Recently I was talking to my brother, who is in his last semester of college, about transition and change that comes after college graduation.  He’s actively involved in Catholic campus ministry and is not looking forward to that ending.  I remember being in that same boat.  You can’t really prepare for the transition from campus ministry and all it entails back to parish life.  You go from a strong vibrant and active community of people your age that has strongly impacted you back to the parish you’ve known and grown up in, (but which has also impacted you).  While this is not a bad thing, it is a big adjustment.  There is a sadness that follows as you leave behind one community you’ve grown to be a part of to go back to another.  What makes all the difference is how people welcome you.

When you are part of a parish that has almost a non-existent young adult presence, it is a big adjustment.  But it doesn’t mean that community cannot be found.  Late summer after I had graduated, I sought out early morning adoration at my parish.  Afterwards, heading out to my car, two women who were part of the post-adoration Bible study group, followed me outside and invited me to join them in the basement to be part of this group.  They made me feel welcome.  And they did the same thing the week after that, and then the adoration and Bible study became a weekly routine.  There may not have been anyone else there in their twenties, thirties, or even forties, but it was community that was much needed at the time.  Now in my late twenties, not much has changed.  Between that group and another Bible Study on Tuesday evenings, everyone is old enough to be my parents or grandparents.  But sharing the same faith is what connects everyone.  And there is much encouragement, inspiration, and wisdom to be found.

How we welcome anyone is important, no matter what their age is.  How do we reach out to others, as Jesus would do?  How do we recognize the image of God in each and every single person who is part of our parishes, whether they are involved or not?  How do we personally invite others into something we are a part of?  While our faith is not about feelings, how we make other people feel in various moments can leave a huge and lasting impact.

Young or old, we are all part of the Church now, at this moment.  People often say that young people are the future of The Church, which is true, but they are also the Church now.  My hope is that each of us can reflect on how how we can welcome others into our community, because Jesus gave us other people for a reason.  None of us can do this on our own.

About two weeks ago, when I was at work and it was approaching 5:00 PM, looking out the window, I noticed that it was not pitch black at that time, like it had been for weeks before.  It was a little bit lighter outside.  I don’t know if it was the first day that 5:00 was a little bit lighter or if it had already been that way for a few days, but as I walked out to my vehicle, it was noticeably different.  The sky still wasn’t super light at that time, but that little bit of light was enough for me to notice.  It was a reminder to me that the smallest bit of light can make a difference.  We can be a light in this dark world and make a difference.

The world is filled with darkness.  Wherever you look, it seems like darkness is everywhere.  But Jesus’ light is so much greater than the darkness.  And we are all called to allow the light of Christ to shine within us.  In the Gospel for this coming Sunday, Jesus tells His disciples, “you are the light of the world.  A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14).  We have the ability to let the light of Christ shine through us by living out our faith.  Do we allow His light to shine through us or do we try to conceal it, in order to not stand out, or to hide our faith?

We receive the light of Christ at our baptism, with the mission to keep the light burning.  But, we can let things get in the way.  By attending mass, receiving the eucharist, going to confession, building a life of prayer, doing charitable works, reading scripture, we can keep the light burning.  We must keep our eyes on Jesus, remain vigilant, surround ourselves with a strong faith community, and be open and ready to share our faith.  Christ can work through us.

Each day, I hope and pray that I can be Christ’s light, even if it seems like the tiniest bit of light in the dark world.  The light, no matter how seemingly small, will shine in the darkness.  Because Jesus is greater and more powerful than all of the darkness.  And we have the ability to bring that light to the world around us.  My prayer for today is that we would all shine the light of Jesus, allowing others to see Him.

Last week at work, someone I work with used a swear word when talking about something to our team, then quickly apologized to just me for her language.  Co-workers have often shared with me their amazement at how I never swear and almost every time one of them uses that kind of language around me, an apology to me follows after.  Through these experiences, I’ve been reminded how what you say or don’t say matters and people take notice.  Words are powerful.  Is the language we use reflecting God in the way it should?

Our culture has normalized vulgar and inappropriate language.  From movies and TV shows, to music, and just casually in everyday life around us, people have largely become desensitized to this type of degrading language, being quick to use it and not even blinking an eye upon hearing it.  How often do people throw around the “f word” as if it’s an ordinary word?  How often do people use God’s name in vain like it means nothing?  Hearing these words and phrases should jolt us out of complacency.

