12.0pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:normal">Desiré Findlay grew up in New Mexico. She earned a bachelor's degree in secondary education and went on to teach Spanish, religion and dance at an all-girls high school in Southern California. After teaching and then traveling extensively for community outreach, she now serves as a trainer and adviser with Catholic Relief Services.
In Botticelli's painting, Jesus as an infant holds up for us the promise of a forthcoming sweetness in the symbol of the pomegranate. Will we receive it, or will we look away?
In the day's Mass readings, James asks us to "be patient" like the farmer who is waiting on the new life of crops. So how do we heed James' advice and be patient when God sometimes moves at the pace of a farmer's crop?