Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Hope

  • Fourth Sunday of Advent: O Come, Divine Messiah

    Fourth Sunday of Advent: O Come, Divine Messiah

    Today’s readings
    O Come, Divine Messiah

    One of the great parts of Advent for me is the sensory experience of it.  You could point to the smell of Christmas cookies baking in the oven, the sight of houses on the street at night glowing with their Christmas lights.  But another big one is sound, and more specifically, music.  The music of this season for me helps deliver us from what can be a depressing time of year with short days and no leaves on the tree or flowers in the garden.  I love all of the music of this time of year.  I have Christmas carols playing in my car when I’m driving and even on my iPod when I’m running.  But if I’m ever going to experience Advent, it has to be with the music of the season.  And I do have some Advent favorites.

    One might immediately think of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” and that would be a good one, particularly in these later days of Advent when we reflect on all those titles of Jesus: O Wisdom, O Dayspring, O Key of David, O Emmanuel.  But my absolute favorite Advent hymn is “O Come, Divine Messiah.”  This hymn is the English translation of “Venez, divin Messie,” a French Carol written in the sixteenth century.  It seems to have been translated by Sister Mary of Saint Philip, of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, who lived in the latter portion of the nineteenth century. She was one of the first English members of the her order when they established their training college at Mount Pleasant in Liverpool, England, in about 1850.  She and at least one other sister wrote both translations and original hymns and songs over the course of their long professional lives.  So when we’re singing this hymn, maybe we can offer a prayer of thanks for Sister Mary of Saint Philip!

    The imagery in “O Come, Divine Messiah” is the stock stuff of Advent.  When we sing it, we call on our Savior to come in haste, dispelling the darkness of our world by showing his face, giving us a glimpse of his glory, and opening up a bright new dawn as he does something new in all of us.  I think that’s the experience that Advent calls on us to realize.  If we have no need of a Savior, there is no Advent, there is no Christmas, there is no Christ.  But our Savior did indeed come to a world deeply in need of a Savior, both then and now.

    We know that our world and our lives can be dark places.  How dark has it become in these days with the tragedy in Connecticut, or discussions of the fiscal cliff?  Because of those, this has been a difficult, profoundly sad, even terrifying week for all of us.  Perhaps we might even say that it has broken the Christmas season for us.  We all want answers, some word that’s going to make it all better, and there just isn’t one, at least not in the sense that we think.  The only word that does make it better is the Word – with a capital “W” – the Son of God, Jesus Christ, come in the flesh, dwelling among us, speaking God’s message of hope and peace and challenge and grace in our world that needs all three of those!

    The other sadness which needs the presence of Christ is our own lives.  What kind of stresses are we dealing with on a daily basis?  Our own fiscal cliffs?  Upheaval in relationships?  Unconfessed sin?  Dealing with catastrophic illness?  And these are some of so many things that can turn our world upside-down and plunge us into our own personal darkness, which often feels darker because others are not experiencing it.  What makes all that go away?  When does it stop?

    Dear Savior, haste!
    Come, come to earth;
    Dispel the night and show your face,
    And bid us hail the dawn of grace! 

    Hope is the enduring attitude of Advent.  Just when everything seems lost and we are tempted to despair, Advent reaches out to us and pulls us back toward Christ, the light and salvation of our lives.  There is no darkness that Advent can’t brighten; there is no despair that isn’t obliterated by our Lord’s most merciful coming in the flesh.  There is no sin that leaves us beyond the grasp of God’s healing and mercy.  This is the long-foretold Christ whom nations sigh for, promised by priest and prophet alike, who will come to redeem all of us, long lost as we may have been.

    To the world, Advent may seem too-little, too late.  What kind of God comes in peace and meekness, in a lowly cradle?  How can any God come so passively and meekly?  What good can that do in any possible way?  But we people of faith see differently.  Yes, he came clothed in human weakness, but we see his Godhead: we see that a word of peace can change everything, that an ignominious death on a cross can shake the earth and obliterate death’s enduring power over us, that a Gospel of repentance can forever smash the power of sin.

    Our readings today back up our reason for hope.  The prophet Micah insists that the coming Savior will hail from none other than Bethlehem-Ephrathah, the humblest of the clans of Judah.  He will shepherd all his people (including us!) humbly, but with strength that comes from God, and he shall be the ultimate peace.  In our gospel reading, Mary has consented to God’s will for her life, and hurries off to her cousin Elizabeth.  They share each other’s joy, and the fetus of Saint John the Baptist leaps in Elizabeth’s womb for joy at the coming of the Savior!  The long night of sin and death is coming to an end; the great dawn of Christ’s presence and grace rises on the eastern horizon.  We are on the precipice of salvation!

    This is why I love “O Come, Divine Messiah;” this is why I so tenaciously cling to the message of hope that is Advent.  It’s what gets me out of bed in the morning and energizes my life and ministry.  There is nothing that the world can throw at us that can overshadow the light of Christ.  Nothing.

