FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT Year "A"

                               FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT Cycle “A”

Mathew 1, 18-24

Today’s Gospel is focussed very closely on Joseph. He was an “upright” man, a “Tzaddik”, one of those quietly decent people who, in Jewish thought, keep the world from coming apart. You must have noticed that Joseph says not a word in the Gospels. Yet, with Mary, he was to be charged with the task of bringing up, nurturing and protecting the Saviour of the world. He was most probably between the ages of 17 and 26 when engaged to Mary. As a devout observer of the law, he could not take Mary as his wife. Whatever qualities he possessed, it is clear that he loved Mary, for he refused to subject her to the public shame of her unforeseen pregnancy by disowning her openly. He would take upon himself the responsibility for the divorce. His heart must have been heavy and his dreams of marrying the girl he loved shattered as he prepared to take this course of action. His response to this deeply distressing and puzzling situation was generous and openhearted. In refusing to condemn Mary in public, he knew he was leaving himself open to the criticism of being weak and ineffectual in the gossip which would have inevitably followed the cancellation of the marriage. Happily he was saved that embarrassment by a special intervention of God. Here we can also see that Joseph was a deeply spiritual man, with the Holy Spirit speaking to his subconscious mind. Joseph’s plans for divorce are interrupted by the appearance of a messenger from God in a dream. The angel comes to reassure him. In spite of the mystery of Jesus’ virginal conception, Joseph has a role to fulfil. He is immediately obedient to the divine message, despite the continued problems that his unusual situation must have presented.

We might think that Joseph’s obedience was a sort of automatic reaction on his part. But knowing his obvious sensitivity and kindness, we can deduce that he struggled with his emotions in dealing with this strange command. His obedience, though unquestioning, cannot have been without cost.

In the Jewish tradition, membership of the family is established by legal recognition, not necessarily by biological descent. Joseph, of the house of David, adopts Jesus into the family. Jesus was not the son of Joseph by blood. But thanks to Joseph, Jesus can be called “son of David.” Luke’s, genealogy, on the other hand, traces Jesus’ lineage through Mary (his natural bloodline) who also was a blood descendant of King David. Thus, Luke presents David’s actual physical descendants, one of whom was Mary. Hence, Jesus was of the line of David both by title and by blood.

The evangelist Mathew cites the prophet Isaiah to show that the birth of Jesus is the fulfilment of the promise made by the Lord. The phrase “Emmanuel” (“God with us”) is a reminder of the covenant between the Lord and his people. The inclusion of Jesus among the descendents of David is also a sign that God is faithful to his promises.

The name Jesus is the anglicised form of “Jehoshua”, a combination of two words, “Yahweh” and “Hosea”. “Yahweh” means God, “Hosea” means Saviour. So Jesus means “Saviour God.”

There wasn’t much that was cosy and familiar about Joseph’s decision to hear and obey the word of God. It was a lonely decision. All the big decisions in your life and mine are taken in utter solitude. And while new life brings hope, the birth of a child must have filled Mary and Joseph with the same fears and worries that any parent feels. The message of Christmas is not that God became a member of an impossibly perfect family, but that he shares all the fears and feelings we have, some of which can be pretty shattering. As members of our own families, we might think that whatever things are like the rest of year in our homes, Christmas is the one day of the year when it’s reasonable to expect things to be perfect. Yet that is hardly the message of the Gospels regarding the birth of Jesus. The first Christmas was pretty messy!

As Christmas draws closer we keep hearing God’s promise of sending us Immanuel. But life is such a mixture of sorrows and joys that we are left in confusion. Different people ask different questions that arise from an anguished heart. Has God really sent his Son when my child is crippled and maimed? Where is Immanuel when my husband drinks and wastes our family’s resources? Where is your Immanuel when I shuffle through the streets looking for a job and coming home empty?  Nor should we believe that messy families are somehow inferior to tidy ones. What was remarkable about the Holy Family was not that they didn’t have problems, but that, like Joseph, they dealt with them graciously. Even if our Christmases don’t go as we might like, we can still, with the help of God, who “arrives”, cheerfully capitalise our troubles as opportunities to demonstrate God’s omnipotence. For God has said, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son and his name shall be called Immanuel.” Only faith and hope are the final solutions in our anxiety. Let us renew more profoundly our faith and hope that will make the coming of Christ more meaningful. As one of the poets has said, “Grow old with me, and the best is yet to come.”

