From Fr. Jude Botelho:
In the first reading the prophet Zephaniah invites the Israelites to shout for joy: “Rejoice, exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has repealed your sentence. The King of Israel is in your midst; you have nothing to fear.” Christianity is a religion of Joy and if we are not happy Christians there is something wrong with our faith. Even when there is nothing in particular to rejoice about in our own lives, we can still rejoice that the Lord has been good to our fellow human beings, to our community, to our world. Those who seek will always discover the marvels the Lord has done and is doing for us. We rejoice because the Lord himself rejoices over us. We are his beloved in whom he is well pleased.
Advent 2 C
From Fr. Jude Botelho:
In the first reading the prophet Baruch admonishes the people to take off their garments of mourning and put on festive ones because God will reveal himself in their midst. The people thought God had abandoned them because of their infidelities. Baruch tells his people, “Arise Jerusalem and turn your eyes to the east, be jubilant because God has remembered his people.” God has decreed the flattening of every high mountain, the filling of the valleys to make level ground so that Israel can walk in safety. We on our own may find mountains of obstacles, but He will help us to overcome every barrier because He is our God, with us and for us.
In the first reading the prophet Baruch admonishes the people to take off their garments of mourning and put on festive ones because God will reveal himself in their midst. The people thought God had abandoned them because of their infidelities. Baruch tells his people, “Arise Jerusalem and turn your eyes to the east, be jubilant because God has remembered his people.” God has decreed the flattening of every high mountain, the filling of the valleys to make level ground so that Israel can walk in safety. We on our own may find mountains of obstacles, but He will help us to overcome every barrier because He is our God, with us and for us.
Advent 1 C
From the Connections:
THE WORD:
Advent begins at the end -- the promised return of Christ at the end of time. For the faithful disciple, history is a moving forward, a journey to the fulfillment of God’s reign when God’s Christ will return as Lord of all. We therefore live in a permanent state of Advent: watchfulness, preparation and perseverance as we await the return of the Holy One who has already come.
Christ the King
Welcome to Jesus’ place . . .
Every evening you and your family gather around the table in your kitchen for supper. The entree might be some epicurean delight from the pages of Bon Appétit -- but more often than not it’s Chinese takeout or pizza from Domino’s. As everyone digs in, the table buzzes with talk of tomorrow’s soccer game, a crabby teacher, the current fix-up project, the latest office crises, and a new knock-knock joke. Here at the kitchen table, parent and child give and receive encouragement, consolation, forgiveness and love. Especially love. If there is one safe harbor on earth, one secure, sheltered place where you are always welcome no matter how badly you mess up, the kitchen table is it. Your kitchen – the place where Christ rules.
The Bridg - Trust in God
A man was walking on a shaking bridge, he prayed for help. He saw God on the
other side of the bridge and asked God to come near, but God didn't come. Man
got angry, with great difficulty he crossed to the other side and saw God
holding the broken bridge. Trust in God. His ways are always amazing.
33 Sunday B
From Fr. Tony Kadavil:
1) T he end time phobia: French "prophet" and astrologer Nostradamus (1503-1566), foretold that the world would end when Easter fell on April 25. This happened in 1666, 1734, 1886 and 1943; it will occur again in 2038. In 1379, St. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419), a Spanish Dominican monk, basing his prediction on the number of verses in the Book of Psalms (2,537 verses), predicted the demise of the world in AD 3936. By the end of 1998, the Mount of Olives Hotel, run by Palestinian Muslims, wrote to 2,000 Protestant Christian groups in the U.S. asking "How would you like to be reserving your rooms at the Mount of Olives Hotel, to wait for the ‘second coming’ of Jesus on the first day of the new millennium, 2000 A.D.?" Scientists, also, fueled public anxiety by citing a series of possible ways, including, nuclear war and collision with a comet, in which the world could come to an end. A very popular book in 1989 was 89 Reasons Why the World will End in 1989. The Jehovah’s Witnesses frightened gullible followers at least 3 times during the last century with their “end of the world” predictions in 1914, 1918 and 1974. It is this paranoid fear that led people to die in the mass suicides organized by Heaven’s Gate and Jim Jones. The film Omega Code, released in October, 1999, was an independent movie funded by the Trinity Broadcasting Network, the largest Evangelical Christian TV network in the U.S. It was promoted by a team of 2,400 U.S. Evangelical pastors. The plot involved a portrayal of the “rapture” at the imminent “Second coming” of Jesus , when “born again” and "saved" Christians, both alive and dead, are supposed to fly upward in the air to meet Jesus. The film was rated in the top 10 grossing movies for October, 1999. Over 17 million copies of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' novel Left Behind on the “Second coming,” were sold by July 27, 2000. This is how modern man reacts to the reality of the coming of the end of the world. Hence, today’s readings remind us that we should be well prepared and always ready to meet Jesus at any time, daily in our brothers and sisters and at the end of our lives or the end of the world, whichever comes first.
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