A Family At Prayer

 “The family that prays together, stays together.”

This well-known saying was coined by Fr. Patrick Peyton. He grew up in a very devout Catholic home in Ireland. During his youth, he prayed the rosary every evening with his parents. It was clear to him that the love in his home was a direct result of the time they spent as a family every evening in prayer.

When Fr. Peyton was studying for the priesthood in the United States, he contracted tuberculosis. In hopes of recovering so that he could continue with his studies for the priesthood, Fr. Peyton began praying a novena to Our Lady. In the course of that prayer, his tuberculosis was miraculously cured. From that point, he decided that he would dedicate his priesthood to spreading devotion to Our Lady. In particular, he would promote the prayer of the rosary within families so that they could experience the same warmth and togetherness in their homes as he did throughout his childhood.

Father Peyton’s insight that prayer keeps families united in love is also supported by science.

We are probably all familiar with the statistic that half of all marriages end in divorce. However, only 1 in 50  couples that are married in church and who attend Mass every Sunday end up divorcing. When a couple introduces prayer to their home by praying the rosary or other regular devotion, that number drops to 1 in 1,150. Imagine that. Simply by praying as a couple and with your children, you can significantly increase your chances of having a loving, emotionally fulfilling and successful marriage. The family that prays together does indeed stay together.

Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. They were certainly a family that prayed together. In today’s gospel, we learn that they traveled to Jerusalem every year for the Passover. Jesus felt so at home in the Temple that He called it “my Father’s house.” It is clear that Mary and Joseph passed their faith on to Jesus because His knowledge even impressed the teachers of the Law. And it was in their humble, faith-filled home in Nazareth that Jesus “advanced in wisdom, age and favor before God and man.” The Holy Family was a family that prayed together.

If our families are going to be strong households united in love then prayer must be an integral part of our homes. Husbands and wives, are you praying regularly for one another and your children? Young people, do you join in willingly and are you attentive when your parents say grace before meals or sit by your bedside to pray with you before you go to sleep? If grace and bedtime prayers are not yet a part of your daily routine, today’s feast in honor of the Holy Family is a great day to change that. When you bring God into your everyday lives as a couple and as a family, you can expect to see many blessings as a result. It is so simple. Why put it off any longer?

Along with praying together every day, coming to Mass together as a family every Sunday is critical. Gathering together with people who share the same faith as we do, hearing God’s word and being nourished by the Bread of Life makes us grow as individuals and as a community. God’s wisdom sinks into us, penetrating our hearts and enlightening our minds. We begin to see things as God sees them. Our worries and concerns become less intense because we begin to trust that our Heavenly Father has everything under control. In turn, that trusting attitude makes our homes less tense and more playful. Coming to Mass every Sunday chips away at our pride and self-centeredness making parents more attentive and children less rebellious.

Along with praying together, families should also be learning about their faith together. Our religious education should not end when we are children or at our confirmation. Rather, we should consider ourselves life-time students of our faith. None of us ever get to a point at which we have learned everything there is to know about Jesus, the Church or the Bible.

A good practice would be to spend some time on Sundays talking about the readings at Mass. Along with talking about how the readings spoke to us, we could also talk about what we might not have understood. Perhaps, we could even make a list of our questions and work together to find the answers on reliable Catholic websites or by speaking to someone who is more knowledgeable. Working together to grow in our knowledge of the faith as a family will help children learn that the faith is something we should be devoting our whole lives to learning more about.

Of course, no family is perfect. It happens that even families who go to Mass every Sunday and pray at home run into trouble. Prayer is not a guarantee that bad things won’t happen to us or that tragedy will never strike. However, prayer helps families weather the storms of life. It gives us courage to rise above the challenges we face and the perseverance to work together to solve them rather than allow them to tear us apart.

Prayer also helps families to find healing. Many single parents find their daily time of prayer with their children is a way for them to connect and find peace in the midst of a hectic life. Divorced parents find in prayer healing for their hearts and the confidence to believe that they are loveable and that their life is worthwhile no matter their marital status. Prayer helps those who have lost a husband or wife to continue to feel connected to them. It also helps parents who have lost children to find the strength to bear their unimaginable grief. Prayer might not always change the circumstances we face but it does change us so that those difficulties do not break us but help us to grow in wisdom and grace.

Father Peyton once said, “Countless families the world over invite Mary to their homes through the family rosary. She comes. They sense her presence. They solve their problems because where Mary is present there is Christ, her Divine Son.” Our homes are meant to be places of peace where we can retreat from the noisy, hectic world and connect with those who love and accept us unconditionally - our family. When we welcome Jesus into our homes through daily prayer, our families become that much more loving and joyful. When Jesus has a place in our home, we too become a holy family. 

Revolutionary Families

Do you want to make a difference in the world? Do you want to change society for the better? Do you want to leave your mark on history? Then be a good father or mother.

Study after study shows us and common sense confirms that children make out better in life when they are raised in a stable home with a loving father and mother. The unconditional love of a mother keeps them emotionally stable throughout life. The discipline of a father gives them the tools they need to be successful in school and in work. There is no better place than the home for a child to learn the faith, taking after the example of his or her parents to love God, to serve neighbor and to live with his or her ultimate goal of reaching heaven. No other institution in society can shape and form children better than families can. And when families fail, the community as a whole suffers because of it.

Because the family is the most fundamental building block of both the Church and society, we serve the world best by being good fathers and mothers. There is no other role we can undertake to better the world that is more effective or more meaningful. There is no other job that is more consequential to the future of humankind than that of a father and mother.

God understood this when He created us. He gave women and men a nearly irresistible attraction to each other and gave them the power to cooperate in creation by uniting in love to bring forth children. When He sent His Son, Jesus, to be born for our salvation, God understood that He would need a family to grow in wisdom, age and favor as Saint Luke tells us in today’s gospel. If Jesus needed a family, then we certainly also need one.

And so, on this beautiful feast day, we look to Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the Holy Family of Nazareth, for inspiration. They lived out perfectly what God intended marriage and family life to be.

