FRESH START 2018

A Fresh Start for 2018

John the Baptist’s ministry was a call to repentance, the renunciation of sin as prophesized by Isaiah: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”(Mt 3:3)  The Ten Commandments provide the moral baseline, with the First Commandment chief among them: “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have any false gods before me.”

False gods come in many shapes and sizes. As the culture increasingly rejects our Judeo-Christian heritage, we can’t rule out a return to false idols, made of stone. But a false god can also be an obsession so intense that it blots out properly worshiping the one God. Those obsessions are legion, but it is helpful to focus on just one type: our anger.

A curious thing happens as we get older. Our lives seem to compress and we start to lose track of time. Events that seem to have taken place earlier this year might have actually taken place several years ago. Curiously, even distant memories – good and bad – become more present. On Pearl Harbor Day, newspapers showed veterans well into their 90s with faces expressing the pain of grief as they remembered that fateful day way back in 1941.

There is the old joke about Irish Alzheimer’s:  you forget everything except your grudges. But it doesn’t only affect the Irish. Anger is easy to understand – most of us know it all too well. It’s there even in childhood. Take a rattle away from the baby, and he throws a temper tantrum. As we get older, we just get a bit more sophisticated in the way we express our anger – when others rattle us.

If we aren’t vigilant, it is quite possible for even petty anger to fester into true hatreds. We are quite capable of allowing a momentary annoyance to become the reason to nurse a grudge.

It’s not that we have a duty to ignore the outrage that comes with injustice.  Outrage has its place. For example, the Church recognizes the state’s role in administering capital punishment precisely out of a desire for justice: “Now the [death penalty] punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime . . . give security to life by repressing outrage and violence.” (Roman Catechism) But even legitimate outrage as a result of injustice needs to be controlled and properly ordered.

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Furthermore, we cannot rely on any government to be perfect in the enforcement of all just laws. Apart from keeping criminals off-balance for the remainder of their lives by a threat of prosecution, it is unreasonable to expectation all malefactors will be brought to justice. But cultivating a seething anger over an unresolved injustice must not an answer to these facts of human life. Cultivating rage is not only self-destructive; the obsession becomes a kind of false god, the center of our lives.

Years ago, a renowned Jewish hunter of Nazis observed that perhaps the greatest tragedy about the Holocaust is that it has replaced the Exodus as the center of Jewish history.

How are we, with God’s grace, to remove the false god of hatred in this season of welcoming the coming of the Lord and facing a fresh New Year? As we all know, it’s not easy.

A few Biblical suggestions:

• Recognize that just anger is not a sin. Anger impels us to action, to balance the scales of justice. “Be angry but do not sin.” (Eph 4:26).
• Just anger needs to be proportionate and under the control of reason:  “do not let the sun go down on your anger.”  (Eph 4:26)
• Count to ten after being provoked:  “Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”  (James 1:19)  (“Honey, why don’t you answer me?”  “Darling, I’m counting to ten!”)
• Be prepared to forgive and forgive again.  “Then Peter came up and said to him, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.’”  (Mt 18:21-22)
• Bear with the faults of others by remembering our own failures. “Forgives us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
• Recognize that strong emotions like anger are volatile and cannot be controlled without God’s grace.  So do not neglect prayer, the Sacrament of Penance and the devout reception of Holy Communion.  “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Mt 5:44)
•  Do not neglect the redemptive value of suffering injustice. “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.” (Col 1:24)
• Try old-fashioned Christian kindness; “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Rom 12:20-21)
• Finally, especially for serious and chronically unresolved injustices, have confidence in the God’s justice. Despite appearances, nobody gets away with murder;  “Nobody can escape His judgment.  Nobody can escape His righteous wrath.  It is mine to avenge; I will repay.” (Deuteronomy 32:35)  Nobody will escape the judgment seat of God because there is a heaven and there is a hell.

We have the choice to be obsessed with injustices and risk our souls or to anticipate Christ with a firm faith.  Let’s firmly resolve to . . . just stop it.  Stop nursing our grievances, great or small, and prepare the way of the Lord in the New Year – and every year.

**Image: John the Baptist by Leonardo de Vinci, c. 1515 [Louvre, Paris]

HUMBLE BABY GOD

Without Ceasing to be God, God Became a Humble Baby

“Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith...” (CCC 463)

We are in the midst of the celebration of Christmas. God is with us.

