JMJ
Fr. Bryan Howard The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord – 11 January 2026 The Baptism of the Lord is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and a sign of what happens to us in our baptisms. It’s the beginning of our Christian lives just as it was the beginning of His work to save us. Our baptisms didn’t instantly make us perfectly holy, but we did set us on the path of sanctification, of growth in holiness, which will take the rest of our lives, and, God willing, the rest of eternity to complete. St. John the Baptist went out to the Jordan River, out into the desert, to baptize. The Gospel of John tells us that he was “beyond the Jordan,” meaning on the east bank of the Jordan River, and that is significant. When the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt they wondered about for 40 years before crossing over into the Promised Land from the east bank of the Jordan into the land of Israel. Why did they need to wonder about for 40 years? They were too in love with the world, and the good things of the world, and they needed time to learn how to live as the people of God. In the wilderness all they had was what God provided for them, so they had to learn to trust Him, and they didn’t lack for anything that they needed. The first time they came to the Jordan River, only a few months after leaving Egypt, they were too afraid to enter the Promised Land, but the next time, 40 years later, they trust God enough to follow Him. St. John the Baptist is saying to the Jews, “We trust the world too much and God not enough. We love the world too much and God not enough. We need to go into the desert, repent of our sins, and reenter the Promised Land ready to listen to God and follow Him.” When Jesus shows up to be baptized, John says that Jesus should be baptizing Him. Jesus doesn’t gain anything from baptism, but He does show us what we gain from baptism: the Holy Spirit descends upon Him and the voice of God the Father is heard from the cloud, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” When we were baptized the Holy Spirit entered our souls and the voice of God the Father spoke in our hearts, only for us, “You are my beloved Son. You are my beloved daughter. With you I am well pleased.” Just as Jesus was baptized before His public ministry began, so we are baptized before we’ve done anything to earn God’s love or favor, sometimes even as infants. We don’t become God’s children so that He will love us but because He already loves us. Then, what does Jesus do after His baptism? He goes out into the wilderness, into the desert, to fast, pray, and be tempted by the devil and defeat Him. This shows that even after baptism, we still have to fast and pray and we will still face temptations. Sometimes we trust and love the world too much and God not enough, so we have to continue to purify our hearts, to go back out into the wilderness through fasting and prayer. You should be regularly examining your conscience, and if you’re not then you may be taking your faith for granted. By regularly I mean that you should do a thorough examination at least once a month and a brief examination every evening for that day. The point is to see if you have any unhealthy attachments, recurring sins, or disordered desires. Is there something in your life that is consistently leading into sin and away from the Lord? Then you need to either get rid of it or change how you interact with it. When my older sister left for college I inherited her room, and she had a small tv in there. It was in a different part of the house from the other bedrooms, and I found that I was spending too much time watching tv, falling behind on my schoolwork, staying up too late, and isolating myself from everyone, so I removed the tv from my room. That was an easy one to solve, even if I was reluctant to do it. Sometimes it’s more complicated, and in those cases you should bring it to prayer or ask your confessor for advice. Fasting is another way to enter the desert and purify our love for the Lord. Fasting isn’t just for Lent. The Church requires us to abstain from something every Friday, unless it’s a solemnity; it doesn’t have to be meat, so you can choose to replace abstaining from meat with some other penance. You can also do more than the Church asks and fast one day every month, perhaps on first Friday. Fasting and abstinence are a sign of your love for the Lord, since you’re showing God by your actions that you love Him more than what you’re giving up and that you choose Him over it. It shows that you trust God to provide what you need. Fasting also reveals our unhealthy attachments and disordered desires. What do I find myself craving for excessively while I’m fasting? Well, I might be using that thing as a sort of comfort blanket. One Lent, when I was in high school, I gave up video games, because I recognized that I had developed a sort of addiction to them, but fasting from them helped me reset my relationship with video games in a much healthier way. Sanctification is a process that starts at baptism and continues throughout our lives, but it requires constant attention through prayer and fasting, entering the wilderness with the Lord. Don’t be complacent, but remember that your goal is eternal blessedness in heaven, so, as St. Paul says, “Run so that you may take hold of it.”  Bronze statue of St. Peter Claver in Cartagena, Colombia by Enrique Grau, 2001 Gentleness is an often overlooked and misunderstood spiritual quality, at least in men. In response to the criticisms of “toxic masculinity,” we’ve emphasized the virtues of furtitude and justice, righteous anger, and determination. However, the same Jesus who drove the money changers out of the Temple (Jn 2:13-16), called the scribes and Pharisees a “brood of vipers” (Mt 23:33), and stood up to the threats and scourging of Herod and Pilate (Lk 23 & Jn 19), was also very gentle with the woman at the well (Jn 4), the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8), and the tax collector Zacchaeus (Lk 19). He touched lepers to heal them (Mk 1:40-45), even though He didn’t need to, and He blessed the children, telling His disciples, “Let the little children come to me and do not prevent them” (Mt 19:14). Gentleness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit that Jesus displayed throughout His public ministry, and it is also displayed in the lives of the saints, for example, St. Peter Claver.
