The Nativity

Christmas
Today’s Readings: [Click here]

A very joyous Christmas to you all! How beautiful and special it is to be together tonight. And welcome home to family members who are back here visiting for the holidays.

Not all our loved ones are necessarily in church, though. I recently heard about a couple who had what I guess you could call a “mixed marriage.” One was a Christian and the other wasn’t. The one who wasn’t a Christian was still very angry about how the church had treated her when she was a child, and she got very cross around Christmas and Easter. She could no longer believe that God had become human, and she just didn’t want to pretend anymore. The Christian spouse was very patient and simply went on practicing the faith and going to church alone, without much fuss.

One Christmas, the Christian half of the couple went off to midnight mass, while the other one stayed at home. After a while, it began to snow—they lived out in the country and the snow looked wonderful in the fields and on the trees. A short time later, though, she heard a thud, and then another. She went to investigate where the sound came from, and she found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They had been caught in the snowstorm and in their desperate search for shelter, they had seen the light and flown into her window!

“I can’t let these little creatures lie there and freeze to death,” she thought. “But how can I help them?”

Then she remembered her barn. It would provide a nice warm shelter for them. She put on her coat and made her way through the snow to the barn. There she put on a light, but the birds wouldn’t come.

Then she thought, “Food will attract them.” So she scattered a trail of breadcrumbs all the way to the barn. But the birds still wouldn’t come. Next she tried to shoo them into the barn by walking around them and waving her arms at them. This only scared them, and they scattered in all directions.

Then she said to herself, “They must find me a strange and terrifying creature. If only there was some way I could get them to trust me.”

At that very moment, the church bells began to ring. She stood silently as they rang out the glad tidings of Christmas: And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. She sank to her knees in the snow and said, “Lord, now I understand why you had to become one of us.”

If you want to really understand and be in touch with ordinary people, you have to go where nobody recognizes you. You have to see what they see, hear what they hear, live what they live. Understanding it in an abstract way is different from feeling it and experiencing it with your whole being.

In Jesus, God drew near to us in the flesh—in person. He literally became one of us. He lived among us. Jesus is the gift of Christmas. This was no loving “from a distance.” This was loving at close quarters.

God meets us where we are. He took our humanity on himself. This means we don’t have to deny our humanity, or any part of who we are, in order to know God and experience his love and blessings. He showed us how to live out the fullness of our humanity. Religion and holiness have become very real. They’re not just concerned with the spirit and heaven, but also with the body and the earth… here and now.

When God became a child, completely dependent on human care, he took away the distance between the divine and the human. We’re not afraid of a little child. And very simply, the meaning of Jesus’ humble birth in a rude stable in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire is “Be not afraid.” No matter what our fears, the message of Christmas echoes down the centuries to speak to us today: “Be not afraid. I am here with you and for you. Always.”

Jesus has become a brother to us—close family. What would we do without him? Abstract talk, hypothetical talk, theological talk about God can unfortunately leave us empty. We need God made flesh—human like us—walking in our street, even in our shoes, teaching us the way of God. And that is precisely what we are celebrating at Christmas.

The Son of God comes to us not as a judge but as a savior. He comes to reveal our divine dignity as God’s children, and the glory of our eternal destiny in heaven. This is the good news. This is the great joy which the angels announced to the shepherds, and which is announced to us tonight.

I pray that we will truly open our hearts to receive it.

A blessed, holy Christmas to you all! Amen.

Joseph

The Fourth Sunday of Advent
Today’s Readings: [Click here]

Today, on this fourth and last Sunday of Advent, we hear the story of how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. In Matthew’s gospel passage, Joseph is the central character, but in general, the Scriptures don’t tell us very much about him. We know that he took Mary and Jesus to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. We know that he was a carpenter who most likely taught his trade to Jesus. We know that he brought his family to Jerusalem when Jesus was twelve. Then we hear nothing more of Joseph. He probably died sometime between the trip to Jerusalem and the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry some 18 years later.

