Dear Friends, 

I am sorry for the lateness of this homily from yesterday, but if you weren’t with us yesterday, reading this now before the Christmas Eve liturgy today, beginning at 4:15 P.M. with the singing of carols, you will find it a very good lead-in to tonight’s homily. 

And if you can’t be with us tonight, I wish you and your family near and far the best of what Christmas brings to all of us–peace, love and joy! May you find these gifts this night and throughout the 12 days of Christmas in perhaps surprising and wonderful ways. It is good to remember that just as the Magi had to travel  and search for the Christ Child, we too much search…

My love to each of you,

Pastor Kathy

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My friends, three years ago; I used this homily and finding this week, except for a few time-sensitive comments, it was still quite appropriate and being that I needed to do two homilies this week, I thought, you would be OK with hearing this one again!  A question for each of us to ask today on this 4^th and last Sunday of Advent might be:  “Just what was God up to in the Incarnation?  I invite you to think about the anticipation of a long-awaited event—the coming of special guests—family or friends at this wonderful season of the year, a new baby, job, home.  We have all been in one or more such times of waiting, and have experienced the almost palpable excitement for things to start.  That was our grandson Elliot’s reaction yesterday when he saw for the first time, all the presents under our tree, “I can’t wait!” And that is where we find ourselves too, today, on this 4^th Sunday of Advent—on the threshold of something great! The Gospel for today tells us that, “Mary proceeded in haste to see Elizabeth!”  She didn’t know exactly what this visit with her aunt would mean; only that she needed to go!

This reading from Luke, along with the others we just heard, bring together the major themes we have looked at during the season of Advent:  promise, repentance, transformation and joy—and now we are on the threshold of entering into that joy.  A purely human manifestation for me that we are almost there comes each year when we put up our Christmas tree and decorate our house. We always do that about a week before Christmas and then, for me at least; we are at the point of having the preparations move into a special place. The quiet waiting is over–the joy is becoming palpable.  Family begins to gather and gifts start to show up under the tree—a manifestation of the felt love of family and friends.

So what is all this joy really about? What was God up to in the Incarnation?  Today’s readings show us clearly that Jesus, the Christ was born into ordinariness, if not abject poverty.  He appeared incarnate the first time in a backwater town, Bethlehem—the only other notable inhabitant up until that time had been David and no one of any import is known to have followed Jesus. Micah speaks of the “smallness” of Bethlehem out of which this long-awaited event will happen!  That should tell us a great deal about the man we Christians say we follow—not in greatness did he come, but in lowliness—a great sign of what his concern throughout his short life will be and what ours must be as well.

In today’s Gospel, we see Mary, a young maid, going to help her matronly aunt, who like Mary is with child.  Nothing unusual here, except for Elizabeth being pregnant in her later years.  Young girls would often go and help older family members.  But certainly there was more to God’s plan than this.   The two growing babies recognize each other from the sanctuaries of their mothers’ wombs. We catch the excitement through the Gospel words, “When I heard your greeting, my baby leapt in my womb for joy!”

Our loving God probably knew that in an unbelieving world where others would doubt the truth of what each woman proclaimed; they would need the affirmation and support of each other to confirm what each knew had happened within her as a response to her faith and trust in a loving God. This is what Mary’s “blessedness” proclaimed by Elizabeth is really all about—Mary’s faith and trust in a loving God—and that this same God would be faithful to her—her Magnificat shows her to be a woman of strength. In addition, we are presented with Elizabeth, both women to truly emulate in our own lives.

Another question that we might ask:  “Why does God choose the ordinary to show us the divine?”  It might be to direct us back to God wherein all is possible; thus in simplicity; we can see greatness.  We talk a great deal here about seeing Jesus in the everyday events of our lives and the point being, if we miss him here; we may miss him altogether! If it is a problem for us, seeing greatness in the simple, the ordinary, maybe it is because we insist that the divine has to come in loud and flashy ways, rather than through the ordinariness of life: through babies at their mothers’ breasts, through children playing, through moms and dads, and grandparents, through young and old, through all the professions represented here as we go about our daily tasks to make our world better.

