Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: salvation

  • Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    The third chapter of the book of Daniel is a wonderful piece of Scripture. In it, we see the faithfulness of the three young men: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The threat to them was very real: if they didn’t worship Nebuchadnezzar’s gods, they would be cast into the fiery furnace and would probably die. But, for them, another threat was much greater: they were more concerned about what would happen if they did worship Nebuchadnezzar’s gods. Namely, their entire religious heritage would probably die. And of course, we know the outcome. The God who was their salvation saved them from the white-hot furnace, and they escaped without even the smell of scorching on their clothing.

    But the Israelites soon enough forgot their salvation. Jesus today tussles with an unlikely group – Jews who believed in him. But it seems that their belief was a bit of a hedged bet. Jesus points out that they are still slaves to sin, and that this slavery is an obstacle to real salvation. They claim their salvation from Abraham; and they totally miss the point that Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham.

    We too must get our belief in Jesus out of our heads and into our hearts. We need to make sure that our bets are not hedged, that we have not put any obstacles in the way of our true salvation. This means asking ourselves, what is the leap of faith God is wanting us to take today? Where do we need to trust God more? Where do we need to believe not just with our words but also with our actions? God who is capable of saving three young men from a fiery furnace, who is capable of raising his son to new life; this God is capable of our own salvation too, and he is worthy of our trust.

  • Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Scriptures speak to us words of healing. But more than that, they speak of healing us from disease that we have inflicted on ourselves. The children of Israel needed this kind of healing. They had been bitterly complaining about their treatment in the desert, after God had gone to great lengths to rescue them from their captivity as slaves in Egypt. Think about that, would they really rather have remained in bitter slavery than have to put up with some inconveniences as they approached the freedom they had long been promised? But still, they complained, and so they are bitten by seraph serpents and many of them died. But they are healed when they look upon the brass serpent lifted up on the pole, made by Moses.

    This prefigures the way God intended to heal the human race through the lifting up of his Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. We too had been subjected to bitter slavery, and in some sense we continue to be subject to it. The slavery here is slavery to sin, to whatever it is that drags us down, keeps us from God, and makes us miserable, ungrateful, wretched souls. That’s what sin does to us. But we need not die in that miserable state. There is a remedy. We don’t have to look to a mere bronze serpent, because that’s a poor substitute for the remedy God has in mind. Instead, we can look up to Christ, lifted up on the cross for our salvation, and better still, lifted up from his death by the glory of the resurrection.

    There’s a lot of lifting up going on. God intends to raise us all up, as he did for Christ. That’s why he created us. He knows that we are still subject to slavery – not in Egypt, of course, but to sin, which is even worse. But thanks be to God, he has provided the remedy by giving his only Son for our salvation.

  • First Sunday of Lent

    First Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    We’ve gathered here on the first Sunday of Lent, and as we might expect, our readings give us the motivation for how to spend these days of Lent. I’m not always sure that we get the idea of Lent as straight as we should. If we think Lent is just about giving things that we like up for forty days so that we can remember how awful we are, then we’re certainly on the wrong track. Is Lent about repentance, about changing, about becoming better Christians? Well, yes, but even that’s not primarily it.

    Lent means “springtime” which is a little hard to appreciate on days that are still in the twenties and thirties, and when there’s precious little spring-like growth in nature. Spring conjures up images of new growth, flowers and leaves budding, the return of singing birds, that kind of thing, and certainly we’re not seeing any of that yet. The newness of spring is yet to come for us. But I think the “springtime” that Lent calls to mind is a springtime in ourselves. It’s another chance to get it right, another chance to grow, another chance to remember what we are about.

    And I think it’s the flood that gives us the biggest clue here. It’s mentioned in both the first and second readings, which is kind of unusual for our Liturgy, so that kind of highlights its importance. And the story is familiar enough for us, isn’t it? We know about the ark, we know about the animals two by two, we know about Noah and his family, about the destruction of the wicked and the saving of the good, we know about the forty days and forty nights of rain, and we know about what we see in today’s first reading: the rainbow.

    So I’d like to focus on two things today: the water, and the rainbow. First, the water. I remember a time many years ago now when I was leaving my job in Naperville to go work at another company. I had to go one day for my pre-employment physical and drug test, and when I was leaving to go home, it started to rain pretty hard. Overnight, the rain just continued to pour down, and when I was leaving to go to my job in Naperville the next morning, it was nearly impossible to get there. Somehow I found a few dry back roads and made it to the office, but I was certainly one of the few. My boss was even shocked I tried to make it there, considering I had already given notice that I was leaving.

