Advent: A Time of Conversion

First Sunday of Advent

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  One of the many duties with which I help out for the Michigan State Police, or MSP for short, is working with those who want to join the MSP.  Wednesday nights will generally find me at Grand Blanc High School as I help applicants with water rescue drills (like treading water while passing a 10-pound brick, water pull-ups, and rescuing me or others who pretend to be drowning).  I have also “helped” applicants with physical training (though, they have mostly been in better shape than I am).  There’s a new Trooper Recruit School that will start in January, the 150th since the Department was founded in 1917, and a few of the applicants I have worked with will be in that school.  I want to make sure they are prepared as they can be before it starts, and I’m excited and hopeful for them to make it all the way through the twenty grueling weeks and graduate in May 2026.  I can’t do it for them, but I can assist them before and pray for them during their training.

    In Advent we focus on preparing for Christ: for His first coming some 2,000 years ago; for our celebration of His coming at Christmas; for His return in glory (we often refer to this as His second coming).  But He also comes to us, and not only us, in our day-to-day lives.  Our readings today, especially our Gospel, focus us on remaining watchful for the return of Christ in glory.  But we should also remain on high alert for the ways Christ wants to come to us today, and tomorrow, and the days afterwards.
    I also believe that Advent is also a special time to recognize how Christ comes to those who do not know Him, or do not know Him fully.  Advent is a special time to focus on conversions for those who do not believe in Christ, or for those who believe in Christ but do not have full union with the one Church He founded (the Catholic Church), or for those who have fallen away from the practice of their faith.  Are we attentive to how Christ works in the lives of those who are, in any way, ignorant of Him?
    It might seem odd to think that Christ could work in the heart of someone who is not directly connected to God in one way or another or who has walked away from Him.  But God offers what we call prevenient grace, the grace that comes before a movement of the soul towards God.  If we didn’t acknowledge this, we would say that we do some good work without God, and that God simply affirms the good we work we have begun, or gives us an ‘atta boy for something He hadn’t planned for us.  Instead, we know that any movement toward God is already a grace, because God begins all good work, and our job consists in cooperating with that grace.
    So who are the people in our lives that do not yet know God or do not recognize Christ as the Messiah or do not practice their Catholic faith?  God desires the salvation of every person.  God doesn’t want us to force conversion (as if a true conversion could be forced), but wants us to help others understand that He does exist, and not only that, but He loves us and wants to be in a relationship with us.  How do we do this?  For starters, we pray for that person.  Saul, who later became St. Paul, did not at first believe that our Lord was the Messiah, but I’m sure people prayed that he, a great Jewish scholar, might have the scales fall from his mind that prevented him from acknowledging how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah.  And we know just how powerfully that happened, and how St. Paul became one of the world’s greatest proclaimers of the Gospel.  And all that from the prayers of those who followed Christ and who probably suffered persecution from Saul.
    Secondly, we can be attentive to what’s going on in a friend’s life.  When a person struggles or when an unexpected favor happens, that’s a great time to talk to them about God and His Church.  Christ wants the other to see how faith in Him can conquer any problem, and that He showers His blessings upon every person so that they can believe in Him.  But Christ uses us to help others to see that.  Maybe the conversation about God is not too explicit at first, but helping others to see God’s plan, and the ways we can cooperate with that plan, can help bring a person to faith.
    Thirdly, we can help them see that a full relationship with God and the truth He has revealed happens in the Catholic Church.  Sometimes Catholics get a little queasy about this part, because they may not feel like they know enough about the Church to answer all questions a person might have.  Don’t be afraid of saying, “I don’t know; let’s find out together.”  Or maybe, “I’ve always just trusted that it was true.  I can ask around to make sure this makes sense.”  The truths of the faith will stand up to any inquiry and academic rigor.  We don’t have to be afraid of other people questioning certain teachings.  
    So this Advent, commit yourself to watching for Christ to make himself known in someone who is not Catholic.  Pray for a non-Catholic or fallen away Catholic; help a non-Catholic or fallen away Catholic see how God is working or could work in his or her life; explain why the Catholic Church means so much to you and how her teachings help one live a truly happy life.  Will you always see successful conversions?  No.  But you will fulfill the call of Advent to watch for Christ’s coming in your daily life, and what joy you will have if that person does decide to become Catholic and join us as we all watch and wait for Christ to return in glory [who, with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, live and reign for ever.  Amen].

