No Sour-Faced Saints

Second Sunday after Epiphany
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of the things I often preach and sometimes counsel in the confessional is how helpful ascetical practices can be.  Though forgotten by most, the Church asks us to observe all Fridays, except when it is a solemnity, the highest level of feast day, as days of penance.  This traditionally has meant abstinence from meat, but can be observed in other ways.  I have tried to encourage, and observe myself, the Ember Days: four times of the year when do extra days of abstinence and fasting.  Fasting and abstinence from meat help to remind our bodies that they don’t always get what they want, even when what they want is good, and fasting and abstinence can be especially helpful in living a chaste life, though it isn’t a silver bullet.  As the Lord said in the Gospels, we fast while the bridegroom is away, waiting for his return.  We also fast for one hour before we receive Holy Communion, as a way to prepare our bodies, minds, and hearts to receive our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.
    Catholics are often known for their penances, and it can be a good witness to the world that even the best things in life pass away; only God and what is rooted in Him is eternal.  Yet, our Lord, though He did fast, did not always restrict Himself.  In today’s Gospel, in particular, we hear about the Savior attending a wedding.  And not only did He attend a wedding, when they had the sad misfortune of running out of wine (a very sad misfortune, indeed!), He created more.  And the wine wasn’t just common, likely similar to that which they had been drinking, but was excellent, choice wine, as attested to by the chief steward.  

Hillaire Belloc

    I’m not saying Christ was a party animal, but He knew how to rejoice.  He inspired St. Paul to write to the Romans, “rejoice in hope…Rejoice with those who rejoice.”  Living the Catholic life does not mean that we have to be sad and downcast all the time.  St. Teresa of Avila said something to the effect of, “God save us from sour-faced saints.”  There is a rightful place for rejoicing in the Catholic life.  The Catholic historian, Hillaire Belloc wrote, “Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, / There’s always laughter and good red wine. / At least I’ve always found it so. / Benedicamus Domino!”  
    In this time before we enter into Lent, it’s good to take advantage of the joy of the Epiphany, which overflows from 6 January and continues to guide us in these weeks before Septuagesimatide.  On Sundays and Feast Days, especially if it’s a patron saint of ours, we should rejoice and have a more joyful mood and food, because the Lord has risen from the dead (Sundays) and we have brothers and sisters who are already in heaven and who not only give us an example, but intercede for us before the throne of grace to help us get there, too.
    As Catholics, we can sometimes flirt with the heresy of Manichaeism.  This heresy, which the Dominicans have fought so hard to combat, teaches that the material world is evil, while the spiritual world is good.  The Dominicans combatted this ever-present heresy by living an ascetical life, to show that one should not abuse the things of the world, but they also used the things of the world well and rejoiced in what God had created because He created the world good.  They preached against the excess of, for example, drunkenness, but also preached against the opposite excess of teetotaling.  Wine, the psalms say, gives warmth to the heart and joy to the face, and can be used to help us have a good laugh and enjoy the lighter side of life.

    Sometimes we need Heath Ledger’s Joker character from Batman to ask us: Why so serious?  Are there horrible things in our world?  Yes.  Does sin run rampant?  Yes.  Do tragedies strike us and our friends and cause legitimate sorrow?  Yes.  But there is also good in the world.  There are also people who choose virtue over vice.  God blesses us and our friends with so many good things each day, if we are attentive.  And God has overcome sin and death and opened for us the path to eternal salvation.  And if there’s any reason to rejoice, it certainly is that!  The war has been won!  Yes, little skirmishes still have to be fought, but Christ is victorious!  
    Even on the slopes of Mount Doom, Samwise reminds Frodo about the joys of home to temper the last, difficult steps of the journey to destroy the ring.  Joys, even simple joys, give us strength to continue the fight and recharge our batteries.  If all we ever do is muddle through, we’re missing out on the good things the Lord wants us to experience: the hug of a loved one or friend; the texture and flavor of a juicy steak or a nice strip of bacon; the sweet, silky mouthfeel of a fine bourbon; the smell and warmth of a fire, whether in the fireplace or outside on a cool, summer night.  Are there times where we need to give up those joys?  Yes.  But to everything there is a season, and a time for everything under the heavens, including joy.
    So, while we must do penance and cooperate in Christ’s own suffering, do not forget to embrace joy and the good things that God gives us in this life.  “Rejoice with those who rejoice.”  Drink from the good wine that the Lord has made for us, Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Rejoicing and Patience

Third Sunday of Advent
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Patience is not a virtue at which I generally excel.  While we had posted the Office Manager job, I wanted good candidates to immediately apply for the position.  My best friend is sometimes bad at responding to texts, and I struggle when he doesn’t respond to me quickly enough (at least quickly enough in my mind).  And, generally, I respond pretty quickly, whether to an RSVP, a request for information, or to a text or a phone call.  In fact, I’m becoming a bit of a cause celeb among the Diocese of Lansing priests because I usually pick up my cell phone on the first ring, which somehow means it hasn’t even rung once for the person calling (I don’t know how that happens).

