One of my favorite new singers/songwriters is Noah Kahan. I’m a little biased because, like me, he is originally from Vermont. In a fine song entitled “Stick Season,” he sings of his hope to “cancel out the darkness I inherited from dad.” This lyric articulates his painful recognition of a dark spiritual “inheritance” from his father, and his hope to be free of it. We all inherit some degree of evil from our earthly forebears. It’s easy to feel doomed to repeat their darknesses.

I craved four things as a teenager: success in sports, food, fun and the attention of popular people. However, I noticed that as I acquired them, I was more unsatisfied than before. So, I’d strive even more energetically, achieve more, and the sense of emptiness was greater still. These four things started to feel like burdens or even curses. Soon after, I encountered Christ in my high school youth group. Experiencing his love was totally different than anything those four things previously produced. It produced a lasting happiness.

My parents’ garage is full of old junk that no longer serves any purpose in my life. As a 46-year-old man, I admit that’s pretty lame. Either due to my sentimentality or laziness (or both, probably), I just couldn’t get myself to throw things away. But a few days ago, by a grace of God, I thought: “I’ll hire my nephew Ryan to throw a bunch of my stuff away — he couldn’t care less about my junk!” And you know what? It worked. In one day, Ryan chucked the majority of his uncle’s useless stuff. I feel so free, ready for a new junk-free chapter in my life.

What is the secret to sharing in God’s power to overcome our difficulties? Mary teaches us this in the prophecy of her pierced heart. This Sunday, the old man Simeon, prophecies that when her son faces opposition, Mary’s soul will be pierced by a sword. The seemingly pointless agony of a mother helplessly watching her son be mocked, tortured, killed and then cruelly desecrated in death by a spear — somehow this piercing of her heart releases a power by which “the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35). What to make of this?

A young couple in my parish told me they were expecting their second child, a baby boy. I knew that their five-year old only child Emma had been desperately wanting to be a big sister for years, so I said, “Emma must have been so happy when you told her the news.” “Actually,” they said, “she burst into tears. She wanted a baby sister!” How often in life God wonderfully fulfills our desires and we are sad because we don’t approve of the way he does it. We want to control the gift and the delivery method.

A friend invited me to an invitation-only wine-tasting event. There were over two hundred varieties of wine. Having no idea how to approach such a massive selection, I wandered aimlessly among the tables, sipping this and that. At the end of the evening my friend asked if I had tried some of the exceptionally expensive wines. I hadn’t. “The really good stuff disappears first,” he said. “My man, you missed out on some amazing vino.” I was so disappointed. I wasted my chance for amazing once-in-a-lifetime wine. The wine I tasted was, well, blah.

In my second year of theology studies, I went to confession to a priest visiting the seminary for a three-day retreat. My heart wasn’t in it. I was going through the motions. I confessed my sins and waited for his response. The priest said, “For your penance, I’d like you to go into the chapel and repeat the words ‘You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased’ (Luke 3:22) until they mean something to you.” Easy penance, I thought.

Have you ever wondered why the magi had gold, frankincense, and myrrh? Matthew’s Gospel tells us, “Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh” (Matt. 2:11). Why are these things their “treasures”? One possible answer is they were magicians and astrologers, and these three items were the tools of their questionable trade. In offering them to Christ, they demonstrate that they will cease using such items to predict or control life. They place this baby-king, the God of Israel, at the center of their lives, and not their own devices of control, manipulation and prediction.

As a first-time pastor in a parish, I received a phone call one afternoon from a young married couple, “Father, our 2-year-old son drowned in our pool this morning. We are at the hospital. Please help us.” I sped over. The little boy was gone, his body cold, slightly blue, laid out on a bed. His parents were distraught and in shock. For the next few years, I walked with the couple along their difficult and painful road. They openly shared with me how they were often tempted to blame and accuse each other for the loss. And yet, by God’s grace, their love for each grew stronger and deeper as the years went by.

The Blessed Virgin teaches us the secret to being blessed, happy, and full of joy. When Elizabeth, her cousin, greets her, she calls Mary “blessed” for two reasons, her motherhood of Jesus, and Our Lady’s belief that “there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Luke 1:45). Mary is “blessed” entirely because of her relationship to the Incarnation of God in Jesus, and for no other. This of course makes perfect sense, because as the Lord, as God-in-the-flesh, her son is the source of all blessedness, life, and joy. Mary is blessed because of her contact with Jesus, and by her faith in him.

On a bright Spring morning, a passerby once saw St. Francis of Assisi hoeing a row of beans and asked him, “What would you be doing right now if you knew this was the last day of your earthly life?” The Saint responded, “I’d keep hoeing this row of beans.” Preparing for this world to end — whether by our death or by Jesus’ glorious coming — invites us to live not in the past or the present, but deeply in the present moment.

In the year 1995, in the seventeenth year of my life, when Fife Symington was governor of Arizona, Bill Clinton was president of the United States, Chuck Keiffer was pastor of St. Theresa parish in Phoenix, Arizona, and Ron and Mary were my parents, the word of God came to my youth minister Eric and through him I started to see the salvation of God. Soon, Christ came into my life never to leave. I’m thankful beyond words.

When I was a young priest, about one year after ordination, I was called to the hospital to anoint a dying mother of three young children. She had a painful, terminal cancer. After celebrating Last Rites with her, I said, “Don’t be afraid.” She looked me square in the eye from her hospital bed and said, “Oh Father, I am in a lot of pain, but I am not afraid. Something wonderful is about to happen.” A few days later she died.