Vigils

Vigil of the Nativity
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When I was in college, it was just starting to become academically “enlightened” to stop labeling time with the abbreviations BC (for before Christ) and AD (for Anno Domini, meaning Year of the Lord), to BCE (for Before the Common Era) and CE (the Common Era).  I’m sure some person thought it quite “diverse” to remove religious terms like “Christ” and “the Lord” from the way that time was measured.  However, a few minutes of critical thinking would have helped them to realize that the reference point for the change in marking time was still religious.  What was common about the Common Era is that time was measured from the birth of Christ.  No matter what you call it (and as Catholics we should continue to use BC and AD), time is measured as happening before the Incarnation or after the Incarnation.  Our measurement of time points to that one, unique, universe-altering experience of God-made-man.

Statue of David from Jerusalem

    As St. Paul opens his epistle to the Romans, he references that the Good News, the Gospel that God became man and took our sins away was promised beforehand by the prophets.  All the Old Testament, in some way, shape, or form, pointed to the moment when God took flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary.  Even from the very beginning of humanity, after our first parents had rebelled against God, God promised to send a descendant of Eve who would strike at the head of the ancient serpent who led Adam and Eve astray.  Melchizedek, the King of Salem or Jerusalem; to whom Abraham gave a tenth of his spoils; who as priest of God Most High offered bread and wine, pointed to the true King of Jerusalem, the only true Priest who offers Himself to us under the appearance of bread and wine.  Moses prophesied a prophet to whom the Chosen People must listen, and which pointed to the Incarnation.  David, the King of Israel after God’s own heart, to whom God promised an heir that would reign for ever, pointed to the Incarnation.
    The prophets, too, also spoke God’s word that He would come among us.  Isaiah especially prophesied the virgin who would be with child, whose name would be Immanuel, God with us; and the flower from the root of Jesse (David’s father); and the gifts of gold and frankincense brought from the nations to worship the new king.  Micah prophesied that a ruler would come forth from Bethlehem. 
    Even the secular history was preparing for this moment.  After the disruptive civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey in 49 BC, and then Caesar’s assassination by Brutus in 44 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian Augustus, would establish a certain peace throughout the Roman Empire which would help the spread of the Gospel.  It was Augustus who called for a census, which led Mary and Joseph to go to Bethlehem (though it also led to no vacancy at any of the places they wanted to stay).
    Today we celebrate the Vigil of the Nativity of the Lord.  Many Catholics use the word vigil to mean the night before.  But in the traditional calendar, it was the entire day before (the Saturday evening Mass is not technically a vigil, it’s an anticipatory Mass).  And the vigil day was a day of preparation.  Often, though not on Sundays, it was a day of fasting or abstinence.  But the idea was to get ready for the joyful celebration on the following day.  The prayers were different, the readings were different, and often extended.  We still retain these extended readings and prayers, for example, in the Vigil of Easter and the Vigil of Pentecost, though both are celebrated at Mass during the evening or night. 
    But it also recalls the waiting and anticipation that occurred before that actual day arrived.  As I said earlier, humanity had been waiting for the promised redeemer since it had broken away from God at the Fall of Adam and Eve.  And God had, though it wasn’t always understood until after the Incarnation, prepared for a redeemer and prophesied a redeemer throughout the preparation of the Chosen People for the millennia before Christ was born in Bethlehem. 
    I know that this sense of anticipation and waiting is hard today, as many (myself included) put up Christmas decorations much earlier than today.  Many stores started celebrating Christmas the day after Thanksgiving (or even after Halloween!).  I have enjoyed listening to Christmas music since Thanksgiving.  And in less than 4 hours, I’ll be celebrating the first of four Christmas Masses.  Some of my fondest Christmas memories are going to my maternal grandparents on Christmas Eve and celebrating with them, before going to the evening Mass. 
    But it helps us to remember that every generation had hoped that theirs would be the one where the Messiah came and revealed himself.  Their eyes were attentive, their ears open to the possibility that God had come to save them, even if they weren’t always looking for salvation from sin, but from their foreign oppressors. That’s why, when St. John the Baptist appears, the Pharisees ask if he is the Christ, or at least Elijah, who would come before the Christ, or the Prophet that Moses prophesied in Exodus.  They were waiting and watching.  And today, to the best of our ability, so should we.
    Because tomorrow, December 25, we remember the day that changed everything.  Not only the transition from BC to AD, but we came to be able to see our Savior, and know that God loved us so much that He took flesh to be able to be with us, walk with us, touch us, in a way He hadn’t before, not even in the Garden of Eden.  Waiting is hard, but may we be attentive these last eleven or so hours so that we may fully celebrate the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.

