Beginning on the first Sunday of Advent, December 3rd and running through January 7th our parish will display our traditional Advent Giving Trees in the atrium and vestibule, decorated with red, green and white envelopes highlighting the two beneficiaries of our parish’s Advent Giving Fund: our Neighbors in Need fund and the Knights of Malta Mobile House of Care. As in year’s past, I am asking our parishioners to kindly and generously support one—or a combination of both—of these two great Catholic outreach programs which have been a Saint Catherine of Siena tradition at Advent.

Today’s gospel is clear: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, sheltering the homeless and giving comfort and welcome to the lost and the stranger, caring for the sick are all things of God. They are His Work. His Mission. His Ministry. And they are ours too. As a Catholic priest I am often taken aback when Catholics and non-Catholics alike tell me that “the Church is always asking for money.” Indeed She does, She has, and She always will. I am proud of the fact that “our Church” that does ask for much. Why? There is both a lot to be accomplished and “the Church” that is asking for this work to be done in God’s name--and I’d say that’s good company with which to be associated.

On Wednesdays immediately following our daily Mass, our parish will pray the Rosary for Peace, and on Fridays after daily Mass we will pray The Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Our world, our nation, our Church and our families need more Divine Grace, which will lead us to more peaceful living in our global community, in our nation, Church and families. The Catholic Church notes that “Peace can only come about when we learn to treat each other as brothers and sisters and recognize our shared vocations as children of God.”

This weekend the gospel is another parable-with-atwist in the Matthean-style. These parables that we hear at the end of this liturgical year are apocalyptic in nature, meaning of or related to the end time. Theses parables are meant to give great hope to those in the midst of troubles, and while the “troubles’ may be different in each circumstance, the anxiety one feels from their troubles remain the same powerful angst in each generation.

Today’s Gospel of Matthew shows us Matthew’s perspective of the Pharisees as somewhat “bad people.” Matthew’s understanding of the Pharisees comes from his experience of them, not from their beginnings but from how he saw and interacted with them. Scripture scholars want us to know a few things about the Pharisees—the “Big Picture,” if you will.