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Showing posts from December, 2020

4th Sunday of Advent Homily: We remember to make it real

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The Jewish spiritual understanding of remembering is called Anamnesis. We remember to make what we remember real in our lives. It is not nostalgia, but a call to action.   For the Jewish people, Passover was and is pre-eminent. They remember how God freed them so as to live out that freedom in their lives. God created all. God created all with a purpose. God created this universe and this world to be one with God. We are part of that creation. We have a special place in creation, in that our humanity is about the work with and for God to continue creation; to make heaven and earth one. We also need to remember that Creation was not just a one singular event, but is an ongoing process; it continues until this today. And amid that process of creation God does something wonderful, and God asks Mary to participate in this wonderful action. Mary, full of Grace, willingly participates in God's plan. She models humanity; she symbolizes what we were created for. She works for and wi

3rd Advent - Heaven, right here, right now.

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Some questions I received from some young persons a couple of weeks ago were: “How do I know if I will get into Heaven? How do I experience God?”  Really good questions, but given that we are preparing to celebrate the Incarnation of the Son God, maybe we will tweak these questions? And in doing so, we find a way to understand differently. We need to remember that at Christmas we are not just celebrating a birthday. We can use that description for little kids because it is an easy way for them to understand it, but adults, well we can also be more sophisticated.  At Christmas, We celebrate Heaven coming into the world.   We that fullness of the Divinity was born into a fully human person.  We celebrate that God is present here in our world, in our reality. John the Baptist pointed to Jesus, the Christ. John recognized him as the Son of God who came into our world. And think too what Jesus’ words were “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”  So our focus is really not so much about whe

2nd Sunday of Advent - Hear the Message - Be the Messenger

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The other night, the Confirmation 2 teens and I were together to talk about vocations and answer questions. One question I posed to them was what were their own questions about Life, the Universe and everything in it as a 4 to 6 year old. Can any of you remember what questions you had at that age?  I brought that up because when I was that age there were two questions and one concern. They were: Why were there no volcanoes in Ohio? Would the hill in our little town disappear before I had a chance to ride down it on my bike? And how did the Body of Christ fit in the tabernacle?  Geology and Theology questions: I think there was a message there. Name for ourselves all the messengers in our life; that pointed us in the direction we needed to go. Name for ourselves especially those messengers in our life that point us in the direction to a deeper understanding of God, and the consequently a deeper understanding of ourselves.  The cliche is that God works in mysterious ways seemin