It is unbelievable to see and hear the way people speak to each other and about each other.  All you have to do is open up social media and spend a few minutes scrolling to see the awful and cruel way people speak to each other.  Comments and posts are filled with extreme name calling, the use of the “f word”, and other derogatory language.  Unfortunately, this language is used outside of social media too.  An example in my own life that comes to mind immediately is the times spent praying and walking in front of Planned Parenthood and the countless people who drove by, screaming derogatory messages angrily out their windows.  It always did sting when this happened.

There is never a good reason to use this sort of language.  God calls every single one of us to greater heights.  There are countless words in the English language that can be used to express ourselves in an appropriate way.  Each and every single person is made in the image and likeness of God, so the way we speak and the words we exchange with others matters.  Words that are vulgar and inappropriate have the ability to defile and violate the dignity of the person.

Being human, we can easily say things we regret or words we didn’t mean and that’s where God’s mercy and forgiveness come in, but I think swearing is a whole other category that is completely avoidable.  We have the ability to intentionally choose what we say, and we can avoid carelessly using God’s name in vain, the “f” word or other similar words.

Through our words, we should speak love, speak life, and speak truth.  God has given us the ability to speak, so we should avoid those words that violate God and others.  When you avoid this type of language, people do notice.  And you will never know how it might inspire someone to make a change or to at least stop and think.  My prayer for today is that our words would be a reflection of God within us.

About once a month at work, I spend the day working at one of our interim housing sites (shelters).  Most of the office staff are assigned one day each month in order to help cover the hours of the normal work day, before the housing staff members come in to cover their evening and overnight shifts at the sites.  But, for the most part otherwise, I do not have any interaction with the public or clients we serve.  My regular everyday work involves being in an office, working in spreadsheets, running reports, analyzing data, reviewing budgets and spending trends and projections, reading grant contracts and manuals, reviewing policies and procedures, and referencing the Code of Federal Regulations, ensuring contract compliance.  This is my ordinary and everyday job.  The few times I interact with clients at work is something different and out of the ordinary, which can seem more exciting.  Thinking about this made me reflect on the different seasons in the Church.  Now that we are back in ordinary time once again, it can seem mundane and boring compared to the other seasons, but it is where most of life is lived, and we can find a lot of beauty and goodness here if we are looking.

Ordinary time is my favorite liturgical season.  It takes up the largest chunk of time in the liturgical calendar.  And it doesn’t appear to be too exciting.  There are no big holidays and it doesn’t really include periods of intense spiritual practices.  Yet, I’ve always liked how simple it seemed; how ordinary it appeared.  But simple and ordinary does not mean unimportant.  In fact, Ordinary time does not have its name due to being ordinary in the sense that we know it.  Ordinary comes from the Latin word ordinalis, meaning a numbered order.  Even though the name of the season is referring to weeks that are numbered, I think we can still think about Ordinary time as a time that is like regular everyday lives.

The ordinary moments of our days can have a huge impact whether we realize it or not. The conversations we have, the people we interact with, the schedules we follow, the events we go to, the work we do, the text messages we send are all seemingly ordinary things that make up most of our days.  But these very things may be what inspires someone, changes something for someone, or impacts someone.  On the flip side, we can be inspired, changed, and impacted by the people around us too.  Jesus is in the ordinary moments, in the midst of our day-to-day lives.  We just need to look.

In Ordinary time, the focus is on the teachings and ministry of Jesus.  And it is a time that I think we can learn and grow a lot.  It can be a time where we learn how to walk more closely with Jesus, especially in the ordinary moments, where nothing seemingly exciting is happening.  It’s where we can learn how to live more like Him, contemplating the Gospels and striving to follow His ways.  It is when we can work on being consistent in prayer and showing up, even when things seem dry, or when we might not feel like it.  This time is a time to focus on the slow and steady growth that most of life entails.  We can work to order our lives more towards Christ.

This liturgical season we are in does not appear grand or exciting, as it is the time outside of the major liturgical seasons.  Our lives too are mostly made up of ordinary moments, between big exciting opportunities and experiences that we have at times.  Day in and day out, our lives are made up of routine, average, tasks and conversations.  But these moments can stretch us and challenge us to keep growing and keep showing up.  My prayer for each of us is that we would see every day as an opportunity to encounter Christ in the midst of the ordinary!

In today’s Gospel (1/12), we read about the call of the first disciples.  The one part that caught my attention when reading the passage is, “Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).  These words from Jesus have two parts.  Jesus asks His disciples to follow him, and also tells them that He will make them witnesses to draw others to Him.  This line seems to speak to the fact that our faith may be personal, but it should not be private.

