Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Month: December 2011

  • The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary II (School Mass)

    The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary II (School Mass)

    Mass for the school children.

    I think we’re so blessed that we get to come to church and celebrate so many of Mary’s feasts.  Today is a very special feast because Mary, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, is the patroness of the United States of America, and so she is very special to us.  This is so special a feast for us that this day is a Holy Day of Obligation every single year; the only other holy day that is always a Holy Day of Obligation is Christmas.  So this is a very special day!

    I think today’s readings can be a little confusing.  The Gospel makes it sound like this day is about the conception of Jesus, but it isn’t.  We celebrate the conception of Jesus nine months before he was born, so somebody do the math … that would be March 25th, right?  We call that day the Annunciation, because that was the day the Angel Gabriel came to announce to Mary that she would have a baby, but we’ll talk more about that in a minute.  Today we celebrate the conception of Mary, nine months before her birthday, so if you do the math on that one, her birthday is September 8th, just a few months ago.  This day celebrates that Mary was free from sin from the very beginning, the only person other than Jesus not to have sin.

    The other confusing reading is the first one.  Why do we go all the way to the beginning of creation when we’re talking about Mary today?  Well, I think the reason is that Mary solved a problem that began all the way at the beginning.  And that problem was sin.  From the very beginning, we human beings have been tempted to sin.  Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden, and people have been committing sin ever since.  Again and again, God broke in to history, leading people back to him, giving them prophets to show them the way, and again and again, people turned away from God.  And we continue that today.  Again and again, we are tempted and we sin and we turn away from God.

    But God didn’t want that to be the way things ended up for us.  So he sent his Son to become one of us, and we are preparing to celebrate his birth during this Advent season.  God knew that in order for Jesus to be born among us, his mother was going to have to be pretty special.  So before Mary was ever in her mother’s womb, God chose her to be his Son’s mother.  He made her free from sin so that no stain of sin would ever touch his Son while he was in his mother’s womb.

    Because Mary was so special, she loved God very much.  So when the angel came and told her she would have a baby by the power of the Holy Spirit, she said yes to God’s plan.  I don’t know if she really understood what was going to happen, I don’t know if she really knew how this wonderful event would take place, and she probably didn’t fully understood what would happen to Jesus in his life, but she said yes anyway.  We call that her fiat, her “yes” to God’s plan for her.  She took a big leap of faith that day, and we have been blessed ever since.

    This is all very good news.  But there is even more good news: because Mary was so special to God, she shows us how special we are to God.  As we celebrate God’s love for Mary today, we can also celebrate his love for us.  Mary got to hold her Savior – the One God promised us – in her own arms.  When those of us who are old enough come to Communion today, we will be able to hold our Savior – the One God promised us – in the palm of our hand.  Mary’s life was brightened when Jesus was born.  Our lives will be brightened too, this coming Christmas, and every time when we make room in our hearts for Jesus.

    Winter can be a dark and cold time.  And we can also see darkness in the world through crime and hate, and sometimes we can even feel coldness in our own hearts.  But Advent reminds us, with the help of special people like Mary, that God will keep his promises and send us a Savior to brighten our world and warm up our hearts.  Just as Mary was chosen and special before she was even in her mother’s womb, so we are chosen and special to God from the beginning too.  God loves us so much that he sent his Son to free us from our sins and lead us home one day to him.  Praise God for his great love and for the ways he comes into our hearts!

    Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.  Amen.

  • Monday of the Second Week of Advent

    Monday of the Second Week of Advent

    Today’s readings

    What the Pharisees were missing in this gospel story was that there is something that paralyzes a person much worse than any physical thing, and that something, of course, is sin.  And if you’ve ever found yourself caught up in a pattern of sin in your life, of if you’ve ever struggled with any kind of addiction, or if a sin you have committed has ever made you too ashamed to move forward in a relationship or ministry or responsibility, then you know the paralysis this poor man was suffering on that stretcher.  Sin is that insidious thing that ensnares us and renders us helpless, because we cannot defeat it no matter how hard we try.  That’s just the way sin works on us.

    We cannot just raise our hands and say, hey, I’m only human, because nothing makes us less human than sin.  Jesus, in addition to being divine, of course, was the most perfectly human person that ever lived, and he never sinned.  So from this we should certainly take away that sin does not make us human, and that sin is not part of human nature.

    And it doesn’t have to stay that way.  We’re not supposed to stay bound up on our stretchers forever.  We’re supposed to get ourselves to Jesus, or if need be, like the man in the gospel today, get taken to him by friends, because it is only Jesus that can free us.  That’s why the church prays, in the prayer of absolution in the Sacrament of Penance, “May God give you pardon and peace.”

    Freed from the bondage of our sins by Jesus who is our peace, we can stand up with the lame man from the gospel and go on our way, rejoicing in God.  We can rejoice in our deliverance with Isaiah who proclaimed, “Those whom the LORD has ransomed will return and enter Zion singing, crowned with everlasting joy; They will meet with joy and gladness, sorrow and mourning will flee.”