St. Peter Claver was born on June 25, 1581, in Verdu, Catalonia, in Spain, and entered the Jesuit Order when he was 20 years old. He asked to be sent to evangelize the Spanish colonies in the Americas. He landed in Cartagena, Colombia, in 1610, where he would spend the rest of his life. He found a cesspit of human misery. It’s estimated that 1,000 slaves a month were brought into the port of Cartagena from Africa. They were sold for 100 times more than they paid for them, so, even though half of them died on the voyage, it was still extremely profitable. Several popes, as well as many Franciscans and Jesuits, has tried and failed to end the slave trade, but they still did what they could to ease the sufferings of their poor brothers and sisters who were so cruelly treated, and few, and perhaps none, did more than St. Peter Claver. Called “the slave of slaves,” Father Claver set out to aid and comfort them as soon as they arrived, and continued to help and advocate for them. When the ships would arrive in port, he would set out on the pilot’s boat to bring them food and even delicacies which he procured by begging them of the people of the town. He assembled a team of African interpreters to speak any language they might encounter, but they were for later. As he said, “We must speak to them with our hands, before we try to speak to them with our lips.” He would go down into the hold of the ship, going from person to person, treating their injuries and illnesses, giving them food and clothing, even the shirt off his own back, and treating them with every kindness. On the day they left the ship he would also be there, arranging carts for the sick or carrying them off himself. He would visit them at the warehouses and in the hospital wards, speaking to them of the faith and, if they learned enough and consented, baptizing them. For those who were near death, any sign of contrition and faith, but for those who were healthy, an entire course of instruction in the faith. As they were sold, most of the slaves were taken out of Cartagena, so Father Claver followed them. He would go from town to town, giving missions, instructing and caring for them, and advocating for them. He gave his time first and foremost to the slaves, and the spaniards who came to him had to settle for whatever time was leftover. This didn’t sit well with many. Yet, they still came to him, wishing to confess to and receive council and absolution from the obviously saintly man. He was supported by many, but not by all, and he was especially criticized by the slave traders and plantation owners. He was accused of indiscretion, being overly zealous, and even of profaning the sacraments by offering them to those who they felt were unworthy of them. He didn’t let this stop him. He is reported to have instructed in the faith and baptized 300,000 people. He died in Cartagena on September 8, 1654, was beatified by Pope Pius IX on July 16, 1850, and was canonized by Pope Leo XIII on January 15, 1888. St. Peter Claver, pray for us. Sources: Pierre Suau. “Saint Peter Claver”. Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913. CatholicSaints.Info. 11 August 2018. Web. 3 January 2026. https://catholicsaints.info/catholic-encyclopedia-saint-peter-claver/ Katherine I Rabenstein. Saints of the Day, 1998. CatholicSaints.Info. 26 July 2020. Web. 3 January 2026. https://catholicsaints.info/saints-of-the-day-peter-claver-jesuit-priest/  Since we added the two flag poles between the Church and Parish Hall late last year (thank you to the Knights of Columbus for installing them) people have been asking about the other flag flying next to the flag of the United States. That is the flag of the Vatican City State, usually known as the Vatican Flag. It is a square flag with two vertical bars of yellow and white. Inside the white bar is the coat of arms of the Holy See. Various flags have been used for the Vatican over the centuries. Some of them were red and yellow, and some were white and yellow, like the current flag. In 1808 Pope Pius VII chose the colors yellow and white to represent the Vatican, but there were various designs of yellow and white flag used until the conquest of the Papal States by King Victor Emmanuel II in 1870. Negotiations finally resulted in the establishment of Vatican City as a separate nation state from Italy in 1929, and the current flag was chosen as the official flag and first officially hoisted on June 8, 1929.