    So, as we hear the word “rejoice” today in the introit and in the epistle, which both come from Philippians chapter four, verse four, I’m all for it!  We rejoice because soon we don’t have to be patient anymore!  The celebration of our Lord’s Nativity, the day when our salvation became known in the flesh, is closer than the beginning of our time of waiting in Advent.  Our waiting is closer to finishing than when we first began waiting.
    But, we rejoice, not because we don’t have to exhibit the virtue of patience.  We rejoice because we can celebrate soon.  And that goes for our celebration of the Nativity (which will become an even greater focus in the readings in the coming days), but also for the return of Christ in glory.  The second coming is closer today than yesterday.  And that second coming is when all will be made right, the righteous will be welcomed into heaven to enjoy eternal bliss.
    But, we can even rejoice today because we know that Christ has come to save us, and that the salvation He offers us we can receive at any time.  Christmas is near.  The return of Christ is near.  But Christ offers us the gift of salvation now.  All we have to do is take hold of it and make it a part of our lives.  
    We see this most especially in two important Advent sacraments: Penance (confession) and the Eucharist.  Through the Sacrament of Penance, God reconciles us to Himself.  Twice in two verses in his second epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul talks about how God reconciled the world to Himself in Christ.  That was the good news of Christmas and the Incarnation.  But that good news still applies today.  God is still reconciling the world to Himself through Christ.  And in the Sacrament of Penance, we participate in that reconciliation.  God takes our sins, like my impatience, and He removes it from us, and gives us in its place His grace, which is really His life.  He breaks down all the barriers between us and Him that sin creates, “so that we might become the righteousness of God in him,” to use the words of St. Paul from that same second epistle to the Corinthians.  In the Sacrament of Penance, the Holy Spirit accomplishes in us what Christ accomplished when He died on the cross.  And that is certainly a reason to rejoice.
    Likewise, in the Eucharist, we receive our salvation.  Christ gives Himself to us under the sacramental signs of bread and wine which truly become the Body and the Blood of Christ, so that we can have, in the most special way on earth, Christ living within us.  The same Second Person of the Blessed Trinity who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, took flesh and humbled Himself to be born with our human nature, again humbles Himself by allowing bread and wine to become Him, and allowing us to see His Sacred Flesh and Precious Blood with our eyes of faith.  The same Incarnate Lord whom St. Joseph, his foster father, held in his arms, I get to hold in my hands and give to you.  The same Suffering Servant who offered His life for the salvation of the world by dying on the Cross, joins us to that same sacrifice on Calvary through the Mass.  As I invite you to “Behold the Lamb of God,” (“Ecce Agnus Dei”), I remind you how near the Lord is to you and encourage you to rejoice as you behold your salvation.  And this is certainly a reason to rejoice.
    Patience is not my greatest virtue.  I continue to work at growing in that virtue which is described by St. Thomas Aquinas quoting Tully, “the voluntary and prolonged endurance of arduous and difficult things for the sake of virtue.”  And this virtue will help us to wait these next ten days until we celebrate Christmas, and these next days, however many, until Christ returns in glory.  But, what we will celebrate at Christmas, and what we await at the end of time, we also have now: Christ our God, reconciling us to the Father, who with the Son and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

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. 

Getting Lost

Third Sunday of Advent

When I was younger, I would go camping with my family during the summer.  One weekend during the summer was our family camping weekend, which included my grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins.  One such family camping weekend, when I was in 5th or 6th grade, I decided to go exploring with one of my sisters and two of my cousins.  We were having a grand old time, wandering around, until we realized we were lost.  After the original panic of not knowing what to do, one of my cousins and my sister decided that they were going to try and find their way back by retracing their steps.  I was pretty sure I had no idea how we had arrived at our location, so I decided to try to find another section of the State Campground, and then walk back to our site, following the numbers.  We both eventually made it back, each with our own stories of how we made it.

Today the Church invites us to rejoice.  She does so because we are more than halfway to our celebration of Christmas.  But we also rejoice because of the Good News of the Incarnation.  We rejoice because God was made flesh in order to save us from our sins.  But, in order to rejoice, we have to recognize that we are sinners.  We all get lost.

A savior is only helpful when someone needs saving.  You don’t rejoice at a lifeguard swimming out to get you when you just taking it easy, floating in your inner tube on the lazy river.  You rejoice at a lifeguard when you’re drowning.  Many soldiers celebrated General Patton pushing through in the forest of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, but not Easy Company of the 101st Airborne, because, while they were surrounded by Nazi troops and running out of supplies, they claimed they didn’t need Patton to save them.  We only rejoice at Jesus’ coming, at the true meaning of Christmas, when we recognize that we need to be saved.  Otherwise it’s just another day off from work.

To sin is to be lost.  The Greek word for sin, 𝛼𝜇𝛼𝜌𝜏𝜄𝛼, means to miss the mark.  It has the connotation of an arrow being off-course from hitting the bulls-eye.  Whenever we sin, we go off target.  We get lost, and we need to find our way back to the right path.  The problem is, only Jesus gets us truly back to the right path to God.  We can never do it by ourselves.  