    O come, divine Messiah!
    The world in silence waits the day
    When hope shall sing its triumph,
    And sadness flee away.

  • The Third Sunday of Advent [C]

    The Third Sunday of Advent [C]

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings and liturgy call us to rejoice.  That’s the reason for the rose-colored vestments and the more joyful tone of today’s readings.  This is called Gaudete Sunday: gaudete being Latin for “rejoice,” the first word of today’s introit or proper entrance antiphon which says: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.  Indeed the Lord is near.”

    And there is reason to rejoice.  The prophet Zephaniah tells the people Israel that, even though their sins had displeased the LORD to the point that he gave them over to the hands of their enemies, he has relented in his judgment against them and will deliver them from their misfortune.  Their deliverance is so complete that the LORD will even rejoice over them with gladness!  If that’s not a reason to sing joyfully and rejoice with all their hearts, there never will be one!

    In his letter to the Philippians, Saint Paul calls us to rejoice too.  The reason he calls for rejoicing is that “The Lord is near.”  He was referring to Jesus’ return in glory, of course, which they thought would be relatively soon in those days.  While he never saw that in his lifetime, we may.  Or perhaps our children will, or their children.  One thing we definitely know is that the Lord is near.  He does not abandon us in our anxieties but instead listens as we pray to him and make our petitions with thanksgiving.  Our Lord is as near to us as our next quiet moment, our next embrace of someone we love, our next act of kindness.  Rejoice indeed!

    Maybe this call to rejoice rings a little hollow today, based on the events of Friday morning in Newtown, Connecticut.  But our faith tells us that’s not true.  The Psalmist sings today about the kind of hope our world needs right now:

    God indeed is my savior;
    I am confident and unafraid.
    My strength and my courage is the LORD,
    and he has been my savior.

    And it is up to us to bring this kind of hope to a world that has almost become accustomed to horror and shock and terror and sadness.  The world may almost prefer to sit in this kind of darkness, but not people of faith.  People of faith instead light a candle of hope and dance in the light of Christ!  People of faith can rejoice because even in times of sadness and despair, the presence of our God is palpable, realized in stories of heroism and seen in acts of charity and grace in moments just like this.

    And so today we rejoice because the Lord is near.  We light that third, rose-colored candle on our Advent wreath and we see there’s not many candles left until the feast of the reason for our rejoicing.  We look forward to celebrating the Incarnation, perhaps the greatest and best of the mysteries of faith.  That God himself, who is higher than the heavens and greater than all the stars of the universe, would humble himself to be born among us, robing himself with our frail flesh, in order to save us from our sins and make his home among us for all eternity – that is a mystery so great it cannot fail to cause us to rejoice!  Indeed that very presence of God gives hope even in the worst tragedy – THE LORD IS NEAR!

    The people who came to Saint John the Baptist in today’s Gospel knew of the nearness of their salvation, because John preached it with intensity.  So today they come to him and ask them what they should do – what’s the next step?  And he tells them.  They need to repent, to reform their lives, and keep watch for the One who is mightier still than he is.  The coming Savior will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and the only way to be prepared for that is to turn away from their practices of darkness and live with integrity.

    It’s a message that is intended for us too.  Because we also could clean up our act a bit.  We too have need to repent.  And I say that advisedly, because back on Ash Wednesday when I used one of the exhortations that we can use when distributing ashes: “Repent and believe in the Gospel,” a couple of people were very angry at me for telling them they had to repent.  So let’s be clear about this.  We know in our hearts that there are just two people in this room who don’t need to repent.  One would be the man nailed to the cross up there, and the other is the beautiful lady standing next to Saint Joseph over there by the candles.  If you’re not Jesus or Mary, you have sin in your life – maybe not serious sin, but maybe there is.  Whatever kind of sin is there, Advent calls us to repent.

    Because sin is what keeps us from rejoicing, brothers and sisters in Christ.  Sin keeps us mired in the darkness.  Sin breaks the relationship with God and others that keeps us from seeing that the Lord is near.  But we rejoice because our God came to us to give us the antidote to that.  He refused to keep us mired in sin, but instead came to us and calls us to repent so that he can forgive and we can rejoice.  That’s good news, and that’s why we celebrate – yes, celebrate! – the sacrament of Penance.

    In order to help you to prepare so that you can rejoice, we have a penance service scheduled for this Thursday at 7pm.  Several priests will be there to hear your confession.  I hope that you will be able to be there.  But if not, there are still two more opportunities for confession before Christmas.  Three of us will hear confessions on Saturday evening from 4:00 to 4:45, and then again on Christmas Eve right after morning prayer, from about 8:30 until 9:30.  If none of those work for your schedule, our bulletin has a list of confessions at parishes in our area.

