Saturday 15 December 2018
Friday 14 December 2018
Homilies for December - 2018
1st Sunday of Advent –
Dec. 2, 2018
Readings: Jer
33:14–16 • Ps 25:4–5, 8–10, 14 • 1 Thes 3:12–4:2 • Lk 21:25–28, 34–36
To start Advent right, you need to answer two
questions about the virtue of hope. This virtue rests at the heart of Advent
because this season by its nature looks ahead to the future. The first question
to ask yourself: “What is the object of your hope as a Christian?” The second:
“What means can help you to strengthen your hope?”
The answer to the first question is that Jesus
Christ must be your hope: the lens, if you will, through which all your other
hopes in life are focused. But during Advent in particular, we focus especially
upon our hope for the new life of Jesus. God wants more for you, and wants to
give it to you through the gift of His newborn Son Jesus.
The second question has several answers. There
are several means that Holy Mother Church gives us to focus on Jesus as our
hope. The Scriptures this first Sunday of Advent point us towards penance as a
means by which to focus upon Jesus, our hope.
However, to appreciate the demands that the
virtue of hope makes, we have to back up. We have to gaze upon the entire
panorama of the Old Testament, because it is the backdrop for the season of
Advent. The entire Old Testament shows us the need for hope, how to hope
rightly, and how not to hope.
In the Old Testament, the greatest enemy of
ancient Israel was not the Babylonians or the Philistines or the Persians. The
greatest enemy of Israel was Israel herself, split between two kingdoms, Judah
and Israel. Nonetheless, these kingdoms were united in their longing for the
coming of the Messiah.
We hear this longing in our first reading,
where Jeremiah foresees the Lord raising up a “just shoot” who “shall do what
is right and just in the land.” This “just shoot” was the Israelites’ hope. But
in time, when the Messiah did come, their waiting was not fulfilled in the way
that many Israelites had hoped. This is because their hopes had not been fixed
on the Messiah who was to come, but on the Messiah whom they wanted to come.
Here is the first lesson for our Advent, and our own hopes of God: we must
accept Jesus as He comes to us, in all His poverty.
In the Gospel passage today, Jesus does not
tell us to be on guard against physical disasters, since all they can destroy
are material things. But what Jesus does say is: “Be on guard lest your spirits
become bloated with indulgence and drunkenness and worldly cares.” God created
us in His image and gave us a free will. Like Israel, we can use that free will
to split ourselves in two: to give ourselves to the love of finite realities,
while God calls us to love Him alone. By our freely chosen sins, this is what
we do when we sin. We divide our selves in two, dividing the house where God
wants to dwell by His grace.
To overcome such division, God calls us during
Advent to the practice of penance. He calls us not only to the Sacrament of
Penance, but also to the practice of penance, which is to say, simple acts of
self-denial. Penance brings integrity back to a divided house.
We tend to associate penance only with Lent,
but it’s likely that we need penance even more during Advent. After all, the
constant temptation during these days before the Christmas season is to focus
on material things: to believe that the material gifts we give have lasting
meaning. It’s good to have some penance in mind at the very start of this
season, to lead us towards the spiritual goal of Advent: waiting hopefully for
Christ in the midst of darkness.
Every mother knows that there is “penance” —
trials and sufferings — that are “built in” to the experience of bearing an
unborn child (not to mention giving birth). For this reason among others, then,
Mary is a model during Advent of what it means to hope patiently — and to bear
difficulties — in order to bear Christ for others.
The four weeks of Advent represent the nine
months that Jesus spent in darkness, in the womb of his mother, our Blessed
Mother Mary. The season of Advent teaches us that our whole life on this earth
is really just a preparation for a greater life. No matter how bright we think
we are, we are in darkness. God does not always reveal His plan to us. He
insists that we walk with hope every day. He insists that we turn over to Him
everything in our lives.
We ask Mary for help in being like her: to be
open to the will of God, and to be willing to pray in the darkness, not always
understanding how God is at work around us, or ahead of us in the future. She
is our best example for this season, knowing that even in darkness, God is with
us.
Readings: Gn 3:9–15, 20 • Ps 98:1–4 • Eph 1:3–6, 11–12 • Lk
1:26–38
Today’s first reading is very familiar to us.
It tells how Adam and Eve, our first parents, committed the original sin. We
can identify with this story because we, like our parents Adam and Eve, are
sinners. Like them, when our sins are pointed out to us, we point to someone
else and say, “he made me do it” or “she made me do it.”
In doing this, we deny one of the greatest
gifts God has given us: our free will. While the third chapter of Genesis tells
us of the commission of the original sin, we often forget the meaning of the
two chapters that come before it. The first two chapters of Genesis tell us how
good everything God created is, and how, among all his creatures, God chose man
and woman in particular to live in His image: that is, to have the free will to
always choose good over evil. This is the gift that Adam and Eve refuse when
they shift the blame for their actions to someone else. Yet this is the gift
that Mary fulfills when she accepts God’s plan as the plan for her earthly
life.
