Message from Fr. Brito:

32nd Sunday Year A

     I remember when in the years prior to the year two thousand. People were all exited and worried that some major event was about to take place. Well, my Grandma was one of those people. She was convinced that the world was coming to an end in the year two thousand. She began telling everyone that the world was coming to an end and warning them to get ready. If you asked her how she new this, she would tell you that she read it in the bible, but not in these new bibles only in her old one.

      One day after going to mass and hearing this Gospel, my mom went over to my grandma’s and as soon as my Grandma began to remind my mom that the world would come to an end in the year 2000, my mom was ready and said, “Mama, it says in the bible that no one knows the time or the day when the world will come to an end” My grandma looks up at her and says: “yes mi hijta, no one know the time or the day, but the year is the year 2000.

     In the year two Thousand I was ordained to the priesthood. That summer I was called to minister to one of my uncles, who was dying. He was the younger brother of my grandma. I asked him, "Uncle Brigido would you like to receive the sacraments of the Church?" He told me “I can’t, because me and your auntie are not married by the Church. I told him that because he was in danger of dying, that the Church in her mercy allowed him to receive those sacraments. But he insisted that he could not. So I told him I could bless their marriage if he wanted. And so I celebrated mass in his room, married them and gave them the Eucharist for the first time in fifty some years.  My uncle died a few days later. My grandma was right, the world came to an end in the year two thousand, at least for her brother. Perhaps her many prayers and her warning to prepare were factors in my uncle dying in the graces of the sacraments

       "You know neither the day, nor the hour" or even the year, so we must always be ready. So the question that is looming over us is: “Are we ready? Do we have our lamps filled with the oil that burns brightly before the Lord? That oil is a symbol of the virtues life lived in the abundant grace of God. How are we living out our lives in preparation for the coming of the Lord? Are we ready? Now is the time. Amen