To watch Fr. Joe’s homily from the 4th Sunday of Advent: CLICK HERE!
When we were in English Class we all learned about conjunctions. As we all know, a conjunction is a connecting word used to join words, phrases, sentences and clauses…
But do you know what the Great Conjunction is?
Astronomers use the word conjunction to describe the meetings of planets and other objects in our sky’s dome. And they use the phrase the Great Conjunction to describe the meeting of the two biggest worlds in our solar system: Jupiter and Saturn.
This Monday, December 21, 2020, these two planets will be closely aligned and this Great Conjunction will look like an elongated star. Don’t miss it, shortly after sunset on Monday. (Sunset is 4:30 pm; Look before 7 pm)
Conjunctions happen every 20 years. But the last Great Conjunction happened in 1623. With the closet observable one happening in 1226.
This Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn has been referred to by some as the Star of Bethlehem, or The Christmas Star.
This Great Conjunction may have been what the shepherds saw in the sky that Christmas 2,000 years ago… The Kings/Magi from the East followed…
And in the case of the shepherds and the kings, what was important was not what they saw, but rather what the great light in the sky points us toward: the birth of Jesus… the Light of the World! Emmanuel: God with us!
Something that King David was reminded of as we hear in our reading from Samuel today, “that night the Lord spoke to Nathan, and said, ‘Go tell my servant David {that’s King David} I have been with you wherever you went.”
With Christmas a few days away, what does the birth of Christ mean for each of us, for our family, for our Church… As the world in which we live today confronts the Coronavirus Pandemic, political divisiveness and experience various social ills.
We too are being reminded that the Spirit of God, has been and continues to be with us wherever we are.
May we too continue to recognize the signs that God shares with us DAILY, that point us to God with us and among us always.