One of the most overlooked parts of scripture are some of the shortest writings in the Canon of the New Testament. These are the Pastoral Letters, specifically the Letters of John and Peter. In these short writings are contained some of the most profound words on what it means to be a Christian and how to live as a Christian. When I am struggling with my faith I find in these letters both hope and help.

Also one of the neat things is you can read the entire letter in just a few minutes.
With that in mind I thought I would share a commentary on the First Letter of John by one of the Doctors of the Church, Saint Augustine.

From the tractates on the first letter of John by Saint Augustine, Bishop
Life itself was revealed in the flesh

Our message is the Word of life. We announce what existed from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have touched with our own hands. Who could touch the Word with his hands unless the Word was made flesh and lived among us?

Now this Word, whose flesh was so real that he could be touched by human hands, began to be flesh in the Virgin Mary’s womb; but he did not begin to exist at that moment. We know this from what John says: What existed from the beginning. Notice how John’s letter bears witness to his Gospel, which you just heard a moment ago: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.

Someone might interpret the phrase the Word of life to mean a word about Christ, rather than Christ’s body itself which was touched by human hands. But consider what comes next: and life itself was revealed. Christ therefore is himself the Word of Life.

And how was this life revealed? It existed from the beginning, but was not revealed to men, only to angels, who looked upon it and feasted upon it as their own spiritual bread. But what does Scripture say? Mankind ate the bread of angels.

Life itself was therefore revealed in the flesh. In this way what was visible to the heart alone could become visible also to the eye, and so heal men’s hearts. For the Word is visible to the heart alone, while flesh is visible to bodily eyes as well. We already possessed the means to see the flesh, but we had no means of seeing the Word. The Word was made flesh so that we could see it, to heal the part of us by which we could see the Word.

John continues: And we are witnesses and we proclaim to you that eternal life which was with the Father and has been revealed among us – one might say more simply “revealed to us.”

We proclaim to you what we have heard and seen. Make sure that you grasp the meaning of these words. The disciples saw our Lord in the flesh, face to face; they heard the words he spoke, and in turn they proclaimed the message to us. So we also have heard, although we have not seen.

Are we then less favored than those who both saw and heard? If that were so, why should John add: so that you too may have fellowship with us? They saw, and we have not seen; yet we have fellowship with them, because we and they share the same faith.

And our fellowship is with God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son. And we write this to you to make your joy complete – complete in that fellowship, in that love and in that unity.
source: https://divineoffice.org/1227-or/?date=20171227

‘Without the Resurrection, the Nativity Would Be Just Another Birthday’
The two sacred mysteries of Christmas and Easter are inseparable for all Christians across the globe
by Fr. George Rutler | Updated 23 Dec 2017 at 9:00 PM

Saint Paul was converted by the risen Christ, who appeared as a blinding light. Later, he would meet Peter and James, who had seen the actual risen body, which had changed from the way it appeared during Christ’s three years with them.
The body of the resurrected Christ had four characteristics. First, it could no longer feel pain. This “impassibility” was a triumph over the horrors of the Passion. Second, by “subtlety” the body was no longer subject to the laws of physics. During his earthly life, Christ had to knock on doors to enter, but in the Resurrection, he could appear in a room though the doors were locked. Third, the “agility” of Christ’s body had a strength that freed Him from the constraints of motion and enabled him to bi-locate. Fourth, the “clarity” of the risen body radiated a brilliance that emanated from the divine intelligence: “light from light.”

This was glimpsed in the Transfiguration — and was what blinded Paul on the Damascus road.
These lines would seem to be an Easter meditation, but they are a Christmas meditation as well, for the two mysteries are inseparable. Without the Resurrection, the Nativity would be just another birthday, for even extraordinary people like Alexander the Great or Mozart had ordinary births. Because Christ is the Divine Word who created all things, the restrictions of His human nature are no less wonderful than the glory of His divine nature.
Related: ‘My Very Own Christmas Miracle’
The infant in Bethlehem was not impassable: He hungered and cried like any other baby. Without subtlety, He was confined to the stable. While in the Resurrection His agility could cast aside the shroud, in the manger He was bound by swaddling clothes. And as for clarity, His infant body could be glimpsed in the darkness only by frail lamplight.
As He has no beginning and no end, His divine glory was not something He attained as He grew up: rather, it was what He allowed to dim when He came into time and space. He “emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7).
Related: Why Baby Jesus Is So Crucial to Our Faith

