Homilies and Reflections
December 2019

- Dec 1-7
  
  FILLING IN THE BOXES
  FATHER PASCHAL SCOTTI
  
  Today (December 3) is the feast of Saint Francis Xavier, one of the founders of the Jesuits of Saint Ignatius Loyola, formed from a small group in Paris in the sixteenth century. He is most famous, though, for being a missionary who went to the Near East and to the Far East – present day India, Indonesia, and Malaysia, present day Japan, dying trying to get into China, the great empire of the East. A zealous missionary: you cannot read him without being impressed by the effort, the sacrifice, the suffering, the heroism of what he did…, the difficulty of just living there and preaching there under those circumstances. He wasn’t always this zealous. He wasn’t always a man of heroism and self-sacrifice. When Ignatius Loyola met him in Paris, at the University of Paris he was a Master of Arts, a cleric, like many clerics of that day trying to climb the slippery pole of the ecclesiastical referral, of wealth and power and position, the whole benefice system…That was his goal: to become a well-respected, powerful, impressive, important well-endowed cleric. That was his life goal. Meeting Ignatius changed all of that. From a man on the make – cleric on the make – to someone who became a great saint. He was one who “filled the boxes,” we might say nowadays. And it is better to fill the boxes than not fill the boxes, to show up at Mass on a Sunday rather than to not show up at Mass on a Sunday. But if you only fill the boxes, your life will be very, very diminished. You will have no fruitfulness in what you do. You may fulfill your obligations and be acceptable and respectable, but you will have no power or ability to transform lives. You will likely fall into serious sin also: it is so easy to fall from respectable mediocrity into evil. So to “fill in the boxes” is a dangerous, dangerous thing. Many clerics of his day, end of our day I fear, just fill the boxes. Many of the lai ty just fill the boxes, and do not try to be truly zealous, to be the best that you can be, to be excellent in what we do for God: to be zealous and holy, to be saints. So on this feast where we honor the great missionary Francis Xavier, let us also pursue heroism in all that we do intellectually and spiritually, in our jobs and in our lives – let us try to be saints. Let us try to be saints in this world as he was in his.
  
  SAINT AMBROSE
  ABBOT MATTHEW STARK
  
  Today (December 7) we celebrate Saint Ambrose. He is one of the four great Latin doctors of the church, the others being Augustine, Jerome, and our own Saint Gregory the Great. One of the great things he did was to uphold the principle that the emperor, the ruler, was in the church and not above it. He withstood the emperor Theodosius in a church matter, in which the empress Justina was demanding a church for a heretical Christian group. The other great thing he did was with Saint Augustine, who was offended with the rough translation of scriptures into Latin. He found it difficult to understand how some of the history of the Old Testament could have anything to do with the God of Christ. And it was listening to the sermons of Ambrose of Milan he was finally able to understand the deeper meaning of scripture and was baptized within six months by Saint Ambrose. May Saint Ambrose pray for us to have the courage to lead good Christian lives.
- Dec 8-14
  
  THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
  ABBOT MATTHEW STARK
  
  The feast that we celebrate today (Monday, December 9), the feast of the Immaculate Conception, is often confused with the virgin birth. That is, our Lord was born without a human father, but by the power and overshadowing of Mary by the Holy Spirit. The Immaculate Conception is Mary’s conception by her parents, which took place in the normal fashion, but she was not stained by original sin, that is the sin of Adam and Eve, as we are when we are born. She was kept free of that sin by virtue of her son’s sacrifice of himself, which was foreseen by the father, God, and she was kept free from all sin to the end of her life. She, according to the fathers of the church, is the new Eve. Eve, by her disobedience, lost grace for us. Mary, by her obedience to the will of God, wins it back, or begins the process of its being won back for us. Therefore, as Eve was the mother of all the living, Mary is now the mother of all the living, especially those of us who have been baptized. So we honor this moment. The church makes much of it because it is the first, as it were, big step in the process of our redemption by Jesus Christ, the son of Mary.
  