Consider, first of all, Saint Joseph’s great faith. When He discovers that his fiancee, Mary, is pregnant, he trusts the angel’s revelation to him that it is through the Holy Spirit that she is with child. He surrenders all his plans to accept Mary as his wife. There must have been times when he felt he had let them down. It must have torn him up inside that the only place he could provide for Mary to deliver Jesus in was a stable. When they fled to Egypt to avoid Herod who threatened to kill the child, he must have wondered what he had gotten himself into. Yet courageously, he protects Jesus and Mary. While in Egypt, he must have struggled to find work in a land where he did not know the language or customs. But out of love and a strong commitment to his family, he found a way to make it work through God’s grace. He is an example to all fathers that, no matter what circumstances they may find themselves in, God will provide if they remain faithful to their wives and loving to their children.

Secondly, Mary is the premiere example of what it means to be a wife and mother. Though her pregnancy was certainly unplanned, she accepted and loved the child growing within her. Though it must have been uncomfortable for her to travel all the way to Bethlehem on a donkey when she was so close to giving birth, we do not hear one word of grumbling or complaint from her. Likewise, she accepts that a stable is the best that Joseph can do. There is another interesting piece to the gospel story that often goes unnoticed. When it is time for the Holy Family to flee to Egypt, Joseph is the one to receive the message from an angel in a dream. Then, when it is time for them to return to Nazareth, again it is Joseph who receives the message in a dream. When Joseph told Mary it was time to go, she could have said to him that she did not feel like moving again. She could have said, “When angels start talking to me in dreams, then I’ll go.” Instead, she humbly places herself under Joseph’s protection, trusting him to do the right thing. She did not act this way out of weakness or out of fear of her husband. She did it out of love both for him and for her child. She also did it out of faith that God would provide for them all.

Finally, Jesus is an example for all children. Though He is God, he placed Himself under the care of human parents, Mary and Joseph. He obeyed them trusting that they loved Him. If Jesus obeyed his parents, then children must certainly obey theirs!

It is very tempting as a child to think that your parents do not understand what you are going through. It is tempting for you to believe that you know better what is good for you than they do. However, your parents were once your age. Though the world has certainly changed, they experienced just about everything you are going through. They know what it’s like, and they only want the best for you. God has given you your parents to take care of you and guide you through life. Accept what they have to tell you and obey them because they have your best interest at heart. God promises that whoever obeys his parents -  not only when he or she is a child but even into adulthood - will have a happy and successful life. When it is hard to obey, pray to Jesus that He will teach you and strengthen you. With so many things in today’s world that can harm you, it is more important now than ever that you listen to and obey your parents.

Of course, not everyone is blessed with happy marriages or stable homes. We can never forget parents who struggle to raise their children alone or young people who feel trapped in negligent and abusive homes. The Holy Family of Nazareth can help them as well. God wants every home to be happy and every child to be successful. Therefore, we can trust that He will provide for all our needs if we turn to Him with faith and with a heart ready to commit to our families no matter what the cost.

It is vital to our success as a nation and central to our work as a Church that every family be a place where Jesus is found. Like the Holy Family of Nazareth, if we place Jesus at the center of our home, our success and happiness will be assured.

The Holy Family

Today's gospel reading, the finding of Jesus in the temple, is the last word we hear about Jesus until he appears on the banks of the Jordan River to be baptized by John. From the time he is twelve until he turns thirty, the gospels are silent about his life. These twenty years are called the "hidden years" because Scripture gives us no details about the life of Jesus during that time. What little we do know is summed up at the end of today's gospel: He lived in Nazareth. He obeyed his parents. And he "advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man."

Though we have few details about their life together, the Holy Family of Nazareth - Jesus, Mary and Joseph - have served as a model of what the Christian family is meant to be. Like most families, they lived ordinary and unremarkable lives. We can presume that they worked, shared meals together and prayed. As a good Jewish family, they would have attended their local synagogue and made pilgrimages to the temple in Jerusalem. It was in this simple, uneventful home, however, that Jesus, our Savior, grew and was formed into the man who would one day shoulder the burden of our sin, die on a cross and rise from the dead. It was in these humble and simple surroundings that this great man spent most of his life on earth.

Most of us, like Jesus during his hidden years, are not called to do remarkable acts of charity or heroism. Rather it falls to us to live simple and humble lives with our families. Whether we are parents or children, we grow in age, wisdom and grace through the joys and trials of our everyday lives. We learn the beauty and power of God whenever a new baby is born into our families. When the anxiety of paying bills or dealing with illness mounts, we grow in trust of our Heavenly Father who always makes things work out for our good. By doing our chores around the house cheerfully and with love, we learn about serving others. At family gatherings, we learn to be patient and kind by biting our tongue whenever our cranky uncle starts talking about politics or our teenage cousin double dips his tortilla chip into the salsa. Each family, no matter how imperfect, is a temple where we can find Jesus present and a school where we can learn the ways of God.

It is for this reason that prayer is so important for family life. We need to acknowledge that Christ is at the center of our lives as a family and to remind ourselves that our home is a holy place. One great way to do that is by having our homes blessed. Whenever we bless something, we are setting it apart for God, we are declaring that it is holy. By blessing our homes, we are saying that our home life is consecrated to God the Father, that it is now under his protection and that his word will be the guiding principle of our family life. Another vital way of bringing prayer into our homes is by making it a point to say grace at every meal, even when we are eating in a restaurant or have guests over. Grace at meals teaches us to be thankful for what we have and to be mindful of those who go without. It also sets a tone for the meal, making the behavior and conversation at the table more courteous and serious. No matter how we choose to do it, prayer is vital to family life so that we may have the strength to deal with the pressures of modern life and to help us recognize God's grace working in small and subtle ways in our home.

It should not surprise us that Jesus, the sinless one, obeyed his parents, Mary and Joseph. As children in catechism we learn that obeying our parents is our first duty. No doubt, whenever we went to confession, disobeying them was at the top of our list of sins. We learned that God gave our parents to us to protect us and to teach us. As imperfect as they may be, our parents are the first to introduce us to our faith and our primary models of what it means to live a Christian life. For this reason, the fourth commandment - Honor thy father and mother - is the first one which deals with our responsibilities to our neighbor. And it does not expire when we turn eighteen or move out of the house. Rather, God intends that we love and honor our parents throughout our lives, especially when they are older and most need our attention and help. Older people in our society increasingly feel that they are a burden to their families and that their lives lack meaning and purpose. They need our affection in their old age more than ever. All of us have much to learn still from our parents no matter how old we are. Most especially, teenagers and younger children need contact with their grandparents and older relatives  so that they can learn their family history and grow in their sense of personal identity. Along with prayer, honoring our parents as Jesus did is one of the pillars

of a strong family life.

