3rd Sunday of Advent, Year C

Okay, so I need to address the pink elephant in the room — you all are thinking Fr. Chris and I are wearing pink vestments today!  They are not pink, but technically, liturgically speaking, they are Rose.  There is a church joke out there that will forever help you honor this subtle, but important distinction: these vestments are rose-colored because Jesus “rose” from the dead, he did not “pink” from the dead!


But seriously, in the Church, the liturgical colors are important; they have meaning.  Today, the third Sunday of Advent, is known as Gaudete Sunday.  Gaudete means “Rejoice” in Latin.  We rejoice because of the imminent coming of our Lord, who literally births into our world like a flower blooming, bursting forth amidst a desert of thorns…like a rose!  The rose color reminds us of this truth and that we should rejoice at the Lord’s bursting forth into our lives amidst the desert of thorns we perceive and experience in our own lives — thorns that sometimes scratch us, wound us, hurt us. Yet that beautiful, fragrant bloom comes amidst those thorns, amidst our hurt — just as our God does.


The liturgical color scheme of Advent (and Lent as well) reminds us of this truth.  The purple color — technically violet — is a penitential color.  I always tell the servers, “Purple ribbon for Penitential Act!”  Advent, like Lent, is a penitential season.  We reflect on our fallen nature, our wounded state during this season, not in an unhealthy, perseverative “I am unworthy” way, but rather in a contemplative way that leads us to awareness of how we have hurt others and ourselves and caused separation and division — a way of spiritual growth that leads us in humility to reconciliation with God and one another, drawing us into a communion of love with God and one another.


So the Church chooses the somber violet color to remind and invite us into a somber reflection of our fallen humanity, of our wounded and wounding nature, not to lead us there and leave us there, but in point of fact to lead us out of there through our salvation and redemption in Christ.  Something to be hopeful for, something to look forward to, something to anticipate — to anticipate, as we do in this season of Advent, the coming of Christ our Lord!  You see, violet is also a color of royalty; so the violet of Advent anticipates the coming of Christ our King!


This Rose color we choose today is a reminder of Christ's imminent arrival, his about-to-burst-forth, blooming into our lives.  Fr. Hyacinth Cordell, a Dominican priest, has described the rose color as “violet approaching white.” The pure white is the light of Christ coming into the world.  As Fr. Cordell writes, the Rose color anticipates the pure white of the Birth and Resurrection of Christ.  A birth and resurrection we are invited to participate in over and over again, with every Baptism, with every Reconciliation, with every Eucharist, with every act of love.  Indeed, what’s not to be joyful about?  And the Rose color of the Advent candle, the Rose color of these vestments, proclaim that Joy!


But I know; I get it.  Most of us are not capital J-O-Y-Joyful!  In fact, we often struggle to be lower-case j-o-y-joyful amidst the thorny thickets of daily life that reach out and grab us, hook us, wounding us and distracting us — obfuscating our path and experience of joy.  This is real.  How do we find joy in the midst of this reality?  First, maintain our faith and hope in Christ the Light, despite all that is going on around us, recalling that he illuminates the darkness and conquers all of the trials of this life.  Secondly, enter into and become the Light of Christ.  Bear the Light of Christ to each other.  Reach out to one another, serve one another; give to one another and do not expect anything in return.  In bearing the light of Christ to one another, we will find the Joy of Christ blossoming in our lives.  Sometimes the best therapy is to go help someone else.  The Gospel passage heard today reminds us of this:


Share your cloak and food with the person who has none…

Stop collecting more than what is prescribed…

Do not practice extortion or falsely accuse anyone…

Be satisfied with your wages…



Sisters and brothers, remember the simple act of reaching out to someone you know or a stranger with a simple work or deed of kindness can have the profound effect of imparting the Light of Christ, and joy, abiding joy to both them and us, in whatever darkness we may be experiencing. Never underestimate that.


A story that Saint Mother Teresa of Kolkata told reminds of this truth.  She writes:


I will never forget the first time I came to Bourke [Australia] and visited with the sisters.  We went to the outskirts of Bourke.  There was a big reserv[ation] where all of the Aborigines were living in those little small shacks made of tin and old cardboard ... I entered one of those [little shacks] but it was only one room, and inside the room everything .... I told the man living there, “Please let me make your bed, to wash your clothes, to clean your room.”  And he kept saying “I’m alright, I’m alright.”  And I said to him, “But you will be more alright if you allow me to do it.”  [Finally] he allowed me…


After I cleaned the room I found in the corner of the room a big lamp full of dirt and I said, “Don’t you light this lamp, such a beautiful lamp[?].  Don’t you light it?”  He replied, “For whom?  Months and months nobody has ever come to me.  For whom will I light it?”  So I said, “Won’t you light it if the Sisters come to you?”  And he said “Yes.”  So the sisters started going to him for only about 5 to 10 minutes a day, but they started lighting that lamp.  After some time he got in the habit of lighting [the lamp].  Slowly, slowly, slowly the Sisters stopped going to him.  I forgot completely about that, and after two years he sent word — “Tell Mother, my friend, the light she lit in my life is still burning.”


