Homily - Are these acts proper to a preparation for the coming of Christ the King?

The First Sunday of Advent (A)

Dear brothers and sisters,

We prayed a few moments ago that, through this sacred season of Advent, that the almighty God will grant us “the resolve to run forth to meet [his] Christ with righteous deeds at his coming.”[1] If I may say so, our country is in desperate need of these righteous deeds!

How have we, as a nation, begun our preparations for the coming celebration of the Birth of the Christ? The answer – to anyone who pays any attention – must be a deafening, “Poorly!” Sadly, the sense of an encroaching darkness is not only to be found in the natural world, but also in the hearts of men and women. We sing in our carols that this is “the most wonderful time of the year,” but how did many seek to enter into the joy of the season? With self-absorption, violence, and greed. As evidence of this, take just a few examples of what transpired this past Friday, the very day after we as a nation professed to render thanks to the Almighty: a man was shot in a mall food court in Syracuse, New York because of an argument;[2] in White Hall, Pennsylvania, a fight broke out in the Lehigh Valley Mall; and in Hendersonville, Tennessee, employees at a Walmart had to disperse a group shouting profanities.[3] Are these the righteous deeds required of us to “be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom?”[4] Are these acts proper to a preparation for the coming of Christ the King?

I know some may object and say, “Father, those things didn’t happen around here; calm down.” Perhaps not, but not too far from here, in Jacksonville, Illinois, a man sought to hire himself out to stand in line for Black Friday shoppers; he listed one his qualifications as having “plenty of felonies so no need to worry bout [sic] me backin [sic] out of a fight.”[5] I remind you again of the words of Saint Augustine I shared with you two weeks ago:

Bad times! Troublesome times! This men are saying. Let our lives be good, and the times will be good. We make our times; such as we are, such are the times.[6]

Because we are part of this nation and all bear some share in the madness that has become Black Friday – and an improper celebration of Christmas - we must all honestly examine our lives and ask ourselves an important question: Am I resolved to go forth to meet the Savior with righteous deeds? The consideration of such a question is, after all, the very purpose of Advent. “Brothers and sisters: You know the time; it is the hour now for you to wake from sleep” (Romans 13:11).

In the midst of the darkness of these days, I find myself repeating a line J.R.R. Tolkien gave to Aragorn at Helm’s Deep: “Yet dawn is ever the hope of men.”[7] The ancient Christians prayed looking toward the east; even in their homes, they would look out an eastward facing window when making the sign of the Cross and saying their prayers. They did so in the confidence of the return of “the one Morning Star who never sets,” Christ Jesus, “who, coming back from death’s domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever.”[8] They looked to the east because they knew that dawn is ever the hope of men. They looked not simply to the dawning of a new day, but for the dawning of the coming of the Lord Jesus with his angels and his saints; they lived in eager expectation of his coming and sought not to be caught unawares lest he come as a thief in the night. Can the same be said of us? Do we live in eager expectation of the coming of Christ, or in eager expectation of the next sale or party?

This season of Advent has as its chief aim two purposes: first, a preparation for the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time, and, second, a preparation to celebrate his Birth at Bethlehem. The temptation today is, as I have said before, to anticipate too early Christmas Day at the expense of our spiritual growth. In many families, the Christmas tree and the Nativity set are already raised and will be taken down shortly after Christmas dinner, in stark contrast to the liturgical year, which celebrates Christmas beginning not until Christmas Day and continuing through the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, this coming year the twelfth of January.

It seems we have forgotten this rich season that calls us to wait, to be still, to ponder, and to hope for the dawn. The Church “raises its gaze to the final goal of pilgrimage in history, which is the glorious return of the Lord Jesus” and, recalling Jesus’ “birth in Bethlehem with emotion, it bends down before the crib. The hope of Christians is directed to the future, but always remains well rooted in a past event.”[9] To put it another way, “Christians live in the transitional period between the black of night and the bright light of morning… But since the gloom of the present age has yet to dissipate, it remains a time of temptation and risk for God’s people.”[10]

Too often we lose sight of both of these directions – the future and the past - in the hustle and bustle of worldly life and become too caught up in the present. Advent calls us to step beyond this busy-ness, to contemplate anew the great love of the Lord Jesus who “shall judge between the nations and impose terms on many peoples” (Isaiah 2:4).