So Christmas is about two caves, and the birth in a stone stable would be only a sentimental reverie without the fact of the burial cave burst open. The Holy Infant in the manger is a kind of graphic hint for our limited intelligence, of the indescribable Ruler and Judge of the Universe.
And the qualities of His risen body intimated what He would let us become in eternity.
That youngest of the apostles wrote in his old age: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when he appears, we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is” (1 John 3:2).
Fr. George William Rutler is a Catholic priest and the pastor of the Church of St. Michael in Manhattan. This article from his parish church bulletin is used by permission.

As you already know Christmas Day falls on Monday, December 25th this year.  Christmas is a Holy Day of Obligation.  There has been a lot of confusion is some circles about Mass.  So let me try to help out.  The first thing to remember is even with the Holy Day falling on Monday you still have your Sunday Obligation.

So with that in mind here goes.

On Saturday December 23rd there is a Vigil Mass for Sunday at 5PM.  This fulfills your Sunday Obligation only

On Sunday December 24th we have our normally scheduled Masses at 9:00 AM and 11:30 AM.  These Masses fulfill your Sunday Obligation Only, not your Christmas Obligation.

On Sunday December 24th we have also have two Christmas Eve Masses:

The 4:30 PM Children’s Christmas Eve Mass and the 9:00 PM Christmas Eve Mass.

Attending either of these two Masses fulfills your CHRISTMAS OBLIGATION ONLY.  Even though they occur on Sunday they do not fulfill your Sunday Obligation.

So is it possible you may go to mass twice on Sunday to fulfill both your Sunday Obligation and your Holy Day Obligation?  YES.

There is also the Mass of Christmas Day at 9:00 AM on December 25th and this of course fulfills your Christmas Day Obligation.

Hope this helps

As I sit here and ponder what we have witnessed these past several months it has really touched me how much the affairs of politics have imposed themselves on this particular Advent. Maybe this is our way of rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Sometimes I wonder if I fall short of rendering to God what is God’s and sadly I am forced to say yes.
I was reading an article in the Federalist Papers, normally a political opinion outlet, written by a Mr Lyman Stone entitled Why There Is Never A Flight 93 Election For Faithful Christians. Mr Stone normally writes about migration issues on his blog “In a State of Migration.” He is also an agricultural economist at USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Yet in this article he delves deeply into the Advent season. Well maybe it is not so unusual in that we can say that the Holy Family were migrants when they fled to Egypt to escape Herod and then returned to settle in Nazareth after Herod’s death (Matthew 2: 13ff).

I do not intend to write something on immigration here, later on that will occur, but for the moment I want to examine where we are in this particular season and place. Unless you have been in a coma or living under the sea you cannot help but know that there was an election and when this is posted the voting is over and in the end what does it really mean. In his article Mr Stone has a subtitle that reads “For a Christian, there are no stakes in a cosmic sense for anything we observe in the news: Christ will come victorious. Our job is to endure in hope, and share that hope with others.” That subtitle alone captured my mind. Given the current political climate with what appears to be a race to the bottom, some of his insights served as a wonderful reminder to me and a source for some prayer and reflection, especially this time of year.

First off, I share the sentiments expressed by Mr Stone that we as Christians too often lose sight of the “reason for the season” and rush headlong into the commercial maelstrom and frenzy that accompanies this time of year.

What is the reason for the season? It certainly not getting the next big Play Station or Xbox game. It is a time looking forward to the greatest present ever given. It is a time of looking forward in expectation.

The Jewish people looked forward in expectation for the Messiah. They did not know when he would arrive and so with the exception of a select few, they missed it. Yet we look forward to celebrating and remembering His arrival. We have a definite date when we are to stop and acknowledge that event.