However, as we consider all the gifts that God
gave to Mary during the course of her earthly life, we need to recognize that
there’s often confusion about the meaning of the Immaculate Conception. Many
people, even many Catholics, believe that the Immaculate Conception is the
belief that Mary virginally conceived Jesus. But, our Catholic belief in the
Immaculate Conception is the belief that when Mary was conceived in the womb of
her mother, Saint Anne, Mary was kept free from the stain of Original Sin. God
gave this free gift to Mary at the moment of her conception because He wanted
the mother of His Son to be the greatest woman among all women on the face of
the earth.
Now, when we wonder about the confusion about
the Immaculate Conception, it’s actually somewhat understandable. After all,
consider the Gospel passage for today’s feast. Today’s Gospel passage relates
the events of the Annunciation: when Jesus was virginally conceived in Mary’s
womb through the power of the Holy Spirit. So we can see why people might
confuse Mary’s virginally conceiving Jesus with Mary being immaculately
conceived by St. Anne.
The reason, though, why the Church proclaims
this Gospel passage on today’s feast is because here we see emphasized the
reason why God was willing to bestow upon Mary the gift of being conceived
without Original Sin. God from eternity knew that Mary would accept His will as
her own at this key moment in salvation history.
When the archangel Gabriel greeted Mary, she
was confused and wondered what the greeting meant. But still, she accepted
God’s will and said, “I am the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be done unto me
according to your Word.” When Gabriel announced that it was God’s plan for her
to conceive a child, she did not understand how this could be, but still she
accepted God’s will through the virtue of faith and said, “I am the maidservant
of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to your Word.”
God, who is eternal — for whom there is no
past, present, or future — who sees everything at once, knew that Mary would
completely accept His will as her own. In light of this, God preserved her from
Original Sin at the moment of her conception. In Mary, we see the model for all
of us who are striving to be faithful disciples of Jesus: for all of us who are
striving to allow Jesus’s life to enter into our own lives.
Like every gift that God gave to Mary, our
celebration of Mary’s Immaculate Conception tells us something important about
humanity itself: that is, humanity as we were created to be “in the beginning”.
Our belief that Mary was conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, without
Original Sin, tells us that Mary is exactly the human being that God meant each
of us to be. In the words of St. Paul, “God chose us in him before the world
began, to be holy and blameless in his sight, to be full of love.”
This is what our belief in Mary’s Immaculate
Conception says about Mary: that she was full of love. We do not believe that
Mary is a goddess, or even super-human. The Blessed Virgin Mary is simply
human. Mary is authentically human: she is what each of us who is human is
called to be: “holy and blameless in God’s sight, full of love.” That’s what
St. Gabriel is driving at when he salutes Mary in the Gospel: “Hail, Mary, full
of grace, the Lord is with thee!” St. Paul’s phrase “full of love” echoes that
of St. Gabriel: “full of grace.”
God the Father wanted the best possible mother
for His Son, and so He granted the grace to Mary which would let her be a
mother who would give nothing to her Son but the fullness of love which God
means each of us to have. Because Mary is the Mother of Jesus, she is our
mother as well. For us she is the Immaculate Conception: through her Jesus
entered the world, and through her each of us is healed, if we accept in faith
the gift of healing God wants us to accept: the greatest gift we can possibly
receive in this season of gift-giving.
Readings: Bar 5:1–9 • Ps 126:1–6 • Phil 1:4–6, 8–11 • Lk
3:1–6
As we hear St. John the Baptist preparing the
way for Jesus in today’s Gospel passage, St. John’s words express a truth which
is hard for many to accept. The beginning of today’s Gospel passage situates
John’s ministry in a specific worldly context by spelling out what sort of men
were guiding the world into which the Messiah had come. These pagan and Jewish
leaders were quite corrupt: Saint Luke mentions them in order to tell us that
John — and Jesus after him — had an up-hill battle before them.
St. John went about the entire region of the
Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance which led to the forgiveness of
sins. Penance, and the changing of one’s ways, are familiar to anyone who knows
the prophets of the Old Testament, such as Baruch, whose words we hear in
today’s First Reading.
John the Baptist himself is the hinge or pivot
between the Old and New Testaments. In the texts that describe him, he is seen
as one who foreshadows the coming of the Messiah. We could ask, though, why
John also happens to be the cousin of Jesus. Is this familial relationship a mere
historical co-incidence? Regardless, we see that for two persons who were
related, John the Baptist and Jesus were very different persons, and were each
criticized, but for opposite things — Jesus for being a drunkard, and John, for
not drinking at all. At times it seems that the only thing these cousins have
in common is that they were unjustly persecuted.
Both close intimacy and an openness to others
mark the reign of the Messiah, and the lives of those invited to His Table. The
rule which Jesus was born into this world to establish is not one which seeks
to conquer other nations, but which rather invites children gathered from the
east and west to share in God’s splendor, rejoicing that they are remembered by
God.
