Nuts!

 Sunday within the Octave of Christmas
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Probably my favorite mini-series is the HBO story, “Band of Brothers,” about the Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Paratroopers in World War II.  Episode 6 deals with the Battle of the Bulge, and there is a scene of the paratroopers at Christmas, pinned down and surrounded at Bastogne.  The soldiers have dug foxholes, as best as they can, in the cold, hard ground, with snow all around them.  There is not enough ammo.  And while there is tree cover, the Germans continue to pepper the Army paratroopers with mortars that blow the tops of the trees from their trunks.  Many of the soldiers lack adequate winter gear.  It was not a great situation.
    In one scene, Col. Sink addresses the men of Easy Company: “Men, General McCauliff wishes us all a Merry Christmas.  What’s merry about all this, you ask?  Just this: we’ve stopped cold everything that’s been thrown at us, from the north, east, south, and west.  Now, two days ago, the German commander demanded our honorable surrender, to save the USA encircled troops from total annihilation.  The German commander received the following reply: ‘To the German commander: nuts!’”

Col. Sink addressing Easy Company

    As we are assembled on this Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, perhaps, honestly, we’re feeling like the men of Easy Company.  It certainly has been an interesting year.  I know that early in the year there were inquiries about, and even a possible visit from, the Institute of the Good Shepherd providing future sacramental needs for those who attend this Mass, and then Bishop Boyea announced that some guy, unknown to most, if not all, here, was going to become the new pastor.  What was this priest like?  Did he celebrate the Extraordinary Form?  Was he kind?  Was he orthodox?  What did this mean for St. Matthew as a part of the Catholic Community of Flint?  Maybe you’re feeling like the jury is still out on this new pastor.
    And then we had the infamous Traditionis custodes.  I know that it was a time where we wondered what would happen.  We heard about some dioceses where the Extraordinary Form was cancelled entirely and immediately.  Or some had one last celebration before being shut down.  I know it was tough to wait, but our bishop lovingly allowed us to continue to celebrate according to the usus antiquior, and even came out to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation for us.
    And then last weekend we had the responsa ad dubia from the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments.  That seemed like another bomb, and right now Bishop Boyea has said that we’ll keep to the status quo while he further reviews the document.  And that’s just on the worldwide scale.  In our own daily lives we have attacks and frustrations with which we have to deal, sometimes even from family and friends.  Maybe we feel like Easy Company, surrounded by enemies, not having adequate amounts of ammunition or winter clothing, with trees exploding to the left and right.  Sometimes it probably feels like friendly fire, instead of from the enemy.  So what do we do?
    First and foremost, this is a time of great spiritual benefit.  Whenever things are most difficult and frustrating, there is the opportunity for the greatest spiritual growth.  Yes, our Lord did many great things (healings, exorcisms, even raising people from the dead) while He was ministering around Judea.  But His greatest accomplishment was achieved through His Passion and Death, and subsequent Resurrection.  We can choose to capitalize on this time, or we can let it go to waste.  Do we let these struggles draw us closer to the Cross of Christ, or do they push us farther away from Him?  Do our challenges encourage us to embrace Holy Mother Church all the more, or do we look for consolation in those who have walked away from the Church of Christ, which is necessary for salvation?  Just as St. Catherine of Siena and St. Bridget of Sweden, or St. Theresa of Avila and St. Robert Bellarmine became great saints that proved the holiness of the Church even in the midst of schisms and heresies, so we have the opportunity to become great saints today.

    Secondly, the saint who would be celebrated today except that his feast day is on a Sunday, St. Stephen, is a great example of the power of prayer to change hearts and situations.  Recall that St. Stephen was one of the first deacons of the Church, appointed by the apostles themselves.  St. Stephen starts preaching Christ immediately in Jerusalem, and getting into debates and arguments with the chief priests and scribes.  Even though Stephen encounters many attacks on the identity of Jesus, Stephen counters their arguments at each turn.  This infuriates others so much that he is put on trial, and then condemned to be stoned to death.  His death, in the Acts of the Apostles, is very similar to the death of our Lord.  
    Standing at his death, and consenting to it, was a man named Saul.  No doubt the Church in Jerusalem was nervous about their future.  This man Saul was starting to round up the disciples of the Lord and imprison them for heresy.  No doubt, as they came together for Mass, they implored the Lord to save them from their enemies.  They likely fasted and prayed that their persecution would come to an end.  And it did, in the most likely way ever: Saul was converted, and became the greatest missionary in the history of Catholicism.  This was probably not what the Church in Jerusalem had in mind; but it was much better.  And I like to imagine that St. Stephen, in heaven, was pleading with the Lord to give Saul that extra bit of grace that would change him from a persecutor to a promoter of the faith.  
    There has been no small amount of blogposts written, and Facebook articles shared, and opinions expressed, some from true experts, some from those who only claim to be experts.  Imagine if those same people, instead of being Social Media warriors, used that time for prayer and fasting for Holy Mother Church (and, I imagine, some of them do).  Imagine what great graces could be accomplished, in us or in others.  We could be the Stephens imploring God’s grace upon the Sauls of our day.
    The reality is that we are at battle, but most of all with the world, the flesh, and the devil.  We are surrounded, and we often don’t always think that we have the equipment that we need to be successful.  But we do have the food which sustains our souls, which pushes us to be the saints God calls us to be in the times God calls us to be, and that is the Eucharist.  In the Eucharist we find the sustenance to keep fighting, not to surrender, and to suffer through some devastating attacks.  But just as the men who made up Easy Company and who braved the cold of Bastogne for a cause greater than themselves, so we, men and women, can brave these times, remaining in the loving embrace of Holy Mother Church, and become a Greatest Generation of our own in the Church.  
    At the end of Episode 6 of “Band of Brothers,” explanatory notes are given.  They read: “On December 26, 1944, General Patton’s Third Army broke through the German lines, allowing supplies to flow in and the wounded to be evacuated.  The story of ‘The Battle of the Bulge’ as told today, is one of Patton coming to the rescue of the encircled 101st Airborne.  No member of the 101st has ever agreed that the division needed to be rescued.”  God will help supply us with all we need.  Sometimes, no matter how exhausted we are, we have to keep fighting.  He has given us the victory already, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.