My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The focus on the liturgy this week is “hanging on to joyful expectations.”  We must keep in mind that even in our struggles the Lord is there to sustain us.  And so, we must hang on joyfully throughout life.  In the Holy Gospel this week, St. Luke begins by situating the arrival of the Messiah firmly within human history.  The definitive intervention of God in human affairs is not something that disrupts history, even as it changes its course, but flows out of the history of Israel and, indeed, of the whole world.  The passage from the Prophet Isaiah, now seen to refer to St. John the Baptist, stems from the end of the exilic period and tells of the intervention of God to heal Israel’s past and to give Israel a future.  Now God is about to do the same in Jesus, who will heal the past of the entire world and also give it a future.

May this Advent be one of many graces and blessings from the Lord.

May the Lord bless you all!

Devotedly in the Lord,

(The Very Reverend) Aquinas M. Nichols
Pastor