Following Jesus is a big first step.  But we cannot stop at that.  Once we follow Him, we must be willing and ready to share our faith and our experiences of Jesus with others.  A faith that is not lived out and shared is a faith that is dead. If we have a deep faith and a strong relationship with Jesus that is great for us. But if we never share it, it doesn’t really mean much.

We may often hear different reasons people have for not sharing their faith.  We hear things like, “I don’t want to force my religion on anyone”, “my faith is something private not to be shared”, “I don’t want to offend anyone”, “it’s not my job”, among various other reasons.  But, just as in the Gospel passage from Mark, when Jesus tells His disciples He will make them fishers of men, we too are called to evangelize.

There are many reasons that Catholics are required to go to mass at a minimum of once a week.  People often believe they can just pray on their own in place of going to mass.  It goes back to the idea that our faith is personal, but not private.  It is not individual, but rather, something communal.  Each of us is part of the Body of Christ and our faith is strengthened when we join together as one community, expressing our faith together.

We are all called to evangelize, to draw others to Christ.  Evangelization often sounds scary and intimidating.  But us sharing our faith doesn’t have to be in big and seemingly profound ways.  The small day to day moments, through our words and actions, can be enough to make an impact.  My prayer for each of us today is that in our daily decision to follow Jesus, we would allow Him to make us fishers of men, willing to share our faith with the people around us.

In today’s (1/6) Gospel passage from Mark, we read about the miracle of Jesus feeding 5,000 with five loaves of bread and two fish. There are a lot of messages we can get from this passage. Just as Jesus takes the small amount of food and multiplies it, He can do the same in our lives. Our seemingly small and few gifts, talents, and our amount of time, when given to the Lord can be multiplied and used for a great purpose.

We can often look at the world around us, feeling quite small and insignificant, wondering, how can I possibly make a difference? But when we have a servant mindset and heart and offer our gifts to God, He can use us and bless and multiply our efforts.

One of our tasks here on earth is to build up God’s kingdom. We cannot do that if we are not giving God our time, resources, and gifts. It can be easy to want to selfishly hold onto these things. After all, our resources sometimes seem limited, our gifts not good enough, and our time too short. But God has given us what we need and wants us to give them back to Him in order to serve and love others through Him.

We must trust that God has given us what we need and that He can use us to make a difference. He takes what seems small and insignificant and turns it into what is abundant and overflowing, just as He did with the five loaves and two fishes to feed thousands. My prayer for today is that each of us would place ourselves in the hands of God and trust that He will multiply our small offerings for great things!

Recently, an extended family member greeted me by confidently saying, “Hi, Abbey!  Merry Christmas!”  This wasn’t the first time this family member called me by my sister’s name.  As this family member has been part of the family for more than 28 years, since before I was born, it seems kind of strange to get my name wrong repeatedly. But this occurrence caused me to think about names and their significance.  Our names are our titles and what identifies us for life.  God calls each of us by name.

Our names are sacred.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “God calls each one by name. Everyone’s name is sacred. The name is the icon of the person. It demands respect as a sign of the dignity of the one who bears it (CCC 2158).  God knows each one of us individually.  He has chosen us, calls us, and invites each one of us into a personal relationship with Him.  It can be easy to overlook the fact that He calls us each by our unique names.  We are more than a part of a generic crowd or group.  To be set apart and recognized individually is something special.

While it seems small, it is significant when we use other people’s names and when people use our names.  Whether it is when writing a written message to someone via text, email, or letter, or when speaking to a person, it makes a big difference.  It feels as if you are known by someone when they use your name.  It feels more personal.  Now think not just about the people around you using your name, but God Himself using your name too.  That is an incredible thought.  The God of the universe calls you and I by name.  How do we respond?

On the surface, names can seem insignificant.  But in reality, they play a huge role in our lives, as the name we are given by our parents at birth is with us for life.  Our names identify who we are.  They are more than just a label, but as the Catechism says, they are an icon of us and they signify our dignity from God.  My prayer for you today is that you would recognize that God knows you and is calling you by name!

The Christmas season is always a beautiful time in the Church. The 4:00 PM Christmas Eve mass I attended was full, which is always a great sight to see. The birth of Jesus is one of the most significant events in history and one of the most important parts of our faith. If we truly recognize the beauty and significance of Jesus’ birth, our celebrations will continue throughout the whole Christmas season and our worship will continue every week after.

Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ the King into the world. Most of us know this. But we know the story inside and out, so maybe this reality doesn’t impact us as profoundly as it should. The moment Jesus was born humbly into the world, He shows us how to live and how to love, His presence changing everything. And His presence continues to remain with us.

The same Jesus that was born in a manger, is fully present to us, body, blood, soul, and divinity, in the Eucharist. That is worth celebrating not only throughout Christmas, but forever after too. This reality should make our churches full every weekend, not just at Christmas Eve or Christmas Day masses.

Jesus is the ultimate model of humility; from His humble birth in a manger, to giving Himself to us in the humble appearances of bread and wine. Perfectly humble, He is the king of the universe. Is He the King and ruler of our lives? When we go to Mass and receive Him in the Eucharist, may we recognize that this truly is Christ the King! Have a blessed Christmas!

On Sunday morning, I was at mass at a church in North Carolina.  I arrived 20 minutes early and the parking lot was already filling up.  By the time mass was going to start, the church, which can seat 750 people, was full.  It was to the point that ushers were walking around finding space for people.  It’s a large parish, with over 1,500 registered families and four weekend mass times, but I was still surprised to see the church so full.  At my parish, I am used to attending mass with a lot of empty space, where you pretty much always have a pew to yourself, except for maybe someone else on the opposite end.  It’s a small community, but there is not a lack of Catholics in the area, as evidenced by the number of families who send their kids to religious education.  I often wonder, where is everyone?  Maybe they have forgotten or have never discovered the joy of the Gospel and what God has done.

At mass, the priest gave a great homily about joy and what it means in our lives.  He talked about how the nativity story, God becoming man to save us and so we could know Him, is a great reason for joy.  But for many people, we’ve heard it so many times that we can forget how amazing it really is.  He talked about our faith being the one place we find true joy and about how to live it in our daily lives.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what joy actually is.  It’s not always feeling happy and excited, as these are feelings that are dependent on circumstances and can drift away.  Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit and it comes from an awareness of God’s presence and a relationship with Him, bringing a sense of peace.  It is a deep inner state that remains no matter what is going on around us.

The greater trust we have in Jesus and the greater love we have for Him, the more our joy will increase.  And this will be reflected in our lives.

It seems like many people are searching for joy in all the wrong places, looking in the world for something that is but a fleeting moment of happiness.  There is a great joy found in Jesus and knowing Him and the Nativity story reminds us of this.  My prayer for each of us is that we would not forget what God has done for us and the joy that comes from it!

Winter is in full swing here in Wisconsin.  And that means cold and snow.  I will quickly admit that winter is not my favorite season.  I prefer warmth and sunshine and enjoy the heat of summer, which is always much too short.  Winter brings slippery roads, getting stuck, and shoveling.  But the long winters we have make me appreciate summer and its warmth so much more.  And I cannot deny the beauty of a fresh snowfall.  The way the snow frosts the trees and blankets the ground is truly a beautiful sight to see.  When you go outside during a snowfall, especially at night, there is a quiet and stillness that is almost unbelievable.  All noise and activity is silenced and you only hear the crunch of the snow under each step you take.  The science behind this is that the snow traps sound waves in its air pockets, muffling noise and absorbing sound.  During a recent snowfall, I was outside at night and reflected on this; how can we bring that same quiet and stillness into our lives, especially during the season of Advent?

Life for most of us can be quite busy, especially around this time of year.  There is so much pressure to do, to accomplish, and to achieve, instead of to just be.  But what if we pushed back against the hustle and bustle of the culture around us and chose to be still?  How can we hear God speaking to our hearts unless we take time to sit and listen?

We have the season of Advent for a reason.  This time is for us to pray, reflect, and prepare our hearts for Christ, to invite Him to enter our lives in a deeper way.  It is a time for us to grow in and experience the virtues of hope, peace, joy, and love.  It is difficult for us to experience these if we allow ourselves to get swept into the commercial Christmas and the hurriedness that it brings.  If we follow the world’s idea of Christmas, we will be burnt out and tired of it all by the time Christmas actually arrives.  But if we move slowly and intentionally in this season, we will be ready to celebrate Christ’s birth with joy and excitement, and allow the celebration to extend the full Christmas season.

There are so many ways we can live Advent well.  There are books to read and reflect on, apps that have prayer challenges to follow along with, podcasts and videos with reflections, and much more.  The main goal is that we are attempting to slow down, find time and space for silence, and to be still.  My prayer for you today is that you would create a beautiful quiet and stillness in your lives, much like the quiet and stillness that a snowfall brings, allowing you to encounter God in a deeper way!