Blog & Pastor Letters

Sometimes it is a struggle to see how each of the Mass readings correspond. Other times the threads between them interweave like a masterfully woven tapestry. Today’s readings, at least to me, represent the latter. Strands of being created for a plan and a purpose, prophecies shared and rejected, good people treated as evil, and connected to all of it, a God that loves without reserve — upholding, strengthening His beloved.

When I was a Dominican novice, I remember asking one of the older friars in our community to succinctly describe the charism of the Order of Preachers. He stopped, thought for a moment, and replied, “The Dominican is meant to have a preoccupation with the Word of God.” That has stuck with me throughout my years in religious life and helped shape my ministry as a priest. Would that we all have a preoccupation with the Word of God!

The life of St. Augustine of Hippo is filled with testimonies of his immoral living before he found Christ. As a young man wandering all over North Africa and around the Mediterranean Coastlands, he sought to find true happiness. He tested all avenues of finding happiness as a young man but found no true joy. In whatever he indulged in, he progressed to the next to suit his personal voids. During his wanderings, he travelled to Milan in Italy and entered a church where he heard the word of God that touched him for the first time in his life. He listened to Bishop Ambrose of Milan preach about Jesus and this attracted him greatly. St. Augustine changed his life and was baptized. He not only become a Christian, but he was ordained later as a priest and Bishop of Hippo.

One Sunday, I had only one candidate for baptism after Mass. The family arrived well before the Mass ended and took up positions in the front pews ready for the baptism of their lovely baby. Since I had the afternoon Mass, I dressed up appropriately in the sacristy and proceeded to the altar to start the initiation of this lovely baby into the Christian faith. The baby was dressed all in white, but he was busy having his lunch from a small feeding bottle and his face beamed with angelic smiles. I was later told that his father flew in from Germany to attend his son’s baptism.

The month of December has come and gone. The world did not end. Or at least we are still here moving around. The Mayans are gone and the calendar they left for us is hard to interpret. What can we say? A year comes in, and a year goes out, that is how life works. Such has been the cycle of life right from the creation of man. What has a beginning must have an end. The year 2021 has ended and we must brace up to delve into a new year with hope of better things to come.