Waiting

First Sunday of Advent

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.].  Advent, I would argue, is a time that is particularly good for our current culture.  I say that, because Advent is a time of waiting.  And we are, as a culture, really bad at waiting.  We are bad at waiting because, more often than not, we don’t have to wait for anything.  If I want to know something, I do a Google search or ask Siri, and almost instantaneously get a response.  If I want food, I pre-order it on my app so that it’s waiting for me when I arrive.  I spend the money for Amazon prime so that I can get almost anything I want within two days of ordering it.  If I need to send a message I can get it to the person immediately by email or texting.  We really don’t wait for that much in life anymore.
    There are obvious exceptions.  We generally still wait for weddings (though even those are happening much more quickly these days, as people, sadly, decide not to get married in the church).  We wait for babies to be born (though as a man, I’m not sure I can truly appreciate the desire of a woman, especially in the last weeks of her term, for the baby to exit the womb).  Those two precious events necessitate waiting, but the wait is worth it, as the joy of celebrating is even greater after the weeks and months of desiring that momentous event.
    Advent’s wait is primarily twofold: the remembrance of the waiting of the Chosen People for their long-awaited Messiah, and our waiting for that same Messiah, Jesus Christ, to return to us in glory.  The waiting of the Chosen People began before they were even a people.  Adam and Eve, after their fall, heard God’s promise of a redeemer, as God told the snake who had led to the Fall: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head while you strike at his heel.”  Even then, at the beginning of creation, God promised a redeemer, the offspring of Eve, who would strike at the head of the serpent.
    Fast-forward some centuries to Abraham, our father in faith.  Scripture scholars estimate that Abraham lived sometime between 2100 and 2000 BC.  When God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans, God promised that Abraham would become a great nation, and a source of blessing for “all the communities of the earth.”  Of course, that happened through our Savior, the son of Abraham, but it took some over two thousand years for that promise to come true. 

From atop Mt. Nebo, where Moses recounted the Exodus for the Chosen People

    Fast-forward to around the 1400s BC to Moses, reminding the Israelites of all that had happened to them since they left Egypt.  Moses prophesied, “‘A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you among your own kinsmen; to him you shall listen.’”  The Gospel according to St. John makes clear that some believed our Lord to be “the prophet,” the fulfillment of Moses’ prophecy.  But they had to wait almost a millennium and a half.
    Fast-forward to around the year 1000 BC and King David, resting from all his enemies, desiring to build a temple for the Ark of the Covenant.  God promises David, as the prophet Nathan tells him, “‘I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm.’”  Christ is the Son of David.  As our Lord entered Jerusalem for His Passion, the people chanted, “‘Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”  And Christ even asks the Pharisees, “‘Whose son is [the Messiah]?’  They replied, ‘David’s.’” 
    Fast-forward to 445 BC, and the composition of the Book of the Prophet Malachi, the last prophet in what we call the Old Testament.  Through Malachi, God promises to send a messenger to prepare the way, and to send Elijah before the day of the Lord, and even that “there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek.”  But even this was 445 years before our Lord was even born!  If you put the average age of a person at 45, that’s nine generations between Malachi and the Nativity.  Or, to put it another way, if you were around at the time of the first Christmas, the prophecies of Malachi were at the time of your great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather.  That’s a lot of waiting!!  And you thought waiting for Michigan to beat Ohio State in Columbus was long!!
    And we have been waiting almost 2,000 years for Christ to return in glory.  God continues to speak to us through His Church, and we hear about, and maybe even experience, miracles by which God reinforces His presence and love for us.  But we can become complacent, and think and act like Christ will not return.  He, Himself, tells us in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, that it will be like in the days of Noah, where Noah had prepared the ark according to God’s command.  Sill, there was some waiting before the rain fell, and people probably thought Noah was nuts.  But once the rain came, they had wished they had prepared. 
    Christ also tells us, in the Gospel according to St. Luke, that when we see the signs, we should be ready for the His return.  Those signs have been with us each century, which is Christ’s way of telling us to always be ready, because He could return at any time.  Our wait could be over in a heartbeat.  Have we given up on waiting because it’s been so long?  Or are we ready each day for Christ to return in glory? 
    It can be difficult to wait so long.  It can be difficult to live as we are supposed to when we don’t get what we want immediately.  The works of darkness can seem so tempting when we think we have time.  Instead, God calls us to put on the armor of light, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Examining Our Year with the Fruits of the Spirit

