Faith in Focus

  The Hope That Rises From Waiting Today we begin Advent—the season of waiting. And when the Church invites us to wait, it is not asking for a passive or superficial attitude; it asks us to look honestly at the human condition. The philosopher Immanuel Kant summarized the great questions of life in three: What can I know? What must I do? What may I hope for? And he added a fourth: What is the human being? Today, on this First Sunday of Advent, the liturgy brings us directly to the third question:  What may I hope for? What is the hope that sustains human life? And here, brothers and sisters, the message cannot remain in pretty ideas or spiritual phrases. Advent only makes sense when it touches the flesh of life. That is why the question today is:  What does the human heart truly wait for? What are our real expectations—what is our community waiting for? What may a man hope for, who worked his entire life and now discovers that what he will receive from Social Security is ...

  “When Life Speaks to You” Luke 21:29–33   My dear brothers and sisters, We all understand what it means for someone to have never learned how to read. A person who is illiterate faces real limitations: they cannot defend themselves before a document, they miss important signs, and they depend on others even for the simplest things. In today’s world there are many new forms of illiteracy: technological illiteracy, when we cannot use essential tools; political illiteracy, when we do not understand how decisions are made over our lives; and emotional illiteracy, when we cannot interpret what we feel. But there is a deeper and more dangerous form of illiteracy than all of these: spiritual illiteracy.   Spiritual illiteracy is not simply not knowing how to pray or not having memorized Scripture. It is something far more serious: not knowing how to interpret life through God’s eyes. It is looking at the world without the light of the Gospel. It appears when we do ...

  “Gratitude… but Not Like This” Fr. Emilio Cabrera Today our nation celebrates Thanksgiving—a day dedicated to gratitude, to family, and to recognizing God’s blessings. But I want to begin with something very honest, something that comes straight from pastoral reality: This year, it is very hard to say “thank you.” It is hard because our community is wounded. It is hard because families have been torn apart—quinceañeras cancelled, children left without their parents in a single night. It is hard because we have been witnessing brutal, disproportionate, and inhumane treatment of migrants here in Cheyenne. And it is impossible—humanly impossible—to raise a prayer of gratitude without first weeping with those who are living in fear, in persecution, and in separation. Yet, brothers and sisters… it is precisely here that the Scriptures and the true history of this holiday speak to us.     The real origin of Thanksgiving: starving migrants and a merciful trib...

  Found in the Balance of the Heart The reading from Daniel 5:1-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28 presents one of the most striking scenes in Scripture. King Belshazzar was hosting a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles. There was music, abundance, and wine; it seemed like just another celebration. But in the middle of the feast, something happened that changed everything: Belshazzar ordered that the sacred vessels taken from the Temple of Jerusalem—those his father Nebuchadnezzar had carried away—be brought in so he and his guests could drink from them and praise gods of gold and silver. This act of irreverence and contempt for the sacred triggered a response from heaven. Suddenly, the text says, the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the palace wall while the king stood frozen with fear. Later, when Daniel was summoned, he interpreted the inscription and pronounced the sentence: “You have been weighed on the balance and found wanting.” The problem was not the feast or...

“No One Is Clay to God” Daniel 2 The first reading today presents us with the unsettling dream of King Nebuchadnezzar: a towering statue built of many materials, but standing on feet of iron mixed with clay. It is an image both majestic and fragile—a symbol of power that looks unshakable, yet rests on a foundation ready to crumble at any moment. Through this striking vision, Scripture reveals a deep and enduring truth: any power that hardens itself to dominate, and loses the capacity to love, will ultimately collapse. Iron can crush, yes… but when its heart is clay—when it cannot sustain compassion—it cannot sustain life. History gives us a vivid example of this lesson. Consider the Roman Empire. Rome was iron: undefeatable armies, disciplined law, engineering marvels, order, wealth, culture, authority. It was the image of human strength. And yet, as Daniel foresaw, that iron was mixed with moral clay—slavery, brutal inequalities, corruption, disregard for life, abandonment of...

