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Today the Catholic church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family. It is an occasion to not only remember the great love and faith that was shared and witnessed by Jesus, Mary and Joseph but also an occasion to appreciate our own loving and faithful parents. Likewise, it is also an opportunity to reflect on so many families we may know who also witness that same love and faith that was modeled for us by the Holy Family. 

I was blessed to have great parents who both lived their faith and provided a home and family life modeled after Jesus’ parents. I also had the grace to spend much of my youth deeply connected to my many aunts, uncles and cousins in Ireland. Apart from recalling fantastic memories of games, good times and much laughter, each of those individual families deeply instilled great lessons of faith, prayer and love in my young soul. Memories of praying the rosary as a family, attending midnight mass on Christmas Eve and sharing a great devotion to Mary are among my favorite childhood experiences.

I am so grateful today to know many modern-day examples of similar families who exemplify the ideals and spirit of the Holy Family. Many of those same cousins of my youth and their spouses now pass on that same love and faith to their own children. Equally, the children of many of my closest friends have the good fortune to have parents who witness hope, faith and love with every breath they take.

Thanks to the efforts of our wider Marist Mission, especially our ongoing work with Refugee families, I have been graced to know numerous stories of parents and young children, who like the Holy Family had to flee their hometown for the safety of their children and who often did not find a welcome at an Inn. As this season of Christmas continues, let us remember in a special way today all those “Holy Families” who have fled their homes because of horrible dangers, violence, wars or disasters. May Jesus, Mary and Joseph look down on them and lead them to a safer place and one where they might have the opportunity to raise their children in love, peace and hope rather than in despair and anguish.

Our Marist Brothers USA Province is dedicated to the Holy Family. May we as Marist of Champagnat be worthy models and witnesses of that same family spirit that we are proud to call our own!

No matter where we are today on our planet, Christmas Eve will be drastically different from any previous celebration we have ever known in our lifetimes. Our normal local, church or family traditions will not be quite the same this year due to restrictions of larger gatherings, quarantines, travel bans and all the continued safety and health concerns around the Covid-19 pandemic that has devastated our world in 2020.

We instead continue to “wait in hope” for the implementation of vaccines and anticipation of a return to some level of normality. As we officially end the season of Advent today, we as Christians move from a period of prayer, fasting and waiting into a time of rejoicing and celebration for the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

2020 forced many in the world to embrace, like never before, some of the traditional practices of a normal Advent season. Who among us has not spent more time this year praying for the countless folks on the frontlines of this pandemic who risked their lives to help others or offer prayers for so many in our lives who have suffered or died from the coronavirus? Who has not been asked this year to fast from most of our normal activities? The practice of almsgiving may never see a greater time of need as homeless shelters and food pantries are at all time high volumes with so many in need. 

Yes, we as a people have endured a very long Advent season this year and must now again rejoice in “hope” returning to our shattered world. Tonight, we celebrate the birth of our Lord and His coming into a dark and difficult world to shine His light and love on all our lives. He came into our world to offer hope, salvation and a way forward. We must embrace His birth and His promise of new life even in the midst of our continued dark days. We must look again to find that star that will lead us home to a place where faith and hope overpower despair and sadness. Let us on this sacred night, recommit ourselves to be people of that Light and to allow Him to be reborn again this year through our actions, our love and how we continue to respond each day with our lives to the many needs around us.

Tonight, I will be sitting around the fireplace at the Marist Brothers Center in Esopus, NY and watching my favorite Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. I will be thinking how wonderful my life has been because of having so many amazing people and blessings as part of it! I wish you all a most Blessed Christmas and pray in hope that the coming New Year will not only bring a return to normality for our stricken world, but more importantly a greater appreciation by all of us of what really matters most in our lives, namely, the love of family and friends and our embracing the gospel with our lives.

Merry Christmas to you All and to all a Good Night!

Blessings today to all our Brothers and Sisters from Mexico, who will be celebrating the Marial feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They celebrate the apparitions in 1531 of Mary to a young Mexican boy, Juan Diego. 

When the young Juan Diego explained his encounter of Mary to his local Bishop, he was not believed and told by the Bishop to ask her, if she appeared again, for a miraculous sign to prove to him her identity. 

