Once again I want to thank you for your prayers for my dad & stepmom. As it stands as I write this on Tuesday, January 3rd, my dad is still at the skilled nursing home but unfortunately is not getting adequate care there. We are going to see if he can return to his assisted living home at Vitalia in Strongsville (where his wife also lives) & then be under the care of Hospice there. It is apparent to us that he will not recover from the effects of the heart attack he had before Christmas. We are grateful that he is not suffering as he sleeps most of the time while having just brief moments of consciousness. His wife will also be under Hospice care at Vitalia so at least they can be in the same place together. She seems to be recovering better from her heart attack than my dad and we are grateful that she is very alert & mentally well. I know that many of you have been through such ordeals with your own parents and so understand the ups and downs of advanced age and illness. We do what we can to assist our loved ones in these situations while waiting for them to go home to the Lord. Once again it is my faith in God’s love for them and for us that sustains me at times like this, and your prayerful support also gives me much encouragement so thank you for your concern and know that I pray for you daily as well. 

I want to acknowledge Emily Lada, a parishioner of St. Thomas More who frequently attends daily Mass here at St. Leo’s. Emily painted the beautiful backdrop to our nativity manger which really draws forth the colors from the statues and brings the beauty of the night with its shining stars to our nativity scene. We are grateful for her offer of using her artistic talent to enhance our already beautiful manger. 

Again I want to express my personal appreciation of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI whom we have been remembering in prayer, especially this past Friday when I offered Mass for him with our parish school children. I remember reading & discussing the 3 encyclicals he wrote when Pope while I was in the Doctor of Ministry program at the seminary. The first was called “Deus Caritas Est” (“God is Love.”) The second was “Spe Salvi” (“Saved by Hope”) and the third was “Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in Truth”). You may want to Google them & read even just a summary of them so that you can be enriched by what he had to say. An encyclical by the way is a papal letter sent to all the bishops of the Church but meant also to be read by all the faithful. I still remember how enlightening these were when I read them and I intend to take another look at them again soon to refresh my memory. I hope to share some of his wisdom with you in a homily soon. Some may think that a pope may not have much of an influence on the daily life of a Catholic, much less on the life of a non-Catholic or someone not even Christian. But this is not the case! The role of the Holy Father is to be a sign of our unity as members of the world-wide Church founded by Jesus Christ. He is to speak the Word of God to us, to teach us more deeply about our faith and to be a sign of our unity. But he is also respected by many of the world leaders (being considered a world leader himself as he shepherds over 1.3 billion Catholics). Even non-Christians benefit from what he teaches by both word and example. To be sure, every pope…going back to St. Peter himself…is also ridiculed and held in contempt by those who do not believe in God or in the community of the Church. Jesus warned us that such would be the case. But he also promised the kingdom of heaven to those who are persecuted for believing in him. Let us pray that Pope Emeritus Benedict and Pope Francis may bring to us and to the world the message of God's love, whether in life or in death.