In today’s gospel account, Joseph is portrayed as a kind and sympathetic man—one who is definitely aware of God’s active presence in his life and Mary’s. In some ways, Joseph reminds me of many young, unmarried men today who have pregnant girlfriends. This was not his biological baby, and quite frankly, Mary’s explanation about how the Holy Spirit impregnated her had to sound farfetched and impossible. But Joseph was obviously devoted to Mary. Even when he believed that she had been unfaithful to him, he didn’t want to cause a scandal or embarrass her. So he wrestled with her story and almost left her. But he sensed God in a powerful dream, which told him to stay with Mary and the remarkable child. In the end, with peaceful humility, he accepted the assurances of the angel of God about Mary’s unborn child—and of course, Joseph received tremendous blessings and graces as a result.

As the Christ child grew up, Joseph clearly made a big impression on him as a devoted father. When Jesus described his special relationship with God, he modeled it on the closest human relationship he had experienced—his bond with Joseph. Jesus often called God “Father”—or in the Hebrew of his day, “Abba,” which is best translated as “Daddy.” “Abba” is probably exactly the name he called Joseph.

The Hebrew writers of the Old Testament hardly ever used the word “Father” to refer to God. Even God’s closest human friends—Abraham, Moses, David—treated the Lord with fear, trembling and a respectful distance… not the kind of familiarity that is implicit in the name “Daddy.” So Jesus’ use of the name “Father” for God—the same name that he called Joseph—was actually quite an honor. It just shows how much love and esteem he had for Joseph. It meant that Jesus saw something of the love of God in the love of Joseph.

There’s a powerful lesson for us in the story of Joseph—a lesson that is especially appropriate as we approach the miracle of Christmas. Very simply, if we are willing to turn to God in faith, even when things look unsolvable, impossible or downright crazy, he is going to surprise us with amazing blessings. When you try to put yourself in Joseph’s sandals and reflect on what he must have been thinking and dealing with, it really inspires hope. God does love us deeply. He is going to take care of us no matter what.

Maybe you saw the article in The Catholic Post this week by Father Jerry Pilon. He wrote about that tragic shooting at the shopping mall in Omaha 2½ weeks ago, and he made a point about how sad it was that Robert Hawkins, the 19-year-old shooter, was so devoid of hope and self-worth that he could see no other way out of his misery than the course he took. Imagine if Joseph had felt that way and had Mary stoned to death. Our world—absent Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary—would be a very different place… assuming we were even still here!

So the thing to cling to is that no matter how bleak or catastrophic or desperate a situation might seem, we must have hope that God will find a way to bring love, peace and blessing out of it. When all is said and done, God will never, ever let us down.

We also know that God is famous for using all of us as his instruments. I’m sure we have all been blessed with people in our life like Joseph who make a difference… who inspire us to be a better person… who reveal to us something of God’s nature. It may be a parent, an aunt or uncle, a friend, a grandparent, a teacher, a priest, a coach, a colleague… Today, as we prepare for Christmas, it would be good to thank God for sending them into our life and to pray for those special people, asking the Lord to open our hearts to the goodness of God that they reveal.

Emmanuel, God with Us! How blessed we are to know you and to experience your constant love. Be with us now and prepare our hearts for your coming at Christmas.

Expecting the Unexpected

The First Sunday of Advent
Today’s Readings: [Click here]

A friend of mine from college named David lives up in Boston, and he and his wife like to travel. He told me a story about how not too long ago they were taking a tour through a pre-Revolutionary War home in Massachusetts. The tour guide was actually a direct descendent of the man who built the house.

David told me that as they were being led through the front parlor, he noticed a beautiful musket hanging over the fireplace. Being a gun collector himself, he reached up as he walked by and reverently touched its stock. David said he was quite startled when the guide yelled at him, “Don’t touch that gun!”

My friend quickly assured her that he intended no harm. “Oh, I’m not worried you’re going to damage it,” she replied, “I just don’t want you to get hurt. It’s loaded!”