However, the readings during this Advent season remind us all of something. That the Son of Man will return in glory but as in the days of Noah the Son of Man will come at an hour and a time we least expect it (Matthew chapter 24, Mark chapters 14 & 15, and Luke 17). Only the Father knows the time when this will occur. Mr Stone reminds up that as faithful or faith-filled Christians “there are no stakes in a cosmic sense for anything we observe in the news: Christ will come victorious. Our job is to endure in hope, and share that hope with others.” We have one penultimate duty to carry out amongst the angst and turmoil of the world and that is faithful waiting.

In this period of faithful waiting between now and when ever it is we see the Son of Man we are to be busy about the things of God. During this waiting we are not to sit around with our hands folded. We should “be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace (2 Peter 3:14).”

Christ was born, he lived, he died, he rose, and he will return and there is nothing each of us or the political leaders of our age can do to change that one iota. We take comfort in the fact even if we “should suffer because of righteousness, blessed are you.” We are not to be “afraid or terrified with fear of them [temporal powers], but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame.” (1 Peter 3: 13-16)

We may have to endure trials and persecutions. Our brothers and sisters in the Middle East are certainly having to do that and even that is nothing new in the history of the world. Our trials and persecution here are just as real but far subtler. We are strengthened by the sure and certain knowledge that none of this political turmoil matters. The “spiritual warfare” scripture speaks of is not about politics, but your own immortal soul. So, we should not “be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna (Matt hew 10: 28).” It was just this that allowed the Saints to actually embrace death at the hands of the political powers. They knew who was truly in control.

If you have been paying attention to the news and especially the internet it has been aflame with articles and commentary about he Holy Father proposing a change to the Our Father or Lord’s Prayer.  His proposal is to change the words “and lead us not into temptation” to the words “do not let us fall into temptation.”   The Holy Father states that this not a good translation and seems to say the Lord would lead some one to temptation to cause them to fall.

This is not a new argument.  The prayer as it now stands is taken from the Latin Vulgate which was itself translated from several texts written in Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew.  What we do know is that the Latin Vulgate which is the current standard which has been translated into the other languages.  One thing that we must remember is that no certified text of the original written texts exist.  All the documents we have are copies.

The interpretation of the ancient text has been a subject of debate for centuries.  Some theologians have argued that the original phrasing was lost in translation as it morphed from different languages.

The argument that asking God to not lead us into temptation seems strange when God is love and only wants our good.  I have read in several articles form a number of reliable sources that the Holy Father put it this way “Do not let me fall into temptation because it is I who fall, it is not God who throws me into temptation and then sees how I fell,” he told TV2000, an Italian Catholic TV channel.  “A father does not do that, a father helps you to get up immediately.”

Now I readily admit I am not a scholar of languages and I trust the Church in the translation that we are supplied.  The Roman Missal that is the accepted Missal for the Roman Catholic Church is written in Latin.  What we use is an English translation.  We all know how much consternation was caused by the changes to the English translation of the Roman Missal.  In fact if you noticed we went from using a Sacramentary to a Missal for the Mass.  In that change the directive was to make the English a literal translation of the Latin.

So where do we stand? In an article published in the LA Times they state: Last month, the Catholic Church in France agreed to switch from the French equivalent of “Do not submit us to temptation” to “Do not let us enter into temptation.” The pope said he was impressed with the new wording.”  Citing a biblical scholar Massimo Grilli, a professor of New Testament studies at Gregorian University in Rome.  According to Grilli the entire quandary results from the translation of a single Greek word “eisenènkes.”  The article goes on to state that the wording was already being reevaluated in the larger Church. “The Spanish have already switched to ‘Don’t let us fall into temptation,’ ” he said. In 2008, the Italian bishop’s conference switched to “Don’t abandon us to temptation,” although many priests have stuck with the old version during their services.”  The French and the Portuguese have embraced the new wording as well.

Before we get too exercised here we need to remember that the Our Father we commonly pray is already different from the words contained in the Gospels (See Matthew 6: 9-13 and Luke 11: 2-5).  Also the ending of the prayer For thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever, Amen was added at some point and the origin is uncertain.

So just know that the tinkering with the Our Father has been going on for a long time.