Our communal neglect of Advent in favor of the maddening drive to get more and more stuff we do not need “seems especially disturbing – for it’s injured even the secular Christmas season: opening a hole, from Thanksgiving on, that can be filled only with fiercer, madder, and wilder attempts to anticipate Christmas.”[11] We find ourselves surrounded by

More Christmas trees. More Christmas lights. More tinsel, more tassels, more glitter, more glee – until the glut of candles and carols, ornaments and trimmings, has left almost nothing for Christmas Day. For much of America, Christmas itself arrives nearly as an afterthought: not the fulfillment, but only the end, of the long Yule season that has burned without stop since the stores began their Christmas sales.[12]

Is this not something of what the Lord Jesus warns against when he tells us that we also “must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come” (Matthew 24:44)?

It is too easy for us to give in to the temptations that surround us, to focus on the commercialism and materialism of the culture in which we find ourselves, to ignore this season of grace in which we should be stirring ourselves from our faithlessness and from our sluggish spiritual sleep (cf. Romans 13:11). I challenge, urge, and beg you to instead focus on Jesus, on keeping his commands by loving God and neighbor in every circumstance, and to prepare to meet him when at last he comes to judge the living and the dead. So long as there is yet another dawn, there is time for us to “throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:12). Let us keep these days of Advent well, not in the anticipation of the gifts we will exchange on Christmas Day, but in gratitude for the gift of the Lord’s mercy given us in his Birth at Bethlehem and in expectation of his return in glory.

Some time ago, Pope Francis gave us a bit of wise fatherly advice. He encouraged us to spend time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, with the Eucharistic Lord present in his tabernacle, and to make a simple prayer: “You are God; I am a poor child loved by You.”[13] If we make this prayer our own, the Lord will help us remember the many ways we have failed to love both God and neighbor. With these sins in our minds and hearts, we can enter the confessional and entrust ourselves again to God’s merciful love. We will leave the confessional with a lightened and joyful heart and “the dawn from high shall break upon us” (Luke 1:78). Then, walking in his paths, this will truly be the most wonderful time of the year (Isaiah 2:3). Amen.

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[1] Roman Missal, Collect for the First Sunday of Advent.

[2] Ryan Miller and Sarah Taddeo, “Destiny USA shooting: Police search for suspect after man shot at mall on Black Friday,” Democrat & Chronicle, 29 November 2019.

[3] Cf. Leslie Katz, “Black Friday 2019 fights prove shopping for deals is as perilous as ever,” CNET, 29 November 2019.

[4] Roman Missal, Collect for the First Sunday of Advent.

[5] Jimmy Bates, in the Facebook group “Jacksonville, IL Swap Shop, 27 November 2019.

[6] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon on the New Testament, 30.8.

[7] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings, 3.7 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994), 524.

[8] “Exultet,” Roman Missal.

[9] Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Address, 27 November 2005.

[10] Scott W. Hahn, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: Romans (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2017), 238

[11] Joseph Bottum, “The End of Advent,” First Things (December 2007), 20.

[12] Ibid.

[13] “Pope: Corruption is blasphemy which leads to worship of money,” Vatican Radio, 24 November 2016. Accessed 27 November 2016. Available at http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/11/24/pope_corruption_is_blasphemy_which_leads_to_money_worship/1274477

Homily - 27 November 2016 - The First Sunday of Advent

The First Sunday of Advent (A)

Dear brothers and sisters,

The older I get, the more I dislike winter. I have never enjoyed the cold temperatures, or the ice and snow, but what I dislike the most is the weeks and months of darkness, which feels more oppressive with the passage of years. A few days ago I was sitting at my desk in my office in the rectory trying to clear out the e-mail inbox, when I happened to look up and outside through the window. It was about 6:00 in the evening and utterly black. A tremendous yawn overtook me and I yearned for the return of the sun because I was ready to crawl back into bed. Perhaps you’ve been there, too.