“What?!” David asked her what a loaded gun was doing within easy reach of dozens of tourists. She explained, “I didn’t load it. My ancestor who built this house loaded it. He did it one night in front of his whole family. And when he hung it over the mantle he promised, ‘This musket will fire the first shot for the independence of the colonies.’”

My friend asked, “So, he died before 1775?”

“No,” the woman answered. “He lived well into the 1800s.”

“Then why didn’t he fire the gun?”

“Well,” she answered with a smile, “he just never thought Colonel Washington’s little skirmishes with the British would ever amount to very much.”

No matter how much we plan for the future, things rarely come about exactly the way we expect. Sometimes, in fact, actual events turn out to be so different from what we picture in our mind, we don’t even notice that what we’ve anticipated has really happened.

Our three readings today illustrate this nicely. They all speak of a sublime vision of the future and the glory of the coming of the Lord. And the irony is that many of those who for centuries had been waiting eagerly for the Messiah to break into the world never noticed that Jesus was the very one who embodied that event!

Maybe they too literally interpreted the words of Isaiah’s prophecy. In other words, they thought that the desert and parched land would actually exult or bloom with abundant flowers and rejoice with joyful song. Sadly, if they didn’t think the time of the Lord had come until they saw the flow of milk and honey in the streets, then they certainly missed Christ’s presence even when he stood in their very midst and offered them the providence and blessing of God Almighty!

On the other hand, when John the Baptist’s disciples asked Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” his answer does seem to be a rather literal reading of that same passage of Isaiah. “The blind regain their sight,” he answers, “the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the poor have the good news preached to them”—all the things Jesus was doing.

But then the Lord adds a curious gloss: “And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” Other translations put it this way: “Blessed is the person who finds no stumbling block in me.” What Jesus is telling us is that no matter how closely his ministry appeared to dovetail with Isaiah’s vision, it wasn’t a spot-on match with John’s expectations. John still had his doubts, and that uncertainty cast a haze over his eyes.

Bible experts often remind us that even though the prophets speak in God’s name, their words rarely come to pass in the exact way they proclaim. In hindsight, a prophecy might seem metaphorical or whimsical or surprising. But remember: prophets, and even angels, are sent just to deliver the word. God himself decides how to set things in motion, and the believing community—made up of many individuals with free will—determine how that word actually takes flesh and ultimately plays out. It’s a wonderful mystery!

Given all these variables, it’s easy to see how even Jesus could be a source of offense or a stumbling block to John the Baptist—someone who’s not only a prophet, but according to the Lord, the greatest person to ever have lived before Jesus! No matter what God-given word John proclaimed, it’s pretty evident from today’s gospel that he never thought in a million years that he was preparing the way for a carpenter from Nazareth… his cousin, no less. Jesus wasn’t quite the person he was anticipating.

All of this leads to a rather unsettling conclusion: why should we who are “born into the kingdom of God” be any different from the people who came before us in faith? We can’t experience God working in our own lives without first climbing over the stumbling block of our own narrow expectations of who God is and how he’s going to make things happen. We’ve got to be filled with hope, joyful expectation, a sense of wonder, patience, and a commitment to just let God be God for us anyway he happens to decide. In other words, we’ve got to realize that we’re not in charge; God is—and he has a much better plan than we could ever conceive.

If we insist on just waiting for things to play out according to our own rule book, I’m afraid that even we might never fire that musket…

Ax and Ye Shall Receive

The Second Sunday of Advent
Today’s Readings: [Click here]

On this second Sunday of Advent, the gospel features John the Baptist. Like most prophets and gurus, John rattled a lot of cages. He challenged much of the conventional thinking and establishment of his day. You had to love John or hate him. He was one of those larger-than-life personalities who demanded that you make a choice.

People on the margins of society, of course, thought he was wonderful. He spoke of a God who loved them and offered them great hope. But as for the politicians, priests, lawyers and the rest of the “in crowd,” let’s just say that John the Baptist made them squirm. He was a troublemaker, a rabble-rouser and, as his popularity increased, even a threat to their comfortable life. He said and did things no one else would have dared. He challenged people and stirred them up. He told them that if they didn’t repent and change and produce good fruit in their lives they would be cut down and thrown into the fire. As he put it: even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees.

