Holy Nativity Catholic Church

05/23/2026

He breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.” – John 20:22 We know that our Lord did nothing without purpose, and this moment was no different.

In the book of Genesis chapter 2, verse 7, it is written that, “the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” After the fall in the Garden of Eden, Original Sin entered the world bringing with it spiritual and physical death. When our Lord was raised from the dead, death itself was swallowed up in the victory of the Cross and Resurrection. Thus, Creation was given the chance to be recreated. Christ imparted to the Apostles the breath of life that they too could become a new creation.

In the old-form baptismal rite, the priest would breathe into the nostrils of the infant to symbolize the imparting of the life of the Holy Spirit. We are reminded here that the descent of the Holy Spirit we celebrate on Pentecost Sunday is the quickening gift of the life of Christ through His indwelling Spirit. We are not called to face life alone, but in the strength of the Holy Spirit. We have been created anew. St Paul assures us in II Corinthians 5:17, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (NRSVCE) Our old lives are counted as lost in the new life of the risen Lord. The challenge to us is to remember, we cannot contain or bottle up the Holy Spirit within ourselves, we must let the Spirit flow through us to enliven and recreate the world around us. This is not some magical ability given to us, rather it comes by our willing submission and participation in the Divine life given to us by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Let us go forth and tell the good news in the power of the Spirit.

05/16/2026

"Prayer is the best preparation for Holy Communion. Prayer is the raising of the mind to God. When we pray we go to meet Christ Who is coming to us. If our Creator and Savior comes from heaven with such great love, it is only fitting that we should go to meet Him. And this is what we do when we spend some time in prayer."- St. Bernadine of Siena (1380-1444) source: http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/tes/quotes8.html

Sometimes there is a question as to how to pray. Prayer is the raising of our hearts and minds to God. When we first start this feels awkward. We start to pray and then sputter out because we feel as though all we can do is recite some of the prayers we knew as children. There is a story of a pastor who asked a man in the church to pray at the start of a meeting. An awkward silence ensues, then they heard a childhood prayer rising from the lips of the man. It was all he could think of to say. With persistence the prayers become more personal, more filled with hopes, fears, and petitions. It is said that St. John Vianney once asked an old farmer what he prayed as he sat before the Blessed Sacrament. “Nothing, I look at Him, and He looks at me.” He was spending wordless time in the presence of a dear friend.

In the 17th Chapter of John we read the priestly prayer of our Lord as he prepared for His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. He slipped into prayer with that familiarity that a Son has with His Father. It is no accident that this prayer was recorded for us as it gives His vision for the life of the Church that was to come. His prayer was that we would be unified. He also prayed that we would be true to His Name. May the Lord grant us the grace to be one with Him in prayer that we might also be one with Him as we receive Him in Holy Communion.

What famous Saints and other holy people have said about the Eucharist.

05/09/2026

A pastor I knew when I was young told the story once of a classmate who worked his way through seminary selling vacuum cleaners shortly after World War II. He walked into a house and quickly dumped a load of dirt on the floor over the objections of the lady of the house. When he looked around for an electric outlet to plug in the vacuum, he discovered there were none. She informed him that she had been trying to tell him there was no electricity in her home. There was no power.

Sadly, many times we, like the vacuum cleaner salesman, go looking for power in places where there is none. We seek answers in modern culture when what we most desperately need is time spent in prayer and meditation on Sacred Scripture and by receiving Him in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. When we cut ourselves off from the Eucharist we unplug ourselves from the power of God. Here our Lord waits for us to seek Him, and He is always present with us if we only turn to Him.

The disciples were afraid. They were suddenly faced with the very frightening prospect of being “alone”. Our Lord told them that while He was “going away” He would not leave them orphans. He promised that He would send them the Holy Spirit Who would bring all things to remembrance that He had taught them. We receive the Holy Spirit at our baptism making us the children of God and in fullness we receive the Holy Spirit in our Confirmation. Let us not waste the immense gift God has given us but rather may we turn always to the Holy Spirit our teacher and advocate.

When life seems hard to understand and the way ahead seems dark may our Lord grant us the grace to trust in Him and to seek His guidance. He will keep His promise, you will not be alone, you will not be powerless. Our Church strongly encourages us to spend at least fifteen minutes per day in prayer, nothing could be more important to our spiritual welfare. As we draw near to the celebration of Pentecost let us pray with the Apostles, “Come Holy Spirit!”

04/26/2026

Hear the voice of the Good Shepherd

Our Lord is calling us. The sheep know the voice of their shepherd. Sheep of our Lord’s time would respond to the voice of their shepherd because they heard it every day. We learn to know the voice of our Lord through time spent in prayer, and in meditation on Sacred Scripture.

Respond to the call

Have you ever noticed that at times you can hear what someone is saying without actually listening? The eyes of the listener begin to glaze over and you know you have lost them. Imagine what messages our Lord has for us that sometimes we don’t comprehend. The lights are sometimes on, but no one is home. When He calls us we truly need to focus and pay attention.

