Gaudete Sunday

 

Today we have a recurring guest blogger:  Fr. Arthur F. Rojas, administrator of PRESENTATION OF THE B.V.M CHURCH, PORT EWEN AND SACRED HEART CHURCH, ESOPUS. For more information on this parish, check out their website at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary & Sacred Heart Churches - Port Ewen - Esopus, NY (presentationsacredheart.org) 

Submission to the blog of Dcn. Thomas Tortorella for Gaudete Sunday

by Rev. Fr. Arthur F. Rojas © All Rights Reserved © Dec. 8, 2022

“And blessed is the one who takes no offense at Me.” (Matthew 11:6, from the Gospel reading in the Ordinary Form). Reiterating what was published at our website (www.presentationsacredheart.org) and by our press release, I thank Almighty God, then Our Lady of the Hudson, and then the primary cooperation of the Knights of Columbus (Council #275, Kingston) and the help of our Women’s Society and generous volunteers from our parish and elsewhere for the splendid St. Nicholas celebration on the night of December 7th at St. Leo’s Hall. Almost 100 people, including R.C.I.C./Religious Education students and staff, other local children and families and local Knights of Columbus, enjoyed a prayerful and joyful celebration of the REAL Santa Claus: St. Nicholas of Myra. We aimed to form the imagination of our children and youths towards a Christian sense of who and what to celebrate, when we celebrate, and how we celebrate. A Blessed Advent to you as we all prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas!

“Take as an example of hardship and patience, brothers and sisters, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.” – James 5:10 (from the second reading in the Ordinary Form). As the House of Representatives at Washington, D.C. passed on Dec. 8th the so-called Respect for Marriage Act (R.M.A.), from an article in Business Insider I learned that in the debate preceding the vote, Rep. Vicky Hartzler (Missouri) shed tears as she urged her colleagues to reject the proposal to further entrench “same-sex unions” as a legal equivalent to marriage in our country. Now, Mrs. Hartzler is an evangelical Christian and not a Catholic. However, I suspect that as an evangelical Christian, she reads the 66 books in her Bible (ours has 73). I dare surmise that the Congresswoman knew what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah when those cities exalted lewdness (read Genesis 19). As she warned about the R.M.A.’s further danger to the religious freedom of groups and individuals who do not go along with the ongoing legal and cultural perversion of marriage, notwithstanding its doubtful provisions regarding religious liberty, perhaps an angel’s words to Lot at Sodom, “…the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord…” (Gen 19:13) might have moved Rep. Hartzler to tears for our country as we turn further away from God and His ways. The passage of this bill on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception galls me too, especially when thinking of any Catholic representative who voted for R.M.A. and then presented himself or herself for Holy Communion at Mass today. To know that a Catholic president of the United States is eager to sign this bill into Federal law and public policy! Truly, “Lord, come and save us” (cf. Ps 146, from today’s Responsorial Psalm). May we persevere in prayer and our choices to live and share the truth of God’s plan for man and woman of life and love as well as to support each other to steadfast fidelity to Christ at a time when it would be much easier to go with the foul flow. For Christ comes not only at Christmas but also at the end of our lives and at the end of time itself. How are we preparing?