Fourth Sunday of Lent

Dominica IV in Quadragesima A
19 March 2023

 Again, at this point late in Lent, the Gospel readings put particularly intense focus on basic themes of desire for God, purification, increasing faith, and illumination; themes that are relevant, especially for those in RCIA who are in their final preparation for the climactic moments of their reception of the sacraments at the Easter Vigil.  Again, I want to encourage everyone to make it a point to commit to participating in the special ceremonies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night.  It is always moving for everyone who attends and it will be a great way to pray for the Elect, our brothers and sisters in our RCIA program.

Today’s Gospel passage of the man born blind comes from chapter 9 of St. John’s Gospel.  To grasp a theme, however I also want to go back to John 8 and pass through both chapters to paint a picture.  In this section of St. John, Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem for the 8-day long Festival of Tabernacles, also called Booths.  It was an annual festival held in the autumn after the completion of the harvest season and marked by pilgrimage, people making a great migration to join together in prayer and celebration.  The festival celebrated God’s fidelity in providing for His people in the present harvest and the historical remembrance of His providing for them in the wilderness after the exodus.  Given that people were gathering in large numbers in limited space, they had to build tents or booths for lodging for the festival.  Those booths also served to be an image and reminder of the desert wanderings of their ancestors.  Jesus arrives in Jerusalem for this festival.  It is a chaotic scene due to all the people crammed in for the observance.  But it also becomes chaotic, in a different sense, because of the confrontations and hostility Jesus faces there about his identity.

Appearing throughout John 8 and into today’s selection from John 9 we see some prominent themes that are reminiscent of the Book of Genesis, the creation, the fall, and God’s plan for salvation.  To make a quick pass through John 8, we find chaos and the disorder of hostility against Jesus in the holy city.  Most especially is the chaos of hostility evident in the scribes and Pharisees who are opposing the Lord.  This chaos reminds us of what preceded God’s creation in Genesis when the earth was formless and void (cf. Gen. 1:1-2).  As His first act to bring order out of chaos, God said in Genesis, “Let there be light” (cf. Gen. 1:3), the first day of creation.  The Lord Jesus reveals himself in John 8 to be the light of the world (cf. Jn. 8:12).  In Genesis, after the Original Sin that deforms our human nature, leaving it fallen and inclined to sin, Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, stand alone among creation and they hide themselves from the sound of God’s arrival (cf. Gen. 3:7-8).  In John 8, after no one is without sin to cast the first stone at the woman caught in adultery, it says that the woman was left alone standing before Jesus (cf. Jn. 8:9), which seems to replay the dilemma of the first man and woman in the Garden, with Jesus now as the New Adam.  At the end of John 8 as the hostility and disorder becomes most intense, it says that Jesus hid himself and then left the Temple area.  That can be viewed as the Lord recapitulating these significant moments of God’s creation, the harm done by man’s sin, and His – God’s – choosing to place Himself into this same history in order to redeem it.

With all these images and echoes of Genesis with chaos, the creation, the fall, and the consequences of sin, we come to John 9, today’s selection.  Here we have the man born blind.  In other words, there is no light for him.  He is in darkness, and in darkness from the beginning.  In other words, this is not one who formerly could see and then became blind, but he has been in darkness from the beginning.  That’s a hint of Genesis.  I’m not making a scientifically precise observation, so don’t get hung up on the beginning point of life – as we know now – being conception as opposed to birth.  Simply acknowledge that to be blind from birth is a reference for this purpose that means the man has been in darkness from the beginning.  This can reinforce the theme of what has happened to mankind since the Fall, since what is narrated to us in that book of the beginnings called Genesis.  The man blind from birth serves as an image of mankind’s fallen nature that blinds us to God, to holiness, and to spiritual realities.  Why is the man blind from birth?  The prominent religious idea of the time is that it is due to someone’s sin, that it is punishment for sin.  Again, sin brings disorder and chaos and lack of light, lack of vision.  Just as Genesis tells us that God formed man from the dust of the earth after a mist had watered the ground and then man became a living being (cf. Gen. 2:6-7), what does Jesus do to heal the blind man and restore him?  To maintain this theme of the interplay of creation and Genesis, the Lord makes clay of the earth using the moisture of his saliva and refashions the man’s sight and then tells him to wash in the pool.

In Lent, those in RCIA preparing for baptism are being made ready to enter more deeply into the order of God, being refashioned – recreated – by being washed and having the blindness of sin removed so that they see and are enlightened.  Those of us already baptized have been washed; yet, we know our dullness, our laziness, our slowness of heart to believe – to see!  And with this torpor in mind we have to keep battling against our fallen nature and experience ongoing conversion and re-formation, a re-creation by God’s generous grace.  Lent is a time for us, the baptized, also.  It is a time to confront the ungodly chaos in our lives, which is sin.  It is a time to acknowledge our blindness, and to be washed in confession, which restores us to baptismal grace.  Our focus in this rich selection of God’s Word is not so much physical sight, but the connotation of sight that refers to faith and to belief.  Our sight is healed, purified, and made whole when we see the world as it truly is, when we see ourselves as we truly are, that is… when we see our need for God, when we admit the defect – the blindness – of our sin and seek to be healed so that we can truly see and live.  Like the man born blind, upon being healed in both physical and spiritual sight, may we say with him, “I do believe, Lord,” and, may we do as he did, “and he worshiped him” (Jn. 9:38).

Third Sunday of Lent

Dominica III in Quadragesima A
12 March 2023

 Lent is a time for disciples to be renewed in the new life that was begun in us at baptism and to strive to deepen that life and commitment to the Lord.  Lent is also the time of final preparation for those who will be baptized at the Easter Vigil or, if already baptized, received in to the Church.  We have reached the point of Lent where some very long Gospel selections place a particular focus on the new life won for us by the Lord and the effects of that life in the baptized.

God’s People Israel were His chosen people.  They were a holy people and a consecrated nation whose vocation was to advance in the world as a sign to other peoples of what is means to belong to God.  But being chosen did not mean that the Israelites had it easy.  Great hardship came their way.  Hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt.  The harsh passage through the desert in the Exodus.  Exile, captivity, and dispersion among other races and nations are just a few highlights we know from the Scriptures.  The opening lines in today’s first reading tell us the difficulties and setbacks and challenges of belonging to God as a unique people, which difficulties caused the Israelites to harden their hearts against God.  In the desert their physical thirst was not satisfied and, in another sense, that “thirst” that was their desire for fulfillment was also not satisfied.  In their weakness the people sought to fulfill themselves in ways that ultimately never fulfill, by positioning themselves against God in grumbling and doubt.  God heard their cries and provided water from the rock.  The place of their doubt and quarreling (Massah and Meribah) about whether God was in their midst became a symbol to the people that they should not let hardship cause them to seek to satiate their thirst apart from God.

