In the spirit of George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, giving thanks to God reminds us that gratitude is not only a personal virtue but a foundation for national character. Washington recognized that the blessings of peace, liberty, and opportunity were not earned by human effort alone, but were gifts worthy of humble acknowledgment. Following his example, we pause to express our thanks to God, both for the visible blessings that shape our daily lives and for the unseen guidance that sustains us through challenges. In doing so, we honor a tradition that calls us to humility, reflection, and renewed commitment to the greater good.

Gratitude is the posture that opens the Christian heart to God’s grace. When we choose to be thankful, especially in ordinary moments or difficult seasons, we acknowledge that every good thing in our lives is a gift from the Father’s hand. Thanksgiving reorients our vision: instead of dwelling on what we lack, we remember the One who provides, sustains, and loves us without measure. A thankful heart becomes a fertile place where joy can grow, humility can flourish, and trust in God deepens. In giving thanks, we do not simply list our blessings, we draw nearer to the Giver Himself.

It is 1927, and life in Mexico is changing with alarming speed. A nation that once found its strength and identity in faith is now facing a wave of hostility. The government has adopted a harsh, openly anti-Catholic stance, determined to uproot the very beliefs that shaped the hearts of the people. At that time, more than 90% of Mexicans saw the Catholic faith as the center of their lives. It was woven into every part of their story. Children were baptized in the Church, educated in its schools, married within its walls, cared for in its hospitals, and guided by its priests at the hour of death. For nearly five centuries, to be Mexican and to be Catholic were inseparable truths.

But the government under President Plutarco Elías Calles set out to sever that connection by any means necessary. He seemed to ask himself, “How can I destroy the faith of an entire nation?” And under his leadership, one of the most brutal persecutions of the Church began. Foreign missionary priests were expelled. Catholic schools were shut down. Churches were padlocked, making the celebration of Mass illegal. Priests and nuns were forbidden to wear their habits or cassocks in public—doing so meant immediate arrest.

Yet, despite the fear and danger, the faithful refused to bow. Their courage grew stronger in the face of oppression. Among them was a priest named Fr. Miguel Pro, a man whose bravery became a beacon of hope. Defying every government order, he continued to minister in secret. He baptized the newborn, prepared couples for marriage, taught the faith, and offered the sacraments whenever and wherever he could. Though police searched for him relentlessly, he continued his mission with joy and determination until at last he was captured.

Fr. Miguel would be sentenced to die by firing squad. Before the soldiers aimed their rifles at the priest they asked if he had any final words. He raised his arms in the shape of a cross and cried out with unwavering courage: “LONG LIVE CHRIST THE KING!”

The government printed the image of execution on the front pages of newspapers across the country, hoping to fill Catholics with fear. Instead, it filled them with strength. His final cry ignited a fire of faith that oppression could not extinguish.

And so today, we remember a truth that Fr. Miguel’s life and death proclaim clearly: only Christ truly satisfies the human heart. The joy and peace we long for will never be found in the false promises of our age. They cannot be found in money, possessions, status, or comfort. These things fade, disappoint, and leave us wanting more. But Christ never fails.Christ never fades. Christ alone is our peace. Christ alone is our joy. All other claimants to our hearts eventually fall silent. Only Jesus endures.

VIVA CRISTO REY!

In the Book of Maccabees, the mother who watched her seven sons die rather than betray their faith stands as one of Scripture’s most radiant examples of courage. In the face of unimaginable loss, she refused to surrender to fear or despair. Her strength did not come from the hope of earthly rescue, but from her unwavering trust that God would honor their sacrifice with eternal life. She spoke not with bitterness, but with a fierce, holy love that lifted her sons’ eyes beyond the suffering of the moment to the glory prepared for them. Her bravery reminds us that true courage is born when the heart clings to what is eternal—when love for God becomes stronger than even the deepest grief.

There comes a moment in every believer’s life when inherited faith will no longer suffice. The gentle warmth of family tradition, the comfort of familiar hymns, the rhythm of ritual—all these are good and precious things. Yet when the cold wind of opposition blows, when faith is mocked or maligned, or when sorrow cuts deep into the soul, such belief will crumble like a house built on sand. It is not enough to say, “I am Catholic because my parents were.” We must know why we are Catholic, and we must know it in the deep marrow of our being. 

To know why is to have met the Person behind the practice. Christianity is not a philosophy that one may simply agree with; it is an encounter with the living God. The Catholic faith, at its heart, is not a set of customs, nor even a system of thought, but the life of Christ extended through His Church across time and space. If you have not yet found Christ at the center of your Catholicism, then your faith has not yet reached its depth. You have the shell, but not yet the pearl.

When persecution comes—and it always does, in one form or another—it strips away pretense. The comfortable explanations falter. To be Catholic because one enjoys the incense, the music, or the solemnity of liturgy is as fragile as being married because one enjoys the wedding reception. There will come a day when the joy of ceremony gives way to the labor of love, and only love will endure. So too, only love for Christ will hold us fast when, not if, the world turns against us.

To say, “I am Catholic because I believe it is true,” is the beginning of strength. But even that belief must not rest on the shifting sands of emotion or cultural approval. It must be rooted in the conviction that truth Himself has revealed it. That Christ, who said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” continues to speak through His Church. That the sacraments are not symbols only, but encounters with the divine. That the Eucharist is not bread and wine, but God-with-us, under humble forms.

If you know this, if you know Him, then no flame of persecution can consume your faith. For you will not merely cling to a doctrine; you will cling to a Person. You will not merely defend a tradition; you will defend your Beloved.