December 6
Saint Nicholas, bishop
Optional Memorial
The veneration with which this saint has been honored in both East and West, the number of altars and churches erected in his memory, and the countless stories associated with his name all bear witness to something extraordinary about him. Yet the one fact concerning the life of Nicholas of which we can be absolutely certain is that he was bishop of Myra in the fourth century. According to tradition, he was born at Patara, Lycia, a province of southern Asia Minor where St. Paul had planted the faith. Myra, the capital, was the seat of a bishopric founded by St. Nicander. The accounts of Nicholas given us by the Greek Church all say that he was imprisoned in the reign of Diocletian, whose persecutions, while they lasted, were waged with great severity. Some twenty years after this he appeared at the Council of Nicaea,[1] to join in the condemnation of Arianism. We are also informed that he died at Myra and was buried in his cathedral. Such a wealth of literature has accumulated around Nicholas that we are justified in giving a brief account of some of the popular traditions, which in the main date from medieval times. St. Methodius, patriarch of Constantinople towards the middle of the ninth century, wrote a life of the saint in which he declares that “up to the present the life of the distinguished shepherd has been unknown to the majority of the faithful.” Nearly five hundred years had passed since the death of the good St. Nicholas, and Methodius’ account, therefore, had to be based more on legend than actual fact.
He was very well brought up, we are told, by pious and virtuous parents, who set him to studying the sacred books at the age of five. His parents died while he was still young, leaving him with a comfortable fortune, which he resolved to use for works of charity. Soon an opportunity came. A citizen of Patara had lost all his money and his three daughters could not find husbands because of their poverty. In despair their wretched father was about to commit them to a life of shame. When Nicholas heard of this, he took a bag of gold and at night tossed it through an open window of the man’s house. Here was a dowry for the eldest girl, and she was quickly married. Nicholas did the same for the second and then for the third daughter. On the last occasion the father was watching by the window, and overwhelmed his young benefactor with gratitude.
It happened that Nicholas was in the city of Myra when the clergy and people were meeting together to elect a new bishop, and God directed them to choose him. This was at the time of Diocletian’s persecutions at the beginning of the fourth century. The Greek writers go on to say that now, as leader, “the divine Nicholas was seized by the magistrates, tortured, then chained and thrown into prison with other Christians. But when the great and religious Constantine, chosen by God, assumed the imperial diadem of the Romans, the prisoners were released from their bonds and with them the illustrious Nicholas.” St. Methodius adds that “thanks to the teaching of St. Nicholas, the metropolis of Myra alone was untouched by the filth of the Arian heresy, which it firmly rejected as a death-dealing poison.” He does not speak of Nicholas’ presence at the Council of Nicaea, but according to other traditions he was not only there but went so far in his indignation as to slap the arch-heretic Arius in the face! At this, they say, he was deprived of his episcopal insignia and imprisoned, but Our Lord and His Mother appeared and restored to him both his liberty and his office. Nicholas also took strong measures against paganism. He tore down many temples, among them one to the Greek goddess Artemis, which was the chief pagan shrine of the district.
Nicholas was also the guardian of his people in temporal affairs. The governor had been bribed to condemn three innocent men to death. On the day fixed for their execution Nicholas stayed the hand of the executioner and released them. Then he turned to the governor and reproved him so sternly that he repented. There happened to be present that day three imperial officers, Nepotian, Ursus, and Herpylion, on their way to duty in Phrygia. Later, after their return, they were imprisoned on false charges of treason by the prefect and an order was procured from the Emperor Constantine for their death. In their extremity they remembered the bishop of Myra’s passion for justice and prayed to God for his intercession. That night Nicholas appeared to Constantine in a dream, ordering him to release the three innocent officers. The prefect had the same dream, and in the morning the two men compared their dreams, then questioned the accused officers. On learning that they had prayed for the intervention of Nicholas, Constantine freed them and sent them to the bishop with a letter asking him to pray for the peace of the world. In the West the story took on more and more fantastic forms; in one version the three officers eventually became three boys murdered by an innkeeper and put into a brine tub from which Nicholas rescued them and restored them to life.
The traditions all agree that Nicholas was buried in his episcopal city of Myra. By the time of Justinian, some two centuries later, his feast was celebrated and there was a church built over his tomb. The ruins of this domed basilica, which stood in the plain where the city was built, were excavated in the nineteenth century. The tremendous popularity of the saint is indicated by an anonymous writer of the tenth century who declares: “The West as well as the East acclaims and glorifies him. Wherever there are people, in the country and the town, in the villages, in the isles, in the farthest parts of the earth, his name is revered and churches are erected in his honor.” In 1034 Myra was taken by the Saracens. Several Italian cities made plans to get possession of the relics of the famous Nicholas. The citizens of Bari finally in 1087 carried them off from the lawful Greek custodians and their Moslem masters. A new church was quickly built at Bari and Pope Urban II was present at the enshrining of the relics. Devotion to St. Nicholas now increased and many miracles were attributed to his intercession.
The image of St. Nicholas appeared often on Byzantine seals. Artists painted him usually with the three boys in a tub or else tossing a bag of gold through a window. In the West he has often been invoked by prisoners, and in the East by sailors. One legend has it that during his life-time he appeared off the coast of Lycia to some storm-tossed mariners who invoked his aid, and he brought them safely to port. Sailors in the Aegean and Ionian seas had their “star of St. Nicholas” and wished one another safe voyages with the words, “May St. Nicholas hold the tiller.”
From the legend of the three boys may have come the tradition of his love for children, celebrated in both secular and religious observances. In many places there was once a year a ceremonious installation of a “boy bishop.” In Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands gifts were bestowed on children at Christmas time in St. Nicholas’ name. The Dutch Protestant settlers of New Amsterdam made the custom popular on this side of the Atlantic. The Eastern saint was converted into a Nordic magician (Saint Nicholas—Sint Klaes—Santa Claus). His popularity was greatest of all in Russia, where he and St. Andrew were joint national patrons. There was not a church that did not have some sort of shrine in honor of St. Nicholas and the Russian Orthodox Church observes even the feast of the translation of his relics. So many Russian pilgrims came to Bari in Czarist times that the Russian government maintained a church, a hospital, and a hospice there. St. Nicholas is also patron of Greece, Apulia, Sicily, and Lorraine, of many cities and dioceses. At Rome the basilica of St. Nicholas was founded as early as the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century. In the later Middle Ages four hundred churches were dedicated to him in England alone. St. Nicholas’ emblems are children, a mitre, a vessel.
Notes:
1 Nicaea was a city in Bithynia, now northwestern Turkey, a short distance south of Constantinople. The Council of Nicaea, in 325, was the first ecumenical church council, and was called by the Emperor Constantine to bring about agreement on matters of creed.
This was taken from “Lives of Saints”, Published by John J. Crawley & Co., Inc.