The worst thing, when you’re lost, is not recognizing that you’re lost.  How many times have wives asked their husbands to stop and ask for directions, while the husband assured the wife he knew where he was going, only to end up farther away than ever 30 minutes later when he finally recognized he was lost and needed to ask for help.  We can tend not to take sin so seriously, perhaps an over reaction to decades long gone where we gave sin more power and influence than it truly had.  So many people figure that if they’re not Hitler or Stalin, then they’re doing ok.  They’re just skipping Mass; they’re just lying occasionally; they’re just taking small supplies from the company; they’re just looking at porn by themselves; it’s not like they’re murdering anyone.  Murder is certainly missing the mark.  But so are all those other things.  

The Jews knew they were in need of a savior.  That’s why the crowds asked St. John the Baptist in today’s Gospel passage, “‘What should we do?’”  St. John the Baptist didn’t say, “You’re not that bad, so don’t worry about it.”  He gave them all practical things that they could do to repent, to turn away from their sins, and prepare for the Messiah to reveal Himself.  St. John the Baptist told the people they were lost, so that they could rejoice when the one who was going to lead them back to the right path would appear.

Zephaniah also connects rejoicing and being saved in our first reading.  Zion is encouraged to shout for joy, and Israel exhorted to sing joyfully, and Jerusalem told to be glad and exult because “The Lord has removed the judgment against you.”  The joy that God is granting is one based upon being freed from sin.  Instead of judgment and the penalty falling upon the guilty, God takes it upon Himself, and restores us to right relationship with Him.  God does what we could not do, and that is certainly a reason to rejoice.

In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, Jesus invites us to receive the greatest gift He gave us: the gift of chesed, the Hebrew word which means steadfast love and mercy.  But we can only receive it if we are aware that we need it.  We are dirty; we are in need of the shower of God’s mercy.  But until we recognize that we have sinned and are in need of God’s mercy, it’s like we take an umbrella into the shower with us, to prevent us from getting wet.  Pretty rediculous, right?  

Brothers and sisters, we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  But the Good News is that God has come to save us, and in less than two weeks, we will celebrate when that Good News of the Incarnation became known to the world through the birth of Jesus.  That is truly a reason to rejoice.

How Can We Rejoice?

***Please Note: This Homily was given off-the-cuff, 

and the text below represents my best attempt reconstruct what was said***

Third Sunday of Advent

            Most people know that I like to prepare my homilies and have a text in front of me when I preach.  It helps keep me from going off on tangents, which I like to do.  I prepared my homily on Friday morning, and, as I stand here now, the one I wrote doesn’t seem to work well.

            Our Mass today focuses us on joy.  It’s called Gaudete Sunday, which means joy.  We light the rose (not pink!) candle, and I’m wearing a rose vestment to represent the fact that we’re more than half way to our celebration of Christmas.  Listen again to our first reading: “Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!  Sing joyfully, O Israel!  […] The Lord, your God…will rejoice over you with gladness…he will sing joyfully because of you as one sings at festivals.”  Our psalm for today continues: “Cry out with joy and gladness,” in the response, and the verse includes, “With joy you will draw water at the fountain of salvation.”    St. Paul takes up the same word in our second reading from his letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always.  I shall say it again: rejoice!” 

            And yet, with all that has happened in the past week, we might wonder what there is to rejoice about.  This past week I had the honor, though it was not an honor that I would have wanted, to concelebrate the funeral of a 49-year-old man who succumbed to cancer, and who leaves behind a widow and five children.  And then on Friday we learned about the shooting of young children in Connecticut.  Perhaps some of you have had your own personal sorrows during this past week, and we’ve all certainly had some in the past month or year.

            So at a time like this, how can the Church tell us to rejoice?  How dare the Church tell us to rejoice!  But we do rejoice.  We rejoice because we are closer to celebrating the birth of Jesus, the light of the world.  We rejoice because Christ is like the light of that rose candle, in the midst of the darkness of the world, and in the darkness with is so thick you can almost feel it, Jesus says to us, “Do not be afraid.  Follow me.”  We rejoice because we are more than halfway to our celebration of Christmas, and because with each passing day, we are one day closer to Christ coming again, to bring the fullness of His Kingdom, where there will be no more death, no more sorrow, no more tears, no more sin. 

            We rejoice even in the midst of death because of Jesus who said, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me will never die.”    We rejoice because our God loves us so much that He does not abandon us in our pain and our mourning.  We rejoice because our God came among us and wept at the death of His friend, Lazarus, just as He weeps now at the senseless violence.  We rejoice because our God loves us so much that He gives Himself to us, to become one with us, in the Eucharist, so that we can touch our God.  Our God loves us so much that He allows us to hear Him in His Word. 

            If our joy is in this world, then it is not a time of rejoicing.  But if our joy is in Jesus, than we can rejoice.  We rejoice because our wait is almost over; our King is coming and will not delay; the day of our salvation is at hand.