Latest / Catholic Spirit Radio / Good News #199 121325: Gaudete! Advent Joy & Preparing the Stable — Deacon Al’s Reflection

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Good News #199 121325: Gaudete! Advent Joy & Preparing the Stable — Deacon Al’s Reflection · Catholic Spirit Radio

• 0:00
  Welcome to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio, a program for teens and almost
• 0:04
  teens to better understand that the gospel of Jesus Christ is relevant in their
• 0:08
  lives, and it's a place where your questions about faith and religion can be answered.
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  And now, here's your host, Deacon Al.
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  Good evening, and welcome to Good News here on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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  I am Deacon Al Lundy, a permanent deacon of the Peoria Diocese,
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  and so happy to be here with you every Saturday and Sunday from 8 to 8.30,
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  talking about the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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  We look at the readings from the Mass this weekend and talk about how they affect us in our life today.
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  A little bit of reflection, not quite a homily, but more of just a personal reflection on things.
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  We often, at the beginning of the program here, talk about just stuff going
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  on in my life and your life.
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  And I guess the thing going on right now is Advent leading into Christmas.
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  And John, I'm sure you're all decorated up for Christmas now, right?
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  You got the lights up outside the house and the inflatable Rudolph.
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  Do you really? What do you have?
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  Just a small. I have a neighbor who, not a very big yard, two-story house,
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  and a two-story Grinch, and a snowman.
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  And a Santa and a reindeer. I mean, huge, huge, like two-story tall,
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  all crammed into one yard.
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  You know, he's pretty smart about this. He knows when the wind's coming and he deflates them.
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  And when it's really bad, I think he hauls them in.
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  Because I don't see them laying out in the yard, just kind of blowing around.
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  Because they don't seem too expensive because you see a lot of these.
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  My son's got a bunch of like four-foot-tall ones.
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  And I've talked to my son about this.
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  There's some alien character. It's like a Disney cartoon. Stitch?
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  Yeah, Stitch. See, he has an inflatable stitch in his yard. And nothing to me says Christmas.
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  Like an inflatable alien, right, in your yard.
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  I found, I'm sorry, but I just got tired of stringing lights and picking lights
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  up again and things. So I don't do the light.
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  I do one light. My wife loves this. I hate them. I'm sorry.
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  It's the little prismatic globe that puts spots all over your house that move around.
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  It's, I call it my Christmas COVID.
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  It just looks like, I don't know, it looks like this multicolored germ rolling around my house.
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  So that's in the front yard. But I saw something on television.
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  I thought, oh, that looks pretty cool.
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  It's a really nice, bright,
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  merry christmas type of thing with ferns and ornaments and
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  all that stretches over your garage door i i
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  love this it takes like 20 minutes to put up and about 10 minutes
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  to take down you know and and it looks nice and it's bright and it survives
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  any kind of weather so i just put my you can they stretch and so when the when
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  the garage door rolls up it just kind of stretches enough and then when it comes
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  down it's this perfectly flat image you get dozens of them i I mean,
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  you can get all different holidays and different scenes.
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  We've had this for a few years now, but it's my kind of Christmas decoration.
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  I decorate the inside of the house.
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  I've got the manger and angels and Christmas tree and that sort of thing.
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  My tree is, one section of it is angels and another section of it is places
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  we've gone on vacation, state parks, national parks.
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  Every time we go on vacation, we get an ornament. We've done this for decades now.
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  So we have ornaments from national parks
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  and state parks and i love that
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  because it reminds us of where we've gone on vacation and the good times we
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  had that kind of thing and then some of them are like my wife's from when she
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  was a child that she made and ornaments that my son made as a child i have nothing
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  like that from my childhood i i was not an artsy craftsy kid and we had a cat.
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  And our cat, our cat was a Christmas tree menace, a menace.
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  We were the first ones on our block with an aluminum tree, not,
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  not a fake tree, not something that looks like a Christmas tree, but isn't.
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  This was, you know, like an ode to Reynolds rep.
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  This was a silver Christmas tree that you put the color wheel on.
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  And so, and so you got all the normal Christmas colors, like orange,
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  an orange tree and a purple tree, right? And so the color wheel would turn.
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  So we were the first ones on the block with one of these trees when they came
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  out. This was what? This would have been 60s, probably late 60s.