Follow where He leads

God calls us to claim our citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven. This does not mean we leave this world physically until we are called home at the end of our lives. In the Gospel of John our Lord did not pray that we would be taken out of the world but that we be saved from the evil one. In our reading today the Apostle Peter instructed the people to “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So, we are called to be citizens of Heaven who are living and working in this world. This means that there are times that when like Lot and his family, we are called to leave what is comfortable behind us and move into the unknown. We have two choices, obey the command of God and continue the journey toward Heaven, or we, like Lot’s wife, find ourselves looking back at the world, and like her becoming rooted forever in the world, not attaining the joys of Heaven.

03/21/2026

As we approach the pivotal moment in the Christian year of the Sacred Triduum, Jesus increases the depth of His teaching. For total strangers Jesus has been willing to go out of His way to come to the aid of those who ask for His healing. Now, after receiving an urgent message to come heal His friend Lazarus, He waited an additional two days before even heading in their direction. Jesus knows all things and knew perfectly well what was happening in Bethany.

Why did He wait? I would argue that He explains His reason in His recorded prayer to the Father: “I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” This miracle demonstrated definitively that when Jesus prayed, the Father heard Him. It demonstrated that He does hear our sorrows, and feels our grief, “Jesus wept”. Yet He also knows that we are a people who need reminders of source of our faith.

When Martha came to meet Jesus on the road, she was willing to engage Him in something of a Theological debate concerning the resurrection, and to acknowledge that Lazarus would rise again at that time. Jesus response reaches to us in our times of grief as well. “I Am the resurrection and the life…” We do not worship a god who only wishes he could help, but one Who is the creator and sustainer of all life. In the season of Lent, we need to consider that death is something we all face. But death is not the end, but only a transition to something beyond our greatest imagination.

Mary’s meeting with Jesus brings along those who prefer a more emotional argument, “Lord, if You had been here my brother would not have died.” Something of an accusation, but still couched in love for Him. When we feel lost and in pain, we come before God acknowledging that we do not always understand, but that we also know He is there to listen. Some become bitter with God for not doing things their way and turn their backs on Him. In so doing they cut themselves off from experiencing the healing only He can give. Mary would encourage us to express our pain, and then wait to see where He will lead.

03/07/2026

The power of a good confession.

The woman who met Jesus at the well never dreamed that her life would change through the power of an encounter with the Lord. The need that she felt was real. She was at the well in the middle of the day because she was shunned by the other women of the community. The loneliness on her daily journey must have weighed more heavily than the jug of water on her shoulder. We often find ourselves trudging through life weighed heavily by the sins and concerns of our daily lives. We thirst for freedom from sin and guilt. We thirst for love, and ache for the chance to have a relationship with God and others that is pure and complete. Yet, as the Apostle Paul lamented, we do the very thing that we don’t want to do and fail to do what we should. The woman at the well knew that her life was not perfect. As her encounter continued, she felt drawn to the love of Jesus. He made no demands; rather, He offered to take her life and make it more fulfilling than she could ever imagine. Her excitement was so great she ran off to tell any who would listen that she had encountered the Messiah. The entire community came out to experience a personal encounter with the Lord as result of her testimony.

The Church encourages us to make regular confessions to enable us to encounter the love and forgiveness of Jesus. We come into the confessional encumbered with our sins, and we leave rejoicing in the excitement of new life. Lent is especially a time for renewal. It is a time to examine our lives and to rid ourselves of the burden of sin and guilt that we carry. It is also a time to go rejoicing and sharing what He has done for us. Are you ready to meet Jesus in the Confessional? He beckons us with the same words he spoke to the women, “If you knew the gift of God . . .”

02/01/2026

JMJ

What truly brings you happiness? If our Lord would have asked the people who were present at the sermon on the mountain what they considered happiness or blessedness to be, most would not have given the list he provided. We are no different. In today’s world power, affluence, consumption, and impurity are all part and parcel of the ways of the world. It is for many the way to the “good life”. Our Lord reverses this and calls on people to value a life of sanctity that values eternity in a relationship with God before anything that the world can offer.

Some may argue that what our Lord teaches is too hard, or even impossible. I once had a person get upset with me for recommending that they pray for patience with their spouse, rather than telling them they were right, and their spouse was wrong. They were afraid to pray for patience because they were afraid that God might send them people and events to try their patience. So, we need to reconsider the Beatitudes and ask our Guardian Angel to help us grow in sanctity. Point by point we need to walk through this list given by our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount seeking first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness…Matthew 6:33. All that we might acquire in this life is nothing if it does not assist us on our way to Heaven.

Presently there is a new movement among some Catholics that seeks to return to the Land, called the “Catholic Land Movement”. It was started by the Papal Encyclical Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII. It seeks to emphasize the values of what we can gain from a simplicity of life similar to those who lived in previous generations. The goal is not to hide in the past, but to seek to care for the family, the land, and the Church in our present day. Those who participate in this land movement try to live God’s values rather than those of the world. This simplicity can be lived here, now. The Beatitudes provide a something of a road map. Like those who Jesus taught on the mountain we may wish to define our happiness differently. Yet, the ways of the world have been tried and found wanting. I encourage you to seek to memorize the beatitudes and make them a part of your daily lives –live them. So you may hear the words of our Lord, “well done, good and faithful servant.”