What is Advent: It a season of the liturgical year in which the various aspects of the one Paschal mystery unfold. This is also the case with the cycle of feasts surrounding the mystery of the incarnation (Annunciation, Christmas, Epiphany). They commemorate the beginning of our salvation and communicate to us the first fruits of the Paschal mystery (CCC 1171). It is a liturgical season of four weeks devoted to preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas.
Advent is a spiritual season of preparation before Christmas celebrated by many Christians. In Western Christianity, the season of Advent begins on the fourth Sunday prior to Christmas Day, or the Sunday which falls closest to November 30, and lasts through Christmas Eve, or December 24.
In Advent the coming of the Lord is anticipated, looking back historically to the age of prophecy foretelling the birth of the Messiah and looking forward prophetically to his coming at the dawn of each person’s eternity and his majestic coming on the last day of the present world. Advent is a period of spiritual preparation. A period in which many Christians make themselves ready for the coming, or birth of the Lord, Jesus Christ. During this time, Christians observe a season of prayer, fasting and repentance, followed by anticipation, hope and joy. Many Christians celebrate Advent not only by thanking God for Christ’s first coming to Earth as a baby, but also for his presence among us today through the Holy Spirit and in preparation and anticipation of his final coming at the end of time. All Catholics are urged during the season to attend Mass as often as possible.
When the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming. By celebrating the precursor’s birth and martyrdom, the Church unites herself to his desire: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (CCC 524). She reminds us that the Word Incarnate came for us, individually and collectively, and He will come back for us and call each one of us by name.
The theme song from one of my favorite old TV show Cheers had a line that asked the question: Don’t you want to go where everybody knows your name? It also contained a line that said: Making your way in the world today sure does take a lot.
Advent is, a time of preparation and a time of waiting. If you remember I shared that many Christians celebrate Advent not only by thanking God for Christ’s first coming to Earth as a baby, but also for his presence among us today through the Holy Spirit and in preparation and anticipation of his final coming at the end of time.
With that in mind then I began reflecting. What do we expend our energies and our time doing during this Advent season?
The line in the song from Cheers is certainly true in that it does take a lot to make your way in the world today. Perhaps even more so with the economy being what it is right now. Both spouses working, people in debt and getting deeper in debt every day, working longer hours under more pressure to produce, and all the time prices increase steadily. It gets overwhelming sometimes.
In Advent the Church calls us to take a moment, lift our heads, and look ahead. If we are to see the Star of Bethlehem then we must look up from the world and from the task in front of us to focus on something else, even if just for a little while. I wonder how many people missed the star because they were just too busy.
Christ came into this world to establish God’s Kingdom on earth. He did not come to do His will but the will of the Father that sent him (John 6:38). He recognized that He had come not to achieve worldly fame or power but to establish the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:14-15). On his appearance after his resurrection he told Mary Magdalene to go and tell his brothers that he was going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God (John 20:17).'” However, once his work was completed he did not leave those who had come to follow him with nothing to do. In fact, He trained them and instructed them on what to do. He instructed them to take a field trip if you will and to “heal the sick and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:1-2). He gave them the great commission (Matthew 28: 19-20).
Why did he give this commission? It was to continue the work of building the kingdom here on earth.
Yes, making your way in this world surely takes a lot, but where does that way lead? There is an old Protestant hymn that states: This world is not my home. I’m just a passing through. Advent is a time when we should be readying ourselves for the coming of the Savior. Too often, making our way in this world, crowds out the reality that this world is not our destination. We get so busy making our place in this world that we forget that our real job is to make a place for Christ in this world and in our hearts.
Yes, it is always good to go where everybody know your name. Not only does God know your name, He knows you so well He even knows the number of the hairs on your head (Luke 12:7).
Ruth and I hope everyone had a safe, fun, and blessed Thanksgiving.