    I want you to go to confession before Christmas because I want you to be able to rejoice.  If you have not been to Confession in years and maybe are a little ashamed or scared or don’t know how to do it, then rejoice and go anyway.  The priest will welcome you back warmly and help you to make a good confession.  That’s what we do; that’s why we are priests, and it’s our privilege to help you experience the Lord’s mercy and kindness so that you can once again rejoice.  So if you haven’t been to confession yet this Advent, I want you to go this week.  You’ll rejoice and be glad when you do.

    These final days of Advent call us to prepare more intensely for the Lord’s birth.  They call us to clamor for his Incarnation, waiting with hope and expectation in a dark and scary world.  These days call us to be people of hope, courageously rejoicing that the Lord is near!  Come, Lord Jesus!  Come quickly and do not delay!

  • The First Sunday of Advent

    The 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, I 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.  It’s a message that I think we need now, more than ever.

    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 yes, I do own a calendar!  This is the new year of the Church; it begins each year on the first Sunday of Advent.  And each new year – each year of grace – 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.

    And don’t we need that kind of hope today?  These past years have been so hard for so many, and a lot of us come here with significantly less hope than we usually have.  There have been economic woes, even right here in affluent DuPage County: families losing their homes and businesses, 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 seen 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, looking back on patterns of sin or the plague of addiction.  And so, for many of us, maybe even 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.

    And then we can also worry about the Mayan calendar seeming to point to an end of the world later this month.  That is not something that people of faith should take seriously since Jesus told us that nobody – not even the ancient Mayan calendar people – know when that time will come.  But even more close to home, 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, laws that protect religious freedom and 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?

  • The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Todays’ readings

    I think that today’s readings are readings that call us to hope.  The hope that we have is the presence of our God, even when things are falling apart – even when the wind and the rain and the earthquakes and fire threaten us, God is there.  I thought of that a lot this week.  A former parishioner’s house burned down after it was struck by lightening in one of the freakish storms we’ve been having.  A parishioner’s brother died saving a young man from drowning.  I visited one of my own relatives in the hospital today, and she was so agitated, so afraid she might die.  Even the most faithful among us has to ask, where is God in all this?

    I think Elijah can relate to us when we’re feeling this way.  The back story on our first reading is that Elijah has just come from soundly defeating all of the pagan “prophets” of Baal, which was very embarrassing to King Ahab and especially to Queen Jezebel, who vowed to take Elijah’s life in retaliation.  So he has been hiding out in a cave, not for protection from inclement weather, but for protection from those who sought his life.  In the midst of this, God asks Elijah why he is here.  Elijah explains that the people of Israel have been unfaithful and have turned away from God, not listening to Elijah’s preaching, and they have put all the other legitimate prophets to death.  Elijah alone is left.

    So God says that he will be “passing by” which in biblical language means that God will be doing a “God thing.”  God will be revealing his presence.  And so we have the story: there is a mighty wind, an earthquake and even fire.  But Elijah only recognizes the Lord’s presence in the tiny whispering sound.  The text says that the Lord was not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire.  I’m not sure I agree with that.  I do think that God is with us even in calamity, but wherever we experience his presence is where he is for us.  For Elijah, he needed the peace of the tiny whisper.  But we might need reassurance in the earthquake or the fire.

    Our gospel reading today I think proves that God is where we need him.  Jesus has just fed the multitudes, as you may remember from last week’s gospel.  After that, he takes some time alone to pray, and is so filled with the Spirit that he actually walks on water.  Again, here is Jesus “passing by” the disciples on the boat.  He reassures them that it is him, and Peter, the impetuous one, immediately asks if he can come out and walk on the water too.  Jesus says, “come.”

    For a while, he does okay. He’s making progress, walking toward Jesus. But then he stops looking at Jesus and starts looking at the storm: “But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” Do you see that? While he’s looking at Jesus, he is able to walk toward him, but as soon as he takes his eyes off Jesus in favor of looking at the storm, he sinks. “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” Jesus asks him, pulling Peter out of the water.

    So we might be tempted to criticize Peter for his lack of faith.  But we should remember that he, at least, had enough faith to get out of the boat.  The other eleven did not.  He got out of the boat because that’s where Jesus was – out there on the water.  Was Jesus present for him when the wind and the waves threatened to take his life?  Absolutely.  God is present for us when we are in the middle of the storm.

    Let’s try a little prayer experiment.  I’m going to ask you to close your eyes, but you have to promise not to fall asleep!  I want you to think about a crisis you’ve been in recently, or even one that’s still going on.  It might be little or big, but bring that to mind.  That crisis is the waves in the story.  Now you get to be Peter.  You’re on the boat, that safe refuge that is leading you to the place that Jesus has in mind for you.  Only on the voyage, your crisis begins a storm that tosses you around so badly that you can’t even see your destination anymore, and you fear for your life.  But you see Jesus on the water.