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  So my dad puts us all up and he's really pleased with this. And we hang ornaments on it.
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  And now we all have to go outside to look through the picture window to see
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  the color changing tree.
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  It's like two feet. So this is Chicago area. We're in like two feet of snow
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  and it's freezing cold out. We're close enough to Chicago that it's windy and just bitter.
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  And dad makes us all get dressed and head out to the front yard so that we can look into the warm house.
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  And really get the full effect of the color-changing aluminum tree.
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  So we're standing out in the yard, and every now and then the tree jerks to one side.
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  And my dad thinks, I don't have it straight, or it's not tight in the stand,
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  because the stand revolves.
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  The tree revolves, the color wheel revolves next to it. That way,
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  strangers can see all your Christmas ornaments, right?
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  So we're standing outside, and the tree's trying to turn, and then it jerks.
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  And then it turns a little more, and it jerks. and dad's
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  getting all upset because he spent a lot of time on this thing and it's not
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  working right that's brand new and it doesn't work so we go back in the house
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  and what we find is our cat laying on its back under the tree and as my mother's
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  antique heirloom glass ornaments,
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  pass over the cat the cat's going smack and they fly there's a pile of glass
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  on the wall next to the tree.
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  This cat has smashed every one of my mother's antique heirloom glass ornaments.
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  And the cat's happy as can be. The cat's having a ball.
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  My dad is like totally relieved because there's nothing wrong with the tree.
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  And we're laughing because it's a cat doing this.
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  And my mother is just livid because all this is pile of broken ornaments.
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  So that's one of that's one of my great Christmas memories.
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  There's not a lot of Christmases I remember, but I remember that one.
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  So, and my dad was really great at decorating. He was so cool.
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  He's kind of a handy guy. He cut out...
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  A choir of four kids in red and white choir robes, cut it out of a sheet of plywood.
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  Then he took circular styrofoam, well, just styrofoam circles, right?
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  And he painted them to look like my brothers and I.
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  And he sticks them on top of this. And he took this huge, huge speaker from
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  inside our living room and he put it outside.
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  Now, how many people were taking it? This is one of those, you know,
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  nice walnut case speakers that you used to get because your television always
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  had a record player built in, right?
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  So he took the speaker outdoors, and then he would put Christmas carols in the
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  house on the record player, and they would play outside the front yard behind the choir of his boys.
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  Pretty nice. That's pretty cool. And he'd set that up every winter for,
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  like, years we'd had that. So finally, we got old enough that we didn't want
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  to look like choir kids in robes in the front yard because our friends were all teasing us about it.
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  And it finally came down. But
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  yeah, we always had really cool Christmas stuff that my dad would make.
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  And I remember the cat breaking my mom's ornaments and I remember the choir bites in the front yard.
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  Yeah, yeah. So great Christmas memories. So now what do I do?
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  I stretch a piece of cloth over my garage door and say, I'm done.
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  It's as crafty as I'm getting this year. No, it's not right. It's not right.
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  But we always have, my wife loves Christmas decorating. And so our house is
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  filled with decorations.
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  And and now my son's getting into it with his inflatable
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  stitch so but he has
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  three christmas trees in his house so i'll give him that and and
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  he still has his nativity scene when he was before he was even a teenager what
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  he wanted for christmas was an was his own nativity scene i thought that was
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  so cool and that and that unusual that was his christmas wish he wanted his
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  own nativity for his room so we got him one and he still has it and it still goes up every year,
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  still goes up in his house, and he just loves it.
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  So, I think that's pretty cool.
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  Other than that, we're getting the church ready.
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  Well, right now, we're decorated for Advent, but we're already starting to make plans for Christmas.
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  We just ordered poinsettias for the church. Those aren't inexpensive.
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  When you get 70 of them, that tends to run up a bill.
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  Yeah, we've got, we had a parishioner. Here's something people should make in their homes.
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  We had a parishioner who made this really neat plywood frame that has five rows of shelves on it.
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  It's shaped like a pyramid, kind of, sort of, with shelves, and it holds 36 poinsettia plants.
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  It makes a poinsettia tree, Christmas tree shape, out of poinsettias.
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  They're just gorgeous. and he offered to make one 14 feet tall.
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  Because he saw it at another church, and so he had the plans for it that was
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  14 feet tall. It was 14 shelves.
