Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, 
 
                                                                He Shines His Light Upon All 
 
Today the Church celebrates the manifestation of Christ’s divinity upon all people. The visit of the Magi to Jesus, bearing gifts, in fulfillment of the oracle of Prophet Isaiah 60:1-6, is a sacred moment that celebrates not only the incarnation of Christ but also the extension of the Light of Redemption to the gentiles, that is, all nations other than Israel. All peoples are now part of God’s covenant of love. 
 
Prophet Isaiah sees into the future when the light of grace will shine upon all God’s children, Jews, and all nations alike. All distant peoples, represented in the Astrologers from the East are now sharers in the grace from the Creator of all. As Psalm 72 says, “every nation on earth will adore” the Lord. St. Paul in his letter to Ephesians makes a similar proclamation that the mystery of God’s grace has now been “made known to people in other generations,” “Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Ephesians 3: 5-6). The Magi, following a special star, are led to the place where the child Jesus was and on seeing him “prostrated themselves and did him homage” (Matthew 2:11). 
 
In the spirit of the Magi, let us be filled with joy that we have been invited to share in the grace of God. We have been called to be sharers of the Good News, we have been called to be sons and daughters of God, and we have been called to use all our treasures, our time, talents, and wealth to serve and worship him. Let us be more driven this new year in our worship of the Lord of Lords. Like the Magi, let us joyfully offer ourselves to Jesus, making him the reason for our existence. Whatever God has in store for us in this new year we should accept with gratitude and trust in his love for us. Love of God is communicated to us in the divine word, let us embrace that love and allow the love to inform our worship and adoration of God in this new year. 
 
May the Light of Christ which shone upon the entire world at his birth spread into the heart and soul of every one of us as we begin the new year 2022. It will be a year of Divine Light that will scatter all forms of darkness that exist.  
 
 May you have the Merriest of Christmas and a joyous New Year! 
 
Fr. Bernard, OP 
 

​Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

                              A Functioning Family of God is Divinely Structured Merry Christmas!

We celebrated the birth of Jesus yesterday. Jesus, the redeemer of the world was born into the family of Mary and Joseph. The incarnation took place within a human family, a holy family. What a great insight is unveiled for us to see today-holiness is found embedded in the human family. Within the divinely ordered structure of the family- dad, mom, and children, a human interrelationship, a life ordered to the glory and reflection of God’s familial relationship is made manifest. This is good news. Merry Christmas! Reciprocity and co-responsibility are germane to the internal relationship of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This inter-dialogue and inter-relationship are sewn into the structure of the human family. As Sirach (3: 2-6, 12-14) and Colossians (3:12-17) reveal to us in the liturgy of the word, fathers play roles that are different from roles played by mothers, and children have specific responsibilities toward their parents. Each one is ordered to a particular, yet similar role based on the Christian principle of love and respect. With love comes responsibility. Once each member of the family is aware of the responsibilities it owes others, a family is on its way to holiness. Holiness as I said in the first instance is established within the human family with all its imperfections. The holy family of Jesus, Mary and Jesus is not without its own stress. In the Gospel account according to Luke 2: 41-52, we hear the story of the holy family in Jerusalem to attend the feast of Passover when Jesus was twelve. After the celebration, Jesus was found missing and the distressed Mary and Joseph found him after three days. “Son, why have you done this to us?” Mary says to Jesus after finding him in the temple. There are many occasions parents have said something similar about their children when they fall short of their expectations. Families going through periods of difficulties, be it on account of failed parenting or marriage, misbehaving or wayward child, let it be known that the holy family had its several moments of hardships and disappointments. Holiness is not without difficulties. Raising your children and making your home a Christian home is not a guarantee of freedom from moments of frights and worries. Those stress-filled moments are part of the ingredients that make up the holy family. With the example of the Holy Family as a guide, let us make it our goal to structure our family on the principle of faith, love, and responsibility to one another. Let us take our family problems to God in prayer, asking for the intercession of the Holy Family.
​
Merry Christmas to all families of St. Peter.

Fr. Bernard, OP

 Dear brothers and sisters, 
 
                                                        Blessed Are You Who Believed 
 
As Advent draws to a close, it is time to lift our minds and hearts in watchful hope for the fulfillment of God’s promise. Mary is our advent guide to faith in God who keeps promises. Mary travels in haste to the house of Zecharia, to a town in Judah, led by faith in the message revealed to her by angel Gabriel concerning Elizabeth. Greetings are exchanged between the two women, the infant leaped for joy in the womb of Elizabeth, two women of faith attest to God who fulfills his promises. Mary is blessed among women because of her faith, because of her fiat- let it be done to me according to your will. It is through Mary’s yes to God that God took flesh in our world. Elizabeth and the child in her womb, John the Baptist, came to this recognition. The hope of Israel is fulfilled. God has visited his people because Mary believed in God and acted on her faith. 
 