    You call out to him and he calls back for you to come to him.  You think about it for a minute, but you realize you have to give it a shot.  So you get out of the boat, that safe refuge that gives you some comfort even in the storm, and you start to walk toward Jesus across the stormy sea.  And you do okay for a while, but then you wonder if your prayers will ever be answered, or if there is any hope for your situation at all.  You feel the wind pushing at you and notice that the waves of your crisis are a lot uglier than you thought they were.  And you begin to sink into them, despairing that there is no hope for your situation.  And Jesus reaches out his hand to you, pulling you up out of the stormy sea.  The storm is still raging, but with Jesus’ help, you get back into the boat, and the waves calm down, and you continue the journey to the place where Jesus wants you to be, having made just a little bit of progress, confident that he is with you even in the storm.

    Whether we are experiencing wind, waves, earthquakes or fire, we can be confident that our Lord is with us.  We might still have to experience all those things, but we can go through them with hope that comes from the presence of our God, who is with us in our darkest times, whispering to us, or calling out to us from the water.

  • Sixth Sunday of Easter [A]

    Sixth Sunday of Easter [A]

    Today’s readings

    I have been wanting to preach about hope for a while now.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  First, I don’t think we know what hope is, or at least, I don’t think we think much about what hope is.  The world, our society, gives us an idea of what hope is, and of course, it’s not the right idea, not the complete idea.  And second, I think there is a general lack of hope in the world right now: I think this world could use some hope, and the ironic thing is that it’s there for the taking, if we know what it is and where to look.  So it’s fortunate that our scriptures today give us a look at hope, and tell us where we can find it and what we must do with it.

    So the dictionary defines “hope” as “the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.”  And I think that’s a good place to start.  When we commonly refer to “hope,” we usually mean something like: “I hope it will be sunny today” or “I hope I get that promotion I applied for.”  When we say those things, there’s often a certain tone of uncertainty, which implies that the hope isn’t real hope, or that there’s no hope, but we’re just waiting for a lucky break.

    Real hope doesn’t have that sort of uncertainty.  Real hope means that we want something, and we know it can be attained or realized.  It means that we know there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and no, it’s not the headlight of an oncoming train!  Real hope implies a sense of certainty, even amidst seemingly overwhelming odds.

    And so, I think a lot of people might agree that we don’t have much hope in the world today.  Just tune in to the news to see that in action: wars, skirmishes and unrest in many parts of the world; bizarre weather and killer tornadoes in many places of our country this spring; cataclysmic natural disasters over the past few years that have left whole countries reeling.  Closer to home, we could cite high unemployment, rising prices on everything from gas to food, foreclosures on homes and failures of businesses, and so much more.  It doesn’t take much looking around to feel like there’s no hope of hope anywhere.

    So the problem, I think, is in what or where that we place our hope.  Often we place our hope in ourselves or our own efforts, only to find ourselves at some point over our heads.  Or maybe we place our hope in other people in our lives, only at some point to be disappointed.  We sometimes place our hope in Oprah or Doctor Phil or their ilk, only to find out that their pep-talks at some point ring hollow and their philosophies are shallow.  You can’t find much hope in sources like these, or if you do, you might find that hope to be short-lived.

    I think you know where I’m going to say we ought to put our hope.  Obviously, we have to hope in God, because the hope that he brings is an immovable rock that isn’t subject to the failures of human flesh and human reason.  What God teaches us in Christ provides a hope that cannot be overcome by changing fads and a desire for better television ratings.  If we want real hope, the only place we need to look, the only one we should look to, is God.

    Now, I say this, knowing full well that some of you have prayed over and over and over for something to change, only to be disappointed after you say “Amen.”  And there’s no way I’m going to tell you that all you have to do is pray and everything will work out all right.  God doesn’t promise us perfect happiness in this life, and so often we are going to go through periods of sorrow and disappointment.  That’s the unfortunate news of life in this passing world.  The sorrow and disappointment are not God’s will for us, they are by-products of sin – our own sin or the sin of others – and those things grieve God very much.

    But even in those times of grief, God still gives us hope, if we turn to him.  The hope that he offers is the knowledge that no matter how bad things get, we don’t go through them alone, that God is there for us, walking with us through the sorrow and pain and never giving up on us.

    Some of my friends are going through vocational issues or other dark times in their lives right now.  Recently, they told me about the hope that they find in their relationship with God, and that’s a hope that inspires me.  The hope that we Christians have is based on our faith in God and his undying love for us.  This is a hope that can never die, a hope that provides a light in the darkest times of our lives.

    As I mentioned, today’s readings give us a foundation for this hope.  In the second reading, Peter awakens our hope of forgiveness.  He says, “For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God.  Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit.”  Even our sinfulness is no match for God’s mercy.  Because of Christ’s death and resurrection we have hope of eternal life in God’s kingdom.  Because God loved us so much, he gave his only Son for our salvation, and now we have hope of forgiveness, hope for God’s presence in our lives.

    In the Gospel, Jesus tells us that we can hope in him because we will always have his presence.  Even though he ascended to the right hand of the Father, as we’ll celebrate next week, he is with us always.  “And I will ask the Father,” he says, “and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth…”  We receive that Holy Spirit sacramentally in Baptism and Confirmation, and we live in his Spirit every day.  The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives gives us the hope that we are never alone, even in our darkest hours; that the Spirit intercedes for us and guides us through life.

