ABVM PARISH COMMUNITY

You can actually keep any New Year’s resolution you make. You really can! The proviso is that it has to be inspired by God. Something you know that God wants you to do, here and now. If he wants you to do it, by that fact you know that it will be possible. “For nothing will be impossible for God” (Luke 1:37). God will never ask you to do something which you cannot do. He will never ask you to fly to the moon or to swim across the ocean. He will not ask you to feed all the hungry of the world or to end the scourge of war. There are things that God will ask – some big, some small, some difficult, some easier – and he will ask with confidence, because he knows that with his help you can do it.  Years ago, I would have told you that I could never become Catholic. But then one day I found myself saying, while sitting in my care outside of the office where I worked, “I have to become Catholic.” This was a big step for a WASP* like me, with strong evangelical leanings.

The evangelist Matthew indicates that “magi from the east” travelled to Jerusalem and from there were directed to seek the “newborn King of the Jews” in Bethlehem. The magi were stargazers and likely of a priestly class in Persia, well-educated, clearly having a knowledge of other cultures and religion, and because of their learning and position of prominence are referred to as “Wise Men” in some English translations of the Gospel. They were the first among the Gentiles to offer homage to the Savior of the world. The occasion of the Solemnity of the Epiphany, which celebrates their visit, made me think about the Christians of the Middle East who live today in decidedly non-Christian environments, which are often hostile to the practice of their faith. As you know, the birthplace of Christianity is the Middle East. The beginning of the Church was initiated by God through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles gathered in the “Upper Room” in Jerusalem, on the Jewish fea

Pope Francis issued a decree on December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, dedicating the year following, until the same date in 2021, as a “Year of St. Joseph” in observance of the 150th anniversary of the declaration of St. Joseph as the Universal Patron of the Church by Blessed Pope Pius IX. The Holy Father remarks in the Apostolic Letter announcing the occasion, Patris Corde (“With a Loving Heart”), that after our Blessed Mother Mary, no saint is mentioned more frequently in the papal magisterium than St. Joseph. Pope Francis gives the reason for deciding to dedicate the year to St. Joseph: “My desire to do so increased during these months of pandemic, when we experienced, amid the crisis, how ‘our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people, people often overlooked. People who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines, or on the latest television show, yet in these very days are surely shaping the decisive events of our history. Doctors, nurses

Thanks be to God that we will be able to celebrate Christmas Masses in person. Christmas is one of the two highest ranked solemnities of the liturgical year, with only Easter preceding it in rank and in history. I look forward to it with great anticipation. At the same time, I know that it is important for everyone to consider carefully how they will celebrate this great feast. For most of you, Christmas Mass is an essential component of your festivities. This is as it should be, for Christmas is the celebration of the Word made flesh, the birth of the Son of God to a human mother for humanity’s salvation. There is something essential missing in any celebration of Christmas which omits Christ and his blessed Mother. Christmas exists so that we might be saved from our sins. The Son of God became the Son of a woman so that he could offer himself in sacrifice on the Cross, and through his Church give us his Body to eat and Blood to drink in a mystical feast. He said,

John was born approximately three months before the birth of Jesus. He was a cousin of Jesus but did not know him personally before they met as adults. According to the evangelist, “The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his manifestation to Israel” (Luke 1:80). His parents lived in Ein Karem, a hillside village outside of Jerusalem. John’s father Zechariah was a priest, which would make John a priest also, but there is no reason to believe that he exercised his priesthood in the Temple as his father did at times. John probably moved into the wilderness region of Judea to live alone when he began to discern his calling as a prophet. Before that he may have been a member of the Jewish sect located in Qumran, which followed a strict monastic rule. This community is famous for the Dead Sea scrolls, which it hid in caves from an advancing Roman army around A.D. 70, and were discovered in good condition by a Bedouin shepherd boy in 19

Every day we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” Perhaps there is nothing harder about God’s will to accept than the hour of our death. Yet every day we invoke the Blessed Virgin Mary and ask that she “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” We say it so often that one would think that we were looking forward to it! And yet, when we think of that hour we naturally recoil. In a sermon “On Man’s Mortality” the Church Father and Martyr, Saint Cyprian, notes, “How unreasonable it is to pray that God’s will be done, and then not promptly obey it when he calls us from this world! Instead we struggle and resist…not freely consenting to our departure, but constrained by necessity. And yet we expect to be rewarded with heavenly honors by him to whom we come against our will!” Some look forward to death when the pains and sorrows of life become burdensome. Others look forward to it because it is a passageway to God, like Saint Paul