For the eleven years I was in Mexico, Advent was all about Our Lady of Guadalupe. We had all the four Sundays of Advent with all the same readings, but everything in the culture revolved around Our Lady of Guadalupe bringing Jesus to the Americas. Around her feast day, December 12, there were processions to her shrines with the biggest one being in Mexico City on Tepeyac hill where she appeared to Saint Juan Diego in 1531. Our processions were in Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon, where I lived. The image of herself that she left on Juan Diego’s tilma is still at her Basilica in Mexico City. She was dark skinned and spoke Nahuatl, the native language and called the people of the America’s her children. After her appearance, there was a mass conversion of the people to Catholicism. In Advent we prepare for the coming of Jesus. Our Lady of Guadalupe brought him to us many years ago.
Saint Juan Diego is celebrated by the Church on Dec. 9 since the apparitions of Mary occurred from the 9th to the 12th. This year we celebrate the Second Sunday of Advent on the 9th.
On the 6th, the Church celebrated St. Nicholas, Bishop. He was bishop in Myra in Asia Minor during the 4thcentury. He has been popularized as Santa Claus (anglicized from the Dutch “Sinter Claus”). So, Santa Claus was not a jolly old elf, but a real person who lived many years ago and is a saint of the Church.
Today on the Second Sunday of Advent, we have the political situation at the time of Jesus and John the Baptist and it wasn’t good. Yet God calls John forward to preach the coming of the Lord. “prepare the way of the Lord.” “Every valley shall be filled in and every mountain and hill shall be made low.”
These last words are taken from our first reading from the Prophet Baruch. Things were not good in his day either with most of his country in exile, but he preaches hope to his people and God promises that things will get better and they did,
Saint Paul in our second reading has the same message of hope for the people of his time and for us: “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.” He adds a prayer: “And this is my prayer: that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”
Last week we had an email from Sarah Tomas Morgan, thanking us for our support of her mission with immigrants in Kansas City. She says she is doing well. Let’s keep her in our prayers.
Congratulations to Pat and Rex Marvel, who celebrated their 50thyear of marriage at Mass here last Sunday.
Let us continue to pray for peace in the world. Let us also pray for vocations to the church. Let us pray for the sick of the parish. Let us pray that all will come to respect life. Let us pray for one another and for the canonization of Father Tolton. Let us also pray for those who are victims of sexual abuse and mass shootings.
A Father Tolton Prayer:Father in Heaven, Father Tolton’s suffering service sheds light upon our sorrows; we see them through the prism of your Son’s passion and death. If it be your Will, O God, glorify your servant Father Tolton, by granting the favor I now request through his intercession (mention your request) so that all may know the goodness of this priest whose memory looms large in the Church he loved. Complete what you have begun in us that we might work for the fulfillment of your kingdom. Not to us the glory, but glory to you O God, through Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are our God, living and reigning forever and ever. Amen.