Preparing for the End

Last Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  No small number of people spend no small amount of time trying to figure out exactly when the end of the world will come.  It’s like the meme on the Internet of the Pepe Silvia conspiracy board from the show, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”  I’ve never watch the show, but from time-to-time I’ll see the meme with this office worker who has a stressed look on his face as he points to numerous sheets of paper push-pinned to the board with red lines going between the papers.  
    We ourselves may sometimes go down a rabbit hole or two as we hear these passages and then think of how the world seems to be spinning out of control.  Our Lord talks about false messiahs, the darkening of the sun and moon, stars falling from heaven, and the like.  Elsewhere Christ talks about wars, earthquakes, famines, plagues, and other calamities, all of which we have seen all too frequently.  And certainly we know that the return of Christ in glory is closer today than it was yesterday.  
    But the temptation can be that we’re so focused on trying to figure out if it’s now, or tomorrow, or next week, that we miss out on opportunities for growth in holiness, that will make the end times less problematic for us.  St. Paul tells us in the epistle that God desires us to grow in wisdom and spiritual understanding, to allow our good works to bear fruit, and to grow in knowledge of Him.  We know from Christ the God desires that we love Him with all of who we are and love our neighbor as ourselves.  Christ tells us that our judgement won’t go easier just because we had a passing familiarity with Him (“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”).  And He tells us the way we treat the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, ill, and those in prison will determine our judgement because the way we treated them were the ways we treated Christ.  What Christ doesn’t say is that we will go to heaven if we can decipher on what day and at which hour the end will come (which, point of fact, Christ one earth even said that He does not know).
    Christ does say that the end will be difficult.  He reminds us in the Gospel that if He did not shorten the tribulations, not even the elect would be saved.  But, for those who follow God to the best of their ability, they will survive the tribulations and shine like the stars in the heavens.  Christ uses the image of a woman in childbirth for how painful the end will be, but then the joy of having the newborn child makes the nine months of carrying the child and the pains of delivering the child worth it.  Or, for men, the pain and suffering from a man-cold, and the joy that comes when it finally ends.  
    But if we remain faithful to God, no matter what trials and tribulations come, we will enjoy eternal happiness.  It is as our gradual said, “You have delivered us, O Lord, from those who afflict us.”  The end will be difficult because God will be setting everything right that was wrong.  And just like setting a broken bone, the healing begins with some pain.  It will remain painful for those who persist in their brokenness and rejection of God, because God will respect their free choice and allow them the pain and suffering that come from rejecting God and His eternal happiness.  But for those who reached out for the mercy of God, the healing, though painful at first, will result in great joy and wholeness as we finally fulfill the purpose of our lives: eternal worship of God and having our loves ordered correctly.
    So what do we do?  Maybe it’s better to say what we don’t do.  Don’t waste time wondering if this world event, or if this situation in the Church, or if that natural phenomenon means the end is about to come.  Don’t stress out about things beyond our control.  Worrying and trying to determine the exact signs and times doesn’t help us grow closer to God.  Yes, we may mourn that Christ is so opposed in the world and the evil seem to thrive and calamities seem to multiply.  But rather do live a holy life as a husband or wife, father or mother, child or sibling, employer or employee.  Care for your family; show them the love of God; instruct them in the faith.  Treat people justly and as you would want to be treated.  Love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you.  Be harsh on your own sins, but merciful, patient, and understanding with others’.  Take up your daily cross and follow after the Lord, even if it’s not the cross you want to carry.  
     Christ will return, and His return is closer today than yesterday.  But if we do our best to follow Him with all our hearts, we have nothing to fear and everything to gain.  Christ will make the world right and usher in an eternity of joy, peace, truth, and love as He creates a new heaven and a new earth where all the elect will worship God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.   

