Month: December 2019

O Angel of God

“O Angel of God, my guardian, dear.” I think most of us probably learned this prayer as we were kids. I can remember praying this all together, sitting around the fire at night before bed. I think this is a beautiful tradition that families should start, but it also can lead to some thoughts about angels that may not be accurate. Because angels are frequently talked about and depicted in children’s prayers and books, we tend to think of the angelic as childish or almost make believe to help children with bad dreams. 

This couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality is that angels are God’s messengers and protectors. All throughout scripture, we see angels intervening and interceding for us here on earth. This makes sense if we think about it. Angels were created by God and are happy with him in heaven, so why not ask for and believe in their help. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church takes this idea further. The Church, in her wisdom, states, “From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. ‘Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life.’ Already here on earth, the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united in God.” 

This should be far more exciting to us than what we perhaps believed as kids, that angels were similar to Santa or the Easter Bunny. If we believe in demons, fallen angels, then we must believe that there are angels who are not fallen who are willing to fight on our behalf. We need this. We need as much help as we can get in this world, and God knew it. 

In today’s gospel, the holy family is told to flee to Egypt to escape certain death. Do we believe in the power of God and in his wisdom to protect us through his angels? Do we believe they can actually help us in our day to day and do we ask for their help, or do we believe they are nice things we heard and read about long ago? 

During this celebration of Christmas, let’s try to grow closer to our guardian angels and ask for their help and protection. “O Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light, to guard, to rule and guide.”

Amen.

Contact the author

Tommy Shultz is a Solutions Evangelist for Diocesan. In that role, he is committed to coaching parishes and dioceses on authentic and effective Catholic communication. Tommy has a heart and a flair for inspiring people to live their faith every day. He has worked in various youth ministry, adult ministry, and diocesan roles. He has been a featured speaker at retreats and events across the country. His mission and drive have been especially inspired by St. John Paul II’s teachings. Tommy is blessed to be able to learn from the numerous parishes he visits and pass that experience on in his presentations. Contact him at tshultz@diocesan.com.

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

Reading 1 Sir 3:2-6, 12-14

God sets a father in honor over his children;
a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons.
Whoever honors his father atones for sins,
and preserves himself from them.
When he prays, he is heard;
he stores up riches who reveres his mother.
Whoever honors his father is gladdened by children,
and, when he prays, is heard.
Whoever reveres his father will live a long life;
he who obeys his father brings comfort to his mother.

My son, take care of your father when he is old;
grieve him not as long as he lives.
Even if his mind fail, be considerate of him;
revile him not all the days of his life;
kindness to a father will not be forgotten,
firmly planted against the debt of your sins
—a house raised in justice to you.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5.

R. (cf. 1)  Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways.
Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD,
who walks in his ways!
For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;
blessed shall you be, and favored.
R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine
in the recesses of your home;
your children like olive plants
around your table.
R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways.
Behold, thus is the man blessed
who fears the LORD.
The LORD bless you from Zion:
may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
all the days of your life.
R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways.

Reading 2 Col 3:12-21

Brothers and sisters:
Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
bearing with one another and forgiving one another,
if one has a grievance against another;
as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.
And over all these put on love,
that is, the bond of perfection.
And let the peace of Christ control your hearts,
the peace into which you were also called in one body.
And be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,
as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another,
singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs
with gratitude in your hearts to God.
And whatever you do, in word or in deed,
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.  

Wives, be subordinate to your husbands,
as is proper in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives,
and avoid any bitterness toward them.
Children, obey your parents in everything,
for this is pleasing to the Lord.
Fathers, do not provoke your children,
so they may not become discouraged.

Or Col 3:12-17

Brothers and sisters:
Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
bearing with one another and forgiving one another,
if one has a grievance against another;
as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.
And over all these put on love,
that is, the bond of perfection.
And let the peace of Christ control your hearts,
the peace into which you were also called in one body.
And be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,
as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another,
singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs
with gratitude in your hearts to God.
And whatever you do, in word or in deed,
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.  

Alleluia Col 3:15a, 16a

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Let the peace of Christ control your hearts;
let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel Mt 2:13-15, 19-23

When the magi had departed, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,
“Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt,
and stay there until I tell you.

Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.”
Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night
and departed for Egypt.
He stayed there until the death of Herod,
that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled,
Out of Egypt I called my son.

