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We all have Christmas expectations.  We imagine that Christmas should be marked by snowflakes gently falling from the sky; not a lot of snow that would cause travel hazards, just a little coating of the white stuff so that it looks like a Currier & Ives postcard.  Instead, maybe we get a “nor’easter.”

In just a few days, we will once again gather around the dining room table and give thanks for our blessings by sharing a prayer, a bountiful feast and the company of loved ones.  Afterwards, maybe we’ll enjoy a nap, some football and, top off the meal with pumpkin pie, a kiss goodnight and a sigh of relief that a COVID vaccine is on the horizon.  Meanwhile, we must continue to wear our masks, keep social distance of six feet from each other, wash our hands frequently and avoid large groups.

I met a man in his 50s who openly acknowledged that he has never voted in a presidential election in his life. According to this individual, he has always done alright by the outcome. Personally, if I were he, I would not brag about my complacency. Is it that demanding to take a few minutes and select the candidates one wants to serve in federal, state or local positions of leadership? When the framers of the Constitution of the United States drafted their amendments and articles, one of the first things they did was emphasize each citizen’s right to vote. Unfortunately, at the time, this only applied to white males. With the 19th  Amendment, women were granted and guaranteed the right to vote. Now, all citizens of every gender, race or ethnic background has not only the right but a civic duty to cast votes on Election Day, which is always the first Tuesday of the month of November.

9/11 Memorial & Museum, which coordinates the ceremonies held at the site of the former World Trade Center, announced that this year there would be no “Roll Call of Names” or “Tribute in Light” that were an integral part of the yearly remembrance held on Patriot Day. Survivors of those who died at the Twin Towers, as well as first responders and elected officials were outraged. The reason the 9/11 Memorial & Museum wanted to delete these two customs was for fear that the large crowds drawn by both the Roll Call and the Tribute in Light would make it impossible to practice social distancing and thereby spread more cases of the coronavirus.

Several years ago, I went to Portugal for the First Communion of my buddy’s son.  While I was there, I had the good fortune of visiting Fatima — where, in 1918, the Blessed Mother appeared to three shepherd children: Lucia, her cousin Jacinta and her brother Francisco. Lucia would later become a Carmelite nun in Coimbra. Francisco died a year after the apparitions and his sister shortly thereafter. The latter two have since been canonized and Lucia’s cause for canonization is gaining momentum. I was awestruck as I watched pilgrims arrive at the shrine after walking there on foot — some, making the final approach on their knees for almost one thousand feet. Most of these pilgrims are desperate people who are either pleading with Mary to assist them in their need or, having experienced a miracle, are there to thank the Mother of God for favors received.

If ever we felt like the world was going to end, it would be here and now. COVID-19 has incapacitated all walks of life and paralyzed the workplace, schools, hospitals and even our Church. Who would have thought a year ago that we would all have to don masks when not able to keep six feet from others? Who would have thought that our children’s schools would be closed for six months and Zoom would become the new classroom? Who would have believed that ordinations to the diaconate and priesthood in our own diocese would be postponed to late summer?

Nicodemus appears only in the Gospel of John. In fact, the evangelist dedicates the first half of chapter 3 to this man. [John 3:1-21]

Over the past months, Catholics of our diocese have been tuning in to the virtual liturgy of their choice every Sunday.  While the benefits of the virtual Mass cannot be denied, it does have its limitations.  First and foremost is the fact that watching Mass and being there are two different things. The participation of those watching the liturgy on YouTube, Facebook or TV is done in isolation, not in community.  From apostolic times, what distinguished Christians from their neighbors of other religions was the emphasis on community. Religion was never perceived as an individual affair, albeit does contain an individual component which we call “personal prayer.” From the earliest records, we have learned that Christians gathered in groups for worship, whence arose the concept of “Assembly of the faithful” or “Ecclesia” in Greek. From this term, the German  “Kirche” translates into the English word “Church.” 

The man born blind displays no arrogance whatsoever. He refuses to pass judgment on Jesus. He’s still not ready for a full confession of faith but there is one thing he does know: “I have received my sight,” an unquestionable fact. The Pharisees, though, leave the man with one choice: if you follow Jesus, then you are no longer a disciple of Moses. This counteraction of Moses to Jesus is seen by the Pharisees as the worst possible sin: to no longer be a disciple of Moses made the man born blind guilty of apostasy.

Last night, I watched a movie entitled “Captain Correlli’s Mandolin.” There I was amazed to find a minor theme which dovetails a major lesson projected through the Gospel account of the woman at the well. In the movie, situated on a Greek island during World War II, we find the Italian army, led by Nicholas Cage as Capt. Antonio Correlli. At this time in history, Mussolini and Hitler were allies. As such, after taking Albania, the Italians descended into Greece so, naturally, we find bitterness between the Italian soldiers and the villagers. This is underscored by the bitter attitude of a Greek physician’s daughter, portrayed by Penelope Cruz. In the film, she initially spurns the romantic advances of the musically-gifted Capt. Correlli because he is too light-hearted about the seriousness of war. It seemed his soldiers were more interested in having a good time than in fighting.

