Dear Friends,

We, the members of the board of Texas Leadership Coalition,  enjoyed serving the Catholic community of San Antonio this past year in a number of projects – coordinating with the archdiocese and other pro-life organizations the Roe V. Wade commemoration pro-life Mass last January at the cathedral and downtown plaza, coordinating monthly pro-life vigils for life with St. Matthew’s at the Alamo Women’s Reproductive  abortion center, the Health Care in Crisis end of life conference at Our Lady of the Atonement, ecumenical projects with our evangelical brothers and sisters (10 Days Prayer campaign), coordinating a benefit for a pro-life charity. Under Texas Leadership Institute for Public Advocacy, TLC’s political advocacy arm, we were often busy much of the year vetting candidates and publishing voter guides for Catholics in the  primaries and runoffs earlier in the year and the national (general) election in November.

We appreciate your continued support and please remember to continue to pray for our beloved Bishop John Yanta who is still in the hospital. He is recovering but has not been released. Pray he is able to return  home for the Christmas holidays.

Also please consider giving a donation to Texas Leadership Coalition for our educational work next year. We are ready for another busy year in 2017 planning new conferences, prayer missions, coordinating fundraisers with pro-life charities and through our political advocacy arm, TLIPA, promoting pro-life legislation at the state capitol and producing voter guides for the municipal elections in May. Donations for political activities can be received through our TLIPA.ORG website.

God bless you all and have a very joyful, Merry Christmas and bountiful New Year!

Phil Sevilla
Texas Leadership Coalition
President

Christmas Day Sermon

St John  Chrysostom

We are sharing a beautiful ancient Christmas Day homily authored by St. John Chrysostom, one of the great early Church Fathers, Archbishop,  and Doctor of the Catholic Church. If you are faced with a mundane, worldly homily at Christmas Mass this year, read this sermon which will warm and delight your hearts. 

“I behold a new and wondrous mystery. My ears resound to the Shepherd’s song, piping no soft melody, but chanting full forth a heavenly hymn. The Angels sing. The Archangels blend their voice in harmony. The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise. The Seraphim exalt His glory. All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven. He Who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below; and he that was lowly is by divine mercy raised.

“Bethlehem this day resembles heaven; hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices; and in place of the sun, enfolds within itself on every side, the Sun of justice. And ask not how: for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For He willed, He had the power, He descended, He redeemed; all things yielded in obedience to God. This day He Who is, is Born; and He Who is, becomes what He was not. For when He was God, He became man; yet not departing from the Godhead that is His. Nor yet by any loss of divinity became He man, nor through increase became He God from man; but being the Word He became flesh, His nature, because of impassability, remaining unchanged.”

Download   the full text of the Christmas Day Sermon by St. John Chrysostom