In modern American secular culture, the celebration of Thanksgiving at the end of November and the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus fuse together under one heading “the holidays.” For most people, it is a very active period and involves a lot of work, a lot of celebration, usually too much expense, but overall a thoroughly enjoyable time.
It is an accident that these two celebrations are close to each other. Thanksgiving only goes back a couple of centuries and it is a North American celebration, whereas the birth of Jesus has been celebrated for a large portion of the last 2,000 years. Is there a connection? Yes, indeed!
Thanksgiving motivates us to be appreciative of the many blessings that we have received and the people with whom we are sharing life to whom we owe gratitude and appreciation. When we are thankful, we should show and manifest that appreciation. We do it by giving gifts but, more importantly, by giving of ourselves.
The Feast of Christmas is the celebration of the greatest gift in human history – God’s gift of his Divine Son to the human family. Jesus would be one with us, share our human nature, give us the example of how life is to be lived, how we are to relate to each other and when we are joined to him through faith and baptism, we become his brothers and sisters and thereby children of the Father. It is awesome, simply awesome, but real.
Advent is upon us and a time of giving and receiving is here. Some of the greatest gifts that come with the presence of Jesus among us are the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We will think about these special gifts tomorrow.

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I really like the feast of All Saints and enjoy celebrating it. One reason is because the Feast of All Saints is a big tent feast. Everybody is in it. We are all together. While we haven’t achieved eternal life, we are certainly candidates for it. We are on our way, and most important today is that we are on our way together.

Another reason why I like the feast is that I grew up in a parish named All Saints. My mother was in the parish when it started in 1907. It was a young diverse Catholic community out on the northern edge of Houston and about three miles from downtown. Today, All Saints would be considered an inner-city parish but it has a lot of life. Gentrification has made it young again.

We are a very mobile society and over the course of several decades, Catholics might live in a good many parishes. That is understandable but there is a certain sadness to it, since it causes so many of us to be spiritually rootless.

All Saints was a marker in my life. My mother, father and three siblings were buried from that church. I made my First Communion, Confirmation and celebrated my first Mass as a priest at the altar of All Saints. Later, as a bishop, it would be the first church where I would celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation. To me, All Saints in the Houston Heights is a sacred place that provided me with clear markers for my spiritual journey.

All Saints! Such a crowd. Think of it- millions, millions, and millions of men and women who faced an unbelievable range of difficulties and burdens in this life but maintained their faith in Jesus Christ or lived good lives according to their consciences. Not all the saints are saints at this moment. All of us are, however, on the journey to sanctity and we are on that journey together!

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What is all that yelling about? It is caused by that group of elementary school kids who have just broken free of the confines of daily classes. They take their shoes off and those blessed to be able to do so are headed out to go swimming and fishing or to play ball. I hope that they have a wonderful three months before the grind starts up again.

There are two other groups of graduates as well. Let’s take a look at them. See that gang of 18 year olds? They are not so exuberant. I am talking about those who just graduated from high school and who are finding that their efforts to get into the college of their choice are difficult indeed. Many of them are not laughing. Look beyond them and you can see a second group that is not laughing. They have just graduated from college. They have accomplished a great deal and should be celebrating. They have 16 years of education behind them but the next step, meaningful employment in terms of their education and training, is not all that certain.

Congratulations to all three groups but the two latter groups deserve our prayers, encouragement and help
May God Continue to Bless the 2012 Graduates!

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It is here, this wonderful awesome week that causes Christians around the world to pause and endeavor to go vicariously day-by-day and step-by-step through the same experiences that Jesus of Nazareth underwent in the last days of his public life. Today is Monday. We need to make plans now as to how we will use our time towards the end of the week. Check the parish schedule and try to fit some events into your schedule for the beautiful and joyous celebration of Holy Thursday. Live quietly through Good Friday when Christians around the world are remembering the death of the Lord. Finally prepare for the joyful celebration of the Resurrection, whether it be on Saturday night or Sunday morning.

Let’s move into this week knowing that we need to think, we need to pray, we need to be conscious of our own weaknesses and yet, at the same time, we need to celebrate the magnificent reality of our redemption, a redemption that we remember in a very special way during this HOLY week.

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I don’t know much French, and I’m not even sure it’s real French, but I do know the word Mardi Gras. It means “Fat Tuesday”, and in Latin countries, it gradually developed over the centuries as a modest corruption. People see Lent coming. In the old days, it would scare them, because it was truly a serious period of discipline. In order to get them through the tension building up before Ash Wednesday, they started celebrating the Tuesday before it as “Fat Tuesday”. Later, this would be seen as such a good idea, they made the entire week a week of celebration.

Celebration? More frequently, the proper word would be debauchery. New Orleans is famous for this week, but it is also celebrated over most of the Latin world.

There is nothing basically wrong with Fat Tuesday, but when it leads to dissipation, wild carousing, and intoxication, it’s not exactly responding to the mood to which Lent is calling us.

Go ahead and have a glass of wine- but be careful.

