Fr. Greg

Okay, this is new! You have a “guest columnist” this week – it’s Deacon Mike. Father Greg had the idea of having his deacons write a column once a month. Time will tell how long Father Greg will pursue this risky venture, but he did select an appropriate week to start – this Monday kicks off National Marriage Week. The National Marriage Week initiative was launched by laypeople in 2010 to pay respect to the beauty of marriage and to honor all spouses for their faithfulness and sacrifices.

Happy Catholic Schools Week! This week we celebrate the gift of Catholic education. There is a proverb, “A falling tree makes more noise than a growing forest.” In the midst of a world of lots of noisy falling trees—bad news, troubles, etc.—we can easily miss all the good going on right before us, a true growing forest. Catholic education is a growing forest as our young people soak in learning and formation and grow into faith-filled, mature young adults before our eyes under the tutelage and care of our most dedicated teachers and staff.

January 22 is the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children, the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. The Church encourages us especially these days to pray for life. I include a couple of prayers I found on the USCCB’s website you might like. Let’s pray for a deeper respect for life in every heart.

 

Peace,

 

Heavenly Father, thank you

for the precious gift of life.

In some recent homilies, especially Christmas and Epiphany, I used some space illustrations to lead to some theological points. My starting illustrations were the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope on Christmas Day, which by the way all has gone very well with that mission so far, and the fact that scientists say the universe has no center. I won’t go into any detail about those things here other than to say when you learn about them, it fills you with a sense of awe at the mysteries of our enormous universe.

 

The Archbishop’s Call to Share (ACTS) kicks off this weekend. This is an annual appeal to fund many important ministries of the Archdiocese that we could not do alone as a single parish. It is the equivalent of our annual parish stewardship which funds our parish ministries, except this appeal funds Archdiocese-wide ministries which benefit us and many others (see examples below). I know our 2022 ACTS goal is increased, but I don’t have the exact number at this time.

Merry Christmas, Happy Epiphany, Happy New Year and Thank You! Thank you for all the cards, gifts, goodies, and prayers you have given to me! We continue to celebrate our Christmas season, especially this Sunday with the Epiphany. We also enter a new year of 2022. Have you made a New Year’s resolution? I’ll save you the trouble of googling it—below is a list from a Nielsen survey from a few years ago of the top ten most common resolutions and what percentage of people make them. Of course, I have to add my own commentary to it. :)

 

Merry Christmas! The angels sang at that first Christmas, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:14) I pray you too experience peace in these days. At the Christmas Eve Masses, you likely will hear the Midnight Mass readings which include a first reading from the Prophet Isaiah that gives us this gem line:

 

For a child is born to us, a son is given to us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:5)

 

On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, as we draw near to Christmas, let’s become cave people! Not Neanderthals or “Complain About Virtually Everything” (CAVE acronym) people, but people of the cave at Bethlehem, the crèche, the nativity scene! If you visit Bethlehem, the traditional site of the birth of Christ is a cave. Caves are common in the rocky area of Bethlehem, and people used them as we use our barns, to house their animals. So it is quite probable that the nativity scene was indeed a cave.

 

In our Gospel, the crowds asked John the Baptist, “What should we do?”

First, rejoice! Christmas is less than two weeks away from this Sunday and this is Gaudete Sunday! “Gaudete” is Latin meaning “rejoice”, and we light the rose/pink candle (ours has some pink ribbons around the base).

 

This second week of Advent is a powerful one. In our Sunday Gospel, we meet St. John the Baptist and hear his preaching. On Monday, we celebrate St. Nicholas. On Tuesday, St. Ambrose. Then on Wednesday, Dec. 8th, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary—a holy day of obligation. But also on December 8th, we conclude the Year of St. Joseph.