4th Sunday of Advent † Year C ‘09

The Gospel from this Fourth Sunday of Advent
proclaims Mary’s Visit with Elizabeth.
While this Gospel is rich with meaning today I will mainly focus on this one sentence: Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled (Lk 1:45).
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, which is the detailed document governing the celebration of Mass, says When the Scriptures are read in the Church, God himself is speaking to his people and Christ, present in His own word, is proclaiming the Gospel (GIRM, n.29). So, when you listen attentively to the Gospel’s proclamation, not only do you hear Elizabeth say to Mary
Blessed Are You Who Believed You also hear Jesus Christ say to you, blessed are you who believe. And in case you are still not sure that is what is happening, in John’s Gospel Jesus very clearly says Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed (Jn 20:29). So let me say it again. In today’s Gospel Jesus Christ proclaims to you, blessed are you who believe.
What does it mean to believe? One can believe that Frank Sinatra, Janis Joplin or Michael Jackson lived and died, and maybe you even like the way they sing. You might believe that Caesar Augustus was emperor of Rome, or that Columbus discovered America, or that George Washington was our first President. But belief is more than just the acknowledgment of some fact or event. Belief is more than the intellectual assent to the doctrines of the Church – Even the demons believe and shutter that Jesus lived and died and rose again (Jm 2:19). To believe is to be so gripped and engaged by God’s Word that you must respond. When God called Abram to move to a country he didn’t know, Abram didn’t just say God I believe that’s You speaking to me, thanks for the suggestion. No, he packed up his family and all his stuff and left the country of Ur and so became our father in the faith. Belief is more like what Elizabeth said to Mary:
You Believed That What Was Spoken To You By The Lord Would Be Fulfilled. Everything, every word in the Scriptures is spoken to you by the LORD and your belief anticipates the fulfillment of what is spoken. Your belief conforms what you say and do to God’s word.
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal continues,  What is more, this Word of God proclaimed in the liturgy possesses a special sacramental power to bring about (in you) what it proclaims. The LORD spoke through Isaiah, So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth, it shall not return to me void but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it (Is 55:11). So for instance, in the Second Reading the LORD says,
Behold, I Come To Do Your Will. You believe when you engage and are engaged by that word. So much so that you can’t help but respond, LORD, I come to do your will. With Jesus you want to say and can say, my food is to do the will of Him who sent Me (Jn 4:34). When you believe like that
Blessed Are You! To be blessed is to be favored by God; to be made happy. To be blessed is to be filled with the Holy Spirit like Elizabeth. To be blessed is to be like John the Baptist who leaped for joy when he encountered Christ.

3rd Sunday of Advent † Year C ‘09

Today I will speak to you on just one verse from the Gospel:

HE WILL BAPTIZE YOU WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT AND FIRE
John the Baptist who is the precursor, the forerunner, the one who is to go before the Lord, who knows something of the mission of Jesus. As the angel Gabriel foretold, John was filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb (Lk 1:15). It occurred when Mary visited Elizabeth and greeted her that the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth (was) filled with the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:41). At His baptism and immediately thereafter, there are three actions of the Holy Spirit in Jesus life that His disciples share in:
First, at Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit descended bodily on Jesus and anointed Him. The heavens opened and God the Father spoke to Jesus and said You are my beloved Son, with You I am well pleased (Mk 1:11). It is the Holy Spirit who mediates to Jesus and to you personally the love and approval of God: St. Paul tells you that the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us (Rm 5:5). It is the Holy Spirit who enables you to experience of God as Father for the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Rm 8:16). As further proof God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Gal 4:6).
Second, the Spirit drove him out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan (Mk 1:12). The Holy Spirit will drive you into the desert so that you learn how to resist the devil’s temptations. This is the fire part: God tests you because He wants you to succeed; the devil tempts you because he wants you to fail. The Holy Spirit wants to convict you of sin while the devil wants to accuse and condemn you because of your sin. This is the fire: the Holy Spirit will work in you to purify you and make you holy as He is Holy. Every day renew your Baptismal promises: renounce Satan, all his works and all his empty promises.
Thirdly, Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit (Lk 4:14). In the synagogue at Nazareth He proclaimed His mission: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because he has anointed Me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. This is the mission of the Church; this is your mission as well. Lay people are personally called by the Lord, from whom they receive a mission on behalf of the Church, and the world, to also go out and labor in the vineyard. (John Paul II, #2 Christifideles Laici ).

Ask Jesus to once again baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire!

