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 Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Today we begin our new Church year AND our Season of
Advent 2006! It is my sincere hope that all of us will use this
Sunday as a new start in the practice of our Faith. At this
point, we can’t do a lot to change the way we practiced our
Faith in the last twelve months, but it is time for all of us to
re-commit ourselves to living out our Faith every day in the
next twelve months. In particular, maybe it’s time that we
re-examined our Sunday Mass attendance and re-evaluated how we
are doing at staying involved. Today it is very easy to “fall”
away from our Faith. There are almost as many “lapsed”
Catholics in this country as there are Catholics. And so many
times, people will say to me, I’m not a lapsed Catholic; I just
haven’t been to Mass since last Easter. Well, guess what guys?
If somebody hasn’t been to Mass since last Easter then they ARE
a lapsed Catholic. Together as Church we want, we expect, and
we look forward to everybody being at Mass EVERY Sunday. We
need you here. And you need to be here. As Catholics we don’t
take a couple of Sundays off. It is the Lord’s Day every week.
God gives us seven days every week and on only one of them does
He ask us to come back and remember Him. It’s time that ALL of
us re-committed ourselves to coming to Mass every week. It’s
too easy to fall away. And the devil loves nothing more than a
fallen away Catholic.
One of the big reasons why we need to come to Mass every
Sunday is Hope. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is God’s gift to
us to give us HOPE! Hope is one of the rarest commodities in
the world today. We live, work, and go to school with many
people who have lost hope. 2006 has been a year that has been
very hard on hope. Pick up any newspaper today and you’ll see
what I mean. There are an awful lot of hopeless people out
there today. If you have hope in the middle of the world that
we live in today, your hope makes you a very rare and special
person that the world desperately needs. I believe that this
need will become even greater and more visible in the next few
years. People with hope are going to be in great demand,
because so many people living in and of the world, are
completely devoid of it. My brothers and sisters, we must be
people of hope! Hope is the theme for this First Sunday of
Advent. As we light our first candle on our Advent wreathes
this year, we pray for the grace of Hope! As Catholic
Christians, we should be the most Hope-filled people on the face
of this earth! Are we? And if we’re not, then this Advent
season, and in particular, this First Sunday of Advent is our
chance to do something about it.
During His time on this earth, Jesus gave us some very
specific promises about the future. He promised that He would
prepare a place for us all in His Kingdom. He promised us that
we would live on in His love. He promised us eternal life!
Thanks to Jesus’ promises, we know where we are going in this
journey of life. We KNOW that we are headed towards Heaven and
the fulfillment of Jesus’ promises to us. We are not just
bouncing aimlessly through this life to a certain end in a grave
somewhere. We are headed home. And where we are headed is what
we were created for. We were not created for this world. Our
hearts don’t really hunger for the junk that this world offers
up as valuables. The Christmas commercials are killing me,
man. Does anybody really believe that a Diamond from Kay
Jewelers, or a Lexus with a bow on it, or a Menard’s Gift Card
is what is REALLY going to make us happy this Christmas? Our
hearts hunger for something a lot bigger than those things! Our
hearts hunger for God! That’s what we want! All the rest is
just cheap, or not so cheap, imitation.
This Advent and this year, let us have real hope, the
kind of hope that lifts us up and helps us to see beyond the
folly of this world. Even more importantly, may we be
ambassadors of that kind of hope to others around us. What if,
because of our hope, we made this the best year that we have
ever lived for Jesus? What if we prayed more? And served
more? And got involved more? What would happen if we came to
Mass every weekend, and went to Confession every month, and took
an hour of Adoration each week? What would our lives be like?
What would we be like? What would our world be like?
Today is all about hope. Let’s keep hope alive in our
hearts especially as we await the Birthday of our Savior,
Jesus. Advent is a wonderful time for the soul. Don’t lose
Advent while so many rush into commercial christmas. And don’t
miss this opportunity to become even more hopeful.
In Christ,
Fr. Kevin
A Christian is an oak flourishing in winter. |