Each of us as a member of Christ’s Body shares
in the missionary command given to the Church. Each of us during Advent should
consider who we should be inviting to share in the riches that we may have in
our lives. It might not be who we think. If John the Baptist were to appear on
our doorstep, it’s likely that we would want nothing to do with him: perhaps
because of his appearance, but more likely because he tells everyone like it
is. When he speaks of sinners, he points out their sins. When he speaks of
Christ, he points and shouts, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins
of the world.”
In preparing for the birth of the Messiah, we
give thanks that Jesus was born in order to die for us. His death is what we
celebrate when we come before Jesus’s altar to share in the Sacrifice of His
life for us. If that life is worthily received by us in Holy Communion, we will
seek out others in order to serve them, whether we believe they deserve our
love and service or not.
It is not safe to think or act this way, of
course. In fact, the Christian life is not only a narrow path, but a dangerous
one as well. If our love is to abound more and more, as Saint Paul urges us, we
must be willing to embrace those whom we do not care for, or perhaps even
consider part of God’s plan. We must realize that we ourselves were once far
from the Lord, and that He has done great things for us.
We must even be willing to recognize the
authority of and serve those who we know are doing wrong, whether this means
doing a job alongside them, or simply praying for them. There may be many
persons in our lives whom we dislike, but our dislike is no reason to think
that God loves them any less, or that Christ became human to save us, but not
them.
God “gave His all” for each one of us in
sending His Son to become human and die for us on the Cross. Choosing to
respect our free will, He would not save us from evil in spite of ourselves. He
allows us to bring evil into our lives if we so wish. Each one of us, like God,
is called to share in His work of saving others. As with God, there is only so
much we can do for others, but there certainly is something we can do.
On this Second Sunday of Advent, ask God to
strengthen you always to speak the truth, whether it is convenient or
inconvenient. But ask His grace also so that you might always act according to
the truth: that is, always love those in your life by showing a willingness to
serve them by your words and actions.
Readings: Zep 3:14–18a • Is 12:2–6 • Phil 4:4–7 • Lk 3:10–18
If there’s one word that sums up the Lord’s
advent, it would likely be the word “expectation”. The word “expectation”
connotes both waiting and hopefulness. We might think of children during
December who write out their wish lists with the expectation of a visit from
Saint Nicholas. However, in English the word “expecting” is also related to the
experience of pregnancy, which in the person of Mary lies at the heart of
Advent.
But in today’s Gospel passage, there’s a
heightened sense of expectation. Think of children during December expecting
St. Nicholas’ visit, and then think of those same children on Christmas Eve,
with their expectation brimming over. That’s the sense of expectation that the
evangelist puts across in today’s Gospel passage, telling us that “the people”
were not just “in expectation” of “the Christ”, but in fact “were filled with
expectation”.
Then, however, the other shoe drops. The
evangelist explains that “the people” “were asking in their hearts whether John
might be the Christ.” This is bittersweet, since we know that the expectation
of the people, and the hope of their hearts, is misplaced. You and I know that
John is not the Christ for whom they longed.
Here, though, is a spiritual lesson for us.
The evangelist wants you and I to profit from the misstep of the people who
mistook John for the Christ. Even though you and I know that John the Baptist
was not the Christ whom “the people” in today’s Gospel passage were hoping for,
you and I are not completely off the hook. More often than we like to admit, we
act just like these people. We look for Christ in all the wrong places, and
even more fundamentally, we look for happiness in all the wrong places. Since
Advent is a penitential season, it’s important throughout the course of Advent
to consider both of these wrong-headed searches. But today, reflect on the more
fundamental one.
St. Thomas Aquinas in his masterful summary of
theology explores the most common ways that man falsely seeks lasting happiness
in this world. He names eight, the first four of which are specific goods:
namely, wealth, honor, fame, and power.1 While each of these certainly can
be good, and can be stepping stones to true happiness, it’s vain to search for
lasting happiness in these things themselves.
For example, regarding wealth St. Thomas notes
that there are two basic types.2 The first type is called “natural
wealth”: things that are inherently valuable, because they help man to meet his
basic needs. Natural wealth includes food, drink, clothing, vehicles and
dwellings. It is unnatural to “look up” to these things for happiness, because
these things are meant to be below man. They support him from below; they
cannot inspire him from above. They are made for man; man is not made for these
things. In a single word, to seek happiness in such things is base.
The other form of wealth is “artificial
wealth”: its only value comes from human agreement that it has value as a
medium of exchange. This comes in the forms of cash, credit, stocks, bonds,
etc. Regardless of the form, money is an even lower good than the various forms
of natural wealth, because the value of money derives from being able to use it
to obtain things like food, clothing, and shelter. In the true order of things,
money’s value is subordinate to the value of natural wealth.