  I just want to say a word about the tapestry we have in the monk’s choir during Advent and Christmas. It was done by an oblate of ours, a famous woman in the artistic world, Ade Bethune, she was the first woman to teach in our school. She was hired by Father Hugh Diman and she taught art very successfully, I am told by those who knew her as a teacher. She was noted for many accomplishments, but perhaps most of all because she was one of the three great artists of the Catholic Worker. She was a great friend of Dorothy Day, the Venerable Dorothy Day, who is now in the process of canonization. Ade made the tapestry and gave it to the monastery. It is the depiction of Mary, the Seat of Wisdom. The wisdom is Jesus Christ. He is our wisdom, redemption, our sanctification, our justification. Jesus is our true Wisdom. He is seated in his mother‘s lap. He is blessing us, and he is holding the scriptures that reveal him to us. His mother, Mary, is looking at us. Her attitude is the attitude of prayer of the early church. People nowadays tend to keep their hands together, but she depicts their attitude of prayer (arms out, palms open). So, she is praying, and she is the representative of us and of the church. Our duty, which we can all do, is to pray. That is, as it were, the primary duty of the church. The church prays. We, if we are disciples of Jesus, pray. He told us to do that, even though we would get tired of it. We will get bored by it. Keep it up. He has told us. In the early church, for the first Christians the custom was to pray three times a day, to say the Our Father morning, noon, and night. And that is not a bad thing to do for yourselves. In fact, if you want to make an Advent resolution, it could be to say the Our Father and the Hail Mary morning, noon, and night. Another thing that we should remember is that Mary Immaculate is the patroness of the United States of America. You know, every country has its own patron saint. Saint George for England, Saint Patrick for Ireland, Saint Andrew for Scotland, Saint David for Wales, for France it is Saint Joan of Arc and Saint Martin, for Italy, it’s Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Francis. And so it goes. She, Mary is our patroness. Say a prayer to her for our country today.
  
  THE LOST SHEEP AND ADVENT
  
  FATHER GREGORY HAVILL
  
  Homily of December 10 (Mt 18:12-14, Parable of the Lost Sheep)
  In teaching a lesson on this gospel to a catechetical class of children a long time ago, I remember one of the children saying, “What about the ninety-nine that didn’t go astray? Didn’t he care about them?” But the fact of the matter is there were not ninety-nine that did not go astray. That is part of the metaphor here. And so it does not directly apply to all of humanity, because there is none of us that has not gone astray. We are all the lost sheep that Jesus is talking about. Now, Advent was originally a festive season of the year, in the early Christian times. In the medieval times, it came to be fashioned to be much more similar to Lent than it is now. We still have Lenten practices as part it, but it is more of a festive season than a penitential season, which is more similar to the early Christian era. Today’s offertory prayer reflects a sense of something that I think we all should be thinking about, and that is the more penitential side of it, becoming more conscious that we are all lost sheep as in today’s gospel. We are all sinners. And so the very first thing we should all begin to think about as we approach forgiveness, the sacrament of penance, the forgiveness of God – is our own sinfulness. I will read the offertory prayer for you now, so you will recognize it later: “Be pleased, O Lord, with our humble prayers and offerings, and, since we have no merits to plead our cause, come, we pray, to our rescue with the protection of your mercy.” A very good prayer in connection with the gospel of the Lost Sheep.
  
