Wednesday’s Wink from Above - Advent Season of Hope 12/03/2025.

 

Advent is a season of Hope as we reflect on the darkness ever present in our world let’s join & pray, “As an eagle incites its nestlings forth by hovering over its brood, So he spread his wings to receive them and bore them up on his pinions.” [Psalm 92]

The TV show “Mission Impossible” began with a tape recording, “Your mission, should choose to accept it ….”

The tape recording ended with this warning “As always, should you or and of your IMF force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.”

Our mission as Christians is to live the Gospel Message, an impossible Mission. No, actually a challenging one; one filled with great joy and peace, yet opposed by the forces of evil, of indifference and the lure of unbridled materialism.

Jesus will never disavow knowledge of us, and He will celebrate our discipleship.

 

Accept your Mission as a follow of Jesus Christ and when you Mission is completed here on earth Jesus will “bear you up on His pinions,” greet you, thank you for your life on earth as His disciple, take you into the Glory of God for all eternity.

May the Hope of Advent 2025 fill you heart, your mind & your soul.

 

May God Be Praised.

Sunday 11/30/2025 Special Blog Advent Season of Hope.

Lord, my God, I yearn for You in my tears, and as the tears fill my heart I pray for Your coming. And so, I join the psalmist and pray:

“Mercy and faithfulness have met;

justice and peace have embraced.

Faithfulness shall spring from the earth

and justice look down from heaven.

The Lord will make us prosper

and our earth shall yield its fruit.

Justice shall march before him

and peace shall follow his steps.” [From Psalm 95]

Maybe this story can aid us in our Advent preparations.

If there is one belief that the men and women of our world need today it is the belief in the resurrection.

Why?

Because it is the effective antidote to the infectious disease of materialism.

In the 19th Century an American tourist visited the Polish rabbi Hofetz Chaim. Astonished to see that the rabbi's home was only a simple room filled with books, plus a table and a bench, the tourist asked,

"Rabbi, where is your furniture?"

"Where is yours?" replied the rabbi.

"Mine?" asked the puzzled tourist. "But I'm only a visitor here. I'm only passing through."

"So am I," said Hofetz Chaim. [Passing Through Sermons.com - Father Ernest Munachi Ezeogu]

As we “pass through” this Advent may it remind us that our time here on earth is a preparation for eternal life with God. Alfred Delp, S.J. wrote, “When through one man a little love and goodness, a little more light and trust come into the world, then that man’s life has meaning.”

Pray this Advent for a grateful and humble heart so you may bring “a little more love and goodness … a little more “light and trust” into the world.

May God Be Praised.

Wednesday’s Wink from Above - 11/26/2025 – Thanksgiving Day Blessing for 11/27/2025

 

In the United States Thanksgiving Day is a holiday with special religious significance. Originally celebrated by the Pilgrims and the Native Americans to thank God after the harvest of 1621. 

In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November should be a national day of thanksgiving.

Today our nation needs to return to God for guidance and then follow that guidance. Religion and morality should inform our way of life, including our politics.  We should keep the classical concept of the common good foremost in our decisions.

Tomorrow thank God for His many blessings and pray that we are open to those blessings, and share with those less fortunate from God’s goodness to you.

Take Time to Offer this Thanksgiving Blessing:

“God most provident, we join all creation in raising to you a hymn of thanksgiving  through Jesus Christ, your Son.  For generation upon generation peoples of this land have sung of your bounty; we too offer you praise for the rich harvest we have received at your hands.

* 

Bless us and this food which we share with grateful hearts. 

Continue to make our land fruitful and let our love for you be seen in our pursuit of peace and justice and in our generous response to those in need.

Praise and glory to you, Lord God, now and forever.”  Amen. 

 

 

 

 

May God Be Praised.

 *Brother Mickey McGrath’s artwork is available at: https://www.bromickeymcgrath.com/

 

Wednesday’s Wink from Above Homily Cycle C Offered at OLPH Sunday November 2, 2025

 

All Souls Day 11/02/2025 Readings

How many of you have magnets on your refrigerator at home?

Why do the magnets stick to your refrigerator? Magnets stick to anything that has iron or steel in them. Your refrigerator door probably has iron or steel in it, so it's a perfect place to stick magnets. If they don't have anything to stick to, they start to lose their power.

If you take a magnet and put it in a place where it didn't have any iron or steel, after a while it would lose its magnetic power. It wouldn't work right anymore. 

In order for magnets to keep their power, they need to stay stuck on something. We Christians are like magnets except we need “Someone” to stick to – Jesus Christ. [Sermons.com]

Today we celebrate All Souls Day. We remember those who have gone before to “the land of the living.” Today’s Commemoration is about “Trust & Hope” in the Lord and His promises. In the song Heaven, Home I Come we hear this haunting verse “Earth’s burdens never more to bear, in heaven I adore! Today, tomorrow, all are one, to praise You ever more.” The loss of a loved one comes with sorrow, the sorrow of Why?, Why now? Why in this manner? On this side of the grave there are no adequate answers.