Looking Back

Last Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When I turned forty, I wouldn’t say I had a mid-life crisis, but I will say that I took stock of my life.  Forty is not old, yet it significant, because eighty years old would be a good life, and the fortieth birthday means that I’m halfway there.  So I looked back to what I had done and what I had failed to do (using the words of the Confiteor).  
    As we come to this last Sunday of the liturgical year, we would do well to take stock of how our last year has gone.  I don’t mean so much in our natural lives, though that is fine to recall, too.  But I mean our spiritual lives.  How have we grown closer to Christ?  Or have we grown further separated from Him?  What virtues have really taken root?  Or what vices?  What grand intentions have we put into place?  Which ones remain simply intentions upon which we never or rarely acted?
    Our Lord gives us signs of when things would come to a head, so to speak.  One Scripture scholar notes that the abomination of which our Lord spoke in reference to Daniel was when the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes set up a statue of Zeus in the temple in the year 167 BC.  The scholar notes that early Christians would have seen the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 as a similar calamity.  But what has entered into the temples of the Holy Spirit that we are?  How have we given into the world and worldly views?
    Our Lord also mentions false messiahs.  Others will point to false saviors and false prophets, whether in the desert, or in a room.  He tells us not to believe them.  Do we have people or things in which we put the trust that we should only put in God?  It’s so easy to elevate a person like a political leader or party, or a material good like money to the place that only God should occupy.  I will even get very queasy when, in March, the phrase pops up associated with the Michigan State basketball team, “In Izzo we trust.”  I’m all for some good March Madness, and Tom Izzo, who is Catholic, does seem to find a way to bring his team along to the Big Dance.  And that phrase is said in jest.  But still, whom do we trust?  Maybe this time of year, we’re putting more trust than we should into Dan Campbell.  Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing the Lions win for a change.  And he seems like a good guy, so I’m not trying to detract from his good name.  But how much do we allow a win from our men in Honolulu blue to affect our lives?  There’s nothing wrong with being a Lion or a Spartan fan (though I know there are a number of Wolverine fans who would say differently to that last part), but how much of our lives are spent focusing on sports, distracting us from things that matter much more and last much longer?
    But this year-end review is not all bad news.  While it’s good to examine our conscience, we should not only focus on what we have done wrong, but what is going right?  How are we progressing in virtue and growing closer to God?  Because, even in the midst of these tribulations, God promises mercy to those who stay faithful.  Christ mentions that the days of tribulation will be shortened for the sake of the elect.  God knows how much we can take, and He doesn’t give us more than we can handle (even if we end up saying with St. Teresa of Calcutta, I wish God didn’t trust me so much).  And none of the end tribulations should catch us off guard, because Christ Himself has warned us about what is to come, even if some of it has already come.  

    What lasts is the word of God.  The teachings of Christ remain forever, and they are sure and steady anchors onto which we can hold.  If we connect ourselves to that anchor, the waves may crash upon us, and may even push us around a bit.  But if we anchor ourselves on Christ, then we won’t go far from Him, and we’ll remain in the kingdom of Christ with the saints in light.  
    So, spend some time today reflecting on the past liturgical year.  Focus on areas in which we can grow.  But, also focus on successes we have found in Christ and cooperating with Him.  Both are important to note.  And pray, as we come to the end of this liturgical year, that we will remain faithful to Christ, no matter what happens in the world; no matter what happens in the Church.  Pray that we will have the strength to survive any tribulation because we are connected to the one who does not pass away, even as the heavens and the earth will, God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Uploading Christ's Program

Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe/Last Sunday after Pentecost

