Fourth Sunday of Advent

What a daunting message to a young girl, to be told by an angel that you will be the mother of God. It is understandable that Mary was troubled by the angel’s words. She was young, unmarried, and probably unsure that she could even take care of herself, let alone a child, and in particular the Son of God. This was an incredible amount to take in.

Yet, Mary asked only one simple, practical question in the course of the conversation, and when it was explained to her that she would conceive through the Spirit of God, she asked no more, and humbly accepted being part of God’s plan, and never looked back. She trusted in the Lord alone and needed nothing more than to know His will. Once this was revealed, this young virgin knew that nothing further was necessary. Her trust in God was complete, and she was content to let Him take over and manifest His plan through her.

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of our Lord, it is perhaps a good time to ask ourselves in this final Sunday of Advent, how accepting we truly are of God’s plan for us. Do we trust in the Lord enough to move forward with what we can sense to be His will, or will we ask more questions, do more investigating as to how His plan for us will fit in with our own, and perhaps delay or derail what has been revealed to us simply because we don’t like the message. Do we trust Him enough to move ahead with what He has in mind for us, or do we love and value our own feelings and opinions more? These are hard questions to ponder, yet they are crucial to our preparedness for the coming of the Savior. The coming that was begun so long ago with the birth of a small child, who came into the world for the express purpose of reconciling mankind with His Father by His life, death, and resurrection. Our Lord was born to this purpose, and in fulfilling it with everything He had, is deserving of the faith, love, and trust of each one of us, including our unhindered acceptance of His will for us. We too need to utter the words “May it be done according to your will”.

Third Sunday of Advent

The words from John in our Gospel today are incredibly powerful as both a statement of humility, and as a proclamation of authority as the one chosen by God to be His herald when He came to us as man. The words that he speaks – “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, make straight the way of the Lord” are indeed forceful. Yet this bold statement is proclaimed after a full admission that he was not one of the authoritative sources that those questioning him supposed him to be. Moreover, he stated that he was not even worthy to untie the sandals of the one coming after him. In the Jewish culture this is a profoundly humble remark. Yet for all this, there is an undeniable passion in his words that proclaim his mission. Words that we would do well to draw close to ourselves as an example of our own mission as followers of Christ – to evangelize and to proclaim the good news to those who may not be familiar with it, and so prepare them for when He comes again.

Yet sometimes there is the danger of our efforts becoming sluggish or losing momentum. John was a man on fire, and so we should be as well. Yet in our second reading Saint Paul makes a statement of caution that should continually resonate for us to remind us that we too need to maintain the fire within ourselves. He tells us “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances.” What he is cautioning against is the tendency to let the world distract us so that the flame within us becomes dim, and the very mission we are charged with – to continue to proclaim the words that the prophets passed along to us, becomes inconvenient, even distasteful to us. We can become poisoned by the world so that the very words that have the power to save can become something we despise because we are afraid to proclaim them since they may not be well received initially. We fear rejection and derision from those who have no real power over us, and forget the One who has power over all. We may no longer seek to prepare the way for Him to enter the hearts of others, and so save them. In this season of Advent, as we hopefully spend time in reflection, we need to ask ourselves where we stand. Do we seek to proclaim Gods word and prepare His way first and foremost, or have we let the world convince us that there is actually something in our lives that is more important?

Second Sunday of Advent

In ancient times it was traditional that every kind should have a herald who would precede his coming among his people so that they could prepare and make all things ready for his arrival on the few occasions he would travel. In those days, the king often remained in his palace for reasons of safety and security, as the paths and roads were often not safe. If a king presided over a large kingdom, the people of any given region might only see him once, or perhaps a few times in their lifetime, so preparing for such a special event was very important.

This preparation is even more important for us, as we await the celebration of the coming of the Lord and King of all creation in human form, which we celebrate at Christmas each year. The season of Advent which we now are in is our time of preparation, and in our Gospel today we are reminded of the herald who preceded our Lord’s coming – John the Baptist. John lived a life of asceticism and penance to prepare himself because he recognized the sinfulness that we are each plagued with, and to set an example to help prepare us by his own ready acknowledgement of sin. We do not necessarily have to dress in such rugged attire, nor even eat such spartan foods, but we do need to be keenly aware of the need to prepare ourselves by recalling our sins and seeking forgiveness. We need to prepare the house within each of us that Jesus seeks to dwell in and so be close to us, just as He came to us as a man to be even closer to us. We need to heed the herald of the King, and to make straight the roads into our hearts, and to smooth and level the paths into our souls. We need to be humble enough to stoop low to loosen the sandals on His feet by being willing to humbly serve those around us who were created in His image. In this season we are each called to repent, to atone, and to change so that the house that we prepare for our Lords coming is swept clean and put in order to receive Him.

The birth of our Lord is often celebrated with many decorations, traditions, and gifts, yet none of these compares with the gift that we were each given in that humble manger so long ago. The gift of God living among us as man for the express purpose of dying for our sins so that as John told us, we would be able to be baptized with fire and the Holy Spirit and to be restored in our relationship with our Creator. In this season I hope that each of us can pay a bit more attention to how we live and interact with those we encounter, so that by our way of living we can each be an echo of that voice crying out in the desert – Prepare the way of the Lord!