The readings today insist that the Incarnation comes to the most ordinary among us and all that is required from us is an openness to do God’s will—a willingness to answer God’s call.  The reading from the author to the Hebrews states that this willingness to answer God’s call and do God’s will was the motivating force in Jesus’ life. The words of Scripture, “God, here I am, I have come to do your will” confirms this for us.

Jesus is proof that God doesn’t want our sacrifices, holocausts, or sin offerings.  What God wants is our open and willing hearts.   Such was Mary’s heart in her “yes” to God as was Elizabeth’s in welcoming Mary into her home.  In the actions of both of these women, they welcomed into their hearts and into our world, the long-awaited Messiah.

And when did we ever need a messiah more than now as our country grieves the loss of so many these past years to gun violence.  Six years ago when these same readings were shared; we were newly grieving the loss of 26 children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT—hoping that the deaths of 6 year-olds would finally cause our country to do something to take guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. We may be now on the cusp of some much needed change to keep our people safe with the coming new leadership in our Congress.

The examples of Jesus, Mary and Elizabeth in our Scriptures today should give us a great deal of hope even in the face of the violence which we haven’t as yet got our arms around, but finally are making some progress through the voices of our youth who have clearly said, “Enough!”  If we follow their examples, the prophets of our Scriptures of old and of today, then each loving action we personally do in faith says that the Incarnation has taken place—that Jesus lives within us and by extension then—in all of God’s people.

I believe that what God was really all about in that original Incarnation was to come among us, be one of us, to show us how to be our best selves. I say “original” because you see friends, the Incarnation continues today if we allow it to.  It has been said, we need to give birth to Jesus in each time and place because each time and place needs God to come into our existence in ways that we can understand.

In the Incarnation, Jesus lifts us all up.  We are told that in the face of weapons such as are being used in these mass shootings, those immediately affected, could do little.  But in our daily lives there is much that we can do—advocate for stricter gun laws and allocate funding to adequately assist those with mental illness.

Additionally, when we contemplate the Incarnation and all that it means; we must as a Church realize the travesty it is for us to ever, in any of our Catholic churches, deny people access to the Eucharist.  We then effectively stop the Incarnation from happening in those lives.  We, each of us, are the conduits for God’s presence to be felt in our world—we have an awesome responsibility to welcome all and work for the good of all, think immigrants and especially the most innocent in our midst, as evidenced in our Scriptures today.

A final point that I think it is important for us to meditate on today, given our Scriptures, is the case of Mary and what it was like for her to be found with child in the society in which she lived.  Elizabeth addresses her as “blessed among women.”  Probably many in her neighborhood, if truth be told, gossiped about her and some even shunned her for what they felt was only too obvious.  It couldn’t have been easy for her—Scripture doesn’t tell us—but her family may not have believed her story—even Joseph didn’t at first.  After all, it was quite a fantastic story when one thinks about it—pregnant by the Spirit of God—carrying the long-awaited Messiah!  At the very least;  there was ridicule and shunning.  At the worst, a woman could be stoned in the streets for carrying an illegitimate pregnancy.

But our sister, Mary wasn’t a remote, supernatural being, but a flesh and blood human that came to be called “blessed” through her willing response to God’s call.  Feast days like the Immaculate Conception remembered on December 8^th serve only to remove Mary from the flesh and blood human that she was who struggled just like all of us do.  If Mary was without sin, perfect, in other words; she wasn’t human, and if she wasn’t human, then what does that say about Jesus?  Our God never had any problem with our imperfection—she/he, made us that way.  In fact, last weekend, the Scriptures told us that our God “Sings joyfully about us!”  These are the Scriptures we must remember and forget the messages about Jesus’ only purpose in the Incarnation was to save us from our sins by his death on the cross.  We must remember that he “lived” for us too, to show us how to live and to remind us, because we seem to often forget, that we are loved mightily by our God!

