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. 

The Gift of Adoption

 Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
    I enjoy giving gifts.  I try really hard to give good gifts, but I don’t always succeed in finding gifts that others truly want.  But there’s something about giving people something that makes me happy, especially for my close friends and family.  Sometimes people will say, “You shouldn’t have!” as a way of expressing their thanks for the gift.  Other times, they’re not the biggest fan of the gift, and mean, “You really shouldn’t have gotten me a gift!”  
    While I like providing for people, especially things that they really want but wouldn’t get for themselves, even things that they need, there’s always the danger that, in giving a gift, it’s really a quid pro quo, a this for that.  I know that sometimes friends have wondered if I get them gifts as a way to try to bribe them to stay my friends, as if giving the gift would earn their friendship.
    I thought about this when reading over the second reading from the epistle of St. John.  John writes, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.  And so we are.”  God has given us a great gift: to be called and truly to be His children, sons and daughters in the Son of God.  That is a gift that we truly need, even if sometimes we don’t recognize that we need it.  But it is a gift; it cannot be earned.
    Still, sometimes I, and perhaps you, as well, try to earn that gift.  We think that if we just did enough good things, or avoided particular sins, or lived in this heroic way, that God would be happy with us and would make us His children based upon the gifts that we have given Him.  As Catholics, it’s very easy to fall into this trap that God only loves us if we do what He wants, that our adoption as His children is somehow based upon what we do.  
    But that is a lie that the enemy tells us, a lie which distracts us from the true love of the Father.  That love of the Father is not based upon what we do, but is based upon the fact that we are His creation, and His creation has been raised to a new dignity, not based upon what we have done, but what Christ has done for us.  In baptism, we become little christs, little anointed ones, and God sees the imprint of His Son, Jesus, in us.  That has nothing to do with how holy we are, because, at the time just before we are baptized, we are not holy; we are at enmity with God.  It has everything to do with God being Love, and the love that God has for His Son, and all those who are joined to His Son through baptism.  
    How much do we try to earn the love of the Father through trying to be perfect, and then get frustrated when it doesn’t work out, when we’re not perfect, or even as holy as we desire to be!  But it’s putting the cart in front of the horse.  Living the commandments is only possible through the love that we receive from the Father.  Keeping the commandments is important; our life is supposed to reflect the love of the Father that has been poured into our hearts.  But is the result, not the pre-requisite, of the love of God.

    And as we celebrate the Holy Family, and try to be holy families ourselves, we are called to model that same love and that same approach to love with our families that we have with our heavenly Father.  We love the members of our family, not because of something they have done for us, but simply because they are ours.  We hope that they live a good life, and we try to support each other in being holy, in following the commandments to love God and neighbor as Christ and the Church teaches us.  We want them to be good representatives of our name and our family.  But that comes as a result of our love for them, not as the pre-requisite of our love for them.  
    We see this especially with babies.  Babies don’t really do anything for the family; they pretty much just take from the family.  They cry whenever they need something; they demand food whenever they want it; they poop and spit-up on a regular basis; they never seem to sleep when you want (or need) them to.  And yet, how much love is showered upon babies, even before they’re born!  You can’t help but love a baby.  And that is how much God loves us, and infinitely more!  
    We are, no matter how old we are, the babies of the Holy Family.  God the Father loves us infinitely, even though we cry a lot, and demand a lot, and often soil our souls on a regular basis.  We really do nothing for God in the grand scheme of things.  But God the Father loves us.  And because we are loved by God the Father, we are also loved by God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  And because Mary is the Mother of God, she loves what He loves, and so she loves us with her motherly love.  And because St. Joseph cares for Mary and her child, Jesus, he also cares for us, who are her children, too, given to Mary at the foot of the cross by Jesus.  Again, it is not based upon what we can do for Mary and Joseph, and even more so is not based upon what we can do for the Holy Trinity.  But the love is there, and is given freely as a gift.
    “Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed upon us that we may be called the children of God.”  Not because of what we give God.  Not because we could ever earn His love.  Simply because, in Christ, as a gift freely given, we are adopted sons and daughters of God.  “And so we are.”

A Cosmic Wedding

 Nativity of the Lord–During the Day/Third Mass (EF)
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  When it comes to weddings, priests have different opinions.  Some priests are not the biggest fans, especially of late, because all sorts of wedding ideas (most of which are foreign to the Catholic Rite of Marriage) have sprung up which (usually) the bride wants, or, from time to time, the parents (again, usually) of the bride can be very…involved in weddings.  While those things are still true, I find that I love weddings.  I love the joy of a couple coming together to commit themselves to each other and to God, the celebratory nature of a wedding, and the smiles that weddings bring to families and friends.
 

   Today as we celebrate Christmas, we celebrate a cosmic wedding, unlike any other wedding that came before, or any that would come after.  The music for the wedding is heavenly.  And the parents involved are anything but a problem.  As we come together for Christmas, we celebrate the wedding of heaven and earth, and the wedding of time and eternity.  Both are joined so as to never be separated again, and both are reasons for joy, celebration, and smiles.
    In Christ, heaven is forever wedded to earth.  Especially at Christmas, we often focus primarily on the human nature of Jesus, because that was something new that happened at the first Christmas.  At the first Christmas, we learned (eventually) that God and humanity could be joined together, and the God who was wholly clouded in mystery could now be seen face to face on earth.  We think about the shepherds who came to see Mary, Joseph, and the Christ Child.  We think about the cave (or manger) where Christ was born, the animals that were gathered round Him, and what was happening on earth.  
    But our readings today also help focus us on the eternal.  The author of the Letter to the Hebrews, traditionally St. Paul, talks about our Lord as the one through whom the entire universe was made, and the refulgence of the glory of God.  St. Paul emphasizes Christ’s divine nature and his superiority even to the angels.  And St. John begins his gospel account with the eternal nature of the Word, the Logos, who was with God in the beginning, and is God Himself.  While what we looked upon at Christmas is a little baby, what we actually saw was both God who is fragile and God who is omnipotent; the tiny child and the Lord of Hosts.