PRAYER (author unknown)

If every part of my life is with you,

And in you, Lord,

Then everything is made good:

Even the things I struggle not to resent,

Even the draining and hurting encounters.

Let every moment of my life be your moment,

Whether or not I consciously remember you;

And make me more open

To the pulse of your life

and the breath of your love.

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT Year "A"

                                THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Cycle “A”: Mt 11, 3 – 11 

Down in the dumps

“Are you the one who is to come or have we got to wait for someone else?” (Mt 11, 3)

It was the year 28 or thereabouts. Summertime, and the heat was stifling. John the Baptiser was finishing his 6^th. month as a convict. His dungeon was located in the fortress of Machaeus overlooking the Dead Sea in southern Palestine. His jailor was the loony King Herod. John’s crime was that he had correctly and publicly accused the king of seducing his brother’s wife and walking out on his own. The king, like most royalty, was not amused and threw him into a maximum-security prison. Down in solitary lock up, the Baptist was as restless as a caged lion. His home had been the desert that knew no boundaries. Yet it was more than claustrophobia that caused him sleepless nights. John the Baptist was the “prophets’ prophet” - strong, fearless, unstoppable - but from his prison cell he, too, seemed to be undergoing a “dark night”; a silence heavy with doubt and possible self-loathing and recrimination.

 Amazingly, he was having disturbing thoughts about Jesus, the supposed Messiah whom he had introduced to the multitudes, the one for whom the Jews had longed for centuries. He had promised his vast audiences that this Messiah would enter their lives not with a whimper but with a bang. John was convinced too that he had even met this Messiah, and amazingly had even baptised him. But, for reasons not clear to the Baptiser, not even once did Jesus openly declare himself the Messiah. Besides, he wasn’t putting the axe to the tree as John has foretold, or wielding the winnowing fan or burning the chaff; he wasn’t knocking the fear of hell into the people. So could he be the Messiah? Did John baptise the wrong candidate? Was it all a colossal blunder? Not a sliver of light from on high.  So when next his disciples were allowed that rare visit to the prison, he told them to search for Jesus in the hamlets and hills of Galilee, and ask the all-important question: “Are you the one who is to come or are we to expect someone else?” Jesus would be compelled to answer that question, as he could not lie.

Well, Jesus didn’t answer by saying, “What cheek!” or, “I like your sauce.” He did not deny that he was the Messiah but neither did he affirm it. Jesus’ response is gentle but enigmatic. As is so often the case, he does not answer his questioners directly; instead he invites them to open their eyes and ears and hearts: “test the evidence for yourselves - come to your own decision.”

Signs of presence

  As an answer, Jesus borrowed the beautiful lines of Isaiah, “Go and tell your leader that the blind are enjoying looking at beautiful colours and shapes, the deaf are hearing the latest news and hottest gossip, the lame are leaping, and the dumb are screaming their heads off.” Those who were stumbling now walk with dignity. Those who walked with shoulders hunched now walk proud, walk tall.   Jesus was transmitting his answer to John in code. Jesus was telling John that the prophecies of Isaiah had indeed been fulfilled in himself; so he was owning up to being the Messiah.

We are not informed how John reacted to the news in his prison cell, but I suspect he felt relieved that his vocation was accomplished. He could face his executioner with thankfulness.

We must admire Jesus, the master of his situation. He would reveal his Messiahship in his own good time and on his own terms. And there was going to be no substitute for raw faith either for John and his disciples or for anyone down the centuries. John, like all others, like you and me, would have to say of Christ, “I believe even though I look through a glass darkly.”

Deeds, not words

But there is one other important issue here, and it concerns all of us. You must have noticed that John’s disciples recognised the Messiah not through verbal bombast and blustering, not by threats of damnation, but by the signs of humble service to deprived humanity, to the poor and the sick. Jesus, I’m sure, is telling us that we must make his presence known and felt by continuing his ministry of mercy to our deprived children, our brothers and sisters. Those were the signs of his presence in the time of John the Baptist, and they have not changed since.

As we prepare, this Advent, for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus’  “signs” offered to the Baptist can turn into searching questions, challenging the depth and sincerity of our longing for God. Do the blind see again - do we lead people who are lost, by our words and even more by our lives, to God?  Do the lame walk - what is our attitude to our sick and handicapped brothers and sisters? Has our sympathy and understanding supported them in their struggles and helped them to start a new life? Are the dead raised to life? To those who are near despair have we tried to bring new hope and meaning in life? Do we try to be open to people who do not share our conventional standards of behaviour? The weak are in need of courage; compulsive people, enslaved to drugs and alcohol, must find the power to behave in a new, freer way.