We stand now on the threshold of something great as we remember at Christmas time once again that divine love became more fully present in our world through Jesus, the Christ. We assure that divine love will continue in our world if we give birth again and again to Jesus through our lives.  Every time we try to be more understanding, more merciful, more gentle, more kind, more just; when we strive to see the divine in each other, even the most seemingly wretched among us—then and only then, do we incarnate Jesus once again into our lives.

I believe my friends, this is what God was all about in sending Jesus to begin life in poor and humble surroundings, to live a life that wasn’t about glitz and power,  in order that we would know that each of us can be instruments of God’s love, peace and justice in our world. This is what we celebrate each year at Christmas time—the promise and the possibility of love born again into our world. Amen? Amen!

My friends; we are at the mid-way point in our Advent journey, actually more than mid-way as Advent, due to this year’s Church calendar, will be shortened—it all depends on where the first Sunday of Advent falls.   But this Sunday in the Advent cycle is always special—we know it as “Gaudete” which is Latin for “rejoice.”

So, it is good at this point to look back and see some history.  After the Second Vatican Council, with all of our liturgy being updated so that it made more liturgical sense, the traditional color of Advent was changed from purple to blue in order that we would change our thinking of Advent as a time of penitence to a time of quiet waiting.  The color blue is in deference to Mary, our mother and sister, a true woman of strength and patient waiting.  The tone then was intended to help us prepare, yes, but less in a penitential way and more in a way of quiet, yet joy-filled waiting.

Advent calls each of us to patient waiting as well, to being people of strength, willing to walk in our brother Jesus’ footsteps when it is easy and when it is not so easy, as his earthly mother did.

Sometimes we get set in our ways and are unwilling to change as some of the Catholic churches that still use purple and pink candles on their Advent wreaths, protesting that, “We like it the way that it was, without being open to a new way of thinking.  The old way may seem more comfortable, but this isn’t about being “comfortable” but about being “meaningful.” The beauty of the Catholic church’s liturgy has always been in its rituals, its signs and symbols pointing to a greater truth—a richer idea than what is at face value.

Vatican II taught that the season of advent should not be looked at as a time of penance and sadness, indicated by the liturgical color, purple, as we use for Lent, but one of joy and patient waiting indicated by the liturgical color, blue.  The white candle used on the Advent wreath is the color for “joy”—one could use the color pink or rose  as I have done with my stole and the drapes in our liturgical space—as rose is also a color for joy.

The liturgical colors and Scriptural readings are meant to align and when they do, what the prophets are trying to convey to us have a much better chance of doing just that! All the readings for today are about joy, about seeing our God as one of love, not someone that we should fear.

The prophet Zephaniah, in the first reading proclaims that we should, “Shout for joy, that we “should sing joyfully because God is in our midst.”  And not only this, but that, “God rejoices over us with gladness, renews us in love, and sings joyfully about us!” Both the psalm which is from the words of the prophet, Isaiah and Paul’s letter to the Philippians are about joy as well.   So, if we were to use the traditional color purple, which indicates a time of penance, it just wouldn’t fit!

Some churches still use the color purple for their Advent waiting and I can only guess it’s because they are still objecting to the changes of Vatican II or they just don’t understand the purpose behind the signs and symbols that are so beautiful within the Catholic church and give us the tone to strive after with each liturgical season.