You may have noticed that we also have the Vatican Flag and US flag inside the Church. Typically, Churches are considered to be under that authority of both the country they’re in and of the Catholic Church, so we always like to have both the national flag and Vatican Flag. This shows that we are loyal to the Catholic Church and the Pope, but that we are also called to the virtue of patriotism. The yellow and white of the flag come from the keys of St. Peter, often shown in statues and images of St. Peter, which represent his authority as Vicar of Christ. Often, one key is gold and one is silver, which is where the yellow and white come from. In the Gospel of Matthew the Lord says to Peter, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven” (Mt 16:18-19). The coat of arms is centered on the white panel. It consists of two crossed keys, one of gold and one of silver, tied together by a red cord and topped with the papal tiara. The keys are the keys of the kingdom of heaven mentioned above, given to St. Peter. They represent the Pope because the Pope is the successor of St. Peter. The red cord is a cincture, such as the one worn around the waist of a priest or deacon during Mass. The Papal Tiara, also called the Triregnum) is above the keys. It symbolizes the triple authority of the Pope: father of kings, governor of the world, and Vicar of Christ. The Pope is the Father of Kings because Christian monarchs are traditionally crowned by the Pope or a bishop. He is called governor of the world because of his worldly authority to govern the Church and Vatican City and Vicar of Christ because of his spiritual authority. It is also said that the three crowns represent the Church militant on earth, the Church suffering in purgatory, and the Church triumphant in heaven. It dates back to at least 1314. JMJ
Fr. Bryan Howard Feast of the Holy Family - 28 December 2025 · The Bible teaches us that the family is a natural image for our relationship with God. o All of our families are broken, to one degree or another. o This affects our understanding of the Church and God. o Since God is our Father and the Church is the family of God. · The example of the Holy Family o Who is entrusted with the protection of the Holy Family? St. Joseph. § Even though he is, in some sense, the least member of the family, he has responsibility to protect, provide for, and lead them. § We all have a vital role in our families. § These are responsibilities, nor prizes for being the best or most important. o They aren’t pitted against one another, but are working together for the same goal, each with their own responsibility and respect for one another. o The whole family is focused on God’s will for them through Jesus Christ, even in the smallest daily tasks. · Story about the Australian Marriage Study. · Story about Msgr. Winus Roeten. · Problems can start when each member of the family is out for themselves rather than the family. o Am I taking responsibility for the good of the family, or am I more worried about what other people are doing for me? o Do I look for ways to help out or do I look for ways to avoid helping out? o Have I allowed resentment to grow in my heart for another member of the family? o Am I concerned with getting the credit for the things that I do or keeping score against other members of the family? o If someone in the family is struggling, pulling away, or becoming focused on themselves, do I reach out to them, try to see what the cause of the problem is, and offer to listen or ask what I can do to help? o Do I look for ways to make my families lives easier or do I find myself complaining about them excessively? o Is our family, like the Holy Family, focused on Jesus Christ and God’s purpose for us? · “And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”  St. Katharine Drexel c. 1915 Generosity is one of the characteristic hallmarks of the Christian life. God, in His generosity, created the cosmos and gave us life, intelligence, and free will, and His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, shares the very life of God with us on the Cross and in the gift of the Eucharist. He tells the rich young man to sell what he has and give to the poor in order to be perfect (Mt 19:21), commends the poor woman for putting in her entire livelihood (Mk 12:44), and promises to the generous, “Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back” (Lk 6:38). As with the other fruits of the Holy Spirit, those who allow the Holy Spirit to fill their lives radiate generosity, which we see in the life of St. Katharine Drexel.