   Both natures, human and divine, are married in Christ, and, like marriage itself, what God has joined cannot be divided.  In the words of St. Athanasius, the great Doctor of the Church from Alexandria, God became man so that man might become God.  God took on our fallen human nature, so that we, in Christ, could be raised to the glory of the divine nature of God, not by substance but by adoption.  The glory of this day is that we have a savior who is going to save us from sin and death, and the darkness of the world is fading, even as the dark days of winter start to grow lighter.
    But in Christ, we also have the wedding of time and eternity.  In the Incarnation, we can see God, and know when He is (in Jesus) in one place, and not another.  He humbles Himself and subjects Himself to time and limits.  But the same God is outside time, seeing all time at once, and remaining the same “yesterday, today, and forever.”  And because of Christ, that connection remains forever, again, never divorced as a union founded in God.
    And that is precisely what is happening in this Mass, as well.  Each Mass is a little Easter, but we might also say that it is a little Christmas, inasmuch as divinity is united to humanity, and eternity is joined to time.  As I say the words of the Eucharistic Prayer, and as the Holy Spirit descends upon the bread and wine and transforms it into the Body and Blood of Christ, heaven comes down to earth, and is united in the Eucharistic species.  Christ, once more, is born for us, and is both fragile in our hands and on our tongues, without losing any of His power and authority.  As we enter into this Mass, we keep one foot in time (because we cannot leave this world and enter the next on our own), but we also put one foot into eternity, because we participate in the eternal offering of Christ at the right hand of the Father in heaven.  
    The beauty and otherworldly-ness of the Mass is on purpose.  We are not supposed to feel like we are at our home on the couch.  The music is not supposed to be of this world.  The smoke of the incense and the sound of the bells, and the unique words and language that are used are all meant to remind us that we stand at the antechamber of heaven, with the veil separating the two pulled back ever so slightly so that both can meet.  What we engage in at this Mass, and every Mass, is the wedding feast of the Lamb of God, where heaven and earth, eternity and time are joined together for the praise of God and for our benefit.  That is what you get to participate in (not merely watch, but actively engage in) when you come to Mass and join in the prayers, whether audibly or silently.  That is what you miss out on when you don’t come to Mass: the biggest wedding of the year, made accessible each day for anyone invited to the wedding.
    This wedding of heaven and earth and time and eternity make it possible for us to love the things of heaven, because we are drawn to them through the things of earth.  Through Christ’s humanity we are able to love His divinity.  Through what we experience with our senses, we encounter a world that is beyond anything we could ever see, hear, smell, touch, or taste.  As we worship with our voices on earth, we are joined by the voices of all the angels and saints in heaven.  That is a wedding worth attending!  That is the truest experience of joy, celebration, and smiles!!  [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]
   

Illuminating the Night

 Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord–Mass during the Night
    Talk about irony!  The first reading of the Mass that the Church calls “Mass during the Night” begins: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom, a light has shone.”  There is something beautifully still at Midnight Mass, a peace that exists as most people are asleep, but it’s also certainly dark.
    But Christ came precisely so that we can have light, as this church is illumined.  And the light that He came to bring is the light of holiness that casts away, not the darkness that comes from the earth spinning on its axis and certain parts of the globe facing away from the sun during times of the day, but the darkness of sin and death, which is really slavery.
    Isaiah continues with that theme of slavery when he talks about the “pole on their shoulder, and the rod of their taskmaster.”  Sin binds us up and takes us captive.  As Jesus is born, the one who ransomed us from slavery, who bought us at the price of His own Precious Blood, is made known to us, and for that reason we rejoice.  We rejoice even in the middle of the night because today is the today it happened; today the path to our freedom in Christ was begun in a backwards part of a nowhere failed kingdom, ignored by the powers of the world, but for the riots that would happen from time to time among the people.
    The shepherds were awake at night, looking out for wolves so that their sheep did not get eaten.  I remember my trip to Zion National Park.  I had a very early flight out of Vegas, so I had to leave at zero dark thirty.  Driving through Utah, where there were no towns, was something else.  The moon was out, so it wasn’t that dark, but without the moon, or on a cloudy night, it would have been pitch black.  On nights without clouds, the stars help to illumine the sky.  
 

   The shepherds saw the stars, and then saw other lights–angels–which not only shone but sang.  They tell the shepherds the good news, that the Messiah has been born, and not only the Messiah, but God Himself (Christ and Lord).  Then they sing the hymn that we sung earlier tonight: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”  Both their presence and their hymn bring light to the world, not their own light, but reflections of the light of Christ.  Many of the Church Fathers, when considering when the angels were created (since there’s no mention of it in the Scriptures), attribute it to when God created the stars.  And so it was fitting that the angels should all appear at night, in the night sky, to proclaim the newborn Jesus to the shepherds.
    We know about darkness all too well in our lives.  Since March of 2020 we have lived in the darkness of a COVID world, and no matter how you look at the virus, it has made the world dark.  Our country and our world are torn by the darkness of division.  Horrible crimes perpetrated by powerful men and women have come to light, only to accentuate how dark things really are.  In our own City of Flint, homicides are up this year from last year, which was an increase from the year before.  And lest we simply try to focus on the spinner in our neighbor’s eye, without recognizing the beam in our own, I think we all recognize the sins that plague our life, small or great, which contribute to the darkness that surrounds our world.
    But in the midst of the darkness we dare to hold our baptismal candles, sometimes shining with more of the light of Christ than other times.  We do not simply curse the darkness, but we call on Christ to shine upon us and upon our world.  St. Paul talks about how the grace of God, which is the very life of God who is Light, “has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and world desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ.”  The Light of Christ is ready to shine upon us and upon our world, taking our baptismal candles which were lit from Him, which, by themselves do not illumine much, but united cast away all darkness.
    Just as the light of this church shines, even while surrounded by the darkness of the outside, so we, the living stones of the temple of God, are to shine, even when we are surrounded.  We do not have to be slaves to sin; we do not have to stumble our way through the darkness.  We have light, the very light of God that gives us true freedom and shows us the way to the day that never ends in heaven.  That is why we sing “Glory!”  That is why we venture out in the middle of the night in the bleak midwinter.  Not because we are perfect; not because we are the light and can solve every problem.  But because Christ is the Light, and is the answer to the question of every human heart, and the healing for every brokenness that exists in the world.  And today He is born for us.  
    Don’t blow out your candle because of how much darkness surrounds you.  Don’t even curse the darkness.  But, to quote the country singer Thomas Rhett, “Don’t hide in the dark, you were born to shine. In a world full of hate, be a light”  Or, even better, from the Prophet Isaiah: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.”  That light is Christ, born for us today.  “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of goodwill.”

The Draw of a Baby

 Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord–Vigil Mass
    Special Masses like the Sacred Tridduum, Easter, and Christmas, often have special rituals associated with them for priests.  At Holy Thursday and Good Friday we have special rites that remember the Lord’s institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood, as well as His Passion.  At the Easter Vigil we hear the great hymn of the Exultet.  And tonight, at Christmas, we placed the baby Jesus in the creche for the first time this Christmas season.  There is something that is truly awesome (filling me with awe) when I take the baby Jesus and kneel down to put Him in the manger.
    There is something special about children.  Even the gruffest, stone-faced person can become a pile of mush in the presence of a baby.  Yes, babies are a lot of work, but their simply, loving presence can fill a room with warmth and joy.  And when a baby cries, everyone wants to make sure that the child is ok.  Mothers, in particular, seem to have special hearing when it comes to listening for the cries of a little one.

