AS WE GATHER FOR NOVEMBER 1, 2020 At Christmas is sung “God rest you merry, gentlemen,” with “tidings of comfort and joy.” Those tidings were made because our Lord had entered human history. We will finally realize those tidings for ourselves when we join the saints in eternal glory, they who are seen in the vision we will read from Revelation. In the meantime, in these mean times, we rely on hope to get us through each day, as St. Paul writes in the Epistle. That hope is based on our being God’s adopted children, brothers and sisters of our risen Lord Jesus. It is both comforting and joyful, no matter our circumstances. As Jesus proclaims in the Gospel’s Beatitudes, people with such hope are blessed indeed!