This Sunday marks the crux of Lent…the midpoint of these 40 days. Here, our mother, the Church, offers to us The Cross to meditate upon, “to strengthen and refresh us.” But, a cross is a strange symbol from which to gain such reinforcement.  Why would we believe that this implement of death could so strengthen us? Is there more to this symbol of the cross than we may realize?

This Sunday’s Gospel Reading is an excerpt from Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount”, where He also said some crazy sounding things to make a similar kind of point about the upside-down world we live in, like “Love your enemies.”

At the Blessing of the Waters, in one of the beginning prayers by the priest, the tone is set with these words, “Lord Jesus Christ, only-begotten Son…Light from Light, who came into the world to enlighten it, flood our mind with light by your Holy Spirit…”

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … Through Him all things were made, and nothing was made without Him.   In Him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind. … The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”

This Sunday, as we continue to make our way closer to the birth of Christ, the Church commemorates the Three Holy Youths, Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego (Ananias, Azarias, & Misail)…and also the Prophet Daniel (Baltazar), who went from testing to testimony.  

Lots of people think that St. Nicholas is just another name for Santa Claus, but it’s not. If you want to know the truth, it’s a lot more fun learning the story of the real St. Nicholas, whose feast day is December 6th.

It’s funny, what we’ve come to think of as “the first Thanksgiving.” Although it’s historically fabricated, many of us were brought up to envision an idyllic scene from the autumn of 1621. As the story goes, friendly local Native Americans had swooped in to teach the starving English Pilgrim Colonists how to survive.

The Gospel of Luke presents the story of Jesus as the fulfillment of God's prophesies and promises…giving a nod to the Jewish Temple—showing Christ as the fulfillment of its practices.