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Crisis at Christmas - A Homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent Msgr. Charles Pope • December 18, 2016 • Today’s Gospel gives us some background for the Christmas feast that we need to take to heart. It speaks to us of a crisis at Christmas.We tend to sentimentalize the Christmas story as we think of the baby Jesus in the manger. It is not absolutely wrong to be sentimental, but we must also be prayerfully sober about how difficult that first Christmas was, and about the heroic virtue required of Mary and Joseph in order to cooperate with...

A Summary of our Salvation -- A Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent Msgr. Charles Pope • December 19, 2015 • Here on the Fourth Sunday of Advent we are close to the unfolding of the great mystery of the Word made flesh. It is easy for us to look right past it, but we do well to pause and ponder what is taught to us today about the salvation that is to unfold. One significant way we can do this is by reflecting upon the first reading today from the prophet Micah. In four short verses, we are...

See What the End Shall Be: A Homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn todayÂ’s Gospel we step back nine months to March 25th, the feast of the Annunciation, an event all but hidden, but which changed the world.God, whose focal presence had departed the Temple just prior to the Babylonian invasion (cf Ez 10:18) and the loss of the Ark of the Covenant, now returns to the Ark of MaryÂ’s womb. The glorious presence of God returns now to His people in an obscure town of fewer than three hundred, a town so small...

Here on the 4th Sunday of Advent, we are but a day away, practically speaking, from the unfolding of the great mystery of the Word made flesh. It is possible for us to look right past this 4th Sunday of Advent, but we do well to pause and ponder what is taught to us today about the salvation that is to unfold. One significant way we can do this is by pondering the first reading today from the prophet Micah. In four short verses we behold a kind of summary of our salvation, a snapshot of what ails us and...