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In: answers, Christmas, darkness, Emmanuel, fear, God, man, Mass, Men, night, Shepherd, son, Wise

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  It’s a time of celebration, a time of great joy, and yet here I am at one A.M. in the morning having very somber thoughts.  I want to share those with you if you will bear with me.  I intended to write something uplifting, something joyfulContinue Reading

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In: Advent, christ, Christmas, confession, Elijah, Eucharist, Fuller, Jesus, John, prepare, Purify, Reconciliation, Refiner, sacramental, sacraments, the, Way

It’s two days before Christmas and the story continues with more about John the Baptist and his birth.  The Old Testament reading has some interesting imagery in it though.  It talks of sending a messenger before him, to prepare the way.  Then it says the Lord will come suddenly intoContinue Reading

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In: church, court, dove, Father, fidelity, God, Jesus, life, love, lyric, mate, monogamous, pigeon, poetry, rock, song, woo, young

Tomorrow’s Gospel is a beautiful repeat of the reading for Sunday.  Though one could go on into a great deal of depth into this reading, I find myself being drawn instead to the first reading, from the beautiful and poetic Song of Songs.  One would be making a grave mistakeContinue Reading

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In: Aaron, Ark, bread, Elizabeth, High, Jesus, Joyful, Mana, Mary, mystery, overshadow, priest, Rod, rosary, visitation

Tomorrow is the last Sunday before Christmas.  The Gospel reading is a familiar scene.  Mary has travelled to see her cousin Elizabeth.  When Mary approaches Elizabeth, Elizabeth exclaims “how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”  We Catholics get a lot ofContinue Reading

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In: Advent, angel, betrothed, come, Gabriel, home, hope, Jesus, Joseph, love, Mary

Based on the readings for December 18th, Advent 2016 We have lost a sense in modern society of how important betrothal is.  In today’s society we think of engagement as simply testing the waters.   What we call engagement in modern terms is what people a couple decades ago would haveContinue Reading

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In: authority, Jesus, King, liberation, political, prophet, ruler, scepter, slave, social, staff

There is a phrase that caught my eye when looking at the readings for tomorrow’s daily Mass.  It’s a strange one to my 21st century American mind.  “The scepter shall never depart from Judah, or the mace from between his legs”  In our culture a mace is either a weaponContinue Reading

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In: blind, Doubt, faith, hope, Jesus, John, lame, prophets, testimony, walk

Readings for Wednesday the Third Week of Advent 2015 John the Baptist came on to the scene like a whirlwind of asceticism.  His camel hair cloak and belt of leather, eating an extreme diet of only that which God provided him in nature; he presented to the people a challenge. Continue Reading