Who?

Are you my new neighbor? Are you my new friend? Are you my enemy? Are you the Lord? Who am I? All these questions are to be pondered this second day of the "New Year." The winter sky keeps many of us sequestered. Covid keeps the rest of us inside, and we have nothing "fun to do." So how about some soul searching? The first reading today is by St John. John writes that John the Baptist clearly told people, "I am not the Christ… I am the voice of one crying in the desert, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’" St. John calls the "other" the antichrist. We have to identify him in our lives. He is a man of lawlessness, he is a liar, he is not "of the church." (St Paul’s descriptions of him.) The antichrist shakes us and frightens us. We have been frightened this year. Several of my friends have been very ill and I have known those who have died. I have to make unpopular decisions like quaranteening and saying NO to friends who ask me to come out.

Maybe this is what New Years resolutions is all about: to answer these questions: Identify! Who are you? Who do you want to help, to be with? Who is your God? How do you honor him? I have a friend who told me she is angry at the church and she does not believe Jesus is God; just a prophet. I was shocked! I couldn’t argue with her. Just hand her a Holy Bible and say "read St Luke." It’s a little like trying to argue with angry people today. I need an expert talker at my side. I know it is the Holy Spirit, but for some reason, sometimes I’m shocked and can’t talk. I can only "Just pray!" Pray my dears for us to get through the next 19 days without really messing ourselves up. God bless America!