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen]. While I now bristle at an app update taking more than 20 seconds, I am old enough to remember the days where, to play a game on the computer, you had to insert the floppy disk, and wait for it to load.  Or when you had to sign-on to the internet by getting your dial-up going, and hope that there was a good signal.  I remember starting software updates at night, because they were going to take hours, hoping that the install didn’t stall out, and you got the blue screen of death which meant you had to do a hard restart and do the process all over again.
    As we come to the last week of the liturgical year [in which we celebrate Christ the King], we are reminding about the kingship that Christ should have over our lives.  St. Paul says [in his letter to the Colossians] that we have been transferred from the power of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God.  And our Gospel points us to the end of time, when Christ will return to fully establish His Kingdom, which was inaugurated in His earthly ministry, His Passion and Death, and His Resurrection and Ascension.  
    But perhaps we feel like that transfer from the power of darkness to the kingdom of the Son has stalled a bit.  It’s like we inserted that floppy disk when we were baptized to install the new program in our lives, but it hasn’t finished the installation yet, and maybe our screen in life even seems frozen up.  We’re waiting for Christ to return.  Maybe even we see signs that Christ Himself prophesied would mean the end was near, but Christ hasn’t returned yet.  We still wait in joyful hope for the return of our Savior, Jesus Christ, as St. Paul says to St. Titus.  
    In the meantime, we have an opportunity to make sure that Christ’s program downloads more and more into out souls and into our lives.  Each day we have in this “already, but not yet” of the kingdom of God allows us to make sure that we model our lives more and more on the life of Christ, so that we can say with St. Paul, “It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.”
    The temptation is to hedge our bets, and try to guess the time of Christ’s return.  Christ, in Matthew 24 [the Gospel we heard today] describes some of the signs that will indicate His return.  But the same Christ also says that we will not know either the day or the hour.  Still, He advises us to ready ourselves, so that whenever it does happen, Christ will find us prepared for His return.  Sometimes we can so concern ourselves with figuring out the signs, that we forget about living the life of a disciple.  If we live as a faithful follower of Christ, it won’t matter when the end comes, because our lamps will be trimmed like the five wise virgins, and we will welcome Christ the Bridegroom, and enter into His wedding feast in heaven.
    So how do we prepare ourselves?  The Lord lays out part of the judgment in [our Gospel today from] Matthew 25.  How did we care for the least of His brothers?  Did we feed the hungry?  Did we give drink to the thirsty?  Did we welcome the stranger?  Did we clothe the naked?  Did we care for the sick?  Did we visit the imprisoned?  These are the Corporal Works of Mercy, and they are not optional for a disciple.  Their execution may look different depending on our vocation.  After all, what mother or father has not fed a hungry child, or clothed him or her (or possibly even a spouse who didn’t know how to dress himself?), or cared for the sick?  For spouses and parents, the more challenging works may be how to prudently welcome the stranger (how many times do we hear as a young child about stranger danger?).  But think about it in our own parish.  If we see someone we don’t know, do we take the time to welcome them to the parish?  We don’t have the scare them by swooping in like a hawk anytime we see someone new (there are plenty of bad examples of people being turned off to the faith because those who approached them saw them merely as numbers to add to the flock, rather than people who may be searching).  But do we ask them if they want to sit by us, or if maybe they need help following the Mass because it’s been awhile since they last went, or maybe they’re unfamiliar with the prayers?  That may be more natural for me, as a priest, as I greet people after Mass, but I can continue to work on it.  Maybe for me as a priest the challenge is more how to clothe the naked, or feed the hungry.  Some of the corporal works of mercy will always challenge us, while others will come to us more naturally.  But we should work at incorporating them all into our life whenever and however we can.
    Sometimes God gives us opportunities to exercise those corporal works of mercy, and we only need respond.  There’s a story about a woman named Wanda Dench who, eight years ago, texted a person she thought was her grandson about Thanksgiving plans.  The grandson had changed his number without telling grandma.  So instead of her grandson, she texted a young man named Jamal Hinton who was in high school.  They figured out the error, but then Jamal asked if he could still come over for Thanksgiving dinner.  Even though Wanda didn’t know Jamal from Adam, Wanda texted, “Of course you can. That’s what grandmas do…feed everyone.”  And for eight years, they have spent Thanksgiving together.  I don’t know if Jamal needed a free meal, but he probably needed somewhere to go for Thanksgiving, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked.  There may have been numerous reasons not to allow Jamal over.  But Wanda felt called to have Jamal over, and it has become a beautiful story of generosity.
    Christ will return in glory, “to judge the living and the dead,” as we proclaim every Sunday in the Creed.  When exactly, we don’t know, but it will happen.  Until then, Christ invites us to live out the Corporal Works of Mercy as part of following Him, so that when He does return, He will find us ready to welcome Him as our triumphant King.  As St. Peter says in his first epistle:
 

The end of all things is at hand.  Therefore, be serious and sober for prayers.  Above all, let your love for another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins.  Be hospitable to one another without complaining.  As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace…so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory and dominion forever and ever.  Amen.

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.  

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.  

Not Christmas Yet

First Sunday of Advent

Here we are: the first Sunday of Advent.  We lit at the beginning of Mass the Advent wreath with its first candle.  But every store around us is decorated with Christmas decorations.  So what is the Church doing?  We’re not decorated for Christmas yet.  There weren’t even any readings about “little baby Jesus” (to quote the movie “Talladega Nights”).  