1st Sunday of Advent † Year C ‘09

With this First Sunday of Advent, we begin Cycle C in this new liturgical year. We’ll journey through this year with the Gospel of St. Luke. This season of Advent you find yourselves looking in two directions at the same time. You are looking back in history as you prepare to celebrate Christ’s coming as Man; and you are looking forward into the future as you prepare for His glorious Coming at the end of time. My focus will be on the second half of the Gospel where Jesus both warns against drowsiness and admonishes you to vigilance at all times.
Two hours after our Thanksgiving Dinner I went into the living room and found my family sprawled out on the furniture and floor in various positions of repose that ranged from drowsiness to total unconsciousness. Their posture was the result of a lot of hard work: in traveling across the country to come home; in housecleaning; in shopping; and in preparing, cooking and eating a delicious turkey dinner with all our favorite fixings. Jesus speaks to you of a drowsiness of spirit that comes, not from hard work, but from inattentiveness and sinfulness. Here is His WARNING:
Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy Drowsy means to be heavy or weighed down. Some synonyms are dazy, dreamy, lazy, sleepy, or sluggish in your spiritual life. There are two sources of drowsiness that the Lord mentions in today’s Gospel: the first is
from carousing and drunkenness Drunkenness is self explanatory. Carousing can occur in overindulging the appetites in things that are good, such as eating, drinking, sleeping, recreating and even in marital relations; or any indulgence in things that are sinful, even if they are only venially sinful: when you boast or make yourself the center of attention, when you are jealous or envious of others, when you gossip or slander someone’s reputation, when watching a movie that’s not appropriate for you, or when your cause divisions or instigate trouble. All of those thing sap the spiritual life right out of you! The second cause of drowsiness is
the anxieties of daily life Maybe you don’t overindulge your appetites but worrying over those same things can also sap you of spiritual vitality. The Lord said Do not worry about what you will eat, what you will drink, is what you are wearing fashionable, when or where will you work or stop working, will you be healthy, wealthy and wise? Instead of worrying follow this advice from St. Peter: cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you! (1 Pt 5:7). And maybe the biggest of all worries is when and how you will die. The Lord is giving you this warning because He does not want
that day to catch you by surprise like a trap. Here then is the other side of the coin, the antidote is:
Be vigilant at all times and pray That is: be awake, be watchful, and be attentive. Jesus knows that the spirit is willing, but the body is weak. That’s why you must watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation (Mt 26:41). The Lord promises that blessed are those servants whom the Master finds vigilant on his arrival (Lk 12;37). Watch and pray so that you will be rewarded – rewarded with eternal life, with union with God and with fellowship with Christ. Finally watch because the Lord said to Peter (and by extension to you) could you not keep watch with me for one hour (Mt 26:40)? To spend time with the Lord is the way to get to know Him. You know, when the end comes there will be those who say to Him, Lord, Lord, didn’t we do this, or didn’t we do that (Mt 7:22)? He answers them with the frightening words get away from Me I never knew you! Brothers and sisters, begin this Advent by not letting your hearts, your spiritual life, become drowsy from 1) carousing and drunkenness and 2) from the anxieties of daily life. Rather, be vigilant at all times and pray!

33rd Sunday in OT † Year B ‘09

Occasionally during our marriage Lucia and I had discussions about such things as Life Insurance, Cemetery Plots, Funeral Arrangements and the like. If our children happened to hear us they would let us know, in no uncertain terms, that they didn’t want us talking about such matters.  What they were really expressing was that they didn’t want to think about the reality that someday their mom and dad would die. Well, today is the 33^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time and we are one Sunday away from, and quickly approaching, the end of the Liturgical Year. Using mysterious and figurative language, today’s readings are speaking about subject matter that some of us might prefer to not have to hear: the universal end of time and history; the collective end of generations and cultures; and finally, the individual death or end of our own lives.
THIS GENERATION WILL NOT PASS AWAY UNTIL ALL THESE THINGS HAVE TAKEN PLACE. In 70 A.D. the generation to whom Jesus spoke saw Roman legions destroy the Temple and all Jerusalem. It was the end of the Jewish kingdom. In 410 AD the Visigoths and again in 455 AD the Vandals sacked the city of Rome. It was the end of the Roman Empire. Coming a little closer to home, in 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev was put under house arrest and Boris Yeltsin banned the Communist Party. It was the end of the Soviet Union. The fact that eras and generations pass away is verifiable to our sense. The end of all things is a matter of faith. Nevertheless your intellect, your reason, can see the relationship between the end of an era and the end of history. It is not so hard then to believe Jesus when He says that
HEAVEN AND EARTH WILL PASS AWAY But this is not some remote future occurrence. The end of time and the end of the world is already occurring. St. Paul similarly says: time is running out . . . the world in its present form is passing away (1 Cor 7:29-31). Now while it’s unlikely that any of you will be alive to see the end of the world it is important that you begin now to prepare for it. Don’t be like the passengers on the Titanic who, although they were warned that the ship was sinking, continued to eat and drink, dance and make merry. Two thirds of the passengers were not saved!
AND THEN THEY WILL SEE ‘THE SON OF MAN COMING IN THE CLOUDS’ WITH GREAT POWER AND GLORY While this language may be figurative what is certain is the fact that Jesus Christ will come again. The Book of Revelation also says Behold, He is coming amid the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him (Rev 1:7). His first coming was as a Lamb, in humility and meekness, offering forgiveness of sins for all who repent and believe in Him. His Second Coming will be in triumph, like a Lion. He will put an end to evil; He will conquering sin; He will wipe away every tear from your eyes, and He will bring an end to suffering and death. The Catechism teaches:
WITH THE PASSING AWAY OF HEAVEN AND EARTH THE LAST JUDGMENT BEGINS Everyone will stand before the judgment Seat of Christ (Rm 14:10). All will have to give an account for what they said and did while still in their bodies. Then the wheat will be separated from the chaff (Mt 3:12); the sheep from the goats (Mt 25:32); and as you heard in the First Reading: those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace. There is a relationship between the end of the world and the end of a life . . .
BUT OF THAT DAY OR HOUR NO ONE KNOWS Friends, generations and kingdoms pass away, the world will end and so will your life. Here are four ways to make the most of your time:
1) Believe in the Lord Jesus with all of your heart;
2) Repent. Make use of the Sacrament of Confession and be reconciled with God;
3) Eat and drink often of the Body and Blood of the Lord, for truly it is the Bread of Angels, the medicine of immortality and the antidote to death.
4) Practice the works of mercy: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and clothe the naked. Because Jesus said Whatever you do to the least of these my brothers, you do it to Me.