Homily...The Holy, Stressful Family of Jesus

We don't know much of Jesus' life except for his public ministry from the age of 30 to 33. We have a few details about his birth, but the only other mention of his life before 30 is found in today's gospel when he was a teenager. It's hard being a teenager, even if you're the Son of God. So many things are changing in adolescence. There are new expectations, responsibilities, fears & feelings. 

And there is often turmoil between teenagers & their parent(s). Even in the "holy" family. There was poor communication because Jesus didn't tell (or ask permission) to remain in Jerusalem while the family was headed back to Nazareth. His parents are hurt and fearful and angry. Mary says, "How could you have done this to us?" And Jesus' response? "Why were you looking for me. I was in my Father's house. It's not my problem you're upset."

The stresses in family life should not then be considered sinful. Jesus was the Son of God. Mary was born without sin. Yet they still misunderstood one another, hurt one another. Mary put the blame on Jesus. Jesus said that she didn't trust him. Poor communication, fear, worry, & blame. Sound familiar? But they used this situation for growth. "Jesus went back to Nazareth in obedience & grew in wisdom & grace." Mary "kept all these things in her heart." Our families too can be holy, even as we endure difficult relationships. As long as we are willing to grow, we're on the holy path. 

Pastor's Column

     Though this bulletin is technically dated for the feast of the Holy Family on December 27th, we are making it available for our Christmas Liturgies as well. So let me begin by offering a warm welcome to all those who will be celebrating this great feast of the Lord's birth with us. As always it is a joy to have our faithful parishioners here but I join with them in letting our guests and visitors know that you are most welcome here today & any Sunday (or Saturday) of the year. If while you are here with us, you are thinking that it would be good to re-connect in your relationship with God or the Church, we are here to support you & reach out our hands in welcome. We would love to have you as part of our parish community where we believe you can find wisdom, peace, love and joy in a world that is confusing, at war, broken and sad. This is what faith does for us. It helps us to find a loving & merciful God, or rather, it helps God to find us. We are glad that you are here to pray with us today and hope that you will be back to pray with us next week. It is good to have you here!

    Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, recently announced the beginning of a Holy Year of Mercy which began on December 8th. Throughout this next year, he is inviting Catholics throughout the world to think about God's merciful kindness to us and to consider how we might extend that same mercy to each other. What greater sign of God's mercy than the sending of his Son so that we might see his mercy in the flesh?! 

    One more thing I'd like to bring to your attention today. We are creating a new Pictorial Directory for our parish. It's been a few years since the last one & there are many new people whose faces we may recognize but whose names we don't know. So we invite you to have your picture taken by professional photographers and they will give you a free 8x10 picture in return as well as a free directory with the faces of your fellow parishioners so you know who's who. And of course you can buy more pictures of various sizes if you wish. I would love 100% participation since I'm still learning names and know that people are always asking each other to identify someone for them. So please sign up. All you have to do smile. Pets are welcome too! In fact, mine are more photogenic than I am!

    On behalf of Father Vesely and the entire Parish and School Staff, Merry Christmas to you & your loved ones. 

Homily..."The Seven O'Clock News"

In 1966, Simon & Garfunkel sang a song called "The 7 O'Clock News." They sang Silent Night in two-part harmony. But then you hear the voice of a newscaster in the background who is speaking the news headlines from August 3, 1966. Richard Nixon said that we had to increase our efforts in the Vietnam War. Nine student nurses were murdered. A comedian died from a narcotic overdose at the age of 42. Martin Luther King speaks about civil rights & violence. Gradually, the news becomes louder to the point that it drowns out the song.

Some, or perhaps many of us, may also hear the news of our personal lives louder than the Christmas carols we are singing. And we realize that all is not silent or holy or calm or bright. "This is my first Christmas w/out my loved one. How will I pay the bills next month? I am worried about my health." We worry. We have fears. We have questions that go unanswered. How do I get in the Christmas spirit when there is so much sadness in my life?

But Christmas doesn't ask us to pretend that all is well. Rather we acknowledge out loud, to our ourselves, to others, even to God, that we have problems. Why? Because we cannot rejoice in the coming of a Savior until we realize how much we need a Savior. And we all need a Savior: someone who is wiser and more powerful than ourselves. We need Jesus to move from the wood of the manger to the wood of the cross. We don't need him just as an infant in a manger but as a Savior on a cross.

Pastor's Column

     Here's a bit of sad news...our Children's Liturgy of the Word will be discontinued after January 10th. This is when the small children at the 10am Mass would go into the cry room and would read a children's version of the bible stories we were reading in the church. They would then have a little discussion and activity to help them understand the Word of God on their level. However in recent years the attendance has dropped so low...even to no children at all...that we feel it best to discontinue it. It's a rather sad reality that in many churches, children are not being brought to Mass on a regular basis. We all know that Mass attendance by adults is down and of course that affects the children as well. As a parish, we need to continue our discussion as to what we might be able to do to encourage people to participate in this important part of faith. We have already begun that conversation in our parish but it needs to be a high priority since it deals with the most basic parts of faith: community, sacraments (especially the Eucharist), listening to the Word of God & the homily, and the worship of God who commands us to do these things so that we may respond to his loving invitation of friendship. Please pray that our efforts in this regard will be joined by God's grace so that we can do something--anything--to help our fellow believers come to appreciate the importance of living the faith they have been given.

    My sincere thanks to all those who have sacrificed their time for the sake of this ministry to our children: Diane Toronski, Eileen Gabel, Betty Hinton & Jennifer Robinson. I know that the children who were present for some of their lessons will not forget these experiences. 

    Congratulations to the parents of Allegra Detwiler who is being baptized today. We pray that her parents may raise her in the practice of the faith that they profess in the name of their daughter today. 