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  And I said, let's scale that down a bit, because when I looked at how many poinsettias
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  it took to cover it, it was going to run us every year about $2,500.
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  You know, yeah. So we wouldn't want that to happen. We don't want it to be quite
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  the center of attention.
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  So he made me two that are five levels.
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  So they're about six feet tall. And it looks, it's beautiful.
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  I'm tempted to make one for my home, but it's too much work.
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  I'd rather just put my picture on the garage and in 20 minutes say,
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  okay, that looks great. Thank you, guys, I'm done.
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  Anyway, it's Christmas time. And I love Christmas time. And I love the carols. I love the hymns.
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  I love the decorating. I love that my wife decorates.
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  So to everyone, happy, happy Advent. And we've got a great program to play for you.
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  The next couple of weekends through Christmas, we have the story of the nativity, how it came about.
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  And we mingle that in with Scripture from the Nativity.
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  And we have a cast of thousands. I think it was a cast of actually 14, if I remember right.
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  We had about 14 people crammed in the studios here as we recorded this.
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  So we hope you'll enjoy that next weekend and the weekend after.
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  You can tune in during our Saturday and Sunday time slots from 8 to 8.30 and
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  listen to the story of the origin of the Nativity as well as the Nativity liturgies.
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  So with that being said, we're going to pause for a few minutes When we come
• 11:27
  back, we're going to look at the readings from this weekend's Mass.
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  You're listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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  Stay tuned. Good News will be right back on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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  And welcome back to Good News. I'm Deacon Al Lundy. It's a pleasure to have you with us.
• 12:20
  If you have a question about Catholicism or Christianity in general,
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  I invite you to write to us here at Catholic Spirit Radio, and we will be glad
• 12:30
  to answer your questions.
• 12:31
  You can send that to goodnews at catholicspiritradio.com, and we will be glad
• 12:36
  to take your questions. I had a great question the other day,
• 12:40
  John. You will love this.
• 12:41
  Someone who hadn't been to adoration in a while and came to adoration.
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  And at the end, we have a prayer that we recite, right?
• 12:50
  And it's a series of reverent proclamations about God, about Mary,
• 12:57
  about Jesus, and about the Holy Spirit.
• 13:00
  And the line about the Holy Spirit talks about the Holy Spirit, the paraclete.
• 13:06
  And I had a fellow who grew up Catholic, Catholic schools, but he had a question
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  about the Catholic faith. Who is the parakeet?
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  And I said, what? He said, well, I was in adoration the other day,
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  and it talked about the Holy Spirit and the parakeet.
• 13:22
  And he says, I've never understood that.
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  So, it was really hard not to laugh.
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  And I explained, it's paraclete, not parakeet. It's not a bird.
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  Paraclete is Greek for teacher.
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  And I just, I thought that It was hysterical.
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  So, if you ever hear that in Scripture, because it does talk about Jesus will
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  send the paraclete to the apostles. He's not sending a bird.
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  He's sending the Holy Spirit, the teacher. So, yeah.
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  Yeah, so any questions you have, even if you think they might be a little silly,
• 14:03
  go ahead and send them in. We'll be glad to answer them.
• 14:07
  Our readings this Sunday. This is Gaudete Sunday. This is halfway through Advent.
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  We're just, wow, it's just going to be so close. We're just talking a couple
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  weeks away from Christmas.
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  So that's really exciting. And so Gaudete is joyful.
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  So in Advent, we're getting ready for an event. This is the preparation for
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  a big happening, that happening being the incarnation of God into our world
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  as the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ.
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  And then it's also looking forward to the coming of Christ again,
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  to the second coming, to the final judgment.
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  So we're preparing for both, and we're excited about both.
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  At least we should be excited about both. And so, since we're halfway through
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  the Advent, halfway through the preparation, Christ is almost here,
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  we're joyous, we're joyful.
• 15:02
  And so, that's why you will see, rather than the dark violet being worn by the
• 15:09
  clergy and also being dressed on the altar, things will be rose.
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  Not pink, rose.
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  Oftentimes I've mentioned to priests about, oh, you look really good in pink.
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  And they said, this is rose. We don't wear pink, we wear rose.
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  So whatever you want to call it, it's fine. But it's a lighter color than the
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  dark violet because we're halfway there. So it's like half the tone, half the darkness.