When Mary again appeared to Juan Diego, she instructed the young boy to go to the top of Tepeyac Hill and pick the roses that would be there and present them to the Bishop. Juan Diego did as Mary instructed, even though roses do not bloom in that part of the world during the month of December. The roses that Juan Diego found were not native to Mexico. Mary met the boy there and carefully arranged the flowers in his cloak. When Juan Diego opened his cloak before the Bishop on December 12, the flowers fell to the floor, and on the fabric was the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Juan Diego’s cloak or “tilma” has become Mexico’s most popular religious and cultural symbol. It is on display in the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe which is built on the top of Tepeyac Hill, just outside of Mexico City. It is a most popular pilgrimage site and this feast day is celebrated widely in all Mexican communities.

The young Juan Diego was canonized in 2002 and became the first Catholic indigenous saint from the Americas. As we celebrate this Marial feast day, let us also remember that God is not afraid to utilize young people in deepening the faith of His people as He did with young Juan Diego. In fact, throughout history God has empowered young people to be powerful witnesses of faith. From David defeating Goliath, to a young Jewish girl named, Mary who responded “Yes”, to other children, like Juan Diego, who also witnessed Marial Apparitions at Fatima and Medjugorje. I have been graced to have known many young people who at times have been the face of God in my own life. We journey through advent in quiet anticipation of the coming birth of a child. May this season allow us to always hold sacred the lives of all children, who constantly reflect God’s image and love.

Today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception which celebrates the birth of Mary, our Good Mother and how she was conceived free of original sin. Although God would later grant her the freedom to choose whether she was open to bring Jesus into our world, He granted her at birth the possibility to be the sacred vessel that might one day carry the salvation of our world in her womb.

What strikes me most from this concept is that it brings to life for me other ancient words of scripture. In Jeremiah 1:5, we read, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Could God be so interested in our lives that He would know long before we are born what we are destined to become if we, like Mary, are open to accepting that call?

Although Mary played a critical role in bringing Christ into our world and probably an equally important role later in helping to establish the early church, she never looked to be in the spotlight or forefront. In the entire New Testament, Mary is only mentioned a total of 19 times. I believed she instead, preferred to allow the focus to remain on her Son and was happy to model for us how to be a perfect disciple. 

As our advent journey continues, might we be open to listening to what future plans God might have for our lives? When our Gabriel arrives, will we have the freedom, courage and willingness to respond like Mary?  What will our “Fiat” be?

Today our church celebrates the feast of St. Nicholas, a third century Bishop that lived near modern day Turkey. He is most remembered for his love and kindness to the children of his region and his habit of secretly leaving small gifts for many children. His impact and legacy continues to live on in our world today by the millions of young children who patiently await the joy and excitement of Christmas morning and the chance to open presents and toys lovingly and secretly left for them by Santa.

There are many skeptics in our world who do not believe in or embrace the magic of Christmas Eve. Sadly, they miss the beauty, innocence and faith of children who enjoy unconditional love and waking up to a world, where dreams can come true, if only one believes. While “Santa” or “Old St. Nick” may have many helpers who assist him in making those dreams come to life, his impact is no less magical. 

While we continue on our Advent journey, may the spirit of St. Nicholas come alive in each of us so that we too might bring some joy, happiness and love into the deserving hearts of children of all ages in our own lives. 

Each year on Thanksgiving night as a way to kick off the upcoming Christmas season, I watch one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies, Miracle on 34th Street (the original version). In the movie, the question of whether Santa Clause is real or just a legend unfolds in this holiday classic. One line in that movie always reminds me of the importance of this special time of the year, “Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to.”

I  believe in miracles, in the beauty and potential of young people, and that love and God’s grace will always allow us to overcome the many difficulties and challenges that life will throw at us at any given moment. Sometimes common sense might suggest that obstacles or problems cannot be surmounted, but that is where faith must takeover and trust in our God that we are not walking this journey alone. 

The legend and inspiration of St. Nick is also an invitation for us to somehow find simple ways to make our world and the world of those people in our lives a little brighter and more joyful by our secretly engaging in some random acts of kindness.

Today our Catholic Church begins its annual season of Advent which  invites us to prayerfully wait in hope for the birth of our Lord Jesus on Christmas Day. It is a time to reflect on the many stories surrounding God entering our world two thousand and twenty years ago in a  makeshift crib in Bethlehem.  It is time for us to join with Mary and “ponder many things in our hearts.”

Most years, it can be challenging to embrace this period of quietly waiting and preparing for the coming of Christ as the demands on our lives and schedule of events normally seem busiest during these often-hectic weeks in the calendar year. Annual Christmas parties, writing cards, decorating homes, the never-ending need to go shopping for special gifts, baking cookies, fighting threw large crowds to go see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center or the Rockettes at Radio City are but only a few annual rituals that have become part of our normal build up to Christmas routines. Because of the pandemic, many of these activities will look quite different or will simply not happen this year.

