Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Advent

  • Tuesday of the Third Wek of Advent

    Tuesday of the Third Wek of Advent

    Today’s readings

    I was watching a television show called “Chopped” on the Food Network Sunday night.  On this show, they start with four chefs, and they give them a basket of really different ingredients, all of which they have to use, to make either an appetizer, main dish, or dessert, depending on the round.  The dishes are then presented to a panel of three judges who are chefs and restaurateurs.  These judges critique each dish and, of course, pass judgment.  As each course goes by, one of the contestant chefs gets “chopped” or eliminated, while the others continue to compete.  The winner gets ten thousand dollars.

    On this particular episode, one of the chef contestants had a real problem with arrogance.  He couldn’t see how anyone could possibly make a dish better than his, even though his always came out looking ragtag, and from what the judges said, tasting the same.  He would not listen to any of the critiques, because, well how did these people know anything?  He survived the first round, but was quickly eliminated in the second round, mostly because the judges got tired of his arrogance.

    That came back to mind when I read today’s gospel reading.  Jesus tells the chief priests and elders, “tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of God before you.”  That had to be horrible news.  Because those chief priests and elders were living what they thought was a good life.  They were the “decent people” of society.  Nobody could be noticed by God before they were, surely.  But Jesus says they certainly are.  Why?  Arrogance – again.

    Like the arrogant chef, those chief priests and elders refused to listen to any kind of criticism.  John the Baptist had preached repentance, and the tax collectors and prostitutes, the riff-raff of society, had listened, and were gaining entrance to the kingdom of God.  Meanwhile, those so-called decent folks, the ones who should have known better, were in for an eternity of wailing and grinding their teeth.

    The arrogant chef merely lost out on ten thousand dollars.  The arrogant chief priests and elders had lost out on quite a bit more: eternal life.  Today, we all pray for the grace to overcome our arrogance and accept correction for the sake of our salvation.

  • Thursday of the Second Week of Advent

    Thursday of the Second Week of Advent

    Today’s readings

    One of the amazing truths to ponder in this season of Advent is the nature of and reason for the incarnation.  Why did God choose to save the world by entering into it as a creature?  Why did he assume our fickle flesh in the lowliest form?

    There is a theological principle that says something like “whatever was not assumed was not redeemed.”  He had to assume, take on all of our weaknesses, so that he would be able to redeem all its brokenness.  What great comfort it is that our Advent leads to the Birth of a Savior so wonderful in glory that the whole earth could not contain him, but also so intimately one of us that he bore all our sorrows and grief.  It is amazing that God’s plan to save the world took shape by assuming our own form, even to the point of dying our death.

    That’s what I thought about as I reflected on today’s first reading.  Israel was pretty low and lacking in power, in the grand scheme of things.  Almost every nation was more powerful than them.  Yet they were not unnoticed by God – indeed they were actually favored.  God’s plan for salvation takes place among the weakness in all of us.  God notices that weakness, takes it on and redeems it in glory.

    That’s the good news today for all of us who suffer in whatever way.  God notices our suffering, in the person of Jesus he bore that same suffering, and in the glory of the Paschal Mystery, he redeemed it.  God may not wave a magic wand and make all of our problems go away, but he will never leave us alone in them.

    And it all started with the Incarnation.  The birth of one tiny child to a poor family, in the tiniest region of the lowliest nation on earth.  God can do amazing things when we are incredibly weak

  • 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.

    But it’s not supposed to be that way.  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.”

  • The Second Sunday of Advent [Cycle C]

    The Second Sunday of Advent [Cycle C]

    Today’s readings

    The other day, I was trying to get out of the driveway of the rectory, but traffic was pretty backed up on Duane Street, so I was having a hard time.  It didn’t take very long to realize that the culprit was that Prospect Avenue was closed at the railroad tracks.  So everyone was trying to figure out how to get across the tracks and traffic was sure snarled because of it.  This was just another example of the inconvenience of road construction and maintenance that is necessary, but irritating.

    My dad used to say that there are tearer-uppers and fixer-uppers when it comes to road construction, and apparently there are ten times as many tearer-uppers as there are fixer-uppers.  Now, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but when you’re sitting in a traffic jam, it starts to make real sense!

    We live in this area where there are just two seasons: winter and road construction, and so when we hear the prophet Baruch say “God has commanded that every lofty mountain be made low, and that the age-old depths and gorges be filled to level ground, that Israel may advance secure in the glory of God,” well, we may just cringe a little bit.  But I think we can sure relate to the experience.

