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What does God want from us? Many people would answer that God wants us to attend Mass on Sunday, pray every day, and give to the poor. These things are certainly important, but they do not capture the full picture. What God ultimately wants is everything. He wants our whole lives because love requires nothing less.

Imagine a man telling a woman, “I love you so much. I want to be with you 99% of the time.” At first this sounds wonderful, but then she asks, “Why not 100%?” He replies, “The other 1% is for another woman.” No loving spouse would accept that arrangement. Love demands total commitment. To truly love someone means giving yourself completely.

The same principle applies to our relationship with God. We are called to love our neighbors, especially those closest to us. Christian love (the word in the New Testament is agape) means seeking the good of another and even sacrificing for them, as Christ did on the Cross. Yet there is a hierarchy to love. If a mother has only enough money to feed either her children or a stranger, she should feed her children first because she has the greatest responsibility toward them. Our love radiates outward like concentric circles, beginning with those closest to us.

What do you fear? For some people it’s heights. For others, it is public speaking. And then there are deeper fears: fear of rejection, fear of being unloved, fear of failure, and ultimately, fear of death. Everyone has fears; that is normal. And not all fear is bad; there is such a thing as healthy fear. For example, if a person sees a lake full of piranhas, a healthy fear will keep the person from jumping in. The question is not, whether we have fear, but whether we fear the right things.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says something that sounds surprising: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body… rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” Jesus is teaching us about the most important fear of all: the fear of the Lord. This doesn’t mean being terrified that God is waiting in heaven to strike us, as though God is the “mighty smiter.” St. Thomas Aquinas distinguished between servile fear—the fear of a slave before a harsh master—and filial fear—the fear of a son who does not want to lose or damage a precious relationship with his father.

We usually think of the Twelve Apostles as very holy men, with the exception of Judas. Eleven of them are (now) called saints. Yet, they didn’t start off that way; in fact, they were quite an eclectic group of people. They became Saints, meaning very closely united to and conformed to Jesus Christ. They grew in holiness.

For example, (St.) Matthew was a tax collector. Tax collectors were effectively cooperating with the Romans who were in control of Israel. They were seen by many of the people as being on the moral level of prostitutes. In contrast, there was (St.) Simon from Cana, who was also known as a Zealot (see Luke 6:15). This was a different Simon than the one Jesus renamed Peter. The Zealots were a religious-political faction seeking to drive the Romans out of Israel by force.

John the Baptist baptized people as a sign of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. When Jesus came to be baptized by John, it raised an important question: if Jesus was without sin, why would He submit to a baptism meant for sinners? The answer lies in two key ideas—solidarity and justification.
First, solidarity. To stand in solidarity means to stand shoulder to shoulder with others. Jesus, though fully God, also became fully human. He entered completely into our human condition, sharing our joys, limits, struggles, and ordinary experiences—except for sin. He was conceived, born, raised, learned a trade, and lived most of His life in quiet obscurity in Nazareth. For roughly thirty years, He lived what many would consider an ordinary, even boring life. Yet that life was holy. By being baptized, Jesus stood with sinners, identifying Himself with humanity in its need for redemption.
This tells us something profound: God does not despise ordinary life. Jesus did not seek fame, power, or recognition. Though He created the universe, He chose the hidden life of a carpenter. In doing so, He showed that everyday faithfulness—work, family, patience, obedience—is deeply meaningful to God.

The story of the three kings is one of the most beautiful stories in Scripture. This narrative reveals something deeply human: our longing to search for truth. The Gospel, in fact, never calls these three travelers kings, but magi. They were learned men from the East, likely from the Parthian Empire, practitioners of an ancient religion known as Zoroastrianism. They were scholars, observers of the heavens, men who believed that movements in the sky revealed meaning on earth. When these magi saw a star rise, they understood it as a sign: the birth of a king. They didn’t practice astrology as we know it today, but performed a disciplined reading of the cosmos. They had no map, no certainty, no guarantee—only a conviction that something profoundly important had happened. And so they set out, traveling a long, expensive, dangerous journey simply to find the truth. Why would they do this? Surely there were kings closer to home. But they were not searching for power or politics.