In the midst of these dark and scary times that we live, could there be an unseen gift? Might we be invited to utilize a little bit of our newfound time? Rather than spending time in the usual hustle and frantic buildup to Christmas Day, might we go a little deeper this year? Instead of waiting on long lines in crowded malls to purchase the perfect gift, could we instead wait in a peaceful quiet place for the coming of the most perfect gift of all, which God gives each Christmas in the birth of Jesus. 

Hopefully, our world will never again witness the harsh realities, lockdowns and plague like deaths that we have endured in 2020. As we wait for vaccines and a return to normality, what type of “new normal” do we want to embrace with our lives? Are there demands and stresses in our life that we may choose not to again allow to become our lived reality? Might we instead, opt for more quality time to spend with those we love and cherish? 

The great spiritual writer, Meister Eckhart reminded us, six hundred years ago, what this season of advent can be, when he wrote:

“What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born.”

How will I allow Christ to be born again this year through me? As Marists of Champagnat, we are each called to be like Mary and bring God into our world in our own time and way. As 2020 ends, let us each find real ways to allow the Light of our world to be reborn in and through us. May your advent journey be filled with wonder, peace, loved ones and allow you to wake up on Christmas morning with new hope that Emmanuel has again been born. Have a blessed Advent season! 

As we prepare for Thanksgiving this year, the only true certainty is that this year’s celebration will be dramatically different than any of our previous ones. Due to all the Covid-19 restrictions, our nation’s normal busiest travel days of the year will see all-time record lows for holiday travel and the usual large family gatherings will, likewise, look drastically different for most homes around our country. Even our homeless shelters which normally feed millions each Thanksgiving Day will be restricted to how they will be allowed to distribute meals to our Brothers and Sisters living on the streets of our towns, cities and country.

So many of us in our vast nation have been richly blessed to have enjoyed countless memorable Thanksgiving gatherings with our families and loved ones. It is one of my favorite holidays because it is one that all people in our great country can be united in celebrating and also one that allows families to celebrate being together without all types of demands such as worrying about decorations, gifts and presents, Christmas cards, wedding planning details, etc.

In more recent years, I was very disappointed that we as a country allowed, our annual Black Friday shopping madness, to slowly invade more of the great family day that is Thanksgiving. So many malls and stores had begun offering early bird Black Friday specials at midnight on Thanksgiving and even earlier that day which ruined the opportunity for all those workers to be able to enjoy one sacred holiday with their families each year. I suspect there will be fewer people this year who will want to rush into crowded malls or stores on Thanksgiving evening or night in the midst of this pandemic. That may not be a totally bad thing as it will allow these folks to instead spend some more precious and valuable time with their loved ones, they will be lucky enough to be with this year.

There will millions of families around our country next Thursday, who will have empty places at their tables that would have been filled by the more than 250,000 individuals that have died from the coronavirus. How so much in life can change in a year, in a month, in a day was never so real, as it is this year, for so many, who lost so much!

While this year is certainly different, it also calls us to look deeper and maybe appreciate all the more the numerous blessings in our lives. I lived in the heart of the epicenter in NYC during the tragic days of March and April. Although, it felt like being in a war zone with truckloads of body bags being stored in hundreds of refrigerated tractor trailers, I also witnessed bravery and heroics by first responders and essential workers that could only be paralleled in my lifetime by our 2001 9/11 Heroes. 

Those unbearable months in NYC and similarly today in so many other parts of our country and world that are experiencing similar spiking numbers of cases and an increasing death toll, must challenge us to never again take for granted the precious and irreplaceable gift of our loved ones in our lives. We may not be able to physically be together around the same table with everyone we desire to be with this year, but we can make real efforts to cherish those individuals and allow them to be significantly part of our celebrating a true day of Thanksgiving. We can remember them in our prayer and connect to them via calls, FaceTime or Zooms.

I invite you in the coming days, to join me in spending a few quiet minutes reflecting on the abundance of blessings in your own life so that we might each truly allow next Thursday to be a real day of actually Giving Thanks!

My family was blessed to have never known the pain and suffering of losing family members to the tragedies and cruelty of war. My uncle Jerry, a Catholic priest, served as a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force for many years and was the only member of our family who served in a war. He was among the first to be put in harm’s way during the first Gulf war in 1990 and proudly served our country during Operation Desert Storm while ministering to the heroic men and woman on the front lines in Kuwait and Iraq. He was someone who always went above and beyond the call of duty in loving and serving others. When I think of our Veterans, I think of men and woman, who like my uncle, were deeply loved by their families and who had the strength to be willing to put their lives in danger and make incredible sacrifices. For my uncle, his motivation was to be a witness of faith and bring Christ to his fellow soldiers and be a beacon of hope and faith for them.