Our thirst and God’s thirst for us is central to the Gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well.  We have natural thirst that needs to be quenched.  But “thirst” is also a symbol of desire for better life, desire for fulfillment, hopes and aspirations.  It is clear in the passage that these different senses of “thirst” are in play in the Gospel because it becomes clear that the woman and Jesus are speaking of different kinds of water.  She speaks of literal water from the well; Jesus speaks of living water that wells up to eternal life.

In this meeting place of the woman’s thirst for water and Jesus’ thirst for souls, his love for souls, we find a hidden message.  God sees and knows our struggles and hardships (like the people in the desert) and so, he weds Himself to us to bring us relief, fulfillment, and new life.  A major part of why I am captivated by this passage is because of the hidden nuptial imagery in it.  In the Scriptures to have a man and a woman meeting at a well has implications of betrothal and marriage further down the line.  Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at a well, and not just any generic well, but Jacob’s well.  The Jewish mind would know of wells in the Old Testament that were important meeting points.  Abraham’s servant meets Isaac’s future bride Rebecca at a well (cf. Gn. 24:10-53).  Moses meets Zipporah at a well before they marry (cf. Ex. 2:15-21).  Most especially for this Gospel, Jacob meets his beloved Rachel at a well, in fact the same well as the Gospel (cf. Gen. 29:1-14).  They marry and become the patriarch and matriarch of Israel.

Now, certainly the nuptial imagery of Jesus at the well is not to be understood in the sense of a literal future wedding, for we know that Jesus was celibate.  But the nuptial relationship and imagery remains.  Jesus is the Bridegroom of his Church, the Scriptures tell us.  Isaiah had prophesied to Israel that your maker will be your husband (cf. Is. 54:5) and your builder shall marry you (cf. Is. 62:5).  And Isaiah prophesied that Israel would be called no longer desolate but “espoused” (cf. Is. 62:4).  To see the Lord at Jacob’s well with the Samaritan woman sets the scene for us to understand that the Lord has a great love for his people – his scattered people – imaged in this woman from Samaria, and that he loves them and desires them more than they – more than we – even know.  Like the Samaritan woman we can seek to satisfy our lesser thirsts while being unaware of the One in our midst who offers us living water.  If only we would ask!

And there is the key for us!  Hardships and struggles and setbacks and sufferings plague us too.  In both direct and indirect ways we can grumble and complain against God.  In fact, I’m not even so much concerned about the direct doubts and grumblings against God.  At least a person who does so is honest and acknowledges the doubt stirring inside.  But the indirect and tacit doubt and grumbling ignores our deeper thirst and seeks to satisfy it in so many ways that will never last.  Don’t dismiss the possibility that we are like the people in the desert who doubt if God is with us.  No, ours may not be a direct statement of doubt.  But do you foster a meaningful and daily prayer life?  If not, that’s a silent Meribah and Massah.  But the Lord is already at the well waiting for you.  Do you seek to satisfy your longings, your thirst by your own means and in ways apart from God that will never satisfy?  That’s tacit grumbling.  And the Lord already knows your sins and calls you to repent, just like he knew the life of the Samaritan woman, leading her to repent and say “Come see a man who told me everything I have done.”

Over the course of her conversation with Jesus the Samaritan woman was illuminated to recognize Jesus and to come to faith in him.  We thirst for God.  We must be careful not to let hardship and struggle drive us to seek to satisfy our thirst in grumblings and doubt.  For they will never satisfy.  Rather, in prayer we arrive at the well and find the one who thirsts for us first.  As the water came from the rock in the desert, so we learn from St. Paul that Jesus is the Rock (cf. 1 Cor. 10:4).  He is struck on the Cross from which he cries: “I thirst.”  Give him a drink of your faith and seek from him the living water welling up to eternal life!

Second Sunday of Lent

Dominica II in Quadragesima A
5 March 2023

The first Sunday of Lent we began with a typical focus on the Devil’s temptation of Jesus in the desert, together with the Old Testament reading from Genesis of the fall of Adam and Eve by sin.  The second Sunday of Lent places our focus on the Transfiguration of the Lord on the mountain.  But we miss the very beginning snippet of today’s Gospel passage in Matthew chapter 17.  That missing introductory snippet reads: “And after six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John…” and on with the rest of today’s selection.  I am choosing to alert you to that simple missing phrase, “and after six days”, because it sets the stage for understanding the Transfiguration as a parallel and fulfillment of an event in the Old Testament.

What is the point in highlighting the timing of “after six days”?  That timing gives us a connection, a parallel to the Old Testament accounts of Moses on Mt. Sinai.  With this in mind we can see a number of parallels between Moses on Mt. Sinai and Jesus on the mountain of the transfiguration.  In fact, I think it is worth hearing directly from the Old Testament to appreciate some similarities.  The Book of Exodus, chapter 24, verse 16b-18, says: “and on the seventh day [the Lord] called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.  Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.  And Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain.  And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.”

Notice some parallels here: “After six days,” puts you at the seventh day.  On the seventh day Moses went up to be with the Lord God.  After six days, Jesus goes up the mountain where His presence as God is revealed.  The cloud on Mt. Sinai revealed the glory of the Lord.  In the Gospel we have the transfiguration of the Lord by which his glory was shone, his face shining like the sun, and his clothing becoming white as light.  In the Old Testament a cloud is a symbol of the presence of the glory of God and comes to be an image of the Holy Spirit.  In the Gospel we have a “bright cloud” from which the Father’s voice is heard.  When you put it all together, we have a key revelation of the Blessed Trinity in this event of the Transfiguration.  The Father, the Incarnate Son, and the Holy Spirit are all present here along with the Old Testament figures of Moses and Elijah.

Appreciating this parallel helps us see that Jesus is the new Moses.  He fulfills the mission of Moses and he is greater than Moses.  And that, in turn, communicates to us some significant meaning about what the Lord is coming to do and what he means for us.

