The Feast of the Holy Family highlights the profound mystery of family life as exemplified by Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. This occasion invites reflection on the sanctity and importance of familial relationships, encouraging us to model our own families after their example of love, respect, and unity. As we gather in worship, we are reminded to cherish our families, nurture our bonds, and recognize the blessings and challenges that come with family life. This feast serves not only as a celebration of the Holy Family but also as a call to enrich our own families with faith, compassion, and understanding, fostering environments where love can thrive.

Happy Advent! This season of waiting and preparation is just what we need in order to joyfully welcome the Lord at Christmas. In Holy Scripture we hear of - “a just shoot” - a tender shoot sprouting, rising, promising new life. Jesus is the true “just shoot.” In the midst of all the busyness, we are invited to embrace a sense of peaceful waiting and joyful expectation during the season of Advent. We are called to “prepare the way of the Lord” deep within our hearts.

This weekend is Gaudete Sunday; meaning Joy! The prophet Zephaniah of the 7th Century B.C. exhorts Israel to rejoice, to be glad for her King is with her to defend her from misfortune and fear. The hardships Israel endured was the consequence of her own waywardness by having strayed from ‘communion’ with the Lord. She was beaten down by rival nations and exiled from their homeland. Israel’s king is the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Joseph.

In the year 1995, in the seventeenth year of my life, when Fife Symington was governor of Arizona, Bill Clinton was president of the United States, Chuck Keiffer was pastor of St. Theresa parish in Phoenix, Arizona, and Ron and Mary were my parents, the word of God came to my youth minister Eric and through him I started to see the salvation of God. Soon, Christ came into my life never to leave. I’m thankful beyond words.

Today, is the First Sunday of Advent, which is also the first Sunday of the new liturgical year. The Advent season includes the four Sundays that precede Christmas. Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of the Lord. In this season, we recall two central elements of our faith: the final coming of the Lord in glory and the incarnation of the Lord in the birth of Jesus. The key themes of the Advent season are watchful waiting, preparation, and justice.

With modern technology that is all around us, everything becomes automatic and instant. I noticed that people nowadays can easily become impatient with little things. They cannot simply wait. This is what Advent teaches us – the value of waiting!

This is the end of the liturgical year long live Christ the King! And with Advent we celebrate a new liturgical year-Happy New Year!

Advent is the four-week period leading up to Christmas and should be a time of

Brothers and sisters, we can hear that from the Old Testament God always manifests himself to those who need him, but he also asks us to be charitable.

In the first reading we hear how Elijah asks the widow for something to eat and drink, she knowing that it was the last thing she had, shared it with him and the grace of God manifests itself so that she would never lack something to eat since she with an open heart shared with Elijah the last thing she had.

Brothers and sisters, we can hear that from the Old Testament God always manifests himself to those who need him, but he also asks us to be charitable.

In the first reading we hear how Elijah asks the widow for something to eat and drink, she knowing that it was the last thing she had, shared it with him and the grace of God manifests itself so that she would never lack something to eat since she with an open heart shared with Elijah the last thing she had.

As we quickly approach the end of Ordinary Time, the Church sums up for us, her greatest teaching, the greatest commandment: “To love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” When we love, we seek to remain united to, and to abide with, the beloved, and never to offend or be separated. As we love God, then we trust and love all things of God. We are taught of the Father’s love who wants no one to die, but to listen and believe in His Son and follow him into the Resurrection; that we may have life forever.

Today's Gospel, Sunday XXX of O/T (Mark 10:46-52) tells us the story of the blind Bartimaeus, this blind man who perhaps in the morning someone took him to the place on the road where he used to beg for alms, perhaps he did not get up thinking that that day would change his life, when he learned that Jesus was passing near him he sensed that it was the great opportunity for Jesus to do something for him, and began to shout "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!", The blind Bartimaeus recognizes Jesus as the Messiah by faith, he knows that Jesus can help him, and he shouted insistently for help.

In this week’s gospel, Jesus warns His disciples about the importance of acknowledging Him, and the consequences that may come when He is denied. I doubt that most of us deny Jesus by our words, but what about our actions? Jesus not only desires that we practice what we preach, He hopes that we truly practice what we profess to believe. As we reflect on this week’s gospel, we should be asking ourselves if we are truly living as disciples of Christ, or if we have areas in our lives that need some adjustments.

This week we hear of the man who inquires of Jesus how to obtain eternal life. He rejects Jesus’ invitation to sell his goods, give to the poor, and follow Jesus. Mark tells us this devastatingly sad line, “At this saying, his countenance fell and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions” (Mark 10:22). The man’s heart wasn’t centered on Jesus, but on his possessions. Perhaps Jesus intuited this. Now, we don’t know if Jesus intended to actually make him go through with it, like God’s call to test Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac. But sadly, in this case the willingness was not there to entrust everything to Jesus. And this made the man deeply sad.

For this year 2024, Pope Francis' message for the 18th World Mission Day has the motto: "Go and invite everyone to the banquet" (cf. Mt 22:9). Every Christian, from his baptism, is called to be a Disciple/missionary of Christ. And this is the task of the Christian Community. Vocation and task, that is, the call and commitment of all to: First, have a "personal encounter" with the Lord Jesus, who invites and exhorts us to conversion, to the transformation of life. Second, after the encounter comes the "following", that is, living in Christ as the WAY, TRUTH AND LIFE. Such following entails a commitment to change and renewal of life and history.