Christ Our Light & St. Anne Mother of Mary Parishes, Pulaski/Mexico, NY

09/14/2026

😂SMILE😂

09/14/2026

09/14/2026

⚓DAILY ANCHOR: WE WIN

Hi Friend,

For most people throughout history, we don’t know, off the top of our heads, how they died. That’s because it doesn’t matter. What George Washington did in life has a huge impact on me. That he died of epiglottitis is completely irrelevant.

But everyone knows how Jesus died. In fact, the instrument of his ex*****on is arguably the most recognized symbol in history. That’s because no event in human history is more relevant for YOUR life than Jesus’ death.

And why? Because that’s where Jesus conquered death. Your death. That’s why. And that changes how you see your entire life. If he didn’t do what he did, you wouldn’t have the hope that you have. Hard stop. He won the victory. You enjoy the spoils.

There is an Obelisk in Rome that’s so old that Moses may have walked by it in Egypt, long before Roman conquerors brought it back as a decoration for their city. It stood in Nero’s circus, a few hundred feet from where it now faces St. Peter’s Basilica. It was there when Peter died in that circus, hanging on a cross of his own. It might be the last thing he saw.

A cross now sits on top of it—holding a relic of the true cross. And words are inscribed into one side of the pedestal: CHRISTUS VINCIT. CHRISTUS REGNAT. CHRISTUS IMPERAT. Which means “Christ conquers. Christ reigns. Christ commands.”

On the other side are the words: ECCE CRUX DOMINI. FUGITE PARTES ADVERSAE. VICIT LEO DE TRIBU IUDA. “Behold the Cross of the Lord. Flee, you hostile powers. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered.”

It had been a sign of Rome’s conquering power. Now it’s a sign of Christ’s.

Jesus didn’t come to make friends with the enemies of humanity. He came to deal death, sin, and all the powers of hell a mortal blow. The cross is the sword he plunged into the heart of mankind’s mortal enemy: mortality itself.

We don’t make peace with death the way Buddhists do. Their acceptance of it flows from the idea that they are finally letting go of the illusion of their individual personhood. We Christians make peace with death, and can accept suffering, precisely because we know its days are numbered. We can look it all in the eye and say, with a grin, “I win. Because HE did.”

✝ Happy Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross! ✝

God bless you,

Chris Stefanick

Real Life Catholic

Credit: ⚓ Daily Anchor, Real Life Catholic

09/14/2026

FIRST READING
NUMBERS 21:4b-9
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

PSALM 78:1bc-2, 34-35, 36-37, 38
Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
When he killed them, they sought for him;
they repented and sought God earnestly.
They remembered that God was their rock,
the Most High God their redeemer.
But they flattered him with their mouths;
they lied to him with their tongues.
Their heart was not steadfast toward him;
they were not true to his covenant.
Yet he, being compassionate,
forgave their iniquity,
and did not destroy them;
often he restrained his anger,
and did not stir up all his wrath.

SECOND READING
PHILIPPIANS 2:6-11
Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

✝ TODAY'S GOSPEL
✝ JOHN 3:13-17
No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

🤔REFLECTION BY BISHOP ROBERT BARRON
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus and tells him, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Why does the Son come? Is it because God is angry? Because God wants to lord it over us? Because God needs something? No, he comes purely out of love, out of God’s desire that we flourish: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

It is not in order to work out his anger issues that the Father sends the Son but that the justice of the world might be restored. Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s salvific intent, displayed throughout the Old Testament. He wanted to bring the divine life even into the darkest places. He wanted to hunt us down.

The Father, in short, sent the Son all the way into time, history, and the human condition. But then the Father sent him further, into our sin and dysfunction, and finally all the way down into hatred, violence, rejection, and death itself.

09/14/2026

September 14

“It doesn’t require much time to make us saints. It requires only much love.”

-Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen

REFLECTION:

God wants to make you a saint! Holiness is not reserved for extraordinary moments. We can grow in holiness through the love we show in ordinary tasks, conversations, sacrifices, and acts of kindness. How can you love more intentionally today?

Credit: Daily Gracelines, Women of Grace

09/14/2026

SAINT OF THE DAY

St. Albert of Jerusalem (d. 1215) was born to a noble family in Italy, and was well educated in theology and law. He went on to become a priest and bishop and served in important posts as a peacemaker; he served as a mediator between Pope Clement III and the Holy Roman Emperor, between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Cyprus, and between the Knights Templar and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. In 1205 he was made Patriarch of Jerusalem by Pope Innocent III during the time when the Saracens had control of the city. In this position he was respected by all for his sanctity and intelligence. Because of the Muslim presence in Jerusalem, Albert took up residence in Acre overlooking the great city, as well as Mt. Carmel where a group of holy hermits lived. Albert was asked by St. Brocard, who was prior of the group of hermits, to draw up a rule of life for them which became the beginning of the Carmelite Order. In 1214 Albert was summoned to serve in the General Lateran Council, but was murdered before he could attend. The Master of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit, whom he had rebuked and deposed for immorality, stabbed him to death on September 14th in the Church of Saint John of Acre, while he was part of the procession on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. His feast day is September 14th. Patron Saint of: Carmelites and Carmelite vocations