1. My pastor, Father Tony, likes to remind people when Christmas comes that Jesus decided to come as a baby in a manger.

    The Roman Empire was strong and spread widely throughout the known Mediterranean world. Jesus could have come as the son of noble birth, royal blood. He could have come as someone who had all the means to communication that one would need for getting a message to be spread far and wide effectively. But he chose to come as the son of a carpenter and a very young virgin. He chose to come as someone who was poor.

    We often spend our time trying not to become poor. And I also don't mean to say that there aren’t certain things that help show the dignity that we have as human beings. But we don’t like to face poverty. At this time of year, though, poverty sometimes seems to find us.

    I went to grab lunch with a friend of mine; this friend is a deacon and was wearing his clerics (black shirt and white collar) that day. We grabbed some fast food, sat town to eat inside the restaurant, and then left after about 15 or 20 minutes. On our way out the door, one of the employees grabbed the door behind my friend, and said, “Excuse me. Would you mind saying a prayer? It's just my family, and were in a lot of trouble…”

    His eyes welled up with tears, and his shoulders sagged low, as he began to tell us about the difficulties he is having providing for his family right now.

    My friend replied, “Why don't we pray right now.”

    After a brief prayer, the man thanked us and went back to work.

    As we anticipate the coming of Christ, we will hear much about the story of salvation. And the golden thread that seems to hold the story together is that in poverty we find hope.


    It was the poor boy born to a simple family who was the hope of the world. It was the poor shepherds who saw the star that were the first to see God's face. And it was the poor to whom Jesus time and again reached out to comfort, heal and strengthen.

    If only we are able to convey to those who are in such need the love and hope offered them in Christ who is coming, what a Christmas it shall be.

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  2. I will be away for the coming weeks on pilgrimage to Israel. Please pray for safe travels. God bless!

    http://embassies.gov.il/houston/calendar-of-events/PublishingImages/Jerusalem%20Skyline%20Photo.bmp
    http://cdn.i24news.tv/upload/image/JerusalemWesternWallDomesmall.jpg
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Bethlehem_-_Stern_von_Bethlehem_in_der_Geburtsgrotte.jpg
    http://carta-jerusalem.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Bethlehem-16.jpg

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  3. Of all the sites to visit at our nation’s capital one of the most powerful and often-visited places in Washington, DC is a cemetery.
                                                                 
    The sight of the 300,000 graves at Arlington National Cemetery, white tombstones standing at silent yet perfect attention is a hard one to forget. Many people also witness one of the two-dozen burials and interments that occur daily. Yet even the lines of gravestones and monuments to those who fought do not match the attention that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier garners.

    Atop a hill overlooking the city sits a heavy, white sarcophagus in which is interred one American soldier from World Word I. The inscription on the back panel reads: “HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD.” So much attention is given to this unknown person, this mystery.

    We give similar attention to the mystery of Christmas. We decorate our homes and churches and wait for this unknown Christ to be revealed, a mystery that we probably still won’t fully understand the day after Christmas.

    No. We’ll celebrate Christ, and maybe we will even be renewed in our faith or inspired as families, or whatever, but we still will not fully know who God is. We will gather up our shredded wrapping paper, put away our nativity scenes, go back to work, and leave our Christmas trees on the fronts of our lawns or in dumpsters. It’s over. Back to Ordinary Time.

    We do that so often in life. We go to pray and then don’t feel God present. We ask for healing but receive no miracles. And even though we so often think that we are not finding what we seek, we come back. Like the millions of visitors to the unknown soldier, we come back to the mystery of God.

    Proverbs 3:5 reads, “Trust in God with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.”

    I wonder if that is what is so attractive about the unknown: that we are being called to go beyond what we can know or can grasp on our own. Rather, we are asked to admit our limitation—how good that truly does feel to admit, too—that we cannot understand or reach God on our own. We need him to come to us.

    And that’s the power of Christmas. God did come. And he saved us.
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  4. It’s here: Advent, a new liturgical season; an end and a beginning.

    We are at the end of a year. The fall has fallen, the cold is rushing in, and soon enough we will begin writing “2015” on checks, papers and holiday family photos.

    But it’s also the beginning. It’s the beginning of a new Church year. New missals and hymnals are in the pews. We are back to the beginning of Breviary prayers, and weekly and Sunday readings.

    As usual, where opposite things meet, there is often wisdom to be found.

    On the one hand, we have an ending. Endings allow things to fade, to go, to die. Just like the crops in the fields and the flowers in the garden, things around us are ending. This is a natural part of life. But how often do we allow “deaths” to occur in their natural times in our lives?

    Is there a grudge you carry that needs to fade away? What fear are you holding onto that should pass? What bad habits or ways of living daily, ordinary life should just die? Maybe this is the time.

    It may especially be so because we also have a beginning. Advent brings anticipation of the coming of Christ to us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that “Christ's whole life is a mystery of redemption” (CCC 517). The Son of God was born of Mary in the world that God himself could enter into the very real things of our lives. He was born so he could begin entering your life and my life in profound ways, to help us find life to the full. “By his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man” (CCC 521).

    A wise spiritual director at the seminary often asks seminarians at the beginning of Advent, “Where do you want the light of Christ come into your life this Christmas?” Then, he suggests that we ask God to come into that part of us every day as we move toward the moment of Incarnation—where the Light comes to us personally in Jesus Christ.

    So, it’s the end of things and the beginning of things. Where do you want to find an ending? And, where do you want the Light to shine anew in your life?


    “For everyone who asks, receives.” Matthew 7:8

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