So if you were to picture a ladder ranking the
true values of things, man would be in the center of the ladder. Below man on
the ladder would be natural wealth, and then below natural wealth would be
artificial wealth. Of course, fallen man in his fallenness is perverse: which
is to say, he turns everything upside down. He looks up to forms of wealth such
as food, clothing and shelter, and strains his neck even higher to look upon
what he deems to be the value of money.
Here’s another way to contrast the difference
between natural and artificial forms of wealth. All you have to do is reflect
on your pet dog Fido. Fido has some base understanding of the value of food and
drink and shelter. Fido might also appreciate a vehicle: not only because it
saves him from getting tired, but also because he loves to stick his head out
the window into the breeze. It’s true that Fido might have a harder time
understanding the value of clothing, although if you took him with you on vacation
to Alaska in January, he probably would appreciate that doggie sweater that you
got him for Christmas. But Fido cannot understand coins or bills or stock
certificates having any value. He would only understand that the food, etc.
that you purchase with that money has value. Fido is more sane than fallen man.
Maybe that’s why the dog is man’s best friend: because he keeps us grounded in
what is real.
Fido can keep us from looking up at what we
should look down upon. Unfortunately, Fido cannot help us look up to what we
ought to look up at: or rather, look up to whom we ought to look. Fido can help
us from having false gods, but he cannot help us find the true God. This simple
reflection on how wealth is perverted by man into a false source of happiness can
also help us to reason why honor, fame and power also cannot bring man lasting
happiness. They’re all meant to be subservient goods.
Anyhow, like Johnny Lee’s old song, fallen man
spends a lot of time looking for love in all the wrong places, and in too many
faces. There’s only one Face in which fallen man can find abiding happiness,
and that’s in the Divine Face of Jesus, resting in the lap of Mary at
Bethlehem.
Readings: Mi 5:1–4a • Ps 80:2–3, 15–16, 18–19 • Heb 10:5–10 •
Lk 1:39–45
In the year of Our Lord 1531, Saint Juan Diego
proclaimed to the peoples of the New World a mother’s love. On a hill called
Tepeyac, to the north of what we today call Mexico City, the Blessed Virgin
Mary appeared to Juan Diego, an Indian peasant. When Mary appeared to him, she
took the form of a young Indian maiden. She was dressed as an Aztec princess.
She spoke to Juan in his native tongue. Juan Diego called her Our Lady of
Guadalupe.
But the most significant thing about Our Lady
of Guadalupe is that she was pregnant, just as Mary is in today’s Gospel. Never
— before this appearance in Mexico almost 500 years ago — had Mary ever
appeared to anyone as being with child. This is why we celebrate the feasts of
Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe during Advent, this season of waiting for
the birth of our Lord.
Perhaps when Mary appeared, Juan Diego asked
the same question as Elizabeth in today’s Gospel: “How is it that the mother of
my Lord should come to me?” Now, whether or not Juan Diego ever asked her this,
we do know that Mary, appearing as a native American, told Juan Diego, “I am
one of you, and I am your mother.” This woman chose to be with the poor and the
weak, with those who sacrifice of themselves.
But this power was not of her own doing. Her
power comes from the Child whom she bore. Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared in
humility: her hands are folded, and her head is bent. This woman chose to be
with the meek and the humble, with those who sacrifice of themselves.
In today’s Gospel passage we hear about the
second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary: the Visitation. In the person of Mary we
see someone bearing her Lord and God within her. We also see Mary as someone
who brings that Lord and God into the lives of others.
This scene, as simple and joyous as it is,
preaches two powerful messages for those who want to be faithful disciples of
Jesus. The first message is to recognize the role that our Blessed Mother
played from the very beginning of Christ’s life. If she was Christ’s protector,
she is ours, also.
If the Holy Spirit moved her to bring Jesus to
Elizabeth and John, why should she not continue to bring her Son to others in
our own day throughout the world? Her role did not diminish as Jesus grew
older. Neither can we ever “outgrow” our devotion to our Blessed Mother. We
honor Mary not because of her own power, but because she bears Christ within
her. What was physically true for nine months is spiritually true forever: “all
generations will call me blessed”. This is true because, as Elizabeth says,
Mary “trusted that the Lord’s words to her would be fulfilled.”
The second message Mary bears is that Christ
must be received in the flesh. Today’s Second Reading reveals what this means.
God took no delight in the sacrifices of the Old Testament. The sacrifices of
the Old Testament had no more power to save a person’s soul than the human
sacrifices of the Aztecs of Central America. Even if the Jewish priests of the
Old Testament were sacrificing to the right God, they were still offering the
wrong sacrifice.
The Jewish priests of the Old Testament
offered bulls and rams. They offered things other than themselves: things that
God has no interest in. God only takes interest in what is inside a person, in
what is part of a person: indeed, in what is a person. Even when we make
sacrifices and do penance during Lent, we don’t give up these things because
God somehow wants the things we’re sacrificing. God doesn’t need meat, or
candy, or coffee or tobacco. The only way penance is pleasing to God is when we
sacrifice a desire, a desire that’s deeply rooted within us: so deep, that it’s
part of us. God doesn’t want the thing that you sacrifice. He wants the desire
that you sacrifice, so that you might desire Him alone.