Today we celebrate Christ the King. Yet I want to begin with something that may surprise us: believing in a crucified God is not easy. Perhaps we’ve heard it so often that it no longer startles us, but if we stop and look at it honestly, it challenges every sense of human logic. The kings of this world have high thrones, military strength, symbols of power, crowns and robes. But when the Gospel shows us our King, what we see is something entirely different: a man nailed to a cross, hanging between criminals, humiliated, abandoned, seemingly defeated. And this raises a sincere question in the heart: How can that be the image of our King? How can such a scene give anyone hope, trust, or security? Saint Paul once wrote with disarming clarity: “We preach Christ crucified—scandal to some, foolishness to others.” If the cross doesn’t unsettle us just a little, perhaps we’re not looking at it with full honesty. Maybe because the cross is so difficult to accept, we often reshape Jesus ...

  Cleanse, O Lord, the Temple That I Am Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Readings: 1 Chronicles 28; Luke 19:45–48 Today’s Gospel shows Jesus entering the temple to restore its true identity. He does not arrive with violence or anger; He enters with that firm love that flows from the heart of God—a love that cannot bear to see a place made for prayer filled with things that do not belong there. Jesus does not destroy the temple; He purifies it. He brings it back to its deepest truth: to be a house of encounter with the Father. And it is impossible to hear this Gospel without turning our gaze inward, without sincerely asking what is happening within the temple that each of us carries inside. Saint Paul has repeated it to us: we are temples of the Holy Spirit. This is not a poetic metaphor or a pleasant spiritual image; it is a reality. God dwells in us. God walks with us. God speaks in the depths of the heart. But then the question arises: if Jesus were to ...

  “Peace Is Born in the Heart” Thursday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time 1 Maccabees 2:15–29 / Psalm 50:1–2, 5–6, 14–15 / Luke 19:41–44     When Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, He isn’t crying over buildings, walls, or politics. He cries because the city has lost its inner compass , because it no longer recognizes what truly leads to peace. And that is exactly what happens to us today. We live in a time when the word peace is drowned out by noise: heated debates, political tension, harsh comments, social media divisions, conversations where we no longer listen—only react. A world split between “us” and “them.” A society where even within families, certain topics feel like walking on glass. And in the midst of all this, we don’t need to invent new words. The voice of Saint John Paul II is enough—prophetic and painfully current: “War is born in the human heart; and in the human heart it must be put to death.” (English rendering of the original idea) Or in t...

  (2 Maccabees 7:1, 20–31) There are moments in life when pain closes in on us. A medical diagnosis, the loss of someone we love, a situation that overwhelms us… and suddenly everything narrows into that one painful instant. It becomes hard to keep our horizon open when suffering fills the whole landscape. Today Scripture presents us with a mother who endured a pain almost impossible to imagine: watching her sons suffer, one after another. And yet, her spirit did not break. She did not collapse. She did not give up. Why? Because her faith was not an escape—it was a perspective. She did not deny what was happening. She faced it, but with a gaze that reached beyond the moment. And her own words reveal it: “The Creator of the universe will give you back both breath and life.” This is not resignation. It is not a way of minimizing the pain. It is the certainty that death does not have the final word—God does. Christian faith does not remove suffering, but it gives us p...

  Tuesday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time Gospel: Luke 19:1–10 “Zacchaeus and the Ones Who Keep Us from Seeing Jesus” Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, but the crowd kept him from it. That single line summarizes the heart of today’s Gospel. Zacchaeus had many flaws and everyone knew them. He was short, probably not very impressive, and although he was wealthy, he was wealthy in the worst possible way. He had earned a reputation as a thief, a traitor, a collaborator of the Roman Empire. For his people, Zacchaeus was impure, an outcast, someone who no longer belonged in the synagogue or in the community. Yet inside that despised man there was something small and good, almost hidden: he had a desire to see Jesus. That desire might have been all he had left, but it was enough for God to begin a new story. The crowd, with its prejudices, murmuring and unwritten rules, becomes an obstacle. They act like gatekeepers who decide who may approach the Lord and who may not, as if faith w...

  33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time When the Twin Towers collapsed on September 11, it seemed impossible that anything could survive. Everything was dust, twisted steel, and silence. Yet among the rubble, rescuers found something unexpected: two steel beams crossed in the shape of a cross. No one built it or placed it there; it simply remained that way after the collapse. In the midst of devastation, that cross stood as a silent reminder that even when human structures fall, hope does not collapse. With that image in mind, we hear Jesus speak today about the Temple in Jerusalem: “The days will come when not one stone will be left upon another.” Jesus is not attacking the Temple itself but the false security people placed in it. He is reminding us that everything human no matter how beautiful or impressive can fall in an instant. Temples fall. Towers fall. Systems fail. Our plans and securities can collapse without warning. But just as that cross emerged from the ruins, the Gospel ...

