Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the
gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. You can imagine that the crowds
must have been delirious with happiness with Jesus listening to the incredible wisdom that
he spoke, the powerful character that he had. And then on top of that, all these illnesses
being cured and people being freed from their sicknesses and the devils and just being so
full of happiness and joy because of his coming and his person. And then he feels sorry for
the people.
They're exhausted. And so this leader that they have is bringing all this joy and happiness
and he's compassionate too. He's full of love and he's not self-seeking. Just the people
must have been so happy with the person of Jesus and they should have been. And it's
a great tragedy to think that they rejected him after all that he experienced.
But he is our king. He is the powerful one. He is the beautiful one. He is our king. He is our
good news. The good news that we have is the person of Jesus centered directly on Jesus. Our
faith is in the person of Jesus. He is our way, truth, and life. He is the way to happiness,
our truth that teaches us how to be happy. And our life of happiness is centered,
on Jesus and in the Catholic faith, which is his body, which is embodied in him, our Catholic
faith. And so this is our hope. This is our faith in the Catholic faith and in the person of Jesus.
This is the good news. The good news that we are celebrating, that we're looking forward to in
Christmas, the coming of the good news, the coming of the Christ, the coming of our hope and joy.
In the person of Jesus, who is God. And this is what we hold out to the world. This is what we hold
out to ourselves. This is our beacon of hope and joy. As we think of the person of Jesus, the name
of Jesus, the letters of Jesus, the letters in his name. St. Bernardino Siena used to hold out
banners of the name of Jesus and hold it up high and used to do processions with the name of Jesus.
And we have,
we have images of Jesus now, broadcast everywhere. Everything should be centered on Jesus and our
lady who points to Jesus. This is the joy of our faith, the hope of our faith, the happiness of
our faith. And the kingdom of God is at hand now. Jesus reigns. The power of Jesus reigns today,
now, in our hearts and in the world. It's in the air.
As the Christmas season is here, Christmas is in the air. The Christmas music and all the
decorations, it's all in the air. And we can feel the Christmas spirit. The Christmas spirit is not
all the tinsel and the music. It is Jesus himself there, the baby at Bethlehem. It's all centered
on him. And it's, it's in the air. This is the hope that we, we have, that we preached from the
shops. We preach through the cities, in our families. We preach Jesus everywhere. And it's no
surprise that Jesus, that Satan is trying to expunge the name of Jesus from television, from
the movies, from the airwaves. And people are embarrassed sometimes even to say the name of
Jesus. And our Lord said, if you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you. But there's no reason
in any, in any way, in any way, in any way, in any way, in any way, in any way, in any way, in any
sense of the, at all, to be ashamed of our Lord. He is someone only to be immensely proud of and
happy for and to live, to live for and to die for. And this is what St. Francis Xavier, who we
celebrate today, did. He went through the whole world preaching the name of Jesus. He, he was from
in Europe and he went around the western side of Africa, all the way down to Africa. And he went
around, around the south of Africa, all the way up preaching the coasts of Africa, all the way up
into India, preaching in India. And then he went across east into the Indonesia and up into Japan
and even wanted to go to China, preaching everywhere with great, great vigor and zeal
because he had something to preach. He had something to, to shout from the housetops. And
he said to him, I'm going to preach to you. I'm going to preach to you. I'm going to preach to you.
He wanted to go into the University of Paris and, and shout like a madman, telling all the, all the
scholars there to come out and preach and go to the missions where souls are being lost because
they won't use their learning to, to save souls in the missions like he was doing. So he was that
great, zealous firebrand of, of a missionary preaching the name of Jesus, the person of Jesus,
the Catholic faith.
Which brings hope to the world. And this is what we, we need to be doing ourselves. We need to have
that zeal. I remember when I was thinking to, of going into the priesthood and my primary reason
was to bring, bring the joy of our faith, the joy that I learned through the gospel, the joy of the
person of Jesus to, to the world as a priest. There's a, to bring happiness to, to, to everyone,
to bring the happiness of our Catholic faith, which teaches us how to be happy, how to handle the
trials and difficulties of this, of this life, and to, to handle it with joy and to have, have the
answers to, to, to how to live a happy life and how to get, how to arrive at heaven. And it's all
centered again on, on Jesus and all that he taught and all that he was. And just read it in the
Gospels and you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll,
you'll be inflamed with zeal and, and emboldened with your strength and your faith because of
the way he was, the way he spoke, the words he spoke and the way he did.
And so we, we have this banner, this person of Jesus to hold high, and he did it himself,
holding himself high on the cross, and he conquered through the cross. And it is the cross,
the crucifix, which we hold high.
And so we have the sign of victory and, and our sign of hope to the world, but also Jesus in the,
in the table of Bethlehem is, is hope in the world. And that's what we're celebrating here
during this Advent season, looking forward to, to our hope in Jesus. And so let us turn to Our
Lady again, this Advent season, which is dedicated to Our Lady, who is, is the one, the sign,
of the coming of our hope in, in Jesus. And she will prepare us for that. She too will
give us that hope and joy in our heart.
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