When I was first assigned as the assistant pastor at St. Stephen’s parish in Streator some years ago, I quickly learned that my boss loved to go out to dinner every single day, and wanted me to come along. The monsignor enjoyed nice restaurants, so most evenings, we’d go to one Chicago suburb or another just for a meal. Most weeks, we’d drive to Naperville or Joliet or Wheaton—and probably several times! I did get to see a great deal of the countryside, and I witnessed a lot of development and construction.

One week we would drive along and see large, wooded tracts of land. The next week, the heavy equipment had been moved in, and the trees were being chopped down and hauled off. Before long, other equipment leveled the ground and paved roads, while construction crews started on building houses. Within a few short months, the old forestland was just a memory, and a brand new, modern housing development stood in its place.

To use a little metaphor, obviously those fancy developments couldn’t have been built without first getting rid of some or all of the trees. In essence, that is what John the Baptist is speaking about today. He confronts us with the entanglements and the sin in our life. We all have “trees” in our lives that don’t produce good fruit or that stand in the way of our spiritual growth and progress.

These trees take many forms: harmful relationships, abusive behavior, addiction to drugs, alcohol, sex or work. Our trees might be lives overburdened with anger, bitterness or self-hatred. Our trees might be so choked with memories of the past that they can’t produce good fruit in the present. Ironically, often these trees have been our means of survival for years. They’ve become so deeply rooted in our lives that we don’t see how we or anyone else could possibly uproot them.

Today’s gospel invites us to take the ax to the roots of these old and unproductive trees in our lives. It can be scary, and it’s never easy, but it’s the only way to stimulate new growth.

Well, maybe that sounds good in principle. Who wouldn’t like to get rid of some of the “excess baggage” we carry around? But how do you go about doing that? Once again, let’s look to John the Baptist.

John lived, and did his preaching, in the desert of Judea. In the Christian tradition, the desert has always been a place to face the ultimate questions and issues of life. Those who left the cities and towns were called “ascetics,” which comes from the Greek word askesis, meaning exercise. In other words, they were athletes for the Lord. They believed that like the great prophets before them, they would hear the voice of God in the desert, and that in finding God they would also find their authentic selves.

The desert is still a place where we hear the voice of God calling us to our true selves. By stepping into the solitude and quiet of the desert, we can see more clearly the malignancies and pollution in our own life. This recognition is the first step in making changes.

Of course, it isn’t all that easy to find a suitable desert in East Central Illinois. Can we use a forest preserve or a cornfield? Yes, I suppose… but perhaps it’s good to realize that the desert can just as easily be a spiritual, rather than a physical, place. Quiet prayer time in church before the Blessed Sacrament, or even at home, can also be your desert to commune with God. Make a little time, and put yourself in the presence of the Holy Spirit and invite Jesus into your heart. Ask for his light and guidance. Ask him where to chop with that big ol’ ax.

A final word of advice: be patient with yourself when it seems as though you’ll never clear your way out of the tangle of roots and underbrush. Remember, some of the trees have been there for a very long time! The important thing is to learn to respect yourself as a child of God, to keep cutting, and to throw the dead wood into the fire of God’s consuming love.

Be filled with great hope. For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out, and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.

Letting God In for Advent

The Pompeii Dead

The First Sunday of Advent
Today’s Readings: [Click here]

By now, most of you know that my mind tends to go off in all kinds of different directions… so you probably won’t be surprised to hear that the last video I watched was on The Archaeology Channel about the destruction of Pompeii. In case you’re not up-to-date on your ancient history, Pompeii was a bustling commercial center and a city of beautiful villas of the Roman Empire. In the distance, you could easily see the peak of Mt. Vesuvius. On August 24, in the year 79 A.D., Vesuvius erupted, and it rained tons of volcanic ash and pumice over the city. Except for the few lucky ones who made it to safety by land or sea, most people died from being crushed or by being suffocated by sulfurous fumes.