The answer to these and similar questions can tell us about the genuineness of our desire for Jesus Christ. Without a real conversion of heart shown in our attitude towards others, will Advent be anything more than liturgical play-acting?

PRAYER: (Henry Alford, 1810-1871. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and composer of several hymns)

O Lord, give us more charity, more self-denial, more likeness to thee. Teach us to sacrifice our comforts to others, and our likings for the sake of doing well. Make us kindly in thought, gentle in word, generous in deed. Teach us that it is better to give than to receive; better to forget ourselves than to put ourselves forward, better to minister than to be ministered unto. And unto thee, the God of love, be all glory and praise, both now and forever more. Amen

SCRIPTURE: Matthew 11:2-11 (NRSV)

DEVOTIONAL:

What did you go out into the wilderness to see?

Jesus asks this question to a crowd after meeting John the Baptist’s disciples, who were inquiring about Jesus’ identity. Is he the one they’ve been waiting for? Is it true the Messiah had come? Jesus’ answer is to ask them to hear and watch what has come because of his life. The blind see, the lame pick up their mats, the lepers made clean, even the dead awakened. He seems to be saying, “If this is what you’ve been waiting for, then ‘yes.’”

Then, in a whir of rhetoric and analogy, Jesus turns to the crowd and asks, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?”

The wilderness, the place where the Baptist dwelt, was a place that I imagine many sought out.

John was a man with disciples, after all.

The wilderness was a place of searching — the arena for answers about life, fulfillment, salvation and prophesy. John lived in the wide-open, strange spaces away from society and the pull of formalities. He wore almost nothing, he ate almost nothing, and everything about him was meager by most standards. His life was so radically weird compared to the standard. Yet, people still wanted to hear what he had to say, and Jesus really, really liked him. He called him the best born among women.

That is, the best. Of all.

Who John was and the place that John dwelt was mysterious. But his life’s work was giving God glory and abandoning his own. Jesus commends him, but also says that anyone who is “least in the kingdom” is even greater than John.

So, I think about this question, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?”

In the wilderness — a place that carries us away from our comfort zones and from material — we find answers. We find the radical kingdom that Jesus desires to see on earth — one of making ourselves less and God greater.

In the wilderness, we find God.

Remembrance of Past Mercies

St. John Henry Newman

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2019

“I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which Thou hast showed unto Thy servant.” Gen. xxxii. 10.

The spirit of humble thankfulness for past mercies which these words imply, is a grace to which we are especially called in the Gospel. Jacob, who spoke them, knew not of those great and wonderful acts of love with which God has since visited the race of man. But though he might not know the depths of God’s counsels, he knew himself so far as to know that he was worthy of no good thing at all, and he knew also that Almighty God had shown him great mercies and great truth: mercies, in that He had done for him good things, whereas he had deserved evil; and truth, in that He had made him promises, and had been faithful to them. In consequence, he overflowed with gratitude when he looked back upon the past; marvelling at the contrast between what he was in himself and what God had been to him.

Such thankfulness, I say, is eminently a Christian grace, and is enjoined on us in the New Testament. For instance, we are exhorted to be “thankful,” and to let “the Word of Christ dwell in us richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord.”

The Book of Psalms is full of instances of David’s thankful spirit, which I need not cite here, as we are all so well acquainted with them. I will but refer to his thanksgiving, when he set apart the precious materials for the building of the Temple, as it occurs at the end of the First Book of Chronicles; when he rejoiced so greatly, because he and his people had the heart to offer freely to God, and thanked God for his very thankfulness. . . .

Such was the thankful spirit of David, looking back upon the past, wondering and rejoicing at the way in which his Almighty Protector had led him on, and at the works He had enabled him to do; and praising and glorifying Him for His mercy and truth. David, then, Jacob, and St. Paul, may be considered the three great patterns of thankfulness, which are set before us in Scripture;—saints, all of whom were peculiarly the creation of God’s grace, and whose very life and breath it was humbly and adoringly to meditate upon the contrast between what, in different ways, they had been, and what they were.

A perishing wanderer had unexpectedly become a patriarch; a shepherd, a king; and a persecutor, an apostle: each had been chosen, at God’s inscrutable pleasure, to fulfil a great purpose, and each, while he did his utmost to fulfil it, kept praising God that he was made His instrument. . . .

