On this 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we reflect on the Beatitudes which Jesus preaches at the beginning of His Sermon on the Mount. The thread tying all the Beatitudes together is humility. Humility is an attitude and stance that requires great courage and compassion on our part with a heartfelt tenderness and affection for others. Humility is the virtue par excellence of heaven. No one is more humble than God! With the Beatitudes, Jesus calls us to robe ourselves in this Godly attitude of humility.

The Scripture readings at the beginning of Ordinary Time always focus on the call of God for Christ and for His Church. On this Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, we hear about the first call of Jesus to His disciples. John the Baptist has been arrested, and Jesus settles in the sea town of Capernaum in Galilee taking up John's mantra, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jesus also begins calling His first Apostles, Simon and Andrew, James and John, to travel with Him throughout Galilee teaching and healing.

We've entered back into Ordinary Time after the Christmas season concluded last weekend. It's hard to believe, but we are also gearing up for Lent which begins with Ash Wednesday a month from today (February 18)! The progression of the liturgical seasons helps us to focus on various elements of the Paschal Mystery throughout the year. Ordinary Time situates us especially in hearing and answering the Lord's call in the here and now.

We conclude the Christmas Season this weekend with the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord in the Jordan River. Jesus, who is born among us, is revealed as God’s Son in his baptism. We become his daughters and sons in our own baptism. Yes, Christmas tells us that Jesus became like us. We should strive to become like him. In baptism, we are made his own!

Happy New Year! Hope you are having a wonderful Christmas season. Please know that Fr. Scott, Fr. Gary, and I pray for you and your loved ones in this season. This season is a great time to start again, to walk more closely with the Lord, and to let His light guide our journey.

Today's celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph reveals both the blessings and challenges of family life. One might assume that having a husband and wife who are saints and a Child who is the Son of God would clear the way of all trials and tribulations. Not so! Mary and Joseph both had to wrestle with all the complex situations surrounding the conception, birth, and upbringing of Jesus. Just put yourself in their shoes in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to see what I mean! However, through these challenges and their trust in God, they grew in wisdom and grace together as a family.

This week we celebrate the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Dec 20-21) as well as Christmas. Remember that Christmas is not just a day, but a whole liturgical season. Maybe you didn't get all your gifts purchased or cards written in time for Christmas Day. No worries! We still have about two and a half weeks to celebrate Christmas with many great feasts in the season, including Feast of the Holy Family (Dec 28), the Solemnity of Mary the Holy Mother of God (Jan 1), Epiphany (Jan 4), and the Baptism of the Lord (Jan 11). Keep up your Christmas decorations for the season and continue to listen to Christmas tunes to really enjoy the grace of this holy season!

We celebrate Gaudete Sunday this weekend! Gaudete is the Latin word for "rejoice". As we move through our Advent season it is right that we find every reason to rejoice in the Incarnation of our Lord this Christmas.

Our season of Advent is a sacred time of repentance. Repentance means both to turn away from falsehood, evil, and injustice and to turn toward the truth, goodness, and justice of our Lord. St. John the Baptist makes this call clear in the Gospel: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"

Happy New Year! I know, it’s not January 1st yet. But in the Church, we begin the new liturgical year on this first week of Advent. In today's readings and the gospel, we find a common theme. Did you catch it? "Stay awake!" This is a good reminder as we begin the new liturgical year. It's time to get up, shake off the spiritual sleepiness, and embrace a fresh start.

Happy Thanksgiving week! Remember to give thanks to God this Thanksgiving Day for all the blessings in your life. Gratitude and thanksgiving are remedies for sadness and hopelessness. They keep us grounded firmly in the truth of God's love for us and His grace abiding with us through all life's circumstances. As I like to say, you can't grumble if you're grateful! So be grateful and give thanks to God at all times.

As we come to the second-to-last Sunday of the Church’s liturgical year, our readings take on a more serious, reflective tone. Next Sunday, we will celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King, which closes the liturgical year and leads us into a new beginning with Advent, the season of waiting and hope for the coming of Christ.

We celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome this Sunday. If we consider that every Diocese has a Cathedral, and that the Lateran Basilica is the Cathedral of Rome, then we can see that the Lateran Basilica is the "Mother Church" of the whole Catholic Church. It is the spiritual home for all Catholics throughout the world, and the place where the Pope has proclaimed the infallible doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary. We are grateful for the gift of the Lateran Basilica where God's truth is proclaimed which unites us as one Body in Christ.

This weekend, we celebrate All Souls Day at our Masses. All Souls, or the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, dates back to the first centuries of the Church where prayers were offered for all the baptized who died in Christ in the hope of His resurrection. All Souls Day is celebrated the day after All Saints Day where we venerate the communion of saints to whose number we hope to belong in the Kingdom of Heaven. These feasts remind us of the eternal desire in our hearts for heaven and for the perfect life of love, grace, and peace to radiate fully within our spiritualized bodies through Christ.

Jesus addresses His parable today "to those who are convinced of their own righteousness and despise everyone else." If you or I received a letter in the mail addressed to us in this way, I wonder how that might set us up to read what comes next (or rip up the letter right away)! Of course, no reasonable person likes to admit they are self-righteous or that they despise others, and yet each of us needs to be honest with ourselves to root out unhealthy self-love that interferes with our love of God and our neighbor. Imagine for a moment that this person addressed in the parable is you (and I will do the same for myself!), and that you and I can learn something valuable from our Lord to actually move us forward in our love of God and neighbor instead of staying stuck in our complacency.

"Jesus told His disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary." The call of all disciples of Jesus to pray is unconditional. Prayer is our dialogue and union with God. Without prayer, we lose our faith. If prayer was always easy, convenient, and consoling then it wouldn't make sense for Jesus to tell us to pray without becoming weary. When we are tired, desolate, impatient, or defeated it can be difficult to persevere in prayer. Yet these hard moments always bring forth the most fruit when we persist in prayer through them.

"Jesus told His disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary." The call of all disciples of Jesus to pray is unconditional. Prayer is our dialogue and union with God. Without prayer, we lose our faith. If prayer was always easy, convenient, and consoling then it wouldn't make sense for Jesus to tell us to pray without becoming weary. When we are tired, desolate, impatient, or defeated it can be difficult to persevere in prayer. Yet these hard moments always bring forth the most fruit when we persist in prayer through them.

In today's Gospel, the apostles ask the Lord for one of the most beautiful and perilous gifts. They say to Jesus, "Increase our faith." Faith indeed is a gift that bestows a beautiful and glorious power to act in God's name, but it also comes with the dangerous but worthwhile cost of putting God first in everything.

Open your eyes to Christ. Our Psalm tells us that the Lord gives sight to the blind, raises up the lowly, and guards those who need protection against evil. God wants to open our eyes to see the image of Christ embodied in ourselves, in others, and in all creation. In Christ are all the seeds of truth that provide the moral foundation of the universe. When we open our eyes to see the truth of Christ embodied in reality, we live out His entrustment given to us as stewards to guard the goodness of creation from all that would jeopardize its integrity.

We hear a lot about "dishonest wealth" in today's Gospel. We need an adequate interpretation of this passage to understand the meaning of Jesus' words about dishonest wealth and true wealth. In short, dishonest wealth, or "mammon" as Jesus also calls it, refers to the riches of this world (wealth, pleasure, power, and honor). True wealth, on the other hand, refers to our relationship with God, our identity in Christ, our fidelity to the mission of the Church and to our particular vocations, and the exercise of the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit. When we serve God, we appropriate true wealth. When we serve mammon, the acquisition of dishonest wealth becomes the purpose of our lives, and when this happens we can be sure that we have lost the true north in our relationship with and service to God. "You cannot serve both God and mammon."