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Fr. Rick Spicer

Christmas

The old man sat in his gas station on a cold Christmas Eve. Since his wife died, it was just another day to him.  He was looking at the snow when the door opened and a homeless man stepped in. Instead of throwing the man out, George told him to sit by the heater to get warm.  “Thank you, but I don’t mean to intrude,” said the stranger. “You’re busy, so I’ll just go.” “Not without something hot in your belly.” George said. He opened a wide mouth Thermos and handed it to the stranger. “It ain’t much, but it’s hot and tasty. Stew … Made it myself.  When you’re done, there’s coffee and it’s fresh.”

He then heard the “ding” of the driveway bell.  “Excuse me,” George said. In the driveway was an old ’53 Chevy. Steam was rolling out of the front.  “Mister can you help me?” said the driver, with a deep Spanish accent.  “My wife is with child and my car is broken.”  George opened the hood. It looked bad. “You ain’t going in this thing,” George said. “But Mister, please help.” George went to the office and got the keys to his old truck, opened the garage, started the truck and drove it around to where the couple was waiting. “Here, take my truck,” he said. “She ain’t the best thing you ever looked at, but she runs real good.” George watched as they drove off into the night. The stranger was gone. The Thermos was empty, with a used coffee cup beside it. “Well, at least he got something in his belly,” George thought.

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4th Sunday of Advent

Ask any young fiancée about her wedding plans and I am certain that besides looking forward to creating a home of her own, she has many dreams. Imagine how devastated she would be if something shattered her plans.

Now picture how Mary felt when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and disrupted her daily routine with the news that she was, not only favored by God, but that she, a virgin, would bear a son. For a bride to be pregnant nowadays is not so uncommon but back then that was scandalous. What went through Mary’s mind as the angel spoke to her? How would Joseph react? How could she explain this to anyone else?

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1st Sunday of Advent

With today’s instant and easy communication technology, we often know when company we are waiting for will show up. We know when their plane will land, or what ferry their car will be boarding and if the ferry line is long, we usually get a text from them guessing how long their ferry wait will be. While Christ won’t exactly text us the time of his arrival, we can see signs of his presence now if we are alert.

Despite our inclination to count the days until Christmas, Advent isn’t about waiting for the birth of the Christ child for he was born in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago. Instead, Advent is a reminder that we are waiting for the second coming of Christ, for Emmanuel, for God to be with us. In Greek, this was known as the parousia.

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Christ the King

This is a wake up call for those of us who have grown complacent about our faith. We come to Mass every weekend and judge ourselves to be faithful followers of Jesus yet are we being faithful to his message when we leave here and venture into the world out there?

At the end of Mass we are instructed to go forth and live the gospel, but do we? As we heard in the gospel, Jesus divided all the nations into two camps: the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. He welcomed the sheep to inherit the kingdom for having lived what we traditionally call the corporal works of mercy. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”

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Dedication of Lateran Basilica

This weekend, the Church celebrates the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran. Why all this fuss over a church located on a hilltop in Rome? This church is significant because of its place in history. When he freed the Christian faith from centuries of persecution by becoming one himself, Emperor Constantine built this church to serve as the cathedral of Rome. There has been a Catholic cathedral on this spot ever since it was dedicated on November 9, 324 by Pope Sylvester I.

The cathedral still stands although little remains of the original building, destroyed several times by fires and an earthquake. Rebuilt in the 14th century, the present cathedral is a testimony that the Church, like a phoenix, will rise from its ashes. As the cathedral for the diocese of Rome, St. John Lateran is considered the “Mother and head of all the churches of Rome and the world.”

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