Sadly, the sense of an encroaching darkness is not only to be found in the natural world, but also in the hearts of men and women. We sing in our carols that this is “the most wonderful time of the year,” but how did many seek to enter into the joy of the season? With self-absorption and violence. As Americans, we have willfully allowed the national holy day of Black Friday to become the highlight of the year and rob families of their loved ones when we are supposed to give thanks together for our common gifts. If we are honest, this is a natural progression stemming from the day when we, as a society, decided that Sunday was no longer to be a day dedicated to God and to family.

I once worked in a toy store as the Parental Video Game Adviser at a time when the Friday after Thanksgiving was known as Green Friday because many stores took in more than half of their annual income that day. Now that day is known as Black Friday, supposedly because stores now begin to operate in the black instead of the read. Still, I cannot help but wonder if this change in name is not somehow related to – or indicative of - a change in our hearts, a change not for the better.

To understand what I mean, consider the following events that all took place in these United States of America in connection with Black Friday shopping: a man was shot dead and a woman injured in a parking lot in San Antonio, Texas because the deceased told another man to stop grabbing a woman by her hair; two people were shot in Chattanooga, Tennessee after an argument about merchandise broke out in a mall; one man was killed and another wounded in Atlantic City, New Jersey while standing in line outside a store waiting for the “door buster savings;” a man was shot dead in Reno, Nevada because of a parking space dispute; another man was killed in Memphis, Tennessee while shopping in a mall; and customers fought over washcloths selling for $1.60 in Bainbridge, Georgia and broke out in a brawl.[1] Is this the joy of the season? Is this what it is all about? Is this really the most wonderful time of the year? Does this not show a darkening of our hearts?

In the midst of the darkness of these days, I find myself repeating a line J.R.R. Tolkien gave to Aragorn at Helm’s Deep: “Yet dawn is ever the hope of men.”[2] The ancient Christians prayed looking toward the east; even in their homes they would look out an eastward facing window when making the sign of the Cross and saying their prayers. They did so in the confidence of the return of “the one Morning Star who never sets,” Christ Jesus, “who, coming back from death’s domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity.”[3] They looked to the east because they knew that dawn is ever the hope of men. They looked not simply the dawning of a new day, but for the dawning of the coming of the Lord Jesus with his angels; they lived in eager expectation of his coming and sought not to be caught unawares lest he come as a thief in the night. Can the same be said of us?

This season of Advent, then, has as its chief aim two purposes: first, a preparation for the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time, and, second, a preparation to celebrate his Birth at Bethlehem. The temptation today is to anticipate too early Christmas Day at the expense of our spiritual growth. In many families, the Christmas tree and the Nativity set have already been raised and will be taken down shortly after Christmas dinner, in stark contrast to the liturgical year, which celebrates Christmas beginning not until Christmas Day and continues through the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, this year the ninth of January.

It seems we have forgotten this rich season that calls us to wait, to be still, to ponder, and to hope for the dawn. The Church “raises its gaze to the final goal of pilgrimage in history, which is the glorious return of the Lord Jesus” and, recalling Jesus’ “birth in Bethlehem with emotion, it bends down before the crib. The hope of Christians is directed to the future, but always remains well rooted in a past event.”[4]

Too often we lose sight of both of these directions – the future and the past - in the hustle and bustle of worldly life and are caught up in the present. Advent calls us to step beyond this busy-ness, to contemplate anew the great love of the Lord Jesus who “shall judge between the nations and impose terms on many peoples” (Isaiah 2:4).

