4 January 2019 - Christmas weekday - Friday - John 1:35-42

    “What are you looking for?”  This is the question that Jesus asks two men who are intrigued by him after they hear John the Baptist call him the Lamb of God.  We see so many people in the world today who are searching for something in their lives.  So many feel unfulfilled.  Many try to fill a void in their lives with other things: drugs, alcohol, music, video games, entertainment, pleasure, or even work.  Many of these things are not bad in themselves in moderation, if we don’t make them our idols or our gods.  Yet, if we are looking for meaning, if we are searching for fulfillment, our faith is where we will find it.

       We won’t always get an answer to all the questions we have.  Many times we will have to walk by faith and not by fact or evidence.  Rather, we are to learn and to grow.  On our journey of faith, the journey itself is important.  The values by which we live each day are important.  

         On this day that we come to Jesus for healing in our lives in the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, we celebrate a very important America Saint - St Elizabeth Anne Seton. In fact, she was the first native born citizen of the United States to be canonized a saint in the Catholic Church.  She was born in an Episcopalian here in New York in 1774, which was before the United States become an independent country.  She became Catholic after the death of her husband while they were on a trip to Italy.  Her own father was a great example of someone who lived a life of charity toward others.  Elizabeth Ann Seton gives us a great example of faith today as the first American born Catholic to be beatified, as the founder of the first American religious community for women, the Sisters of Charity, as the founder of the first American parish-affiliated Catholic school, and the first American Catholic orphanage.  What are you looking for?  Elizabeth Ann Seton answered this question by the life of faith that she lived in service to God and in service to her brothers and sisters.  We have to answer this same question with our own lives of faith.