The third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday, the Sunday of Joy. As we are moving closer to the feast of God becoming one among us, we are invited to live in joy.

“Look, I am going to send my messenger before you; he will prepare your way.” This gospel passage reminds me of the road from Alice Springs to Santa Teresa, which is a remote Aboriginal community where I’m assigned at the moment.

The oldest liturgical cycles in our Church, dating back to the second century, are the Lent/Easter Cycle and the Advent Cycle.  The Advent cycle came at the end of the Roman Year and in its origin had nothing to do with the Birth of Christ. 

Every time I read today’s Gospel I am reminded of an experience I had when I was a young priest.  I was helping out in a neighbouring parish and really did not know much about them.  So I based my homily on the conversation that some of us priests had at breakfast about how easy it is for us to “sanitize” this Gospel text and how easily we lose the sense of shock and surprise that Jesus’ listeners must have felt. 

Imagine you got the windfall of a lifetime. You’ve just won the top prize in lotto, which was worth millions of dollars. What would you do with this windfall?

Our Gospel reading for this 32^nd Sunday of ordinary time challenges us to be vigilant and wise. We often hear people say that “she has lots of wisdom or he has lots of knowledge”.

Let me read to you once more the wonderful message of John’s apocalyptic vision:

In today’s gospel the scribes who exercised leadership in the Jewish community with their interpretations of the law found their authority being threatened by Jesus and therefore wanted Him to take a position on their discussions about what is the most important law in their scriptures. 

For those of us living here in Australia or in New Zealand, if you take notice, you’ll see that on all of our coins, we see the image of Queen Elizabeth II or whoever is the ruling monarch in England.

The Parable of the Wedding Feast in the Gospel invites us to reflect on our personal invitation to enter the reign of God.

Beloved in the Lord! There are just two points I would like to share with you this morning. From the first reading, I highlight the deep concern of the vineyard owner for the future growth, development, and produce of his grape vines. He did all he could to ensure that growth and future harvest.

It was the last year of my term in office as Dean of our Seminarians in Chicago, and it was the most difficult year I had ever suffered.

I’d like to borrow a very good story from Miguel de Umanumo, a Spanish philosopher and novelist from the 20^th century about the origin of hell.

The Gospel on this 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time presents us with Jesus’ beautiful teaching on forgiveness and an encouragement for us to forgive one another, as God forgives all our wrongdoings.

When I was a seminarian, we had an evaluation system called “Fraternal Correction”. My classmates would write positive things about me and also things to be improved about me.