    Tonight we celebrate our God-made-man, but not yet fully a man, but a little baby.  Mary and Joseph, who knew their child to be God must have had reactions to Jesus in two different ways.  On the one hand, Jesus was Mary’s child and in the paternal care of Joseph.  He was theirs, and depended on both of them for all of His needs.  In some ways He was like any other child, filling the Holy Family with joy and warmth, and yet also calling for their attention as He cried for whatever needs He had at each moment.  On the other hand, He was also God, and so took on special attention and adoration of Mary and Joseph.  
    To outsiders, too–the shepherds and maybe the neighbors in Bethlehem–Jesus must have drawn their attention.  Perhaps they didn’t quite recognize that Jesus was God, and yet He was a baby, who draws people in by their innocence and dependence.  And this is the genius of God: that in coming to us, God did not choose to become a powerful ruler with great strength; God did not appear as an angel full of light and power; God chose to become, in Jesus, a little baby, who depended others for His safety and basic needs.  He was vulnerable in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation, and remained vulnerable especially throughout his childhood.  Did God choose to become a baby because He knew that we would be drawn by a little child, or are we drawn to little children because God wrote within our very being a desire for everyone who appears like the Christ-child?  In either case, God appeared to us not in strength, but in weakness; not in power, but in fragility; not as a grown warrior, but as a defenseless baby.
    Many saints have imagined themselves being at Bethlehem when Jesus was born.  Perhaps you have, too.  You have wondered what it would be like to hear the angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest” in the night sky over Bethlehem.  You have wondered what it would be like to go to the cave, where Jesus was born (though many of you probably think of the barn-like structure that St. Francis of Assisi made popular).  Perhaps you have imagined yourself standing next to Mary or Joseph, and maybe even asking to hold baby Jesus for a moment, and just looking at Him and smiling, as He smiles back to, or sleeps soundly in your arms, swaddled in a cloth.  
    But in this time of waiting for Christ to return, Christ is still vulnerable to us.  While He is King of kings and Lord of lords, reigning from His throne in heaven, He still does not force Himself on us in power, but waits for us to come to Him, to be filled with His joy, to listen for His voice.  And we are free to care for Him tenderly, to hear His voice, or to ignore Him and be deaf to His cries.
    I carried at this Mass in my arms an image of baby Jesus, small and fragile.  But I hold the true Jesus, not just an image, every time I celebrate Mass.  Each time I hold in my hands the sacred host, made the Body and Blood of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit and my ministry, unworthy though I am, I hold Jesus who was born for us in my hands, and He is vulnerable.  Each time I proclaim the Gospel, I hear Jesus’ cries of love for us as He shares who God the Father is, how much He loves us, and how beautiful the Kingdom of Heaven is, for those who are willing to follow Him.  
    And the same is true for everyone here.  God makes Himself vulnerable for you.  He cries out for you.  Each Sunday and Holyday He cries for us to come and spend time with Him, not to attend to His needs as much as to fulfill our own need for God, to fill the empty hole in our hearts that can only be satisfied by God.  Each Mass Jesus allows Himself to be received in the Eucharist, to be fragile on our tongue, or in our hands.  We can receive Jesus lovingly in a state of grace, if we are unaware of any serious sins that have separated us from God.  Each Mass Jesus speaks to us of how much He loves us, and how He desires us to live in accordance with His will, and not our own; to live in the light, and not in the darkness; to be people of peace and not of hatred, prejudice, and violence.  Jesus cries out to us to live according to His pattern of life, and not the selfish life that the world proclaims.  And we can heed His cries and His invitation, or we can ignore it.  We can care for Him with the way we live our lives, or we can abandon Him and pretend He doesn’t exist, or that He is not important to us.
    Tonight God draws us in, as a little child, innocent and vulnerable, as we celebrate Christmas.  Like a baby, God makes Himself small for us that we can approach Him and love Him.  We are invited to see the warmth and joy of the Christ-child’s face, and to listen attentively to His voice, not only today, but every day, week, and month of the year.  “What child is this /who laid to rest / on Mary’s lap is sleeping?”  “O come, let us adore him Christ the Lord!”

Rejoicing in the midst of Darkness

 Third Sunday of Advent

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. When I was a young child, our tradition for decorating the house for Christmas was always done on my parents’ anniversary, 14 December.  While we were away at school (5 out of 7 years), my dad and mom, who took the day off, would do the majority of the decorating, especially putting up the tree and putting out the fragile items.  As it was their anniversary, they were also probably happy when we were away at school so that they could celebrate with only each other for a few hours.  When we got home from school, we would put the less fragile items up and put the kid-friendly ornaments on the Christmas tree.
    When I lived in my own house as the pastor of St. Joseph in Adrian, I had to develop my own decorating tradition.  I guess I could have stayed with my parents’ anniversary, but decided to have a date that was more special for me, which was the anniversary of the Dedication of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, our Lansing Cathedral, which is the church in which I was ordained a priest.  So, since 2014, on 9 December, after I’m done with Masses, I put up the tree and the other decorations I use to make my house seem more Chistmas-sy.  
    But I will admit that this year, I was tempted not even to decorate at all.  This is not to indulge in self-pity or gain your pity, but life has been very busy of late.  For the 7 days from 27 November to 4 December, I celebrated or concelebrated 5 funerals, including 2 on Friday, 3 December.  And that’s on top of an already generally full schedule.  After that week, there was the extra duties with the Immaculate Conception holyday, and then trying to get everything done in time for Christmas.  And, in the background, there was the house explosion (Hogarth Avenue is still closed in that part of the road), and then the school shooting in Oxford.  There’s a new variant of COVID (as there seems to be every few months), people keep fighting about vaccines, and then just the usual everyday drama that occurs in life.  And the thought of decorating my house for Christmas seemed like too much, requiring too much energy and time.  But, I went through the discipline, and this past Thursday, 9 December, decorated my house for Christmas.  
    As we come to this third Sunday of Advent, we’re supposed to rejoice.  We call this Sunday Gaudete Sunday, because of the Introit, or Entrance Antiphon, which comes from the Letter of St. Paul to the Philippians.  “Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say, rejoice.”  The prophet Zephaniah has a similar message in our first reading: “Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!  Sing joyfully, O Israel!  Be glad and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!”  And the message gets taken up again in the reading from the New Testament.  But for some this year, it doesn’t seem like a time of rejoicing.  People continue to come to me with the COVID blues, whether as a long-lasting symptom of having had the virus, or simply being tired with dealing with COVID everywhere you turn.  In our area, at least, death and the threat of death crop up regularly.  And it’s simply busy for all of us, priest and parent alike.  
    So it might be helpful to put into context the people who are giving us this message of “Rejoice!”  Otherwise, we could simply write them off as holy people who were so disconnected from the world that they didn’t have to worry about it.  Zephaniah was writing sometime between the years 640 and 609 BC.  That period is described in my Biblical introduction to the book as, “a time of religious degradation, while the old idolatries reappeared and men worshipped sun, moon, and stars.  Rites completely alien to the pure monotheism taught by Moses flourished in Jerusalem.”  Doesn’t sound like happy times.  And Zephaniah’s message was mainly one of God’s judgement against the People, which probably was not received well by others.  It isn’t the sort of thing that gets you invited over to parties.