    At the time of the Babylonian empire, whenever the monarch traveled workers would precede him leveling the ground and filling in ditches to make the way smooth for his chariots.  So that explains Baruch’s prophecy, and also the prophecy of Isaiah that St. Luke quotes in today’s gospel:  “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.  Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low.  The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth.”  And it’s easy for us to extrapolate that in order to prepare the way for our monarch, Jesus Christ our king, we would want the way to be smooth and pristine too.

    But for us, the roadwork isn’t so much the topography of the countryside as it is the topography of our spiritual lives.  We all have rough spots, crooked ways and assorted obstacles on our spiritual paths. Our intentions to be friends with God may be good, but often we have lost our way or been stuck in a kind of spiritual traffic-jam. Our goal is communion with our friend, Jesus Christ. Our best intentions are to get there. Our frustration is that often we are derailed and never seem to reach the goal. But the promise is that God will indeed bring that good work to fulfillment, as St. Paul says in today’s second reading, and we will then rejoice in our salvation with all God’s holy ones.

    But all of that presupposes that we are clear about the fact that we need a Savior. Wherever we are on the journey to Christ, whatever the obstacles we face, God promises to make it right through Jesus Christ – if we will let him. We may be facing the valley of hurts or resentments. God will fill in that valley. Perhaps we are up against a mountain of sinful behavior or shame. God will level that mountain. We may be lost on the winding roads of procrastination or apathy. God will straighten out that way. We may be riding along on the rough and bumpy ways of poor choices, sinful relationships and patterns of sin. God will make all those ways smooth. And all flesh – every one of us, brothers and sisters – we will all see the salvation of God. That’s a promise. God will forgive us all of our sins.  But we have to be open to the experience.

    And so, in the spirit of encouraging that openness, I want to make a very personal invitation.  If you find that you have quite a bit of unfinished road construction to do in your spiritual life, I invite you to take care of it this Advent.  The Sacrament of Penance is where we Catholics level those mountains, straighten those winding roads, and fill in the potholes that have derailed us along the way.  And we have plenty of opportunities to do that.  We have two more Saturdays when we hear confessions before the 5:00 Mass.  On Saturday the 19th, we will also hear confessions after Mass.  We also have a communal penance service on Tuesday the 22nd, where there will be ten priests available to hear confessions.  You have many opportunities to be open to the “baptism of repentance” that John the Baptist was preaching, and to make the way straight once again for the coming of the Lord in your own life.

    Now, having said that, I fully understand that there are many of you here who have not been to confession in many years.  I get it.  I myself was away from the sacrament for years before God worked on me and brought me back.  So here is Father Pat’s “Consumer’s Guide to the Sacrament of Penance:” If you have been away a long time, it will be hard to go back, but take that leap of faith anyway.  Be honest with the priest and tell him that it’s been years.  Even tell him if you’re not sure how to make a confession.  If he doesn’t welcome you back warmly and help you to make a good confession, you have my permission to get up and leave and find a priest who will.  Because it’s my job to help you make a good confession.  And it’s a privilege and a responsibility that I take very seriously.  I know that Father Jim and Father John do too.  Nothing must stand in the way of you receiving God’s mercy and grace and forgiveness, because it is a gift too precious to miss.

    That’s what Advent is about. The coming of Christ in our world isn’t just something that happened two thousand years ago. Advent means that Christ is coming into our world today, and every day, if we would just open our hearts and smooth out a place for him. God becomes incarnate in our world every time someone turns back to him and repents of their sin. God’s love comes to birth every time we accept the gift of forgiveness and the unfathomable grace of the Eucharist. Advent means that Chris is Emmanuel, God-with-us NOW. Advent means that the salvation and forgiveness that God promises us is available to us NOW.

    The truth is, brothers and sisters in Christ, we come to this holy place to this sacred Liturgy, each of us at different places in the spiritual road. Our goal – all of us – is to advance on that road, tackling the obstacles that face us, and defeating our sin by the power of God’s forgiveness and mercy. There may only be one unforgivable sin: the sin of thinking that we don’t need a Savior. When we rationalize that we’re basically good people and we’re okay and that there is nothing wrong with our lives or our relationships, then we’re lost. It’s not that God doesn’t want to forgive us this sin, it’s more that we refuse to have it forgiven. If Advent teaches us anything, it’s got to be that we all need that baptism of repentance that John the Baptist preached, that we all need to prepare the way of the Lord in our hearts, making straight the paths for his return to us.