    We watched out the window as some people tried to make it down flooded Jefferson Avenue and of course got stuck in the water, which I fear was higher than some of their cars. The electricity was out, and the damage was huge. It took a long time for the water to recede, and even longer for everything to get cleaned up. It was a nasty picture of how devastating the power of water can be. Many of us have experienced floods in our lives, maybe some of you remember the one I am speaking of. But we know that all of this is but a small sample of the flood that happened in today’s first reading.

    So what was the point of this flood? Was it so that God could take delight in punishing the wicked? Was this a vignette of sinners in the hands of an angry God? Was this the only way God could rid the world of its evil and make a way for goodness? Hardly. I think the flood meant something more, here. St. Peter tells us the reason for the flood in today’s second reading: “This prefigured baptism, which saves you now.” Whenever we see that much water being spoken of in Scripture, we should always think baptism. Baptism is, essentially, a washing away of the bad and cleansing the person so that goodness can take root and grow. Baptism is the precursor to a springtime of new life in all of us.

    The second symbol is the rainbow. When our family was on vacation last year, we had kind of a stormy day one day. In the evening, just as the sun was setting, there was a beautiful, double rainbow over Lake Michigan. We all watched it for a while, and took some pictures … it was a really peaceful end to a rainy day. In today’s first reading, the rainbow is established as a sign of God’s covenant with us. The author has God saying it will be a reminder for him “so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings.” But I think the reminder is more for us.

    When we see a rainbow, we should make ourselves aware once again of the great blessing and grace that is our relationship with God. Because it wasn’t Noah – or any other person – who initiated the covenant, it was God. God was the more powerful party and he didn’t have to forge a covenant at all. He could have wiped everyone out and been done with it, but that’s not who God is. God is all about our salvation, all about bringing us to eternal life, and it is God alone who can make that agreement, and he does it without even being asked.

    This too is a sign of our own baptism. In baptism, we enter that covenant with God in which he extends the great offer of everlasting life. It’s a pledge of a really eternal springtime, with us as his chosen people, called and given grace to become completely his own, with all the many blessings that brings with it.

    So as we enter this Lenten springtime, we have the opportunity to renew among us the dignity of our baptism. We do that in two ways. First, we see during this time of Lent increased activity among those who would join us at the Table of the Lord. This weekend, we have in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults the Rite of Sending of the catechumens to the cathedral for election. [Today] Tomorrow, Bishop Sartain will choose them on behalf of the Church for baptism, and they will no longer be known as catechumens, but instead as the Elect. Today [Yesterday] we have [had] the opportunity to approve these men for presentation to the bishop.

    In the weeks ahead, they will participate in the scrutinies, during which their former life outside the church will be cast off, we will pray for the forgiveness of their sins, and we will perform a minor exorcism which allows them to receive the sacraments of initiation. Then, on the Easter Vigil of Holy Saturday night, among the retelling of our stories of salvation, we will welcome them in to our Church, baptizing them, Confirming them in the Holy Spirit, and sharing the Eucharist with them for the very first time.

    But none of that, as you might suspect, is for the Elect alone. And so the second way we renew our baptism is by reflecting on our own experience once again. We too are Elect of God, having been called to the Sacraments, whenever we received them, not by our own power, but by the awesome grace of our God who always seeks us out, who runs to us wherever we are, who welcomes us back no matter how many times we have walked away, who catches us no matter how far we have fallen. We are not sinners in the hands of an angry God, we are the saved in the hands of a God of mercy and grace.

    These forty days, then, are an opportunity for a new springtime in us. A new growth of grace in our lives, washed clean in the waters of baptism, renewed in the power of the Holy Spirit, and fed by the Bread of Life. Praise God for the gift of Lent.

  • Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas

    Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas

    Today’s readings

    What did you get for Christmas?  Was it everything you’d hoped for?  Or are you at that stage of life where gifts are nice, but you really don’t need anything special?  A lot of my family has come to that point, except, of course, for my nieces and nephew.  But it’s hard to find a special gift for the rest of us, because we’re at that point where the gifts aren’t so important as it is to be together at Christmas and enjoy one another.