When Herod had died, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream
to Joseph in Egypt and said,
“Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel,
for those who sought the child’s life are dead.”
He rose, took the child and his mother,
and went to the land of Israel.
But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea
in place of his father Herod,
he was afraid to go back there.
And because he had been warned in a dream,
he departed for the region of Galilee.
He went and dwelt in a town called Nazareth,
so that what had been spoken through the prophets
might be fulfilled,
He shall be called a Nazorean.

– – –
Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The Thorn Among the Roses

It hasn’t been a very good year, has it? No matter what one believes politically, there is no Catholic who can feel good about children separated from their parents, put into cages, dying of neglect—or worse. I live in a country that allows this to happen. I am a citizen of a country that considers this an acceptable solution to a problem.

It’s not a comfortable thought.

I want my country to be more compassionate. I want my world to be more compassionate. So I turn to prayer. I ask God why; I ask him where he is when these terrible things are happening. Where is he when families are torn apart, when children are crying in the night?

And I hear his answer. He is here. He is in the camps at the border. He is with them, every day, every moment. He meets them in their pain and suffering. Where is he? He is sitting with the immigrants in their cages. He is holding the solitary frightened  toddler as she cries. He closes the eyes of the young boy who just died.

But, I say to him, it’s not fair! How can you allow this to happen?

And he points me to today’s Gospel, difficult to read at the best of times, excruciating to read here and now in the Year of Our Lord 2019. If the birth of the Christ-Child in Bethlehem that we just celebrated could be considered the roses, then today’s reading surely points to the thorns surrounding them.

A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.

The two themes of today’s Gospel reading have woven together this year in a most terrible way. First, we have a young family coming to the horrifying realization that they won’t be going home with their newborn, after all. That they cannot go home. That home is unsafe. That home means death.

They must leave the only place they’ve ever known, with nothing but the clothes they wear and the baby in their arms, and walk. For days stretching into weeks, they walk until they can enter another country, another culture, one they did not choose but have to embrace… and, somehow, survive there. It’s probable—in view of human nature as we see it around us—that Joseph and Mary, these refugees from Judea, were despised by the citizens of that new country. Viewed as Other. Viewed as Not Quite As Good As Us. Viewed as Them.

The Holy Family didn’t choose to be migrants, any more than many of the people at our borders want to be there. They are escaping—violence, death, starvation. They are there for the same reason the Holy Family was in Egypt: because it was the only option they had.

And then comes the massacre. The three wise men alert Herod—aging, feeling his power slipping from him, paranoid from the palace intrigue raging around him—to the birth of a new king in Bethlehem. Bethlehem at the time doesn’t actually amount to much; it’s a village of about 1,500 residents. Some interesting studies have shown there were probably no more than two dozen babies two years old and under—half of them female.

That’s still twelve to fifteen children murdered. Not enough to register in the mind of Josephus, our primary external source of the time; but enough. Enough for their parents. Enough for their communities. Every child is sacred. Every life is meaningful.

And it’s a number that’s getting dangerously close to the deaths suffered by children in the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol.

We celebrate Stephen as the first Christian martyr, but I wonder if we ought not think of those babies in Bethlehem as the first martyrs to Christianity. Innocent. Helpless. Just learning their first words, taking their first tentative steps. Dimples and gurgling and asking for just one more drink of water before they go to sleep. Gone.

And the other Baby, the newborn, living in poverty in Egypt, his family constantly on the move—we have sources for this, how they never stayed more than six months in one place, which can only point to the residents’ treatment of them—survived. God was with his Son, even as he is with all the children of migrants, the castaways, the Other.

It wasn’t a particularly auspicious beginning, was it? Rags and begging and just managing to get through the day. Surely God’s Son deserved better?

Surely everyone does.

Contact the author

Jeannette de Beauvoir is a writer and editor with the digital department of Pauline Books & Media, working on projects as disparate as newsletters, book clubs, ebooks, and retreats that support the apostolate of the Daughters of St. Paul at http://www.pauline.org.

Feast of the Holy Innocents, martyrs

Reading 1 1 Jn 1:5—2:2

Beloved:
This is the message that we have heard from Jesus Christ
and proclaim to you:
God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.
If we say, “We have fellowship with him,”
while we continue to walk in darkness,
we lie and do not act in truth.
But if we walk in the light as he is in the light,
then we have fellowship with one another,
and the Blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
If we say, “We are without sin,”
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just
and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.
If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar,
and his word is not in us.