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  And we're getting excited about Christ coming again into our lives in a renewed
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  way. And I think that's the important part because we think,
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  well, what do Christ is coming. Christ is already here.
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  He's been here for 2,000 years. Yes, but we're getting ourselves renewed to
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  experience Him in a new and stronger way.
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  So, our readings, our first reading is from the prophet Isaiah from the Old Testament.
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  Our second reading is a letter from James, I say James, and then our gospel
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  is from Matthew. So, let's get into this.
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  A reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, and this is Isaiah chapter 35.
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  The desert and the parched land will exalt. The steppe will rejoice and bloom.
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  They will bloom with abundant flowers and rejoice with joyful song.
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  The glory of Lebanon will be given to them, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon.
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  They will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.
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  Strengthen the hands that are feeble. Make firm the knees that are weak.
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  Say to those whose hearts are frightened, Be strong, fear not.
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  Here is your God. he comes with vindication, with divine recompense. He comes to save you.
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  Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf be cleared.
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  Then will the lame leap like a stag. Then the tongue of the mute will sing.
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  Those whom the Lord has ransomed will return and enter Zion singing.
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  Crowned with everlasting joy.
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  They will meet with joy and gladness, sorrow and mourning will flee, the word of the Lord.
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  Now, we're going to come back to this reading in our gospel.
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  You'll see the connection between these two. But basically what Isaiah is saying
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  that the Messiah is coming, that God is coming not for vengeance, not for destruction,
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  not because he's angry at the human race, but he's coming in love and forgiveness
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  and joy because he exalts in human creation.
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  This is the best thing He's done, is create human life. And He's come for the
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  salvation because they've fallen into sin.
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  But I think what's beautiful about this and what's wonderful about our faith as Christians is,
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  is that God doesn't come to punish us. He didn't send the Messiah to punish us.
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  He sent Christ to save us and to be among us because he loves us.
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  So that's what we're hearing from Isaiah. And he's telling us how to know when
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  this is happening, what to look for.
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  And he's telling us about how the lame will walk and the deaf will hear.
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  Those are signs that God is with us. Our second reading from the letter of St.
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  James, James writes, Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord.
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  See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the field,
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  being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.
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  You too must be patient. Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand.
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  Do not complain, brothers and sisters, about one another, that you may not be judged.
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  Behold, the judge is standing before the gates. Take as an example of hardship
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  and patience, brothers and sisters, the prophets who spoke in the name of the
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  Lord, the word of the Lord.
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  So James is, again, this is that Advent season where he's telling people to
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  get ready for this, that the coming of Christ is at hand.
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  Now, James is talking about the second coming because Jesus has already been born.
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  God is already incarnate, has already at the writing of this,
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  has already gone through his passion, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension.
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  And what James is saying is what Paul is writing about at this very same time,
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  all the apostles thought that Christ's second coming was going to come in their lifetime.
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  That was an error. They were mistaken. They misunderstood what Jesus was saying.
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  He was saying he was going to return.
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  He said that many times, that there would be a second coming.
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  But they really thought it was going to come while they were alive.
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  Even though Jesus said, when it's actually going to happen, I'm not saying.
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  God knows, and it's God's decisions, and it's not for me to say.
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  But he did say, I will return.
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  And he did say, be prepared for it.
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  And several years have gone by, and it hasn't happened yet.
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  The apostles are getting older. They're starting to die off.
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  And James is saying, it has to be now. It has to be coming up now before we're all gone.
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  And it didn't happen that way. But it's still a good lesson that we still have
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  to be prepared, especially since we don't know when Christ is coming.
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  And we'll get more into that right after the gospel reading.
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  So our gospel's from Matthew.
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  This is from chapter 11 of Matthew, from the beginning of chapter 11.
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  And it's talking about the herald of Christ's coming, John the Baptist.
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  Matthew writes, When John the Baptist heard in prison of the works of Christ,
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  he sent his disciples to Jesus with this question, Are you the one who is to
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  come, or should we look for another?
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  Jesus said to them in reply, go and tell John what you heard and see, what you hear and see.
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  The blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed,
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  the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.
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  And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.
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  As they were going off, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John.
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  What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind?
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  Then what did you go out to see?
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  Someone dressed in fine clothing?