One of my struggles as a new pastor here, is that I don’t know what the other priests have preached on, so maybe some of what I say today will be a review; don’t fall asleep.  But Advent comes from the Latin word adveniens which simply means “coming.”  Advent is our time of preparation.  But we are not simply preparing for Christmas.  We are first and foremost preparing for the second coming, or the second Advent of Christ.  That’s why a lot of our readings still have an “end times” theme.  Isaiah prophesies the day when all of God’s people will approach the mountain of the Lord, which any Jew would have recognized as Jerusalem (it’s like saying “the capital” in Michigan; we don’t have to say Lansing).  St. Paul talks about now being the time to wake up from our drowsiness, now is the time to convert from our sinfulness, because Jesus is coming.  And Jesus in our Gospel talks about being prepared for the end, when He will return, and not to be caught off-guard.

In fact, the first Gospel that we have that talks about the time immediately before Jesus was born, will come on the fourth Sunday of Advent.  Until then, we’ll continue to hear about preparing for the Jesus to return, or preparing for Jesus in general (like when John the Baptist will preach about Jesus).  We will speak about Jesus’ first coming, His first Advent, especially one week before Christmas, but until then our Masses and readings focus on Jesus’ second coming at the end of time.

But our church building does have a primary sign of waiting for Jesus: our Advent wreath.  The evergreens of the wreath remind us that Jesus offers us new life that never dies.  Now, to be fair, trees that drop their leaves don’t die during the winter; but they sure look like they do!  Any deciduous tree looks like it’s barren.  But the evergreens stay green all year round, like the popular song “O Christmas Tree” says.  We also have four candles on our Advent wreath, and we light one for each week of Advent that we are in.  In one sense, we might say a light is a light, and it doesn’t make a difference between electric light and candle light.  But candles play a prominent role in our Church.  We have candles around the altar, where the Eucharistic sacrifice occurs, and around the ambo, where the Word of God is proclaimed.  Each Easter Vigil we begin by lighting the Paschal or Easter Candle, which reminds us that Christ is the Light of the World.  Candles provide a different kind of light, as anyone can tell you who has lost power and relied on candlelight, or for anyone who has tried to host or go to a romantic dinner: candlelight provides a different atmosphere than just electric lights.  And candles also have a scent to them (not just Yankee Candle Company).  Candlelight is also alive, in a metaphorical sense.  The flames seem to dance on the wick, and almost takes on a life of its own.  In any case, our Advent wreath helps us remember Jesus Christ, the life and light of the world, who will come again.  And as we get closer to celebrating Jesus’ first Advent in Bethlehem, we will have more candlelight from more of the candles being lit.

So our challenge over the next four weeks of Advent is to be ready and not to rush.  In very few circumstances are people truly ready when they rush.  Whether it’s a kid stuffing all his clothes and toys in the closet so that no one sees them at the Christmas party; rushing to cook the special meals we have during the holidays; rushing to get everywhere we need to be.  Rushing to something is not generally connected with truly being ready.  In the midst of our hustle and bustle of this short season, I encourage all of us to take time to prepare for Jesus first and second Advent, by making time and space for Jesus’ third Advent, His coming into our hearts.  Take some extra time for silence and prayer.  Maybe spend time with Jesus in Adoration on 16 December; maybe come to Mass 5 minutes earlier to pray before the introduction begins; maybe turn off the radio in the car for the drive or part of the drive into work; maybe even turning off the cell phone for a little.  In whatever way you choose, be ready for Jesus to come, “for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

Running to Meet Christ

First Sunday of Advent

           

Well, here we are again.  We are at the dawn of a new liturgical year, a new year of grace.  In our faith we have certainly had a big year: Pope Benedict XVI declared this past year a Year of Faith, which has just ended; Bishop Boyea declared this past year a Year of Prayer, which will end on 9 December at the Cathedral with Mass at 6 p.m.; Pope Benedict XVI resigned from being pope, the first time this had happened in centuries; the Holy Spirit, through the College of Cardinals, elected Pope Francis to be the new Vicar of Christ.  In our own families there have probably been momentous events: new life with the birth of a child or grandchild; the hope of eternal life with the death of a loved one; graduations, retirements, etc.  Whatever has happened, it has been quite a year!

            In this new liturgical year, I want to shift my focus a little bit in the homilies I preach.  Last year I tried to focus on the gift of faith and spreading the Gospel.  That certainly will still come up in my homilies, as it is a perennial aspect of our faith.  But this year I want to focus more on the prayers that I say in your name during the Mass as a way of encouraging us to participate more fully in the Divine Mysteries in which we partake, and challenging us to take that participation outside the doors of this church.