We profess the reality of this mystery every Mass in the Creed. We set up mangers and sing carols about Christ’s birth and proclaim the words of the angels. Looking at the many nativity scenes we have around the house, I’m wondering if we’ve become enamored with a pastoral romantic version of this most sacred of events in human history. I’ve heard many a priest talk of the birth taking place in a cave, rather than a stable (which admittedly, is harder to convey in a model), and talk movingly about how a manger would have looked more like a trough where food is kept, rather than the straw bed that seems to cradle the Christ child. But the manger scenes we have, wherever I look, they have bright colors, they accentuate a lushness even in the table. These scenes do not scratch. Some even sparkle.

Even in song, we tend to make the infant Jesus into a baby who feels no cold or makes any cries. Every baby, even the quietest best baby, cries. It’s how they let us know — feed me, change me, pick me up, put me down, hold me, swaddle me, play with me, I don’t feel well and I need a burp, a bath, my tooth to come through, it’s too loud, too quiet, too crowded, too I don’t know what it is but I’m upset about it. Jesus, being fully man and fully God, felt all these things, and no doubt as a baby, kept Mary and Joseph up from time to time. When we say “who became man,” do we really understand what we mean? God fully became a creature, a baby like we once were, who cries, who poops, who hungers, who needs. He got skinned knees, he felt scratched by the straw, it smelled. He smelled. Do we really understand, we worship a God who willingly lived what we simply endure?

It’s not that I object to the songs or the scenes, it’s that if we’re to really step into the scene of Jesus’ birth, we need to recognize, Jesus lived in a world with splinters, straw, drafts and smells, with all of the fallen nature surrounding Him. Our God knew and knows our everyday frustrations and the ones which gnaw at our hearts. 

The Incarnation remains a great mystery because it is an act of pure selfless love, just like the Crucifixion, just like our continuing to exist. How does the Infinite Being who made all, who needs nothing, enter into our condition? The Incarnation should shock us, should stun us, should puzzle us. How could He love us that much? Who here would become something less by choice? C.S. Lewis talked about “The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus inside a Woman's body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.” We are the slugs. We are the crabs. God loved us that much. I don’t know about you, but even had I the power, there isn’t a slug or a crab I’d love enough to become one for, let alone, die for.

The Incarnation is ultimately God’s great answer of love to our disobedience, to our sin. God acts, in the world, breaking into it like light, like warmth, flooding it with a love beyond anything we can fathom. The sublime gift of Jesus coming to us is can only elicit one response; wonder. Alleluia! Alleluia!

YEAR'S END: “Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot”

YEAR’S END “Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot”

Memories  Memories  Memories !

          Memory is a complex and powerful capacity, and it is especially helpful in understanding how Jesus is with us today. We can treat some memories as “dead and gone”, as events and experiences that no longer influence us. Catherine Mansfield said, “Make it a rule of life never to look back. Regret is appalling waste of energy. You cannot build on it; it is only good for wallowing in.”  Other memories, however, can be treated just the opposite; they can be “alive and present,” and help shape every moment of our life. As Mr. Bennet advises his wife in ‘Pride and Prejudice’, “Think only of the past, my dear, as gives you pleasure.”

          We can get a hint of the power of memory when a sweet fragrance or a popular song, first experienced several years ago, recreates within us today the emotions associated with the original experience. The words and melody of a golden oldie can be soothing. If this power is true of aromas and sounds, how much more true it is of the memory of important people in our lives. Perhaps we remember a good friend or relative who died when we were much younger. We never truly forget such people; they continue to live within us, sometimes in very real and powerful ways. And speaking about ourselves as a nation  -  as a nation we remember our old leaders and our brave soldiers. A nation that forgets it past has no future and deserves none!

          What about forgiving but not forgetting? Remembering past hurts is not healthy unless it is the right sort of memory. A hurting memory, if sweetened by forgiveness, is a golden memory. In living out Jesus’ Dream, we encounter Jesus in real and powerful ways. They do more than simply remember or recall a past event. They actually and consciously make Jesus present again, and everything that is associated with him comes alive.