Like Jesus, each of us is called to grow in age, wisdom and grace through our family life. As children, we are called to honor our parents as the ones given to us by God to teach us. As parents, we are to recognize that our children are gifts from God, entrusted to our care, so that we can nurture them into strong followers of Christ. There has perhaps been no other time when family life has been under so much pressure. We see the effects of our weakened moral climate and a difficult economy all around us. Divorce has touched just about every family in one way or another. Now more than ever it is time for us to turn to God for strength to make him the cornerstone of our homes so that the strains of modern life will not break our families. We should also turn to that model of simple faith and humility, the Holy Family, and ask for their prayers to help us follow their example in our lives. Then our families, no matter how broken or imperfect, will be holy temples where we find Jesus, a safe place for children and a school of love and faith.

Holding The Baby Jesus

Shortly after his ordination, a young priest got the assignment he had been dreading - teaching at a Catholic high school in the inner city. This school had a reputation for being very tough and he knew he would have his hands full.

From the first day of school, the young priest discovered that the school’s reputation for being tough was well deserved. The students were all underprivileged, inner city youth who were hardened by the reality of life on the streets. They frequently misbehaved and acted disrespectfully to the teachers. It was almost impossible to get through an entire class without one of the students causing a disruption.

There was one student in particular who really gave the young priest a hard time. During religion class, he would ridicule the Catholic faith and call into question whatever the young priest said. He would often interrupt the lesson blurting out, “It’s the 21st century. You can’t expect anyone to believe that!” The young priest tried hard not to hold a grudge against the student and prayed that his heart would become open to God’s love for him.

Just before the students left for their Christmas break, the young priest decided to end the class with a prayer service. Drawing their attention to the manger scene with the baby Jesus, he asked them all to go up to the statue, one by one, to offer a silent prayer. Once they had done that, they could leave the classroom for the day.

The young priest was amazed. It was the first time the students ever sat silently for more than ten minutes without anyone causing a disruption.

One by one, the students stepped up to the manger scene and bowed their heads in prayer. Finally, the only people left in the room were the priest and the student who had given him the most trouble. The young priest thought the student would just get up and leave without going up to the manger scene. However, he walked up to it and,  weeping softly,  bent over to kiss the baby Jesus.

This story speaks powerfully of how the baby Jesus can reach out to and touch even the hardest of hearts. Who does not love a baby? Can a heart be so hardened that it cannot be touched by the sight of a helpless, innocent infant?

On this Christmas Day, we celebrate God made man in Jesus Christ. He came among us as a baby so that we would not be intimidated by Him. He came among us in the humblest and most vulnerable way possible so that we would know how much He loves us and how much He desires that we love Him in return.

Like those students, let us look at the manger scene. Let us look upon the God who became a baby for us. Let us rejoice in the God who loves us so much that He sent His Son not only to be born for us but, ultimately, to give His life on the cross. Let us bring to Him our joys and our sorrows, our good works and our sins, our victories and our heartbreak. Because He is a man like us, He understands them all. Let us take this baby up in our arms and hold Him close to our heart. All He wants is to be loved.

Our hearts may not be as hardened as were the hearts of the students the young priest had to deal with. However, we all are carrying secret burdens. We have been treated unfairly and have been overlooked. We have been made fun of and made to feel that we are not important. There are times when we may have felt that we were left out. Or we might be carrying a crushing burden of guilt and shame over bad decisions we have made. We may have come to believe that we are no good and can never have a relationship with God.

It was precisely for the brokenhearted that God sent His Son into the world as a child. It was precisely for sinners that Jesus came. As Saint John tells us, He came as light to lead us out of darkness. God so desperately wants to reach us that He took the extreme measure of becoming a baby so that we could know just how much He loves us.

That is why we rejoice this day. We are not only commemorating the birth of the baby Jesus two thousand years ago. Rather, we celebrate His continued presence among us. Saint John tells us in today’s gospel that “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” In other words, God moved into our neighborhood. He became our neighbor. So great is His desire to be our friend that He moved next door so that we could get to know Him. 

He continues to be present and active among us. We find Him in those who need our love. He continues to speak to us in His word, the Bible. His Body and Blood are given to us at every Mass. We can still encounter Jesus. Just as on that first Christmas Day, He wants nothing more than that we accept Him into our hearts and love Him.

We hear God’s promise spoken to us in today’s gospel: “To those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God.” God not only wants to be our friend, He wants to be Our Father. He wants us to be His children. So great is the intimacy He wants with us.

This can be the Christmas that changes us forever. All we need to do is embrace the baby born for us this day and welcome Him into our hearts. Then our lives will never be the same.

Christmas Wonder

There is no other time of the year that captures our imagination the way Christmas does. No matter how old we are, the child within us gets caught up in the lights, the images and the all around wonder of this season. Everything around us seems charged with electricity and all our senses are heightened. We want to absorb all the sights and sounds of Christmas and feel the buzz of this special time of year.

Where do all the images and stories of Christmas come from? From the Bible and, in particular from two of the gospels - Matthew and Luke.

Matthew tells the story of Jesus’ birth from Joseph’s perspective. In a dream, he learns that the child Mary is carrying is the Son of God. And so, he takes Mary to be his wife and commits himself to safeguarding the child Jesus. From Matthew, we hear the story of the Magi who come from the East following the star to offer gifts to the newborn King of the Jews. Through that gospel we also learn how Herod wants to kill the child and how Joseph must take his young family into Egypt until the ruler dies.

Luke, on the other hand, tells the Christmas story from Mary’s point of view. She learns from the angel Gabriel that she will give birth to the Messiah. The story of how they must travel to Bethlehem to enroll in the census also comes from Matthew along with how there was no room for them in the inn. The manger scenes in our homes showing the baby Jesus lying on a bed of hay with animals surrounding him comes from this story in Matthew. Finally, angels appear to shepherds watching their flocks under the light of the stars and they come to join the scene.

