With 874 people inside our church this past weekend, we had 18 more than last week and 259 more than the same weekend last year.

4 PM       246

6 PM       100

8 AM       136

10 AM     201

12 PM     191

     I invite you to join me for a memorial Mass for Pope Benedict on Friday, January 13th, at 2 PM here at St. John's.  Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament will follow Mass until 4 PM.

     Both Msgr. Rusconi and Fr. Andrew will join me to hear confessions during the holy hour.  One will be in the sacristy.  The other will be in the music room.  I'll be in the confessional room.  With Benedict's passing and the beginning of a new year, this is a good time to go to confession and receive the Lord's mercy.

     Today is the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, the last day of the Christmas season.  Tomorrow begins Ordinary Time.  With the passing of Pope Benedict, we have lost the last consequential figure of Vatican II.  Liturgically, we begin a new season tomorrow.  On a grand scale, you could say we're entering a new phase in human history.

     There's so much about B16, I'd like to share with you.  But it's too much now.  Larry Chapp in Pope Benedict XVI: A life and papacy centered on God identifies a thread to help us assess the legacy of B16:  make God present.  B16 strove to make God present to us.  We ought to imitate that example and help others recognize the presence of God and be present to Him.

     In Pope Benedict’s Kiss Goodbye is found the story of the last baby B16 kissed as pope.  The part that struck me the most follows:

“It felt like I was looking at Jesus, in a way,” she said. “When I looked into his eyes, I didn‘t see only the man, the Pope, but also the One he serves. There was so much love and kindness in his eyes.”

I experienced something similar with JP2 on January 4, 2003.  And I've seen people look at me in a way suggesting that they were also seeing Jesus Christ.  I've seen it the most in people close to death.  That's a time I'm especially happy to take a step back like St. Joseph and have people encounter Jesus Christ.  How can we help people encounter God?

     A commentator imagined what people would say thousands of years from now.  They'd consider B16 a Church Father.  We use that term for certain church leaders from the 100s to the 700s.  I suppose we could apply it to saints of today when it's 10,000 A.D. and 2023 A.D. seems like the early Church.  But I wonder if we could use a new term like Church Grandfather and Church Grandmother?  Here's what I have in mind.

     Pope Benedict retired from the papacy at 85 and entered a more contemplative phase of his life.  Pope John Paul II did not retire, but he likewise entered the grandfatherly stage of life.  We hope that the elderly will be wise and share their wisdom with us.  Consider some saints and possible saints who could be Church Grandfathers or Grandmothers:

1)  St. Katharine Drexel died in 1955 at the age of 96.

2)  Pope Leo XIII died in 1903 at age 93.

3)  St. Teresa of Calcutta died in 1997 at age 87.

4)  Pope St. John Paul II died in 2005 at age 84.

5)  Mother Angelica died in 2016 at age 92.

6)  Pope Benedict died at age 95 on the last day of 2022.

     With the fog of confusion hovering over society, we need holy grandfathers and holy grandmothers to witness to the young what is really true.  When we make our foundation on Jesus Christ, then we can truly flourish.  When we make God present to others, then they too can come to know and love the Word made flesh.

     If we are entering a new phase of human history, then grandparents can bridge the gap between the past and the present.  I think of "modern" ideas covering a span from 1870 to 2020 and "post-modern" ideas ranging from 1945 to the present.  "Modern" ideas have led to nihilism, despair, and loneliness.  "Post-modern" ideas search for the truth with great difficulty.  Grandparents can help young seekers to find the Truth.  The world may indeed be falling apart.  That may prompt people to seek the truth.  We can help them in this post-modern era to find the Truth Himself.  The post-modern era, I pray, will give way to a new Springtime in the Church as JP2 prophesied and B16 began to implement.

God love you,

Fr. Jim