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December 18th, Fourth Sunday of Advent

For today’s excerpt, I have again chosen the first reading. It is from the seventh chapter of Isaiah and it portrays a dramatic confrontation between Ahaz, an evil king of the Israelites, and Yahweh, the Lord himself. Ahaz has lost his faith in Yahweh and is trying to make political arrangements that will protect the Israelites from a threatened war. King Ahaz has been warned to place his trust in the Lord and not in the armies of neighboring nations but he refuses to do so. Finally, Yahweh says to him, “Ask for a sign from the Lord, your God.” Ahaz, still a faithless king, says, “I will not test the Lord.” It is a false answer because he really does not have the necessary faith and so Yahweh himself answers, “Therefore, the Lord himself will give you this sign. A virgin shall be with child and bear a son and shall name him Emmanuel.”

There it is, my friends. The coming of the Messiah is announced. There it is. The statement about the arrival of Jesus Christ, the salvation of us all. We thank God for that promise of salvation as we prepare for the great feast of Christmas, the feast of the Lord’s birth.

I note that some people get distressed at the frequent efforts by some of the forces in our society to downplay or even obliterate the great feast of Christmas. Regretfully, a large percentage of my Christmas cards wish me a “Happy Holidays.” These are not happy holidays. This is a time of glorious celebration of the redemption of the human family, God’s triumph over our weakness and the opening of the door into joyous eternal life.

Happy holidays indeed!

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This is a wonderful day. This is a day which should be celebrated with the same preparation and enthusiasm, beauty and joy as the great feasts of the Nativity and the Resurrection. Pentecost Sunday is one of the three great feasts of the Church and yet regretfully it is hardly noticed as being anything other than a regular Sunday liturgy with an interesting Gospel!

Christmas is about Jesus when we joyfully celebrate his birth. Easter is about Jesus and we celebrate his resurrection in awe. Pentecost, however, is about you and me and maybe that is the reason that it doesn’t get as much attention as it should because it is a challenge, a call to work, a call to sacrifice and, if necessary, to die for our faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The Church really began on that first Pentecost Sunday. Through all of those weeks of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter, the accent was on Jesus of Nazareth. With Pentecost Sunday, the accent is on the coming of the Holy Spirit and the conferring upon the baptized and confirmed the responsibility to carry out the saving message which was the purpose of Jesus’ coming among us as our brother. That message is simply about the awesome, in fact, unimaginable love that God has for each one of us and that we, as the recipients of that love, should respond in like manner – to love God with all our heart, be committed to walking in the footsteps of our Divine Lord and to be willing to tell others about God, his goodness to us and our need to respond to that love.

During my years in office, I tried to really expand the celebration of Pentecost; for example, urging everyone to wear red clothing to Mass on this special Sunday. I would say that some progress was made but not enough. The Feast of Pentecost and our own Confirmation come together in our lives and the reality behind them is not simply an important date in history or the memory of a beautiful religious ceremony, but a challenge day-by-day to be more faithful and committed in the living out of our faith.

Let’s hear it for Pentecost!

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Everyone loves Easter! Spring has arrived, the flowers are blooming, the grass is green, the heat of summer has not fallen upon us yet, people put on their best clothes and greet each other with exuberance – “Happy Easter, happy Easter, happy Easter.” There is nothing wrong with any of that. In fact, it is all very delightful but it is not the reality of what Easter, the Feast of the Resurrection, is all about.

Spiritually, each one of us needs to transport ourselves back to that hillside outside Jerusalem, stand silently before that open tomb, a tomb now empty, and ask ourselves if we really do believe in the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead!

This is the heart of the Christian message. This is the ultimate test as to whether or not we are really followers of Jesus. In the following 2,000, countless numbers have died because they answered “yes” to that question. They believed in the Resurrection, were committed to Jesus and they would allow nothing to turn them away from that faith and commitment. Happily, most of us are not asked to die for our faith but it would be perfectly valid to ask ourselves would we be willing to do so?

Let us thank God for his infinite love for us. Let us walk into the future with confidence knowing that we are a redeemed people. Let us continue to celebrate the great feast of the Resurrection.

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Many people are willing to admit that they tend to be somewhat hypersensitive. Since that is such a common failing, it’s no great shame. I do, however, tend to get somewhat irritated in Mid-March, when so many people remark negatively about the joyful influence present in much of American society on the 17th- ST. PATRICK’S DAY.
There are more people of English decent in this country than Irish. The same can be said of Germans. However, we don’t make a big deal of the feast days of St. Augustan and St. Boniface. To me, that’s so natural, there is no reason to become concerned.
Whether it be exaggerated or not, the Irish have a reputation for being joyful and optimistic- while loving life, they are nevertheless, not fearful of death. The Celts of that northern outpost civilization have had 8 centuries of oppression and poverty. While things did improve for the last 40 years, sadly, Ireland is in deep recession again.
Nevertheless, that natural optimisim, that boundless hope, gives them the strength to move forward with confidence.
Will you be at a St. Patrick’s Day party tomorrrow?

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