December 22, 2024 – Life on the Chrism Trail

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

December 22, 2024
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Micah 5:1-4a
Psalm 80: 2-3, 15-16, 18-19
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-45

Today, we conclude with the final Sunday of Advent in which we reflect upon the first coming of Christ as we listen to the words of the Gospel that proclaim that immediately after receiving the message of the Holy Spirit through the Archangel Gabriel and having offered her free and obedient consent to accept God’s Will to become the Mother of His Son, the Blessed Virgin Mary with the Son of God alive in her womb, urgently travels to visit her older cousin Saint Elizabeth.

Commemoration of Saint Peter Canisius

Mass for the Saint John Paul II Shepherds Guild

December 21, 2024
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

II Timothy 4:1-5
Psalm 40:2 and 4, 7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 11
Matthew 5:13-19

“Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.” We have just prayed this responsorial psalm together in union with the whole Church for our own lives as disciples and for our priests and for those in discernment and formation for a priestly vocation. To do the Lord’s will is the summation of any vocation rooted in Baptism but in a particular way the priestly vocation which is so intrinsic to fostering the fidelity of all of the baptized to the call of the Lord, that each may fulfill their response to God’s call with accountability to their promise, “Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.”