01/11/2026

The Baptism of the Lord

This is My Beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased. I cannot think of any child young or old who would not desire to have these words spoken of them. With these words the Father spoke in affirmation of the behavior of His son Jesus. If we are to imitate the Son of God and prove ourselves to be His children, it is important to know what was happening.

Turning the clock back a few minutes in the course of events related in Matthew chapter three shows that John the Baptist was receiving the people who were preparing for the coming of the kingdom of Heaven. They came confessing their sins and receiving baptism to demonstrate their commitment to a new life.

We also are called to come to the waters of baptism to be cleansed of our sins. We are called to do so in obedience to the Divine directive at the end of Matthew in which our Lord instructed that people be baptized in the “name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus continued the instruction, “…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you…”. By living in obedience, we show that we are worthy to be called “Christians”, “little Christs”.

This obedience was demonstrated by Jesus first. When He came to the Jordan, He had no sin to be confessed or forgiven. He came to show His unity with humanity, and His obedience to the Father. He came to show that He is fully human, and fully divine. I state the human nature of Christ in the present tense because He is still as fully human in Heaven today as He was on the banks of the Jordan so long ago. John recognized Jesus’ sinless nature by being the one to confess, “I have need to be baptized by You”. Jesus’ humble response demonstrated that God’s love will do what is necessary for our salvation.

Today, as we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, let us rejoice that He came gently to seek the lost. To unite His Divine nature with our Human nature and so create the bond with humanity for our salvation. His loving obedience to the Father was found to be pleasing. Let us also seek to please the Father by our loving obedience through accepting the gift of Salvation and sharing it with others.

01/04/2026

Six hundred years before our Savior was born, the prophet Isaiah was inspired by the Holy Spirit to pen these words of comfort to the people of Israel in bo***ge. “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” He goes on to describe this joy for the people of Israel, and for all nations. Those coming from afar are inspired to bring rich gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The wise men rejoiced to see the star in the heavens. However, when they arrived in Jerusalem and sought the newborn King in the royal court, King Herod and his court were not rejoicing. Matthew tells us that Herod and all Jerusalem were troubled. Herod was in truth not of royal lineage and so, when the scholars announced that a descendant of King David would be born as the Messiah, he knew that his rule was in jeopardy. He formulated a plan to eliminate the Messiah so he could remain the one to rule them all.

It might be easy for us to throw a few stones at Herod for his lack of insight, for the evil way he dealt with the male children of Israel. Yet we should pause and reflect on our own lives. I have seen a little of Herod in my own life from time to time, as well as in the lives of others. How many have willfully rebelled against the Church and our Lord by refusing to listen to the teachings of the Church concerning marriage, openness to life, the Eucharist, prayer, and charity towards others to name only a few? Do we seek to silence the Messiah’s voice in our hearts as we pridefully seek to follow our own way.

Not everyone is as violent as Herod, many just choose to ignore and hope our Lord goes away. Those who read the prophecies to Herod could have dropped everything to come to worship the Lord, yet no such record exists of them doing this.

Yet our Lord continues to persist. Calling us to the light, encouraging all to come out of bo***ge to sin and be made new. Children of the light. Isaiah brought words of joy and freedom to a people in bo***ge. Are we willing to unite our will to God’s Will? Are we willing to listen, to come to the freedom of new life in Christ?

12/28/2025

The Feast of the Holy Family was established by Pope Leo XIII in 1893 for the purpose of encouraging stability of family life. Even in the late 19th century the family was definitively under attack. In fact, Sister Lucia of Fatima is quoted as saying, “The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about marriage and the family.” Saint John Paul II said that the family is the core of society. Without solid family life, society will crumble, yet we see so often modern media insists on projecting the family as a toxic space that needs to be shunned or a place where parents are the stupidest people on the planet. So, we can see that the family is in desperate need of stability and a solid example.

Jesus, the Son of God, became flesh through the Virgin Mary. He humbled Himself to become a part of the Holy Family. He participated in family life, learning from both Mary and Joseph how a family interacts. Mary demonstrated the practical parts of life such as teaching, cooking, cleaning, and sewing. We see these mentioned as examples in the parables taught by our Lord during His ministry. Joseph demonstrated the function of protector, as we heard in today’s Gospel. Joseph was warned in a dream to escape to Egypt when Herod sought to kill the child Jesus. He served as the provider by working in his trade of carpentry and teaching our Lord the same skills.

In all these things this family was Holy because they placed God at the center of their family life, they lived and sacrificed for one another, and they radiated that love to others. How can we benefit from this example? The family is the first church and the first school. It is where we are to learn how to be in community. It is also how we learn to communicate, disagree while respecting the other, that is, conflict management. It is where we learn the faith (see Pope St John Paul II Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio). May God grant us the grace look to the Holy Family as the example of how to live and work as the core of society.

As a final note, as mentioned earlier, Pope St. John Paul II acknowledged that society will crumble without the family. Mother Theresa of Calcutta points out that “…if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” Our job as families is to enfold those around us into the larger family of our church, our community and the world.