The mystery of suffering is beyond our comprehension. Peter Kreeft in his book Making Sense of Suffering wrote, “The point of this life is not to be happy but to become real, like the Velveteen Rabbit; to be tamed as the fox says to the Little Prince, to become the person God can love perfectly, to satisfy God’s thirst for love.”

In our Reading from Wisdom we learned, “the souls of the just are in the hand of God ….they are at peace.” St. Paul reminds us that “Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts.” In John’s Gospel Jesus promises us “… that everyone who … believes … I shall raise him up on the last day.”

Our life is a gift, given by God not only to us but to those whose lives we touch & to those whose lives touch us. In death, we give back to God what we have done here on earth. As we commemorate All Souls, we remember in a particular way, All of the Faithfull Departed. The souls of our loved ones who have gone before now dwelling with God.

Today, the memories of them are in our hearts and on our minds. This commemoration reminds us that our time on earth is limited & that our own death along with the pain of saying good-bye to our loved ones is part of life. We live with & in the Easter promise of the empty tomb, and today we ask ourselves “When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage & enter the presence of God?”  [Antiphon 1 Monday Week II)]

On a tombstone are written these words.

For those of you old enough remember Mr. Rodgers. Reflect on this insight he offered us, "All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are?"

Sometime today offer a prayer of Thanksgiving for our departed loved ones, a prayer for their love and example for our lives.

May God Be Praised.

 

 

Wednesday’s Wink from Above Homily Cycle C 10-26-2025 offered at OLPH.

Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102625.cfm

In a little town outside of Dublin, Ireland, O’Toole found a messy plot of land.  He spent weeks cleaning out the debris, racking & fertilizing the soil. Then he planted flowers and carefully watered them. After a few months, his garden was a beauty. One day as he was admiring his garden, Fr. O’Reilly walked past & said to him, “What a fine garden you & the Lord have made.”  O’Toole said, “Father you should have seen it when the Lord had it on His own!”

Now we might think that O’Toole committed the sin of pride, and he may well have, but it is our sins pride we want to own up to today. The Lord doesn’t make messes, but He helps clean them up after we make them, and our sins of pride make a lot of messes. You and I are called by Jesus – to listen to HIS WORD and allow HIS WORD to guide our lives.

The Greek play write Sophocles in Antigone wrote, “All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong & repairs the evil, the only sin is pride.” C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity said pride is “The Great Sin.”

Throughout human history the Sin of Pride and Self-Conceit has flourished, and the virtue of Humility has lagged behind. The reading from Sirach tells us  “The Lord is a God of justice, who knows no favorites…. & the Lord will not delay.” St. Paul wrote that he has “finished the race … kept the faith.”

We need to remember that the race of Faith in our life is not a sprint but a marathon. We need to Trust God and be faithful and persistent in doing God’s Will for the pure love of God. 

 

This morning, we ask, “Do I seek only the gifts of God OR am I truly seeking God Himself? In our marathon of Faith we experience joys, trials: in the time of trials on more than one occasion ask God, “Why me?” The times of joy rarely compel us to say Thank you to God. The answer to “Why me?” is rarely given to us in this life, but like the Tax Collector God asks us to humbly accept what happens on our faith journey as from His hand, the joys easy to accept; the trails difficult to accept. “Do I seek only the gifts of God OR am I truly seeking God Himself?

Reflect on this insight on prayer. “The Gate of Heaven is so low that to get in one must be on their knees; especially the knees’ of our heart & our will.” Disney offers us Gaston & Belle in The Beauty and the Beast and the Evil Queen and Snow White as examples of pride and humility.

However this morning I will refer to  the play Les Mis, which gives us three characters who can help us obtain insight into today’s Gospel. Javert the self-righteous, law enforcing policeman who lacks even a modicum of mercy. Jean Valjean who reminds us of the tax collector in today’s Gospel, who acknowledges his own sinfulness.

He offers mercy and forgiveness to Javert who is unable to accept the gifts offered to him. And finally, Marius who offers us this insight on prayer, “These are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.” PRAYER is the best means of strengthening our relationship with Jesus Christ. Today let’s join with Jean Valjean who prayed in song:

“God on high

Hear my prayer

In my need You have always been there.”

The Gospel is not about “punishment or condemnation” but, a call to deeper “conversion.” It calls us to bend our hearts, our wills & our souls to God’s. Spend some time thinking about, “Do I seek only the gifts of God OR am I truly seeking God Himself?

May God Be Praised.