So ask yourself, and ask sincerely: Why am I Catholic? Do not be content until your answer is alive with love, conviction, and wonder. For the day will come when you must answer not to the world, but to your own heart. And may your heart, knowing Whom it has believed, answer boldly: I am Catholic because it is true, because it is beautiful, and because through it I have found Christ Himself.

Every baptized Christian, however small or obscure, bears a dignity that no earthly monument can rival. The Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran that we celebrate today reminds us that the Church is not first of marble or of gold, but of souls. The colossal statues of the twelve apostles that line its nave are not merely ornaments of stone, but symbols of the living reality upon which Christ builds His dwelling. Those massive figures, carved by human hands, point to a greater mystery: that the same Christ who made Peter a foundation and John a witness has made of every believer a living stone in His eternal temple.

It is a humbling and exalting thought that we, so frail and often faithless, are chosen to bear the weight of glory. The Church’s beauty does not depend upon the grandeur of her buildings but upon the grace alive in her members. Even the smallest Christian, hidden in prayer or quiet service, adds a line to the architecture of heaven. The apostles stand in their marble stillness as reminders that our own lives are being hewn and fitted into a structure far greater than any basilica.

Thus, as we look upon the Lateran’s soaring arches and its steadfast saints of stone, let us remember that the true cathedral is being built not in Rome alone but in every human heart that has been washed in the waters of baptism. Each of us, by grace, is part of that living edifice, one in which the Builder Himself has chosen to dwell.

And perhaps this is the deepest wonder of all: that the Master Builder works not with flawless material, but with what is cracked and common. The apostles themselves were not marble when He called them, they were fishermen, tax collectors, doubters, and sinners. Yet through the fire of His love, they were made steadfast, and their weakness became strength. So too with us: our imperfections, offered to Christ, become the very texture through which His light shines. In every heart that yields to grace, the living stone is shaped a little nearer to its final beauty. The Church grows not by triumph or grandeur alone, but by the quiet chiseling of repentance, forgiveness, and charity until, at last, the whole structure resounds with one voice, a temple radiant with the presence of the living God.

They came to Him because, at last, they had found someone who saw them as more than the sum of their failures. The world had written its verdict on their lives—unclean, unworthy, beyond redemption—but Jesus looked past the grime and saw the image of God still glimmering beneath. His holiness did not repel them, as cold virtue might; it drew them, as fire draws the freezing. In His presence, they felt the staggering truth that they were loved not because they were good, but so that they might become good. And that, I think, is why they gathered close: because in Him, mercy was not a theory, but a face.

This Advent, we are presented with a most extraordinary grace. Our own parish will host a first-class relic — that is, an actual fragment of the body — of the Church’s newest saint, Carlo Acutis, this coming Saturday, November 22nd, from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. Only weeks ago, in the grandeur of St. Peter’s Basilica, before tens of thousands gathered in solemn joy, Pope Leo XIV declared this young fifteen-year-old, a bright spirit of the digital age, to be among the company of the saints. And now, through the kindness of his own mother, this sacred relic has been entrusted to us here in Vacaville. A touch of sanctity will be arriving here, in our very own town.

To modern ears, the veneration of relics may sound curious, even unsettling. It’s one of those ancient customs that is at the same time bizarre, unique, and wildly weird about the Catholic faith. Yet the practice reaches back to the dawn of Christianity, when believers gathered at the tombs of martyrs not to worship bones, but to draw near to the holiness that God had kindled in them. They understood that grace leaves its mark; the human body, once filled with the Spirit, is not discarded like a shell but honored as a vessel that once bore divine fire. To venerate the saints, then, is not to cling to superstition, but to glimpse, through them, what God intends for us all: that our very flesh might become radiant with His glory.

The first Christians knew well that the saints were men and women of dust, as frail and fallible as themselves. Yet in them they saw what grace could do. The martyrs in the amphitheatre, singing even as the beasts approached, were not displaying their own courage — they were displaying Christ’s triumph in human weakness. The ascetics in the desert, fasting and praying in solitude, were not exalting human will, but the will surrendered utterly to God. To venerate such lives was not to worship them, but to honor the Artist whose skill could carve holiness out of ordinary stone.

If we are wise, we will learn from this ancient instinct. For the Christian life is not meant to be a solitary ascent, a lone pilgrim trudging toward a distant summit. It is rather a great procession of souls, each carrying the light a little farther, each learning from the glow of the one before. When we remember the saints, we are reminded that sanctity is not beyond us. We are meant, in some measure, to become like them.

In truth, the saints are not competitors with Christ but His masterpieces. To honor them is to praise the grace that made them what they are. We can rejoice that the same grace that made holy is offered to us, here and now. This November 22nd, we can honor one of our brothers who made it home to Heaven, right here in Vacaville. I invite all of you to come for this special opportunity! 

Imagine all the saints and angels stand about us as a great cloud of witnesses, not as distant spectators, but as dear friends leaning over the railings of Heaven, their faces alight with joy. They cheer us on. Every step we take toward the light sends ripples of gladness through that radiant company. To them, our smallest victories over despair and sin are no trifles; they are echoes of the same triumph that shook the world when Christ rose from the tomb. And so they beckon us onward, ever upward, until faith becomes sight and we, too, join the chorus of eternal praise.

Faith, like the body, is strengthened by strain. Ease has never made a saint, nor comfort a conqueror. When St. Paul pressed on through shipwreck, hunger, and chains, he was not merely enduring hardship, he was training his soul to trust a strength not his own. There is something deeply spiritual in doing what is physically hard: each drop of sweat whispers that the flesh is weak, and yet the spirit may still triumph.