    The Psalmist sings today that “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.”  I pray that you all find that out in the Sacrament of Penance this Advent season.

  • Friday of the First Week of Advent

    Friday of the First Week of Advent

    Today’s readings

    We are approaching one of the darkest times of the year.  I think that’s why we so desperately need Advent.  If we didn’t have the hope of a light that could shatter the darkest of darkness, winter would be much more ponderous than it already is.

    There are all kinds of darkness in our lives as the calendar year comes to a close, too.  I remember a time many years ago, I went into a store here in Glen Ellyn around this time of year.  It was all decked out for Christmas and had that kind of subdued lighting that is supposed to make you feel all Christmassy.  But all I experienced was a darkness and a gloom that made me have to run out of the store immediately.  I later realized that it was because I was still grieving the death of my grandmother, and the approaching holidays made that so much more difficult for me.

    There’s all kinds of darkness: grief, broken relationships, a feeling of being adrift in your life, sadness over patterns of sin or addictions.  And it seems like this time of year, as the year comes to a close, as the days become shorter and the nights are darker, that some of us might feel the darkness more poignantly than at other times.  I think that’s very natural.

    It’s a good thing, then, that we have a hope that cannot be taken away and a Light that can pierce any darkness.  We might cry out like the blind men, “Son of David, have pity on us!”  It might not happen all at once as it did for the blind men in the Gospel, but we do have hope that our darkness will be made light.  Because “out of gloom and darkness,” Isaiah tells us, “the eyes of the blind shall see.”

    That’s why we light our Advent candles here in Church.  Every week, the darkness is illumined just a little more, one candle at a time.  Our life can be like that too if we have the faith that Christ can be our Light, even in our darkest times.  As the Psalmist says, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; of whom should I be afraid?”

  • Wednesday of the First Week of Advent

    Wednesday of the First Week of Advent

    Today’s readings

    We are a people who are always in a rush, and so way too often we pick up a bite to eat on the run.  We stop at fast food places so often that they are a thriving industry, all of this to the detriment of our health.  We offer this same mentality, at times, to our relationship with Christ.  Today’s readings tell us of the feast that God would spread out for us – nourishment for our bodies and our souls. Advent is a time for us to slow down and feast on the hope that God provides for us.  Not some fast food quick bite to eat, but rich, juicy fare.  All we need to do is pull up a chair and really enter into the feast.

  • First Sunday of Advent

    First Sunday of Advent

    Today’s readings

    We’ve gathered here today on the precipice of something new.  Do you feel it?  Do you come here with a sense of hope and expectation?  Are you on the edge of your seat?  Well, if not, we hope you will be by the end of Advent.  That’s what it’s all about.  The readings for these four weeks will focus on hope and expectation and will give us a view of the salvation God is unfolding for his own people.

    And the newness is one that we celebrate in a real way in the Church.  Today I wish you a very happy new year.  And I do that not with tongue in cheek, but quite seriously.  This is the new year of the Church; it begins each year on the first Sunday of Advent.  And each new year gives us an opportunity to see once again the grace that God brings us; the hope he has in store for us; the promise he intends to fulfill among us; the salvation he wants for us.

    Let’s be honest.  Don’t we need that hope today?  This has been a hard year, and so many of us come here with significantly less hope than we usually have.  There have been economic woes, even right here in Glen Ellyn: families losing their homes, people finding themselves out of work at the worst possible time.  Others come here in the midst of illness – either their own or that of a loved one.  This last year might even have see the death of a loved one, the ending of a relationship, or some other significant event.  As we end another year, some of us might be doing that with some regret as they look back on patterns of sin or the plague of addiction.  And so, for most of us, it doesn’t take too much imagination to know that there is a lot of room for renewed hope in our lives.

    When our lives get as messy as they may have been these last days, it can often seem like the whole world is falling apart.  We might very well relate to today’s Gospel reading which foretells “signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars.”  Events of our lives may make it seem like the end is near, or at least that we wish it was near.

