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Seeing Christ in Creation

Green Mass (Care for Creation) Wis 13:1-9 ; Psalm 104; Matthew 6:24-34 Seeing Christ in Creation Nine years ago, I led a group of Bellarmine University students on a study abroad trip to Peru. One night, we took a bus ride that wound through the Andes Mountains. The driver made an unscheduled stop in the middle of nowhere and let us all off to into a field. There was no moon that night. The inky darkness was broken only by the light of the stars. We gazed upon them and were unexpectedly disoriented. Instead of the familiar constellations that had accompanied us our whole lives in the northern hemisphere, there was an alien, antipodal sky with a strange configuration of unknown stars. Floating on the horizon just above the mountain peaks appeared the constellation known as the Crux, or the Southern Cross, composed of four of the brightest stars in the sky that form a distinct cross-shape.     Long before being introduced to Christianity, Peruvians held the cross as sacred...
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What Christmas is About

Bellarmine University Our Lady of the Woods December 24, 2025 Christmas Eve Vigil Mass Readings “I just don't understand Christmas.... I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I'm still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed.” So says Charlie Brown in the 1965 cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas. My nine-year-old son, EJ, has been obsessed with Peanuts lately, and I have seen this short little special multiple times during Advent. Charlie’s friend Linus responds to his complaint, saying, "Charlie Brown, you're the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem.” I think this show has lasting appeal because we can all relate, at various moments, to Charlie Brown’s morose feelings about Christmas. Though we are supposed to feel merry and bright, sometimes the garishness of the season and the relentlessness of it all can make us feel that our hearts are two sizes too sma...
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The Strength of the Holy Family, Patrons of Refugees

St. Agnes Catholic Church  December 27/28, 2025 Feast of the Holy Family https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122825.cfm  Happy 3rd / 4th Day of Christmas, and happy Feast of the Holy Family.     Despite our lovely Christmas carols and our beautiful nativity scenes, the little town of Bethlehem would not sleep in heavenly peace for long.  We sing together with the angels, “peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!"  But the reality is that the powers of the world recognized Jesus, not as Lord at his birth, but as a threat to their rule.   From his hilltop fortress three miles from Bethlehem, King Herod looked down on royal David’s city and did not plan to come and adore Jesus.  Instead, the old dictator, who was in his mid-seventies and was wracked with illness, became increasingly desperate to cling to power.  He hatched a plan to massacre every boy two years old and younger in Bethlehem and its vicinity.  ...
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