 Last Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  As we come to this last Sunday of the liturgical year, the last Sunday after Pentecost, it’s a great chance to take stock of the previous year.  Like many of us do daily examinations of conscience at the end of the day, this “evening” of the liturgical year affords us the opportunity to see how we grew in grace.
    We ask ourselves, did we allow ourselves to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will?  Did we please the Lord, and bear fruit in our spiritual lives?  Did we endure, were we patient?  Did we rejoice in the Lord and give thanks to the Father?  Was the trajectory of our lives showing more and more that Christ delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into His kingdom?  Did we forgive, as God had forgiven us?

    St. Paul mentions bearing fruit.  In another epistle, the Apostle lists the fruits of the Spirit that we should bear: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Those are great points of meditation for us as we examine the past year.  Am I more loving now than when I started Advent last year?  Do I show the joy of being a believer in the Lord?  Or, to use a phrase, if you’re happy and you know it, tell your face.  In my interactions with others, does my love manifest itself by waiting for others and putting up with their own shortcomings, just as God puts up with mine?  Do I seek Christ in others, and therefore treat others the same way I would treat Christ?  Do I seek the good, and not run to what is bad and troubling?  In my relationship with God and others, am I loyal, someone others can count on?  Or do I only turn to God when I need something, and not stay with Him when times are good?  When I correct others, do I act out of anger and vengeance, or do I see, the other’s conversion?  Do I give in to every passion that comes my way, or can I restrict the desires of my body and soul to make sure that they are in accord with God’s will.  This is what God asks of us as we, day by day, get closer to the end of time.
    We can spend a lot of time fretting about the end of the world.  Indeed, our Lord tells us that there will be many confusing reports, with false messiahs and false prophets arising.  But if we are persevering in following God, then the end is not scary, but rather the culmination of our response to God’s grace.  Notice, though, that I did not say, “if we are perfect in following God.”  I’m a perfectionist, and so I strive to do everything right.  But I don’t.  And I need to worry less when I mess-up, and just make sure that I learn from my bad choices, and seek to do better.  As long as I continue to strive to do God’s will, even when I miss the mark (which is what the Greek word 𝛼𝜇𝛼𝜌𝜏𝜄𝛼, which is the word for sin, literally means), as long as I keep striving to hit the bullseye, then God will have His victory.
    Another temptation, as we look back on this past year and examine how we responded to God’s grace, is to presume that, going forward, we simply need to try harder.  We certainly do always need to seek to be more open to God’s grace.  But the work is not, primarily, ours.  The work is primarily that of God.  Even in the epistle, St. Paul prays that we may “be filled.”  This is an example, in grammar, of what we called the Divine passive, which means that God is doing the act, even if not explicitly named.  Yes, we need to cooperate, but any good thing that we can do depends on God’s grace.  So it’s not simply that we do x or y, but that we, each day, open ourselves up to God’s grace more and more, and respond to that grace.  That’s how we make sure that we belong to Christ’s kingdom, through “whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins,” and who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.

"But for Wales?"

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Fr. Mychal Judge

    For what would you give up your life?  Probably when we think about giving up our life, we think of our soldiers who have sacrificed their lives serving our country.  Or maybe we think about our first responders, especially firefighters who rushed into burning buildings, never to run out, or our law enforcement officers who rush towards danger when everyone else is running away, who were killed by gun shots, stabbings, or even by being hit by a car that wasn’t paying attention.  One of my heroes is Fr. Mychal Judge, who, as a New York City Fire Department chaplain, ran into one of the towers on 9/11 to try to rescue any survivors and show them the way to safety.  There is an iconic photo of first responders carrying out his lifeless body on a stretcher, an image of what laying down one’s life for the good of another looks like.
    So as we heard the first reading, we may have wondered what the big deal was.  These seven brothers and their mother refused to eat pork, because the Law of Moses, received from God, didn’t allow the eating of any cloven-footed animal that did not eat cud.  We might think that death is a bit extreme option, rather than eating a BLT. 
    Thinking about the cost we are willing to pay for what matters reminds me of a scene from “A Man For All Seasons,” about St. Thomas More.  Richard Rich, a former friend of Sir Thomas, perjured himself in order to obtain the office of attorney general of Wales.  St. Thomas, on finding the reason why his so-called friend should lie in court, said, “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world.  But for Wales?”  In other words, was the perjury worth the promotion?