She was born in 1858 in Philadelphia to Francis Anthony and Emma Bouvier Drexel. They were one of the wealthiest families in Philadelphia, having made their money as railroad entrepreneurs, but they were also very generous to the poor and would often welcome the poor at their own home several days a week. Thus, Katharine learned the importance of generosity from a young age. She considered entering the religious life as a teenager, but didn’t feel like she could live that way at the time. She wrote to Bishop James O’Connor that she didn’t want to be separated from her family, hated community life and the thought of living like a old maid, and didn’t want to part from the luxuries that she was used to. When she was a young woman, around 22, her mother became very ill, and Katharine cared for her during the next three years until she died in 1883. Katharine began to reflect on the inevitability of death and the fact that money and luxury can’t protect you from it. She once again wrote to Bishop O’Connor, saying that she wanted to give herself to the Lord in the religious life, since, as she wrote, “The world cannot give me peace.” On February 12, 1891, Katharine took vows and founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, who would be dedicated to the service of the Native and African Americans. She had been feeling a call to do something for these peoples for a while, ever since a trip out west with her two sisters where she encountered the poverty of the Native Americans, as well as her knowledge of the plight of many African Americans due to Jim Crow laws and segregation. During a trip to Rome, she famously asked Pope Leo XIII to send some missionaries to help them, but he asked her, “Why don’t you go?” She would finally fulfill that calling through her religious order. She began spending millions of dollars of her own inheritance, along with donations collected and the work of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, to found and maintain missions, schools, and churches for Native and African Americans. Between 1891 and 1942 she created a system of Catholic schools for African Americans in 13 states, 40 mission centers, 23 rural schools, 50 Indian missions, and Xavier University, the first (and only Catholic) historically black college or university. At the age of 77, Katharine had a heart attack and spent the next 20 years of her life in prayer, especially in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. As a teenager she had said that she couldn’t enter religious life, but during the rest of her life the Lord helped her to give up her material possessions, to give her life to Him as a religious sister, and finally to give everything she had to Him in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. May she teach us to give ourselves so entirely to the Lord and to our neighbor. St. Katharine Drexel, pray for us. Sources: “Saint Katharine Drexel”. CatholicSaints.Info. 17 May 2024. Web. 12 December 2025. https://catholicsaints.info/saint-katharine-drexel/ “St. Katharine Drexel: Model of Charity”. CatholicFire.Blogspot.com. 2 March 2016. Web. 12 December 2025. https://catholicfire.blogspot.com/2016/03/st-katharine-drexel-model-of-charity.html
JMJ
Fr. Bryan Howard The Nativity of the Lord 2025 There are a lot of stories about unexpected bad news: books and movies and entire genres. Stephen King’s It is a good example; the clown turns out to be a monster, what you thought was good and joyful turns out to be horrible and scary. How many stories are there about the bad news that turned out to be good news? We always say, “It’s too good to be true,” but we never say, “It’s too bad to be true.” However, I bet you’ve had examples of unexpected good news in your real life: the test you thought you failed but didn’t, the raise you didn’t see coming, or the marriage proposal that was a complete surprise. Christmas is all about the unexpected good news: the presents under the tree in the morning, the unplanned pregnancy, received with love, who becomes the salvation of the world, the Messiah who came not just to save us from political tyranny but from sin and death, infant in the manger who is Emmanuel, God with us. What do you do when you get unexpected good news? You share it with the world, with anyone who will listen. When we get unexpected good news we always want to see proof, right? We don’t quite believe it, and we’re trying to protect ourselves from disappointment, from false hope, and when the news is this good and this unbelievable, it’s especially hard to believe. So, the Church, as the messenger of the Gospel, the Good News, had the burden of proof, and we try to prove the reality that Jesus of Nazareth really is the Son of God, true God and true man, and the Savior of the world, in three ways. There are theological proofs, historical proofs, and proofs from experience. The theological proofs have do with with showing that the Bible really does say that Jesus is the Son of God, God incarnate. No serious scholars deny that there was a person named Jesus of Nazareth who was a rabbi and was crucified by the Romans outside of Jerusalem, but some scholars