of the Advent wreath.  We wear the pink vestments expressing that the joy of Christmas is beginning to invade the Advent season.

In ten words, St Paul expresses the theme of today’s liturgy:  Rejoice always.  Pray without ceasing.  In all circumstances give thanks.

My hope for myself and for you is that the joy of Gaudete Sunday is the joy that you experience everyday as a disciple of Jesus:  rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in all circumstances give thanks.

The way Pope Francis expresses the Advent joy is with one of his favorite expressions:  “Evangelizers must never look like they have just come back from a funeral.”  In Advent, we prepare with much hope and joy in our hearts.

How can possibly pray one without ceasing?  St Augustine gives us a beautiful example of praying without ceasing.  St. Augustine tells the story of his life as a prayer to God.  He shares his anxieties, successes, discoveries frustrations and even his sinful behavior in his classic autobiography entitled Confessions of St Augustine.  Augustine shows how every moment of his life can be a conversation with God.  May you have a faith perspective that enables you to view your whole life as a conversation with the God who created you and loves you with an  unending love.

In all circumstances, give thanks.  At every Mass, w begin the Eucharistic Prayer with:  LET US GIVE THANKS TO THE LORD OUR GOD.  It is right and just.

In today’s Scriptures the prophet Isaiah and John the Baptist are models for all of us.  We are called to be prophets in our world; we are to bear witness to Christ;  and in the wilderness of human greed, injustice, and falsehood, we are called to make straight the way of the Lord.

The Gaudete message is true joy and happiness is found only in God.

But we get fooled because John the Baptist is in the desert eating locusts and wild honey.  He may not seem like a person with an infectious smile out there in the desert.  Yet, make no mistake about it, John the Baptist experienced the joy of knowing the Lord.  Joy is one of the characteristics of God’s spirit in the human heart.

The question that people kept asking John was:  “Who are you?”  John knew his identity.  He knew who he was and who he was not.  John said:  “I am not the Christ…I am the voice of one crying in the desert, make straight the way of the Lord.”  John went on to say:  “There is one among you whom you do not recognize.”

John’s mission was to help people recognize the presence of Christ who is in our midst. 

So we ask ourselves the question:  What helps us to recognize the presence of Christ that is in our midst?  Also, we need to humbly ask what blinds from recognizing the presence of Christ in our midst.  We might be so intent on something that we miss the gem right before us.

 John was filled with a faith-filled vision in recognizing Christ.  John lived his life deflecting attention away from himself so that the focus might be fully and directly on Jesus.  John had plenty of time to focus on Jesus because nothing else mattered to John.

May we in this Advent season exercise a John-like role directing attention away from ourselves and witnessing to the Christ who is in our midst.  May we find joy, Gaudete, in helping others recognize the presence of Christ.   It is my prayer that my preaching can help others know Jesus in their lives.  Yours is an even more important witness.  You are to preach without words.  How?  By a simple smile that communicates friendship, and in all the ways we wash the feet of God’s poor, we witness to the mystery of Christmas.  Our God is present to us in human flesh – in your human flesh and in mine.

The mission given to us at our Baptism is the same mission that was given to John.   We are to witness to the presence of God in our midst.  In so doing, we rejoice.  We rejoice even in the midst of the violence that surrounds racial conflict and the threat of terrorism that we live with.  We rejoice because God is present among us.

 When the question is asked of us that was asked of John in the Gospel:  “Who are you?”  May we witness to the reality that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us.  And thus, we are a parish community filled with the qualities that Paul asks of us:  “Rejoice always.  Pray without ceasing.  In all circumstances give thanks."

May the Church of the Holy Spirit in this Advent season herald, give witness, give voice to the presence of Christ in our midst.  May our Advent attitude be:  “Rejoice always.  Pray without ceasing.  In all circumstances give thanks.

Come Lord Jesus.  Marantha.

Repentance is not negative and down-faced; it looks up and looks forward. Repentance calls us to place God first in n our lives.

Today we move along on our Advent journey towards the celebration of the Son of God entering our world, our humanity, and our community.  John the Baptist calls us to move from the wilderness of sin and discouragement to a state of hopefulness and trusting expectation.