Statue of St. Paul in Rome

    St. Paul wrote the Letter to the Philippians while in jail, probably in Rome, and possibly was dying.  Scripture scholars date the letter to somewhere around AD 59-63, not long before he died by being beheaded.  Nero was emperor, and likely was starting to persecute the Christians more and more.  So life wasn’t hunky-dory for St. Paul, either.
    And yet, we hear from both, “Rejoice!”  How can one rejoice when so many things go wrong?  Or, to quote Theoden from “The Two Towers,” “So much death.  What can men do against such reckless hate?”  
    But this is precisely the beauty of Catholicism.  In the midst of evil and darkness, the Church dares to say rejoice because we already know that death, sin, and darkness have lost.  We rejoice because we are preparing to celebrate the birth of the one who put all fallen things down and brought everlasting light to the world.  As Catholics, we don’t ignore the evil, whether moral or natural, that are around us.  But we let it fall off us as water beads off the back of a duck, knowing that, because of Christ, it cannot truly harm us.  God doesn’t promise us a life without struggle, but He does promise a reward after struggling while we are united to Christ.  He doesn’t promise us that we won’t get tired, but He does promise to give us eternal rest.  We rejoice because we are God’s, and God will not let anyone take us out of His hands, as long as we choose to remain with Him and respond to His grace.  In the words of Psalm 32 [new numbering], “Though flood waters threaten, they will never reach him.”  
    We are not Pollyannas; we are Catholics.  And we rejoice because each day we are closer to the day when Christ will return and set everything right.  The longing in our hearts for the end of death, illness, destruction, violence, lies, slander, etc., is not a pipe dream.  He whose Word is Truth, Who is Truth Incarnate, has promised to return one day and put an end to everything fallen.  We trust in that word, and we long for it, as much as and more than a child longs to wake up to find presents under the tree at Christmas.  And so we make our little acts of rejoicing, even in the face of so much that is wrong and sad.  We put up Christmas decorations, not because it’s easy and enjoyable, necessarily, but because it reminds us of the one who came to set us free, and who will come again.  No matter what occurs in our life, we rejoice always in the Lord, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who will bring us true joy at His coming.  Amen. 

Maybe I Got it Wrong?

 Second Sunday of Advent

St. John the Baptist

     

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  It is generally a bad idea to try to get into the head of a saint and analyze his intentions, unless one is a saint oneself.  The saints operate with the will of God at the first and foremost of their minds, and for those who don’t operate that way, what they do can seem crazy or other worldly.  
    Having said that, and with the very real knowledge that I am not a saint, I was wondering what St. John the Baptist was thinking in the Gospel passage we heard today.  You have John, the cousin of our Lord, who pointed Him out as the Lamb of God, and who saw the dove descend upon Him at His Baptism, as the voice of the Father was heard, “This is my beloved Son.”  John says that he has found the bridegroom, and so rejoices.  It seems like John knows exactly who our Lord is.
    And yet, today’s Gospel, some time after the baptism having passed, it seems like John starts to question what had happened earlier.  “‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’” John says.  And, at least from an earthly point of view, John’s confusion seems very rational.  After all, John is in prison, and little does he know, he’s about to lose his head.  This is probably not what John had in mind when he thought of the Messiah coming.  
    What did John think would happen?  Biblical scholars say that there were four expectations that Jews had about the Messiah: he would gather the tribes of Israel; he would cleanse the temple; he would destroy Israel’s enemies; and he would reign as king of the Gentiles.  So far, none of that seems to have happened from what John knows.  So John questions (we can say that because the evangelist says it) if maybe Jesus was a special person, but not the Messiah.  
    Of course, we know that our Lord is the Messiah.  We hear in the Gospels how Jesus not only cleanses the temple, but raises up a new temple, His Sacred Body, in the Resurrection.  In His Death, He destroys sin and death, the great enemy of God’s people, forever.  He gathers the Twelve as the new patriarchs of the tribes of the new Israel, the Church; and, as St. Paul talks about in our epistle, the Gentiles are gathered together under the reign of Christ the King.  
    But I’m willing to bet that we have had times where we can sympathize with John the Baptist.  We have recognized Christ as the Lord; we have felt His presence in our life; perhaps we have even seen miracles that He has worked for us or for friends and family.  But then something goes wrong; and then another something; and then life doesn’t happen exactly the way that we expect it to go.  And all the sudden, those experiences we have with the Lord get questioned, perhaps even doubted, and we’re wondering if we bet on the wrong horse.  
    To these questions, we can look to our Lord for the answer.  How does our Lord respond to John’s disciples?  Look to what He has done.  The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the poor have the Good News proclaimed to them.  God gives us clues that He is who He says He is, and it’s in what He accomplishes day by day.  We have only to be attentive to what is happening.
    God is not detached from our life.  It is very easy to fall into the deist view of God, that God is like a grand watch-maker, who put everything together and wound everything up, but then just lets it all go.  But God still interacts in the life of His People.  He does not simply watch from afar, but changes individuals lives.  In the house explosion that happened just six houses down from St. Pius X on the Monday before Thanksgiving, there is a story about a woman and her boyfriend who lived next-door to the house that exploded.  The boyfriend wanted to go out and do something fun, but the woman didn’t want to go out.  After her boyfriend kept asking her, she relented and they went out and about, only to find out minutes later, that the house next to theirs had exploded, and their home was destroyed.  The woman noted in her recounting that she just had this little voice telling her to go out, so she did.  And it changed her life.
    Sometimes we get so busy that we fail to hear that voice, or we hear it and act on it, but then forget that our conscience is the voice of God in our hearts.  We fail to recognize the works of God that are happening everyday.  Sometimes they get mentioned on the news, like with the woman who left her home shortly before it burned up, but more often than not they are not famous stories or publicized, but are in the daily moments of our life.  Advent is a perfect time for quiet reflection on those ways that God intervenes in our life in ways that can only be seen and heard for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
    During this Advent season, we should be making time for God in silence.  It could be in our Monday times of Adoration, or simply in a prayer corner in your home.  But wherever it is, we need silence, even just a couple of minutes, to be able to hear the voice of God and see how He operates in our life.  That may seem especially difficult with kids, but even kids need to nap, and that can be a perfect time to catch some quick time with God.  God knows you’re busy; He knows that you have family and work responsibilities.  But He asks for even just a few moments so that He can share His love with you, and help you to see what He is doing in your life.
    We all can have moments where we wonder what God is doing.  We don’t understand why something is happening in our life.  Do we pay attention to what God has done for us in the past, and what He promises for us in our future, beyond the present struggles?  Do we still trust in what has been revealed by God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit?