          Paying due attention to the past does not mean that we have to be stuck in it. There’s a whole future opening for you. For example, relationships are about the future. Without forgiveness of each other, the future is a hard blank wall. If there is anything we want to leave behind in 2006, let it be our hatreds. Jesus never bore a grudge; you know what he carried. And while it’s good to ask ourselves the kind of world we are leaving our children and grandchildren, let us try teaching them to be grateful: to be grateful to God for the very capacity to praise him, that we are even able to offer him our thanks. As we say in the 4^th. Preface of the Mass, “You have no need of our praise, yet our very desire to thank you is itself your gift.” We want to thank God not only for the many good things that have happened to us in the year just past, but also for the pain and sadness we could endure by his strength. For example, the people we found difficult, the burdens we felt unbearable, and deaths of our loved ones, the days we found unmanageable  -  these were like so many celestial ‘black holes’ through which the transcendent Lord came to us. No matter if people touched our lives positively or negatively, God made his advent through them all.

          Happiness is fleeting and no pain is permanent, and when they have faded away, there is our loving Creator, the faithful one who never ever deserted us, Yahweh, the “I am who am”, holding us fast in his loyal friendship. This is the indefectible Lover we celebrate tonight, the one who never ever visits us with illness and suffering, but who rather is present in our trial that he personally carries. For it is the Christ Child who personally suffers in the body of the sick child, it is the Suffering Messiah who groans under the agony of the tormented prisoner, the divine Parent who is heavy with the sadness of the wife and mother over the wayward son or daughter, or the grieving husband abandoned by his wife, or the child mistreated by parents.

The dear Lord stands knee deep in this flood of physical pain and moral shame, with the reassurance that he alone suffices, and that all will be well and all manner of thing will be well. He tells us that our passing joys and pains are symbols and reminders of our creaturehood, that our pains and joys  only prove that we are meant for the higher things that await us, and that we need only believe in his power to deliver the good things he has promised, namely, community in him and with one another, when Jesus Christ will hand over all peoples and things to the Father, and God will be all in all. 

          Today’s Gospel is about the Word of God. The most incredible thing in history is that God’s Word, his divine Son, should become man, live a genuinely human life and die in agony. Jesus Christ is not an ideal or abstraction, a gaunt empty figure beyond description; but a person in whom is the fullness of the Godhead, the most beautiful among men, victor over death and hell. Nothing great does he put us to achieve but to love him, to be faithful to him and to give faithful testimony to him when the time comes. His desire is that we should love him, that we love one another for him and that we believe in his love for us. Jesus dying lives, and living he dies daily, like the grain of wheat or else he does not take root in our hearts. He comes into this world, dispossessed infinity, naked and cold, that each of us may give him something: the universe for his stable, for his manger our hearts and their warmth.

          The author, Vesta Kelly, once said, “Many people seem to think that the right way to start the New Year is with a hang-over from the last year.” On our part, as we prepare to end one year and enter another, we look forward in hope and trust to the Lord who is stronger than all darkness.

          Here is a short passage from Minnie Louisse Haskins: “And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ He replied, ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light and safer than a known way.’ ”

May the hand of Christ bless our year

And the heart of Christ hold us dear

And all blest and happy things

Which the love of Jesus brings

Be ours until another year is here.

LOWLINESS AND JOY - J. H. NEWMAN

As we prepare our hearts for Christmas, let us sit at the feet of a spiritual giant and listen to his wisdom.

Christmas is a celebration deep in meaning. God wanted to teach us countless spiritual truths, but they aren’t always easy to decipher. That’s why sometimes we need to look back and learn from the spiritual giants of the past to understand what God was trying to reveal to us.

One such giant was Blessed John Henry Newman, an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism and become very influential in the Catholic Church in England. He was highly educated, but had a simplicity about him that attracted many people. Newman’s sermons in particular were very enlightening, geared at the common person, but steeped in spiritual insight.

For Christmas he highlighted two principal lessons, lowliness and joy, when reflecting on the shepherds on that Christmas night.