Even though none of us like to wait, least of all myself, the Advent journey calls us to appreciate the wisdom of waiting.  John the Baptist himself was someone who knew how to wait. More than that, Jesus Himself never tires of waiting for us to embrace His merciful love.  Thanks be to God, Jesus is a very patient God who never gives up on us.

John the Baptist calls us to repentance in our Advent journey.  Additionally, in the second Scripture reading, Peter also calls us to repentance.  Peter says:  “God is patient with us, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

I would like to reflect with you the on the meaning of repentance that the Lord calls us to in our Advent journey. 

For many the word repentance is a word that belongs to yesterday.  It is equated with sackcloth and ashes.  Some see repentance as something that we do only if we get caught.  But repentance is far more than blurting our “I’m sorry” if we get caught cheating on our taxes or are engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior.

When John the Baptist calls us to repentance, he is not talking about self-incriminating scruples but for a radical open-mindedness.  The Greek word is metanoia. It means going beyond our normal mindset.  It speaks of a change in our vision of life.  It is about placing God first in our lives.

When we place God first in our lives, the joy of the Gospel motivates us to share what we have been given.  We then prepare our hearts for the coming of the Prince of Peace.  Repentance is not negative and down faced.  Rather, it looks up and looks forward.  It breaks the chains of sin and death that hold us down.  Don’t get stuck in the notion that repentance means feeling sorry and miserable.  It is simply this.  It means you have stopped doing what is wrong and now you are going to do the right thing.

Make no mistake about it, John the Baptist calls us to confront sin in our life.  One of the temptations of our times is to applaud the absence of guilt.  Some people are pleased that guilt has been dethroned.  In some quarters, the absence of guilt in today’s society makes it very difficult to talk about sin and the need for repentance. 

True repentance means a willingness to confront sin in our lives.  I need to let go of my self-centeredness.  While are of us are God’s beloved and made in the image and likeness of God, none of us are perfect.  All of us are sinners.  All of us have need for the Savior.  All of us are called to repentance in this beautiful Advent season of repentance.

One of the beautiful ways to experience repentance is the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  In this Sacrament, we encounter the merciful and healing love of Jesus who fills the valleys of sin in our hearts with the God’s mercy and healing.  When we realized how much we are loved and forgiven, we are motivated to metanoia.  Like Zacchaeus, we then want to share the love we have received.

On Saturday, we celebrated with over 100 of our second graders their first experience with the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Please God the repentance these children are called to enables them to celebrate the merciful love of Jesus in their lives.  On Tuesday, December 19^th, our St Joseph school students will celebrate this sacramental encounter with the healing Lord.  Then on Wednesday Evening December 20^th, we invite you to experience your Advent confession.  And, of course, there is the Sacrament of Reconciliation every Saturday from 3:30 till 4:30 pm.

“Prepare in the wilderness a way for the Lord,” says the Prophet Isaiah.  That prophecy has great meaning when we apply it to our own hearts.  It is in our hearts that we need to prepare a way for the Lord.  It is in our hearts that we need to make a straight highway for God.  It is the valleys of sin in our own hearts that are to be filled with God’s mercy and healing.

We are living now in this Advent time of mercy when we have the opportunity to repent.  Let us receive as much grace as we can from God during this time of Advent.  The Lord has no limits to what he wants to give us.  All that is asked of us is to say YES to placing God first in our lives.

This Advent we salute the forerunner John the Baptist who prepared the way by challenging the people’s sins. He was not after the popular vote. He had eyes only for God. With eyes fixed on God, John announced that the judgment of God was to be revealed in the love and the mercy of Jesus who came not to condemn but that the world might be saved through Him.

Are we ready to share in the work and mission of John the Baptist?  Are we going to announce the merciful love of Jesus to one and all?

Have a blessed day.

In this Advent season, Jesus calls us to be alert to God's unexpected appearances in our lives.

Advent begins with us looking at the eventual end of the world.  The message in today’s Gospel account is taken from St. Mark’s report of Jesus speaking to his disciples about the end of the world, telling them (and us) to be watchful and alert because we do not know when the Last Day will come.  No one does.

Advent begins with us looking at the end of the world.  However, Advent ends with a beginning – the birth of Jesus.   The spirituality of the Advent season calls us to be a people who celebrate the birth of Jesus, and also it is a season of expectancy and hope as we long for the fullness of the coming of Jesus into our hearts and into our world.