    Today’s first reading is exhorting us to something similar.  While the rest of the world waits in line for hours to get a Nintendo Wii game, or whatever the coveted gift of the year may be, we have the consolation of knowing that nothing like that is ultimately important, or will ever make us ultimately happy.  The real gift that we can receive today, and every day, is the gift of Jesus, the Word made flesh, our Savior come to be one with us as Emmanuel.

    St. John tells us quite clearly: “Do not love the world or the things of the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”  Because what we have is so much better than anything the world can give.  The real gift this Christmas, and really every day, is the gift of eternal life.  And we have that gift because Jesus came to earth and chose to be one with us in our human nature.  That’s why the angels sang that night, and why we sing his praise every day of our lives.

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  • The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ

    The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ

    madonna_and_child-400You know, on paper, what we celebrate today is all clean and neat, and as the centuries have washed the story, it’s easy for us to swallow.  I think about Linus famously proclaiming the Christmas story in the well-loved Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon, and it all seems so harmless.  But we must never forget that the real Gift, the ultimate Gift, came to us in a not-so-neat package, in a way that was anything but clean and neat and easy-to-swallow.  The gift of our salvation came to us at a great cost, from the beginning to the end, and the real source of our rejoicing ought to be that God was willing to pay so dearly for our souls.

    Many years ago now, I remember two of my friends bringing their newest child to a choir rehearsal.  Of course, we all just adored the little one, as friends do when they welcome a new child into the world.  But I’ll never forget when they introduced him to the priest at our parish.  He remarked about how cute the child was but said something along the lines of how difficult would be the world in which that child grew up, and he shuddered to think about all the hardships that the child would see and experience.  I remember thinking that was a rather pessimistic thing to say on such a wonderful occasion, but it stuck with me ever since.

    Because I find myself thinking the same thing when I gaze on our manger scenes.  What kind of world would baby Jesus come to know?  What kind of sadness and grief and pain would he have to put up with?

    The beginning of John’s Gospel tells us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.”  God wanted to save the world.  Because he made the world, he was particularly attached to it and to those who dwelt in the great garden he had created.  He created us in love and for love, so he greatly desired in his grand plan that we would all come back to him one day and live forever with him in the kingdom.  But he knew that, steeped in sin as our world can be, fallen and flawed, as we individually can be, that we would never think to turn to him on our own.  We were – and are – too caught up in things that are not God and that are not ultimately going to bring us happiness.  So he knew that the only thing that he could do was to enter our history once again.

    And he could have done that in any way that he pleased – he’s God after all: all-powerful, all-knowing and present everywhere.  John’s Gospel, though, tells us a few verses later just exactly how God chose to enter our history: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  He chose not just to visit us, but instead to become one of us, taking upon himself all of our weaknesses, our pain, and our sorrows.  He was born a baby: the all-powerful One taking on the least powerful stage of our existence.  He was born to a poor family and announced to an unwed mother.  The one who created the riches of the world and who himself was clothed in the splendor of the Almighty turned aside from all of it so that he could become one with his people.  Had he chosen to come in any other form, he may have appealed to only some of us perhaps, but because he chose to take upon himself all that we must go through and then some, he is the way to salvation for all of us.

    All of us who have messy lives sometimes can relate to the way Jesus came into our world.  We all want our lives to be orderly and easy and sensible.  But mostly, that doesn’t happen.  Life gets in the way.  And so to see Jesus come at a less-than-opportune moment, before Mary and Joseph were even officially wed, in the midst of a government census, born while his parents were travelling and could not find a place to stay – well, it’s just messy, isn’t it?  And it’s just like us.

    The only way that the full brokenness of our human form could be redeemed was for Jesus to take on all of it when he came to save us.  That’s why his birth was so messy, why he had to be born in a manger with all the farm animals, that’s why he never had a place to lay his head in all his life.  What is amazing is that, as wretched as our earthly lives can be sometimes, God never considered himself above it all, never hesitated for a moment to take it on and fill it with grace.

    And that’s the flip side of this whole interaction, you know.  God didn’t take on our form so that he could become less, he took on our form so that we could become more.  So, yes, God becomes one of us and takes on all of our infirmities and weaknesses.  But in doing that, we ourselves become more than we could ever be on our own.  Our lowliness is filled with grace, our sadness is filled with rejoicing.  That was always the plan God had for us.