Our communal neglect of Advent in favor of the maddening greed of Black Friday “seems especially disturbing – for it’s injured even the secular Christmas season: opening a hole, from Thanksgiving on, that can be filled only with fiercer, madder, and wilder attempts to anticipate Christmas.”[5] We find ourselves surrounded by

More Christmas trees.  More Christmas lights.  More tinsel, more tassels, more glitter, more glee – until the glut of candles and carols, ornaments and trimmings, has left almost nothing for Christmas Day. For much of America, Christmas itself arrives nearly as an afterthought: not the fulfillment, but only the end, of the long Yule season that has burned without stop since the stores began their Christmas sales.[6]

Is this not what the Lord Jesus warns against when he tells us that we also “must be prepared, for at an hour [we] do not expect, the Son of Man will come” (Matthew 24:44)?

It is too easy for us to give in to the temptations that surround us, to focus on the commercialism and materialism of the culture in which we find ourselves, and ignore this season of grace in which we should be stirring ourselves from our faithlessness and from our sluggish spiritual sleep (cf. Romans 13:11). We must instead focus on Jesus, on keeping his commands by loving God and neighbor in every circumstance, and prepare to meet him when at last he comes to judge the living and the dead.

If you have done everything that was asked of you and are prepared for it, then you have nothing to fear, but if you have not, then look out! Paul is not trying to frighten his hearers but to encourage them, so as to detach them from their love of the things of this world. It was not unlikely that at the beginning of their endeavors they would be more dedicated and slacken off as time went on. But Paul wants them to do the opposite – not to slacken as time goes on but to become even more dedicated. For the nearer the King is, the more they ought to be ready to receive him.[7]

So long as there is yet another dawn, there is time for us to “throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:12).

Let us, then, keep these days of Advent well, not in the anticipation of the gifts we will exchange on Christmas Day, but in gratitude for the gift of the Lord’s mercy given us in his Birth at Bethlehem and in expectation of his return in glory. Just a few days ago, His Holiness Pope Francis gave us a bit of wise fatherly advice. He encouraged us to spend time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, with the Eucharistic Lord present in his tabernacle, and to make a simple prayer: “You are God; I am a poor child loved by You.”[8]

If we make this prayer our own, the Lord will help us remember the many ways we have failed to love both God and neighbor. With these sins in our minds and hearts, we can enter the confessional and entrust ourselves again to God’s merciful love. We will leave the confessional with a lightened and joyful heart and “the dawn from high shall break upon us” (Luke 1:78). Then, this will truly be the most wonderful time of the year.  Amen.

[1] cf. Liam Quinn and Myriah Towner, “Black Friday turns ugly as at least three people are shot dead including GoodSamaritan trying to break up domestic in Walmart parking lot – as shoppersfight over everything from TVs to $1.60 towels,” Daily Mail, 25 November 2016.

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings, 3.7 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994), 524.

[3] “Exultet,” Roman Missal.

[4] Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Address, 27 November 2005.

[5] Joseph Bottum, “The End of Advent,” First Things (December 2007), 20.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans, 23. In Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament Vol. VI: Romans. Gerald Bray, ed. (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 1998), 321.

[8] “Pope: Corruption is blasphemy which leads to worship of money,” Vatican Radio, 24 November 2016.

Homily for the First Sunday of Advent - 29 November 2015

The First Sunday of Advent (C)

Dear brothers and sisters,

Only two days ago we saw people running frantically from store to store - and even within stores - to buy up any number of things. As they ran from one deal to another, they pushed their way passed other people, knocked over stacks and displays, and even grabbed items - most notably a vegetable steamer - out of the hands of young children.

From Atlanta to Louisville, from El Paso to Saginaw - as one media report put it - "shoppers decked the halls — and each other — as they battled and brawled their way through stores across the country Friday." As if this itself were not bad enough, "onlookers cheered" as two men beat each other in one store, "even as a female shopper got knocked down in the melee." Those who act in this way have strayed far from the ways of the Lord and do not walk on his path (cf. Psalm 25:4).