St. Thomas More

    Many tend to view life from a utilitarian point of view.  I would dare say that at least some of us here have utilitarian morals: as long as it turns out ok, then it’s ok to do.  In other words, the ends justify the means.  If I can do some greater good, even if I have to do something evil, then it’s ok.  But those are not Catholic, nor even Christian morals.  The ends never justify the means.  Even the pagans knew that.  One cannot achieve good by doing evil, as they run in opposite directions. 
    Early Christians had to deal with this dilemma, too.  As the persecutions continued against the new, Christian religion, more and more friends and family became known as followers of Christ.  So those who were responsible for their punishment, their own kith and kin, would sometimes seek to ease the requirements in order to avoid punishment, and, in most cases, death.  Instead of worshiping a false idol, or worshiping the emperor, some Christians were given the option to simply sign a document saying that they worshiped the emperor.  It was just a small lie, one that would save their lives.  Surely the good that could be done by the Christians in the future would be outweighed by their single act of infidelity to God.  Christ is merciful; just turn to Him for forgiveness afterwards. 
    There’s a word for those who did sign: apostates.  In other words, those who abandoned God.  At the end of the day, the pork wasn’t the big deal.  But what was a big deal was disobeying what you knew to be something that God had communicated.  The food wasn’t as weighty as the rejection of God’s ways, signified by the kosher laws.  The holy mother and sons in Maccabees were models because, rather than disobey God and reject His ways, they chose earthly death.  But, they also had hope that, while others could harm the body, God would reward their faithfulness, not only with the soul, but in the resurrection on the last day. 
    There’s another story from the Old Testament, this one long before the Maccabees, about King Saul and the prophet Samuel.  God had told Saul to place all Amalekite people and property under the ban; they were to be destroyed because of how they had previously oppressed God’s Chosen People.  But King Saul decided to keep some sheep and oxen, and spare the life of the king.  Samuel found this out, and confronted Saul.  Saul replied, “‘I did indeed obey the Lord and fulfill the mission…. I have brought back Agag, the king of Amelek, and…I have destroyed the Amalekites.  But from the spoil the army took sheep and oxen, the best of what had been banned, to sacrifice to the Lord your God.’”  It seems like Saul was doing something good.  He saved the best sheep and oxen so that they could be sacrificed to the true God.  But Samuel responded, “‘Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obedience to the Lord’s command?  Obedience is better than sacrifice.’”  And, because of Saul’s disobedience, he loses the kingdom, which will eventually be transferred to David, son of Jesse.
    Our view ought to be a heavenly one, not an earthly one.  What is best is not necessarily what helps us in this life, but what helps us in the life to come.  It is so easy to get caught up like the Sadducees, and see things from our limited vantage.  Instead, God sees all from an eternal vantage, and encourages us to trust Him, even when our minds can create some reason why going our own way appears better.
    I have not often taken the view that we, as Catholics, will have to undergo another persecution in our country.  I’m not quick to talk about the possibility that fidelity to God will cause us suffering.  But the more our State and country move away from God, the more likely we will have to choose between comfort in this world, and comfort in the next.  Already many Catholics have abandoned the position that all life is sacred, including the infant in the womb.  They have chosen their own logic, and why abortion is fine in some, if not all, circumstances.  Those who oppose are called backwards, anti-woman, anti-science, and misogynist.  If Proposal 3 passes, there will be no safeguards for conscience protection against abortion in our State.  Nurses and doctors may be required, in some circumstances, to perform or assist with an abortion, or lose the job.  What will be more important? 
    And what will be more important for you?  Staying faithful to the Catholic faith, to what God has revealed to us for our happiness?  Or abandoning the faith that Christ taught for social status, economic advancement, or even simply family harmony?  What is more important for you?  Status?  Money? Family?  Or God and heaven?  “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world.  But for Wales?”