Pray To God Today

One of the hardest things to define is what makes a family a family and who belongs in it? Is it your relatives by blood? Your friends who you choose? Your immediate family? Your community? There are many definitions of what a family is and how people identify to and with a particular family. Yet, each family will have its fun and laughter, unique traditions, its sufferings and fights, its deaths and births. The Holy Family is of no exception. From the very get-go of the family, they were faced with struggles and suffering, with joys and surprises. They are a family that experienced much that you and yours experience too.   They were a family who’s lives were marked by; great surprises, and tribulations. Visited by shepherds and magi, being refugees to be safe from evil and killings. The Holy Family had a rough start. However, we find the key to their holiness written in the letter from St. Paul today. In writing his letter to the community in Colossal, St. Paul writes t...

It is pretty amazing as Catholics to celebrate Christmas. We remember that the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the King of Kings, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace came down from heaven and became a human child.  “The time came…” the Gospel says, for the long expected king of the world to take on human flesh. So often we forget that our faith is rooted in that little child born in a manger over 2000 years ago and not based merely on some philosophical idea. We have a faith rooted in a historical event in which salvation took on flesh. Today, as we remember Christ being born in that manger, we must recall too that in doing so, he experienced  the full human experience. He was born, dependent on others, crying and hungry. In his life he experienced pain and happiness, friendship and betrayal, loneliness and inclusion.  He shared our journey; he experienced the joys and the darkness that is in the world. But he came to dispel that darkness, that sin and des...

Every year I always find I get the song, ‘ White Christmas’ stuck in my head, especially the jazzy version done by Michael Bublé. Of course this wonderful song rings all the louder in my head as the snow gently falls on a cold winters day. For me, it simply wouldn’t be Christmas without the snow on the ground and being frozen to my core. I am always dreaming of a ‘white Christmas’, and the wonderful time of year it is.      As we celebrate the fourth Sunday of Advent, we are focused on the role, response, and figure of Joseph. Here is a man who has not a single word spoken in the entire bible, who works as the silent protector of the Son of God. In todays gospel, Joseph had decided to divorce Mary, since she was with a child that was easily known not to be his. Divorce in that time was as easy as writing a note and presenting it to the woman's father. As he had just made up his mind, an angel of the lord intervened in a dream and changed his life.      ...

Th e season of Advent is that four week journey in which we remember the threefold coming of Christ. We look to the past, and are reminded of the physical reality of his birth– that our faith is rooted in reality and not some philosophical ideology. We look forward to the future with the second coming at the end of days, when the promise of the risen Lord is fulfilled. Finally, we look to the present moment, when gathered as a community of faith, Christ becomes truly present in the Bread and Wine we eat and drink. The Gospel for the second and third Sunday of Advent is always about John the Baptist and his essential role to “make straight the path” before the Lord comes. The first reading offers us a description of the Lord who comes, he is the one who has wisdom and understanding, who has the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the power of bringing fear of the lord. He is the mighty one, the righteous one, the peaceful one. He is the king of the universe who c...

As we enter the final week of the semester assignment and essay due dates are just around the corner. It becomes a hectic time of the year in which it seems like we quickly run our of time for everything. And so all our assignments, essays and studying happens the night before the due date or exam day. Today we begin a new year in the church. We will begin to hear proclamations from the Gospel of Matthew. Written for a Jewish community around 85 AD, the Gospel of Matthew situates Jesus in line with the great prophets of the past, especially Moses. Today, we hear Jesus speaking of the unexpected events of old and of the future. The  great flood, he reminds the disciples, was unexpected by the people of the age.  Noah, the great man of God, was made known of it, and built the boat. So to, the second coming of Christ is unexpected– it will catch us off guard and we will only realize it while it happens. As we wait for the second coming, the Gospel tells us,  we should b...