Lowliness

Why should the heavenly hosts appear to these shepherds? What was it in them which attracted the attention of the Angels and the Lord of Angels? Were these shepherds learned, distinguished, or powerful? Were they especially known for piety and gifts? … there is no reason to suppose that they were better than the common run of men in their circumstances, simple, and fearing God, but without any great advances in piety, or any very formed habits of religion. Why then were they chosen? for their poverty’s sake and obscurity. Almighty God looks with a sort of especial love, or (as we may term it) affection, upon the lowly … The shepherds, then, were chosen on account of their lowliness, to be the first to hear of the Lord’s nativity, a secret which none of the princes of this world knew … To men so circumstanced the Angel appeared, to open their minds, and to teach them not to be downcast and in bondage because they were low in the world. He appeared as if to show them that God had chosen the poor in this world to be heirs of His kingdom, and so to do honour to their lot. “Fear not,” he said, “for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”

Joy

The Angel honoured a humble lot by his very appearing to the shepherds; next he taught it to be joyful by his message … “Fear not,” said the Angel, “for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” … Such were the words which the blessed Spirits who minister to Christ and His Saints, spoke on that gracious night to the shepherds, to rouse them out of their cold and famished mood into great joy; to teach them that they were objects of God’s love as much as the greatest of men on earth; nay more so, for to them first He had imparted the news of what that night was happening … It is a day of joy: it is good to be joyful—it is wrong to be otherwise … Let us seek the grace of a cheerful heart, an even temper, sweetness, gentleness, and brightness of mind, as walking in His light, and by His grace. Let us pray Him to give us the spirit of ever-abundant, ever-springing love, which overpowers and sweeps away the vexations of life by its own richness and strength, and which above all things unites us to Him who is the fountain and the centre of all mercy, lovingkindness, and joy.

BEYOND OUR DREAMS

BEYOND OUR DREAMS

Luke 1:13-16

But the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. (NIVUK)

Read the verses around this Bible passage from the Internet Bible: in English, and many other languages

Some people say that if you have great faith, then God will answer: and there are Scriptures to support that. But God is also far greater than the limits of our faith. In this narrative, Zechariah the priest had prayed for a child, but did not believe it was possible (Luke 1:18-20). Nevertheless, his faithless prayer would be answered! An angel had appeared unexpectedly while Zechariah was performing a most sacred rite of temple worship. Firstly, he reassured the terrified priest. "Do not be afraid" is one of God's most common commands in the Bible - because we are naturally vulnerable and often afraid. Then the angel said that God had heard his prayer, and announced the birth of a baby boy even before he had been conceived (Luke 1:23-24), naming him John (meaning: 'Jehovah is a gracious giver') and giving an overview of his life's purpose. John would far exceed all his parents' expectations, bringing joy into their home, and much more widely. John's preaching would urge many to repent of their sins and get ready to welcome God's salvation through Jesus. Luke often uses the word 'joy' to describe the overflowing relief of salvation: here he applies it to Zechariah and Elizabeth, and to many in Israel. John was to be God's special messenger, and would be filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb (Luke 1:39-44). That was also God's sovereign act, without John doing anything. So: John was known before his conception, and equipped with God's presence to fulfil God's appointment even before he was born. This was God operating in grace (unasked and undeserved), to John who was not yet born, his family who did not fully believe, and Israel who did not care! We need these reminders that God is not limited by our formulae, or how we think He should behave - God does as He pleases, and pours grace on whosoever He wills. This passage should also encourage those who only see the future as a fog, because God is continually working all things together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28), even if their faith is weak. It is God who is strong; and He will always complete what He has decided to do. So be encouraged at home, at work and in the church ... God is at work far more than we can imagine.

Dear Lord God. Thank You for not giving me only what I deserve, or restricting Your grace to the limit of my faith. Thank You for reassuring me when I am afraid and encouraging me forwards to the future You have planned even when I cannot fully understand. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT Year "B"

THE HOMILY: FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT, YEAR "B"

The greatest things are accomplished in silence, not in the noise and bustle of the street or superficial display. It is in silence that the great decisions are taken; in silence that the heart moves to love.

God works in smallness and silence. The greatest event in human history, the Incarnation, was shrouded in the obscurity and anonymity of an almost unknown Jewish village, where the main actress is a simple, humble village maiden.  David’s descendent, a virgin  -  talk about surprises  -  a virgin is told she will bear a child who will establish the dynasty of David forever.  What on earth could this mean?  Mary will have to wait and see. Christian art throughout the centuries has tried to recapture the silence and simplicity of the Annunciation. The Italian painter, Fra Angelico, caught the mood perfectly in his famous work “Annunciation”, so that you can see on Mary’s face perplexity and acceptance.