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  Those who wear fine clothing are in royal places.
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  Then why did you go out to see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
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  This is the one about whom it was written, Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you.
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  He will prepare your way before you.
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  Amen, I say to you, among those born of women, there has been none greater than John the Baptist.
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  Yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. The Gospel of the Lord.
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  So, what are we learning about here? Well, we heard from Isaiah hundreds of
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  years before the coming of Christ what those signs were going to be.
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  And now Jesus is repeating them to the messengers who are going to take this
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  news of him back to John, that what Isaiah said hundreds of years before has now come to fruition.
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  The lame walk, the blind see, lepers are healed, the good news is being proclaimed.
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  This is everything Isaiah talked about. So Jesus is telling John the Baptist,
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  yes, I'm he, I'm the Messiah. I'm the one you've been talking about.
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  And I know who you are. I recognize you as that last prophet who's going to come before me.
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  And now I'm telling you, I'm here.
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  You know, Thomas gets a bad rap about doubting Jesus, but he's not the only
• 22:46
  one who doubted him. John the Baptist doubted.
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  Peter doubted. So it's not just Thomas. You have to remember,
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  Jesus was radically new, radically different.
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  And the Jewish people have been waiting centuries for the Messiah's arrival.
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  And so, yeah, there's a lot of questions about, could this really be him?
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  Is this really who we think it is?
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  And so John, who's given his whole life to proclaiming the coming of the Messiah,
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  knows he's near the end of his life.
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  He's about to be executed, and he knows this. He knows he's never going to be released from prison.
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  And like so many of us, he just wants to make sure that his life accounted for
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  something, that all these things he sacrificed for, all this work he did was
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  worthwhile, that he was doing what God wanted him to do, and that he did a good job.
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  So he's just looking for some reassurance before he dies that his life meant something.
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  I think we all have moments like that, don't we, where we question whether we're really.
• 23:49
  In good stead with God? Have we listened well? Have we followed what He said?
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  I think that's pretty common among a lot of people if you care about your relationship with God.
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  Even if you're married, how often do you ask yourself, am I really being a good
• 24:05
  husband? Am I really being a good wife?
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  Is this what I need to do? Am I doing enough?
• 24:10
  I think we ask that a lot.
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  I question myself from time to time. Am I really doing in my ministries?
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  Am I really doing what I should be doing? Have I done enough?
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  How much more do I need to do, and how do I know? And so Christ sends his reassurance
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  to John that you've done well, and yes, I'm the one who you've been talking about, and so rest easy.
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  As we head through Advent and get closer to Christmas, those are great questions
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  we should ask ourselves.
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  We should contemplate about that. We should we should really dig down deep.
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  Am I ready for the coming of Christ?
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  He didn't come into some luxury hotel or some great palace.
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  He came in a manger, in a stable, a smelly, dirty stable, and still that's where Jesus decided to come.
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  A lot of us, our interior person can be kind of a smelly, messy stable itself.
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  I think when Mary and Joseph arrived at the stable, in my mind's eye, as I see it happening.
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  Joseph and Mary both know that she's very near giving birth.
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  And I think being a good husband, he sat her down off to the side.
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  He found a clean pile of hay or something for her to make herself comfortable in,
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  sat her down, and he went to work doing the best he could to get the stable
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  clean, to make it orderly, to make it enough sanitation that a child could be
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  born there and be healthy and remain healthy.
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  I see him being a good husband, caring for his family.
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  As I head through Advent into Christmas, that's what I'm looking at, too.
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  How's the stable? Have I done enough to make things in my interior clean and healthy for my family,
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  for my wife, to welcome Christ into the world the way Joseph and Mary did?
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  Just something to think about. What do you think about this Advent?
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  How are you preparing the stable for the coming of our Lord?
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  Think about that, and may Almighty God bless you, protect you from all evil,
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  and bring you to everlasting life.
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  Happy Advent, and thank you for listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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  You've been listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio,
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  a program for teens and almost teens to better understand that the gospel of
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  Jesus Christ is relevant in your life.
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  Submit your questions to Deacon Al at goodnews at catholicspiritradio.com.
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  That's goodnews at catholicspiritradio.com.
• 26:44
  Deacon will answer your questions about faith and religion. Thank you for listening
• 26:48
  to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.