  HIS YOKE IS EASY
  
  FATHER PASCHAL SCOTTI
  
  Homily of Wednesday, December 11
  
  Today’s gospel reading (Matthew 11:28-30) is quite striking That his yoke is easy and his burden is light: this will come as some surprise to those who know Christianity and know the demands it creates. What it asks of us is massive, quite impressive, quite demanding. The unknown reality, the unmentioned reality, is the power of God, the energy of God, the presence the joy that God gives to those who follow him. That his yoke is easy and his burden is light insofar as this new energy, this new power, this new joy lifts us up, and makes it not only doable but transforming. In recent years, many churches have abandoned difficult things, important things, hoping that will save them, will save their numbers from declining bit by bit, little by little. But that is not what has happened. The decline intensified dramatically. The more they give up and make it easier, the more they decline. Unfortunately many Catholics also have been doing that, and many people in authority, in parishes – and that’s a bad, bad mistake. It is unfaithful to Christ and what he asks of us. Ultimately, also, it is self-defeating. The less you demand, the less people do; the less you do, the less you receive the power and grace of God to make it more doable and transforming. So this Advent, if you wish to experience the power of Christmas and the joy of Christmas, the bliss and majesty of Christmas, then do more, take your burden more strongly, take the yoke more intensely, carry your cross more boldly. Pray more, do more good works, make your life more sacramental and intense in virtue. The more you do, the more you will get. The more you carry, the more you will be lifted up.
  
  OUR LADY OF GAUDALUPE
  
  FATHER MICHAEL BRUNNER
  
  Today (December 12) is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the queen and Patroness of The Americas. We may well ask, as we just heard in the Gospel (Luke 1:26-38), how does it happen that the mother of our savior should come to visit us? It was us she visited. Mary, the mother of Jesus, over a period of four days outside Mexico City in mid-December, 1531 miraculously appeared to an Aztec man, a man of a conquered people, born “Cu-auh-tla-toa-tzin”, .meaning “eagle that talks,” whom we now know as Saint Juan Diego. It was to us she spoke, in the Aztec Nahuatl language and asked to be called by the name she herself took “Coa-tlaxo-peuh” meaning “the one who stamps out the serpent,” which name was Hispanicized as “Guadalupe”. It was to us in the Americas, in which we Anglos are the minority, in the Americas which is more Latin than Anglo. And that it was once more Indian than anything else. Because the Aztec religion, whose sacred image was the serpent, thrived on human sacrifices, tens of thousands a year, Our Lady of Guadalupe has been taken as the Patroness and protector of the unborn children, tens of thousands of whom are sacrificed every year in our society. Today’s Gospel relates the loving visit of our Lady to Elizabeth. Our Lady of Guadalupe is the visitation of our Lady to all of us in the Americas, but especially those south of our border. Her message of mercy and grace is needed more today than then, especially for those south of our border. The conquistadores put an end to Aztec human sacrifice but they destroyed the Aztec people and culture. We are challenged to find a more Christ-like way to put an end in our society to the mass killing of innocent unborn children. How will we save today’s victims? Certainly our culture of selfishness and death must change. May God and Our Lady of Guadalupe help us to accomplish that change.
  
  LUCY AND THE LIGHT OF CHRIST
  
  ABBOT MATTHEW STARK
  
  (Homily of December 13, Feast of Saint Lucy)
  
  Saint Lucy was a virgin martyr in Syracuse in Sicily, probably around the beginning of the fourth century. Because of her name, which suggests light, she is considered the patroness against illnesses of the eye. And also because of the relationship of her name to light, in Scandinavian countries on her feast day, much is made of the turning of the year from shorter days to longer days. And for us, that can be a reminder that we are supposed to be martyrs, witnesses, to Christ, the true light, the Sun of Justice who has risen, and who will conquer darkness ultimately and completely, and shed His Light wholly upon the world.
- dec 15-31
  
  GAUDETE SUNDAY
  FATHER MICHAEL BRUNNER
  
  December 15, 2019
  
  Back on November 30, a monk in the monastery mentioned to me that he was giving up something for Advent. That really struck me, because back in the day when I was a child, Advent was right up there with Lent as a penitential season; there was purple in the Church and you gave up things, and then in the 2nd half of the season you had a Sunday when the priest wore pink vestments, except you called them Rose so people didn’t think you were wearing pink. Because Advent was a penitential season then, the meaning of the pink Sunday stood out. Well, Advent isn’t penitential anymore (It was never really supposed to be anyway) but today…obviously… is the pink Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday; and Gaudete is the Latin word whose commanding meaning is “Rejoice !” Christmas is 10 days away, so we may well ask, why this Sunday of rejoicing today, during all our preparation for the real day of rejoicing, the reason for the season, on December 25?
  