try to argue that Christians made up the claim that Jesus is God incarnate decades after He died, but that He never really made that claim. All four Gospels and the letters of St. Paul make the claim that Jesus is God in the flesh. The Biblical arguments literally take up entire books, and I’m not going to go through them here, but you have to remember that the books of the New Testament were written within the lifetime of Jesus’ followers, people who knew Him, travelled with Him, and listened to Him preach, and there were thousands of them. If He never claimed to be God, never worked miracles, and never rose from the dead, wouldn’t someone have said something. Yet, in the first century AD, we don’t have any evidence that any of Jesus’ followers made that claim. Other people did, but not His followers. Historically, it’s amazing that Christianity succeeded at all. After the Lord’s crucifixion, they were down to 11 guys and three women named Mary, Mary the Mother of God, Mary Magdalen, and Mary the wife of Clopas. 50 days later, at Pentecost, that start preaching in the name of Jesus and making converts, thousands of them. They were arrested, beaten, whipped, and some of them were killed, but they didn’t change their story and they didn’t stop. From there, the community of the followers of Jesus, the Christian Church, spread throughout the Roman Empire, where they were arrested, beaten, whipped, and many of them were killed, but they converted Rome. Then, they kept going, North into Germany and Great Britain, West and South into Africa, and East into Asia, and they were arrested, beaten, whipped, and some of them were killed, but they didn’t stop, and now the Church has brought the worship of an obscure local deity from a backwater province of the Roman Empire to every country on every continent. No one is seriously worshipping Ba’al, Marduk, Ra, Zeus, or Odin anymore, but the worship of God the Father through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit has continued without interruption until today. The most powerful proof of all, however, is the evidence of a holy life. The lives of the saints offer proof that the teachings of Jesus Christ work. When we actually put them into practice in our lives they result in kindness, peace, charity, joy, and abundant blessing for ourselves and the people around us. We expect the saints to be joyless moralizers or sticks-in-the-mud, but when you learn about them you find that they were filled with life and joy. Then we think, that could never be me; I can never be a saint. When you learn about the saints you find that they were ordinary people who choose to respond to the invitation of the Lord, and every time they said yes to God, they grew a little bit in His love, and you can do that, too. The best way that you can spread the unexpected Good News of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the world, is to live what He taught and share what He means to you. People need to see proof before they will believe the Good News, so be that proof. We must allow Jesus Christ to be born into our hearts today, so that, through our witness, He can be born into the hearts of our brothers and sisters tomorrow. JMJ
Fr. Bryan Howard 4th Sunday of Advent – Year A – 21 Dec 2025 Have you ever thought about how our society functions on faith. Faith means trust in another person. If you have a faithful friend or a faithful spouse, it doesn’t just mean that they never betrayed you; it means that you can trust them to support you, to be there when you need them, and to be concerned for their good. I go to a doctor that I know personally, because he’s a good doctor, but also because I trust him. When we hire a plumber or a mechanic, we’re placing a certain amount of trust in them. We also know that these are all human beings who can make mistakes and be tempted to sin. However, God is all good, so He always wants what is good for us, all knowing, so He always knows how to achieve it, and all powerful, so He is always able to accomplish it; therefore, we can always trust Him, and faith, as St. Paul says in the letter to the letter to the Romans, leads to obedience. In our Gospel today St. Matthew quotes from the Prophet Isaiah, so let’s put that quote back in context. He’s talking to King Ahaz of Judah. Judah is being threatened by an alliance between Israel and Aram, so he wants to make a deal with Assyria for protection. The Prophet Isaiah is warning Ahaz that this is a very bad idea and he should trust in God to protect Judah. Put yourself in Ahaz’s shoes. He’s being asked to risk everything on faith in God, and He’s not willing to do that. So, Isaiah offers proof that what He’s saying is really from God. He tells Ahaz to ask for a sign, a miracle to show that He can trust God to protect Judah. He puts on this false piety, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the Lord!” Normally, you should never demand that God proove Himself to you, but when God offers to give you a sign, you should definitely accept it. The real reason Ahaz doesn’t want to ask for a sign is because He doesn’t want to obey. In fact, the book of Kings tells us that