From Season to Season

  Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word." —Luke 1:38 The Gospels do not relate a single word spoken by Joseph, the husband of Mary. He is a silent, protecting figure standing in the shadows during the Season of Advent, coming into view only in the final days of this season of watching and waiting. And, while we do hear from Mary in the gospels of Luke and John, few of her words have come down to us.  Despite the fact that we hear so little from the parents of Jesus, we can nevertheless recognize one particular virtue that both shared: obedience.  “Obedience” isn’t a particularly popular word in our culture, including within the Church. Sadly, too many people have to come to associate obedience with some sort of blind submission. Instead, if we look at the history of the word, we see that it comes from two Latin words, ob and audire , and our English word “obedience” means to listen or to hear.  This sense of l...

Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.” —John 10:27-28                                                           In his message for the 50 th World Day of Prayer for Vocations (which is celebrated each year on the Fourth Sunday of Easter) Pope Benedict XVI observed, “ Hope is the expectation of something positive in the future, yet at the same time it must sustain our present existence, which is often marked by dissatisfaction and failures… To have hope, therefore, is the equivalent of trusting in God who is faithful, who keeps the promises of the covenant.” This sense of hope is at the heart of this Sund...

Through his prophets he promised of old that he would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us. He promised to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant… In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide their feet into the way of peace. - Luke 1:70-72, 78-79   The story of our salvation is a story of trees.   Beginning in the Garden of Eden, God placed a tree from which Adam and Eve were forbidden to take the fruit (cf. Genesis 2:16-17 ). This tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, became the great sign of humankind's fall from original grace. But, this original sin wasn't that our first parents ate the fruit of this tree; the sin was their disobedience: "In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God... Constituted in a state of holin...