            We are probably now used to the new translations.  Some of us may not like them; that’s fair.  I personally love them, because I see in them the beauty which is contained in the mother tongue of our church: Latin.  The form of the prayer is much more deprecatory, that is, it does not treat God as an equal, but addresses Him as the Almighty, and takes the position of one who is a servant of God.  They are filled with Biblical language, and are sometimes taken from the words of our earliest saints.  For the most part, they are not long, but are very Roman in style: nobly simple. 

            Our Collect, what some refer to as the Opening Prayer, states: “Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming, so that, gathered at his right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom.”  As Advent is a time focused on preparing for Christ in His three comings—long ago as an infant at Bethlehem, at the end of time when the Kingdom of God is established in its fullness, and in our hearts each day—this Collect, this collection of all our private prayers, already points us to the coming Kingdom of Christ.  It asks for the strength of will, the resolve, to run forth with righteous deeds at His coming.  Now, I’m not a runner, like my parents and my sisters.  I’m a sprinter, so I don’t like to run for long periods of time.  And, to be honest, I don’t really sprint that much anymore, either.  But when I do run, when I try to get somewhere fast, it is often to catch up to somebody to give them something or to get their attention. 

There is a certainly excitement in running, especially to meet someone.  One need only think of movies where two people are running to meet each other, often with joyous, longing music in the background.  But our prayer asks us for the strength to run to meet Christ, not with our legs, but with our “righteous deeds,” our actions that help to build the Kingdom of God here on earth. 

            This idea of running is in contrast to what we hear in our Prayer after Communion: “May these mysteries, O Lord, in which we have participated, profit us, we pray, for even now, as we walk amid passing things, you teach us by them to love the things of heaven and hold fast to what endures.”  While our good deeds are meant to help us to run to meet Christ at His coming, we walk amid passing things, the things of earth.  Our prayer reminds us that the things of this earth, as good as they are, pass away, and should not give us the same excitement as the things of heaven and preparing for Jesus’ second coming.  As the first reading states, we should stream towards the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of God on Mount Zion.  As Christians, our real temple is the heavenly Jerusalem, the heavenly temple, where God reigns with the Lamb-that-was-Slain at His right hand.  We should be rejoicing to go to the House of the Lord, as our Psalm mentioned, the House that lasts forever, that is not built with human hands, but was built by God.

            And we should be prepared to rejoice at Jesus’ coming, because we do not know the day nor the hour.  For those who have their hearts set on the things of the world, that day will catch them off guard, as our Gospel said.  Just like those before the flood who “were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark,” and who perished, if we remain focused too much on the things of this earth, and not concerned enough with our eternal salvation, then Jesus’ coming will not give us cause to run towards him, but might cause us to slink away from him, backing up ever so slowly so as to avoid notice. 

            How do we prepare ourselves, then?  How do we focus on what is to come and want to run out to meet Jesus?  Our Prayer over the Offerings gives us a clue: “Accept, we pray, O Lord, these offerings we make, gathered from among your gifts to us, and may what you grant us to celebrate devoutly here below gain for us the prize of eternal redemption.”  When we take the things of the earth—our time that we spend here, our money that we donate, our attention, the bread and wine—and give them back to God, we show that we are first and foremost concerned with Him.  And then, as God takes our gifts that we have and offers us the most precious gift, the Body and Blood of His Son, that what we celebrate here below in sacramental signs, prepares us for receiving the prize of eternal redemption, the prize of being in heaven with God in perfect happiness. 

            As we walk amid the concerns of this earth, may we love the things of heaven, hold fast to what truly lasts, and be ready to run and meet Jesus Christ as we celebrate His birth at Christmas, as we prepare for His Second Coming in Glory, and as He comes to us each day to enter our hearts and make His home there.

Gifts better than Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh

Solemnity of the Epiphany

            I have often thought that having a birthday on or near Christmas is a mixed blessing.  On the one hand, you get the joy of knowing that everyone will remember your birthday and that, in many cases, the whole family is around to celebrate.  On the other hand, the celebration that usually takes precedence is the birthday of Jesus Christ, while the birth of the other person usually takes a back seat.  And, in terms of presents, I would think that many people have “present fatigue,” if you will, and aren’t really in the mood to shop for another gift.