As Christmas draws near let us pray for the same faith that Mary had, faith that opens our “lives to the Spirit of God.” Let us pray for our hearts to soften and open to the word of faith that is proclaimed to us. The word of life that took flesh in Mary’s womb because her mind and heart were disposed to God’s promise. Because Mary believed, the word took flesh in her womb, and she is honored as blessed. At mass, Jesus will take flesh and in the Sacred Host will come into our body just as he did in the womb of the Blessed Mother. We need the same faith that Mary had to accept the presence of the true body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist. Jesus takes life in us when we receive him with total faith and abandonment in the Eucharist.  
 
During our Advent mission this Sunday evening, titled Advent’s Journey of Hope, Mark Forrest will be using his gifts of inspirational voice and prophetic words to guide us to saying yes to Jesus, welcoming his reign in our lives, and helping each of us say, “Behold, I come to do your will, O God” (Heb. 10:7). PLEASE ATTEND! 
 
In His Heart,           Fr. Bernard, OP 
 

                                                                        The Three Advents
                                            Fr. James Conner, OCSO (continued from last week)

Let it enter into the bowels of your soul. Let it pass into your feelings and into your routines…. If you keep God’s word like this, you will surely be kept by him. When we keep the Word of God, God himself dwells in us. To eat the Word of God is first to absorb it into the depths of our own being by obedient and loving faith; then to let the power of the Word (the Holy Spirit) express itself in our works of love and good habits. It is this divine action within us, enlightening us to receive him in his revealed Word, which is the heart of the “sacrament of Advent.” If we fully and actively receive this Word of God into our heart and life, then we have nothing to fear from the third Advent of the Lord. He himself has told us this in Matthew 25:31-40: “Whatever you did to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me.”
 
All three Advents are dependent on him who comes: first as a little child and a Man like us in all things but sin; then as the hidden One coming within our hearts but also in every person we encounter and every event of our life; and finally in the glorious Lord, for “God has put all things in subjection under his feet…. And when that subjection is complete, then the Son himself will become subject to the power which made all things his subjects, so that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:27-28, Knox). Paul tells us that “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved” (Romans 8:22-24, NIV). In this way we see that Advent is much more than simply a preparation for Christmas or even an introduction to the liturgical year. The mystery of Advent is the mystery of God coming to us at every moment. As the poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) says: “He comes, comes, ever comes.” Our God comes to us to claim us as his own in order that we might fully share in his own divine life, and in this way to realize the purpose of our creation.
-Fr. James Conner, OCSO
 

 
                                           The Three Advents
    Fr. James Conner, OCSO (continued from last week)
 
Paul reminds us: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). Just as Jesus Christ was conscious that he received all from the Father, so the heart of his disciple must be conformed to the humiliation of his heart. That is why he told us: “Learn from me; for I am gentle and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29). Because of our fallen state, because of our sinfulness, the heart is deeply ambivalent. The heart is the place where we are brought face to face with the power of evil and sin within us. Yet the heart is also the place where we encounter God. It is the locus of divine indwelling, as Paul says: “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6). The heart is both the center of the human person and the point of meeting between the human and God. It is both the place of self-knowledge, where we see ourselves as we truly are, and the place of self-transcendence, where we understand our nature as a temple of the Holy Spirit. It is here that the mystery of Advent is realized. It is here that life and prayer become one. And it is here that we discover our profound oneness with all the rest of creation.
 
Bernard sums up the three Advents by noting that in the first Advent, Christ “was seen on earth and lived among human beings,” who either accepted or rejected him. But in the third Advent “all flesh will see the salvation of our God [Isaiah 40:5].” We live in a moment between those two Advents that is an opportunity to welcome Christ, the Word of God. Bernard explains, The intermediate coming is a kind of path by which we travel from the first to the final. In the first Christ was our redemption. In the final he shall appear as our life. In this one…he is our rest and consolation. …Anyone who loves me will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him [John 14:23].… Where then are [God’s words] to be kept? Doubtless, in the heart…. Is it enough to keep them in the memory alone? The Apostle will tell anyone who keeps them in this way that knowledge puffs up [1 Corinthians 8:1]. Then, too, forgetfulness easily wipes out memory. “In this way, keep God’s Word,” Bernard of Clairvaux counsels. “Let it enter into the bowels of your soul. Let it pass into your feelings and into your routines.” In this way, keep God’s Word: Blessed are those who [hear the word of God] and keep it [Luke 11:28].
 
(To be continued)