And so we can thank Saint Matthew and Saint Luke for these beautiful images that come to mind whenever we think of Christmas and the birth of our Savior.

This morning we listened to the story of Jesus’ birth from the gospel of Saint John. If Saint Matthew told the story from Joseph’s perspective and Saint Luke from Mary’s perspective, we can say that Saint John tells the story from the perspective of heaven. There are none of the sentimental images in it that we typically associate with Jesus’ birth. Rather, Saint John takes us all the way back to the first day of creation when God brought the world into being by the word of his command. In fact, Saint John tells us that the child born today is that Word through whom God brought the world into being. The images that come from Saint John are not those of a child sleeping in a manger being serenaded by angels. Rather it is the image of the powerful voice of God thundering through the universe bringing all things into being.

Saint John wants us to be clear about one thing. The child born this day is not just a sweet, innocent child. He will not grow up to be just an important man or wise teacher. No. He is God. As such, he demands not just our admiration but our adoration. He demands not only our affection but our total obedience.He demands not only that we celebrate his birth once a year but that we live for him every day of the year. This child is our King, our Savior and our Lord.

In the beginning, God’s first words were “Let there be light!” Saint John tells us that the Christ Child is “[t]he true light, which enlightens everyone…” This day God is inviting us not only to celebrate the birth of Christ but to step into the light. In the baby Jesus, God is offering us nothing less than himself. He demands that we respond by giving nothing less than our very selves to him.

We cannot live without light. It helps us to find our way, to avoid danger and to tell one thing from another. When we are in darkness we feel lethargic and depressed. We have to feel our way along hoping not to fall over hidden obstacles. During these cold, dark days of winter, we can feel especially sad and miserable because of the diminishing hours of sunlight.

With the birth of the child Jesus, God is inviting us to step into the light of his truth and love. He is challenging us to turn our back on the darkness of sin and confusion and to walk in the way his love marks out for us.

It can be a scary thing to step out of the darkness and into the light. Often, we prefer the darkness. We are afraid that the light will expose our flaws and imperfections. We do not want the illusions, fantasies and denials that we use as a crutch to help us deal with life to be taken away from us.

However, something wonderful happens when we find the courage to step into the light. We discover that the darkness which we thought was covering up our negative qualities was also hiding much of our goodness. As we allow our weakness, flaws and imperfections to be exposed to the light, we also discover that God loves us just as we are. We do not have to earn his love or try to impress him or anyone else. In fact, we learn that we are loved precisely because we are weak and vulnerable. Finally, we discover that we cannot be good on our own. We desperately need a Savior to help us to walk in the light, to be healed and to be transformed. That Savior was born for us on this day.

Saint John challenges us to put aside the sentimentality that can so often cover up the true meaning of this Christmas day. He challenges us to turn away from the darkness and step into the light which the Christ Child brings into the world. Will today be the day that you give your life to Jesus? Will today be the day that you live as a child of God? Will today be the day that you learn what it means to have a Savior and to have your life transformed by his grace and truth? That is the only way that this day will be a true and fitting celebration for the birth of the Word who made the universe and “sustains all things by his mighty word.” That is the only way that we will discover for ourselves the true meaning and lasting impact of His birth for the history of our world.

God's Search for US

Christianity is unlike any other religion.

Other religions claim to offer a path to finding God. By following a set of principles or repeating various rituals, they claim to reveal knowledge about God. It all starts with the individual who takes the initiative to look for a Deity who is hiding either within themselves or out in the world somewhere.

Christianity is vastly different. It is not about our search for God. Rather it is about God’s search for us. Our Heavenly Father is the one who takes the initiative to look for us. We do not have to search high and low to find a God who is hiding from us.  He already knows us and wants a relationship with us. To find out the truth about God, we do not have to rummage through libraries piecing together information about Him. Rather, He has revealed everything about Himself to us through His Son, Jesus Christ.

We learned this beautiful mystery of God’s love and concern for us from our Jewish brothers and sisters. Consider the story of Adam and Eve from the book of Genesis. When they had succumbed to the serpent’s temptation, they did not run to God to ask for forgiveness. Rather they hid. It was God who went into the garden to look for them, crying out “Where are you?”

The same is true for each of us. If we were to be honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that the story of our lives is not that God has been hiding from us but that we have been hiding from God.  The good news is that it is never too late for us to emerge from the bushes, cry out “Here I am”, and let God find us.

Today’s beautiful feast reminds us in striking fashion how God takes the initiative in searching for us.

Consider what happened in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago. This God who created heaven and earth, who has existed from all eternity who dwells in blinding light, was born a poor baby. Why? Because He wanted us to know Him. He wanted us to see and touch Him. He wanted us to be able to hear His voice. But most importantly, He wanted to be loved by us.

Our second reading from the letter to the Hebrews touches on this mystery. God revealed Himself in the past through the law and prophets of the Old Testament. He sent human messengers to teach us about His love. However, on Christmas day, He sent His Son, the image of His glory. This Son is the one Word unveiling the mystery of God. When we look at Jesus, we see God Himself. When we hear Jesus, we hear God Himself. Our Heavenly Father is no longer hiding. Rather He is among us in the person of Jesus Christ.

Consider also the life of Jesus. Since He was the one with all the knowledge of God and who possessed the power to heal, He could have simply stayed in His home in Nazareth and waited for people to come to Him. There is no doubt that they would have come in droves. But He did something different. He went throughout the countryside seeking out the lost. He went to the seashore and found fishermen to follow Him. He went through the city streets looking for tax collectors and prostitutes to share God’s love with. Finally, He went to Jerusalem where He made Himself an offering for our sins on the cross. He did it all so that every obstacle keeping us from God could be cleared away. He did it because He loves us and He wants us to love Him in return.

The purpose of our lives, then, is not to find God but to let Him find us. It means stopping in the tracks of our hectic lives so that God can catch up to us. It means turning off the television, computer and radio so that we can hear Him calling out to us. It means clearing out all the clutter from our lives so that God can find a place to sit and be with us. It means taking our focus off all the small and petty things that take place every day so that we can look up and see His hand reaching out to us.