What were our Blessed Mother Mary’s thoughts at the moment of decision?  She was a sliver of a teenager of between 14 and 15 years of age; her fiancé, Joseph, just going on 18 years.  Asking an unmarried girl of 15 to become the Mother of the Saviour and King.  Preposterous!  What Does God think ? (Thinks no end of himself. Well, that’s in character, since God has neither beginning nor end.) There must have a time of inner turmoil as Mary contemplated the future that was held out to her. It surely wasn’t easy. Her plans, her hopes, her dreams would have to change. There would have been fears and worries. Yet somehow, through God’s grace, she found it within her to say “YES” to God’s plan about her future and that of her child.  Her immediate response to God’s invitation to be the Mother of the Messiah, one of reverential fear and puzzlement, soon gives way to a total surrender in the obedience of faith.

During her pregnancy, Mary must have gone through all the normal feelings and emotions of a mother-to-be: hopes, fears, wonder at the mystery of life, questioning about how the new arrival would affect her relationship with her partner.

But it was not Mary but God himself who would accomplish this mission. Mary’s part was not to plan or devise clever strategies but, rather, to yield herself to God and submit to his plans. What is God calling you to do today? Mend a broken relationship? Deal with an incurable illness? Break an unhealthy habit? Are you willing to be “stretched” by God, to move beyond the realms of the possible and explore the impossible with him? This can be scary. Mary risked not just a wedding, but also public trial and punishment when she said “yes” to God. What is at stake for you?

Today’s Gospel is more centrally the narrative of the Incarnation. Mary’s role in the mystery of the Incarnation is both personal and also representative of our own response to God our Saviour. Mary said “yes” to God’s invitation. Her “yes” prefigures the millions of “yeses” that God waits for. God is clothed in the ordinariness and anonymity of the daily life of each one of us. In the ordinary something extraordinary is happening, something fresh and mysterious. “He comes, ever comes.” His deceptively simple coming and our apparently colourless responses are actually the texture of human life here and, still more, in the hereafter, because our eternity is born in time.

 As we recall Mary’s feelings at this time, we can see how she is central to our understanding of the Incarnation mystery.  And as we prepare with her for the coming of Christ, remembering how she got ready to welcome her Son, we can each of us in our own way open our hearts and minds to receive Jesus.

Today, this Gospel is fulfilled in our hearing.  How will the world know of the love and compassion and joy of God unless, in spite of our fears and doubts, we are willing to say, with similar faith and love, “let what you have said be done to me.”

PRAYER

Dear God, we thank you that you made yourself known to someone without power, wealth or status; and we praise you for the courage of Mary, this young woman from Galilee, whose “Yes” to the pain and endurance of bearing your Son let loose the unstoppable power of love which changed the world.

CHESTERTON CHRISTMAS CAROL

CHESTERTON CHRISTMAS CAROL
Recite this poem to your children and help them recite it too! Everyone might learn from it.

                                                           

A Christmas Carol

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world’s desire.)

The Christ-child stood on Mary’s knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.

-         G.K. Chesterton

Chesterton’s little “Christmas Carol” is simple enough for a 2-year-old to understand. Actually, a very young child might understand it better than the rest of us, knowing so well how comforting it is to be cuddled close by his mother. The poem makes use of very few details, and no literary conceits, to draw us into the room with the Holy Family.

The genius of the poem though, is in the way Chesterton draws in our focus. He gives us no information at all about the Christ-child, except for his stillness, and the light in his hair. Mary is with him; that’s all we know. But notice — first, we’re focusing on Christ, lying on Mary’s lap in the silence. Then, “O weary, weary were the world …” The scope of the scene zooms out, showing us not just the sin and suffering of the world then, but the whole weight of world’s sadness, which has accumulated on us over the ages. Abruptly, he brings us back into the room: “But here is all aright.” We feel a flood of relief as we focus our vision back on the mother and child.

This experience, of having your initial peace shaken by a the sudden intrusion of the evil of the world, is familiar to all of us. Have you ever been drifting off to sleep, when your mind brings up, unbidden, some crushing fear or awful memory? With each stanza, Chesterton reminds us of the solution. Persistently, he leads our minds back to the image of peace. “But here, the true hearts are.” “But here, the world’s desire.” But here, but here–whatever else is going on, whatever horrors the world has undergone, they cannot touch this scene.