    So what do we do while we are waiting?  How do we live among the chaos?  How do we keep on keepin’ on when every fiber of our being wants to pack it in and hope for it all to be over real soon?  The Gospel warns us that people will die in fright when they see what is going to happen, but it cannot be so for people of faith.  Even in the midst of life’s darkest moments, even when it seems like we can’t withstand one more bout of hopeless worry, we are still called to be a hopeful people.  “Stand erect,” Jesus tells us, “and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”  God is unfolding his promise among us and even though we still must suffer the sadness that life can sometimes bring us, we have hope for something greater from the one whose promises never go unfulfilled.

    So what does a hopeful people do while we are waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promises?  How is it that we anticipate and look for the coming of our Savior in glory?  Our consumerist society would have us get up at midnight on Black Friday (which I still contend is at least a mildly evil name) and battle it out with a few million of our closest friends for the latest gadget or bauble or toy.  And to that kind of thinking, Jesus says, “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life.”  Getting caught up in the things of this world does us no good.  It does not bring us closer to salvation or to our God, and all it does is increase our anxiety.  Who needs that?

    Instead, we people of faith are called to wait by being “vigilant at all times.”  We are called to forgive those who have wronged us, to reach out to the poor and the vulnerable, to advocate for just laws and laws that protect the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death, to challenge world powers to pursue peace, and even to love those who drive us nuts sometimes.  When we do that, we might just be surprised how often we see Jesus among us in our lives, in our families and schools and workplaces and communities.  It might just seem like Jesus isn’t that far from returning after all, that God’s promises are absolutely unfolding before our eyes.

    We are a people who like instant gratification and hate to wait for something good to come along.  Maybe that’s why the Christmas shopping season starts about two weeks before Halloween.  But if we would wait with faith and vigilance, if we would truly pursue the reign of God instead of just assuming it will be served up to us on a silver platter, we might not be so weary of waiting after all.  That’s the call God gives us people of faith on this New Year’s day.

    We’re gathered here on the precipice of something new, on the edge of our seats to see God’s hope unfold before us and among us.  Do you feel it?  Are you ready for it?

  • Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent: O Emmanuel

    Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent: O Emmanuel

    Today’s readings

    “Lift up your heads and see; your redemption is near at hand.”  So says the psalmist today and all indications are that that psalmist is absolutely right!  Even the last-minute shoppers are starting to panic, there’s only one door left on the Advent calendar, and our Advent wreath is fully ablaze with all four candles lit.  But more than that, the psalmist is right about our redemption.  God has chosen to be near us, he has chosen to become flesh and dwell among us, he is Emmanuel, God with us.

    That’s our “O Antiphon” for today – “O Emmanuel” – and we sing it in the very first verse of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” Israel may mourn in lowly exile, indeed we might all be mourning the incompleteness of our lives, or the pain we experience, or the sadness that this world can bring us.  But none of that is able to overcome the joy of our God, our Emmanuel, being one with us and leading us through the Cross to the Resurrection and eternal life.  The Son of God has indeed appeared and will appear again.

    And so we rejoice at the nearness of our God, we rejoice that grace and peace have come to us, we rejoice that we are not what are sins may appear to make us, we rejoice that there is eternal life, that there is grace, and peace for all men and women of the earth.

    In these last hours before Christmas, we need to all take a few minutes to stop all the preparations, to put aside the cookie-making and gift wrapping and all of the other preparations just for a while.  We need to make that quiet space within us so that Christ can be born in us again, so that we can be filled up with the love he wants us to share, so that the peace on earth we desire can be born within our hearts.

    O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,
    the hope of the nations and their Saviour:
    Come to save us, O Lord our God.

  • Friday of the Third Week of Advent

    Friday of the Third Week of Advent

    Today’s readings

    [Today’s homily was for the school children on their last day of school before Christmas break.  UPDATE: Unfortunately, I didn’t get to celebrate Mass with them because they had a snow day.  Rats.]

    I can’t believe it but Christmas is only just six days away now!  I know everyone is so busy writing letters to Santa, being good so they don’t get on the “naughty” list, wrapping Christmas presents for their parents, and baking cookies for Fr. Pat!  But before we do all that, our Church asks us to take a minute and remember what it is that we’re about to celebrate.

    And what we’re about to celebrate is pretty special.  God loved the world so very much that he sent his own Son to live among us and bring us closer to him, and to take upon himself the punishment for all our many sins.  God would rather die than live without us, and so he did.  But death doesn’t have any power over us because Jesus rose from the dead.  And all of this wonderful mystery begins in just six days, or at least that day a couple of thousand years ago.