What God Will Do For Us

 Second Sunday of Advent

    Last week I preached about how we prepare during Advent, both for Christmas and for the second coming of Christ.  We should still have that attitude of preparation in mind as we continue into this second week of Advent.  Our prayer, sacrifices, and almsgiving should be increased from usual so that we can be ready when Christ returns and when we celebrate His birth.  
    This week our readings remind us of what God is going to do.  God has begun a good work in us, and desires that, cooperating with Him, that work is brought to completion in Christ Jesus.  God desires that our love “increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that [we] may be pure and blameless,” as St. Paul said in our second reading.
    We can often think that we are the ones who are doing most of the work.  And while our cooperation with God’s grace is necessary (we are not simply passive spectators in the process of our salvation), God does most of the work, and without God, holiness is impossible.  Without God we cannot be free from sin; without God we cannot hope to enter heaven; without God we cannot be the saints that He desires us to be.  God is always giving us what we need so that we can live as disciples of Jesus.
    First, God desires that we take off our robe of mourning and misery, and he puts on us the cloak of justice.  We heard this phrase in our first reading from the book of the prophet Baruch.  Baruch worked with the prophet Jeremiah.  He saw the destruction of Jerusalem, including the magnificent temple of Solomon, in 587 BC.  That would certainly be a reason to mourn and be miserable.  He also saw many of the Israelites be deported from Judea to Babylon, while others who were allowed to stay in Judea, despite God’s warning to the contrary, fled to Egypt.  Again, mourning and misery.  
    But God promises through Baruch to bring the people back, even carried like on a royal throne.  He promises to return them to the Promised Land, and to lower the mountains, and raise up the gorges.  This connects directly with our Gospel, where we heard about St. John the Baptist, “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” the one about whom Isaiah prophesied who would prepare the way for the Lord, make straight his paths, lower every hill and mountain, and raise up the valleys.  And, importantly, Isaiah concludes, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”  
    While God did fulfill the promise through Baruch to bring the people back to their home after the Babylonian Exile beginning in 538 BC.  But this prophecy was meant for more than simply a literal reading.  God gives it a spiritual meaning which applies to us even today.
    First of all, what is the robe of mourning and misery?  It is sin.  We chose, in Adam and Eve, to disobey God and to cover ourselves in sin.  We usually think of Adam and Eve covering themselves up after they sinned, because of their shame of their own nakedness, and their lustful desire for the other.  So they sew fig leaves together for clothes, which were not that comfortable.  But Genesis also says that, after God explained the consequence of their sin, He also made them leather garments for clothes.  He gave them something much more comfortable and durable, even while it still hid their nakedness.  
    When we sin, we cover ourselves in uncomfortable clothes.  But God wants to give us a cloak of justice, clothes which take away our sins and restore us to right relationship with God, which the word justice connotes.   That is our baptismal garment, the white cloth which represents our purity before God.  It’s not simply hiding our sins, but God takes away our sins and gives us His holiness, which we are free to keep wearing, or to throw off when we sin.  Sin is uncomfortable clothes, and causes us grief, and yet, we still sometimes choose to abandon the cloak that God made for us for clothing that doesn’t protect us from the elements.
    The hills are the struggles that we have in the spiritual life, the trials and tribulations that are difficult in life.  It can be a bad break-up of a relationship or friendship; the death of a loved one, especially during this time between Thanksgiving and Christmas; the loss of a job, or an unexpected bill.  These events and realities make life seem like nothing but an uphill climb.  But in the place that God has prepared for us, our true home in heaven, all these challenges have been leveled off so that we don’t have to experience them anymore.  
    The valleys are all the easy ways that we slide into sin.  It can be talking about an annoying co-worker or boss; too much time spent on social media; the white lies we tell so that we don’t have to tell someone something unpleasant; lust in thought, word, and/or deed that looks so enjoyable but leaves one empty.  God promises to fill those in for us so that we don’t coast into a life that pushes Him away.  In heaven, there won’t be those easy temptations that can so quickly lead us astray.
    And lastly, in heaven, we see the full and complete salvation of our God, as Isaiah promised.  If we’re in heaven, we’re there for eternity, and we spend eternity basking in the love of God, who created us to be with Himself.  St. Paul says that right now we see dimly, as is a mirror (mirrors were not as clear then as we have them now), but later we shall see clearly.  Our goal of preparing with God’s grace is so that we can be with God forever.  Because for us, as Catholics, the Promised Land is not a place on earth, but our true home in heaven, where God wants to lead us after this exile through the valley of tears.  He gives us glimpses of heaven in this liturgy, where we gaze upon the same Christ who saved us by His Death and Resurrection, and who saves us each day whenever we cooperate with Him in living a holy life.  That helps us to stay on the narrow path that leads to salvation, and avoid the valleys of easy sins, and gives us strength to climb the mountains that inevitably arise in our lives.  
    But, as we continue to prepare for Christ’s return in glory and to celebrate the Nativity, God promises good for us.  He promises to clothe us in holiness, garments that do not merely cover our sins, but transform us from sinners into His adopted children.  He promises to assist us with grace to climb the difficult mountains and avoid the easy valleys of sin.  He promises to do everything He can to help us see the salvation that He desires for us, which is only possible with His help.  God has set forth for us the goal of our Advent preparations.  He has shown us what He desires for us.  Will we accept His offer?