    So as we gaze upon and adore our Lord in the manger, maybe we can take some of the items in that beautiful snapshot and see what will come for him as he grows older.  We see the shepherds, lowly men despised often by society, the marginalized ones who are the first to receive the message.  We see the wise men, those who in the wisdom they have received from God, are ready to give everything to follow Christ.  We see the angels, the messengers who urge us to take a second look at an innocent child who might not otherwise attract our attention.  We see his father Joseph, who will teach him the law, as a good father would, and help him to grow in the ways of humanity, which he so completely assumed.  We see his mother, who nurtured him in childhood and followed him in adulthood, becoming the first of his disciples.  We see the wood of the manger, a foreshadowing of the wood of the Cross, which will be the means of our salvation.  And we see and adore Christ himself, the Way, the wonder-counselor, our father forever, and prince of peace.

    When we look at that manger scene with eyes of faith, we become different, knowing that Jesus paid an incredible price to bring us back to him, not just on the Cross, but even at his birth.  The preface of the Eucharistic prayer which we will pray in a few moments makes this so clear: “In the wonder of the incarnation, your eternal Word has brought to the eyes of faith a new and radiant vision of your glory.  In him we see our God made visible and so are caught up in love of the God we cannot see.”

    Human eyes can look at that manger and see with cynicism that he’s just like us, nothing special.  But eyes of faith look at the same event and see that he’s just like us in every way but sin, and that makes him incredibly special, worthy of adoration. Thanks be to God that the birth of Jesus wasn’t as neat and tidy as it looks sometimes on paper.  If his first coming into the world weren’t so messy, we might never know the joy of redemption and the true worth of our humanity.

    So if our eyes of faith have helped us to see beyond an ordinary child and to recognize our Saving God, then this Christmas has to find us sharing that vision with others.  May Christmas find us open to the needs of others, willing to reconcile differences, looking for opportunities to be of service to others, eager to change our own little corner of the world for the better.  Human eyes see opportunities like that as nuisances or things for other people to do.  Eyes of faith see them as occasions of grace and blessing to both the receiver and the giver.  May this Christmas find us seeing all of our world with eyes of faith.

    Speaking for myself and on behalf of our pastor, Fr. Ted, our deacons and all of our pastoral staff here at St. Raphael, I wish you a very blessed Christmas season.  We pray that you encounter Christ in every moment of the coming year, and that you and your families are filled with every grace and blessing.

  • 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!

  • Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent

    Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent

    Today’s readings

    The chief priests and the elders of the people were always trying to decide who got into heaven. The criteria was strict adherence to the law, and any flaw in one’s obedience left them out of the picture. The problem was, they weren’t so concerned about the spirit of the law, and that spirit was one of true justice and righteousness. The Church teaches us that we are all supposed to become saints; that this earthly journey is at its core a saint-making factory. Tax collectors and sinners were becoming saints ahead of the chief priests and elders, and for that Jesus takes them to task, hoping they will wake up and walk through the door he is opening to them.

    God hears, as the Psalmist says, the cry of the poor. Essentially that means what it sounds like, God hears those who are homeless, poor, marginalized and hungry, and has a special care for them. They aren’t someone we can overlook, as we often do, because God never overlooks them. They may appear to have nothing going for them, but to God they are precious. The poor should be precious to us too, because they put us in touch with our own poverty, the ways that we are lacking or are broken. What we must remember is that when we are desperately poor in whatever way, we are very close to God, who hears everyone who is in need of him.

    In these days of Advent, God is purifying us in whatever way we need it, if we will but let him. We are called upon to get in touch with our own poverty, and to respond to the poverty of others. We are called to turn from our self-absorbed ways, and look toward the light of the door that Jesus has opened for us. And the time is short; the day is almost here. We don’t want to fall behind; we all want to walk through the door of salvation together.

  • Thursday of the Second Week of Advent

    Thursday of the Second Week of Advent

    Today’s readings

    I was with some of the fourth grade classes from our Religious Education Program yesterday afternoon.  I reflected with them that God could have become incarnate in any way he chose.  But what he chose is almost incomprehensible: the Lord of all came into the world as a tiny baby, born to a poor family, to an unwed mother.  He grew through childhood and young adulthood, working with his hands in the trade of his earthly father.  He knew the frustrations we have, and he knew our sadness and disappointment.  He was well-acquainted with our infirmities, and even grieved at the death of those he loved.  Why?