Ahaz stripped the gold adornments from the Temple to make the tribute payments to Assyria, which shows where his faith was. So, Isaiah basically says that God is getting really tired of your nonsense, so he says, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.” Now, Emmanuel means, “God with us.” God is promising that there will be a future king, a son of David, who will be a holy and righteous king who obeys the will of God, will serve the Kingdom of Heaven instead of the kingdoms of the earth, and will teache the people to choose good instead of evil, and will serve God. How will we know who it is? He will be born of a virgin, a miracle that only God could accomplish. When the Archangel Gabriel appeared first to the Blessed Virgin Mary and then to St. Joseph, I don’t think they expected to be the ones. However, they both responded with faith and trust in God. The Blessed Virgin Mary gave her fiat, “May it be done to me according to your word,” and St. Joseph didn’t say a word, He just did what needed to be done, what God asked Him to do. She brought forth the Savior into the world, and he protected and provided for Him while He grew, and Jesus, the Son of David, the King of Righteousness, has both taught and shown us what is good. During these last few days of Advent, consider the things in your life that God called you to do that took faith, where you thought there’s no way you could do this, but God gave you what you needed to see it through. For me, as I was in my last year of seminary and getting ready for ordination to the priesthood, the thing that I was most nervous about was hearing confessions. I wondered, “What will I say to people? How will I know what advice or encouragement to give them or when to be gentle and when to use tough love?” Then, the very first time I heard confessions, the day after I was ordained and right before my first Mass, when I put on that purple confessors stole the nervousness went away, replaced by peace and calm, and I found that God helped me know what to say and what to do. For you, maybe it was the day of your wedding or when you held your first child, or figuring out what to do with your life, or maybe you’re feeling a calling or attraction to the priesthood or religious life. Pray, and hear God saying to you, as I have once or twice, “Do not be afraid. I will be with you.” Then, like our Lord, set your eyes on Mount Calvary, embrace your cross, and climb that hill. Question: What are the 12 days of Christmas?
We all know the famous song about the 12 Days of Christmas, and the better one about the 12 Y’ats of Christmas, but what are the 12 days of Christmas? Early in the Church there were disagreements about the date of Jesus’ birth. Some believed it was in March, some during June or July, but most people settled on either December 25 or January 6. Therefore, both of these days became important feast days related to the birth of Christ. On December 25 we celebrate Christmas and on January 6 we celebrate Epiphany, which is the revelation, or making known, of the birth of Christ by the Magi. Since there are 12 days in between Christmas and Epiphany, with Epiphany being on the 13th day, we traditionally celebrate Christmas for all 12 of those days. Therefore, the 12 days of Christmas don’t end on December 25, they begin on December 25. Question: Who were the Magi? In the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew we read about people who visit Jesus after he was born. The Bible calls them magoi, singular magos, which we normally translate as wise men. It doesn’t call them kings, like in the popular song “We Three Kings,” but that idea might have started because of the expensive gifts that they bring, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, or it may come from Old Testament passages about kings bringing gifts to the Messiah, such as Psalm 72. Similarly, we normally think of three wise men, or three kings, but the Bible doesn’t say that there were three of them, only that they brought three gifts. The Bible says that they came from the east, but it doesn’t specify exactly where they came from. The Magi originally referred to a group in Persia, where Turkey is located now, who performed religious rites and rituals in the Persian religion as well as practicing astronomy and astrology, which would explain how they saw the star and knew what it meant. This makes a good case for Persia, but the word “magi” was used for similar people in other areas as well, so we can’t be sure exactly where they came from. What we do know is that the coming of the magi to worship Jesus was a sign that people from other gentile nations would also recognize Jesus and come to worship God as well. Question: Since Christmas isn’t in the Bible, why do we celebrate it? Even though we don’t know for sure when Jesus was born, we celebrate his birth on December 25 because it’s good to set aside special dates to celebrate important things, and the birth of Jesus Christ is one of the most important things that has ever happened in human history. The idea of celebrating important things at a certain time comes from our Jewish heritage. In