14 December 2025

14 December 2025 - Third Sunday of Advent - On Our Lady, Undoer of Knots

Transcript

Reading:  

Isaiah 35:3-4

Write:  

Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
 make firm the knees that are weak,
 say to those whose hearts are frightened:
 Be strong, fear not!
 Here is your God,
 he comes with vindication;
 with divine recompense
 he comes to save you.

Reflect:   

How appropriate that the images of Our Lady, Undoer of Knots would show up just in time for Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete means rejoice. I want to tell you today what has happened because of my devotion to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots.

But first, I want to focus on the selection I chose from Isaiah’s reading. “Here is your God… he comes to save you.” This reading was selected for this Sunday because it is a call to rejoice. The healing power of God is a great gift that he has poured out on his people. He has done that through intercessory prayer that we are engaged in for the sake of others or that the saints are involved in for our sake.

The channels of grace and mercy that God has revealed to his people ought to bring us into a new relationship of love for His Great Majesty and wondrous care and mercy. That is the depth and height of the Christian and Christmas message.

The fact that he has given all of us the ability to pray for others, and to effect changes in other people’s lives for the sake of the gospel is proof of His amazing love. What God has done through the power of intercession, especially with his saints, is remarkable.

I want to talk about two of them this weekend. Briefly, about St. Joseph, the Savior of the Savior, the terror of demons, the Foster father of Jesus. St. Joseph is a power for the Church and for each of its members. As he protected Mary and Jesus, so he prays for us, offers us his protection and prayer. There is a book titled “Consecration to St. Joseph, the Wonders of our Spiritual Father” written by Father Donald Calloway, MIC. This book started me down the journey toward Our Lady, Undoer of Knots. Asking St. Joseph for his help is something that is so simple, but so profound. St. Joseph never seemed like someone of great importance, but in the area of spiritual warfare… man was I wrong. Read through that book.

Now I want to focus on Our Lady, Undoer of Knots. This is going to be a very personal story.

It goes back to the year two thousand eighteen when then-Cardinal McCarrick was discovered to be a very bad actor. He was removed the next year from being in the clerical state – he was no longer a Cardinal and, I believe, no longer able to function as a priest. That year also saw reports of other abuse in the church. I was so angry that I could not really function well. I did what I had to do at that time, but my heart was not where it should have been.

Years earlier, I had been required to remove somebody from a parish leadership position because of child abuse. All of these issues combined to make me one… very… angry… priest. I could not find a way to control my anger. It was eating me alive. But then I came across the idea of cutting my hair very short. I did not go as far as shaving my head, as St. Paul did when he took a vow, but I was able to channel and manage my anger because of a simple thing like keeping my hair cut short. But the anger was still inside me. That act of penance – keeping my hair cut short – helped to put a lid on my anger. I could begin to function again by keeping my hair cut short as a reminder to do penance for all the victims of abuse – especially abuse within the church. But it was a knot inside me that continued to get tighter and caused me more distress.

Then along came Our Lady, Undoer of Knots. It was a very short time after I began praying for her intercession that I began to feel the knot loosening within me. I do not know if I’m going to stop cutting my hair short, because there are still many people who have been wounded by abuse – not just in the church but in our society as a whole. But, the big difference is that I do not have this knot of anger that was over the top of my prayer for the victims. Now, I seem to be able to pray for those victims with more compassion and less anger toward the perpetrators.

I am convinced that Our Lady helped to untie that knot. There are more reasons for my anger than just that, and I still need great healing. But I have a confidence that the healing power of God contained in the intercession of Our Lady will continue to bring a healing to my soul.

I have tried to keep the words of this homily as general as I could. Because of this, I do not think I have presented the magnitude of the mess I was in. I do not want to get into more specifics, because I do not think it helps “move the needle” of what I’m still struggling with. It was a very hard thing to do to remove someone from church leadership. That along with all of the other… perversions caused me a great deal of personal pain. Some of that is still there. But Our Lady, Undoer of Knots has been healing me and preparing me for a new level of holiness. And Saint Joseph’s intercession is right there with her – guiding and encouraging me as I struggle on my journey to the Lord.

Probably the most visible sign of my struggles is the fact that I do not like hugs. Well… I am not sure I am there yet, but thinking about hugs does not make me cringe anymore. 😊So I guess that’s another part of the healing from Our Lady.

And that brings me back to the beginning of today and it being Gaudete Sunday. There is room for rejoicing in the healing power of God. And he makes great use of his saints in accomplishing his purposes. I do not know where we are going to put this image of Our Lady, but I want everyone to see it – and ask for her intercession. If she can bring about this… change in me, she can work out any knot that is inside of any of us. I know I still have a few. How about you?

Pray/Praise:   

Pope Francis, who had a strong devotion to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots is reported to have composed the following prayer (thank you to a parishioner who pointed me to this):

Virgin Mary, Mother of fair love, Mother who never refuses to come to the aid of a child in need, Mother whose hands never cease to serve your beloved children because they are moved by the divine love and immense mercy that exist in your heart, cast your compassionate eyes upon me and see the snarl of knots that exists in my life. You know very well how desperate I am, my pain, and how I am bound by these knots. 

Mary, Mother to whom God entrusted the undoing of the knots in the lives of his children, I entrust into your hands the ribbon of my life. No one, not even the Evil One himself, can take it away from your precious care. In your hands there is no knot that cannot be undone. 

Powerful Mother, by your grace and intercessory power with Your Son and My Liberator, Jesus, take into your hands today this knot:

[Mention your petitions now]          

I beg you to undo it for the glory of God, once and for all. You are my hope. 

O my Lady, you are the only consolation God gives me, the fortification of my feeble strength, the enrichment of my destitution, and, with Christ, the freedom from my chains. Hear my plea. Keep me, guide me, protect me, o safe  refuge!

Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me. Amen.

+++++