The Holy Family is, in one sense, an unusual family. Mary, both wife and mother, is a perpetual virgin who conceives her Son not through human means but by the power of the Holy Spirit. That Son, Jesus, is both fully God and fully man. Technically, no husband was necessary for this divine plan—yet God ensured one anyway. Joseph is given to Mary as husband and to Jesus as a human, adoptive father. This extraordinary family then lives not in a place of prestige, but in Nazareth, a small and insignificant town, so unimpressive that Nathanael famously asks, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” And yet, despite all this, the Holy Family becomes a model for every family.

In our own time, the very definition of family is often debated and redefined. Throughout history, families have taken different forms—nuclear, extended, adoptive—but in Joseph, Mary, and Jesus we see a clear message from God. To save us, the Son of God took on a true human nature and lived the full gamut of human life. Theoretically, he could have appeared on earth fully grown, but instead He was conceived in Mary’s womb, born as a child, and raised within a family.

One of the most striking things we do not learn about Saint Joseph from the Bible is what he said. In fact, if we scour the entire Scriptures, not a single word spoken by Joseph is recorded. At first, this seems very odd. Surely Joseph spoke during his lifetime. Yet the silence of Scripture is fitting, because it reveals exactly who Saint Joseph was: a man whose character is shown not by words, but by actions. He is Joseph the Just, Joseph the Courageous, and Joseph the Foster Father of Jesus and Patron Saint of Workers.

Joseph is called “the just.” His justice is seen clearly in the story of Jesus’ conception. Joseph and Mary were betrothed, a binding legal commitment far more serious than modern engagement. When Mary was found to be pregnant before they lived together, Joseph faced a grave situation. Though the law allowed for public accusation, Joseph chose compassion. As Scripture tells us, “since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame,” he decided to divorce her quietly.

This time of year, the dusty rose vestments remind us that Gaudete Sunday is here—a Sunday of rejoicing as we move closer to Christmas. Today, we once again consider John the Baptist and his expectations about the Messiah. Like John, we also carry expectations of God. We expect Him to hear our prayers, to help us in trouble, to cure illness, and to fix what feels broken. But what do we do when God does not respond in the way we hope?

John the Baptist believed Jesus was the Messiah, yet when Jesus did not act with power and judgment immediately, John questioned. He expected a fiery Messiah who would come with force and authority. Instead, Jesus came with mercy—healing the sick, restoring sight, and raising the dead. Jesus responded to John’s doubts not with anger, but with evidence: the blind see, the lame walk, and the poor receive the Good News. Jesus fulfilled the words of the prophet Isaiah, showing He was truly the one sent by God.

Imagine a man who approaches you dressed in a camel-hair tunic, cinched with a leather belt, crunching on a handful of locusts dipped in honey. Suddenly he points at you and cries, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Most of us would probably think he was mentally ill and had forgotten to take his medication. Yet this is exactly the kind of shocking figure John the Baptist was.

We come to church, hear the familiar stories of Jesus’ birth, and think, “Isn’t that nice?” They can become heart-warming background noise, especially if we’ve heard them so many times that we hardly pay attention. But the reality is far from tame. John the Baptist bursts onto the scene in today’s Gospel as a jarring figure. By our standards, he would seem eccentric for living alone in the desert, wearing strange clothing, and shouting dire predictions. The prophets throughout salvation history were the same. These were strange people doing outrageous things, not evil but certainly not “normal.”

The Advent scriptures are full of such figures precisely to shake us out of complacency.

At first glance, the idea of “canceling Christmas” sounds outrageous, but perhaps it invites us to ask a deeper question: Why do we celebrate Christmas at all? For many people, the holiday has lost its meaning—becoming little more than parties, shopping, decorating, and baking. If Christmas is meant to honor Jesus, then celebrating it while having no desire to speak with Him or welcome Him into our lives is an empty gesture. Maybe what needs canceling is not Christmas itself, but the way we have come to observe it.

The Church teaches that the most important celebration of the year is actually Easter. The Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil commemorates the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Thes are the center of our salvation. But this raises a question: if Jesus is truly God made man, how did He enter our world? This brings us to Christmas, the second most important feast. It commemorates not only His birth in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, but also His promised return. As St. Paul says, “The night is advanced, the day is at hand.” By celebrating His first coming, we anticipate and hope for His second.