Consider this as well. God is love. We are not searching for love, then. Love is searching for us. God gives meaning to life. We are not searching for meaning, then. Meaning is searching for us. God is Truth. We are not searching for Truth, then. Truth is searching for us. If in the secret of your hearts you are longing for love, meaning our truth, then know that it is God calling out to you. All you need to say is, “Here I am, Lord.” and let Him do the rest.

God is not far from us. He is not hiding or playing games with us. Rather He is among us. He has made Himself known through Jesus Christ and the Church which He founded. We hear Him speak in the Scriptures and we touch Him through the mystery of the Eucharist. His love is near to us. This feast of Christmas proves it. The wait is over. God has visited His people. Let us rejoice and be glad.

A Child Is Born For Us Today

There is nothing like having a baby in the family, especially during the holidays. Family gatherings are that much more enjoyable when there is a baby in the house. We take so much joy in cuddling with the little ones, in seeing their smiles and hearing their laughter. Babies have a way of lighting up the whole room with delight. For many of you, this will be the first Christmas you share with your own newborn or with a grandchild. These days will be unforgettable for you because of it.

The joy of this Christmas night centers around the birth of a child - Jesus Christ. This baby brought joy not only to one family but to the whole world. For over two thousand years, Christians have celebrated His birth. Today, all over the world, Christians are gathered just as we are to hear the story of how He came to be born in Bethlehem in a modest stable. He comes into the world just as all of us did - naked and helpless. But He is unlike any other child who has ever been born because He is God made man.  And so, throughout history, this has been an unforgettable day, a day of great celebration and joy. The eternal and all-mighty God is made man in the baby born in Bethlehem. God is now truly with us.

Some babies are expected and planned for. When the mother becomes pregnant, it is no surprise and is met with great joy.

Just so, the birth of Jesus was expected. His coming had been foretold in prophecy throughout the Old Testament. In today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah we read, “For a child is born to us, a son is given to us….” In another place, Isaiah prophecies, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which means “God with us” (Is 7:14). The prophet Micah wrote: "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times” (Micah 5:2). From ancient times, the people of Israel had been expecting the birth of their Messiah. Jesus’ birth was expected and planned for from the beginning of time for the salvation of the world.

Some babies, however, are unexpected. When the mother becomes pregnant, it is met with surprise and sometimes even shock.

Just so, in some ways, the birth of Jesus was also unexpected. Who would have expected a woman as humble and unassuming as Mary to be the mother of the great King of Israel? Who would have thought that the Savior of the World would be so poor that He had to be born in a stable? And who could have expected that the Messiah would be God made man? For all the prophecies foretelling His birth, no one could have expected just how generous God was. No one could have expected that it was the Son of God Himself who would be born of a virgin.

With the birth of Jesus Christ, God reveals a profound truth. He wants to live among us. He wants us to know Him and love Him. He wants to truly be “God with us” - not a God who is off somewhere in the distance looking down at us from beyond the clouds. In the baby born in Bethlehem, God stoops down to relate to us on our level and to enter into relationship with us.

Two-thousand years since His birth, Jesus is still here among us. There are places we can still expect to find Him. Through the mystery of the Blessed Sacrament, He is present in every tabernacle in every Catholic Church throughout the world. Whenever we go to Mass, we can expect to hear Him speak to us through the Scriptures. When we go to confession, we can expect to have our sins forgiven by Him. In prayer in the silence of our homes, we can have confidence that He is with us and that He hears us. These are all ways that Jesus Christ - the love of God made visible - continues to be “God with us”.

However, there are also many unexpected ways that we meet Jesus. We might find Him in our own suffering or anguish giving us strength to endure and the grace to find meaning in it all. We might find Him in the suffering of others as we reach out to comfort them. He might confront us in the poor who reach out to us for food or money. God is always seeking us out because He loves us and wants to befriend us.

Christmas is a time for us to reflect on all the ways God reaches out to us - both the expected and unexpected ways. The more we open our hearts to Him in the expected ways - through reading the Bible, attending Mass, going to confession and prayer - the more we will recognize Him when he comes to us in unexpected ways.

“I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.” Let us rejoice in this day, then, brothers and sisters because God has come among us as a baby who wants nothing more than to be loved by us. To welcome Him, however, we need to make some changes. To recognize Him when He reaches out to us through others, we must rid our hearts of all selfishness. Then this will be a day of lasting joy that will give us strength “as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ.”

Jesus Born Into Our Busy World

 It is good for us to be here today. It is good to step aside from our busy preparations – to put aside the shopping, the cooking and the decorating – and to focus on the reason for Christmas – Jesus Christ. It is good for us to sit quietly, away from the bustling and noise of the world outside, to spend time with Jesus whose birth we celebrate this day.

The night when Jesus was born would have been much like today. Bethlehem was a busy place. Because there was a census underway, people from all over Israel and beyond came to town to enroll. All the inns were filled to capacity.  Families were opening their homes to distant relatives whom they may have been meeting for the first time. The streets were packed with people looking for a place to stay and a warm meal. All over town, innkeepers and restaurant owners were doing a brisk business eager to take advantage of the influx of cash these visitors brought. Bethlehem was buzzing with commerce and celebration.

However, in all the bustling and noise,  the most important event of all was taking place in a dirty stable on the outskirts of town. The Messiah, the king of Israel, was being born. However, there was no room for him. No one made any time from their busy schedules to take notice. No one broke away from their parties to celebrate the birth of the one who would save them from their sins.

We gather here today like the shepherds who heard the glad tidings of the angel that the Savior of the World could be found in a manger. We've come here today to hear for ourselves the good news of his birth proclaimed. Through the miracle of the Eucharist, we receive him who was born for us. In a wonderful way, the child born for our salvation gives himself to be our food. He comes to make his home in our hearts. Out of love, we come here to make room for him who had no place to rest his head.

We gather here today like the Wise Men who left their homes to offer their gifts to the newborn King of the Jews. Just so, we offer him our lives pledging to put into action the love and humility he showed through his birth. Along with the bread and wine, we offer our good works,  sacrifices,  struggles and even our weakness and failures. We do that in honor of the Christ child who so loved the world that he was willing to be born in the humblest of circumstances. So much so, that he was willing to go hidden and unnoticed.