A Savior, Not a President

Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord–Mass at Night

In eleven months, we will be electing a new president of the United States.  And yet, we are all too familiar with the fact that campaign season is in full force.  It seems like every fifth commercial on the TV ends with, “I’m so and so, and I approved this message,” or “Paid for by the Elect So and So Fund.”  In recent weeks, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, much of the attention of the country has turned to what the federal government is doing to keep us safe.  A good chunk of the news is also focused on the use of guns, either by private individuals or police officers.  Every candidate has his or her view on what really needs to be done to keep all people safe from all threats, whether from abroad or from within the homeland.

Hopefully we are forming our consciences by the light of the Gospel and Catholic Social teaching so that, when it comes to the primaries and the general election, we can vote for someone who advances not so much the agenda of a political party, but the truth and policies that will help all people to live in freedom and security.

But it can be too easy for people to pin all their hope on a new president.  They are convinced that if Hillary Clinton is elected, then all will be well.  They are certain that if Donald Trump is elected, then America will be great again.  Brothers and sisters, this Christmas we celebrate and we remember that our hope is not in this person or that person who will have the highest office in the land.  We celebrate not a political solution to our problems, but a Savior!

Our burden is so much greater than high or low taxes; unemployment rates and those no longer looking for jobs; whether or not our military should be involved in a war in the Middle East.  Our burden is sin: sin which causes us to hate others, sin which causes us to take advantage of others, sin which causes us to destroy ourselves.  And no human person can save us from that.  No human person will free us from this cycle of sin.  But we proclaim, this night, that we have a savior.  We have a Person who will smash the yoke that burdens us and the rod of our taskmaster.  We have someone who will confirm judgment and justice for us, who will give light to our lives and make us rejoice.  And that Person is not the person who will occupy the most powerful office in the world.  That Person is the “Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.”  That Person, whose birth around 2,000 years ago we celebrate tonight, instituted His reign as a baby.  “For a child is born to us, a son is given us.”

The temptation is to be no different than all of our ancestors who placed their hope in earthly rulers.  How many people were sure that Caesar Augustus, who instituted the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, was the savior who would protect and govern the whole world?  And yet, while Octavian Augustus ruled in his fine palazzo in Rome, the true King was born, in a cave, in a land that no one cared about, from a people whose glory had long since faded with the death of King David.

The solutions to our problems, as a nation and as a world, do not come from the political order.  Politics certainly has its place in promoting the common good and order among all people.  But the problems in our nation and our world come from the fact that, while the angels proclaimed a great joy for all people, someone who would truly save us, we are convinced that our salvation cannot come from a peaceful child who grew up to be a crucified leader of a small “heretical” group of Jews.  We do not have peace on earth because we do not give glory to God in the highest.  We are constantly at war–in the world, in our cities, and in our hearts–because we have been like the inn keepers of Bethlehem who, when asked to make room for a poor couple who is about to give birth to their first-born, have pushed them back out into the streets.  The Prince of Peace has come to the doors of our hearts, and we have turned him away.  

The solutions to all of the world’s problems begin here, as they began in a manger in a cave in Bethlehem.  Even with the multitude of the heavenly host praising God, the shepherds must have thought, ‘What good can this little family do?  They are so few, and the kings of the world are so powerful.’  Maybe we think, too, ‘What good would it do if I lived as Christ called me to?  Would it change anything if I truly lived as if Jesus were the most important person in my life?’

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus, the king of Ephyra, was cursed by the gods for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness, and was made to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to see it roll down to the base as he approached the top.  If we place our hope for the solutions to our problems in worldly efforts of this or that political party or that, we are bound to the same results.  But tonight, as we celebrate Christmas, let us recommit ourselves to electing a new king for our hearts, a king who seems powerless, but is the only one who can save us.  

Tonight, Jesus knocks on the door of your heart and invites you to elect Him to rule over you, an election which can change the course of human history, just as He did with twelve uneducated men and a handful of followers in the middle of nowhere in the Roman Empire.  “Beloved: The grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desire 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, who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people as his own, eager to do what is good.”  Beloved: “Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord.”