How Much or Little We Prepare

 First Sunday of Advent

    In one of the final building scenes of the movie, “A Few Good Men,” Lt. Daniel Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise, questions Col. Nathan R. Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson.  At one point, Lt. Kaffee asks Col. Jessep what preparations he made to travel from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Washington, D.C., for the trial of two marines under Col. Jessep’s command who allegedly had killed Private Willie Santiago.  Col. Jessep says that he wore his utility uniform on the plane, but packed his dress uniform.  Lt. Kaffee continues asking if Col. Jessep brought his “Toothbrush, shaving kit, change of underwear,” which Col. Jessep confirmed.  Col. Jessep later states that he called a family member, a Congressman, and a friend in DC to let them know that he was coming.  Lt. Kaffee skillfully compares the preparation Col. Jessep made for a short trip to the total lack of preparations Pvt. Santiago made for being transferred from Gitmo for the rest of his life.  Without giving away the climax of the movie, the truth of what happened is revealed through the preparations, or the lack of preparations, made by Pvt. Santiago.
    As we begin our season of Advent, we are in a season of preparation.  We are not Marines begging to get away from a tough commanding officer, but followers of Christ, waiting to celebrate with joy the annual celebration of the Nativity of the Lord, and waiting for our Lord to return.  But our preparations, or the lack of preparations, tell us about how or if we will be prepared for when Christmas comes and when Christ returns.  Because the Gospels are clear, through many parables, that if Christ catches us off-guard, it will not be good for us.
    When we think about preparing as a Church, we generally put more emphasis on Lent as a penitential time to prepare for Easter.  But Advent, too, is a time of penance and denying ourselves so that we can be ready to celebrate with joy.  Advent is a kind of mini-Lent, shorter, and leading up to a celebration that is not as big as Easter.  But it is still meant to help us grow in prayer and the life of virtue.
    We may not always think of sacrificing as a good thing.  But we are good at sacrificing for things that we really want.  Perhaps you are working overtime during these weeks leading up to Christmas to pay for the extra expenses for family and friends.  Kids, who usually like to sleep in, will deny themselves those extra hours of sleep on Christmas morning to see what kind of presents they received.  When we treasure something, we are willing to change our lives for the thing we treasure.  Are we willing to do the same for our Lord this Advent?
    It is easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of these days leading up to Christmas.  Besides our usual responsibilities at work and/or home, there’s the decorations that will need to go up (or have already gone up), the parties with families and friends, and Christmas music has been playing on some radio stations since just after Halloween.  There’s also the stress of trying to find that just-right gift for the ones we love, the question of how much we can afford to spend, and how much we want to travel as snow starts to fall and make our commutes a bit more difficult than usual.  If we are not purposeful about taking time to prepare, before we know it, we’ll be getting ready to go to Christmas Mass and wondering where the time went.  I know that November, for me at least, has flown by; I’m not sure exactly why it went so quickly, but it did.  Even more so will December likely fly by.  So we should make plans now for how we can prepare, rather than fall into Christmas.
    Like Lent, the Church invites us to pray more during Advent.  During Lent we pray especially for mercy and recognizing our sins, as we “turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.”  During Advent we can also pray for mercy and seek conversion, the avoidance of sin and the embracing of good.  But we do so with the view of preparing for Christ to return and wanting to keep our baptismal garments white with purity, as our parents or we were instructed to do at baptism.  
    We can also make our own the prayer of the early Church, marana tha, “Come, Lord,” and ask for Jesus to return.  We know that this world is not the way it is supposed to be.  And we know that when our Lord returns He will set everything right.  Our prayer should be for that to happen soon, so that pain, sorrow, and suffering do not have to last any longer, but can come to and end and wholeness, joy, and happiness can be the only thing that we disciples experience.  
    In Advent, we also focus on bringing more light into our lives, namely, the light of Christ.  In our part of the world, it’s dark–a lot–this time of year.  You wake up in darkness, and you eat dinner in darkness.  And yet, we are preparing for the Light of the World, Christ, to come forth from the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to shine upon the darkness of our lives and our world so that we can see clearly.  Our Advent candles remind us of the growing light.  And again, Advent is a time to reflect on our baptism, when we received a baptismal candle and were told to keep it burning until the return of Christ in glory, like the wise virgins with their lamps in the Gospel parable.  How do we keep the light of faith alive in our hearts?  How do we share that light with others so that they, too, can see?  What guides are enlightening our pilgrim path through this world?  Is it simply worldly wisdom, which often leads us away from God, or is it the wisdom of Scripture and the teachings of the Church, which guide us to the sun that never sets in heaven, Jesus Christ our Lord?  
    Advent, like Lent, is also a time of almsgiving, of helping the poor.  We have our giving tree that is up at St. Pius X, and so many organizations collect money and toys for those who do not have the financial resources to celebrate this time of year with food or presents that many of us take for granted.  Especially in the cold, winter months, we can assist others with donating gloves, hats, and coats to keep people warm, especially if we no longer use them and they are just taking up space in our closet.  Service to the poor is a year-round call for us as disciples, but especially as we prepare to welcome Christ at Christmas.  In centuries gone past, the preparation for Christmas began closer to St. Martin’s Day, 11 November.  St. Martin was a soldier who became a bishop in France, but as a soldier he cut his cloak in two to give to a poor man who was cold along the side of the road.  That night in a dream, he saw Christ with that cloak, and knew vividly what our Lord said in the Gospel of Matthew: Whatever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do for me.  Our own charity can mimic St. Martin’s in our shorter preparation for Christmas.
    Our end is in our beginning.  Our preparations dictate how the actual event will go.  Advent is an easily-missed season, because it is so short, and because we have so much going on.  But take time to prepare, not only for all that is going on in your work and personal life, but for our Lord’s Nativity and His second coming in glory.  Don’t let Christ catch you off-guard when He comes!

More Enduring than a Maytag

Last Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I don’t feel that I’m that old, but more and more the cultural things that seem part and parcel of my life are more and more disconnected from the youth today.  For example, I remember the Maytag commercials, with the Maytag repairman sitting in his office, waiting for the phone to ring.  For me, when I think of things that last and that don’t break down, I think of the Maytag man.  I’m not sure young people today would even know who the Maytag man is.

    Our Lord today focuses on a lot of things that will happen at the end, or as the end approaches.  There are things that will come, and things that will go.  There will be great trials and tribulations.  False messiahs and false prophets will arise and do great wonders.  “The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars will fall from heaven.”  Then the angels will accompany the coming of the Son of Man, with a trumpet and a loud voice.  These are the things from which itinerant and television preachers make a lot of money and gain lots of fame.  They are all sure that they know that the end is coming very soon, even though our Lord Himself says that only the Father knows the time, not the angels nor even the Son. 
    But the last words of the Gospel today remind us, that while things will come and go as the end approaches (and the end is approaching; it’s closer today than it was yesterday), there is one thing that will not change.  “Heaven and earth shall pass away,” Christ says, “but my words shall not pass away.” 
    The word of God is enduing; it lasts forever.  It does not come and go based on empires and nations, based upon fads and societal norms.  It endures forever.  And if we wish to survive whatever trials and tribulations will come, whenever they come (which they will), we need to be grounded in the Word of God, which is the rock foundation upon which our house should be built if we don’t want it to be swept away with the floods.
    When Catholics use the phrase “Word of God,” we can use it in different ways.  We use it to describe the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Jesus Christ.  He is the Word through whom all things were made, the eternal Word of God, whom we profess every time we say the Prologue of the Gospel of John.  Christ is the expression of the Father who reveals to us who the Father is.  He is the Divine Word who speaks words that help us know the way to the Father, which is the desired destiny for all those whom God has created in His image and likeness.  So when we talk abut the Word of God, we use that phrase par excellence to refer to Christ.
    We can also use it to refer to the words of writing that were inspired by the Word of God.  We speak of the Word of God as the Scriptures, the privileged communication of God throughout the centuries.  Most religions are humanity seeking after God.  In Judaism, and its fulfillment in Catholicism, God seeks after us, and communicates who He is, how He made the world, and how we are to find true and lasting happiness.  While we are described by Muslims as people of the book, we are really people of the Word, who treasure what God has revealed to us in the Scriptures.  The public revelation of God through the Scriptures leads up in the Old Testament to the coming of the Messiah in the Gospels, and then opens up the consequences of what the Messiah did for us through the rest of the New Testament.  We find a sure guide in the Scriptures of understanding God and knowing how we are to live as disciples of Christ.
    But the Scriptures need unpacking to help us understand which parts are to be taken literally, and which parts are different literary expressions of deeper truths.  Sometimes the same grammatical structures express two different types of truth.  For example, in the Gospel according to John, our Lord says that He is the Bread of Life.  And that is what we believe He is, especially in our understanding of the Eucharist.  We take that quite literally.  In another place, Christ says that He is the vine, and we are the branches.  But we don’t confess our Savior to be a plant.  Same grammatical structure, different interpretation.  And so the Word of God can also mean the authentically and authoritative interpretations of Scripture that we find in the teachings of the Church.  From the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, God’s word is also made manifest when the Mystical Body of Christ the Word, also known as the Church, teaches something as necessary for true faith or morals.  Official Church teachings are also God communicating to us for our salvation, and are sure guides to being the disciples and saints that God calls us to be in baptism.  Ecumenical Councils, and magisterial teachings of the Pope and the Bishops continue to open up the Word of God and help us to know who God is in Himself and in His works. 
    The Word of God does not change, and we can safely build our houses on it, really, on Him, since Christ is the Word of God.  We don’t have to know exactly when the Son of Man will return.  But we do need to be attentive to the Son of Man and what He revealed to us.  And if we do, then we will be part of the elect who will survive the trials and tribulations that the Savior mentions in the Gospel.  If we build our life on the Word of God–Jesus Christ, the Scriptures, and the official teachings of the Church–then the end is not a fearful time, but the consummation of our Lord’s love for us and our love for the Lord.  If we build our life on the Word of God, and do our best to follow it each and every day, then it doesn’t matter when that great and glorious and terrible day of our Lord’s return is, because we are ready each day for Him to come back and take us to Himself. 
    Maytags were advertised as washing machines that were so reliable, that their repairmen had nothing to do.  But even more as something that lasts is the Word of God, which is the same yesterday, today, and forever, because the Word of God is Christ the Son, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign forever and ever.  Amen.  