It’s hard, nearly impossible, for adults to compartmentalize our world this way. We’re multitaskers. It’s second nature for us to be, say, cooking supper while thinking about the next day’s projects, while remembering what went wrong last week, and wondering what changes next year will bring. Children don’t do this. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t. They have a naturally focused vision, and they participate completely in their own little sliver of the world, wherever they are. Chesterton’s trying to bring us back into this perspective, which we once had.

After three stanzas of gently re-focusing our attention whenever it strays, the fourth verse brings all of creation to the scene. The earth, and all the flowers, look up at the Christ, and the stars and all the heavens look down. Christ becomes, not just the center of our own vision, but the center of everything. The peace that previously existed only in that room has spread, extending itself to the whole universe.

                       A Merry Christmas to you all !

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION TO A SKEPTIC

How to Explain the Immaculate Conception to a Skeptic

“Mary is ‘the most excellent fruit of redemption’: from the first instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure from all personal sin throughout her life.” (CCC 508)

For many, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is the hardest to believe of all the Church’s teachings. The idea of Mary having been completely sinless can be hard to believe and even misinterpreted.

That’s why knowing how to explain it to skeptics is so important.

Let’s start with some background.

Pope Pius IX infallibly defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8, 1854.

“The Most Holy Virgin Mary was, in the very first moment of her conception, by a unique gift of grace and privilege of Almighty God and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ the Redeemer of mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin.” (Ineffabilis Deus, Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius IX on the Immaculate Conception)

And what exactly does that mean?

It means that, from the moment she existed, she was preserved from original sin. Consequently, she also was preserved from the stain, or effects, of original sin. Because of that, her nature was not corrupt in any way.

Why was Mary given this privilege? Because of her connection to our Lord. She was his Mother and at the same time he was her Savior. As Catholics, we believe that Mary was proactively redeemed. In other words, she received the fruits of Christ’s redemption prior to her conception. Remember that our concept of time is not like God’s concept—or governance—of time. With him all things are possible, and he has the power to extend redemption to Mary before she was conceived in the womb of St. Anne. The Church also teaches that Mary was free from personal sin as well because her nature was spotlessly incorrupt as result of her Immaculate Conception.

Skeptics may tell you that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is not found in Scripture. They might cite St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans in which he wrote, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” But in this case, St. Paul is referring to personal sin, which Mary was unable to commit because of her proactive redemption. Mary’s preservation from original sin didn’t remove her need for a redeemer. She needed a redeemer, but she was granted a more perfect redemption.

Duns Scotus, a 13th-century English Franciscan theologian, used the image of quicksand to explain Mary’s more perfect redemption. If someone pulled you out of quicksand after you’d fallen in, you’d say that he saved you. If this person kept you from falling into quicksand, you’d say that he saved you more perfectly.

Now look to another place in Scripture—to the Gospel of St. Luke. How does the Angel Gabriel greet Mary?

“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” (RSVCE, Lk 1:26-31)

If Mary had been touched by sin, Gabriel wound not have pointed out that she was “full of grace.” Any sinfulness at all diminishes grace in a soul. By his greeting, the Angel is acknowledging that Mary has attained the fullness of grace and is free from all sin.

St. Ephraim of Syria (c. 306-373) is a prominent Father and Doctor of the Church. He’s a noted authority on many of the Church’s teachings. Regarding Mary’s sinlessness, he wrote:

You [Christ] alone and your Mother
Are more beautiful than any others;
For there is no blemish in you,
Nor any stains upon our Mother.
Who of my children
Can compare in beauty to these?
(The Nisibene Hymns, 27, 8)

The Immaculate Conception makes absolute sense to me. When I’m asked about it, my first line of defense, so to speak, is this and it’s based on my own reasoning.

Jesus Christ is the God-Man, the Word Incarnate. He is All-Powerful, All-Knowing, All-Perfect, and is opposed to sin in all forms. How then, could he have been conceived and born from an imperfect womb that had been touched by sin? I would find that truly hard to believe.