*

Well were it for us, if we had the character of mind instanced in Jacob, and enjoined on his descendants; the temper of dependence upon God’s providence, and thankfulness under it, and careful memory of all He has done for us. It would be well if we were in the habit of looking at all we have as God’s gift, undeservedly given, and day by day continued to us solely by His mercy. He gave; He may take away. He gave us all we have, life, health, strength, reason, enjoyment, the light of conscience; whatever we have good and holy within us; whatever faith we have; whatever of a renewed will; whatever love towards Him; whatever power over ourselves; whatever prospect of heaven.

He gave us relatives, friends, education, training, knowledge, the Bible, the Church. All comes from Him. He gave; He may take away. Did He take away, we should be called on to follow Job’s pattern, and be resigned: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” [Job i. 21.] While He continues His blessings, we should follow David and Jacob, by living in constant praise and thanksgiving, and in offering up to Him of His own.

We are not our own, any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves; we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We cannot be our own masters. We are God’s property by creation, by redemption, by regeneration. He has a triple claim upon us. Is it not our happiness thus to view the matter?

Is it any happiness, or any comfort, to consider that we are our own? It may be thought so by the young and prosperous. These may think it a great thing to have everything, as they suppose, their own way,—to depend on no one,—to have to think of nothing out of sight,—to be without the irksomeness of continual acknowledgment, continual prayer, continual reference of what they do to the will of another. But as time goes on, they, as all men, will find that independence was not made for man – that it is an unnatural state – may do for a while, but will not carry us on safely to the end. No, we are creatures; and, as being such, we have two duties, to be resigned and to be thankful.

Let us then view God’s providences towards us more religiously than we have hitherto done. Let us try to gain a truer view of what we are, and where we are, in His kingdom. Let us humbly and reverently attempt to trace His guiding hand in the years which we have hitherto lived. Let us thankfully commemorate the many mercies He has vouchsafed to us in time past, the many sins He has not remembered, the many dangers He has averted, the many prayers He has answered, the many mistakes He has corrected, the many warnings, the many lessons, the much light, the abounding comfort which He has from time to time given.

Let us dwell upon times and seasons, times of trouble, times of joy, times of trial, times of refreshment. How did He cherish us as children! How did He guide us in that dangerous time when the mind began to think for itself, and the heart to open to the world! How did He with his sweet discipline restrain our passions, mortify our hopes, calm our fears, enliven our heavinesses, sweeten our desolateness, and strengthen our infirmities! How did He gently guide us towards the strait gate! how did He allure us along His everlasting way, in spite of its strictness, in spite of its loneliness, in spite of the dim twilight in which it lay!

He has been all things to us. He has been, as He was to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, our God, our shield, and great reward, promising and performing, day by day. “Hitherto hath He helped us.” “He hath been mindful of us, and He will bless us.” He has not made us for nought; He has brought us thus far, in order to bring us further, in order to bring us on to the end.

– excerpted from Parochial and Plain Sermons Vol. 5, No. 6.

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT Year "A"

                                     SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Cycle “A”: Mt. 3, 1 – 12

“Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is close at hand.” (Mt. 3,2)

The story is told about a businessman who proudly told Mark Twain, “Before I die, I want to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb Mt. Sinai and I will read aloud the Ten Commandments.” Mark Twain observed dryly, “I have a better idea. You could stay home in Boston and keep the Ten Commandments.”

It appears that many people do not buy into the idea of personal sin. We live out our lives in an era that has dry-cleaned sin away. Those who can afford it, prefer to go to a psychotherapist or psychologist when they have a weight on their conscience. The psychologist may rationalise guilt feelings away but cannot pronounce the words of absolution, “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” I cannot understand why people don’t want to hear those cleansing and consoling words. Even the pope, priests and bishops have to go for confession. And yet consider, when we repent, the forgiveness that we receive is absolute, leaving no space for guilt.

Sadly, nowadays, you do not want to feel guilty, because it will make you feel guilty. And if you send people on a guilt trip, so much the worse for you.

Today’s Gospel shows us John the Baptist coming in from the desert “proclaiming a baptism of repentance that led to forgiveness of sin.” And the Gospels tell us that people bought his message, repented of their sins, and were baptised. There must have been something particularly attractive about John that made people lay their faults and failings open to him. He was truly a man of God – that’s what they saw – and he provided a personal link with God since he conveyed God’s message.