    We disciples have to be convinced of that hope; we have to take comfort in the hope that never passes from us, in the abiding presence of God who wants nothing more than to be with us.  We have to reflect that hope into our sometimes hopeless world.  As our second reading reminds us, “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.  Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…” The reason for our hope is Christ.  We find our hope in the cross and resurrection.  We experience our hope in the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.  We spread that hope in our hopeless world by being Christ to others, living as disciples of Jesus when the whole world would rather drag us down.  Even when life is difficult, we can live with a certain sense of joy, because above all, we are disciples of hope.

     

  • The First Sunday of Advent [A]

    The First Sunday of Advent [A]

    Today’s readings

    I don’t know about you, but I always find this weekend after Thanksgiving to be a little strange.  And I love Thanksgiving: what a great holiday when we don’t have to worry about shopping for gifts, but instead can concentrate on a nice meal with family or friends, or whatever our traditions may be.  But this weekend, as a whole, has become rather strange, and I think I’ve always struggled a bit with it.

    Here is a weekend when we can barely clear the plates at the Thanksgiving dinner table before we have to make room for Christmas.  And I’m not talking about the religious implications of Christmas here, but you know I mean all the secular trappings of that holy day.  It begins about Halloween, or maybe a little earlier, when you start to see the stores slowly make room for the Christmas stuff.  They sneak in some “holiday” signs here and there, and start to weave the garland in to the end of the aisles, just past the Halloween costumes.  On Thanksgiving day, you hear the great “thud” of the daily newspaper, heavier than it is on most Sundays because of all the “Black Friday” sales.

    And then there’s that horrible thing – Black Friday – what a nasty, evil name for a day that is, well, nasty and evil.  I loathe the idea of even getting in the car to drive to the drug store to pick up a prescription on that day.  And you can get an earlier and earlier start on the madness every year; this year the friendly folks at Kohl’s were waiting for you at 3am – at least that’s what I gathered from their advertisements for I have no personal experience to verify that fact!  We barely have time to gather up the pumpkins and corn stalks and autumn leaves before we have to set out the Christmas stockings and brightly-lit trees and candy canes.

    This is a weekend that has always brought a lot of conflicting emotions for me.  As a Liturgist, I want to celebrate Advent, but we don’t get to do that at least in the secular world.  And I’m not a Scrooge – I love Christmas, but I’d like to experience the eager expectation of it, and to be mindful of the real gift of Christmas, before we launch headlong into the real sappy Christmas songs that get played over and over and over in the stores and on the secular radio stations.  By the way, I do have a list of sappy songs that I could do without ever hearing again.  I’d tell you some of the titles, but I don’t want you to leave here with those tunes going through your head – God forbid!

    And, for a lot of people, these upcoming Christmas holidays are hard.  Maybe they’re dealing with the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a job or house, or who knows what calamity.  The synthetic joy of these holidays just heightens their grief, and that makes this season anything but joyful for them.  I remember the year my grandmother on dad’s side passed away.  I went into a store here in Glen Ellyn about this time of year, and it was decorated with all sorts of subdued lighting and homey Christmas motifs, and I had this feeling of grief that was just overwhelming – it came at me out of nowhere, and I had to leave the store in tears for no apparent reason.

    The emotions we feel at this time of year are palpable and often conflicted.  The Church knows this, and in Her great wisdom, gives us the season of Advent every year.  It’s a season that recognizes that there is this hole in our hearts that needs to be filled up with something.  That something isn’t going to be an item you can pick up on Black Friday, or a trite holiday jingle, or even a gingerbread-flavored libation.  Those things can’t possibly fill up our personal sadness, or the lack of peace in the world, or the cynicism and apathy that plague our world and confront us day after day.

    What we’re really going to need is a full immersion of hope.  And we know what – or rather Who – is the source of that hope.  That’s what we really celebrate at Christmas, what causes us to bend the knee in genuflection, what brings us here week after week, or even day after day.  Our hope can only ever come from Christ our God, sent into a world just as listless and cold as the one we live in today.  He came to redeem that world and re-create it in love, painting it all along the way with the bright hues of a hope that can never fade.  We will not find that hope in our own personal resources; we won’t find it in science, in politics, in soccer, golf or work.  We won’t find hope in Oprah or Dr. Phil or anyone else.  The only real hope we have is Jesus Christ, and he is all the hope we will ever need.

    Today’s first reading lights up the way to that hope: “Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” We have not been left to deal with the sadness of our world without an anchor of hope. That anchor is the Church, the Lord’s mountain, which provides instruction in the ways of God and a kind of roadmap to follow in God’s ways.  Because, let’s face it, our ultimate goal is to come through the Judgment Day and be in God’s presence for all eternity.  God has given us the Church to show us how to get there.

