Our Lady of Guadalupe     The largest annual gathering of Catholics in the United States takes place each year in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois when over 125,000 people gather at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe on her feast. Each year the number has grown as devotion to the patroness...
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Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-9; Matthew 3:1-12 Every family has its colorful members: Maybe she is an eccentric woman, like Auntie Mame; may he is an elderly bachelor, like Uncle Fester.  These people are often the source of many a good family story.  And in spite of their eccentricities, in spite of their strangeness, we...
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Isaiah 2:1-15; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:37-44                         “They shall beat their swords into plowshares                                     and their spears into pruning hooks;                         one nation shall not raise the sword against another,                                     nor shall they train for war again.” That is one of the most beautiful passages found in the scriptures, and the most...
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2 Samuel 5:1-3;  Colossians 1:12-20;  Luke 23:35-43 “This is the King of the Jews.” So read the inscription over the head of Jesus as he hung upon the cross, naked, beaten, bleeding, and dying for all the world to see.  The inscription was a form of mockery by the Roman procurator.  The people who were...
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Malachi 3:19-20:2; II Thessalonians 3:7-12; Luke 21:5-19 When Solomon’s Temple was destroyed in the year 70, people thought the world was coming to an end, and believers began looking for Christ’s second coming.  When it became evident that Christ was not going to come immediately, Luke wrote Jesus’ end-time teachings in his Gospel, one...
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Wisdom 11:22-12:2;  2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2;  Luke 19:1-10 The human mind cannot fully grasp, let alone even begin to comprehend the vastness of the universe.  When we contemplate the heavens, the moon and the stars, we can become overwhelmed with the enormity of space.  Our own Milky Way is a galaxy with billions of stars...
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2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14;  2 Thessalonians 2:16–3:5;  Luke 20:27-38 What happens when you die?  This is a question that has been pondered, puzzled over and debated from the time that humanity began to walk on the face of this earth.  This is the question that lies at the heart of the exchange between Jesus and...
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Exodus 17:8-13; 2 Timothy 3:14–4:2; Luke 18:1-8 Be persistent in your prayers.  Never give up.  Pray always.  Such is the message Jesus is giving us, his followers, for God always answers our prayers.  The point is pretty clear in Jesus’ comparison of the unjust judge and God.  If an unjust judge will eventually give...
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2 Kings 5:14-17; 2 Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19 Leprosy is an extremely painful and highly communicable disease.  The sores and open wounds of this illness can grow to the extreme that the one infected could even lose fingers and toes.  In addition to the physical pain is the emotional pain of loneliness that one...
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