Patience with the Kingdom of Heaven

 Resumed 6th Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Rhetorical question here, but how many of you have ever struggled with patience?  Perhaps some of you are better than I, but it’s been a long struggle to stay calm and not get easily frustrated.  I will say that I am better now than I used to be, but I’m still a work in progress.
    As our Lord talks about the kingdom of heaven, in today’s Gospel, he uses two images that require patience: a mustard seed and leaven.  One certainly involves more patience than the other, but both require patience.  If you plant the mustard seed in the ground, it takes a while for it to bloom and become that large bush where the birds dwell.  And even with leaven, it’s not like you add the yeast to flour and immediately the dough starts rising.  You have to wait, sometimes overnight, for it to really rise.  So, besides the fact that our Lord teaches us that the kingdom of heaven starts small, He is also teaching us that we need to be patient as the kingdom of heaven grows.
    This is important for us to remember as we see the numbers of Catholics who practice their faith decline.  In many ways we are impatient, we want to see huge numbers at Mass, living their faith in the public square, and transforming the City of Man to be more like the City of God.  But sometimes, God makes us wait.
    Now, this is not to suggest that we sit on our rumps and be passive.  The decline in the number of Catholics who are practicing is startling, and should shake us out of complacency.  In many ways, COVID exacerbated the problem, but even if we didn’t close down our churches for two and a half months, we would have still seen the same decline, just at a slower rate.  After all, do we really think that, but for COVID, lukewarm Catholics not living their faith and not allowing the faith to transform their private and public lives would have led to more people wanting to be Catholic?  I think we are fooling ourselves if we take that position.  Catholics who don’t live for the kingdom of heaven tend not to attract new Catholics, no matter how many come to Mass each Sunday.  It’s like pretending that we’re going to make a profit on selling a widget for $1 when it costs $2 to make, as long as we just sell a huge amount of widgets.  The math doesn’t add up.  So the spiritual math of expecting people in pews who aren’t committed to the faith to stem the tide of Catholics leaving the Church isn’t there.
    But, at the same time that we should recommit ourselves to living a Christ-centered life, and spreading the Gospel in our daily lives, both at home and at work, by word and by deed, we shouldn’t freak out that numbers aren’t growing right now.  That’s hard to do; I know.  As I mentioned, I’m impatient, and so when I looked at our October counts for St. Matthew, both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Form Masses, there was that quick sense of panic that things aren’t growing, which means I’m not making a difference, which means I’m not doing a good enough job or simply enough period; I need to do more (even though I was feeling like I was burning the candle at both ends).  It’s easy to get caught in the numbers game, and treat the Church like a corporation, where, if the profits don’t rise consistently every year, we aren’t doing something right (profits being akin to people in the pews for the church).  
    Growth of the kingdom takes time, and often happens in unseen ways.  In all reality, the Church started with less than 100 people at Pentecost, who spread the Gospel, and thousands were converted in that one day.  But those thousands were from around north Africa, the Holy Land, and Asia Minor.  When you get them spread out, you don’t really have a mega-church.  
    We probably tend to think about the churches St. Paul founded like dioceses (which many did later become) and presume that the diocese had lots of people, like the Diocese of Lansing does (we’re a smaller diocese, and we have, as of 2019, around 191,000 Catholics).  In fact, from what I have heard and read, the Church in Corinth likely had 50-150 people.  And they had so many problems that St. Paul wrote them two epistles.  The Church in Rome likely had more people, and spread more quickly, but there were more people in Rome, especially slaves and immigrants, who were very eager to hear the Gospel and put their faith in Christ.  I don’t have any sense of the numbers, but maybe no bigger than our diocese, and likely smaller.  It took time and fidelity for the Church in Rome to blossom into the populated metropolitan diocese that it is today.  In almost every place where the Gospel has been planted, like the mustard seed, it took time to grow before it became a large bush in which the birds to dwell.  As we are now living in pagan times once more (if not officially, than de facto), we should not be surprised that it will take some time for things to grow once more.  

    Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus, stated in 1969: 

[The Church] will become small and will have to start pretty much all over again.  […] The reduction in the number of faithful will lead it to losing an important part of its social privileges.  It will be a more spiritual Church, and…will be poor and will become the Church of the destitute.

He also said, “Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely.  […] Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new.  They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.”  Again, that was said in 1969.  
    We cannot be complacent in sharing the Gospel, but as the Lord said, the kingdom of heaven starts small, and takes time to grow to its full stature.  May the Lord grant us patience and fidelity in the meantime, and help us to be those faithful witnesses that will draw others to the joy and hope of the Gospel.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Confutatis and Lacrimosa

 Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
    One of my favorite pieces of classical music is Mozart’s “Requiem” Mass.  I first heard it by watching the movie “Amadeus,” which is the story of Mozart’s troubled and amazing life.  Part of the music which is, in my opinion, angelic, are the two movements: “Confutatis maledictis” and “Lacrimosa.”  These two movements come from the larger sequence, “Dies irae,” which used to be used in every funeral, or requiem Mass.  
    At first you might think that “Day of Wrath,” (which is what Dies irae means) may not be the music you want to hear at a funeral.  And that first verse is, “Day of wrath!  O day of mourning! / See fulfilled the prophets warning, / Heaven and earth in ashes burning!”  These images come from the Biblical images that we heard about in today’s readings.  In our first reading, we heard the Prophet Daniel prophesy, “it shall be a time unsurpassed in distress since nations began until that time.”  And even Jesus says the end shall include a time where “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”  That is somewhat sounding like a Dies irae. 