  In our affluent, technology-rich, media-attached, labor saving, well fed and medically advanced society, just about any day is a day of rejoicing, or at least should be. Thank God for our many blessings. But there is a particular type of rejoicing that we are encouraged to take part in today, a type somewhat foreign to our culture of immediate gratification… the joy of anticipation. Those closer to my age will remember Carly Simon wrote a song about anticipation. Anticipation is keeping me waiting. Tomorrow we might not be together. I'm no prophet, I don't know nature’s way. So I'll try to see into your eyes right now and stay right here, 'cause these are the good old days.
  
  With God, all days are the good old days. Advent is all about anticipation. We relive the anticipation of the people of God who believed in God’s promise and hoped for the Messiah. That anticipating faith sustained them through slavery in Egypt, war with the Philistines, exile in Babylon, persecution by the Seleucids and domination by Rome. They endured lots of sadness and suffering while they waited. But as any mother knows, all the pain and discomfort of carrying a child to term is outweighed by the joy of knowing that birth will come about, the joy of anticipating a child, a new life that will change the lives of the parents forever. Your parents looked forward to your birth, and your birth changed their lives and your siblings lives too. New parents-to-be furnish a room for the baby, buy baby furniture and all kinds of baby stuff. During the post WW2 baby boom, there was a lot of joyful anticipation. That’s the kind of joy we should live today and during the rest of Advent. But it must be a patient, open and careful joy, however. Sometimes anticipation turns out to be greater, better or at least different from reality when it finally comes, though it should not be so for us at Christmas. For example, every year at Christmas I would receive from my parents one “big” present, and then some smaller ones from my siblings and relatives. One year, in a concession to human weakness, my father changed the rules so that before dinner on Christmas Eve we could open ONE present. A particularly significant looking package had caught my eye as it had been sitting under the tree for days; I had no idea what was in it, but I just knew it would be great! …so that was the one I chose to open. I carefully unwrapped it (we always reused wrapping paper, so you couldn’t tear it) and became thoroughly confused. It was an assembly of thin, pointed stainless steel rods attached at right angles to a circular hub, with a hole in the center. It was elegant and shiny, but that’s about all you could say for it. Whatever the labeling on the package said was beyond me. It defied my imagination. I hadn’t clue what I should do with it and was more than a little disappointed.
  
  The sense of anticipation inspired by the great prophets of Israel… Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, all of them… looked to what Israel wanted most …. a king who would unite their divided nation, impose justice, conquer and rule over their enemies. But God wanted to give them something different. A king, but not a power hungry, luxury living monarch …. not a harsh and cruel avenger but a savior of lives and souls. Whether in their anticipation Isaiah or the other prophets clearly saw what kind of King the Messiah Jesus would be, John the Baptist did see more clearly. He pointed Jesus out and told the people… “Look, here he is !” But not many believed, and as the Gospels tell us even John wondered at the end of his life in prison… Could Jesus really be the answer? He’s different from what even I expected.
  
  After experiencing the disappointment of my unusual Christmas gift, and after most of the gifts had been opened after dinner and there hadn’t been anything for me I considered big, my father suddenly brought in a large box, too large to be wrapped with anything from our collection of used wrapping paper. There it was…the 1960’s version of a deluxe Weber barbecue grill with a hood and motorized spit, on which I could attached that shiny assembly of skewers. The strange gift suddenly made sense. It wasn’t what I expected. I had the past summer learned the joys of cooking, especially for myself and on our very dilapidated barbecue grill. Though that summer was over, there would be more summers in the future, so my parents and siblings decided I should have greater joy and furthermore put it to work for the entire family with my very own grill. My joy was somewhat dimmed given that it was December in Rochester, with a couple of feet of snow on the ground and temperatures in single digits, so it would be a little while before I could use that grill. But that little while became another season of happy anticipation. I knew summer would eventually come. Jesus was not and will never be what the world expects. But He will always be what the world needs and will always be good for the world, the whole world.
  