For those who were at Mass last week or may have read my homily for the 2^nd Sunday of Advent, you know that I spoke about the seeming, “wrongness” of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception because it does not convey who Mary was—a strong woman, willing to speak truth to power as she does in her Magnificat, but is instead a diversion in that understanding.  We would do better as a Church to rename the feast, “Mary of the Magnificat” to truly uplift who she was. In her joyous testament of faith, she proclaims the God of her heart who was not only her Friend, but who became her Lover, her Child, one who would bring justice to the land, tear tyrants from their thrones, and lift up the lowly. So, if we were ever looking for a mystery—there it is!  That is the reason we are singing the “Canticle of the Turning” in today’s liturgy as it is a modern version, post Vatican II that indeed raises up all these traits which are more the truth about who Mary was. This sung canticle is a marching song for proclaiming the good that God has done and continually does through us.

That is also why a Church hierarchy comprised of only men is all wrong.  These men don’t speak for women, nor do they know what to do when confronted with a strong woman. They tend to want to put them on pedestals and when these women persist in asking, “why,” as God wants all of us to do when confronting the Scriptures; and injustices in life, the hierarchy burns them at the stake or excommunicates them! How would our Church be if all the God-given gifts were uplifted?  Just as using the wrong liturgical color is a diversion from the truth trying to be conveyed in the liturgy; not seeing the true place of women in our Church and world, called by God to be part of the wonderful mystery of God-with-us, is a diversion too; and it fails to help us see our God as God truly is—inclusive, all about love, wanting the same from us.

The beautiful and joy-filled readings for today conclude with John’s example in the gospel of Luke about how we are to be as Jesus’ followers.  John says that, “He is not worthy to untie Jesus’ sandals.” So, we too, must come to know as John did, who we are meant to be and who we are not meant to be.  As spiritual beings here, having a human experience; we are not to be about becoming as “well-to-do” as possible, but to see to it that all our sisters and brothers are simply, “well”–that everyone’s needs are being met—that we are treating others as we want to be treated.

So, my friends; let us complete our Advent time clearly focused on Jesus, seeing our God as one who “rejoices in us” not one to fear, but one to love as we have been loved, each one of us.  Amen? Amen!

 

 

Friends, here we are at the 2^nd week of our Advent journey.  “Journey” is a good way to think about these four weeks of preparation for this most wonderful season of Christmas.  We are on a journey of preparation that will prepare us, if we are conscious of this opportunity, in the most profound ways we can imagine.

Each Advent for the last ten years; I have spoken to you about not rushing the season—lingering a bit in the days of Advent to check not only our lists of gifts, cards, special foods, etc., but of ourselves as “spiritual beings, here, having a human experience,” as someone once said.

I often speak to you during Advent about “carving out” some moments in each day to nurture your relationship with Jesus, our brother who was willing in the great plan of God to immerse himself in humanity for no other reason than to show the over-the-top love of our God for each of us.  We don’t want to lose sight of this one key idea.  We also don’t want to get lost, lost in the busyness of this time of year, when this season is so much about being found—found by our God who loves and cares for us beyond anything that we can imagine!

And my friends, for this very reason, the feast of yesterday, the Immaculate Conception is really a contradiction to the great love of our God who chose to become part of our humanity. Because you see, to say that his mother was conceived without sin is to say that she was not human as the very definition of humanity is that we are not perfect and the best part, is that our God loves us anyway! So, if the only way that Jesus could be part of us, and our humanity was that his mother needed to be perfect, or not human, than where did the human component in Jesus come from? Clearly, the theologians and clerics need to clean up their act on this one. And if they can do that, then some of the negative thinking around sexuality might be able to be done away with as well. The beauty of the Incarnation is the realization that God loved us from the get-go and chose to be immersed in our humanity that is not an “original sin,” but an original blessing!

I was visiting with a woman this past week that I am a mentor for on her journey to becoming a Cojourner with the Rochester Franciscan Sisters. We were talking about her notion that, “God is love.”  I suggested to her that a way to “see” her God more was to be conscious of the fact that when she experiences good in this world in any way, she is seeing the face of God.  Our God infuses all of creation, animate and inanimate objects with the God-head—God’s fingerprint is on all of it!  So if we are looking for God; we must realize that God is all around us, ever present, ever-wanting to be a part of our lives. I think of the joy of a little boy, our grandson, Elliot, who turned 5 yesterday and amid the goodness of his family gathering with him for a party at the bowling alley, our God was there!