With our Blessed Lord as the new Moses, and aware of the significance of Moses in salvation history, we can ask: What then is the exodus through which Jesus is leading us?  Our Lenten Sunday Masses are highlighting some aspects of this journey.  Last weekend we confronted temptation and sin and we saw its effects and destruction in the lives of Adam and Eve, our first parents.  They – and through them the human nature we inherit – were disfigured by sin.  Their eyes were opened and the impact of sin was seen in their relationship with one another and with God.  They began to fail to trust one another such that they began hiding themselves from one another and hiding themselves from God.  We inherit that disfigurement through Original Sin and we further harm our own nature, our very selves and our hope for eternal life, by our personal sins.  By listening to the “voice” of temptation we fall further under the dominance of the evil one and we harm our likeness to God, which is our fundamental dignity.  That’s the bad news.  It’s important to have that fundamental understanding of the reality of things.  The bad news explains much about ourselves and our world.  That’s perhaps why we face that sober truth so early in Lent as we did last Sunday.  But this weekend our Lenten journey places before us a new hope.  Just as God’s people were led out of slavery in Egypt by Moses, the new Moses – Jesus – is shown in the Gospel, and the exodus he leads us through is not liberation from a geographical place like Egypt, but liberation from the moral slavery to sin and the “place” of damnation.  The Transfiguration of God in our human flesh, affords us the Good News and the hope of our human nature being transformed where it has been disfigured by sin.  Our Lord has accomplished salvation for us.  Lent is our annual opportunity to be renewed in that pattern and to live more deeply the redemption the Lord won for us.  But there is an important key to keep in mind: We are never permitted to dismiss suffering and the Cross as part of this journey our Lord made as the New Moses.  We are never permitted to dismiss suffering and the cross as part of our own journey in following the Lord on our exodus to newness of life.  In the Gospel selection, the Lord required that they come down the mountain and continue on to Jerusalem, the place of his exodus from this life.  The Lord instructed Peter, James, and John, not to share the vision until after he had been raised from the dead.  In other words, the Lord accepts his suffering and death.  Just so, we cannot avoid the valleys of this life.  We cannot avoid suffering and our own crosses.  We cannot avoid going to our own Jerusalems for our own exodus.  Our sins are real and do real harm.  The Lord saves us from the eternal consequences of sin.  Yet, the disfiguring reality of sin requires our own transfiguration through struggle and sacrifice and much grace from God.  In all this we seek to cooperate with the Lord and his mission and to willingly go where he is leading.  In Lent we are called to leave our places of comfort, the places where we have set up our “tents”, to use an image from the Gospel.  We are called to go where we do not always want to go.  We take up penances and mortifications so that we are transformed by participating in the Cross.  We come here, where we seek to be worthily prepared, so that we can be nourished by the very sacrifice of the Lord on the Cross and so grow in his glory and know ourselves to be sons and daughters of our heavenly Father.

First Sunday of Lent - Traditional Latin Mass

Dominica I in Quadragesima (Mass of the 1962 Missal)
26 February 2023

 IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

The Gospel of the first Sunday of the Season of Lent places before us Our Blessed Lord’s journey into the desert from the account of St. Matthew.  Soon after his baptism, whereby his identity as the Beloved Son is revealed, our Lord goes out into the wilderness of the desert to prepare for his saving mission.  The trip to the desert is not an insignificant detail and it is not a random journey.  Rather, it is the Spirit that leads our Lord into the desert to take on the Devil.

Perhaps it strikes us as curious that the very Spirit of God, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, would lead the Son into the terrain of the prince of this world.  But it is for a holy purpose.  That purpose can give us focus for what Lent should be for us.

Our Lord’s appearance in the desert can serve to call to mind the desert wanderings of the Exodus.  God was doing something important and salvific in the life and history of Israel and he was doing so in the unforgiving wilderness.  Is this not the challenge for every life of faith?  We become focused on the desert, where there is dryness and difficulty and suffering in our life and we become so nearsighted in our misery that we can no longer see the overarching narrative, that God is acting and doing something to bring about His purposes.  As was the case in the Exodus and so many other instances of the number forty in the Scriptures, so here with our Lord’s forty days and nights in the desert, we have a time of testing of faith and a time of purification to lead to greater strength in battle.  Likewise for us, our symbolic forty days of Lent is a time of testing and a time of purification.  The goal is that our faith become stronger as we become more and more purified from sin.

Our Lord has a full human nature united to his full divine nature.  After forty days and forty nights of fasting, he would have been very hungry and very weak.  Think of how unprepared we can be when it comes to fasting for just one day on Ash Wednesday!  The battle our Lord faced was inconceivable to our paltry penances.  In that immense weakness the Devil, the opportunist that he is, came to tempt the Lord.  And the three temptations presented by the Devil mark the classic temptations that theologians have noted as part of man’s fallen nature.  That classic formulation of temptation is that man’s downfall is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.  St. John the Apostle and Evangelist shows just how ancient this formulation is when he warns not to love the things of the world and writes in his First Letter, chapter 2, verse 16: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.”

The Devil’s first temptation refers to the lust of the flesh, that is, to the desires of the flesh, of the body, to pleasures of whatever kind.  Our Lord is hungry and the temptation is to fill his belly and to give himself the pleasure and satisfaction of eating, to respond to the desire of the flesh for food by turning stones into bread.  Keeping with St. John and the ordering sequence of the classic formulation of the threefold temptation, we’ll jump to the third temptation from the Devil in the Gospel selection today.  The lust of the eyes is the desire to possess and to take by whatever means necessary.  In the third temptation the Devil shows our Lord all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  The Devil has a certain dominion over this world.  But the Lord has come to save the world, to pull it from the Devil’s grasp and to claim its proper ownership by God.  By offering the Lord all the kingdoms of the world, the Devil is tempting the Lord to gain possession of the souls he has come to save, but to do so – and here is the critical difference – to do so without suffering and without the Cross, but by worshipping the Devil himself.  And finally, the pride of life takes us back to the second temptation listed by St. Matthew in the Gospel selection.  Here the Devil tempts the Lord to show Himself for who He is as God and to do so in a very public way from the height of the Temple.  The Devil suggests that the Lord throw himself down to demonstrate his identity by means of the angels who would come to prevent his fall.

The Church places this episode before us at the start of Lent to show us that the Lord is recapitulating – and doing so successfully – the temptations of Adam and Eve and the temptations of Israel in the desert of the Exodus.  Where Adam’s sin turned paradise into exile and left him outside paradise in the desert, our Lord willingly goes into the desert to be faithful in resisting the classic threefold temptation.  Our Lord is faithful Israel.  Our Lord is the new Adam.  In all this he shows us that God Himself in His immense love for us comes to experience our weakness and to be victorious, and to do so in our very flesh.

