Gerardo Franco

I wonder how many remember the Art Linkletter television show, a regular feature of which was an interview with children. Occasionally, the host would ask one of the children to tell him the meaning of happiness. As you might suppose, that question generated some  interesting answers. One little girl said: “Happiness is finding a bug and getting to keep it”. If we were to take a poll of our parish, we would probably come up with about as many definitions of happiness as there are people. But there is at least one point on which we could all agree, and that is that virtually […]

Many years ago railroad crossings were marked with a sign that said, “Stop, Look and Listen”. The purpose of that sign was safety. It was intended to prevent motorists from driving into the path of a rapidly moving train. Today is the feast of the Epiphany and the first Sunday of 2016. So I would like to borrow that slogan of the railroad crossing not so much to emphasize safety as perspective. What better time to pause and take a look at our life, before we move ahead into 2016. Many of us are immersed in the things of earth […]

Two days after Christmas this year we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. This feast tends to be lost in the glory of Christmas. It deserves a better fate. The family is the place where we first learn of faith and love. The family is the first place where we meet Jesus. As our Baptismal rite says “(parents)…are the first and best teachers of their children in the ways of faith…” From the Holy Family of Nazareth we learn the value of obedience. Jesus went down to Nazareth and was obedient to Mary and Joseph. We learn also the […]

Sometimes it seems that babies pick the most inconvenient hours of a day in which to be born. They seem to delight in awakening their parents in the middle of the night for that hurried trip to the hospital and that happy celebration of a new life. In this regard, the baby Jesus was no exception. Of course, there was no trip to a hospital. But the records do show that His birth took place in the middle of the night. When Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem, they found the place of lodging filled to capacity, suggesting that other […]

One of the best loved of all Christmas carols is “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, written more than a hundred years ago. The first part of the song is primarily historical, celebrating those events that surrounded the birth of Jesus. But the last verse makes Christmas a very personal thing. It says: “O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend on us we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.” We have never understood Christmas until it goes beyond a historical fact and becomes a personal experience. It is true, of course, that all of us […]