  In our time of joyful anticipation before Christmas, we should think of what Jesus can do for us, in our lives; what grace can he provide us to be more grounded in reality, to see things as He does; we should think of what part of our faith challenges us, that His simplicity and love can open up for us. How can He help us see better the Father’s will that we always pray be done? Jesus will not be a superhero for us, but he will be a companion for us as we journey through life. He will a point of reference, a hand to hold and to guide us; He will, in Isaiah’s words today: “Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak.” Our whole lives are an Advent, rather a series of Advents, for many things, as your time here is an Advent for your college career, but most of all our lives are an Advent for our eternal future. If it is Jesus that we are waiting for, we will not be disappointed when that future arrives, as it surely will. But if we are waiting for anything or anyone else, our disappointment is guaranteed. Saint James tells us in his letter this morning: Be patient, brothers and sisters… See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it. So we must wait, wait for Jesus Christ to come fully into our hearts and into our world… all that Christmas Day represents, but our waiting should be filled with happiness every day, knowing that what is coming will put our joy to work for the entire human family... knowing that He who is coming has a very big gift for us, even if we can’t see the package now.
  
  REDEMPTION IN HUMAN FLESH
  
  FATHER PASCHAL SCOTTI
  
  Homily, December 17
  “What is not taken up is not redeemed.” This maxim comes from the fathers of the church, reflecting on how God has become man: fully man, truly man. Like us in all things but sin. He has redeemed us, and by that divine humanity, you might say, we are made gods, as the fathers also liked to say. Our deification, our transformation, our divinization by divine grace, is body and soul – body and soul – this is how the Saints display extraordinary powers even in this world. But if the body is so important, it can also hinder our progress in holiness. In this time of Advent, of preparation, conversion and renewal, in which we can be truly divinized, transformed, deified, with Godlike features in imitation of our Lord, through our Lord’s divine-human nature – then we must master our own bodies, by asceticism, by fasting, through discipline. We can be truly sanctified by divine grace, transformed by divine grace. So in this Advent season, it is important to remember asceticism… Jesus was just like us, a human being, a human being who is also God - God made man, and because of that we may become as gods.
  
  ADVENT REMARKS & CHRISTMAS BLESSING
  
  FATHER MICHAEL BRUNNER
  
  Today (December 17) the Church began using the O Antiphons in its prayers, Jesus’ mystical titles, which taken together make up the hymn we began with today, O Come, O Come, Emanuel. The first Antiphon is “O Wisdom”: O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end of creation to the other with power, and kindly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.
  
  God’s wisdom is so different from human wisdom.
  
  Jesus was different from Messiah everyone expected. He was born away from home, on the road, and his hometown       was a poor backwater from which no good could be expected. To see him and know him as the Messiah, the Son of God, meant then and still means now that one has to see not with the practical eyes of human beings in society, but with the eyes of God in wisdom and faith. Jesus Christ came to save us from our weakness, failings and sins, all of us, and none of us deserves to be saved and surely none of us earns our salvation.
  
  One hundred and nineteen years ago little Adolf Hitler attended a Benedictine School just like you, and went to Mass just like you. Each one of us can be like Adolf Hitler, a hateful tragedy, or like Jesus, a loving blessing. We have the power to be either.
  
  The baby Jesus whose birth we will celebrate again this year grew up like each of us. He was undoubtedly disciplined by his mother, and he underwent his greatest tragedy for a period of three days from which he emerged triumphant, resurrected. So we celebrate His birthday because he did not keep this triumph to himself but He shares it with us. His birthday is time of joy for us because, out of love for undeserving us, he gave us the gift that, if we are wise, means the most to us. And so we likewise give gifts to those we love in memory of Him. So let us focus on what is really important in our lives.
  