My children, I am writing this to you
so that you may not commit sin.
But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous one.
He is expiation for our sins,
and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 124:2-3, 4-5, 7cd-8

R.(7) Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare.
Had not the LORD been with us—
When men rose up against us,
then would they have swallowed us alive,
When their fury was inflamed against us.
R. Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare.
Then would the waters have overwhelmed us;
The torrent would have swept over us;
over us then would have swept the raging waters.
R. Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare.
Broken was the snare,
and we were freed.
Our help is in the name of the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
R. Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare.

Alleluia See Te Deum

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
We praise you, O God,
we acclaim you as Lord;
the white-robed army of martyrs praise you.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel Mt 2:13-18

When the magi had departed, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,
“Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt,
and stay there until I tell you.
Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.”
Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night
and departed for Egypt.
He stayed there until the death of Herod,
that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled,
Out of Egypt I called my son.

When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi,
he became furious.
He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity
two years old and under,
in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi.
Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet:

A voice was heard in Ramah,
sobbing and loud lamentation;
Rachel weeping for her children,
and she would not be consoled,
since they were no more.

– – –
Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Complete Joy

“We are writing this so our joy may be complete.” 1Jn 1:4

My youngest surprised me with her attendance at a family Christmas gathering last weekend. My joy was complete when she walked through the doorway and gave her grandma a bearhug. Grandma was flabbergasted. “Oh, my goodness! Oh, is it really you? Oh, how beautiful you are! Oh, what a surprise,” could be heard through the muffled kissing and hugging that continued between the pair who hadn’t seen each other in 2 years. I was able to get a great picture of the moment, too, complete with huge grins on their faces and their eyes brimming with tears of joy.

My thoughts go back to times in my life when my heart just overflows with complete joy. The last day of school. The time I got (snail) mail with an acceptance letter to the university of my choosing. The day I graduated from high school. The thrill of paying off my college loan. Going on a road trip in my own car. The sight of a sunrise or sunset or any natural phenomena that takes my breath away. The times that stand out the most are the births of each of my three children — holding those tiny, wonderfully made children, my own living gifts from God, leaving me speechless and overwhelmed with love and joy. 

Over two thousand years ago, a young wife and her husband experienced the complete joy of having a child, which they wrapped in swaddling clothes. They named him Jesus; Emmanuel, God is With Us. Jesus is the joy of Christmas and a love that is so freely outpoured to each of us throughout the entire world. 

In his Christmas homily, Pope Francis said that the love of God was revealed to us through Jesus. “In Jesus, the Most High made himself tiny, so that we might love him…in the beauty of God’s love, we also discover our own beauty, for we are beloved of God.”

On this third day of Christmas, remember that you are a beloved child of God. You are a precious gift, well-loved, and beautifully made. May the joy of Christmas continue to live on in you.

Contact the author

Beth is part of the customer care team at Diocesan. She brings a unique depth of experience to the group due to her time spent in education, parish ministries, sales and the service industry over the last 25 yrs. She is a practicing spiritual director as well as a Secular Franciscan (OFS). Beth is quick to offer a laugh, a prayer or smile to all she comes in contact with. Reach her here bprice@diocesan.com.

Feast of Saint John, Apostle and evangelist

Reading 1 1 Jn 1:1-4

Beloved:
What was from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we looked upon
and touched with our hands
concerns the Word of life —
for the life was made visible;
we have seen it and testify to it
and proclaim to you the eternal life
that was with the Father and was made visible to us—
what we have seen and heard
we proclaim now to you,
so that you too may have fellowship with us;
for our fellowship is with the Father
and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
We are writing this so that our joy may be complete.

Responsorial Psalm PS 97:1-2, 5-6, 11-12

R. (12) Rejoice in the Lord, you just!
The LORD is king; let the earth rejoice;
let the many isles be glad.
Clouds and darkness are around him,
justice and judgment are the foundation of his throne.
R. Rejoice in the Lord, you just!
The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the LORD of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his justice,
and all peoples see his glory.
R. Rejoice in the Lord, you just!
Light dawns for the just;
and gladness, for the upright of heart.
Be glad in the LORD, you just,
and give thanks to his holy name.
R.  Rejoice in the Lord, you just!

Alleluia See Te Deum

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
We praise you, O God,
we acclaim you as Lord;
the glorious company of Apostles praise you.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel Jn 20:1a and 2-8

On the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we do not know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.

– – –
Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.