    Our bulletin for next Sunday, December 27th, the feast of the Holy Family, will be available for our Christmas Liturgies this week (since there is no separate Christmas bulletin). We will have confessions on Monday, December 21 at 11am and on Tuesday, December 22 at 7pm. Our Christmas Mass schedule will be the same as in previous years & you can find that here in the bulletin. Now I have to get my Christmas shopping done...Michaela has a very long list...bones, treats, & stuffed animals she can destroy. Abby wants only one thing...for me to give away Michaela so she can be Queen of the household. 

Homily..."Once Upon A Time..."

Some stories, especially children's fairy tales, begin with the words, "Once Upon a Time..." Star Wars begins with, "In a galaxy far, far away..." But the story of Jesus as told by St. Luke gives us the details of the exact time & place when Jesus was born: "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, during the high priesthood of Annas & Caiaphas, the word of God came to John in the desert." 

The Christmas Proclamation, said or sung at the midnight Mass, goes like this: "Today, the 25th day of December, 21 centuries from the time of Abraham & Sarah, 13 centuries after Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt, 1000 years from the anointing of David as King, in the 25th week according to the prophecy of Daniel, in the 194th Olympiad, the 752nd year from the foundation of the city of Rome, the forty-second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus, Jesus Christ, 9 months having passed from his conception, was born of Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary."

Why all the details concerning the when & where of Jesus? Because God becomes part of our human history. He enters into space & time. He comes to us amidst the details of life. It is said that the "devil is in the details." But I would turn that around & say that God is in the details. Where is he to be found today? In our daily "history"...in the people we live & work with, in the place we walk or drive to, in the circumstances & experiences of each day.  

Pastor's Column

     I will be praying with you in spirit this weekend but not in person as I will be visiting some friends in Fort Myers. In October, they lost their 37 year old son to brain cancer, and he left behind a wife & two daughters. Can you say a prayer for Corey? He was a courageous man who never lost his sense of humor or his faith during the six long years he fought cancer, and was faithful to the end. My sister and brother-in-law are also building a home in Fort Myers about a half hour from where my friends live so I'll be checking on the progress of that building as they will be moving there in February. It will be my only sibling living out of state & that will be hard to get used to, though at least I have another place to stay in Fort Myers when the Cleveland winters are cold & harsh. Of course it is expected to be an un-seasonably warm & pleasant week here in Cleveland as I write this & I must confess that I was hoping it would be below zero & blizzard conditions as I fly into the warm south. Not that I want you to suffer with bad weather here but I enjoy being in Florida more when it's so miserable here in Ohio. Please offer our usual St. Leo welcome to the missionary priest who will praying with you this weekend.
    This past Tuesday, as we celebrated the feast of the Immaculate Conception, we also began a Year of Mercy at the prompting of our Holy Father, Pope Francis. The whole world knows that mercy is at the heart of Francis's preaching. This Jubilee Year ends on Sunday, November 20, 2016, the feast of Christ the King. More information about what this Year of Mercy means can be found through a link that will be on our website throughout this next year, highlighted by the logo & motto designated for this special year. The motto "Merciful Like the Father" (taken from the Gospel of Luke, 6:36) serves as an invitation to follow the merciful example of the Father who asks us not to judge or condemn but to forgive without measure. The logo shows Jesus taking upon his shoulders the lost soul, and the right eye of Christ is merged with the left eye of man. It's an intriguing symbol. A banner which will change quarterly will be hung in the church as a reminder of this focus on Mercy during the next 12 months. May God's be mercy be shown to us so that we in turn my show mercy to each other.  

Pastor's Column

     Joseph Panik was a parishioner here at St. Leo's who attended the 4pm Mass on Saturdays. He passed away suddenly last week & his Funeral Mass was celebrated on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Joe was a member of Blessed Sacrament Parish (now closed), which is where our stained glass windows are from (the ones in the shadow boxes). Since Joe was on the fund-raising committee at Blessed Sacrament when they bought those windows, he joked that he had to pay for the windows twice...first when he was at Blessed Sacrament & then when we had them installed here at St. Leo's! May he now join the saints honored on those windows.
    Donald Khoma was buried from our parish this past Monday. He was the youngest of 8 children and there is only one surviving brother left. He took great care of his wife during her long illness and was himself beset by illness which had him in and out of nursing homes for several years. But he treated those who cared for him like they were family. We pray for him by name this weekend as well. 
    We also extend our sympathy to the family of Ivan Sevel who died on Thanksgiving Day. I gave him the Last Rites just a couple days before and was able to pray for him with his wife Sharon and two of their sons who live in town. Ivan's Memorial Mass will be held on Saturday, December 19th. Ivan was a retired police officer. May he too rest in peace. 
    Last Sunday at the beginning of the 10am Mass, we celebrated the Rite of Acceptance for Pedro, Dylan, Neiland, Rebecca & Erin, who are in RCIA and preparing to receive the Sacraments of Initiation at the Easter Vigil. We formally welcomed them into the catechumenate and pledge to walk with them on the journey of faith, especially in the coming months. 
    This Tuesday is the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the patroness of our country and so a Holy Day of Obligation. Mass will be at 7am, 8:30am (school) and 7pm. 
    Now that all the bills have been paid from our festival in October, I can tell you that the parish made a profit of $17,500 from all the hard work of our parishioners during those two evenings of fun. Many thanks again to all who took part either as a worker or as a participant. We look forward to doing it again next year!
    This weekend is the annual collection for the retired Religious Fund. We take a moment to remember how many good Sisters and Brothers taught us and helped us in many ways over the years & we express our appreciation by helping them financially in their retirement years.