In this holy season we are to battle that classic threefold concupiscence inherited from Adam: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.  But our battle cannot be half-hearted and weak.  We need some manly courage to be serious about discipline.  This is precisely what we are not good about as modern Americans.  So many of us, I fear, do not move beyond a childish Lent where we give up chocolate or some luxury.  It’s fine to give up those things.  But I highly doubt anyone’s salvation will rest on giving up chocolate, or pizza, or soda.  Yes, give up things like that, but also do something serious, something really challenging.  Take up one practice of prayer and one practice of mortification.  For prayer: If you don’t already pray a daily Rosary, then do it.  Pray with the Scriptures.  After all, “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”  Or perhaps committing to come more often to adoration and even to committing to take an hour in our chapel each week would be a good new step in uniting yourself to our victorious Lord.  And for mortification: why not do more than the bare minimum?  I sometimes wonder about our modern regulations for Lent.  Do we really fast?  I mean, our modern rules for fasting are basically so easy that frankly it is not much of a challenge for most people.  So, how about willingly taking on more than the bare minimum?  It’s not required, I know, but perhaps fast on all Fridays of Lent, at least for most of the day up until the fish fry and then even there take only a modest amount.  I am sure these practices will increase the likelihood of a fruitful Lent where we can participate in the Lord’s victory and find renewal in the invitation to grow in daily prayer and the life of grace with the Lord.  As we heard in the epistle from St. Paul, “we exhort you that you receive not the grace of God in vain…. Behold now is the acceptable time, behold is the day of salvation.”

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday
22 February 2023

    Today we have begun the holy season of renewal known as Lent.  This season is a time of spiritual exercises, engagement in serious spiritual battle, by repentance, acts of penance, and the mercy of confession to be restored in the dignity begun in us at baptism.  At least that is what we should be doing in this holy opportunity of the season of Lent!

  There are two basic realities as we begin Lent that should cause us to reflect and to evaluate the direction of our lives.  (1) God is rich in mercy and loves us and He does not desire the sinner to die.  And, (2) we are wretched sinners who, in justice, deserve death and punishment for our sins, even eternal punishment.  I bet we don’t think of that nearly often enough.  Or maybe I should say that it would be likely that the modern American mindset would not bring the reality of our wickedness to mind with anything more than a rather generic evaluation that goes like this: “I’m a sinner, but I’m not the worst sinner there is.”

   The comparison to some other worse sin or worse sinner completely under cuts the drive that ought to characterize our Christian striving.  That type of thought reveals a rather soft, even limp, sense of the high degree of our calling and the horror that sin is in the eyes of God.  No wonder that we can often settle for a comfortable discipleship, one that, when it comes down to it, is rather easily accomplished without much effort.  This poor excuse for Christian vitality becomes all the more stark when we consider the length the modern American goes for other pursuits.  Would anyone call himself a fan of a team if he only showed up to the team events a couple times a year?  The modern American would sniff out that lie immediately.  But somehow being an active part of Christ’s Body the Church only every so often doesn’t strike some modern minds as being less than fully Catholic.  Would anyone who doesn’t train for a sport with serious dedication expect to be a starter on the team?  Absolutely not.  In fact, you’d probably be kicked off the team.  But somehow a soft discipleship that doesn’t really develop prayer, confess sin frequently, or follow Church teaching seems to be enough to get into Heaven in some minds.  Have you noticed how every modern American funeral assumes the deceased person is in Heaven, and theologically worse, assumes the person is now an angel who “got her wings”?  I have never once been to a funeral where I heard it said, “Well, we should pray because he’s probably in a worse place now.”  Now, I’m not saying we should assume Hell.  Don’t get me wrong.  But, assume Heaven?  How often might we hear excuses that seem to absolve a person from serious effort at growing in holiness and battling sin?  “Well, it would be really hard to give that thing up”, or “it would be big inconvenience”.  Really?  Harder or more inconvenient than damnation?  The modern American mindset can risk dismissing the things of the soul in a way it would never do with things of the body.  We can tend to grow lax and slack in what should be a striving that seeks to pass through the eye of a needle (cf. Mt. 19:24).  Thus, do we need a Lent to wake us up.  To shock the system.  To get us into spiritual shape.  And hopefully, being renewed in Lent, we eventually become less likely to fall to the trend of a soft discipleship the rest of the year.

   Our Catholic faith and teaching has a remarkable ability to hold together both the truth of God’s immense love for us and the truth that we are sinners who need to take seriously the call to repent and to convert in order to be fully alive here and to have eternal life in Heaven.  When we speak clearly and admit that we are sinners deserving punishment, we are not downplaying God’s love and saving desire for everyone He has made.  When we speak clearly and admit that God has made us for Himself and He offers mercy to all, we are not obscuring the fact that our sin is real, it does real harm, and it is deserving of punishment.  Both are true and we hold up both at one and the same time.  Lent is a time to uncover the unintentional, weak attitudes that sometimes lull us into being miserably out of spiritual shape and discipline.  God loves us.  And we are sinners.  We do not presume God’s mercy by treating sin lightly.  We also do not despair of salvation by thinking God unable to save us by His rich grace.  We begin today, the collect said, a “campaign of Christian service” by taking up “battle against spiritual evils” “armed with weapons of self-restraint.”  By faith and baptism we are drafted into this campaign and we should be ready to wage war.  May the Lord bless our efforts and may His holy angels protect us in this season of battling the forces that pull us away from His generous love.

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica VII per Annum A
19 February 2023

 Before we go through the process for the Annual Catholic Appeal, and with the historic moment of the consecration of the Shrine of Bl. Stanley Rother fresh on our minds, I want to say a few words about the pattern of the consecration of a Church (a temple being another word) compared to the pattern of how we enter and progress in life as Christians (that is temples of God; dwellings of the Holy Spirit).  I want to reflect on this because of the providential words in the second reading: “Brothers and sisters: Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?  If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy” (1 Cor. 3:16-17).

 The evocative ceremony of dedication of a new church speaks to us powerfully.  Before the dedication starts we already have a beautiful building, but it is only a building.  The most stark sign of this is that the sanctuary with the altar is not decorated as normal, much like Good Friday when the altar is stripped to recall the Lord’s death.  The altar stands in the center of an undedicated church as an empty table.  But once consecrated, the altar and sanctuary are vested as the place of encounter with God, where the Lord Jesus comes in his resurrected Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist.