Back in 1963 Pope Paul VI promulgated a document, Decree on the Media of Social Communications – Inter Mirifica. (IM). In this forward-looking document states:

“Among the wonderful technological discoveries which men of talent, especially in the present era, have made with God’s help, the Church welcomes and promotes with special interest those which have a most direct relation to men’s minds and which have uncovered new avenues of communicating most readily news, views and teachings of every sort. The most important of these inventions are those media which, such as the press, movies, radio, television and the like, can, of their very nature, reach and influence, not only individuals, but the very masses and the whole of human society, and thus can rightly be called the media of social communication. (IM1)”

In this document the Church recognizes the importance of such media and how it may be used to preach the gospel message (IM 2). The Church reserves he right to make use of media “insofar as they are necessary or useful for the instruction of Christians and all its efforts for the welfare of souls (IM 3).”

I seriously doubt that even those of the Council who tried to look to the future, could have foreseen the explosion of mass communication with the internet, email, social media, Facebook, and the like. I also doubt that while they also recognized how such means of mass communication could be misused and abused, they could have foreseen the level of pure evil that is also out there.

As many of you know I have a saying that appears on the bulletin inserts that I sometimes publish that people need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed. I use this because all people are born with and innate goodness. However, with our fallen nature (thanks Adam & Eve), we sometimes stray from the path. My goal here is to utilize the electronic means of communication to remind us all of what we are called to be. Actually, it is mostly to remind myself and just drag those who stumble onto this blog, along on this journey.
I am certainly open to having you who read this to submit questions you would like to see addressed. Since I am retired, I have time to do research and am more than happy to do it. No anonymous requests will be addressed.
With this in mind, and in cooperation with the Webmaster of the OLQU webpage, Mr. Jim Chaloupka, we have launched this page. I look forward to seeing where this adventure leads. You may catch me at Church or e-mail to deaconjim@wowway.net.

Christo et Ecclesiae – For Christ and for the Church