  This week we are saying goodbye to some people who have become very close and dear to us. I’ve tried my best to get them to stay, but Cata and Alvaro and Clara and Antonia are returning to Chile, Antonia this week and Cata and Alvaro and Clara next week. So we want to send them home with a special blessing. Cata and Alvaro and Clara and Antonia, please come forward. Would all of you please extend your hands toward them:
  
  All powerful and ever living God, when Abraham left his own land and departed from his own people, you kept him safe all throughout his journey. Protect Cata and Alvaro and Clara and Antonia, also your servants. Walk by their side to help them. Be their companion and their strength on the road and their refuge in every adversity. Cata and Alvaro and Clara and Antonia, may God bless you with every heavenly blessing, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and give you a safe journey. Wherever life leads you, may you find Him there to protect you. The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord look upon you kindly, and give you peace. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen
  
  Now for your blessing…. But first consider making these Christmas resolutions:
  
  Are you willing... to forget your pride in what you have done for other people, and to humbly remember what other people have done for you? To ignore what the world owes you, and to think about what you owe the world? To put your rights in the background, and your responsibility to do a little more than just your duty in the foreground of your life? To own up to the fact that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life? To throw away your list of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness? Are you willing to do these things even for one day? Then you can keep Christmas well.
  
  Are you willing… to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children? To remember the weakness and loneliness of people growing old? To stop wondering how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough? To bear in mind the things that other people have to bear in their hearts and on their backs, and to help them carry the weight of their burdens? To try to understand what those who live in the same home with you really want and need, without waiting for them to tell you? To make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and an orchard for your kind and loving thoughts and feelings, with the gate open, for others to come in and share? Are you willing to do those things, even for one day? Then you can keep Christmas well.
  
  Are you willing... To believe that love is the strongest thing in the world, stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death – and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem two thousand years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? If so, then you will keep Christmas well. And if you can keep it for that one day, why not always? But… you can never keep it alone.
  
  Let us pray…
  
  Lord Jesus, master of both the light and the darkness, send your Holy Spirit upon us to prepare us for Christmas. We who have so much and so much to do seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day. We who are anxious over many things look forward to your coming among us. We who are blessed in so many ways long for the complete and lasting happiness of your kingdom. We whose hearts are heavy seek the joy of your presence. We are your people, walking in the darkness of this world, yet seeking the light. To you we say, “Come, Lord Jesus!”
  
  Bow your heads for the blessing
  
  May the blessing of joy abide WITHIN you…
  
  May the blessing of peace rest UPON you…
  
  May the blessing of love flow out THROUGH you…
  
  May you be filled with the wonder of Mary,
  
  the obedience of Joseph,
  
  the joy of the angels,
  
  the eagerness of the shepherds,
  
  the determination of the magi,
  
  and the peace of the Christ child.
  
  May Almighty God,
  
  + Father, Son and Holy Spirit +
  
  bless you now and forever. Amen
  
  SAMSON AND CHRIST
  
  ABBOT MATTHEW STARK
  
  Homily of Thursday, December 19
  
  Both Elizabeth and Samson’s mother are barren women. From their barrenness they bring forth important figures, both spiritually and historically. This is a theme, as it were, through the scriptures: the barren woman who bears an important child. That is a reminder to us that God, even for one who seems to be sterile and non-fruit-producing, can bring forth what is good and life-giving. Also, the Fathers of the church tell us that Samson is a type, a symbol, of Christ. That sounds a little strange because Samson, if anything, is deficient in intellect and spirituality. His one great feature is his physical strength, and that he uses to conquer Israel’s enemies and subdue them for his people. And that should remind us of our Lord as warrior, the warrior-messiah, who conquers the devil. We too, like our savior and redeemer, are engaged in a spiritual battle, a battle against the force of darkness that he has conquered. He is leading us in victory over the powers of darkness.
  
  AHAZ AND JOSEPH
  FATHER FRANCIS HEIN
  
  Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 22, 2019)
  
  The last candle of the Advent Wreath is lit and the excitement we felt as children that Christmas will be here soon is rekindled. We’re almost there, this is a season of awe and Jesus will be born soon. The birth of a child is always something joyful, and during the last 30 months there have been around 15 children born to the faculty and staff of the school. Having had the honor of being close friends with some of the new fathers, the imminent arrival of a child is definitely joyful but it also profoundly life changing and extremely challenging. There is a lot of focus on the new mother, but the child’s arrival effects the very existence of the fathers, the extended family and community too. Our First Reading and our Gospel this morning give us two very different types of fathers and two very different attitudes towards the Messiah, two men who not only will have a new child in their lives, but who must also choose to what degree they will also have God in their lives.
  
