Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

"Who do you say that I am?"  How often do we hear these words from our Lord? When life is perfect and all goes well, who do we say that Christ is?  When life turns upside down and we are caught in the storm of life, who then is Christ for us? 

Christ spent His life with Peter and they have traveled together proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom.   Peter himself witnessed all the miracles, the saving works of Jesus and the personal love which Jesus had for him.  This moved Peter to declare, "You are the Christ."   

Like Peter, the Spirit of God's love moves us to proclaim that Jesus is the anointed one of God.  Jesus is the Christ who lifts up our crosses for us.  Jesus is the Christ who continues to suffer with us, bearing all our pain and wounds.  Jesus is the Messiah who comes to heal and deliver us from our weaknesses and ills.  When we are at the end of the road and there is no else whom we can turn to, our Lord is there to save.  Jesus is our gracious and merciful Savior, who comes to dwell with us, drawing us closer to His redeeming love in each Sacrifice of the Mass, in each penitential confession, in the Sacred Scriptures.

No matter what we are going through, let us thank God for His great love, for His gift of faith...a faith that abounds in good works...a faith which radiates God's love to our brothers and sisters in need...a faith that responds to Christ's call to follow His way of the Cross, His life of self-denial - all for the sake of God and His gospel of salvation...a sign of hope and life eternal where together we "walk before the Lord, in the land of the living."

God is Love,

father Al