Dear Friends,

Our old friend norma loquendi says that the term “toxic asset” is an oxymoron that you can bank on! It is amazing at what speed we distort the meaning of words or just outright change the definition of a word to make it seem like it is something it is not. George Orwell would be proud. One of my favorite obfuscations is “pre-embryo.”

Dear Friends,

We were treated to another Special Counsel’s Report, telling us another President did some wrong things but because he is a “sympathetic, elderly man with a poor memory”, the Special Counsel didn’t think a Jury would convict him. That’s a unique Senior Adult Get Out of Jail Free Card! Think of it guys: if you forget to take out the trash, you can tell your wife, “Sorry honey, I am an elderly man with a poor memory”. Or if you get pulled over by the police for having a lapsed car registration, or forget your Wedding Anniversary or your kids’ birthdays, just pull out that card!

Dear Friends,

Happy Lunar New Year! I must admit I never gave much thought to the Lunar or Chinese New Year except to participate in some of the celebrations of Asian parishioners. But then in December of 2019, a very well educated Chinese- American lady, who works as a scientific researcher said that 2020 was going to be a very, very, bad year. The reason she gave was that 2020 was the Year of the Iron or Metal Rat according to the Chinese zodiac. In the Chinese zodiac there are several zodiac cycles that converge each year and the convergence for 2020 was the worst possible. That indicated the year would be a difficult one, filled with great challenges, natural disasters, economic chaos, diseases, sickness, and death. My first thoughts were that she was being overly dramatic and superstitious. Then came March of 2020…

Dear Friends,

What’s in store for ’24?

Well, first on the list is some updated signage on the campus to help visitors find their way around. Included in that is a new digital sign on the 128th Ave. side of the campus. The sign, as many of you have asked, will be able to display Mass times and other events at the Parish. We are one of the only Churches without a digital sign, not that I am “keeping up with the Jones” but you would be amazed at how many phone calls we get for information on Mass times, events, and other happenings at the Parish.

Dear Friends,

File this under “Older but not wiser”. The UPI reports: “Marijuana use linked to impaired driving among seniors”. Maybe that explains some of the drivers in the Sun Cities. The article states: “seniors who were longterm marijuana smokers were weaving in and out of their lanes 30 minutes after getting high, Canadian researchers report.” No kidding.

Dear Friends,

It seems almost weekly that new polls, studies, and research are paraded before us regarding religion and the practice of religion or abandonment of practice. Whether it’s from a worldwide or US perspective or a denominational practice census, the numbers indicate that religion is still a constitutive part of the human experience.

Dear Friends,

One of the drivers that has been framing our country’s current discussion on race is Critical Race Theory (CRT). If you’ve noticed that the talk about racial justice doesn't sound much like Dr. King’s teachings on moving towards a race neutral society where the content of one’s character is the measure of judgement and that the power of non-violence best disarms oppression, that’s because CRT frames the issue and the solution very differently.

Dear Friends,

Fiducia Supplicans (Supplicating Trust) is the recent Vatican document which deals with the topic: On the Meaning of Blessings. The letter has generated an ocean full of ink. Despite being a minor document that contains nothing we did not already know but with some “nuances” on the practice of priestly blessings, it still generated an amazing array of news articles and opinion pieces. Here are a few:

Dear Friends,

2023 is the year that was. But was it a year to remember, or your favorite year? Was it the Best Year Ever, maybe a Year in the Life of a Fool? Or was it more the Days of Wine and Roses or a time we’d rather forget? However, those 525,600 minutes of those 365 days or those 31,536,000 seconds of the 52 weeks of 2023 passed by I hope you can find many reasons for gratitude and thankfulness.

Dear Friends,

Love, joy, and peace are words often associated with the infant in the manger in Bethlehem. But truth be told - the best way to describe him: subversive. His birth undercuts all worldly power and assumptions. Even at the moment of birth, there was “no room in the Inn,” and as C.S. Lewis often quipped, “God had to sneak clandestinely behind enemy lines.” This world would not receive this newborn King and has found ways to reject him ever since. The swaddled child was an immediate threat to the political order and an object of panic to the religious community. Herod wanted him dead; the Temple officials wouldn’t tolerate this version of a Messiah. From this point onward, Jesus turned the worldly powers on their heads, he subverted the old religions, and those who dared to follow him were hunted down as revolutionaries, disloyal citizens who threatened the status quo.

Dear Friends,

Bonfire of the Vanities: Vatican City Edition, 2023.

Well, it seems that Papa Francesco summoned his inner Trump and told Bishop Strickland of Tyler, Texas: “You’re Fired”. No reasons were given. No following the Code of Canon Law’s Process for the removal of a Bishop, no due process. Maybe the bishops should join the AFL-CIO. So much for “dialogue and transparency”. I mean why let the Faithful of Tyler know why their bishop was summarily fired?

Dear Friends,

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15)

When it comes to the Middle East, it is hard for us to wrap our heads around the fact that religion and politics are intertwined. In our sometimes naivete or sometimes hubris, we think we can bring about a political solution without dealing with the religious dimension of the dynamic that is present in the Holy Land. In that regard, the religious and political authorities (Bethlehem is part of the West Bank that is under control of the Palestinian Authority) have cancelled the public celebration of Christmas, including the decorations and the processions that accompany the Feast (though the religious celebration will still go on).

Dear Friends,

Like it or not, we are all infected with the “Myth of Progress”. Simply put, the future will always be better than the past and the present is far superior to anything that came before. Admittedly, there is no small amount of hubris in thinking that and a large dose of condescension that makes us condemn yesterday with today’s information. But still the myth persists.