 Today John the Baptist might well be out of a job, drawing unemployment insurance, if any. There is no insurance in the desert, only total and absolute dependence on God. John might even be locked up for disturbing the peace. As a matter of fact, he was locked up for rattling Herod’s composure and false dignity.

I sometimes worry that those who should know better - parents, teachers and myself, are depriving young people of education in morals. What sort of message are we sending the young people by our example and indulgent smiles ? What would John the Baptist have to say on this matter ? What would he have to say to each of us individually? To airbrush sin away is to reduce religion to sweet sauce. To bury sin with socio-economic buzzwords, or explain it away by blaming it on the environment or genes and chromosomes would be to sell Jesus Christ down the river. When Peter denied Jesus he did not blame it on his mother-in-law! A modern day psychiatrist would probably have traced his defection to faulty childhood toilet training. Mathew’s Gospel tells us quite simply: “Peter went out and began to weep bitterly.” Today, if he were caught weeping he would be slipped a fistful of Vallium and advised to go fishing. And how about Judas ?  He took personal responsibility for his betrayal of Jesus. He felt he did something so rotten that nobody would touch him with a bar of soap; so he handed himself the death sentence.

Neither should we blame our sins on the environment or genes and chromosomes. These things do have an influence, but the decisive choice to commit a sin or not remains with the person in situation.

Repentance challenges us to face those areas of sin and moral blindness within us that are not fully yet under God’s authority. The call of the Gospel is a personal invitation to growth in holiness and communion. What we know of God is but a shadow of what is to be known. Repentance allows Jesus to reign in every area of our lives. Sometimes we carry the burden of sin without even realising it. If you are tempted to do something and feel even a shade of reluctance, ask yourself, “If I do this, how will it affect my life in six months, two years, five years?” See yourself as a vital part of the world, interdependent and affected by the actions of every other person on the planet. Ask yourself, “Will this be good for me and for everyone?” Asking the right question is a step in the direction of the right answer. Advent is about readjusting the lenses, questioning our attitudes, allowing for the huge emotional displacements and rearrangements of ideas.  It’s about looking again at our familiar surroundings and seeing them with new eyes.

Listen again to John in today’s Gospel: as the Baptist walked on to the public scene, the first thing he said was not “Have a nice day”, but “Repent!”

PRAYER (Janet Morley):

God our deliverer, whose approaching birth still shakes the foundations of our world, may we so wait for your coming with eagerness and hope, that we embrace without terror the labour pangs of the new age.

Christ our victim, whose beauty was disfigured and whose body torn upon the cross, open wide your arms to embrace our tattered world, that we may not turn away our eyes but abandon ourselves to your mercy. Amen.

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT Year "A"

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT (YEAR A)

Introduction:      During this period of Advent the readings and the prayers remind us that time is not unlimited. In these reading we look back to the Old Testament and are reminded of how Christ’s coming was foretold. Today’s first reading is a good example of this. But we also see in the New Testament readings that Jesus Christ has in fact already come, and these are supplemented by reminders that he is to come again. The history of the story of our salvation has been worked out in time and will be completed when time as we know passes into eternity at Christ’s second coming. The second reading tells us that the time we have for preparing for the second coming is to be used in rejecting the power of darkness and evil in our own lives.

The Homily         There is a story somewhere about Satan and a young apprentice devil who is to be sent to earth to deceive mankind. Satan questions him about how he plans to proceed in his mission. The trainee devil says that he will try to persuade humans that there is no God. But Satan says that experience has taught him that this ploy does not work. The young devil then suggests that could discredit belief in hell. Satan commends him on this idea but insists that this one will not be wholly effective either. Then the young devil cooks up a third idea, which is heartily accepted by the boss who tells him to go ahead with his plan which is simply to tell men and women that there is plenty of time.