PEACE WITH JUSTICE

 Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13: PEACE WITH JUSTICE

In today’s advent Scripture, the Psalmist offers us a beautiful image: that God’s salvation is recognizable when steadfast love and faithfulness meet, and when righteousness and peace kiss each other. Righteousness and peace are so caught up in each other, so in love with each other, that they are kissing when God’s glory comes to dwell in our land.

This is a significant and challenging image for us. The Hebrew word translated as “righteousness” here can also be translated as “justice.” What does it mean for justice and peace to kiss each other? It is so easy to build a fence between the two concepts, to argue that some act of violence or violation is necessary in order to bring about justice. This lie constantly assaults us in the images of our world. It tells us that if we just commit the right amount of violence against the right people, we will have enacted justice. If we lock the right people in prison, if we keep the right people outside of our borders, there will finally be justice.

But God’s justice looks so different from that. God’s justice is in love with peace. God’s justice is restorative, constructive rather than destructive. God’s justice is healing, hope-giving and forgiving, most fully revealed in Jesus who offers mercy to his executors even as he is dying for his resistance to a violent empire. God calls us to bring about justice by not committing violence at all, by proclaiming release to the captives and letting the oppressed go free. As Jesus began this ministry of reconciliatory justice, may we, as Christ’s body in the world, continue it.

Yes, let righteousness and peace kiss each other! Yes, let it be so!

Scripture: Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13 (NRSV)

Lord, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob.

²You forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin. Selah

⁸Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.

⁹Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.

¹⁰Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.

¹¹Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.

¹²The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.

¹³Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.

                                  IN THIS CHILD

                                                     The greatest things are accomplished in silence; not in the clamour of superficial display but in the deep clarity of inner vision, in the almost imperceptible start of decision, in hidden sacrifice and quiet conquest. It is in silence that the heart is quickened by love, and the free will stirs to action. The silent forces are the strong forces. The greatest events are accomplished in silence. And the greatest event of all was the descent of the Son of God from his throne on to this earth. It was the most silent event because it came from the infinite remoteness beyond the noise of any possible intrusion.

            The Son of God became man,  -  “the Word was made flesh” (Jn. 1) in the womb of an unknown virgin, and it hardly echoed in the upper circles of the time, ignored by the Roman historians. No one but the young virgin knew that Divinity had set up its tent among men.

            In this Child, God, having spoken at sundry times through the prophets, chose to reveal to man the mysteries hidden from all eternity.  In this Child the infinite made an advance into the finite, a personal intervention, a divine transfusion by which we are transformed, elevated, redeemed; for whereas we were blind, now we see. In this Child, God and man have a purchase on each other. He breathed our air, felt our pain, hungered, thirsted, laboured and loved, and by doing so gave our life meaning.

            The Incarnation was a descent into the temporal, into the material, into this world of births and generations, into this world of buying and selling, this world of housing and education, to this world of leisure and hard work, this world of unemployment and taxes. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, took upon himself all this in order to elevate and transfigure.  Therefore, our salvation does not consist in a flight or retreat from this world; not a flight of the alone to the Alone; not an escape from our fellowmen and our day to day burdens. It is an injustice to the Incarnation to confine its effectiveness merely to internal graces. In every line of progress, spiritual, intellectual and material, the Incarnation must be the enabling leaven. And if that is so, it should be the rule and not the exception to have saintly workers and peasants, saintly statesmen and judges, merchants and soldier. All stages of life are graced, from childhood to adolescence, from marriage to retirement, up to the last day of our life. “All flesh shall see the salvation of our God” (Luke 6).

            Wherever the Christ Child is adored there is at least some sense of mystery. Ignore that birth, and the road to power runs straight as a ruler to the death camps. Focus on that birth, and the road to a healthy humanity cannot be missed. This Infant touched off a revolution, a quiet prolonged thunder, from the recesses of the cave of his birth, founding a kingdom that is known by unconditional love and undiscriminating service. The centre of this dynamic process is the human heart; and the source - the Son of God, born in the heart of every man and woman today.

            This Child the simple and the sinner come to worship. The Magi and we pay our loving adoration. He is not an ideal or abstraction, a gaunt empty figure beyond description; but a person in whom is the fullness of the Godhead, the most beautiful among men, victor over death and hell. Nothing great he puts before us to achieve except to love him, to be faithful to him and to give faithful testimony to him when challenged.