the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament, the Lord gives Israel certain times to celebrate special feast days to remember the Passover and other events that show God’s love and care for them. We still celebrate Passover and Pentecost, which were originally Jewish, Old Testament feasts, but we celebrate them in the Christian context. Therefore, it made sense to most of the early Christians to choose a date to celebrate the birth of Jesus as well. So, Christmas may not be specifically in the Bible, but it is inspired by a Biblical world view and fully supported by the Church. Question: Is Christmas based on a pagan festival? You may have heard that Christmas is just a Christian version of the Roman pagan festival of the Unconquerable Sun, Sol Invictus, or Saturnalia, which celebrated the false god Saturn, but this is not supported by good historical research. Saturnalia was celebrated on December 17, and later extended until December 23, but it was over before December 25, so there doesn’t seem to be any connection. As for Sol Invictus, the first reference we have to the birth of Jesus being on December 25 is by St. Hippolytus of Rome writing around the year 204 AD. However, the first reference we have to the feast of Sol Invictus being on December 25 is in a work called the Chronography of A.D. 354, which was written nearly 150 years after the first reference to December 25 as the birth of Christ. In fact, the cult of Sol Invictus doesn’t seem to have been very popular in Rome until the reign of Aurelius from 270-275 AD, also after the above date. However, even if it does turn out to be true, it would do nothing to undermine the Christian faith in Jesus as the true Son of God and Light of the world. If you’d like me to do more of the Q&A articles for the bulletin, send me your questions on the Church, the Mass and sacraments, the Bible, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints, spiritual theology, or anything related to Christianity by email at [email protected].
Fr. Bryan Howard
3rd Sunday of Advent – Year A – 14 December 2025 Why is there so much anxiety and depression in society right now? It’s not that things are worse than they’ve ever been. In fact, in some measures, so as medical science and technology and, yes, access, they’re better than they’ve ever been. In others, such as culture and religious affiliation, they’re not. In fact, I think that’s the key. Less and less people are going to Church of any kind. There’ve been some positive signs in the last couple of years, with high numbers of Catholic conversions and the decline in Mass attendance steadying off, but it’s safe to say that religion is at one of the lowest points in centuries. Hope is a theological virtue; it comes from God directly, and hope gives us Christian joy. After all, it’s hard to be joyful when you don’t have any hope. Here’s what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about hope, “Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the Holy Spirit… hope responds to the aspiration to happiness… purifies (men’s activities)… keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity” (CCC 1817-18). Hope of gaining eternal happiness in heaven gives purpose and meaning to everything that we do, it gives direction to our lives, and it keeps us from discouragement. But what if you don’t believe in God or in heaven, or if you believe that God exists but He doesn’t really care about us? Then the only purpose you have is what you can do in this life, and all of that will, sooner rather than latter, be gone. Since I’m preaching to the Church, I’m going to assume that we all believe in God and that Jesus Christ is His Son, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t struggle with anxiety, depression, and despair. So, how can we grow in hope? First, pray. Pray every day. Decide what time will work best for prayer, starting with whatever you think will work, but working up to an hour a day, and it doesn’t all have to be at the same time, then give that time to God every day. It’s not your time any more, it belongs to God. Whatever schedule you work out, give it a month, then reassess. Is this working? Do I have to make any adjustments? Without daily prayer there is no growth in holiness, because it come from God, so you have to spend time focusing on Him. Next, live with purpose. Do you have a goal for your life? Better yet, have you asked God what His goal for your life is? I just finished writing a bulletin article on St. Katherine Drexel (it will be in the December 28 bulletin). She dedicated her life to serving the Native and African American communities through the religious order that she founded, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. As a teenager, she had written to Bishop James O’Connor, of Philadelphia, that she felt a call to the religious life but couldn’t leave behind the luxuries of her very wealthy family. About a decade later, in the letter in which she told Bishop O’Connor of her desire to give her life to God she said, “This world cannot give me peace.” This world, even the most luxurious life, cannot give us peace, but following God’s purpose