    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 of 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.

  • The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    Today’s readings

    Today, we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary, mother of Jesus, which celebrates the dogmatic belief that God loved the world so much that he sent his only Son to be our Savior, and gave to him a human mother who was chosen before the world began to be holy and blameless in his sight.  This feast is a sign for us of the nearness of our salvation, that the plan God had for us before the world ever took shape was finally coming to fruition.

    The first reading paints the picture for us.  The man had eaten of the fruit of the tree that God had forbidden them to eat.  Because of this, they were ashamed and covered over their nakedness.  God noticed that, and asked about it.  He found they had discovered the forbidden tree because otherwise they would not have the idea that their natural state was shameful.  Sin had entered the world, and God wanted to know who gave the man the forbidden fruit.

    This leads to the first instance of passing the buck, as the man blames not just the woman, but also God, for the situation: “The woman whom you put here with me
    she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”  In other words, if God hadn’t put the woman there with him in the first place, he never would have received the fruit to eat.  The woman, too, blames someone else: the serpent.  As if neither of them had been created with a brain to think for themselves, they begin that blame game that we all participate in from time to time.

    But at its core, this is a pattern we will see all throughout Scripture: God gives a road to salvation, human beings turn away, and so on and so on and so on.  And we still do it today, don’t we?  We have the Scriptures to show us the way, but we don’t take time to read and reflect on them.  We have the Church to lead us in the right way, but we choose to do whatever we think is right.  We have the Sacraments to fill us with grace, but some hardly ever partake of them.  As the Psalmist says, “The LORD has made his salvation known: in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.” How will we respond to that grace?  God is always pouring out his generous gifts, and we so often reject them and in doing so, reject the Divine Giver.

    This cyclic state of sin and rejection was never intended to be the case.  We are not defined as a people by our sins.  We cannot mess up and say, “hey, I’m only human,” because being perfectly human does not include sin.  The perfectly human one – Jesus Christ – came to show us the way out of the cycle of sin and rejection.  This grace was always intended.  As St. Paul says to the Ephesians today: “He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.   In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ…”

    And so, in these Advent days, we await the unfolding of the plan for salvation that began at the very dawn of the world in all its wonder.  God always intended to provide an incredible way for his people to return to them, and that was by taking flesh and walking among us as a man.  He began this by preparing for his birth through the Immaculate Virgin Mary – never stained by sin, because the one who conquered sin and death had already delivered her from sin.  He was then ready to be born into our midst and to take on our form.  With Mary’s fiat in today’s Gospel, God enters our world in the most intimate way possible, by becoming one of us.  Mary’s lived faith – possible because of her Immaculate Conception – makes possible our own lives of faith and our journeys to God.  There’s a wonderful Marian prayer that we pray at the conclusion of Night Prayer during Advent that sums it all up so beautifully:

    Loving Mother of the Redeemer,
    Gate of heaven, star of the sea,
    Assist your people
    who have fallen yet strive to rise again.
    To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator,
    yet remained a virgin after as before.
    You who received Gabriel’s joyful greeting,
    have pity on us, poor sinners.

    Our celebration today has special meaning for us.  Because Mary was conceived without sin, we can see that sin was never intended to rule us.  We can see that sin is not what defines us as human beings.  So God selected Mary from the beginning and gave her a taste in salvific grace so that we could all see the light of what is to come for all of us one day.

    I love the hymn “Immaculate Mary.”  Sr. Merita taught it to us in fourth grade when I was in CCD class.  What better way to turn away from sin and look with faithfulness on our God than with this hymn.  So let us together ask her to pray for us by singing together the refrain one more time:

    “Ave, ave, ave, Maria! Ave, ave, Maria!”

  • CREEDS Retreat Conference III: Salvation through the Cross and Resurrection

    CREEDS Retreat Conference III: Salvation through the Cross and Resurrection

    Scriptures: Matthew 27:33-56; Matthew 28:1-10

    Godspell: “Finale”

    Ask a bunch of church type people what their favorite celebration of the Church year is, and inevitably most of them will tell you that it’s the Paschal Triduum.  That period from the evening of Holy Thursday to the Evening of Holy Saturday, celebrating the giving of the Eucharist and the establishment of the Church on Holy Thursday, observing the memorial of our Lord’s Passion and the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday, and cutting loose – in a Liturgical way of course – with the Vigil of all vigils – the great Easter Vigil Mass with its service of light, proclamation of the Exsultet, extended Liturgy of the Word, Baptism of catechumens and celebration of the Eucharist – that three-day Day of all Days is by far the most incredible of all the days of the Church year.

