How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings glad tidings,
announcing peace, bearing good news,
announcing salvation, and saying to Zion,
“Your God is King!”

Christmas is so big it was seen centuries before it happened. Isaiah said those words seven centuries before the birth of Jesus.  Isaiah saw what God showed him.  Isaiah was looking at Christianity in the distant future. Christianity would change the world.

Why was Christmas such a big deal?  Let’s try and understand the significance of Christmas.

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“Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.”

Why?  Why did Mary go to Elizabeth?  Elizabeth lived with her husband, the priest Zechariah in Ein Karem, about 5 miles from Jerusalem.  That was close enough for the priest, Zechariah, to work in the Temple in Jerusalem when it was his turn for duty.  Ein Karem was about 90 miles from Nazareth.  That was perhaps a four-day trip for Mary.

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Jesus said to his disciples:
“In those days after that tribulation
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from the sky,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

“And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’with great power and glory,
and then he will send out the angels
and gather his elect from the four winds,
from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.

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50th Anniversary Reunion
Univ. of Dallas Class 1968

My name is Fr. Mark Hamlet. I am here to boast with my classmates, about our 50^th anniversary as students of the University of Dallas, and the many gifts of wisdom we received as the class of 1968.

I had converted to the Catholic Faith at age 18 before UD. I never attended a Catholic school, and I quickly learned my disadvantage. I can relate to the young man who asked Jesus,

“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

I prayed hard to become a good Catholic. God’s answer was the University of Dallas.

As we heard in the first reading,

I prayed, and prudence was given me;
I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.

God hears us. God answers our prayers. Do not be afraid to pray for Wisdom.

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The LORD God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone.
I will make a suitable partner for him.”

God knows us better than we know ourselves. He always has. He chose our partners, women and men, to be together. All of human history has witnessed the truth of God’s plan.

“This one, at last, is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called ‘woman, ‘
for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother
and clings to his wife,
and the two of them become one flesh.

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I am angry.  I am hurt, deeply.  I am experiencing disillusionment with my Church.

The better part of the last two weeks I was on pilgrimage in the Holy Land with our Bishop Vasquez, another priest and over 30 other members of our Diocese.  Then, last week the news surfaced regarding of Cardinal McCarrick and, and then the 300 priests accused of sexual abuse in Pennsylvania.

While on pilgrimage, Bishop Vasquez wrote the letter we all heard last week, read it at our Sunday Masses.  We also read it at the Convent of Our Lady of Palestine, just outside Jerusalem.  You hear the words, and then the sour feeling in our stomachs began to appear.  How do we receive and reconcile that news?  One person on our pilgrimage said what many were thinking, “I thought after the scandalous news surrounding the revelations in 2002 and the Charter of the Bishops, that the scandal was finally behind us.  But, not so, it appears.

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Hunger is one of the most powerful motivators in human life. Look at the way hunger motivates you. Hunger will make people do strange and difficult things. Fear of hunger is also a major motivator.

The Israelites who followed Moses into the desert, out of Egypt, began to realize just how far out they had traveled in the desert. There was no way to return to Egypt. Somehow they had survived this far. They began to know their hunger for food, and it overpowered their spiritual values. They began to fear dying of hunger, and began to grumble to Moses and Aaron.

“Would that we had died at the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! 
But you had to lead us into this desert
to make the whole community die of famine!”

This was fear.

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There is this ministry in Austin, called “Mobile Loaves and Fishes”.  They feed the homeless from trucks that go to the homeless.  The homeless do not go to them.  (They are also the founders of “Community First”, a community on the eastern boundary of our parish devoted to providing homes and dignity to the homeless.

Mobile Loaves and Fishes began in my home parish about 20 years ago.  Today they have over 15 thousand volunteers in Austin and many other cities and states.

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John the Baptist is such an important person in our faith.  It has been said that you can’t get to Jesus except through John.  John was the last great prophet of the Old Testament, and the first prophet of the New Testament.  All four Gospels tell of John the Baptist.  John’s life summarizes all of the history of Israel.