This is what Christ proclaims to God the
Father in the second reading: “Behold, I have come to do your will.” If we were
to use our imagination, we could hear God the Son saying this at the “moment”
before the Annunciation. Imagine: God the Son had lived with the Father and the
Holy Spirit in Heaven from before time began, but when the Father was ready to
send His Son to earth, to enter Mary’s womb in the flesh and start the life
that would end some thirty years later on Calvary, God the Son, knowing
everything that was to come, said “Father, I have come to do your will.” Then
he descended from Heaven, to be conceived and born as one of us.
These words just as surely echoed in Jesus’s
mind as He was stretched out upon the Cross. Even then He could say, “Father, I
have come to do your will.” The Father’s will was that you and I could have
life. God the Father’s will was that your sins could be forgiven, and you could
become part of Christ’s Body. This is why Jesus gave His Body and Blood on the
Cross, and offers that same Body and Blood to us through the Eucharist.
Readings:
Vigil: Is 62:1–5 • Ps 89:4–5, 16–17, 27, 29 • Acts 13:16–17, 22–25 • Mt 1:1–25 or 18–25
Night: Is 9:1–6 • Ps 96: 1–3, 11–13 • Ti 2:11–14 • Lk 2:1–14
Dawn: Is 62:11–12 • Ps 97:1, 6, 11–12 • Ti 3:4–7 • Lk 2:15–20
Day: Is 52:7–10 • Ps 98:1–6 • Heb 1:1–6 • Jn 1:1–18 or 1:1–5, 9–14
Vigil: Is 62:1–5 • Ps 89:4–5, 16–17, 27, 29 • Acts 13:16–17, 22–25 • Mt 1:1–25 or 18–25
Night: Is 9:1–6 • Ps 96: 1–3, 11–13 • Ti 2:11–14 • Lk 2:1–14
Dawn: Is 62:11–12 • Ps 97:1, 6, 11–12 • Ti 3:4–7 • Lk 2:15–20
Day: Is 52:7–10 • Ps 98:1–6 • Heb 1:1–6 • Jn 1:1–18 or 1:1–5, 9–14
When someone gives a gift, if it’s a good
gift, it reveals something about the person to whom it’s given. The gift may
say something about that person’s talents, or it may say something about where
the person is not, so to speak, living up to their “potential”.
For example: a wife may give to her husband —
or possibly vice versa — the gift of a set of tools. By giving this gift, the
wife may be saying how much she appreciates her husband’s handiness around the
house. Or the wife may be subtly suggesting that there are a few honey-do’s
around the home that need doing.
Consider a different example: a husband may
give to his wife — or possibly vice versa — the gift of a cookbook. Now, in
giving this gift, the husband may be saying how much he appreciates his wife’s
cooking. Or he may be subtly suggesting that a little variety could be
introduced into the family meals.
Now consider a third example from real life;
in fact, my life. In my first assignment as a priest, two of us served the
parish as parochial vicars. One of our duties was the 6:15 a.m. weekday Mass
for the teaching Sisters at the nearby convent. One year, I received a
Christmas gift from the good Sisters. The gift they gave me was a book of
homilies.
Finally, consider a fourth example. This one
is also from real life, but it’s from the life of each and every one of us here
today. The gift is given to each of us. The gift is given by God the Father.
The gift is seen in the Nativity scene. The gift that the Father gives to us is
laid in the manger.
So what exactly is this gift? One of the most
beloved songs of this season asks just that question. “What child is
this, who laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?” In the next verse
we sing: “Why lies he in such mean estate, where ox and ass are
feeding?” What does this gift of the Christ Child say about us, who
are on the receiving end of this gift? What does this gift of the Christ Child
say about what God the Father wants from us?
What child is this? We ourselves profess the
answer at every Sunday Mass when we stand and proclaim the Creed. About our
“Lord Jesus Christ” we profess that He is “God from God, Light from Light, true
God from true God… consubstantial with the Father”. This tiny infant is God,
and the fact that this tiny gift is God tells us something important about why
the Father gave this gift to us.
On the other hand, just a few lines later in
the Creed, we also say that Jesus “by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the
Virgin Mary, and became man.” These words describe what today’s feast is all
about. That’s why every year, on this feast of Jesus’s birth, when we profess
those words of the Creed, we don’t just bow as we do on Sundays: we genuflect
today as we say these words. But we also need to keep in mind that these lines
of the Creed also tell us something important about why the Father gave this
gift to us.
Jesus Christ is true God and true man. From
the first moment of His conception, Jesus was fully divine and fully human.
