Saturday, March 28, 2026
Sunday, December 21, 2025
A - Fourth Sunday in Advent
What do we know of our God? GOD, our creator. Who is he? What can we say we know and understand about him? We are taught from an early age that he is all knowing, all powerful, and everywhere present. These are the three omni's we hear about. The word omni means ‘all’. God is omniscient or all knowing. God is omnipotent, meaning all powerful. And God is omnipresent – he is found everywhere; in all times and places. The Bible and the Catechism go on to tell us, God is eternal, he is just and merciful, he is holy and separate from sin and all impurity. He is true and faithful. As philosophers, theologians and bible scholars tackled this question on who God is, we learn that God is simple, indivisible; he is Ipsum Esse Subsistens, he is the very nature of Being itself, as He himself tells us, “I AM who I Am.” He is un-created, the first cause, the unmoved mover. He is neither male nor female, incorporeal, he is wholly spirit. He is invisible. He is the supra-mundane (above the world) intelligence, guiding creation. Some, like Aquinas, approach God by describing what he is not, rather than what he is. He is not composed of parts, he is not finite, he is not contained in space or subject to time, he is not a creature, and He, God is not caused.
In this quick synopsis of the ways man has attempted to describe and know God, we are left a little more informed of who God is and is not, but these beautiful-crafted descriptions can leave us stranded and for those not philosophically minded, even unsatisfied. But now we can turn to the heart of the matter. For God is love. God loves. God loves his creation, loves us, each of us, and not in a distant, remote or dispassionate way, but in a truly personal and intimate way. For these last 2000 years and for the many before, he tells us he is a God of relationship, for love requires relationship. We see this relationship first within the Godhead itself, as the Father loves the Son, and the Son obeys the Father in the Spirit, who is the expression of the love that passes between them. And we see this relationship between the creator and his creation, you and me. For the mystery of God reveals itself and invites each of us into his revelation and into a growing relationship with him.
The rejection of this relationship was the sin of King Ahaz in our first reading. Isaiah encouraged Ahaz to ask for any sign to show God was with his people and would protect them from the Syro-Ephraimite alliance that threatened Judah. Ahaz was from the line of David, and heir to the covenant's promise of protection. But Ahaz would not ask for a sign, preferring to appear pious or perhaps relying on his alliance with Syria. But here comes Isaiah saying, "you will not ask for a sign, but a sign will be given anyway, for the virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom she will call Immanuel, meaning God is with us."
Ahaz was invited to make the presence of God evident by way of a sign, but he declined that invitation. Ahaz’s ‘no’ stands in clear contrast to Mary who would give her fiat, her ‘yes’ to God’s invitation to bare and give birth to the Son of God. A visible and clear sign that God was, is and remains with us. And Joseph would likewise give his yes in response to the encouraging words of the angel he encountered in his dreams.
Just like Mary and Joseph, we too are being asked to participate in the life of God, in the plan of salvation, by our assent, our own yes. We too are being called to make present to everyone and everywhere the love of this omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent God. A God who so loves the world that he chooses to come to us as a little child. A child that was held, loved, cared for, who would grow up to show us by his life and death the depth of God's love for each of us. A child born of the infinite yet humbled to share in our humanity.
On this, the last Sunday before Christmas, we prepare ourselves to meet our God – the infinite God made present as a little child – so small, so vulnerable, dependent and innocent. In union with Mary and Joseph, we say our, "yes" to God in our lives, and by this demonstrate to others, to family, friends, neighbors and strangers that Jesus is Emmanuel, God truly with us.
Deacon Peter Bujwid
St. Agnes Church, Arlington, Massachusetts
Sunday 21st December 2025
Sunday, November 23, 2025
Year C – The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
Today is the Solemnity of Christ the King, the last Sunday in ordinary time and so the end of the liturgical year. Next Sunday Advent begins during which time we will prepare ourselves to meet the newborn King – the King of the Universe.
Our readings today encourage us to stay focused on the Lord and to recognize him, not only as our savior but, as our Lord and King. He brings all things together in himself delivering all men from the power of darkness, setting before them the gates of Jerusalem, which is his house and our eternal home. The message for us today is that ultimately, it truly is all about him. He is at the center of all things, and we, his people, his church, journey towards that center. Our life is to be an unfolding realization of that truth.
In our first reading we hear how the tribes of Israel gave their allegiance to David who was, “of the same flesh and bone,” meaning they allied with him as one does to one's family. Though not their King, David had been the one who led the Israelites, ‘out and back.’ At that time the northern kingdom of Israel was separated from the southern kingdom of Judah but here is the great unification under David, who had been anointed as the future King by the prophet Samuel. Here all the tribes were united and gathered, acknowledging that it was God who had selected David to be their leader and their King. And it was now that Jerusalem would become the spiritual and political center of this new nation. This was a unique time when all would be gathered and would acknowledge a single king.
United under King David all the tribes would gather, a sign of what was to come, because under Jesus, a blood descendant of David, all nations are similarly gathered together.
And so, we, His church, spread throughout the world, are gathered under Christ’s Kingship and made fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light, as we read in the letter from St. Paul to the Colossians. We are made ‘fit’ by way of our baptism, which gives each of us a new life and by which we become heirs to the kingdom of God. Yet do we really experience and acknowledge that new relationship which is born of baptism? That new relationship spoken of in the first reading and reflected in the good thief on the cross next to Christ. We are all too willing, as I am, to call upon Jesus to be our Savior. But this the unrepentant criminal did as well. The real question is are we willing to acknowledge Jesus Christ as the King of our life? This relationship is altogether quite different, demanding a poor man's humility. The good thief, traditionally named St. Dismas (means Dying in Greek), would hush and rebuke the words of the unrepentant thief and rather than demanding to be saved would honestly and humbly reflect on his own sinful life and would ask to be remembered. Jesus, in the throes of his own death would look upon him with kindness and mercy.
In that moment the good thief had recognized Christ as the King of the Universe as only that King could say, “today you will be with me in Paradise.”
To be like St. Dismas, the good thief, you and I are to come into Christ’s presence with honesty and humility. He is our savior, but he is also our King. Our minds, our hearts, our souls, our bodies, every aspect of our individual being and personhood belongs to him, and the more of these we place in service to him, the more freedom we discover. Unlike the Kings of the Old Testament that demanded taxes, tithes, land, military service, and forced labor, our King does not demand but does desire every aspect of our life. Yet this with the sole intention that each of us should grow in the fullness of life and with ever-increasing freedom. Freedom from the pain of sin, freedom from hopelessness, freedom from anger, freedom from resentment, freedom from the attachments to this world, which unsettles us and robs us of the peace found in Christ.
Jesus is our savior. To acknowledge him as the King of the Universe and as the King of our lives is the beginning, middle, and end of all things. Jesus gathers us to him and shepherds us towards the eternal Jerusalem. We are to eschew the demanding voice of the unrepentant thief. Rather, we are to be humble and rebuke those words. We are to turn to Jesus acknowledging him as the King of the Universe, and in so doing can ask him with great confidence, “Jesus, remember me.”
Saint Dismas, pray for us.
Deacon Peter Bujwid
St. Agnes Church, Arlington, Massachusetts
Sunday 23rd November, 2025