I have spent many hours walking the fields of Gettysburg, the hills of Arlington National Cemetery and the shores of Normandy as well as visiting sacred monuments such as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C. While I never personally knew any of the men or woman whose names are remembered on those sacred grounds, I was always filled with a deep reverence and a sense of immense gratitude for their sacrifice and their love of our country. So many of them were young people who never had the chance to know the many gifts and joys I have been so blessed to experience. What were their dreams, hopes and unrealized potential? We will never know, but yet every time we stop to pray for our country, recite the Pledge of Allegiance or to sing our National Anthem, can we proudly remember the countless men and woman who gave their lives for our freedom. They sacrificed their lives and all they could have been so that our country might one day reach its potential to truly be that Shining Light on the Hill. While, we as a Nation have not yet reached that goal and we might often stumble, let us not forget the lives of all those who have helped get us this far up that mountain and may we always honor their memories with hearts filled with gratitude, compassion and love.

Take a few minutes today to pray for those who died so that we might enjoy our freedom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PksSjMFA6N0

Previous Blogs…

• Happy Fathers Day
• Feast Day of St. Marcellin Champagnat
• Easter Blessings
• Embracing Good Friday
• Ash Wednesday

In Mexican and many Latino cultures, Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day culminate into one of the most sacred days of the year and is referred to as the “Day of the Dead” or “Día de los Muertos.” In recent years, this special feast was highlight in the superb Pixar film, “Coco”, which beautifully illustrates the importance that our ancestors can continue to play in our life and the life of our families. The film highlights the amazing respect and reverence that so many families continue to express in remembering and keeping alive the impact and influence their departed relatives and loved ones had on their lives.

In the Catholic Church, the month of November traditionally is a time to remember our deceased loved ones with a memorial Mass in their honor. The Catholic Feast days of All Saints Day and All Souls Day are not just about remembering the many famous and canonized “Saints” recognized, officially by the Church, but also to remember our own personal “saints”, who rest now with God and continue to watch over us. We need to remember them and the significant impact they had and continue to have on our life.

During my morning walks each day this month as well as at prayer and eucharist, I spend time praying for and to my own “saints” in Heaven. I lovingly remember my parents, uncles, aunts and other family members who helped shape me into the person I am today. Likewise, I recall friends, colleagues and former students who have returned home to God, but who I still love, deeply miss and find ways to keep their memory and impact on me alive.

One of my favorite songs that I like to reflect upon each year during this month is “Standing on their Shoulders” by Joyce J Rouse, aka Earth Mama. It reminds me that I must follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before me and who greatly impacted my life. We are all called to cherish the impact of our departed loved ones and to carry on their legacy of love by passing it onto those that follow us. 

I encourage you to pray with the following music video of this great song and to remember those in your own life and reflect on how you might better embrace their gifts and legacy in your daily life. Likewise, let us also remember all those we have lost this year from Covid-19.

Dear Friends,

It is impossible today to stay quiet in the face of all the tragedies and turmoil that our country and so many of our fellow Brothers and Sisters are experiencing. I like so many condemn the senseless killing last week of George Floyd and the ongoing racism that continues to plague our great nation. I hope all people who commit such atrocities will be held accountable so that justice may prevail. I pray for all those who peacefully protest, especially all our young people, and hope that they might know that many of us stand in solidarity with their voices and cries for justice, peace and an end to so much violence. I pray that others, who are making this horrible situation worse by their vandalism, looting and disrespect for life might cease from such wasteful behaviors. I ask God to grace and protect the thousands of amazing law enforcement officers, who tirelessly work for the greater good and our protection every day. So many of these great men and woman are too often condemned because of the shameless and inhumane acts of the few corrupt officers, who bring nothing but dishonor and disgrace to this most noble and needed profession of service.

As I write these lines, I think about the speech that Bobby Kennedy made on the night that MLK Jr. was assassinated and sadly realize how little our country has grown in wisdom over the last fifty years and beyond.

The words of that great speech are:

“I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.

In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black–considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible–you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization–black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: “In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.

So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that’s true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love–a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we’ve had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”

I pray today that we as a nation and each of us individually will somehow begin to “tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”