It is right that we should be concerned about the judgment of God on the Day of Judgment.  But we should not be held in the grip of fear.  Why?  Because God’s judgment is that we are worth saving.  God’s judgment comes to us in His grace and mercy, His grace and mercy given us in His Son, Jesus Christ.  Jesus tells us that God sent His only-begotten Son not to condemn the world but to save it.  God’s judgment comes to us in His only-begotten Son whom HE has sent among us to bridge the chasm between us and God and thus to give us the power of salvation, a power that can be ours if only we respond to God’s love for us.  God’s ultimate judgment is His mercy.

Advent is a time of expectancy along with our waiting in hope.  Advent is forward looking.  During this Advent season, we have our set of expectations, longing for a better world.  While it is true that the reign of God has, in Jesus Christ, been established among us, it is likewise true that we humans have not responded as we should.  We long for peace.  We cry out for justice.  Yet security remains elusive.  Dishonesty, corruption, and greed beset us.  We lament that world in which we live is in the condition that it is.

In today’s first reading we hear Isaiah’s lament.  In it we hear echoed our own lamentations.

“You, Lord, are our Father, our redeemer you are named forever.  Why do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?  Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful; all of us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind….Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay and you the potter; we are the work of your hands."

Lamentations are a part of our Old Testament heritage.  There is an entire Old Testament book devoted to them – the Book of Lamentations.  It was written in the time when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and the Hebrews had been carried off in captivity to Babylon.   Their prayers there in Babylon were laments.  Laments are prayers.

We, too, can lament, cry out to God, wanting to know where He has been when calamities, injustices, and injuries have come upon us.  We cry to God and lament the fact that mean-spirited people hold their sway over us.  Where is God in the midst of so many terrorist attacks? 

Where is God when the lives of too many people have been victims of sexual harassment?  Where was God in the presence of the hurricanes in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico?  Where is God’s wrath and justice when the poor continue to be oppressed by the rich and powerful in so many parts of our world?

Advent is a time to see the world for what it is, to acknowledge the mess things are in, to recognize our own failings, failings caused by our own indifference and apathy.  Yet, at the same, Advent is a season of hope and expectancy.  Please God, Advent can be a beautiful gift that allows to take time out to clearly see we need a Savior and in our hearts to listen to His voice within us.  We need God to come among us and set us back on the right path for living on this planet with each other, as the Lord Jesus intended we should.  And, of course, Christmas is the celebration of the fact that God has done just that.  In Christmas, He has given us His presence, His power, and His love.

We have so many questions we put to God.  But did you notice that Jesus has a question for us?  He has an expectation of us.  He asks:  Where is your faith?  He asked, when He comes again in glory on the Last Day, will He find any faith on earth?

In the first Scripture from the prophet Isaiah, the prophet uses the beautiful imagery of clay in the hands of the potter to describe God’s unending love for us.  God never stops working us.  We are like the clay in the hand of the potter.  When there is a crack, God can reshape us.  During Advent, we are invited to think about our human weakness, not so as to become sad or depressed, but so that we can be filled with wonder at the way God chooses to save us.

Going back to the question, Jesus is asking us:  Where is your faith.  Our faith is to surrender ourselves, to trust that we are clay in the hands of the potter.  In shaping us, God will shower us with love and will reconcile us to Himself.  Our faith leads us to the hope and the joy that Jesus will share His merciful love with us.

In this Advent season of conversion, Jesus calls us to be alert to God’s unexpected appearances in our lives.  Yes, God is already working and active in our lives. Our task of discipleship is to be alert for the signs of God’s presence in our moments of prayer and in the ways we serve one another.  This Advent alertness and watchfulness enables us to celebrate the coming of Christ in Bethlehem and in the inn of our hearts.

Be watchful! Be alert to the spiritual center that is within each of us.  To be alert is to pay attention to that which matters in life, paying attention to the relationships of our lives, paying attention to our relationship with God.  Within us, there is a deeper longing that never goes away.  It is the longing for love.  It is the longing to experience the mystery of God’s love in our life.

Be watchful – God is with us.  The light of Christ shatters the darkness of our world.