          In time as we know it there is a past, a present and future. It has a beginning and an end. In the Bible, however, there are two kinds of time. The first kind is that which is to do with events in world history. The word used for it is “chronos” in Greek, from which we get the word “chronology.” That Jesus was born during the reign of Caesar Augustus is the “chronos” time of the Incarnation. The other kind of time in the Bible is that which is called “kairos”; it is God’s time, a time which humans cannot manipulate or interfere with. You can push people around but you cannot push God’s time around. The Incarnation happened in God’s time too. It was his plan from eternity and humans had no control over it. When Christ comes again it will be in God’s kairos time, and as today’s Gospel says, it will be an hour we do not expect. But Jesus does tell us that it will happen at a time when people are eating, drinking, marrying and in a state of unpreparedness, just as it was before the flood in Noah’s time. A carefree business attitude was typical of the contemporaries of Noah. What they were doing was not wrong in itself, but they had no thought of God. Their end was sudden and unexpected. In the second short parable, Jesus wants to tell us that that people will be judged as individuals and not in batches. Two men, two women, will not necessarily share the same judgement just because they work at the same occupation. One may bring love and gentleness to her work, the other anger and irritation. One may be looking for vainglory and reputation, the other only self-effacing service. One will be taken, the other left, as one was taken aboard the ark for salvation, another left behind for destruction. The third parable is about the householder securing his house against dacoits. Jesus warns us to be alert and steadfast, never slacking in zeal for his work which calls for much endurance and suffering. Warning of his return like a thief in the night is a way of telling us: “be prepared.”

 Jesus certainly is not against eating and marrying, but he observes sadly that God has gone out of the lives of busy people who have become indifferent to God’s plan. How relevant his words are to our own generation.

          I need not repeat the story of the ant and the grasshopper; but the old fable has a lesson for us. We can choose whether to be the ant or the grasshopper. It’s good to dance and sing and enjoy life, but we not neglect important duties. Time is our most precious commodity. It is the one thing we can never hoard, purchase or reclaim. Do you have time on your hands? Lucky you! The best way to kill time is to work it to death. Acting in good time can save us a lot of worry afterwards. A few minutes or even seconds can spell the difference between life and death. Napoleon Bonaparte, after his great battle of Austerlitz, said, “The reason I defeated the Austrians is, they did not know the value of five minutes.”

          So the young devil in the story may have chosen the best course after all by planning to bluff mankind into believing that there is yet plenty of time. It would be much safer to listen to Paul’s words and follow his plan in the second reading: the time has come to rise from sleep and take off the works of darkness.

          Today’s Advent liturgy is an invitation, or perhaps, more accurately, a challenge to look at life and living it from a new perspective. The readings challenge us to look at time, to look at our world with the eyes of God, to realise that he has a plan, a vision for you, for me, for the whole world, and that for God a ‘a thousand years are like yesterday, come and gone, no more than a watch in the night.’ We hear something of that vision in those hope-filled words from the prophet Isaiah: “they will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles. Nation will not lift sword against nation, there will be no more training for war. Words of hope, indeed. Words, incidentally emblazoned on the walls of the United Nations building because they find an echo in the heart of every human being of good will.

PRAYER

Lord God, teach me how not to live for the pleasure of the moment, but enable me accept the challenge of the truth, to raise my mind to your divine way of thinking, in order that I may derive true strength and security from the promise of salvation that Jesus makes to us all who try, however imperfectly, to follow him.  Amen.

SOLITUDE, A GOOD FRIEND

Why solitude can be such a good friend

 Being alone can be a treasure if we learn how not to fear it.

At some point in our lives we have all experienced solitude. In certain circumstances, it could become particularly intense — for example, when our house grows silent at the end of a holiday, or when we are away from our family for the first time. We have all had our moments of solitude. Even children cannot escape it. Unless they’re sharing their room with a sibling, they may dread bedtime. But the experience of solitude is important so long as it is gradually introduced and adapted to each child, based on their age and temperament. 

The benefits of spending time alone

I once saw this written on a wall of a convent: “Too much solitude can kill you, but a little time alone is life sustaining.” While it is indispensable for children to learn how to be alone, it’s unthinkable for them to spend hours in front of a computer in an empty house every time they get back from school.

We gradually learn how to deal with solitude, and it is a tough experience but does us good. Even if we fear it, to different degrees, we all need to spend some time alone since our spirituality cannot be cultivated without some level of solitude and silence. If it is not developed and we keep leading superficial lives, we won’t be able to fully become ourselves and establish a genuine form of communications with others. This in turn will inevitably make our relationships shallow. And naturally, will we not be able to cultivate our relationship with God either. So, a little solitude is indispensable if we wish to reach the inner spiritual peace where a soul can meditate in silence. It’s a place where God dwells and where we can always find Him if we also choose to reside there. 

Different kinds of solitude

The solitude of a lonely person is terrible, and the silence of the one who has purposely withdrawn into an “ivory tower” is proud.

But the solitude of a hermit left alone with God is fruitful, as is that of an elderly woman whose days are filled with prayer, or that of a musician or an artist who withdraws to create a masterpiece deep inside his heart. It’s not that solitude in itself is good (or bad), it’s what people do with it and what they’re able to discover.