 What did we witness with the consecration of the Shrine on Friday (whether live in person or watching on TV or livestream)?   I want to highlight some of the major moments in the ceremony of the consecration of a new church and connect them to how we become temples of God as we heard in the second reading.  (1) The minister with authority (in this case a bishop) claims the property for Christ and his Kingdom and it is handed over to him by those who built it.  Until our baptism we are under the dominion of Satan for he is permitted power in this world.  We are subjects of the kingdom of darkness.  But then a minister with authority claims us for Christ and his Kingdom when we are handed over to him by those – usually parents – who helped make us.  (2) At the consecration, the bishop blesses water and sprinkles the entire building with it to drive out Satan and to bless the structure.  At our baptism water is blessed and we are washed clean to drive out Satan and to wash us clean of sin.  (3) Another major moment of a consecration is that the altar and the walls of the new church are anointed with perfumed sacred chrism to set them aside for the honor and glory of God.  Likewise, we become Christians – the literal meaning is “anointed ones” – by also sharing in an anointing with sacred chrism at baptism and confirmation, so that we should understand ourselves and conduct ourselves as set aside for God.  (4) Next, there is the incensation of the altar and the entire church.  So often in our living of the faith and gathering for Holy Mass, at least at the principal Masses with more pageantry, we are incensed along with the altar and the gifts for offering.  Incense is always a sign of the presence of divinity (that’s what is understood by the Three Kings bringing incense to the Baby Jesus).  Being made temples of God, His presence dwells in us.  And the incense reminds us that our prayers, our speech, our aspirations, our hearts rise up to God just as the smoke rises in the air before us.  (5) Next, the altar is vested and the candles we are so accustomed to seeing are finally lit and things look as we expect them to be in a church.  When we are claimed for Christ and become temples of God and the dwelling of the Holy Spirit at baptism, we are given a lit candle for we have received the light of faith and we are to make our world less dark by letting faith shine in our actions.  We should vest – we should dress up – for our encounter with God in this temple for we are called to put on the vesture of God’s kingdom.  (6) Finally, all of this is done to set the new church aside as the place where God comes in His Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist on the altar.  Once we are claimed for God we are called to be united to Him.  We are to guard this temple, to let nothing destroy it, especially to recognize sin as the destructive force it is, so that we live in a way that we are ready and able to receive the Lord in Holy Communion for nourishment in this life and ready and able to greet him when he comes again in glory.

 Brothers and sisters: You are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you!  The ritual of the consecration of a new church is never just about the building alone; rather, it is a reminder of the living building that we are called to be.  A new church receives consecration passively and remains an inanimate object.  That cannot be our consecration.  We receive consecration, but we must do so actively and to live daily in a way that shows us to be living stones who make other disciples to add to the cornerstone of Christ.  In this way, we are made perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect (cf. Mt. 5:48).

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica V per Annum A
5 February 2023

 Last Sunday’s Gospel proclaimed to us our Blessed Lord’s teaching of the Beatitudes.  In what can be considered a New Covenant parallel to Moses’ journey up Mt. Sinai to receive the Law in the Commandments of the Old Covenant, our Lord goes up the mountain and he gives the Beatitudes.  In Scripture a mountain is a place of God’s revelation and it is a place of divine encounter with mankind.  As we heard last week, adopting the posture of a rabbi, our Lord sat down and taught and his disciples gathered around him.  Thus, the setting of the Beatitudes and the Lord’s posture show us a revelation that gives inner vitality to our living of the Commandments, which have not changed and have not been replaced.  His posture also shows us a teaching with authority that is meant to guide our lives.

   Today’s passage comes immediately after the Lord delivers the Beatitudes.  In the brief passage today, the Lord uses three images that tell us of our mission as disciples in relationship to the world.  The Lord references salt, light, and being a city set on a mountain.  All three of these images that Jesus uses for his Church are continuations of images associated with the identity and calling of God’s People Israel.

Jesus says of his Church and his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth.”  Salt is a sign of permanence and purity.  God established his kingdom on an enduring relationship with King David and his sons by means of a covenant of salt.  Whereas you and I hear the Lord reference salt and probably only think of seasoning our food for taste, what we miss is that for the Jew salt had a ritual use.  It had a very particular use in that it was to be sprinkled on the offerings made in the Temple as part of Israel’s covenant fidelity.  Thus, you can read in the Book of Leviticus, “Ought you not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingship over Israel for ever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt?” (Lev. 13:5).

Jesus says of his Church and his disciples, “You are the light of the world.”  The People Israel had the vocation to be a light to the nations so that God’s offer of salvation would radiate and grow and go out to all peoples.  Israel was a chosen people, but chosen to be a servant to all the world.  The Prophet Isaiah reports this prophecy of the Lord God speaking to Israel, “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Is. 49:6).

   With a slight adaptation of the Gospel words, Jesus says of his Church and his disciples, “You are a city set on a mountain” (adaptation of Mt. 5:14b).  This image connects disciples to the privileged place of the Holy City Jerusalem, which was to be a city set on a hill drawing all people to itself and to the Temple.  Thus, the Prophet Isaiah also reports, “It shall come to pass… that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains… and all the nations shall flow to it” (Is. 2:2).  Light is not hidden but it is set on a lampstand so that it gives light by which to see.  Light is placed in prominence.  Like a city set on a mountain that cannot be hidden, Jesus says of his Church and his disciples, “[Y]our light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father” (Mt. 5:16).

   As the assembly of Israel received the Law in the Commandments on Mt. Sinai, so in the New Covenant the assembly of the Church receives the Beatitudes on the mountain top.  Disciples should receive this authoritative teaching from the Lord as a revelation of our relationship to God, a revelation of our identity in belonging to Him, and a revelation of our mission, our vocation.  There is a very popular and pervasive idea in culture, and even among Christians, and you hear people directly and indirectly promote this idea all the time.  It’s probably why we need something like a New Evangelization.  The idea is that faith is a private affair, a purely personal matter, that should be kept out of polite company and public discourse.  That idea needs to be completely dismantled and dismissed for the parasite that it is on our vocation and mission as disciples.  That erroneous idea did not come from the Lord on the mountain of authority.  Rather, it comes from secular elites from the high places of halls of power and money.  I bet there are times in your own life that you can admit that this parasitical notion has infected you and your sense of how to live the faith in the world.  We can easily fall prey to it.  Is it more comfortable to have a faith that is conveniently packaged and sealed, opened only on Sundays and in private places?  Probably so.  But that is not who we are called to be!  That is not what we are called to do!  To those who accept the idea that faith is a private and purely personal affair, we should say: Then explain the images of salt of the earth, light of the world, and a city set on a mountain!  Those would be totally bizarre and nonsensical images for Jesus to use if his idea was that faith is only private, if his idea for his Church and his disciples was that we be a club concerned only about ourselves and tucked away from interaction with the world.  No, the Church’s mission, fulfilling that of Israel’s, is to evangelize and to spread the Good News of the Kingdom precisely TO the world!  Our light must shine before others, Jesus says.  We are not being the disciples the Lord calls us to be if our faith is not evident in how we live our lives in public.  Cultural powers use every means they can to cudgel us into a private faith that has no bearing on our daily living.  They draft laws and orders that require us to act contrary to our faith.  They seek to criminalize those who do act according to their faith.  The government seeks to force religious employers to pay for contraceptives.  There are those who want to force people with religious convictions to be part of funding for abortions.  The cake shop owner in Colorado is a good example of how the powerful elites seek to force small business owners to participate in events celebrating immoral activities and fictions like gay marriage and transgender reveal parties.