Still today as He sits in Heaven at the Father’s Right Hand, Jesus possesses a
divine nature and a human nature. These two truths together tell us what we
need to know about the first and greatest Christmas gift: that is, the person
of Jesus Christ.
These two natures which Jesus bears within
Himself are the means and the end of what God the Father wants for us who are
His adopted children. In a manner of speaking, it’s like that book of homilies
that the nuns gave me. They gave me the book of homilies as a means, because
they hoped that by reading the book, I might grow to be a better preacher.
Then, on the other hand, the book of homilies also represented the end — which
is to say, the goal — that they were hoping I would reach: they hoped that
someday I might preach like the saints whose homilies were recorded in that
book.
So also, the gift of Jesus is the means and
the end of our life. Jesus became human because we are sinners, and because
Jesus is God we can become sharers in His divinity. Jesus became tiny at
Bethlehem so that we could become great in Heaven.
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph –
Dec. 30, 2018
Readings: Sir 3:2–6, 12–14 (or 1 Sm 1:20–22, 24–28) • Ps
128:1–5 (or Ps 84:2–3, 5–6, 9–10) • Col 3:12–21 or 12–17 (or 1 Jn 3:1–2, 21–24)
• Lk 2:41-52
As the Church celebrates today the second of
the five feasts of the Christmas Season — the feast of the Holy Family — we
reflect on the great role that the human family has within God’s plan for us.
We realize that as celebrating God the Son’s birth helps us reverence human
life as a gift from God, our celebration of the Holy Family helps us reverence
the human family as what is called the “domestic church”.
For many of us, the past week has presented
opportunities to be with members of our families. No matter what difficulties
might exist in our families, this time spent together helps us realize one of the
facts that is rejected by the world, but nonetheless preached as truth by the
Church: the fact that the family is the basic unit, or building block, of
society.
Very often adults caught up in the middle part
of their lives on earth fall prey to the habit of thinking that what they do
for others or give to others is what matters most. But those who have many
years of life under their belts are like those who are very young. The elderly
and children more easily recognize that time spent with others is of much
greater value than things given to others.
Spending time together — an hour here or
there, an evening or afternoon actively spent together (as opposed to passively
watching television) — may not seem to amount to much. But when that foundation
is there, the love and care which grows out of time actively spent together
supports the family when they end up in a crisis, as all families occasionally
do over the decades.
The Holy Family, still weary from their
journey to Bethlehem, and weary from their search through Bethlehem for
suitable lodging, were forced after Christ’s birth to flee their own country
for the foreign land of Egypt, out of fear for Jesus’s life. But this was only
the first of many sorrows for the Holy Family.
Many years later, as we hear in today’s Gospel
passage, Joseph and Mary were bewildered when they could not find their child
amongst all the family and friends who had journeyed with them to Jerusalem.
When they found Jesus, his words surprised them: “Did you not know that I had
to be in my Father’s house?” Jesus was pointing out to Joseph and Mary that it
was from His divine Father that He had come to earth, and it was His Father who
was His goal in life. Just as Joseph and Mary recognized Jesus’s divine wisdom,
so all parents and children should recognize this same truth: Jesus was born
and died in order to lead us to our Heavenly Father.
By and large, the first thirty years of
Jesus’s life were simple ones in which His mother and foster-father made
ordinary sacrifices for Jesus’s well-being, day after day. The Holy Family
prayed together to the Lord as a devout Jewish family, and took the steps
necessary to care for one another. When Saint Joseph died, Mary and her Son
carried on alone. Yet no matter what God the Father asked of them, they prayed
and acted together according to God the Father’s Will, not their own.
We all know that our world is troubled, and
that our country is troubled. We don’t have to dwell on that. The solution
begins with strengthening the treasure of the family, which builds up in turn
our community, country, and world.
The family is a treasure when it’s based upon
our heavenly Father’s home: when God is at its center. The home is holy when
the life of the family is rooted in Sunday Mass. We could even say that these
two — family life, and the Sacrifice of the Mass — mirror each other.
Dr. Michael Foley, who is not only a
patristics professor but also a husband and father of six, points out that the
four principal ends of the Mass are also the four most important things to
teach our children, and for everyone in the family to carry out. Holy Mass is
offered for the ends of adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and satisfaction.
Within the domestic Church, these four are reflected in the most important
words we speak: “I love you”, “Thank you”, “Please” and “I’m sorry.” The
Eucharist strengthens us to speak these words in our homes.
The home is “the domestic church,” the school
of discipleship where to live in peace, a person has to learn how to be humble
and serve the needs of others. These are the same virtues which make a person a
good citizen, and a good follower of Jesus. As we share in Jesus’s offering of
the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, pray that His grace will strengthen you to know
the needs of others with the Wisdom of God, and to serve the needs of others
with the Love of God.