Paul preached in the synagogue of Pisidia, in his first mission to the Gentiles. He said to them,

From (King David’s) descendants God, according to his promise, has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus.
John heralded his coming by proclaiming a baptism of repentanceto all the people of Israel;
and as John was completing his course, he would say,
‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he.
Behold, one is coming after me;
I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet.’

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I, too, will take from the crest of the cedar,
from its topmost branches tear off a tender shoot,
and plant it on a high and lofty mountain;
on the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it.

Ezekiel is using plant symbols, a mighty tree, in his prophecy of the coming of the Messiah.  He continues,

It shall put forth branches and bear fruit,
and become a majestic cedar.

There is an allusion here, also, to the Church that will grow around this mighty cedar.

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Big changes were about to happen in the world.  The Apostles had already experienced Jesus in his Resurrection.  They had seen him in the flesh for forty days since he defeated death.  However, their question to Jesus even after these extraordinary events revealed their earthly state of mind.

“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

They knew the prophecies of the Messiah.  The believed he was the Messiah.  However, they predominantly believed two things.

• First, that the Messiah would rule on Earth, as a political figure to restore a political kingdom on earth.
• Second, that Jesus was going to continue to be their leader. They were going to follow him.  But he would do the “heavy lifting” to confront the world and sin.

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Those of you who have experienced a beautiful courtship, marriage and honeymoon, I want you to remember that time.  You were head over heels in love.  You were crazy, deeply, madly, shamelessly in love.

Remember that?

Now, imagine God’s son coming to earth, born to Mary, as Jesus.  Picture his sojourn on earth as God’s honeymoon. His time on earth with us fulfilled His Dream.  The Son of God married us.  God was crazy, deeply, madly, shamelessly in love with all mankind, so much so that He became man to live with us, from his Conception in Mary until his Death on the Cross and His Resurrection.  He loved us so much that he came to share every part of our life.  He loved us so much that he wanted us to live eternally with Him.  He defeated Death for us, so that we might have no barriers to love and live with him forever.  That is a crazy love story.

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During Lent we heard the word “repent” a lot. Let’s take a look at the word, “repent”. We usually associate the word “repent” with sin. But the deeper meaning is much bigger.

The word in Greek was “metanoia”. “Repent” is the English equivalent for “metanoia”. Metanoia meant to see things differently, to change one’s mind. When we begin to see things differently we are often faced with the need to change the way we think about something. Metanoia is a new way of thinking.

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Job spoke, saying:
Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?

Job has lost hope. His wife and children have died. He is covered with some horrible skin disease. Job is suffering. Through Job today, the Church explores the mystery of suffering. Job was a just man. Why do bad things happen to good people?

Let’s connect Job’s suffering to Jesus’ suffering in his Passion and Cross. Job … to … Jesus. Suffering plays a large role in the mystery of Salvation. From Job to the Cross, God reveals His love for us. Jesus speaks of God’s love for us, and “Do not be afraid.”

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The Gospel of St. Mark may have been the first of the Gospels to be written down and circulated. St. Mark was not an Apostle, but he was a close companion, translator and assistant to St. Peter and traveled to Rome with him. He had also traveled with St. Paul.

Mark’s Gospel may well be the teachings of Peter himself. St. Mark’s Gospel provides some vivid situations and precise times and places, such as the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, soon after John the Baptist was arrested. Mark tells us,

After John had been arrested,
Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:
“This is the time of fulfillment.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

“The time of fulfillment.” The prophecies of the Old Testament pointed toward Jesus, the Messiah, and in Jesus they are fulfilled. [Read more…]

What did the three Magi come to see in Israel?  Did they come to make money?  Did they come to sell their goods?  Did they come to buy?  What did the three Magi come to see?

It was over 600 miles from what was then Babylon to Jerusalem and Bethlehem.  Tradition says they probably traveled by camel, as traders and merchants had traveled for centuries.  Over 600 miles!  Why did they undertake such a trip?

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