Luke 1: 5-17 (links validated 5/31/25a)

There is a book by Dr. Seuss that is sometimes read to children and parents on the last day of preschool and often given as a gift to high school or college graduates. The book is Oh, The Places You’ll Go. You are probably familiar with it. You may remember one area which is described as the most useless place, and that is the Waiting Place. Dr. Seuss’s narrator says, “The Waiting Place (is) for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or a No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.” Advent is the Waiting Place of the church year...

It was a precarious time to be a priest in the days of Joseph Mindszenty. He was a Catholic bishop in Hungary who spoke out against the Nazis and their racial persecution before and during World War II. On the day after Christmas in 1948, the communist government of Hungary arrested him. By then he was an Archbishop. He was tortured and subjected to a show trial on trumped-up charges and ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1956, during the Hungarian Uprising he was temporarily freed by revolutionaries. When the Soviets regained control of the country, he sought sanctuary at the US Embassy in Budapest. He lived within the embassy for the next 15 years. Because of his presence there, his story was known all over the world. His unrelenting opposition to dictatorship was a source of hope for millions of people. He was finally allowed to leave the country in 1971. He died in Vienna two years later...