Fr. Albert Leo, CPPS
Precious Blood Missionaries
Monday 10 December 2018
“THE CONSTITUTION ON THE SACRED LITURGY” (SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM)
Introduction
This document of 4December
1963, entitled “Sacrosanctum
Concilium,” is a documenton “The Constitution
on The Sacred Liturgy” promulgated by Pope Paul VI. It is primarily meant
todraw believers, and beckon all the faithful to join Christ in the act of
worship in glorifying the Father, preparing and making the people of God a holy
and living temple of the Lord, a dwelling-place for God in spirit, to the
measure of the fullness of Christ.This document is divided into seven chapters.
In this paper we shall, therefore, summarize each chapter in a
liturgico-theological manner.
Chapter one, spells out the general principles for the restoration and promotion of
the Sacred liturgy. In this text, the Council Fathersexhort that through the
liturgy, God“wills that all men be saved and come to
the knowledge of the truth.” For in the liturgy, we encounter the Word made
flesh, our bodily and spiritual medicine: The Mediator between God and Man (SC,
5).More so, Christ willed that the work of salvation should be propelled via the
sacrifice and sacraments, around which the liturgical life revolves (SC, 6).For
He is present: In the sacraments__In
the sacrifice of the mass both in the person of the minister and especially in
the eucharistic species; In his word, through the Holy Scriptures; In the
singing and praying, and so on (SC, 7). This then indicates that the liturgy
then is rightly seen as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. And
by this, it further shows that the earthly liturgy we partake, is only but a foretaste
of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem
toward which we journey as pilgrims (SC, 8).
In the liturgy, especially through the Eucharist,
theCouncil Fathersremind us that grace is poured forth upon men for their
sanctification and for the glorification of God. But for it to produce its full
effects, it is necessary that all the faithful, should be led to that full,
conscious and active participation (which is the aim to be considered before
all else) in liturgical celebrations, which is demanded by the very nature of
liturgy (SC, 14).
With great care towards a general
restoration of the liturgy itself, the Council Fathers through the lens of SacrosanctumConciliumaccredit that the liturgy,
is made up of both unchangeableelements divinely instituted, and of elements
subject to change. In this rich description, both texts and rites, should be
drawn up so as to express more clearly the holy thing which they signify (SC,
21-22).
To this effect, the Council Fathers
convey to us “the great importance of the Sacred Scripture in the liturgy.” For
it is from it, that lessons are read and explained in the homily, and psalms
are sung. From it, the prayers, collects, and hymns are draw their
inspirations, and that actions and signs derive their meaning (SC, 24). These,
presupposes that liturgical services are not private functions, but are the
celebrations of the church which is “the sacrament of unity__ the
people united under their bishop”. This shows that liturgical services pertain
to the whole body of the church, and also touch the individual member of the
church in various ways, especially in their role of liturgical services (SC,
26), which should be made manifest in carrying out all and only those parts
which pertain specifically to their office by the nature of the rite and the
norms of the liturgy (SC, 28).
Thus, in a bid to foster a more unified
and flourishing liturgical life and service, especially among a local church,
the Council Fathers, postulates “the use of Latin language, and vernacular.”
The latter, may be widely used, and so frequently be of great advantage to the
people. However, it can be made effectiveonly with the approval and admission of
the appropriate ecclesiastical authority, having carefully and prudently
consider it worthy, together with and the other elements from their traditions
and culture that might be admitted (SC, 36-40).
Chapter
two, explores the most Sacred mystery of the Eucharist.
Here, the Council Fathersbegan by re-echoing that: At the Last Supper, on the
night Jesus was betrayed, he instituted the eucharistic sacrifice of his body
and blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross
throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust his beloved
spouse, the church, as a memorial of his death and resurrection. Thus, this
means that when present at this mystery of faith, the faithful should not be
there silent spectators, rather in a single act of worship, they should partake
in the SacredAction with devotion and full collaboration, especially during the
masses, viz.the liturgy of the word and the Eucharistic liturgy; and more
importantly, on Sundays and holy days of obligation, which are celebrated with
the faithful assisting, via the readings, homily, common prayer or prayer of
the faithful, and so on (SC, 49-54). More so, the Council Fathers re-emphasise
the reception of holycommunion under both kinds; that it may be given to all Christ
faithful, with the approval of the bishop, determined by the Apostolic See (SC,
55).
Chapter
three, concentrates on the other sacraments and the
sacramentals. To begin with, the Council Fathers in congruence with the Church,
clearly states that the purpose of the sacraments (Baptism, Confirmation, Holy
Eucharist, Penance, Holy Orders, Holy Matrimony, and Anointing of the Sick) is
to sanctify men, to build up the Body of Christ, and, primarily to give worship
to God. These sacraments, are also signs which instruct; propose faith; and
also by words and object, nourishes, strengthens and expresses this same faith.
This is why they are also called sacrament of faith; for they confer grace and
in the very act of celebrating them, they most effectively dispose that
faithful to receive this grace of profit. To this end, the faithful should with
utmost importance, strive efficaciously to understanding the sacramental signs,
and should eagerly frequent those sacraments which nourish the Christian life (SC,
55).In addition, to better equip the faithful, the Church has instituted
sacramentals. These are Sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments.