How does one master solitude?

GettyImages

To master solitude, we should first get used to it. We cannot master something we’re trying to avoid. It’s a vicious cycle — the more we do to avoid and reject solitude, the more we fear being left alone. 

To begin enjoying it, we need to fill our solitude with all the wealth we keep deep inside us. To become aware of this wealth, we need to spend some time alone. It is only by jumping into the pool that we can ever learn how to swim – it is only in experiencing solitude that we can learn how to master it.

Let us see to it that the lives of our children contain these “empty” time slots, too — without activities, television, and friends, even if they seem bored or lost in daydreams. Otherwise, accustomed to running from one activity to the next, they risk learning how to fear solitude instead of discovering what a friend it can be.

THIEF TAKES PARADISE

Jesus, Remember Me: A Thief Takes Paradise, the Reign of Christ the King

Claire Dwyer

Sunday, Nov. 24, is the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Mass readings: 2 Samuel 5:1-3; Psalm 122:1-2; 3-4; 4-5; Colossians 1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43.

While the world has had its holiday decorations up for weeks, the Church rightly sets her calendar by the liturgy, which is just now closing out Ordinary Time with a triumphant Solemnity of the King of the Universe, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

We should be awed from the implications of this day: Over all of creation, Jesus Christ reigns, enthroned on high, for all of eternity. The war has been won. Death is defeated, and we have been delivered “from the power of darkness.” All is subject to Christ the King.

Not all may recognize yet “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11); but that is where we come in — to proclaim this truth and to seek to reconcile all things to him is how we will work out our own salvation.

This week’s Liturgy of the Word opens with the great warrior king of Israel, David. It’s been many tumultuous years since Samuel anointed the boy David, and now, finally, the elders come to make a covenant with David and anoint him as king over all Israel.

In the second reading, Paul paints a glorious picture of our reigning King, firstborn of all creation and the firstborn of the dead, who has won redemption and the forgiveness of our sins. This reconciliation came at a great price: “the blood of the cross.”

Which is where the Gospel takes us, to the terrible scene of Calvary, as Jesus is intentionally hung between two thieves as if to mock him further — and, unknowingly, his tormentors have created a dress rehearsal for the Final Judgment. Soonto-be beatified Fulton Sheen, in Life of Christ, paints the scene: “The Judge was in the centre, and the two divisions of humanity on either side: the saved and the lost, the sheep and the goats. When He would come in glory to judge all men, the Cross would be with Him then, too, but as a badge of honour, not shame.”

One thief rejects the salvation that even now is his for the taking, which is tragic; because it is never too late, while we live, to take the mercy offered from the cross.

The penitent thief, in contrast, places his hope in that mercy and throws himself upon it like Saul on his sword: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” As Archbishop Sheen points out, a thief is the first to “steal” paradise. “It was the thief’s last prayer, perhaps even his first. He knocked once, sought once, asked once, dared everything and found everything. When even the disciples were doubting and only one was present at the Cross, the thief owned and acknowledged him as Saviour.”

How stunning is this, that our Sovereign Lord Jesus, “the image of the invisible God,” ruler of the universe, would welcome a crucified thief to be the first to walk with him in paradise, as Adam had in the “cool of the day,” and that this same invitation is delivered to us in each Mass as his body is broken for us.

Remember us, Lord, when you come into your Kingdom.

DISMAS THE GOOD THIEF

Dismas and His Opposites

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. These words of Saint Dismas, the Good Thief, saved in his last hours on a cross, resound as a perfect acknowledgment of Christ as King. Their power becomes more evident when contrasted with the words of others at that moment. At Calvary, there are three other reactions to the Crucified One. They come from Dismas’s opposites and reveal the attitudes that always oppose Christ the King.

First, the rulers. [They] sneered at Jesus and said, “He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God.” These are not pagans or unbelievers but Israel’s own religious leaders. These are the men who awaited their King, anticipated His coming, and desired His rule. But, as comes to be clear, they did so on their own terms. Jesus of Nazareth did not meet their requirements for kingship. He comes not on a warhorse to impose a kingdom, but humble, and mounted on an ass. (Mt 21:5) He comes not to judge but to seek and to save what was lost (Lk 19:10), to call not the righteous but sinners. (cf. Lk 5:32)

Second, the Roman soldiers. [They] jeered at him. As they approached to offer him wine they called out, “If you are King of the Jews, save yourself.” The great genius of the Romans was that they tolerated the religion of their subjects. Of course, that tolerance was cynical and lasted only as long as the people kept the gods in the proper place and their religion to themselves. Faith was tolerable only when kept private or confined to certain areas and spheres of life. It became intolerable when it made public claims. For Him to be executed, Jesus had to be presented as a political threat to Roman rule. Religion must be kept in its place.