   Our world, made good by God, loved by Him, and which He desires to return to Him for fullness of life, is stale, dark, and flat – is soul-less without God – and Jesus and his Church are to be its salvation.  You and I aren’t Christians on mission if our faith is only a private affair.  From the Gospel: “But if salt loses its taste…. It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”  May that never be said of us.  We can’t lose our seasoning.  Start with yourself and include your family in a daily habit of prayer to keep your seasoning.  The Rosary should be a natural devotion for us.  Frequent confession to be healed of sin and a regular sacramental life keep our light burning brightly.  Being willing to share your faith in how you raise your children and in your friendly witness to those around you at work, in your neighborhood, and in public is a way to be a city set on a hill.  In all this we do not seek to have ourselves seen, but rather to let our witness drive others to glorify the heavenly Father and to be brought into the covenant of salvation.

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany (Traditional Latin Mass)

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany (Mass of the 1962 Missal)
Rom. 13:8-10; Mt. 8:23-27
29 January 2023

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.              

The setting of this Gospel selection is the Sea, also called the Lake, of Galilee.  It had – and still has – a reputation for being dangerous due to sudden storms that can arise.  Fishermen knew these dangers well and they became seasoned to the temperamental nature of the Sea of Galilee.  The Gospel text clearly describes the storm in strong and dramatic terms.  Perhaps to put an exclamation point on the danger so that we don’t diminish the severe nature of this storm, we should note that, the disciples, experienced fishermen who knew the sea well, were clearly terrified thinking this storm might be their last and they would not make it to shore.  In fact, this tempest was more than just a violent storm.  The Greek words limjohnson@saintannechurchnh.orgterally refer to a great shaking of the sea, something like an earthquake.  This conjures up the image of something like a tsunami.  Thus, St. Matthew describes the situation as the ship being “covered with waves.”  The ship is being swamped, taking on water badly, and the men on board, experienced as they were with the Sea of Galilee, think they are likely going to die.  Thus, they cry out: Lord, save us, we perish!  The disciples are being put to the test so that they learn not to surrender to their fears.

                But the threat here may well have been more than severe weather.  That possibility comes as a hint in the response from our Blessed Lord who, the text says, “commanded the winds and the sea.”  The Greek for “commanded” is the word for “rebuked” which is used in other places where our Lord commands by rebuking evil spirits in exorcisms.  This could be a clue that demons are behind the manifestation in nature of the earthquake and sudden storm causing a great commotion on the sea.  In fact, the Church has exorcistic prayers used when there is threat of severe storms, to pray that forces lurking behind terrible threats of nature may be calmed.  Decades ago, after a particularly bad hurricane season, a past archbishop of the Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama, ordered that after all Masses the Divine Praises be recited asking for God’s protection from storms.  It’s a practice they still do today.  The Church, the Barque of St. Peter, still today prays against threatening storms as she makes her way through the troubled waters of the kingdom of man.  In traveling through so many storms in history and in the present day, the Church manifests or shows – in fact, she carries – the divinity of Christ to the world.

                We know that the Church has faced and still faces violent storms as she makes her way through history.  We don’t always see through the veil and we can’t always clearly identify spiritual realities in this valley of tears.  But we can assume that in some cases the forces lurking behind troubles that come from outside and within the Church may well be the evil manipulation of demons.  In today’s Gospel selection we may have the hint that demons were behind the storm.  But we can also suggest that demons may also have been behind the manipulation of the disciples’ fears as they despaired while the Lord slept in the boat.

                The ship of the Church continues her voyage giving witness to the Lord who is God among us.  We are not disciples literally in a boat but we might as well be, because we are rocked about and overcome with the waves of godless secularism and leftist ideology that seeks to corrupt and refashion everything God has revealed in nature and in the revelation given to the Church.  We are tossed about by the tsunami of being lied to daily by cultural elites and their mouthpieces in the mainstream media as they seek to advance a globalist agenda.  And the demonic forces that seek to pry our faith from us can be seen in the waves that swamp us even from within the Church.  So many have surrendered the authentic faith in favor of having their ears tickled by false doctrine.  Perversion, sin, and crime among our shepherds have left trust destroyed.  We have whole generations who know almost nothing about the faith but who can spout every relativistic antiphon that undercuts moral absolutes and the fact that the Lord established one true Church for our salvation.  We have Synods that are little more than manipulative committees with pre-determined outcomes, and bishops and popes who say confusing and foolish things.  Come to think of it, maybe this is the Sea of Galilee!

                And the Lord seems to be asleep through it all.  And we cry out: Don’t you care?  Save us for we perish!  My brothers and sisters, our faith is being tested mightily.  Will we be like those who do not trust in God, surrendering to our fears, and so hear the indictment of our Lord: Why are you fearful, oh you of little faith?  Even in this storm-tossed existence, the Church carries the Lord and manifests his divinity in this world.  Demons want to attack.  And sadly, both outside and inside the Church there are those who cooperate with and fall prey to demonic manipulations.  The Deposit of Faith is our sure rudder and anchor in our times.  We should call upon the Lord in daily prayer by which we pour out our troubled hearts to him.  Reading the Word of God and coming before him in Adoration should be standards for this rocky journey.  The daily Rosary should be a natural reflex for us.  How poor we would be if we left Our Lady and her rosary to dangle only from our rearview mirrors!  Frequent confession is a must so that we are washed of the sins that will only lead us to despair.  And worthy reception of the Lord’s gift of self in Holy Communion increases our faith in our storm-tossed times.  In time we will marvel at the great calm that the Lord commands because he has authority over all things.  Lord, we beg of you: see the wind and the seas in our time and rebuke them so that we may marvel as did your disciples: What manner of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey Him?