Advent calls us to this and more—not just that our loving God is in all that is good, but in all that is not-so-good.  That becomes the harder part for most of us—that in parts of this world—in people specifically, where good does not seem to be present because we humans have camouflaged the image of God—God yet remains. In other words, we are called to love that which on face value seems, unlovable.

Paul tells the Philippians today and us vicariously, “my prayer is that your love may more and more abound, both in understanding and discernment.”  The prophet, Baruch, confirmed by the prophet, John, tells us, “Make ready the way of God, clear a straight path—that every valley will be filled and every mountain will be leveled.”  Nothing is impossible for God! The prophet Baruch continues, “For God is leading Israel (and us) in joy by the light of divine glory, escorted by mercy and justice.”

Always, my friends, we must remember the importance of keeping our eyes on Jesus, because he will truly show us the way to navigate in a world that can sometimes seem, loveless.  We are saddened when we do not see people in power, in Church or State, acting as the true leaders that we need them to be.

It is equally sad when our so-called leaders act more out of their heads, than their hearts.  Advent and ultimately, Christmas is about getting this one idea right—it is love, always love that opens hearts and changes minds, not lofty rhetoric devoid of caring actions.

Jesus, our brother, on this spiritual journey came not as royalty, but as a poor baby of poor parents—parents who would become refugees in order to save their baby from violence and death.  We can’t miss the blatant connection between Mary, Joseph and Jesus and our present day refugees.  Our God is part of all creation and to reject and not care for any one member of that creation is to reject and not care for Jesus.

As we continue our Advent journey, let us take some time each day, if only a few minutes, to focus on keeping our hearts open to seeing Jesus in our world in perhaps new and different ways—Amen? Amen!

 

 

 

My friends, Advent is upon us! This is one of my favorite times in the Church Year! It is a bit counter-culture as the season calls forth from us a time of quiet and simple preparation unlike the pace that many of us keep during the holiday season. Advent though, is a time of taking stock of who we are as followers of our brother Jesus, Emmanuel, “God with us!”

In the culture in which we live, as soon as Thanksgiving is over, the push is on for Christmas to come.  That is not bad in itself, because for many, Christmas marks a joy-filled time spent with family and friends and we want to be about that!     But, setting something wonderful aside for a time and working toward it makes the celebration all the more wonderful when it does come.

I can remember when I was in grade school at Cathedral here in Winona.  One of the practices we had which originated with one of the Sisters was to present us with the empty crib at the beginning of Advent and a bowl full of straw that we could line Jesus’ crib with—on this particular year, I even brought the straw from my grandparents’ farm in Rollingstone, which made the ritual even more special. We were told we could put one piece of straw in for each good deed that we did throughout Advent.  By Christmas time there was enough straw to make a comfy bed for the baby Jesus.

This is a simple practice, but it called our attention to the fact that we must prepare ourselves to receive such a good guest, just as we prepare our physical homes when guests are coming.

Now as an adult, blessed with pastoring this good parish of believers; I still see my personal and ministerial task of preparing myself and guiding you all as well to becoming “shining lights” as it were, to better assist our brother Jesus in being seen in the world in which we all live. Jesus will only be seen in our world if we allow him to be through our actions of reaching out to those in need, perhaps through food collections, through assisting at the Warming Center for the homeless, by our presence or by our gifting of warm clothing and monetary gifts, through our monthly meals at the Catholic Worker House and through our generous gifts to the Food Shelf of Winona Volunteer Services—we are presently in the Ten Days of Giving for this cause—I know you will be generous!   And as all of you may be aware, soon there will be the opportunity to assist our immigrant brothers and sisters through the Sanctuary Program here which has taken an additional step with Wesley United Methodist church agreeing to be the “host” congregation to house those needing protection as they strive to get paperwork in place and move toward citizenship.