First Sunday of Advent

As we celebrate the first Sunday of Advent, the message to us from our readings is one of anticipation, and a call to watchfulness. The season itself is one of preparing ourselves and of anticipating the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ at Christmas. It is a time for prayer and self-evaluation, as well as taking action.

In our first reading from the prophet Isaiah, as well as in our Gospel, we are called to an accounting of our own sinfulness, and to be watchful for the coming of the Master. It is a time of focused humility as we honestly assess our own shortcomings, even in the things we did “right”, because no matter how well we may have accomplished some things, it is only done well by human standards, not by those of God. This should not be seen as a discouraging statement, as no one can truly measure up to the standards of someone who is perfection, power, and creation incarnate. It is instead an opportunity to humbly ask the One who is perfect to look mercifully upon our shortcomings, and to forgive us.

One of the things that always comes with the season, is a distinct change in our outlook on our fellow man, our extension of generosity, and perhaps our willingness to more overtly express love to those around us. This is a nice occurrence, but if we are really caught up in what should be the true manifestation of this season, it should also be a time of questioning why we did not do these things for our brothers and sisters in Christ all year round. Why do we only now focus so much more on modeling our behavior after our Lord? This is not to say we should not, it is simply an acknowledgement of how far we have yet to go in our learning and our pursuit of modeling ourselves after Christ. As the saying goes, we can’t fix something if we don’t recognize that it is broken.

In this season, let us not be discouraged with our brokenness, but optimistically look to how to fix it. Let’s take the time to step back from the rush and immerse ourselves in what is truly a worthy gift to our Lord for the celebration of His birth – our humility and love. Let’s express it with joy and not out of a sense of obligation. Let’s awaken from the sleep that we were caught up in during the year and prepare ourselves so that we are not lacking in spiritual gifts to lay at His feet when He comes and finds us watchful for Him.

The Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ

Of all the Gospels read throughout this past year, this is the one that absolutely should have our ears perked up in attention. The reason is simple, while other Gospel readings have focused on what we are to be aware of in Gods teaching, this one is about the consequences of whether we put any of that into practice.

The parable of the separation of the sheep and the goats is purely about who our Lord will find as having followed His commands, and who did not. In the case of those who will be seen as not having done so, there are really two areas that we should be concerned with. The first is whether we deliberately did not follow what was taught, in other words, did we rebel against Gods teaching in favor of our own preferred way of living our lives. This is usually fairly clear cut, in particular for those of us fortunate enough to have been taught specifically what our Lord said. Yet there is another area of concern, in this second category the question is whether we did anything at all about what we were taught, or did we simply go on about our lives as if nothing had been said or taught? This is perhaps the more dangerous of the two, because it is insidiously easy to fall into this category without perhaps even realizing it.

The end result of our time here on earth though will be the same for all, in that we will ALL stand before our Lord and be accountable for our actions whether good or bad, or perhaps our inactions whether deliberate or simply due to sloth. It is worth noting incidentally, that sloth can be either an actual inclination toward laziness and apathy, or an inclination toward inaction due to placing our focus on other things that distract us from taking righteous action. When we are so busy with ourselves and our own concerns that we brush past those in need without rendering any kind of acknowledgement or assistance, we are as guilty as though we had blown past them in a deliberate attempt at avoidance of helping them (conscious inaction). This is the incredibly dangerous subtlety that we must be vigilant against. We need to truly be on watch, for we will know neither the day nor the hour that we will be called to judgement, the only thing we can count on for sure, is that we WILL be judged.

Thirty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

If there is one thing that gives most people a sinking feeling, it is when we arrive somewhere and find that we are unprepared. This was likely doubly true for the virgins in our Gospel today, since not only did they have to scramble to try to find the oil that they lacked for their lamps, but on top of that, they were shut out from the wedding celebration because they were late arriving back. They found themselves shut out of what they had been looking forward to because of their own lack of preparation.

Very often in scripture, a wedding celebration or marriage in an of itself are used to describe the joy of establishing an intimate relationship, or to convey a sense of deep intimacy itself. The metaphor is excellent in both cases because what we seek with our Lord, and what He seeks with us, is the same level of joy and intimacy that is found in the context of marriage. How tragic then it would be for us to experience the same sorrow and despair of being shut out from that kind of experience the way the virgins in the Gospel narrative were. The last thing we want to do is find the door locked, and to hear from our Lord, that He does not know us.

The key to building any relationship is time spent, and experiences shared. It is no different in building and maintaining a relationship with God. We do this by spending time, and by talking to him. When we attend Mass, we worship and communicate together, and we receive Him through the Eucharist which is a deeply intimate and reverent Sacramental bonding. When we spend time in prayer by ourselves, with only our Lord present with us, we have the opportunity to share everything that is going on in our lives without the need to hold anything back. This does not need to be anything formal in terms of prayer. There is a time and place for formal recitation of the prayers we know so well, but there is also a time for simply having a conversation like we would with anyone who is truly close to us and knows us. There is nothing off limits in what we can share because our Lord knows our minds and hearts. We can truly tell Him about anything that is going on in our lives. He wants to hear all this from us, just as any parent wants to hear what their children are up to. It doesn’t matter if they know the circumstance already, it is still good to hear it from us as a way of sharing and connecting. This is what our Lord longs for from each of us, and this is how He will truly know us when the day and hour arrives when we will knock at the door.