    And that gift of the Church is wonderful, but we must humble ourselves and slow ourselves down to take advantage of it.  The problem is that most people don’t believe in the necessity of the Eucharist and the sacraments any more.  Far too many skip Mass on days when the kids have a sports event, or when they want to sleep in, or when they don’t feel like going through the trouble of getting the family to Church.  Entirely too many people don’t think the Sacrament of Penance is necessary; that they haven’t done anything that bad, or that the priest won’t understand the bad thing they did, or that they can just pray for forgiveness.  There is hope in the Church and her sacraments, and if we don’t take advantage of them, we have to stop wondering why our lives seem so devoid of hope sometimes.

    We absolutely have to stop thinking we know what’s best for our lives-both our temporal as well as our spiritual lives.  Because the Church has two millennia worth of saints who have wrestled with the truth and been victorious over the world by joining themselves to Christ.  We need to open our minds and hearts to the wisdom of a Church that is governed by the Holy Spirit and possesses a Truth that is eternal, irrefutable and able to bring us to salvation.  Maybe this Advent that means that we will humble ourselves and come to the Sacrament of Penance for the first time in many years.  Or maybe in the coming year we won’t miss Sunday Mass in favor of a soccer game, an opportunity to golf, or a really important project at work.  Because as important and wonderful as these things may be, soccer, golf and work will not get you to heaven.  They just won’t.

    Today’s prayer after Communion aptly pronounces what our readings call us to today.  I want you to pay special attention to that prayer when I pray it later on.  It speaks of the Eucharist teaching us to love heaven and says: “May its promise and hope guide our way on earth.”  If we’re ever going to get through the craziness of a secularized holiday and our own struggles and the world’s woes, we need to take a step back, quiet ourselves, and let the hope of Advent brighten our outlook and heighten our longing to be with our God.  May we all be transformed from the cynicism and apathy of our world into the joyful promise of the Kingdom of God.  As the Psalmist sings today, may we all go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

  • Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    In these days after the Ascension, the Liturgy calls us to turn and find our hope in God.  Even though he is unseen, he is still very much with us.  He may be in the heaven of our hopes, but he also walks among us.  We are sustained by the hope that we will join him one day in the place he is preparing for us.  The world may very well scatter us and give us trouble; Jesus said as much.  But we can take courage in the fact that Jesus has overcome the world and has not abandoned us.

  • The Ascension of the Lord

    The Ascension of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    For the early Apostles and disciples, today’s feast had to be a kind of “now what?” experience for them.  Think about what they’ve been through.  Their Lord had been betrayed by one of their friends, he had been through a farce of a trial and put to death in a horrible, ignoble way, they had been hiding in fear thinking they might be next, they had questioned what they were supposed to do without their Lord, and then they witness the Resurrection: Christ walks among them for a time, appearing to them and making himself known.  They had seen redemption of a way of life they almost had abandoned, and now, on this feast of the Ascension, their Lord is leaving them again.  In our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, you can almost feel the amazement and desperation they are experiencing as they stare up into the heavens, incredulous that their Lord is gone, again.

    So once again, God sends two messengers, two men in white garments, to set them straight.  God had sent two men in dazzling garments to the women at the tomb on the day of the Resurrection as well.  That time, the men reassured the women that the Lord had not been moved or stolen, but had risen from the dead.  This time, the men appear to the Apostles, assuring them that the Lord would return in the same way as he had just departed from their sight.  Both times, it was the same kind of messengers, with the same kind of hopeful message.  Go forward, don’t worry, God is in control.

    One of the great themes of Catholic theology is the “already, and not yet.” Basically, that means that we disciples of Christ already have a share in the life of God and the promise of heaven, but we are not yet there. So we who believe in Jesus and live our faith every day have the hope of heaven before us, even if we are not home yet. And this hope isn’t just some “iffy” kind of thing: it’s not “I hope I’ll go to heaven one day.” No, it’s the promise that because of the salvation we have in Christ, we who are faithful will one day live and reign with him. This gives us hope in the midst of the sorrows that we experience in this world.

    Another great theme of Catholic theology is that our God is transcendent, but also immanent. Transcendent means that our God is higher than the heavens, more lofty than our thoughts and dreams, beyond anything we can imagine. Whatever we say about God, like “God is love” or “God is good” – those things only begin to scratch the surface of who God is, because God is transcendent beyond anything our limited words can describe. But our God is also immanent. God is not some far off entity that has brought the world into existence and set the events of our lives in motion and then drops back to observe things from afar. No, our God is one who walks among us and knows our sorrow and our pain and celebrates our joy. Saint Augustine said that God is nearer to us than we are to ourselves. Our God may indeed be mysterious and beyond us, but he is also the one we can reach out and touch.  If that weren’t so, the Eucharist would be pretty meaningless.

    As you can see, Catholic theology is generally speaking not exclusive. We are not either already sharing in the promise or not yet sharing in it, but we are “already and not yet.” Our God is not either transcendent or immanent, but both transcendent and immanent. These two great theological themes come to a kind of crossroads here on this feast of the Ascension.