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

Third Sunday of Advent

Dominica III Adventus A
11 December 2022 

                Within the season of Advent this Mass of the Third Sunday stands out with a unique character.  The character of this Sunday stands out by the shift in color from purple to the liturgical color rose and the permission to decorate the sanctuary with flowers.  It should be obvious to anyone following from day to day in Advent that something is different at this moment in the season.  Coming from the Latin first word of the entrance antiphon of the Mass, this Mass is known as Gaudete – or Rejoice! – Sunday.  The entrance antiphon of the Mass had us pray, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.”  And why do we rejoice?  What is the cause of our rejoicing?  The antiphon goes on to tell us, for “the Lord is near.”

                The “Lord” refers to God.  That God has come near to His people – to us! – is a cause of joy, even if it is also mysterious and causes some reverential fear.  In what ways has God come near to us?  We hold in faith the coming near of God-in-the-flesh at the first coming of His birth.  God has taken on our flesh to come very near indeed!  He walked and lived among people in a real place and at a real time in history.  And He is not now far, though He has given everything for the saving mission He came to accomplish on the Cross; for we also hold in faith that by His ascension He still remains in our flesh and is still one-with-us from His rightful place in Heaven.  The Lord God is near!  He continues to come near to us when with faith, even faith the size of a mustard seed, a person opens his heart and mind to call upon Him in prayer.  He comes near in a real and spiritual way to such souls who pray.  He continues to come near when we comport our lives to His commands, working hard to reject sin and to remain near to Him by our moral conduct.  He is near when we have such a union with Him that we take on His very heart to have compassion to serve others and to seek out the lost.  He comes near to us as we embrace the orthodox faith that the Church guards and passes on for our salvation and for the salvation of the world.  And for those who are united to the Church established by our Lord, we experience the nearness of God when we prepare and receive worthily the grace of the sacraments He so generously gives.  When we are united to the sacramental life of the Church we have a means of rejoicing because the very life and power of God come to us in humble elements of nature, in the same way as God once came in the humility of human flesh.

                Rejoice in the Lord always!  The Lord is near!  Why do we believe that God is near?  Certainly, the authority of God’s Word in the passages heard today are a prime cause of rejoicing in the revelation they give to us.  Let’s take a look at what God’s Word reveals to us.  So many centuries of Christian faith having gone before us may mean that we don’t keep clear an important distinction about Jesus.  We accept that Jesus is the Messiah and we accept that He is God.  These are actually two distinct things that may not be so distinct in our minds so many centuries after the revelation of today’s Gospel passage.  Jesus is the Messiah, in Greek the Christ, the promised one who comes to bring redemption to God’s people by lifting them from their suffering and by being the anointed priest and king who would have an enduring kingdom in the line of David.  Yet, quite another thing is the revelation that Jesus is also God Himself.  It is God Himself who comes to be this Messiah, this Christ.  We take the joining of these two realities rather for granted, I suggest.  But that was a lesson that still needed to be learned in Jesus’ time and it explains the revelation that comes about by John the Baptist’s question in today’s Gospel when he hears of the “works of the Christ”, the works of the Messiah, the works that reveal the Messiah.  Through his own disciples, John asks Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”  What is the Lord’s response?  He basically quotes from today’s first reading, Isaiah 35.  He says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see.”  Did you notice who is coming in Isaiah 35?  It is not the Messiah.  It is, rather, God Himself.  Listen again to the first reading, “Here is your God, he comes with vindication;… he comes to save you.”  Who is coming?  It is God.  And what are the signs that God is coming?  Isaiah 35 says, the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be cleared, the lame will leap, the mute will speak.  And when John the Baptist asks are you the one who is to come, how does Jesus answer?  He says, you tell me what you are seeing and hearing.  He lists off the following: the blind regain sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear.  In other words, Jesus is doing the works of God who comes.  So, this passage reveals that Jesus is the one who is to come and that He is God Himself.  You probably also note that Jesus added a few things to his list of evidence.  He also noted that in him lepers are cleansed and the dead are raised.   This alludes to other Old Testament passages (2 Kgs. 5 and Isaiah 26) that indicate actions that only God can do.  It’s like putting an exclamation point on this revelation that the “one” we are talking about here is God Himself.  Finally, Jesus also notes another piece of evidence, that in him the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.  This alludes to signs that the Messiah – distinct from being God – has come (Isaiah 61).  So, the Lord’s answer to the question, “are you the one,” really gives us a double revelation.  The answer is, yes, Jesus is God who was promised to come and he is the Messiah, fulfilling both roles in one: He is God and He is the Messiah.  He is the Divine Messiah, the origin of the beautiful Advent hymn, “O Come Divine Messiah”.  And so, the Church says, “rejoice!”  Why?  Because the Lord God Himself is near!  He is not far from you!

                To live in rejoicing, to remain in rejoicing, we need to remain near to God.  A grace for us today is to find hope in the nearness of God and to recognize that if we are far from God it is not because He has failed to come near.  It is rather, because we stray.  We choose to dwell apart in the darkness of sin.  We go astray in our own ideas and popular concepts about religion that depart from orthodox faith.  We stray into secular pursuits that can replace a living faith.  Some even quite literally stray away from the Church.  If the cause of our rejoicing is that God Himself has come near to us, then a simple lesson for us is that we are called to use our freedom and zeal to remain near to Him.  And the good news is He has already bridged the gap, He has already come close.  We have to be convinced that we are not near to the Lord when we adopt secular ways and when we are complacent about sin.  Are there ways in which you do not find yourself rejoicing?  Then a lesson of this Mass is that one key to resolving that is to get closer to Jesus.  The fulfillment offered to us in God and the claim of fulfillment offered by consumerism come crashing into one another at this time of year.  So many sacred mysteries do we recall with tenderness in this time of year, and at the same time so much busyness, shopping, gift buying, and wrapping, and all the things that we have to do.  A grace for us is to admit that there is abundant evidence that having all this world can give does not lead to satisfaction and rejoicing.  If you can identify some ways in which you do not rejoice then work to get nearer to God as a remedy.  God is near; we have to work to remain near to Him.  Make a specific time and plan to improve your prayer life… and do it.  Give special attention to working toward the daily Rosary, praying as a family.  Make yourself pull away from all the illusions of media and entertainment by physically moving yourself to our chapel for adoration.  You wonder why you can’t pray at home in front of the television and all the noise and the phone?!  Get away from them.  Plop yourself in this chapel behind me.  Get to a place that’s conducive to prayer.  Get nearer to God and nearer to rejoicing by confessing your sins and doing so with frequency.  Get nearer to God and nearer to rejoicing by finding regular ways to serve others in charity.  You’ll know God and His promises are near when you do so.  Finally, get nearer to God and nearer to rejoicing by being worthily prepared to receive the grace of the sacraments, especially Holy Communion.  Any poverty in our rejoicing is not because God has somehow moved away.  But because we have.  “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.  Indeed, the Lord God is near.”