Why have we left our homes, our parties and our preparations to gather in this place today? Because our hearts yearn for something more than all the parties and all the presents in the world could ever give us. We long for God. We long for the joy that can only be found in him. We long for his peace which is so easily drowned out by the bustling noise of the Christmas season. We long for Jesus and we know that we can find him here in a place hidden from the hectic pace of the world outside.

The challenge for us now is to learn to discover him present and at work in the world around us. The angel tells Joseph that Jesus is" Emmanuel", which means" God is with us". He is with us always and can be found anywhere, not only in church. Just as his presence was hidden in a stable in Bethlehem so his presence is hidden in the world today. We can find him wherever people are neglected, abandoned or alone. We find him in nursing homes where the elderly will spend this night alone with no one to visit them. We find him in hospitals among the sick who will have no one to comfort them. We find him in young people who have  no one to listen to them and who feel alone even in their homes. We find him in the working poor and immigrants who will be spending Christmas day away from their families sweeping floors, washing dishes or scrubbing toilets. We find him at our office party in the arrogant coworker who covers up his insecurity and fear by getting drunk and acting obnoxious. If we cannot see Jesus in these little ones we cannot see Jesus at all. If we cannot make room for these people, we cannot make room for Jesus.

God has not abandoned us. Through Jesus, he has made his home with us forever. If we do not see him it is probably because we are looking in the wrong place. The people of Jesus day did not expect the Messiah to be born in a stable. Perhaps we do not expect to find him in those the world considers to be losers and rejects. But he is there waiting for us to find him. Just as he is here offering himself to us.

If Jesus is not real to you, if you have looked for him and not been able to find him, then ask God to send you an angel to lead you to him. He wants to be found by you. He wants you to know him and to love him. Even more importantly, he wants you to know how much he loves you, enough to die on a cross for you. But be prepared! This angel will come to you at a time you will not be expecting and in a way you could never imagine. God is a God of surprises. So if we really want to see and meet Jesus then we will have to keep our eyes and ears open and our hearts ready.

God is real. He lives among us. "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of goodwill"

Unplanned Pregnancy - Unplanned Joy

Who does not get excited to see a baby? Who is not thrilled to hear that someone in the family is pregnant? Who is not moved by a small child’s innocence and beauty? Whenever we see an infant it is natural for us to gush with affection. Babies bring so much joy and hope into our world.

Today’s gospel speaks of two women who are filled with joy because of the children they are carrying in their wombs. The older woman, Elizabeth, is very old but pregnant with her first child. All her life she was considered cursed because of her inability to conceive. Her neighbors probably whispered behind her back speculating about what sin she may have committed to be so abandoned by God. Now after years of prayer and far past her natural ability to bear children, she is blessed with a son. It is clearly a miracle and cause for rejoicing.

The other woman, Mary, is much younger - a mere teenager. Her life is turned upside down by the appearance of an angel declaring to her that she will be the mother of the Savior. The announcement confuses her and fills her with dread. What does it mean? How can it even be possible? However, once the reality sets in and it becomes clear to her that the angel’s words were true, she too becomes filled with joy and exclaims, “God has done great things for me!”

Both women, Elizabeth and Mary, despite their differences are signs of hope that God can do the unexpected and the impossible. And it starts not with vast armies, not with political maneuvering and not by awesome displays of power. Rather it starts with two babies conceived in silence and carried in the wombs of two humble women.

Our life of faith both as individuals and as a Church is much like the exchange we see between these two women in today’s gospel.

Like them, none of us here is famous or influential. For the most part, what we do or say in the course of a given day goes unnoticed. Yet there is a light of faith we carry around within us that is explosive enough to set the world on fire. We received it at our baptism, we nourish it through prayer and the sacraments and we put it to use through our good works. Just as Mary carried Jesus in her womb we carry Him in our hearts through faith. It may seem impossible that the God who created the universe dwells within us and works through us. However, with God all things are possible.

Many of us are like Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. We can often feel that we have been abandoned by God. We can wonder why our Heavenly Father has not answered our fervent prayers. We may ask ourselves what it is we could have done to deserve having to suffer silently for so long. However, like Elizabeth, we should take courage. God has a plan. He wants to do great things in and through us. If he has delayed in answering our prayers it is because He has something in mind that is greater than we could ever hope for or imagine. We can only wait patiently as His plan unfolds, the way a pregnant woman waits patiently for her child to be born.

As we reflect on the joy that babies bring us, we should not forget one reality.  Not all women welcome the news that they are pregnant with delight and exuberance. For many women, discovering they are going to have a child brings with it fear, shock and sometimes even embarrassment. Depending on their situation, they may worry about how they can afford another child, what it will mean for their jobs or how their parents will react.

Mary and Elizabeth have something to say to these women as well. As amazed as she was at her pregnancy, Elizabeth must have also worried. Being an older woman, what would the pregnancy mean for her health? What effect would it have on her aging body? Once her child was born, how would she have the energy to get up in the middle of the night and chase him around in the middle of the day? After being childless for so long, what would having a son to look out for mean for her marriage?

To some extent, Mary’s situation is much the same for many young women in our society. She was not married when the angel announced to her she would become pregnant with Jesus. What would it mean for her relationship with Joseph? How would she explain it to her family? It was perhaps because of these questions that Saint Luke tells us she “made haste” to make the trip to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, in the hill country.

As a people who value life, we should always make haste to help women who find themselves in difficult pregnancies. Not only should we not judge them or gossip about them, we should make real efforts to give them what they need to settle their fears and welcome the gift of life growing within them.

We can always turn to Mary. She understands every situation a woman and mother could find herself in. She knows what it is to have a difficult pregnancy, to have her child be lost for three days, and to have her child be killed. We can be assured that she understands and that she will pray for us.

We often say when a woman is pregnant that she is “expecting.” As a people of faith and hope, we are also expecting. We are waiting with joyful hope for the coming of our Savior. We are living with eyes wide open in search of His presence among us. In just a few short days we will celebrate His birth with adoration and gladness. God is within us and among us just as He promised. Let us bring Him into the world, despite the difficulties, so that everyone may share our happiness.