Catholic social justice programs have always talked about “our time and our talent” as ways through which we can give back to others in gratitude for all that our God has given to us. The Second Reading today from 1 Thessalonians says as much, “May our Savior make you grow and overflow with love for one another.”

Besides being aware of giving to others during Advent as a way to prepare for the Season of Christmas; the next best thing or perhaps it is the best thing that we can do is to allow the Christmas story to become real in our lives.

Remembering that Jesus’ earthly mother, Mary, was but a young woman and faced with a monumental decision, to become the mother of the Messiah. Clearly, if she said, “yes,” this would forever change her life.

Let’s complicate things even further and say that the relationship between Mary and Joseph was a love relationship, not one of an old man, and a young girl, as sometimes depicted on Christmas cards with the man’s role being more of a guardian, than a loving spouse.  Let’s try and understand what it might have been like for Joseph to hear that his beloved was already pregnant with someone else’s child, even if that someone was God!

My friends, we only have our humanity with which to make sense of such a story and it is, I suggest, that through our humanity that this story can really become most beautiful to us. Advent is a time to really ponder the mystery of all that was being asked of this young couple from Nazareth over 2,000 years ago.  Put yourself in their places and think of your own significant relationships in life. How would you have responded to being asked to put your own intimate plans aside in order to say, “Yes” to God?

I believe it is only in making this biblical story personal that we can truly find the meaning of the holy season of Advent or of any season in our Church Year.  In our world today; we are being asked as followers of our brother Jesus to give birth to him just as surely as Mary and Joseph did all those years ago.

Through All Are One’s commitment as a Sanctuary Partner Congregation; we give Jesus, birth in our world—when we stand up for those who have fallen on hard times, the refugee, the lonely, the lost; we give Jesus birth in our world—when we hear others’ stories with compassion, and a desire to understand; we give birth to Jesus in our world.

Our world at present my friends, in our country and Church especially, never needed “the birthing” of Jesus more!  Through our speech, our actions of solidarity with those in need, our truthfulness about what is right and what is wrong, beyond ourselves; we will prepare in the very best ways to receive Jesus into our hearts at Christmas time.  And with that focus, all the festive preparations—colorful trees, special foods, gifts to one another, time with family and friends, take on the special glow of God-with-us!

The Gospel today from Luke instructs us well in not letting ourselves “be bloated” [with the things of this world, but that we would] “stay alert, pray constantly” [for all the ways that we can make the plight of others better, basically doing what Jesus did].  The prophet Jeremiah says, “In those days, Judah will be safe and Jerusalem will be secure.” Have a happy and hope-filled Advent!  Amen? Amen!

 

My friends, with today’s feast; we come to the official end of our Church Year, 2018.  I think it is significant that the official Church Year runs to its own beat, not keeping time with the calendar year, January 1—December 31, or the fiscal year for some businesses, October 1—September 30, but to its own tune—the First Sunday in Advent, usually the last Sunday in November or the first in December through its end with today’s feast.

Our model, Jesus, our brother was counter-culture from the beginning so it is appropriate that the yearly reminder and renewal of his life among us wound be counter-culture too. Unfortunately, in many respects, that counter-culture aspect often ends here.  What do I mean? Let’s start with the official name of this feast, “The Solemnity of Christ the King.” By careful look at today’s gospel from John; we see that the title of “king” was not something that Jesus aspired to, but something Pilate gave to him.  Jesus’ response to Pilate’s question, “So, you are a king?” is, “You say that I am a king.” Jesus goes on to say that what he is about is, “truth”—that is why he came!

And friends, we know that the “truth” is about God loving us so much so as to become one of us. Paul states in Philippians 2, “His state was divine, yet he did not cling to that, but humbled himself and became like humans are.”

