Darkness and Light

First Sunday of Advent
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  I don’t know about you, but during these winter days, I feel like it’s ten o’clock at night, based upon how dark it is outside, and then look at my watch and it’s only 7 p.m.  Others will mention how they long for the season when they don’t both go to work and return home in the dark.  

    Darkness is, however, a natural theme of Advent.  Not darkness for its own sake, but how the birth of Christ scattered the darkness.  We see it in the candles on our Advent wreath.  We will see it especially during our Rorate Coeli Mass on Saturday, which is held entirely in candlelight and with the growing light of the dawn.  Zechariah, the husband of St. Elizabeth and father of St. John the Baptist, notes in his canticle, that “the dawn from on high shall break upon us,” prophesying Christ as the light that makes the darkness flee away.
    And yet, our Lord’s words in the Gospel today may seem a bit dark.  He says that “on earth, nations will be in dismay….People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”  Talk about dark.  Just as the light of prophecy ceased some hundreds of years before Christ came as an infant at Bethlehem, so the preparation for His return in glory will be a dark time with much tribulation.  Perhaps, whether for us as individuals, or even the way the world seems to be going now, we can identify, maybe not with dying of fright, but with a darkness that seems to have swept over much of the world, and even, in some ways, into the Church itself.
    I don’t know when the end will come, but it is coming, and that is a large part of what the Church prepares us for in Advent.  Not just between nations, but even the entire trajectory of our human race seems to be in the midst of a great battle between good and evil, truth and lies, love and hate.  

    While I was in Alabama, I had a chance to read a Catholic novel called The Sabbatical by Michael O’Brien.  It’s about an Oxford professor who gets involved with a family whom other mysterious, evil forces seek to destroy.  I certainly don’t want to give away the book, and I encourage you to read it if you’re looking for good, Catholic literature.  Towards the end of the book, there is a dialogue between an elderly wise priest, Fr. Turner, and the protagonist, Professor Owen Whitfield:
 

[Father Turner said,] “You have come through a great stress–and sorrow.  You are very tired, and you are asking yourself if all the effort of your life is useless.”
[Owen responds] “At times I do feel that.  Of course, I know it’s not true.  But the battle seems interminable, and the gathering forces of darkness go from victory to victory…the captive minds of a generation and those who rule them are now beyond numbering.”
“Minds can be illuminated.  Providence is ever at work.  Love does not abandon us.  He never abandons us.”
“It certainly feels like abandonment, and looks very much like it too.”
“The enemy taunts you, Owen….He insinuates in your heart that he is winning this war, and you wonder whether he is right.”
[…]
“I do feel defeated,” Owen admitted.
“That is the enemy’s provocation.  If you leave your station in the battle line, you break the line of defense and weaken the lines behind you.  But if you stand firm, if you hold your position, even though you do not understand its purpose or usefulness, when it comes time for the King to tell you what to do, you will be ready for it and you will be effective.”

I’m sure my reading of this dialogue doesn’t do it justice, but you can see how it aligns with our readings today.  And I imagine it speaks to some, if not all, of you, at least at one point of your life or another.
    So, what do we do?  How do we keep our station in this battle between light and darkness?  A battle, I might add, that has already been won, but in which the “minor” skirmishes are still being fought on the field until the fullness of victory comes forth.  Owen’s monologue illumines this point.  He says to himself:
 

You do the duty of the tasks at hand….You keep faith with your responsibilities and your vocation, and you love the souls you’ve brought into the world and the souls God brings into your life.  You work and you pray.  You try to turn everything into prayer, and you practice hope.  You keep your eyes trained on the true horizon.

Because the dawn is coming, the dawn that shall break from on high, the rising Son who is not an orb of burning gas, but God Himself who took on our human nature.  He is coming, and the time is now to prepare for that return.  It is like Gandalf coming with Éomer to relieve the beleaguered forces at Helms Deep: “Look to my coming at first light….At dawn, look to the East.”  The Lord will return and will forever put to flight the forces of darkness by the rising of His Light, the Light from Light, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.  

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. 

Everything is Different

Easter Vigil

What happened was better than anyone could have expected.  Perhaps Mary, our Blessed Mother, alone had some idea of what would happen.  No one expected Jesus to rise from the dead, even though he had foretold it, along with the prophets of the Old Testament.  No one expected life to conquer death.  What happened was inconceivable.

Easter is not about little bunnies, candies, or pastel colors.  Easter is about Jesus rising from the dead.  We all know that, otherwise we’d be either getting ready to go to bed or sleeping right now.  The Resurrection of Jesus changes everything.  We are no longer trapped in a cycle of being born, doing our best to stay alive and not mess things up too much, and then dying.  We are no longer subject to the rich ruling the poor, the powerful controlling and abusing the weak, the educated domineering the uneducated.  Life is totally different.

“But Fr. Anthony,” you might say, “the rich still rule, the powerful still control and abuse, and the educated domineer.  You are living in a different world if you don’t think that happens.”  Certainly, our world is not perfect.  Just four short days ago, another terrorist attack happened in Europe.  No matter which party you belong to, the candidates all have to have sizable bank accounts and donors to become the President, legislators, and judges.  Each month seems to bring with it a new study of how we should change things because we know better now.

All of that doesn’t matter, because Christ has won.  There is still a battle going on, without a doubt, and it seems like the rich, the powerful, and the educated will always win.  But they have lost already.  They simply have not conceded.  To be fair, being rich, powerful, or educated does not make one bad.  Saints have come from the rich, the powerful, and the educated.  But those saints would be the first to say that they would give up everything if Jesus asked them to.  They live in the new life of the Resurrection where what is most important is Jesus, and the rest is all rubbish.

My dear Elect, in just a few moments, you will become part of that new life.  In the waters of baptism Jesus will give you His new life, which can save you from eternal death.  He will give you grace to reject Satan and all those who ally with him, who will lose.  He will give you His life so that you can re-evaluate everything you have in your life, and weigh it against Jesus Christ.  He will help you to know that the life you lead is no longer about you, but about Him, and loving Him by what you say and what you do to others.  Your life, after Baptism, will be different.

And in the Sacrament of Confirmation, you will receive strength to spread that good news of new life to those you meet.  Why do things in the world seem so dark right now?  Because we have forgotten what it means to be Christian.  We have forgotten to spread the new life and the new way of life to which Jesus invites us.  Even those who have been baptized have decided that they would rather do things their own way than follow Jesus.  And when we wander away from Jesus, we wander from new life and to death.

And in the Eucharist, your initiation into the Catholic Church will be complete.  You will have union with Jesus.  He will be with you, closer than you can be to any other person.  And in that heavenly food, you will find strength to live in the new life of Jesus.  

We, for our part, as your parish family, promise to help you live in that new life.  But we also ask you to help us.  It is too easy, and we see it all too often, for those who were baptized as infants to lose our love for Jesus, and to become complacent.  Your new energy from becoming Catholic reminds us of what we are called to do and be in Christ Jesus.

What happened on that first Easter night, so many years and decades and centuries ago, was better than we could have ever expected.  We received new life in Jesus, who invited us to be His followers and live in relationship with Him according to His new way.  It will not always be easy.  The powers of darkness will seek to have you forget.  But new life has won, and you have us, as well as almost 2,000 years of saints to help you and show you what it means to live this new life.  Christ has risen from the dead, alleluia!