  • Second Sunday of Advent [B]

    Second Sunday of Advent [B]

    Today’s readings

    When I was a teenager, some of us would climb up onto the roof of our house on the fourth of July so that we could see the fireworks.  It was by far the best seat in the house.  We could usually see the fireworks not only in our own town but in some others nearby as well.  Time has passed and the trees are taller and I am older and less okay with heights, so we don’t do that any more, but it was a beautiful view back then.  You’ve experienced that if you’ve ever been hiking somewhere beautiful and hilly or mountainous, and you get to the highest point along the way and take in a breathtaking view.  What wonderful things we can see when we’re up on the heights.

    That’s the challenge I take from today’s readings.  Isaiah urges Jerusalem to go up onto a high mountain.  From there they can see the Lord coming in power.  Us too, I think, if we’re open to going there.  I think the climbing is less literal than it was, perhaps, for them, but it is climbing all the same.  It means ascending in our spiritual lives, going up higher in our living of the Gospel and call to discipleship.

    The prophet Isaiah makes the case in our first reading:

    Go up on to a high mountain,
    Zion, herald of glad tidings;
    cry out at the top of your voice,
    Jerusalem, herald of good news!
    Fear not to cry out
    and say to the cities of Judah:
    Here is your God!
    Here comes with power
    the Lord GOD…

    Isaiah was speaking to a people in exile.  They had sinned, had not respected God’s commandments, they even rejected the prophet’s call to get their acts together, and now they’re paying the price.  After an initial message of comfort early on in today’s first reading, Isaiah now turns and gives them the way back.  Do they want to have rest from their enemies?  Well then, climb up high, see your God coming in power, and cry out at the top of your voice the message you should have been proclaiming all along.

    That is the charge we are all receiving in these Advent days.  The Israelites aren’t the only ones who need to get their acts together.  We do too.  We can look in the papers for signs of communal sin: world financial markets coming at least close to the brink of failure, corporate greed that makes the news time and time again, the effects of poverty run rampant resulting in increased crime.  But we almost don’t have to go that far to find our discipleship lacking.  We can look at our personal sin: the times we have neglected prayer or have been judgmental of others.  The times we have chosen not to help others when we could have, and so much more.  It is high time we climbed up onto that high mountain and started to live the life the Gospel calls us to live.

    Thankfully, Advent gives us the time to look at that in our lives.  That does mean, though, that among all our gift-buying and party-going, we have to make time for our God who gives us the reason for celebrating the season in the first place.  Maybe this Advent can see us creating even five minutes more time for prayer, reflecting on the scripture readings for the day, or the meditation in the blue books we have available.  Advent should see us repenting of our sins, going to confession even if we haven’t been in hears, and turning our hearts back to God.

    I want to be absolutely clear here.  This Advent, if you haven’t already been to confession, you should go.  We have many times available for you to do that.  Every Saturday, we are here from 4:00 to 4:45.  We have an Advent Parish Penance Service scheduled for Thursday, December 15 at 7:00.  There will be several priests here to hear your confession.  You can always also make an appointment with me or Father Steve.  We will also be publishing a list of local parishes’ schedules in case ours doesn’t work for you.

    Perhaps the more pressing issue is what happens if you haven’t been to confession in a long time?  What do you do if you don’t know what to do?  The answer is just go: tell the priest you haven’t been to confession in a long time, and that you need help.  It is our job to help you make a good confession, and we can help you do that.  For me, it is always a great joy to help someone come back to the sacraments.

    As we ascend that high mountain by confessing our sins and revitalizing our prayer life, we should also reach out in service to others.  Adopting a needy family for Christmas, or collecting food for the food pantry, or giving to Toys for Tots.  These and so many other opportunities are there for us this time of year to give of ourselves and help others in their time of need.  Giving of ourselves helps us to see others as God does, and gives us a heart that is like the heart of God.

    Isaiah says that we should climb that high mountain and announce the good news, the Gospel, crying out at the top of our voice.  It’s not like we need to stand on a soapbox on a street corner to do that.  We don’t even have to travel to a mountainous region.  All we have to do is to live the Gospel with integrity, because then everyone will see that.  Who knows if our small acts of faith, prayer and service won’t lead someone else down the right path in their own lives?

    Today, we celebrate the baptism of NNNNN.  This is an occasion of joy for HIS/HER family, but also for us as a parish.  Every time someone is baptized into the faith, our Church is one person stronger.  We need to be supportive of HIS/HER parents and godparents by being a parish that lives the faith and helps them to do the same.  Children need to be part of a community that takes its own baptismal call seriously, so that they can learn to do that too.  It is our responsibility as people of faith to help our children climb up onto that high mountain that Isaiah talks about, so that, knowing the Lord and having a relationship with him, they can one day enter with all of us into eternal life.