    I remember my very first time going to the Easter Vigil Mass.  I was in high school, and a friend of ours was being received into Full Communion with the Church.  I was hooked – the joy of that night was palpable, all the more so in welcoming someone who was a friend into the Church which was my home.  If you’ve been close to anyone received into the Church like that, you know what I mean.

    Typically, the Church lets it all loose on these wonderful days.  We pull out all the stops, have all the best music, exquisite decorations, incense, processions, reverence beyond anything we display all year long.  And for good reason.  As the Exsultet sings,

    This is the night,
    when first you saved our fathers:
    you freed the people of Israel from their slav’ry,
    and led them dry-shod through the sea.

    This is the night,
    when the pillar of fire destroyed the darkness of sin.

    This is night,
    when Christians ev’rywhere,
    washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement,
    are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

    This is the night,
    when Jesus broke the chains of death
    and rose triumphant from the grave.

    These are the central mysteries of our faith.  Without the Cross and Resurrection, none of the rest of it makes any sense.  Without the gift of salvation, the Incarnation is just an act of divine curiosity or snooping.  Without salvation, even the creation of the world is meaningless.  But salvation was always God’s plan from the very beginning.  There was never a time when God was making it up as he went along.  Age after age, we were sent prophets and given miracles and we constantly turned away from God.  We had created this huge chasm between us and God that kept us apart.  But all those prophets and miracles prepared us for the coming of our God, for the incredible act of divine grace that would re-create the world in astounding ways.

    Many have noted that this was an awfully strange way to save the world.  Certainly our God did not have to debase himself to take on our corrupt human nature, but he did.  He didn’t have to come and take on all our human frailty, walking our walk and living our life, but he did.  He certainly did not have to die our death, the most miserable, humiliating death reserved for the lowest of the low and the commonest of criminals, but he did.  And because he did, God raised him up, destroying death and its miserable chains forever.  Because of this great act, as the Preface to the  Eucharistic Prayer for funerals tells us, “For those who believe in Christ, life is changed, not ended.  When the body of our earthly life dwells in death, we gain an everlasting dwelling place in heaven.”

    I think Godspell appropriately gets the earth-shattering nature of the Cross, but pretty much soft-pedals the Resurrection.  As the Gospel readings show us, both events included violent earthquakes.  That’s because in those two events, everything changed – everything.  But the movie does make a strong point that even though God died – and make no mistake, God did die on that Cross – even though God died, God lives forever through the Resurrection: “Long live God!”  Curiously the singing at the end of the movie moves from “Oh God, you’re dead” to “Long live God” to “Prepare ye the way of the Lord” to “Day by Day.”  I think that’s interesting, and I think there’s something very right about it.

    In the Resurrection, Christ lives forever, paving the way for us to do the same.  And because he lives forever, we need to prepare the way for the Lord day after day after day, or “Day by Day,” if you will.  The end of the movie mimics the rather cyclical nature of our Church year.  And it is very true that the Salvation event, the Paschal Mystery, brings us back to the Advent of Christ in whole new ways.  Preparing the way of the Lord is not something we do just in the four weeks of Advent.  It is the project of a lifetime, the project of the ages of the Church, a project to be lived out day by day as we see God more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly.

    At my mom’s house we have one very simple ornament for the Christmas Tree.  Among all the others, you’ll find it hanging on a back branch to remind us of the truth of it all.  It’s a nail, a spike really, hung from a green ribbon.  It reminds us that at Christmas we celebrate something that doesn’t get wrapped up until the Easter days.  The wood of the Christmas tree and the wood of the manger become the wood of the Cross.  Birth leads to death leads to Resurrection leads to re-creation.  All things are made new.  The misery of a dark world is replaced by Christ, the light of the world.  The grace of this wonderful mystery makes possible our flame of faith.  The Exsultet says of that flame:

    May the Morning Star which never sets
    find this flame still burning:
    Christ, that Morning Star,
    who came back from the dead,
    and shed his peaceful light on all mankind,
    your Son, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.