  Advent is the time of preparation that directs our hearts and minds to Christ’s second coming at the end of time and also to the anniversary of the Lord’s birth on Christmas. We are now in the final push, from December 17 to December 24, focusing particularly on our preparation for the celebrations of the Nativity of our Lord. It is a season to reflect on Jesus and what He means to us and how He we should let him impact our lives. We only have a short time left, just about 60 hours, to prepare our hearts for Him, but if we have learned anything from the 14,000,003 versions of the Christmas Carol or those Claymation Christmas Specials of the 70’s, it is that if we really try, there will be enough time. In reality, we know that nothing is impossible for God so let us call on Him to help us in our preparations to humbly and worthily receive this most joyous gift.
  
  The first father today is Ahaz, the King of Judah but he did not please the LORD, his God, like his forefather David. He even sacrificed one of his sons, committing one of the most atrocious sins in Scripture. Ahaz also changed the Temple, building and altar to the Assyrian god and sacrificing upon himself as an illegitimate high-priest. Today, the Prophet Isaiah, approaches the king, a king who has turned away from trusting God relying instead on his own strategies and policies confident that he knows best. When the prophet reaches out to Ahaz that God wants to help him, the foolish king says, "I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD! It is not from humility but from pride that he does not wish to ask for a sign from God. For although it is written in Deuteronomy “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” and the Savior would use this as testimony against the devil, when Ahaz was told to ask for a sign he should have fulfilled the commandment in obedience, especially since both Gideon and Manoah sought and received signs. But there is another meaning to what the king said, according to St. Jerome the phrase, I will not tempt the Lord, can also be interpreted as I will not exalt the Lord. For the impious king knew that if he had asked for a sign, he would have received one and the Lord would have been glorified. The significance of the foretold Messiah means nothing to him. Salvation isn’t important to him, he already thinks he has it all and that he can determine the future.
  
  Ahaz’s actions seem incredibly foolish they’re obviously very sinful, but is he that different from us? A well-educated man, raised to be a leader and politically astute; such people today often act the same way towards those who preach about God’s will.
  
  Look around and see how little Christ has to do with this season. On a recent list of best Christmas movies ever the number one pick was about how 2 lesbian fall in love after meeting at Christmas time. Ahaz isn’t the only one rejecting the significance of the coming of the Messiah; what we need isn’t the help of the commercialized Father Christmas, but rather the Father of Christmas: St. Joseph. Matthew describes him as righteous which later, in the Sermon on the Mount, is described as one who sincerely strives to do the will of God in one’s duties and state in life and through one’s life of prayer. It is often called Holiness. It is never easily attained.
  
  Joseph is spoken to in a dream, not a visitation like Mary, and he is given no proof of the miraculous conception either. In faith, he takes Mary into his house as his wife and accepts Jesus as his own son; however, even that resulted in a radical change of his life plans. His marriage to the beautiful young woman has now become Josephite, he will not only have to abstain from the one of the most sacred and beautiful aspects of marital life, but he will also forgo any children of his own. He will have to abandon his home town of Bethlehem, flee to Egypt and then spend the rest of his life in Nazareth, apart from the rest of his family. What is it that inspires and sustains a person to such an extreme change in life?  Jesus, Emmanuel. Jesus means “God saves” and was foretold from the third chapter of Genesis. As a devout Jew, Joseph would also have known the prophecies and realized that he was to be part of the greatest event in human history; and he would also know that Emmanuel means “God is with us.” Throughout Salvation History, anyone who forgot this important message, like King Ahaz did, would bring doom and destruction upon himself and God’s people. Yet, even knowing all this, Joseph’s life would still be difficult but for the one thing St. Paul points out in our Second Reading, “through Jesus we have received the grace of apostleship, to bring about the obedience of faith.” Therefore, in Joseph we find the first and one of the finest examples of how to receive Christ into our lives and accept the grace we need to unite ourselves to God.
  