It wasn’t until relatively recent times that archaeologists discovered Pompeii and began to excavate its buried ruins. The scientists made some interesting finds. They came across a petrified woman who, instead of trying to flee from the city, spent her time trying to gather up her jewels. In another house, they discovered a skeleton of a man who, for the sake of a few coins, a small silver saucepan and plate, remained in his house until the street was half-filled with volcanic debris, and then he tried unsuccessfully to escape out the window.

Isn’t that something? For all our pride in our civilization’s progress, human society hasn’t really changed all that much from the time of ancient Pompeii or Jesus or even Noah until now. Most of us just go about doing our own thing without a care in the world, never for an instant considering that a calamity could turn life upside down without any warning. Jesus prophesies in the gospel today that at the time of his second coming, people will still be behaving pretty much the same way—and pretty much as they were at the time of the great flood: eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.

Christ is not condemning people for their eating, drinking, marrying or their other ordinary pursuits. His point is simply that people tend to become so preoccupied with their everyday routine, that God is easily shoved aside.

It takes no effort to get so caught up in everyday life that we don’t stop to consider the reality of God’s magnificent, shining presence all around us. Our thoughts focus on what to prepare for dinner, where to go for the weekend, who to ask to the dance, how to impress the boss, or when to buy that new car, rather than on the presence of God permeating our lives.

Sometimes, we are lucky or unlucky enough to have an earth-shattering experience in life. Maybe you knew somebody who was killed in the World Trade Towers on 9/11. Maybe someone close to you died suddenly and unexpectedly. Maybe you beat the odds and survived a massive heart attack or accident or bout with cancer—and then, for a while, you looked at the world through different eyes. Remember how after September 11 people got super-patriotic? American flags flew everywhere. But then, after that initial fervor, it was so easy to drift back into complacency, despite the dramatic wake-up call or life-changing event that we went through. Resolutions to live more alertly are easy to make in the initial horror of catastrophic events. We sometimes vow with the best of intentions to live better lives that will be pleasing to God. But as the memories of our earlier spiritual awakenings fade, old habits and the monotony of daily routines lure many of us back into casual and careless attitudes of living.

This is exactly what Jesus addresses in today’s gospel. He tells us to watch and be ready for Christ’s coming into our lives.

Yes, this is meant to be a warning. Jesus advises us that we better have our repentance up to date because we never know when that final judgment day is coming. Sure, God forgives us for our sins—much more readily than we would if we were in God’s place—but we could always get run over a by a bus right after saying dagnabit, or lusting after our neighbor’s donkey or something—and then where would we be?

God is not out to get us. Yes, our final day will definitely come, and God has some final, final day in the works for humankind as well—but we have to remember that God’s forgiveness and mercy are even more a part of his plan. When you see God’s grace all around you, you don’t have to be frantic or nervous about meeting your maker.

In the meantime, though, doing well is something we need to think about more. I know that it’s very difficult to remain spiritually alert 100% of the time. The mind and body get tired. Some of us have heard these admonitions to stay alert for decades. But mentally, spiritually, physically and emotionally, it’s humanly impossible to live in a constant ready and waiting mode. Maybe that’s one of the biggest reasons why we should find and participate actively in a spiritual community for encouragement and empowerment. That’s what our parish is supposed to be all about.

With each other’s help and prayerful support, we should ask ourselves: What would my life be like I were to take Jesus’ command seriously? Would I ever cheat my customers or employer? Would I remain indifferent to the poverty, homelessness, hunger and prejudice around me? Would my attitude toward war and conflict change? Would I treat my loved ones and friends differently? Would my relationships with my opponents and competitors be more open? Would I take more time to see God in all the circumstances of my life? You see, what we need to watch out for is not a final roll call, but rather each opportunity to get to know God better.

Today begins the holy season of Advent. Jesus is coming. That’s what Christmas is all about. Santa may make us hide away in our beds pretending to be asleep if we want our stockings filled. Jesus would rather have us wide awake and watching.

No, we never know when the next opportunity to know him better will come. But we should really be ready, because each one is much too good to miss.