Thirty Second in Ordinary Time

Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time

I think that there are few things that our Lord found more contemptable than hypocrisy. He repeatedly called out the leaders among the people and admonished their conduct because He found precisely this to be so prevalent among them. They preached one message of how to live in accord with God’s law to the people and then did not follow the precepts of the law themselves.

The thing is, it’s no different today, it is incredibly easy for any of us to become a bit too full of ourselves at times and to forget that we are accountable to someone who is far greater than any of us. No matter who we are, it is imperative that we remember that we are here to serve one another, in particular by our example of how we live and conduct ourselves according to Gods teaching. We can never expect others to truly believe us to be people of faith and followers of Christ when we don’t live out His message. Words without proper action, prayers without sincerity, and evangelizing without living out the example, are sure not only to fail, but also to damage others by further burdening them with negative examples of what a Christian life is supposed to be. This simply pushes them further away from the salvific message.

Our Lord did not come to be served, but to serve others, even to where He gave up his own life. If we are to truly follow Him, then death is part of that path. We are called to die to self, and to live for Him and for His children who are all around us. This is not a grim prospect at all, it is the most freeing and meaningful existence conceivable. To no longer live so that we are obsessed with ourselves, but rather place our focus on others out of love is the most freeing experience we can have in this life. When we live so as to give of ourselves, we will know that with each action we inch closer to true intimacy with our Creator, and will find the peace and fulfillment that has perhaps been eluding us thus far.

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I think that sometimes as human beings we try to overcomplicate what it means to be a follower of Christ. In the gospel this week, our Lord distills it down so that even the politicians of the day could grasp the truth. I think that every time we find ourselves getting too wrapped up in defining our faith through complicated doctrinal definitions and the like, we need to step back and refresh ourselves with the elegant simplicity of our Lords words.

There is an old saying in my industry that states that if someone cannot explain an idea in simple terms that anyone is capable of understanding, they probably do not fully understand the concept themselves. If there were anyone capable of delving into the finer and more subtle aspects of theology, I think that Jesus would have been more than entitled to preach those points. Yet that is never our Lords way, if a concept was broad and detailed, He would turn it into a parable that people could relate to if they were open to the action of His spirit and the wisdom of His words. If there were uncertainties about what the priorities should be in order to live as His followers, He would simplify it so that the lesson could not be forgotten, and thereby used each day.

In our Gospel today, our Lord reveals the most important of all truths to the Pharisees who were actually trying to validate their own positions by testing Him and hoping to catch Him in error. Their question is about which commandment is the greatest, was one crafted to illicit debate and perhaps show doubt about Jesus’ answer. Yet there is perfect clarity in His reply that even they had to acknowledge. He tells them simply, that if we love God first and foremost, and one another who were all created in His image, all the other commandments cannot help but be adhered to. No other questions needed to be asked, either by them, or by us. Love of God and one another is literally the answer to all things if we merely apply it in all of our words and actions.

Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

For anyone who has ever spent any time farming or gardening, the illustration in today’s First reading, and Gospel will ring very true. You can take every step to amend the soil and choose good seeds or seedlings, and have people working the soil, but if there is nothing worthwhile produced, it may be time to try a different approach.

I think that our Lord may feel the same kind of frustrations at times when dealing with us. He gives us His words and commands, and sends us His prophets, even his own Son, and yet we still sometimes choose to rebel and to cast aside all that we have been given in favor of our own ways and ideas. We seek to cheat rather than stay true to what we know to be right, we lie and spread what we know to be false (or at the very least allow others to speak these lies without rebuffing them). We allow ourselves to forget that His Son, our Lord gave up everything, even His life, for us and act as if we are entitled to or are owed a life that meets our standards of happiness or fulfillment. In other words, we would rather behave in such a way that we are devoid of gratitude or humility. We choose to look to ourselves rather than to God for fulfillment and peace.

Yet our Lord has not given up on us, He still looks for those who believe, and who love Him and value the care He has taken of us, and who treasure the Son that He sent to us. He seeks those who will produce good fruits and will seek to live their lives in such a way that they reflect His teachings. Who long for the contentment that can only come from guarding their minds and hearts so that they stay focused on Jesus Christ. He seeks those who are humble enough to cast aside self, and instead trust Him enough to seek their peace and happiness through Him alone.

We can choose to spend our lives trying to do things our own way, and to feel the frustrations and failures that will inevitably come from those inadequate efforts. Or we can choose to accept a peace and happiness that surpass our ability to understand and trust our God and surrender all our cares and needs over to Him. We are, or are not the fertile soil and its fruits, we simply have a choice to make.