These bargain hunters where able to run to and fro with such lack of concern for others because they had been watching for the material goods they wanted. They knew where to go. They knew when to be there. They knew - at least in one sense - the price they would pay. These shoppers were, in a word, prepared.

Perhaps some of us were among their number, running, as it were, into a trap (cf. Luke 21:35), into a trap of unrecognized sin of selfishness, of jealousy, anger, and greed. If we recognize something of this temptation in our souls, we would do well to pray with King David, "Guard me from the trap they have set for me, from the snares of evil doers" (Psalm 141:9).

In their haste to satisfy their avarice, many Americans ran forth not to meet the Christ of God, but to serve mammon and were well-prepared to do so (cf. Collect and Matthew 6:24). They were crafty and cunning and, at times, deceitful and violent. The Lord Jesus commends something of these qualities even while rejecting others when he instructs us, saying, "I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves" (Matthew 10:16). If these women and men were so careful and desirous in running forth to get the physical things they seemingly wanted at any cost, how much more careful and desirous should be in running forth to meet Christ Jesus when he comes in his glory?

At the beginning of this Mass, we asked Almighty God for “the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming.” Do we really want this resolve? Certainly those shoppers were filled with resolve. Indeed, they put all of their energies into acquiring what they wanted. What do we desire more, the fleeting happiness of passing things or the coming of the One who alone can satisfy the deepest yearnings of our hearts?

Holy Mother Church gives us this season of Advent each year as a time to reflect upon the joy of the Birth of the Savior at Bethlehem, yes, but in these early days of Advent we are called to direct our thoughts to his Second Coming, of which the Lord speaks today. “They will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory,” he says (Luke 21:27). When he at least returns, it will not be as it was at his first coming when the only sign of his birth was a star in the heavens and an angelic greeting to a group of shepherds. 

His first coming came unnoticed by most people, but it will not so with his Second Coming. Then “the powers of the heavens will be shaken” and it will be clear that his Advent is nigh. For this reason, he says, “people will die of fright” because they will know themselves not to “be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones” (Luke 21:26; I Thessalonians 3:13). They will die of fright because, as pray every Sunday, the Lord Jesus “will come to judge the living and the dead.” They will die of fright because they do not know him, because they do not love him, and because they do not serve him; to know him is to love him, and to love him is to serve him.

For this reason, Jesus tells us “not [to] become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap. For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth” (Luke 21:34-35).

Those who have welcomed the Christ Child into their hearts and who have sincerely said to him, “Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior,” will have nothing to fear at his coming because they will have maintained their friendship with him (Psalm 25:5). We have these next few weeks to prepare for his coming, to ask him to teach us the truth, to show us sinners the way, to guide us to justice (cf. Psalm 25:5, 8-9). If we seek to deepen our friendship with Jesus in these holy days by speaking with him in prayer and in the Scriptures, by confessing our sins and receiving absolution, and by serving the needs of our brothers and sisters, then he will indeed make us “increase and abound in love” and “strengthen [our] hearts to be blameless in holiness” so that we might “stand before the Son of Man” when he comes (I Thessalonians 3:12-13; Luke 21:36).

Let us, then, use these days not to run to and fro in the pursuit of things, but to run forth to meet the Christ, the only Savior of the world and the true desire of our hearts. Amen.

On Black Friday, a caution from the Pope

Certainly the timing of today's release of Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium is not at all connected to the great madness that will soon envelope the United States of America, either on Thanksgiving Day or the following, dubbed Black Friday, as consumers try to buy more things they weren't thankful for the day prior.

In the second paragraph of his lengthy reflection on the joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis directs our attention to what he sees as "the great danger in today's world:"

The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful, angry and listless. That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life; it is not God’s will for us, nor is it the life in the Spirit which has its source in the heart of the risen Christ (Evangelii Gaudium, 2).

Before you head out with your shopping lists, be sure to take Pope Francis' words to prayer.