They signify effects, particularly of a spiritual nature, which are obtained
through the Church’sintersection. By them, the faithful are disposed to receive
the chief effects of the sacraments; and in various occasions in life are
rendered holy, for the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals, sanctifies
in almost every event of their lives with the divine grace which flows from the
paschal mystery of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ, which isits
source and power(SC, 60-61).
Chapter
four, dwells on the divine office, which is the
public prayer of the church. In this chapter, the Council Fathersunderscore the
doctrinal teaching that Jesus Christ, High Priest of the New and Eternal
Covenant, took human nature, and introduced into this earthly exile that hymn
which is sung throughout all ages in the halls of heaven. This hymn, which is a
source of piety and a nourishment for personal prayer, is the celebration of
the divine office; a ceaseless engagement in praising the Lord(SC, 83).More so,
the divine office is planned in way that the whole course of the day and night
is made holy by the praise of God. For this reason, this song of praise is to
be correctly celebrated primarily by the clergy or by the lay faithful in an
approved form (SC, 84). More precisely, all who partake in the divine office
are not only performing a duty for the church, relatively, they also share in
what is the greatest honour for the church__
Standing before God’s throne in the name of the church (SC, 85).In
consonance, the clergy, more than the lay faithful, should enthusiastically
engage in the celebration of the divine office. By so doing,through this prayer
life, his pastoral ministry would thrive, effectively and fruitfully. Nevertheless,
the Fathers of the SacredCouncil, aware of the existing circumstances and
barriers, admonishes that Lauds as morning prayer, and Vespers as evening
prayer, are the two hinges on which the divine office turns. So, it must be
seen as the principal hours and are to be celebrated as such (SC, 89).
Chapter five, explores the
celebrations of the liturgical year. In celebrating the saving work of Christ
in a SacredCommemoration on certain days throughout the course of the year, the
Holy Mother Church designates that once a week, precisely on Sunday (the kernel
of the whole liturgical year), she keeps the memory of the Lord’s resurrection,
a day of joy and of freedom from work. This is a traditionhanded down to us
from the apostles, which took its origin from the very day of Christ
resurrection. More so, once a year at the Sacred triduum of Easter, the blessed
passion and resurrection of Christis celebrated. This simply implies that in
the course of the year, the church unfolds the whole mystery of Christ from the
incarnation and nativity, to ascension, to Pentecost, and finally to the
expectation of the blessed hope of the Christ coming.Also, incelebrating the
mysteries of Christ, the church honours the Blessed Virgin Mary, with a special
love.Also celebratedin varieties are: Advent; Christmas; Lent; special
solemnities (e.g. Of a principal patron of a town); the memorial days of the
martyrs and saints; commemoration of the faithful departed, and so on.
Chapter six, adds to this great
document the inestimable value of the Sacred Music. The musical tradition of
the church, is a treasure of great worth, greater than any other art. This is
so because as aunion of Sacred music and words, it forms a necessary and integral
part of the liturgy. On this, the Fathers of the SacredCounciladvocate the use
of SacredScripturesbecause by so doing, the people of God are marvellously
increased in their power and ability to preach Christ. Thus, Sacred music, is
to be seen as a holy and closely connected liturgical action.Though, thiscan be
achieved whenever a. This Sacred action
is to be accompanied by chants (especially Gregorian),so that all the faithful can
contribute assiduously to that active participation which is rightlytheirs; b. Importance is attached to the
teaching and practice of music in formation houses and catholic institutions; c.There are people of a particular
locality, who have their own ecclesiastical approved traditions and musical
instruments.
Chapter seven, centrifuges around SacredArt
and SacredFurnishings. In approaching this text, the Council Fathers confirm
that SacredArtby nature, are directed towards expressing in some way the
infinite beauty of God in works made by human hands. In this same purview, the Church,
has always praised the works of artists who in accordance with the religious
laws of Sacredness, help promote faith, morals and Christian piety (SC, 122).
However, it should be noted that since the church has not adopted any
particular style of Art as her own, bishops (with the help of his diocesan
committee on SacredArt), should endeavour to encourage and favour truly SacredArt
and Furnishings (buildings, vestments, altars, eucharistic tabernacles, etc.)that
beautifully brings to the task, the due reverence and honour, and ipso facto,serve
the dignity of worship (SC, 123-124).
Conclusion
In summary, we
have been able to delve into this documents of seven chapters, written by the Council
Fathers, and promulgated by Pope Paul VI; and to a great extent, pointed out
that in and through the liturgy, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist,
“the work of our redemption is accomplished.” And also, that it
is through the liturgy especially, that the faithful are enabled to express in
their lives and manifest to others the mystery of Christ and real nature of the
true church.
Fr. Albert Leo, CPPS
Precious Blood Missionaries
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