for your life can. Always be working towards a goal. That goal may change throughout your life, but you shouldn’t just sit back and wait for everything to be revealed to you. Pray for clarity, but don’t let prayer become an excuse not to act. Then, once you know, get after it. Finally, commitment. A lot of people now are leaving themselves escape hatches from life. In a religious order, there’s a period of noviate, where you get to know the order and they get to know you, then you take first vows, where you’re a member but you can leave if you decide to, and then final vows, which are permanent. For married people it’s similar. First you date, getting to know one another, then you get engaged, where you’re committed to marriage but can still split up, then you’re married, until death do you part. There’s a relatively new thing, which is bringing back an ancient thing, called Consecrated Virginity, where you’re not a member of a religious order and you live in the world but you take vows and are under the direction of the local bishop. There are other ways to be committed, but I’m not trying to give an exhaustive list, just some examples. What you don’t want is to live as if you don’t have any responsibilities, or, what I hear people say often, “I’m not responsible to anyone but myself.” Life is about being committed to caring for others in sacrificial love. Give of yourself for the good of others without counting the cost. As the Gospel indicates, the Lord came to restore sight to the blind, make the lame walk, cleanse the lepers, make the deaf hear, restore life to the dead, and to proclaim Good News to the poor. He lived a life for others, to His last breathe. The purpose of your life will be found in commitment to God in the particular life that He calls you to, then you will never lack a reason to rejoice. We refer to the teaching office of the Church, or the Magisterium, as the authority that Jesus Christ gave the Church to teach on matters of faith and morals. That is, the Church speaks in the name of Christ when the bishops, in union with the pope, teach about the faith or about morality. It’s a little more complicated than that, since there are different levels of teaching. An offhand remark has less weight than a homily, which has less weight than a papal encyclical, which is a pastoral letter written by the pope for the entire Church, or an apostolic constitution, which is a solemn pronouncement written by the pope on a doctrinal or disciplinary matter. One of the ways that the popes have of using this teaching office is the apostolic exhortation. An apostolic exhortation is written to all the members of the Church and is meant to guide them in a particular area of the faith and call them to action.
In 1982, Pope St. John Paul II wrote an apostolic exhortation on “The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World,” called Familiaris Consortio. In his own words, Pope St. John Paul II wrote this exhortation because, “the Church wishes to speak and offer her help to those who are already aware of the value of marriage and the family and seek to live it faithfully, to those who are uncertain and anxious and searching for the truth, and to those who are unjustly impeded from living freely their family lives.” In part one, the Pope talked about hopeful signs and challenges facing the family. Among the hopeful signs, he includes greater personal freedom, more attention to the quality of relationships, the promotion of the dignity of women, advances in education, etc. Among the challenges he mentions, among other things, the difficulty in transmitting fundamental values to younger generations, the growing number of divorces, and the scourge of abortion. The second part is called, “The Plan of God for Marriage and the Family.” This is a very beautiful explanation on God’s plan for the family going all the way back to the account of the creation of the world in Genesis and the first marriage, that of Adam and Eve, and tracing the Biblical teaching on marriage through to the teaching of Jesus. The third part is on “The Role of the Christian Family,” and is significantly longer than part two. He divides it into four sections: forming a community of persons, serving life, participating in the development of society, and sharing in the life and mission of the Church. Although the entire document is more of a small book, the part on God’s plan for marriage is only a few pages long, and is well worth reading, even if you don’t read any of the rest of it. In fact, I usually have the couples that I prepare for marriage read that section. Sometimes people need to read it several times to make sense of it, because Pope St. John Paul II packs a lot of meaning into those few pages, but it’s worth the effort. I’ll include a link to a free English translation of it when I post this to the Pastor’s Blog on our website, www.stcletuschurch.com, under the “EVENTS & NEWS” tab. |
About this BlogThis blog serves primarily as a place to archive my bulletin articles to my parish, my homilies, and my thoughts and writings on various topics. Archives
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