In the 1944, Harold Arken and Johnny Mercer wrote the music and lyrics to a song entitled: “Ac-cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive.” Bing Crosby recorded the tune and it was a big hit. The key to happiness sings the crooner is contained in the lyrics: “you’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and watch out for Mr. In-Between.” Initially written to console a war-tired nation, the song was embraced with enthusiasm by the Forgotten Generation. Still, it has perennial value for us today.

Curiously, the Jews have no feast for any of the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. They have no special festival in honor of Moses. There is nothing prescribed on the Jewish religious calendar to pay tribute to the three great kings: Saul, David or Solomon. They do however, have a yearly observance of the life of a great queen.

Early in my priesthood, the late Bishop Edward T. Hughes asked me to head the Commission for Ecumenism and Interfaith Affairs. This made sense to me since I had written my Master’s thesis on “Dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics on the Eucharist.” My enthusiasm about the subject matter, perhaps due to the proximity of the Lutheran seminary in Gettysburg, Pa. to my seminary in Emmitsburg, Md. enabled me to delve into some productive and contemporary research. It was not long after I received the position that antisemitism reared its ugly head in New York, in Crown Heights in particular. So, WWOR in Seacaucus asked if I would tape a public service announcement about the relationship between these bias crimes and what I perceived to be the best way to squelch this problem, I agreed to cooperate with enthusiasm.

Did you ever wonder: “Why did Jesus ask to be baptized?” After all, the Church teaches that Christ shared in our humanity in all ways but sin. So, if Jesus was without sin, why would he ask for something that he really did not need?

Each year, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. The baby in the manger is an image we hold dear to our hearts — but, the image only has meaning for us because we have been told what the world was like before the incarnation. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we have seen his glory: The glory of an only Son coming from the Father, filled with enduring love.” (Jn1:14) Until this moment, ours was a world that could never conceptualize the divine. Now, we can actually put a face on the infinitely transcendent God, who mediates our matter to himself and embraces fully our humanity in the person of the Holy Infant. Still, we have to remember that we can only begin to grasp the impact that the incarnation had on our world because our faith has been tweaked by what followed the infancy of the Christ-child, Jesus’ ministry, his Passion, Death and Resurrection. It is in light of what follows the incarnation that we can look back and say “this birth is different from all others.” Then and only then, can we pause and give thanks to God for the gift of his Son, for the glory of his incarnation and subsequent birth of Jesus.

On this feast, it is good for us to visualize the real humanity of the only woman conceived without sin. If we look, for example, at the Joyful Mysteries of the rosary, we will find five portraits of a woman in whose image any action hero pales.

I recently heard a marketing expert explain how Halloween is one of the biggest consumer holidays of the calendar year. Many people love this day and decorate for it a month or more in advance of Oct. 31. In fact, it seems that, apart from Christmas, Americans spend more money on Halloween, tricks and treats, decorations and costumes, than any other holiday. Why this fascination with zombies (bodies without souls), ghosts (souls without bodies), tombstones, witches, wizards, monsters, animated pumpkins and scarecrows? Some sociologists allege that the reason for America’s growing fascination with the macabre, the occult and the dead is rooted in the erroneous notion that Halloween is a secular holiday. It is divorced from anything to do with family life, race, creed or sexual orientation. Nothing could be further from the truth, at least the part that asserts Halloween is a purely secular holiday. Perhaps in some circles, this is true but not the origins of Halloween, which takes us back more than 2,000 years ago to a tribe called the “Celts” that inhabited all of Ireland, most of the British Isles and part of France. The Celts celebrated the beginning of the new year on Nov. 1. This day symbolized the end of summer and the onset of winter. It was the time of the harvest. Celts believed that on New Year’s Eve, Oct. 31, the ghosts of the dead could roam the land from sundown on Oct. 31 until sunrise on Nov. 1. On Samhain, as this night was called, it was believed that the ghosts of the dead would rise from their graves, cause pranks and possibly ruin the harvest. To ward off these annoying spirits, the Celts wore costumes, usually made of animal heads and skins. They built a bonfire and paraded around the cemeteries of their dead until sunrise on Nov. 1.

Whoever thought that when we were saving our coins to help the missionaries in far-off lands, 30 or 40 or 50 years later, these missionaries would be working in our parishes? Yes, we, the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world, have become one of those “missions” that we envisioned only in third world nations of Africa, Asia and South America. How did this happen?

She never went on missions, never founded a religious order, never performed great works. Marie-Françoise Thérèse Martin was only 15 when she entered the Carmelite Monastery and was given the religious name of Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.The only book of hers, published after her death is a brief edited version of her autobiographical journal called “Story of a Soul.” Within 28 years after her death, however, the public demand was so great that she be made a saint that Pius XI canonized her on Oct. 3, 1923.

Some of the early fathers of the Church were labeled “Apologists” because the focus of their work was on a defense of the faith or, more specifically, a defense of the teaching of the Church on a particular tenet of faith or morals. If we take a look at the work of the apologists, they were not against Greek philosophy but desired to show that Christianity and philosophy were not mutually exclusive. In addition to Origen and Tertullian, early Christian apologists include Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria. St. Athanasius and St. Augustine.