First Sunday of Advent - Traditional Latin Mass

First Sunday of Advent (Mass of the 1962 Missal)
27 November 2022

 IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

The liturgical observance of the Church’s faith follows a cyclical pattern.  This means that we visit and cycle through the same observances year after year.  This repetition serves to teach us by reinforcing important lessons of the spiritual life for our salvation.  And, this repetition allows us the opportunity, through a life of grace lived over the course of many years, the possibility of diving more deeply into the mysteries we observe annually.  Today begins the liturgical cycle in a new year of grace.  For good reason the Incarnation stands out among the mysteries of faith as the unique and signal beacon of salvation history.  This Advent period of preparation calls to mind the ages of history and prophecy leading up to the Incarnation.  Upon arriving at Christmas the Church continues the liturgical cycle the rest of the year by observing the great events in the life of Christ by which he inaugurates the Kingdom of God in our midst, accomplishes mankind’s salvation, and offers man his grace in his Church in preparation for the final judgment.

The word “advent” means “an arrival” or a “coming.”  In Latin we hear this all the time in the Our Father where we pray, “adveniat regnum tuum” where it clearly means “may thy kingdom come.”  In other words, may God’s kingdom arrive here, on earth as it is in heaven.  We use “advent” in other ways to refer to some notable event, or arrival in the sense of a development.  We might say that the advent of the printing press changed how information is shared.  We can refer to the advent of “the pill” as the beginning of the demise of sexual morality.  In this season of penitential preparation we are thinking of the arrival of God in the flesh, already accomplished, which we will celebrate at Christmas; and, we are thinking of His arrival still to come at the end of time at his Second Coming.

In this season we prepare ourselves to appreciate more deeply what the Incarnation means for us.  We also prepare ourselves for what it will mean for us on that unknown day and hour when our Incarnate Lord will come “in a cloud with great power and majesty.”  We might say that in Advent we prepare for the double coming of mercy and justice.  We can equate that first arrival of the Lord as the coming of mercy.  Seeing man’s sad state, it is the arrival of mercy that God came in our flesh.  He has drawn near to make it possible for us to draw near to Him.  He has bridged the divide.  And we can equate the second coming with the arrival of justice.  God expects man to respond to his coming near, to respond to His gifts of grace and generous love.  We will be judged by whether we remain near to Him in the state of grace when He returns in justice among the clouds in glory and majesty.

Though the arrival of God in the flesh on that first Christmas, amid angels singing “Glory to God” was a cause of fright for the shepherds keeping watch in the fields, there is not much for us to be frightened by at the prospect of the first coming of the Lord at Christmas.  For us, it is a tender truth of the faith, a great sign of hope, and a blessed and relaxing time to be with ones we love.  The Second Coming, however, is another story.  Given the signs of distress, confusion, and turmoil that are prophesied to accompany the Second Coming, we need a sober admission that some fear is in order.  Now as a preacher of the full Gospel, I am not wanting the message today to be one of anxiety and terror.  But given that we live in a day and age that is far too lax about the rigors of eternal judgment it is probably best to err on the side of encouraging some healthy discomfort and fear.  The road to hell, after all, is paved with good intentions.  And the heresy of universalism by which it is assumed that everyone is simply going to heaven is alive and well.  There is a delicious irony that so soon after our national day of thanksgiving, which we rightly celebrate, but which might be described as rather gluttonous, a day from which we might still be sobering up… there is a delicious irony that we so quickly come face-to-face with the charge to wake up, to think about how we are living so as to observe well the first coming of the Lord at Christmas and to prepare with seriousness for the second coming of the Lord as Judge.

We walk a fine line as Catholics.  We don’t profess faith in the first coming in a delirious fashion such that we ignore the second coming.  And we don’t cower in terror as we profess faith in the Second Coming, precisely because we always remember the first coming and the hope the Incarnation brings us, a hope in whose honor we genuflect at each Creed and each final Gospel.  Beginning this new year of grace and this season of preparation, aware as we are that there will be terrifying signs in the cosmos that accompany the Lord’s return, we hear and heed the call to not dwell in terror, even as we hold on to reverential fear that motivates us.  I say this because the Gospel itself, upon mentioning the tumult of the end times, gives us a surprising charge.  In the face of terrifying signs we would naturally tend to hunker down and hide and brace ourselves.  But the Gospel tells us, “when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads…”  Why?  “Because,” it says, “your redemption is at hand.”

And so, our response always is to live the generous grace that has flooded human history in that first coming of mercy so that we are ready in the ways the Lord knows will be sufficient for that second coming of justice.  The epistle gives us clear direction: our salvation is nearer now.  Each day when we awake is a little preparation.  The same images apply to the second coming.  Light is approaching.  It is time to wake up.  It is time to get out of the darkness of sin.  It is time to shake the sleep from our eyes.  And most evocative, the epistle tells us it is time to “put on the armor of light.”

When I wake up each day, when I leave the darkness of night, when I shake the sleep from my eyes, I generally follow the same simple routine, and I bet you do too.  I am not looking for much novelty when the alarm goes off each morning.  The routine of getting up and getting ready is familiar.  That might be a good image for us in the spiritual life and in preparations for the Second Coming.  We don’t need novelties and we don’t need much that is new.  We need the routine and the familiar.  So, what is our proven armor of light?  Do you give time for meaningful personal prayer on a daily basis?  You should.  And seek to grow and increase in the time you give to God.  Do you turn off the noise and the absurd ways we keep ourselves distracted such that you can pray a daily Rosary?  You should.  It is a privileged weapon in the battle and no armored saint would be without that sword.  Do you confess your sins regularly?  You should.  The Judge is coming.  So, judge yourself honestly now in confession and you will be more ready and aided to live in grace.  Do you unite yourself at the Holy Mass, lifting yourself, your needs, and your prayers on the paten and in the chalice, making yourself part of the offering on the altar?  You should.  Here we have the sacramental participation of the one sacrifice of the Lord who has already come in mercy.  Here we are renewed in the armor of light.  Here we practice lifting up our heads to see him coming in justice.  We do so with reverence and confidence for our redemption is at hand.

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.