  “God Lets Himself Be Seen” Wisdom 13:1–9 A few days ago I had an experience that touched my heart in a profound way. I woke up very early to hike up to Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. There were six of us walking together through the darkness, talking with that small excitement of trying to reach the top before sunrise. But when we finally arrived at the arch, something inside us shifted. There was a silence there—deep, almost sacred— a silence that didn’t come from the absence of noise, but from a mysterious presence that seemed to embrace everyone gathered. Without anyone telling us, we simply became silent. We sat down and waited. And when the sun began to rise behind the mountains, slowly warming the red stone of the arch as if it were a natural altar, I felt a deep peace… a peace that doesn’t come from thinking, but from contemplating. It was beautiful. It was overwhelming. It was pure. But at the same time, I realized something important: that peace did not bring ans...

  Wisdom 7:22b–8:1 /  Psalm 119:89–90, 91, 130, 135, 175 /  Luke 17:20–25   We live in a world constantly chasing the spectacular—what dazzles, what shocks, what can be measured and shown. Yet, the Word of God today invites us to a different way of seeing. God reveals Himself in the ordinary —in the quiet moments, the small gestures, the hidden faithfulness of daily life. Jesus says: “The Kingdom of God cannot be observed. The Kingdom of God is among you.” And the Book of Wisdom speaks of a spirit that is “pure, gentle, subtle, and loving the good.” That is how God acts—not through noise, but through light; not in display, but in depth.   The Book of Wisdom describes her as “a reflection of eternal light, the spotless mirror of God’s power, the image of His goodness.” Wisdom is not a theory; she is a living presence —the radiance of God within creation. Wherever we find compassion, patience, and mercy, we find her. Wisdom lives in those who love q...

  NOVEMBER 11 2025 (Wisdom 2:23–3:9   John 14:23) The Hidden Brilliance of the Just Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours, Bishop   The Book of Wisdom reveals one of the most consoling mysteries of our faith: “The souls of the just are in the hands of God.” What a comforting truth — that the destiny of the human person is not death, but eternal communion with God. The passage continues: “He tested them like gold in the furnace, and found them worthy of Himself.” In Scripture, righteousness is not measured by visible success but by faithful endurance . The just person shines not with self-made light, but with the gentle reflection of the divine radiance that rests upon those who trust in the Lord. The Gospel deepens this mystery with the image of the servant who does what he is asked without seeking praise. Jesus teaches that true holiness expects no reward: “When you have done all you were commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were ob...

  In Something… We All Govern   November 12 Tuesday Wisdom 2:23–3:9 Luke 17:7-10 Authority is not power; it is responsibility before God. When we hear the word authority , we often think of the powerful — presidents, judges, or those who rule over others. But the Book of Wisdom reminds us that all authority, great or small, will one day be measured before God: “Listen, you rulers of the earth… the Lord gave you power and will hold you accountable for it.” (Wisdom 6:1–3) And the truth is, in one way or another, we all govern something: a family, a group, a workplace, or even just our own heart. To govern is not to dominate; it is to care for what has been entrusted to us, to serve with love, and to remember that our choices leave traces in the lives of others. I remember the story of Santos , a man from my hometown. He was a good man, hardworking, and active in the life of the Church. But every weekend, he would go out, get drunk, and return home violent and angry. His f...

  Fe pequeña… pero real (Lucas 17,1–6) Small… but Real Faith (Luke 17:1–6) All of us, at some point, have felt that our faith is too small — too fragile to make a difference. Sometimes we pray and feel nothing, or we keep walking without seeing results. We tell ourselves: “Maybe my faith isn’t enough.” But Jesus, with disarming tenderness, teaches us something different. When the apostles ask Him, “Increase our faith,” He responds with a paradox: “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” He doesn’t tell them to accumulate faith as if it were strength or merit. He tells them that even the smallest faith, if it is true, can move what seems impossible. Faith is not measured by quantity but by authenticity. It is not about how much you believe, but how you believe. Faith is not performance — it is relationship. It is that humble act of trusting when you do not understand, of continuing to p...