    Today, as Christ ascends into heaven, our share in the life of God and the promise of heaven is sealed. We have hope of eternal life because our Lord has gone before us to prepare a place for us. If he had not gone, we could never have shared in this life. So, although Jesus has left the apostles yet again, they can rejoice because they know that the promise is coming to fulfillment. We do not possess it yet, because we are not home yet, but we share in it already, because Christ is our promise.

    Today, as Christ ascends into heaven, he once again, with the Father, is transcendent, because we, along with the Apostles, can no longer see him. But he remains immanent by his promise to be with us always. Again, I will quote St. Augustine who said of Christ that “He did not leave heaven when he came down to us; nor did he withdraw from us when he went up again into heaven. The fact that he was in heaven even while he was on earth is borne out by his own statement: No one has ever ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.” St. Augustine teaches that the notion of time is that everything is present to God all at once. This explains how our celebration of the Eucharist in a few minutes brings us to Calvary at the moment when Jesus gave his life for us. And it explains how Jesus can ascend into heaven and yet remain among us. Time is a limitation for us humans, but not for God who created time in the first place.

    All of this theology can be heady stuff, but what it boils down to is this: because Jesus died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, we now have the hope of heaven and of sharing in the very life of God. Even though we do not possess heaven yet, we know that it belongs to all who have faith in Christ and live that faith every day. And even though we do not see Jesus walking among us, he is still absolutely present among us and promises to be with us forever. The preface to the Eucharistic prayer which I will sing in a few minutes makes this very clear; it says:

    Christ, the mediator between God and humanity,
    judge of the world and Lord of all,
    has passed beyond our sight,
    not to abandon us but to be our hope.
    Christ is the beginning, the head of the Church;
    where he has gone, we hope to follow.

    Jesus, having explained the Scriptures to his Apostles yet again, tells them “You are witnesses of these things.” And so they don’t have the luxury of just standing there, staring up into the sky for hours, dejected and crushed because the One who had been their hope had disappeared. No, as the Gospel tells us today, they “returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God.” They are witnesses, “clothed with power from on high,” and they must be filled with the hope and joy of the resurrection and ascension of the Lord.

    We disciples are witnesses of these things too. We must witness to a world filled with violence and oppression and sadness that our God promises life without end for all those who believe in him. And we have that hope already, even though not yet. We must witness to a world languishing in the vapidity of relativism and individualism and New Age Oprah and Dr. Phil philosophy that it is Jesus Christ, the Lord of All, who is one with us in heaven, and present among us on earth, who fulfills our hopes and longings and will never leave us. We must be witnesses to all these things, living with great joy, continually praising God because, as our opening prayer said so eloquently, Christ’s “ascension is our glory and our hope.”  We too might hear those men in dazzling white garments speak God’s words of hope to us: go forward, don’t worry, God is in control.

  • The Fourth Sunday of Advent

    The Fourth Sunday of Advent

    Today’s readings

    Hopelessly insignificant.  That’s what they are.  Bethlehem-Ephratha; the tiniest region of a tiny nation – almost too small to be among the clans of Judah.  An old, childless woman, whose hope of progeny has all but dried up, and whose aged husband left her for days at a time to minister as priest in the temple.  A young virgin who has not yet known relationship with a man.  Hopelessly insignificant.  And yet, all of these play a major part in today’s Liturgy of the Word.

    We are in the closing days of the year.  For so many, this has been a horrible year.  Horrible is almost too tame a word for it.  The economic downturn has led to so much sadness and disappointment that many have questioned whether they are worthy of God’s attention.  For others, the typical disappointments may have added to the problem:  relationships that have soured or are ending, sin that has gone unconfessed and unforgiven, patterns of addiction that have not been treated, illness that has caused pain and grief and fear, death of a loved one that has left the survivors questioning God’s will.  How insignificant we seem; how hopeless the situation appears for us in these dark Advent days.

    But, in these last days of Advent, the Church gushes forth hope that cannot be contained.  These last days find us praying the “O Antiphons” – antiphons that are sung before and after the Magnificat in Vespers, the Church’s Evening Prayer.  These antiphons call on Christ to come to us under his many wondrous titles. Today’s antiphon is “O Key of David” and the antiphon for Vespers is this:  “O Key of David, O royal Power of Israel controlling at your will the gate of heaven: come, break down the prison walls of death for those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death; and lead your captive people into freedom.”

    And the Key of David is the key to unlocking the hope that the Church would turn loose on the insignificant ones in today’s readings.  Because Bethlehem-Ephratha is just big enough to give birth to the Savior, born of David’s line; the aged couple are not too far gone to give birth to a prophet, and the young virgin is not too young to significantly affect the salvation of the world by just saying yes to God’s will.  And more than that, because the Key of David has unlocked unimaginable hope in the lives of all these insignificant ones, we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God’s hope will obliterate the insignificance and sadness of our own lives with hope beyond all telling.