Make Haste

When we hear today’s gospel being proclaimed, two words should stand out to us - “in haste”. Mary traveled IN HASTE through the hill country of Judah to visit with her cousin Elizabeth.

Why is Our Lady in such a hurry? Her cousin is only six months pregnant. There are still three months before she will need Mary’s help with her delivery and with taking care of her infant. Why would Mary make it a point of rushing to be with her?

The answer is found in the words of the angel Gabriel when he announces to Mary that she will be the mother of the Messiah. As a sign of God’s mighty power, he says to her, “And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived^* a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary knew that Elizabeth was well beyond the years when she could become pregnant. When she heard the angel's words, she must have wondered to herself, “Can it be true? Can my cousin who has longed for a child for so many years finally be pregnant in her old age? And if she can become pregnant well after her childbearing years, then isn’t it possible that I can become pregnant even though I am a virgin?”

Mary traveled in haste to the hill country of Judah to see for herself God’s promise being fulfilled. The angel offered her a sign - that her cousin was pregnant in her old age - and Mary, with full confidence that the word spoken to her was true, went to witness the miracle for herself. Not only does she go to see God’s mighty work in action but also to celebrate with Elizabeth the wonders God had worked in their lives.

Somehow, Elizabeth is aware that Mary is carrying within her the Messiah. Perhaps the Holy Spirit revealed it to her. In any case, she says to Mary, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” Though it is impossible that a virgin or an old woman can become pregnant, Mary believed that God could make it happen. She believed that God kept His promises. And so, she made haste to witness for herself God’s mighty deeds in action and to celebrate His faithfulness.

Advent is a season for recognizing and celebrating the fulfillment of God’s promises. He promised the people of Israel that He would send them a Messiah and, true to His word, our Savior Jesus Christ was born. He promised to free us from our sins and Jesus died on the cross to make that happen as we hear proclaimed in today’s second reading from the letter to the Hebrews, “...we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” He promised to give us eternal life which was accomplished through the Resurrection of Jesus. And, at our baptism, He promised to give us all the graces we would need to live as His sons and daughters.

How have God’s promises been fulfilled in our own lives? How have we experienced God’s comfort when we were grieving? How have we experienced His strength when we have been tempted? How have we experienced the joy of His presence? How has He answered our prayers? How have we been transformed through His word and through the sacraments?

Each of us should “make haste” every day to call to mind and be more aware of God’s presence and action in our lives. Every day He is fulfilling His promise to be by our side and to provide us with what we need to serve Him and to live an abundant life. Not only that, we should “make haste” to recognize God’s mighty work in our brothers and sisters and to celebrate with them God’s faithfulness to His promises.

The great preacher, Bishop Fulton Sheen once said that there are three answers God gives to our prayers - “yes”, “ no” and “wait”. No doubt there are those here today who have not received the answer to prayer that they expected. Perhaps we have prayed for a loved one to be healed and they continued to suffer. Perhaps we have prayed for our children to return to the faith and that has not happened. Perhaps we have asked God to give us or a loved one a child and we continue to be disappointed. In such situations, it is natural for us to ask why God seems to have forgotten or even abandoned us. Why hasn’t God listened to us or been quick to fulfill His promise to answer us when we call?

For those of us who seem to hear nothing from God except for “no” and “wait”, the need to trust is even greater. We can never know why God chooses to answer “yes” to some prayers and “no” to others. However, we must never lose hope that He has a plan and that His plan is better than ours. Nothing happens without God either doing it or allowing it to happen. Because God loves us so much, whatever he does or allows to happen is for our good. Unfortunately, we cannot always see what good will come from what we suffer but we have to trust that God knows. That trust will keep us from falling into despair or giving up altogether.

Mary can help us. Though she witnessed God’s promises being fulfilled in powerful ways, there must have also been times when she wondered what He was up to. One of those times would have been during Jesus’ crucifixion. Yet she remained faithful, continuing to trust in God’s promise. If we call upon her, we can believe that she will make haste to bring our petitions before the throne of God. If God’s answer is “no” she will make haste to comfort and encourage us. If God’s answer is “wait”, she will wait by our side. And if God’s answer is “yes” she will be there to celebrate with us the great wonders God has done for us. 

Road Map To Joy

 Who of us would not want to be more joyful? Who of us does not want a heart that is cheerful and peaceful?

Advent is a time for us to renew our joy in the Lord. In today’s second reading, Saint Paul gives us a step-by-step guide on how to have more joy and peace in our hearts.

The first thing Saint Paul tells us is: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again: rejoice!” In telling us to rejoice, Saint Paul is teaching us that joy is a decision. It is not something that happens to us. It is not an emotion we feel when everything is going our way. Rather, we decide to be joyful. No matter what is going on around us, no matter what we are feeling inside ourselves, we take on a joyful attitude because we believe this world is good and because we believe God is good.

When things are not going our way, when we are hurting and when we can’t imagine how things could get any worse, we can still choose to be joyful. This doesn’t mean that we ignore or deny our real sadness or anger. Rather, our joy is an assurance that God will bring good out of whatever difficulties we are facing. Joy is not an emotion we feel but a decision we make to believe that life is good and worthwhile because God made us for a purpose.

The next thing Saint Paul tells us is: “Your kindness should be known to all”. We experience joy when we are kind to others. Our hearts are made to love. There is no better way to fill our hearts with joy than to be generous.

Many of us have had the experience of feeling down in the dumps or out of sorts. We look for some way to make ourselves feel better by indulging ourselves. Though we might feel better for a time, the empty feeling inevitably returns. Sometimes we can get stuck blaming others for our sadness and we can become resentful. However, when we stop focusing on ourselves and reach out to others, we find our attitude changing. We might volunteer at a soup kitchen or visit a friend in the hospital. Knowing that we have made a difference in someone’s day fills us with joy. It is when we decide to be kind to others - not when we wait for others to be kind to us - that we find joy.

Saint Paul goes on to say: “The Lord is near”. Our joy is ultimately rooted in God and His love for us. When we realize how near He is to us, how He holds us in love and mercy throughout the day, we cannot help but be joyful.

