Today is the first Sunday of Advent and no one really celebrates it anymore. The season has been swallowed up by commercial Christmas. Yes, we come to church and note the purple vestments and sing the Advent Hymns.
There is a song by Billy Joel; called Piano Man. It is about Joel’s early life when he used to play the piano in a bar. Every night he would sing songs for the customers and in piano man, he tells their stories.
Many of us look back and feel guilty about something we said or did in the past. If only we could undo the cruel deed, we would un-say the harsh words.
This true story is from Woman’s Day Magazine. When Karen and her husband Tom found out they were going to have another baby, they wanted to prepare their three-year-old son Michael to be ready for a new sister.
In our gospel, we read of ten lepers who come to Jesus for a cure. We have little concept today of what it meant to be a leper at the time of Jesus. Worse than the disease was the leper's fate; cut off from family, forced to live a wretched life alone, begging for food.
In our gospel today the twelve apostles make an excellent request of Jesus; increase our faith. Jesus does not respond directly to their request, He puts the apostles on the spot. The point of importance, He says, is not how much faith you have, its size, its amount. What is important is the kind of faith you have, it has to be genuine.