            The solemnity we celebrate today, that of the Epiphany, is sort of like having a birthday around Christmas.  In our modern age, the celebration of the birth of Christ, when the Incarnation was made known to the shepherds, is the major celebration.  But, in the overall history of the Church, the Epiphany was always the greater celebration, because Christ was made known, not just to the few shepherds around Bethlehem, but also to the whole world, to the Gentiles, through the adoration of the Magi.  In fact, the very word epiphany comes from two Greek words meaning, “to show forth.”

            While Christ did make Himself known to the Gentiles through the three kings or wise men, traditionally named Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar, He did not stop revealing Himself, and indeed, the entire Trinity, on that one day.  No, Jesus continues to make Himself known to us so that He and we might not be strangers, but might know each other well, like the best of friends, or like a spouse.

            Four ways that Jesus is made known or present are experienced in this very Mass!  Jesus is made truly present in the Word, since Jesus is the Word of God, as St. John tells us in the Prologue to the Gospel which bears his name.  Jesus is also truly present in the most august Sacrament of His Body and Blood.  He is made present through this community, gathering together, since He promised, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst,” as well as through me, your priest, who acts in persona Christi capitis, in the person of Christ the Head.  In this Mass, God, through Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, is making Himself known to all of us so that we might have union with Him in this privileged way.  What is important is, not so much that we show up to Mass (although it is important to come to Mass), but that God wills to communicate, to share, Himself with us, in the way He has given to us as a gift.

            This year the Epiphany, which was traditionally celebrated on January 6, also coincides with the New Year, the time when we look forward to more joys, and hopefully fewer sorrows, than the previous year.  We make new resolutions to better ourselves and the world.  This year, as a Church, we have a great opportunity to make some new resolutions that also go hand-in-hand with Christ making Himself known.

This New Year will bring with it a new translation of the way we celebrate Mass starting at the end of November: not in a new language, but in an English translation to which we are not yet accustomed.  FAITH Magazine has been preparing us, and will continue to do so even more, for these new words.  Our parish is preparing times when we can gather as a community to learn more about the Mass and to prepare for the new English words that we will say.  Change can hard.  Whatever our personal New Year’s resolution is, we have to work at it; it does not simply happen.  The same goes for our parish resolution  It will take a while to get used to the priest saying, “The Lord be with you” and the people responding, “And with your spirit.”  But frankly, the bulk of the changes will have to be made by the priests, rather than by the people.  So the burden is mostly on Fr. Mark, Fr. Joe, and I to work at being good leaders for you to guide you through the transition. 

            Our New Year’s resolution as a parish, as a Church, united in Christ, is to give God gifts that we know He wants to receive: not so much the “Caravans of camels…from Midian and Ephah,” or “from Sheba…gold and frankincense,” nor even the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh that the three Wise Men brought.  But, as we prepare for these new ways of responding during Mass, it is our parish New Year’s resolution to give Jesus the gold of humility, the frankincense of patience, and the myrrh of obedience. 

Humility is like gold because it is precious in the eyes of the Lord when we realize that God is in charge, and we are not.  It helps us to value the fact that our God so loves us that He makes Himself present to us through the Mass in a four-fold way, rather than clinging to our own opinions of whether or not we like the way the new responses will sound.

Patience is like frankincense because when we are patient with the transition to the new responses, it is like the sweet smell of incense which rises before the Lord, and because, if you’re anything like me, the way that I grow in patience is to pray for it from the Lord as a gift.  Incense is a symbol of our prayers rising before God.

Obedience is like myrrh because myrrh is a perfume that was used to anoint dead bodies, and obedience means that we really have to die to our own wills, our own opinions, our own preferences, as good as we might think they are, and adapt to the great gift that the Church is giving us: to worship God in the way that He wants to be worshipped.  And, the more that we die to ourselves, the more we will rise to God, just as Christ, who was anointed at His death and burial, rose to new life in the resurrection.

Let us not pass over this great celebration of Jesus making Himself known to the Gentiles, but rather, let us offer God the great gift and New Year’s resolution of humility, patience, and obedience in thanksgiving for the four-fold way He makes himself known to us in this Mass: His Word, the Eucharist, the People gathered, and the priest; and in the manifold ways that He makes Himself known to us in our day-to-day life.