I thought my Mom knew everything. I never thought to wonder how she knew so much.
what can we learn from Mary, Our Mother.

I thought my Mom knew everything. I never thought to wonder how she knew so much.
what can we learn from Mary, Our Mother.
I never expected to hear St. Vincent dePaul speaking at the coronation of King Charles III!
Archbishop Justin Welby captured Vincent’s spirit.
He challenged all, from King Charles to all in attendance and, by extension, all who read it to live what we call the Vincentian vision.
Jesus said “Let not your hearts be troubled!” My heart is troubled by the polarization of “either/or” thinking. So I ask was Jesus and “either/or” thinker? Or was he a “both/and thinker?
In the annunciation of our Baptism, we are challenged to be Christ-bearers, to be Christ in the midst of our ordinary lives.
Mary’s visitation challenges us to “pay it forward”, to visit and encounter our neighbor.
Everybody wants to change our way of thinking. Does God? What change of thinking is God asking about how we live?
iI we can enter into the fullness of Christmas past, we will experience new levels of hope in the midst of a chaotic Christmas present!
Many of us either witnessed or were participants as children in appropriate costumes and props re-enacted the Nativity scene.
As adults we grew beyond these re-enactments.
Something Pope Francis wrote reminds me to think about recognizing that we act out various roles in our daily life.
Which approach is ours?
Giving up and walking away?
Giving up thinking we can do it on our own?
John the Baptist is the only saint in the calendar, apart from the mother of Jesus, to have two days set apart in his honor. He is featured in six Sunday Gospels in the three year Advent cycle.
“Baptism is like a very precious gift package that remains unopened, like a Christmas gift, misplaced somewhere and forgotten about, even before it was opened.” It is too big for my imagination.
Mary has appeared in almost every country in the world. In each, she speaks the language of the time and place. “They each heard them in their own language.” The languages were different, but the message was clear. In each language they heard the words of a mother.
I just missed by a few days witnessing the 1965 passing of the document – The Church in the Modern World. We are still within the normal window it takes to implement such a document. Pope Francis calls us to fully implement the document.
DId mary know she was conceived free from sin? What was she praying for before the Annunciation? What did she expect when she was expecting? What were her questions as the mother of Jesus?