So if that was God’s intent, to be one of us and with us, why did the Church inaugurate this feast that really removes Jesus, putting him on a pedestal away from us, rather than with us?

Upon checking; we see that this feast is only a little less than a hundred years old being proclaimed by Pius XI in 1925.  It was a time in our Catholic history when Church fathers feared that God wasn’t being given due respect, so it seemed to them appropriate to inaugurate such a feast.  Too bad they didn’t look back to Jesus’ words to see what God truly wanted from and with humans—not a top-down relationship, king to subjects, but a “one-with” relationship, friend to friend.  So, it is for that reason that I suggest the name of this feast be changed to Jesus, Our Brother and Friend. 

When we pick up on the discussion between Jesus and Pilate in today’s gospel and realize that Jesus isn’t about being a “king” and claiming an earthly crown, but about sharing the “truth” with us humans that we are loved by our God, nothing more, nothing less, than we can come to the truth that this feast is all wrong!

In truth, this proclaimed feast is really more about whom we as humans are—concerned with power, than whom our God is.  Further, and more distinctly, this reflects who Church Fathers are more than who God is!

If we are looking for real answers to the problems in our Church today, we would have to name clericalism among our clergy as a significant part of the problems—the notion that they are better than the people they serve—that they must be listened to and obeyed with no discussion among the people into the most serious and vital notions of our faith.

The Diocese of Winona/Rochester has filed for bankruptcy this past week as you all know.  The bishop has stated that this is being done for the victims of clergy sex abuse so that they can be adequately compensated for the abuse they received at the hands of those who were ordained to serve them.  At face value, this may seem like a good step, but we must remember that it is being taken now only because they are being forced into it.  Where was this concern 10 years ago when John Quinn was first made bishop of Winona? At that time he would have been made aware of the cover-up and passing on of abusive priests in this diocese. Where was the concern then?

Clericalism is the reason that these crimes have been covered up for so long because   clericalism sees controlling the power of the Church, held by so-called celibate men more important than the safety of its children. Until these same clerics, and for us, Bishop John Quinn can tell us that he has walked away from this powerful tool to control his subjects, it does not matter how many programs he puts in place to protect the children, the abuse will continue because there are no checks and balances.

This bishop and all bishops need to have listening sessions and truly hear the concerns on peoples’ hearts and together and this is important, TOGETHER, come to solutions that will truly protect and care for the most vulnerable among us.

We, as the People of God look forward with hope to the meeting that Pope Francis has called for the bishops of the Catholic world to address this most grievous of crimes.  It is the hope of many that he will jump-start real change within our Church. He, at least has named the sin of clericalism and of how these so-called leaders must move away from this distinction—we can only pray that this time, true change can happen!

I find too, many similarities to clericalism as I look at the present administration in Washington. Politics aside; I believe that as citizens of this country that we love, for us to tolerate a president who is apparently above the law, self-protecting, greedy and amoral in his behavior, is clearly wrong. It would be one thing for a person of power, and here I mean in Church or State, to act amorally, but when the fall-out affects others, then it is time that people of conscience speak up. As I have said before, wrong is wrong whether it comes from the common human, the president or the pope. Jesus calls us to no less than to speak the truth as we know it.

Jesus-with-us, Emmanuel, as we will celebrate in a few short weeks calls us to truth, justice, mercy and compassion.  Sometimes, to act thusly can bring us upset and fear that we stand alone.  At that time, we must remember the messages coming from the 1^st and 2^nd readings today—basically that Jesus, the Christ, our brother and friend in our humanity is eternal, is forever! Also, that this eternal brother and friend sends us grace and peace through the Spirit of God to do that which we must do.

So friends, as we move toward the beautiful and holy season of Advent beginning next Sunday, let us focus on the One who came to be one-with-us, keeping our eyes on him and receive the strength we need to be his true followers.  Amen? Amen!