  ACTION
  
  So, we have seen how two fathers responded to the announcement of the coming of a child and the next stage of the God’s Salvation, a decision all mankind has had had to make for the last 2000 years; and in this season we too must focus on which path we will choose. How fitting it is that St. Paul’s self-introduction in the letter to Romans gives us further insights into the disposition we should adopt when contemplating the coming of Jesus.
  
  The Apostle begins with his name, not Saul the powerful Pharisee, but his new name Paul meaning “little one” for no mere mortal man can be great in the presence of God, then he refers to himself as the slave of God. We may understand this as an expression of humility…and that would not be wrong. Nor is the reality of Paul’s freedom compromised by this in any way. As he himself says, “Though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all (1Cor9:19),” For he serves Christ not in the spirit of slavery but in the spirit of adoptions, for Christ’s service is more noble than any freedom. The Roman audience would also have known that the slave of the Emperor was more powerful and influential than all free commoners and even most noblemen; and so we see that through Christ true success is available to even the lowliest person and one can be raised higher than a king through lovingly receiving and revering Jesus.
  
  Accepting Christ into our lives means being open to the changes He will bring about, accepting something radical, new and transformative because God is always with us and has sent us His Son, to save us. So, let us humbly and worthily receive this most joyous gift.
  
  CHRISTMAS TERROR, CHRISTMAS JOY
  FATHER EDWARD MAZUSKI
  
  Homily of Monday, December 23
  
  At the end of the Gospel, we are left with the people who attend John’s birth afraid and confused, wondering “What will this child turn out to be?” This is a bit of dramatic irony for us, since we know the answer: he is Elijah, come to prepare the way of the Lord. He is the voice that cries out in the wilderness. He is the baptist who calls the people to repentance and participates in one of the more awe-inspiring scenes in the Gospel, when Christ comes to John to be baptized, and the Holy Spirit descends on Christ like a dove, while a voice proclaims Him as His beloved Son. However, the way this is presented in the first reading from Malachi is somewhat unexpected for us. Malachi tells us that the mission of John the baptist is “to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest (God) come and strike the land with doom.”
  
  We are accustomed to this sort of view of the second coming, the dies irae, the day of wrath when all injustice will be repaid and all Creation set straight and created anew. However, this seemingly negative view of Christmas, as a great and terrible day, presented with the image of a refiner’s fire at work purifying silver until we are made worthy to offer sacrifice to God, a day about which Malachi asks, “Who will endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?” is not at all something we are accustomed to. Nevertheless, this is part of the greater mystery of Christmas.
  
  For our sinful selves, insofar as we still in need of purification, and far from being able to offer due sacrifice to God on our own, Christmas is indeed, in some sense, a terrible day, when God comes into the world and we see precisely how unworthy we are in his sight. How far from Him we remain. Nevertheless, this does not ultimately take away at all from the joy, but instead sets the stage for it.
  
  In 41 hours, we can participate with the angels singing “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” “Glory to God in the Highest”, with the shepherds who see the infant Christ and go away glorifying God, and with all the animals that arrive to worship the newborn King at the manger, as we see represented in nativity scenes. This joy ultimately conquers the fear of the terrible day because Christ doesn’t ultimately come to condemn us, as we deserve, but instead, he offers mercy and grace, that we may be purified, as the silver is in the reading from Malachi. His offer is to perfect us, if we accept. Thus, we are made worthy to celebrate the perfect sacrifice of Christ, as we do this morning and at every Mass. Not because of my good deeds, or those of anybody here, but because Christ came into the world to dwell with us, to share in our human nature, in order to open for us a way to Him, that we might become sharers in His divine nature. For that reason, in 41 hours, we can joyfully say “Merry Christmas.”

Homilies and Reflections December 2019

Homilies and Reflections
December 2019