“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

How do you describe the indescribable? It was the greatest day of Our Lord’s life. Up to that point, at least. We celebrated the Epiphany of The Lord last week with the Christmas Star over Bethlehem and the visit of the Magi and now we close out the Season of Christmas and we move to the River Jordan.

“And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way” (Gospel of St. Matthew 2:12).

Good Stewardship is an Act of Worship:
How do we announce the birth of a child today? “Send pictures! Send photos!” is the first thing we say when a baby is born and we send and receive photos or videos to each other on our cell phones and tablets. Usually the first pictures are taken shortly after the birth, still in the hospital. Then, after a while, there’s the more formal portrait photos with parents and siblings and grandparents. Yet we want to see the first photo above all.

In the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus was about “my Father’s business” yet he humbly and obediently went back home with them to their family home in Nazareth.

“They worshiped as a family and with their faith community. And they did so faithfully. We can take their example to heart by making Sunday Mass attendance a priority for our families, by making prayer with our family a priority every day, by making sure that we regularly celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation, and by observing in our family life the great feasts. When we, as families, prioritize our Time with God and worship of Him we will be imitating the Holy Family” (catholicsteward.com/holyfamily).

O COME, O COME Emmanuel: We are on our final week of the Journey to Bethlehem. We are in the village of Ein Karem, 5 miles to the west of Jerusalem, the home town of Zechariah and Elizabeth.

When Mary said to the Angel Gabriel at her home in Nazareth “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord! May it be done to me according to your word,” she became the Mother of God, and she immediately dropped everything and went to Ein Karem to visit Elizabeth, who was also expecting. Mary, our Mother, brings Jesus to us.

This is the Third Sunday of Advent, and is also known as GAUDETE Sunday. Rose is the Color of this weekend. Rose and purple are also the colors of our sunrises and sunsets in these shortest days. We are past the half-way point of Advent. We REJOICE in The Lord Jesus! For Jesus IS Coming Soon “Exhorting them in many other ways, John preached good news to the people.” We are over half-way to Bethlehem.

We continue our yearly Advent Pilgrimage to Bethlehem today.

On our journey of hope, we meet John the Baptist and he tells us how to really celebrate to the fullest this first “coming” on the feast of Christmas and how to prepare for the second coming: through sincere repentance.

A voice of one crying out in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.

We begin our Advent Pilgrimage to the City of Bethlehem today.

It is a joyful, yet a serious time of the year. There is nothing quite like Christmas and so there is also nothing quite like Advent, the preparation time. It is the perfect opportunity to start over in our spiritual life. Yes, it is the hour to be vigilant and prepare well.

We begin in Arizona, but we turn our minds to the Holy City of Bethlehem. All of the world is now preparing for the 2025th year in Jesus’ Name. All over the world this day people are turning their minds to the House of Bread, which is what Bethlehem literally means.

“My kingdom does not belong to this world.” Today, our last Sunday of Ordinary Time for this liturgical year, we celebrate Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. So how can we understand Christ’s Kingdom?

History of Christ the King: This Solemnity of Christ the King was instituted by Pope Pius XI 99 years ago in 1925, during a wild time that was called ‘The Roaring Twenties.’ Pope Pius wrote about the Liturgical Year blessings in his encyclical Quas Primas:

“The Son of Man coming in the clouds' with great power and glory” (Mk 13:26).

Today we are in the second-to-last Sunday in Ordinary Time for this Liturgical Year B, when we have studied St. Mark’s Gospel.

In these darker days, we are with Jesus on the Mount of Olives and we are overlooking the City of Jerusalem just before that great Feast of the Passover. Jesus tells us of the “End Times” where there will be tribulation and the powers in the heavens be shaken.

God Does The Most With The Least:

Set in Holy Week, we see that Jesus has entered triumphantly into Jerusalem. He taught in the Temple area to the visiting crowds. Part of the deal was to make a show of your offering to the Temple to help with the cost of the Passover Feast. We see time and time again how God loves the poor and widows and always puts them first.