Joy ultimately comes from reflecting on God’s love for us. That is why we can be joyful in any situation. No matter what happens to us, God is near. Often He is steering us clear of danger and trouble. Still, when He allows evil to happen to us, we know that it is so that He can bring good out of it. This is also why no one can take our joy away from us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Therefore, nothing can take joy away from those who are convinced that the Lord is near.

Finally, Saint Paul says: “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.” Now, Saint Paul is not speaking here about the kind of anxiety and depression that people with mental illness experience. Rather, he is talking about the worries we face in our day-to-day life. When we are consumed with worry, it can often rob us of our joy.

Saint Paul encourages us to offer our worries up to God. If there’s nothing we can do about a situation, God can handle it. It might not go the way we’d prefer, but we can rest assured that we’ll be okay in the end because God is in charge. This is a decision we make in the face of life’s challenges to believe that our Heavenly Father will always provide for us.

When we make our prayer to God, we do so with thanksgiving. There is no room for bitterness in a heart that is grateful. The more we stop during the day to count our blessings, even if it is just to thank God for the rain that nourishes the plants, joy takes root in the core of our being. We are reminded that life is good and we are reassured that everything will turn out fine in the end. Cultivating a heart that is mindful of God’s many blessings goes a long way to making us joyful people.

Pope Francis has made joy a major theme of his pontificate. In one of his daily homilies, he said

The Christian’s identity card is joy, the Gospel’s joy, the joy of having been chosen by Jesus, saved by Jesus, regenerated by Jesus; the joy of that hope that Jesus is waiting for us, the joy that - even with the crosses and sufferings we bear in this life - is expressed in another way, which is peace in the certainty that Jesus accompanies us, is with us.

During Advent, we express our faith that the Lord is near. This reality fills our heart with joy. It is a joy that the world cannot take away because it is rooted in the faithfulness of our God who loves us unconditionally. Confident in the love and goodness of our God, let us be thankful and let us be kind. Then our joy will be known to all and begin to spread into a world that is hungry for hope.

If we do that, this Christmas will be a time of real joy for us - not the sentimental, nostalgic kind that the world settles for - but true joy which rejoices in a God who became man so that He could be near us.

Enduring Joy

If there is one emotion which we associate with this holiday season it is joy. We feel joy as we gather with family and friends to celebrate. Our faces light up as we remember the Christmases of our childhood. Even all the bustling about to plan parties and purchase presents can be fun. The holiday spirit takes over and carries us along.

However, that spirit of holiday joy is fleeting. For most people, it gets packed away with the garland, tinsel and mistletoe. After the festivities end, we feel let down. As the days get colder and darker, our spirits dampen. The joy that pervaded our holiday celebrations becomes a distant memory.

To our worldly understanding, joy is just an emotion that wells up within us when we are celebrating with people we love. Like any emotion, joy comes and goes. It gives way to other emotions such as sadness or anxiety. In some ways, we have no control over it. If the conditions are right, we will feel joy. It depends on the circumstances around us rather than on any decisions we make or any attitudes we foster.

The joy that God wants to give us - the true joy of Christmas - is something altogether different. It is not based on whether we are with people we love or whether everything is going our way. Rather it is rooted in God who never changes. It is a joy that does not depend on the time of year or the weather but on the love of our Heavenly Father which is like a sun that never sets or an endless summer. Ultimately, joy comes from the knowledge that we are always in the presence of our God and that His love will never fail us. As we prayed together in today’s responsorial psalm, “Cry out with joy and gladness; for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.”

Christian joy, therefore, is not a passing emotion like happiness or sadness. Rather, it is a decision to live our lives mindful of God’s presence and love. It is a choice we make every day to focus on God and not on ourselves. That is why Saint Paul can command us in today’s second reading, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again; rejoice!” If joy were an emotion, it would make no sense for Saint Paul to command us to be joyful. It would be like ordering us to be ashamed or gleeful. However, because Christian joy is a decision, we can make a choice to be joyful every day.

To experience the joy that God wants to give us - the true joy of Christmas - we must first cultivate an attitude of gratitude. Everything we have is a gift from God. Even that which we earned from hard work and smart choices is only possible because God has given us health, strength and intelligence. Once we recognize that all we have comes from a good God, we will let go of our sense of entitlement that tells us that we deserve more than we have and that others are out to get us. We stop taking the people who love us and their daily acts of kindness for granted. Instead of focusing on what is lacking, we become aware of all the blessings which surround us and support us every day. A grateful heart naturally radiates joy.

Once we cultivate an attitude of gratitude, we will then become more generous. Because we recognize everything we have as a gift, we will want to share it with others. We will want to imitate the generosity of our Heavenly Father. As Saint John the Baptist urges us in today’s gospel, “‘Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. And whoever has food should do likewise.’” When we give to others, our joy multiplies. We feel glad that we are able to make someone else’s life better. Just seeing the smile on a sick person’s face when we visit the hospital or a teenager’s face light up when we give her a compliment is enough to build up our spirit. This holds true especially when we give until it hurts. The more we give of our time, energy and money the greater sense of joy we will have as we begin to witness God providing for us and bringing good out of the sacrifices we make.

As we make the decision to be more joyful, we will naturally experience more peace. Saint Paul reassures us that if we find our joy in our Heavenly Father, “...the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard [our] hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Where does anxiety come from? Isn’t it the fear that we will not be prepared if something bad happens? Isn’t it the worry that we will not have what it takes to rise to the challenge and that others will notice and think less of us? However, when our focus shifts from ourselves to God, we live with more of a sense of His presence and love in our lives. We trust that He will provide for us no matter what may happen. And we begin to care less about what others think. When that happens, worry and anxiety naturally melt away and there is more room in our heart for the joy that God wants to give us.

These four weeks of Advent are a time to prepare for the celebration of Christmas by remembering that God is present among us. Jesus was born to bring God into our lives and to reassure us that we are loved and cared for. The true joy of this season can be ours even if we are mourning the loss of a loved one, looking for work or experiencing the break up of a relationship. It can be ours not only during the holidays but all throughout the year. The secret to this joy is simply to focus on God’s presence in our lives, to make the decision to be thankful and to share what we have with others. Then Christmas will not just be a one day celebration but a way of life for us.