    And we know the story: An angel came to Mary to tell her that she would give birth to a son by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Because she was faithful, she said “yes” to God’s plan for her, and because she said “yes,” our world and our lives have been different – better, more hopeful – ever since!  Jesus grew to be a man who was both mighty in his power to save us, and a wise prophet who helped us to learn about God and his kingdom.

    And this reminds us of the two stories we heard in our readings today.  Samson was a man who was mighty in the way that he led the people Israel.  Just like Jesus, he was blessed by God and led by the Holy Spirit.  His mother was visited by an angel, just like Mary, and his parents named him according to the way the angel instructed them.

    John was a man who became a wise prophet and led the people to repentance so that they could recognize God and be open to the gift God was giving them in Jesus.  Just like Jesus, he was blessed by God and led by the Holy Spirit.  His father was visited by an angel, and he named the child in the way the angel instructed him.

    Samson was a man of the Old Testament, and John the Baptist of the New Testament.  The fact that their stories are so similar to the stories about how Jesus was born tells us that God has been preparing his people all along to be saved.  He was getting them ready to recognize the way that Jesus was born among us.

    And so, when we look on our mangers and see Jesus laying in there, we know that he came for a very specific reason.  God sent him to be one of us, because it is only by being one of us that God could really save us.  Jesus took on a body, just like all of us, and he experienced the same kinds of pain and sadness that we all experience from time to time.  He even went so far as to die, just like we all do at some point in our lives, so that he could know what it was to be just like us.  When we look at the wood of the manger, we know that one day, Jesus will die on the wood of the Cross.  When we celebrate Jesus’ birthday, we know that we will eventually remember his death and celebrate his Resurrection.

    So today, we take a minute in all our busy Christmas preparations and shopping and wrapping and cookie making (I like chocolate, by the way…) – we take a minute and pause, and look at the baby Jesus, and know that by becoming one of us, everything was changed, everything was better.  We thank God for loving us so much that he became one of us and gave us a gift better than anything we could ever ask for, better than any of the brightly-wrapped gifts we will receive in six days, the gift of eternal life with God forever one day.

    A little later, we’re going to bring Jesus out to the manger and bless our manger outside.  We’re going to sing the song “What Child is This?” which I think tells us everything we need to know about this special day that we call Christmas:

    This, this is Christ the King,
    Whom shepherds guard and angels sing:
    Haste, haste to bring him laud,
    The Babe, the Son of Mary!

  • Thursday of the Third Week of Advent: O Adonai

    Thursday of the Third Week of Advent: O Adonai

    Today’s readings

    “Come, let us worship the Lord, for he is already close at hand.”

    Each day from the seventeenth through the twenty-third of December, a verse is assigned to each day that we call the “O Antiphons.”  We hear the “O Antiphons” is the hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”  Today’s verse is “O Adonai” or “O Sacred Lord.”  The verse for Evening Prayer or Vespers is “O sacred Lord of ancient Israel, who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush, who gave him the holy law on Sinai mountain: come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.”

    The fulfillment of that prophetic verse is, of course, Jesus Christ.  This was the message Joseph received in his dream. No, the child to be born was not a random child born out of wedlock. He was instead the hope of the nations, the Lord of Lords, the one who would save his people from their sins. Just as Isaiah foretold one who would be called “the LORD our justice,” so Joseph would name his child Jesus, a name which means “the LORD is salvation.” We await the coming of our Savior who is our salvation, our justice, our hope of eternal life. He was long desired of every nation, and he is needed in our hearts today.

    The song we sing in these days is “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” If you look at the verses, you will note that there is a verse for each of these “O Antiphons.” Today’s verse for O Sacred Lord is:

    O come, O come, great Lord of might,
    Who to Your tribes on Sinai’s height
    In ancient times once gave the law
    In cloud and majesty and awe.

    In these later days of Advent, we find ourselves in heightened anticipation for the coming of our Savior.  We remember his incarnation, his coming into the world so long ago.  It changed everything in the world, and made possible the salvation of every person.  We look forward to his coming in glory, when he will take all of us home to be with him, and everything will be made right.  Only the great Lord of Might, O Adonai, Jesus Christ, could do that.  And so we pray: Come, Lord Jesus.  Come quickly, and do not delay!