    And let me tell you, dear ones, that’s not easy for me to say.  Because for me to prophecy hope to you during these difficult times is very hard for me.  And it’s hard because I know how much some of you are hurting this year, and I’ve heard from you the disappointments you are suffering.  And as your father, that breaks my heart.  And yet, God has asked me to prophecy hope to you this Advent, unimaginable and unbelievable hope, and so that is the message I bring to you today.

    I have no idea what that hope is going to look like for you.  And I haven’t a clue when it’s going to come.  But as I have prayed about these readings during Advent, I know that is the message that God wants us to take away.  The hope that comes from God is enough to break forth upon the earth and take away darkness, disappointment, sin, death and pain.  It wasn’t just something that happened in tiny little Benjamin-Ephratha two thousand years ago, but instead it is something that absolutely lies in store for all of us who give ourselves over to God’s hope.

    And I don’t mean the kind of false hope that says, “hey, hang in there, things will get better.”  That just doesn’t work when you’ve lost your job, or your house, or a loved one, or even the thought that God cares for you.  I would never tell you that things will get better when your significant other is abusing you, or your family is close to living on the street, or your loved one is dying.  And I know how hard it is to hang in there when your family is overscheduled, and you desperately want to get the kids out the door to be at Church on time, and little Annie was up sick last night, and Jimmy can’t find his left shoe for the fourteenth time in the last two days, and despite your heroic efforts, you walk through the doors of the Church late.   “Hang in there” is a horrible thing to say to someone who’s at the end of their rope.

    And so I think the hope that Jesus brings us and that the Church would have us receive today is a much different hope.  This is a hope that opens the way to freedom for all of us who have become imprisoned by sin and sadness and disappointment.  It is a hope that says that whatever present anxiety we are currently experiencing is not God’s will for us, and that while that anxiety may not magically go away tomorrow, that there is no way our God will let us walk through it alone.  That was true enough for the young virgin in today’s Gospel who had no idea how this pregnancy would turn out, but said yes to God’s plan anyway.  Mary’s journey led her through fear and sadness and pain to glory, and the Church courageously believes that her journey is ours too, if we would just say yes to the hope God offers us.

    We will find that hope is easier to accept when we are in relationship with our God, as Mary was.  Sin keeps us from that, and it is sin that desperately wants us to believe that we are unworthy of hope.  Thankfully, through the grace of Christ, the Church provides a way for sin to be overcome so that we can confidently approach the throne of grace, and that is through the Sacrament of Penance.  If you have not experienced God’s grace this way so far in Advent, I urge you to come to our Penance Service on Tuesday night at 7:30.  We will have eleven priests available to hear your confession and put you back in the path of hope.

    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 go 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.  The priests who will be here on Tuesday do too.  Nothing must stand in the way of you receiving God’s mercy and grace and forgiveness, because that is the way we come to know God’s hope.

    Today we pray, O Come, O Key of David, come.  Open wide the doors that have held us captive to hopelessness, break down the walls that keep us from accepting you, and free us all from sin and death.  Come, Lord Jesus, come.  Come quickly and do not delay!

  • Friday of the Third Week of Advent: O Root of Jesse

    Friday of the Third Week of Advent: O Root of Jesse

    Today’s readings

    As I mentioned yesterday, in these late days of Advent, we pray the “O Antiphons.”  Today’s antiphon is “O Root of Jesse” and it is found as the antiphon for the Magnificat in Vespers: “O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you.  Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.”

    Zechariah in today’s Gospel certainly knew what it was like to stand silent in the presence of the Root of Jesse.  Having been promised a son by an angel of the Lord – what one might consider a very trustworthy source – his disbelief moved him to silence in God’s presence.  Here is a man who, one would think, should know better.  But maybe his years of childlessness have led him to accept a life that was not God’s will.  Certainly we could not blame him if the angel’s message was a bit unbelievable; we who have the benefit of so much science would probably be a little harder on the angel than Zechariah was.

    When you’re accustomed to living without hope, any sign of hope can be met with an awful lot of skepticism.  Would Elizabeth and Zechariah ever give birth to a child?  How would that even be possible?  Would God save the world from the darkness of sin and death?  Why would he even want to?  Can God be born here among us, giving us rootedness and a solid foundation for our lives?  Why would he even care?

    Better to be silent than to voice our lack of faith and hope.  Then, in the stillness of our hearts and souls, maybe God can give rootedness to our scattered lives, bring hope to a world grown dark in sin and economic decline and war and too much death.  Today’s Gospel has God bringing hope to a elderly, childless couple.  God forbid that we would doubt that he could bring hope to us too.

    We pray today: Come, Lord Jesus, come root of Jesse, give rootedness to our lives that are sometimes adrift in despair or apathy, give hope to a world grown cold in darkness and disappointment, give life to a people burdened by sin and death.  Come, let us stand silent as we await the dawning of your hope in our lives, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.  Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly and do not delay!