   These very stressful images comes from God making things right again.  The world has a way it likes operating in its fallen mode.  It has become comfortable with sin and death.  But as Christ returns, sin and death will be brought to an end, which will be traumatic on the system of sin and death.  It’s like the world is a car driving 70 mph on the freeway, and Jesus’ return is kicking it into reverse while driving.
    But it’s not just the world.  As we think about the end, we can also examine our own lives.  In what ways have we become comfortable with sin?  What sins do we excuse as “natural” and “everyday” issues.  This is not to say that some sins are not more egregious than others; that’s why we delineate between mortal and venial sin.  But even the smallest venial sin is not part of God’s original or final plan for humanity and the world.  Even a venial sin offends God and made Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross necessary.  So in our own life, if we are comfortable with sin, the change to no sin will seem quite traumatic for us, as traumatic as death is in the face of life.  We know death is not supposed to happen, and it pains us deeply.  In fact, we fight against it with all we have.  That will be like what happens when Christ comes to undo the reign of sin and death in us.  And that is why the Church talks about Purgatory as a purification.  Purgatory is that process after death of changing us from a life of sin to a life of holiness.  It’s a total overhaul.  And overhauls can be painful.  The end result is always worth it: eternal life.  But until the end product is achieved, it’s painful to be retooled.  
    Still, the end is worth it, and it’s not all pain and suffering.  Even in the Dies irae we hear verses such as: “Think, kind Jesu! –my salvation / Caused Thy wondrous Incarnation; / Leave me not to reprobation.” and “With Thy sheep a place provide me, / From the goats afar divide me, / To Thy right hand do Thou guide me.”  And the sequence even ends with, “Lord, all-pitying, Jesus blest, / Grant them Thine eternal rest.  Amen.”  
    The end of the change from a world of sin is the final completion of what Jesus achieved on the cross: the end of sin and death forever.  But, as with so many things in life, the peace only comes after the struggle.  However, with Jesus, the struggle isn’t a competition where we wonder who will win.  Jesus has already won, and we’re just waiting to taste the fruits of that victory.  
    So when we talk about the end times, do we, as Catholics need to fear?  We are, each day, one day closer to Christ returning in glory to judge the living and dead, as we profess each time we say the Creed.  Should the Day of Wrath be something that we fret about?
    That depends on how we’re living our life.  The more we live like we’re in heaven, the less that we will experience a Day of Wrath at the end.  The more that we’re responding to God’s will, saying yes to the invitations of God each day, the less painful it will be at the end of our lives.  The more we live like earth is all there is, the more we will be on a trajectory for “when the wicked are confounded, / Doomed to flames of woe unbounded,” and “that day of tears and mourning,” as the Confutatis and Lacrimosa state in the Dies Irae.  
    And the good news is that Jesus is there to help us.  He stands at the right hand of the Father, as we heard in our second reading, interceding for us, and showering His grace upon us so that we can live the heavenly life here on earth, and put to death on earth our fallen, sinful nature, while we rise to our glorified, heavenly nature.  For in the end, only Christ’s grace will be able to transform us.  Pie Iesu Domine, / Dona nobis requiem.  Merciful Lord Jesus, grant us eternal rest.  Amen. 

National Vocation Awareness Week

 Resumed Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  This week the Church in the United States focuses on vocations in National Vocation Awareness week.  We are invited by our bishops to focus our attention on vocations to the priesthood, diaconate, and consecrated life, and to pray for those considering it.
    Vocations to holy orders and consecrated life are such important parts of the Church’s life.  Through priests, we have access to the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance, by which our sins are forgiven.  Deacons assist with baptisms and funerals, as well as at Mass, and are of great service to the Church in many other ways.  Consecrated men and women remind us that this world is not all there is, and that we should always keep our minds and hearts on heaven, where all the People of God will be poor (relying on God for everything), chaste, and obedient.  A sign of a healthy parish is when men and women consider these forms of life.  We will be blessed in a little over a month to have one of the sons of St. Matthew parish, Deacon Jeff Raths, ordained to the priesthood for the Augustinians.  I know that we have other men who are considering a vocation to the priesthood, as well.  
    As with any vocation, a call to the priesthood, diaconate, or consecrated life is a call from God, a gift, which cannot be earned.  A vocation is a way to build up the Church and to serve the Church to assist in the spreading of the Gospel and the salvation of souls.  No one is worthy of the call, but Christ makes worthy those whom He calls.
 

Bishop Boyea anoints my hands in my ordination to the priesthood

   In my own life, my discernment was not some audible voice from the heavens, nor did I get struck by lightning.  It came through perseverance in prayer, openness to doing, first and foremost the will of God, and a dialogue with the Church to see if I would be a good priest. I didn’t hear an answer when I wanted (God was teaching me patience, I think).  But through daily prayer, going to Mass when I could (beyond Sundays and holydays), and even listening to others, I was able to discern that I had to apply to go to seminary.  And in seminary, by following the formation program, I was able to discern that I wanted to be a priest, and the Church decided that I would be a good priest.  That’s a super simplified version, but it’s the gist of what I went through.  There were no really big moments in my life that pushed me, but the daily openness to the will of God and trying to do His will as best as I knew it.
    The month of November is also dedicated to prayers for the dead.  The priest is the one who can help usher a soul to God at the end of life, and can help save souls.  The priest is invited in to the life of a parishioner at the last moments, and through the last sacraments of Penance, Anointing of the Sick, and Viaticum, as well as the plenary indulgence of the Apostolic Pardon, can change the trajectory of where a soul is headed.  Without priests, we are left to our own virtue, which is not always promising.  Without priests, I know families would be more distraught at the loss of a loved one.  And without priests (and deacons), there would be no one to commend the soul to God in a funeral.
    The priesthood requires a real man.  It is not for the faint of heart.  I certainly could not imagine doing anything else with my life, nor could imagine being truly happy in any other vocation.  But there are hard days (just like there are in marriage and family life), and like any vocation, it does require sacrifice.  But the sacrifices are worth it, and are easily borne because of love.  I would hope that any young man here would consider a vocation to the priesthood.  If it does work out, it is a great service to the Church.  Or, if God calls you to another form of life, discerning the priesthood is always beneficial to knowing what God wants you to do and having that certainty that you knew the vocation God was calling you to, rather than simply defaulting to marriage because it is most common.  
    So, too, consecrated life, which includes monks and nuns, brothers and sisters, and consecrated virgins, is a call that takes courage.  In a society that values money, sex, and one’s will over almost everything else, the call to be poor, chaste, and obedient is a kind of revolt against the fallen values of the secular world.  But, again, it is a special form of life to which Christ calls some, and any young man or woman should consider if God is calling you to it.  The religious men and women I know are some of the happiest people I know.  We have our sisters here, the Servants of God’s Love, and I know some of the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, as well as a few consecrated virgins.  They exude happiness; and not the passing happiness from having what one wants at the moment, but the longer-lasting happiness of doing the will of God and living that vocation with others.  In addition to the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience, the blessing (and challenge) of community life is one of the marks of so many consecrated men and women.  They know that they are not alone as they seek to imitate the poor, chaste, and obedient Christ.  I certainly also encourage young men and women of the parish to consider consecrated life.  We need that witness of those who live the heavenly life already here on earth.
    And in order to have good priests, deacons, and consecrated men and women, we need good and holy families that encourage discernment.  Vocations don’t fall out of heaven in a gift box; they are the fruit of a family seeking to do the will of God and developing good habits of discernment like daily prayer, devotion to the Eucharist, and frequent reception of the sacraments.  It also does take the encouragement (but not forcing the issue) of vocations in the family or among friends of parishioners.  Never be afraid to tell a young man or young woman that you think he or she would be a good priest, deacon, or consecrated man or woman.  You don’t have to tell them every time you see them, but mention it once in a while, as a way of letting them know that it’s a good thing to consider in life.
    This week the Church invites us to assist others in discerning a vocation.  May our lives and our witness help others to consider a life that puts service to the Church as a real possibility to be the man or woman that God is calling them to be.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.