Easter Sunday 2025

By Fr. Chris Welch • May 12, 2025
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Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy), Year C

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • April 27, 2025
How many of you recall the following hymn refrain? Misericordes sicut Pater Misericordes sicut Pater… It is the refrain from the hymn of the same title that was composed for the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, which Pope Francis opened in the first week of Advent in 2015 and concluded with the feast of Christ the King on November 20, 2016. You may recall that throughout that Jubilee Year, we opened our Masses with that hymn and sang that refrain. Misericordes sicut Pater… …Merciful like the Father …Merciful like the Father. How appropriate that on this Sunday, the second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday, is also the weekend in which we have laid our Holy Father Pope Francis to rest, and entrusted him to the tender, eternal mercy of God the Father. It was no coincidence that Pope Francis declared the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy. Pope Francis believed Mercy is the primary expression and experience of God’s love for us, and Mercy is the primary expression and experience of the love that God calls us to share with each other. So important was his belief and trust in God’s Mercy, that when he was ordained to the order of Bishop, he took as his episcopal motto “ miserando atque eligendo ” ( which roughly translates from Latin as “having mercy, he chose him”). It is taken from a homily written by St. Bede the Venerable, an eighth-century saint and Doctor of the Church, reflecting on the call of St. Matthew by Christ to become an apostle. St. Bede wrote, “[Jesus] saw the tax collector [Matthew] and, because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him, he said to him: Follow me .” So important was his belief and trust in God’s Mercy, that when Francis was elected as Pope, he kept this episcopal motto as his papal motto. This motto expresses so simply and beautifully truths of our faith: God loves us deeply; God expresses that love to us through His mercy for us in our sinfulness; and that despite our sinfulness, God calls us . God calls us to trust and hope in God’s love for us and calls us to express the same love and mercy for one another. That call is reflected also in the Gospel account of Matthew’s call to discipleship by Jesus, which concludes with Jesus challenging the Pharisees, saying “Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice'” (Mt. 9:13). Jesus challenges us in the same way. He calls the Pharisees – and us – out of ritual acts of worship and piety that are not also accompanied by acts of mercy! Jesus is clear about this. In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus says, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk. 6:36). In his Papal Bull announcing the Extraordinary Year of Mercy, Pope Francis describes God the Father’s mercy for us as like “that of a father or a mother, moved to the very depths out of love for their child…a “visceral” love…gush[ing] forth from the depths naturally, full of tenderness and compassion, indulgence and mercy” (Misericordiae Vultus, no. 6). He also describes God’s Divine Mercy as a ”wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace.” (MV 2). These words bring to mind the visceral atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross for our sins, when blood and water sprung forth from Christ’s side as the cleansing waters of baptism. It is that visceral sacrifice which we recall in the Divine Mercy chaplet when we pray, “O Blood and Water which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of mercy for us, I trust in You!” It is that cleansing sacrifice that we recall when we pray in the Anima Christi prayer, “Water from the side of Christ, wash me.” And it is that same merciful cleansing in which we hope and trust, as we place all that burdens us into the waters of God’s grace, as we have done here, symbolically, in placing our Lenten stone-burdens in this fountain of Holy Water from the Easter Vigil Baptismal pool. As we contemplate God’s Divine Mercy, we place our trust and our hope in that Divine Mercy, recalling the words our late Holy Father Pope Francis left us with: “Mercy will always be greater than any sin, and no one can place limits on the love of God who is ever ready to forgive” (MV 3); “Mercy [is] the bridge that connects God and man, opening our hearts to the hope of being loved forever” (MV 2). Misericordes sicut Pater Misericordes sicut Pater…

Palm Sunday, Year C

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • April 13, 2025
I have long thought that the Church gives us the two Gospel passages we hear today — the account of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and the account of his Passion and death — for very practical reasons: this is the last Sunday before Easter when we will celebrate Christ’s Resurrection and not everyone is able to attend and celebrate the Triduum liturgies during Holy Week. Therefore, the Church places these two critical Gospel passages together so that we hear and experience them in a regular Sunday Mass setting — literally, to ‘fit them in’ before Easter. But there is another equally, if not more, important reason we are to experience these Gospel passages together. And I honestly don’t know if the Church intends this reason or not, but I believe the Holy Spirit intends it. These two Gospel passages remind us as much as any passage that Jesus Christ, while fully Divine, is also fully human. He is like us in all manner except one, in committing sin. He therefore shares with us the experience of the full range of our humanity. In these two Gospel passages we experience Christ moving from triumph to tragedy, from soaring to suffering: the triumphant, soaring entry into Jerusalem and the suffering and tragedy of His Passion and crucifixion. Christ’s human experience is also our human experience, for do not we all experience triumph and tragedy, soaring and suffering? Therefore, we do not have a God and Savior who cannot sympathize with our human experience, but rather one who shares it with us! And we have a God and Savior who not only soared and suffered for us, but soars and suffers with us. Not just two thousand years ago, but right here, right now, in every minute of our lives. For what did Jesus promise? “I am with you always , until the end of time.” (Mt 28:20) When we soar and triumph, Jesus is with us, by our side. And when we suffer and experience tragedy, especially, Jesus is with us, by our side. We are encouraged to give thanks to God in our triumphs and soaring. And we are invited to unite our suffering with Christ’s suffering and offer it up for whatever or whomever is in need. Christ’s suffering was not pointless, and united to His, neither is ours. We offer it up, trust, and hope. Sisters and brothers, that hope comes from our knowledge of the rest of the Gospel story that we will experience with Christ: that His triumph and tragedy, His soaring and suffering does not end in death, but in the glory of Easter Resurrection.