Third, the bad thief: [O]one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.” You would think that he would remain silent, if only to hedge his bets against impending judgment. But he is unrepentant. In the midst of his suffering, he lashes out at God rather than acknowledge his sins and ask forgiveness. Even in his agony, he prefers his own will to that of Christ the King.

These reactions do not remain solely in the past. We see them throughout history – in every rejection of revelation, persecution of the faithful, and refusal to repent. More to the point, they continue in us. Each rejection of Christ the King can be found, at one time or another, within us.

We at times resemble Israel’s religious leaders: we want God, but on our own terms. We long for His coming and cry out for His help . . . but then resent His intrusion and the challenges He presents. We want a king, to be sure. In fact, we know exactly how he should behave.

At other times we act like the Romans. We allow God in our lives, as part of our lives, but not to rule our lives. We are always drawing a line He cannot cross. We forbid Him to have any say in (choose one or more) politics, economics, sex, entertainment, etc. We are forever declaring to Him, “Thus far and no further!”

As a society, we have restricted Christ to private life. We have accepted the error that faith is a strictly private matter. Out of fear of looking different or of offending, we forbid Him access to our broader life. Whatever the case, we claim the right to be one thing privately and another publicly. Of course, this can’t last. We inevitably privatize our faith so much that we ourselves no longer believe it.

In fact, the Solemnity of Christ the King is a feast established to combat this privatization. The feast is not, as might be reasonably presumed, a vestige of the Middle Ages when kingship was more familiar. It was established by Pius XI in 1925, precisely to emphasize the public reign of Christ the King and combat the increasing privatization of religion.

Finally, we at times behave like the impenitent thief. We demand that the King do our bidding, that He save us without any repentance on our part. Rather than conform ourselves to the truth, we rail against Him Who is the Truth. More often than not this is just petulant and childish. But in the final hour, it’s tragic.

In stark contrast to the sneerers, jeerers, and revilers is Dismas. His dying prayer says it all: Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Unlike the religious leaders, he does not dictate the conditions of kingship; he is not ashamed to have a crucified King. This is one salutary effect of suffering: you stop dictating the terms of your own salvation.

Unlike the Romans, Dismas sets no limit on Christ’s authority. He sees that Jesus has not only a kingdom but power over death. He gives Him free reign. Here is another benefit suffering brings: you stop confining God’s power.

Most of all, unlike the thief opposite him, Dismas repents. Such repentance represents the full acceptance of Christ as King, giving Him authority over what is most painful and shameful.

Saint Dismas gives us the first example of devotion to Christ the King. It means to receive Him as He is, not as we would have Him; to give Him authority over everything, not just a portion; and most of all to surrender our wills to Him Who alone perfects them.

DEATH WITHOUT FEAR

DEATH WITHOUT FEAR

Truth be told, we can’t really be that bothered by the idea of being dead, because - well - we’ll be dead. The idea of dying, however, can shake us. It can unsettle our minds since we’ll have to walk through that process at some point and we’re not really sure how that’s going to happen, whether it will be painful, and who we might leave behind.

The stark reality of death can oftentimes scare us and lead us to see death as a terrible evil that must be avoided at all costs. The idea of losing our autonomy, which is the control we have over our own lives, can make us profoundly agitated and existentially restless. The idea of permanently letting go of everything we have and of everyone we love can profoundly disturb us.

Our dying process will be the most extreme time of transition we’ll have as human beings. Our beliefs on the afterlife will shape and mould most of our reactions at the thought of moving from one well- known stage of life into a veiled, mysterious one.

As Christians, we place our trust in the Lord Jesus, and we see that death has lost its sting. We hope in the resurrection and such a light destroys our fears. In Jesus Christ, we’re able to see the full reality of human existence, during and after this life.

In Christ, therefore, we see that our lives are a journey and death is a process. And while dying may be difficult, it leads us into eternal life. As such, believers understand that death is not an ultimate end or final goodbye.

By the power of the resurrection, death becomes a transition that only initiates a new phase of life, one that leads us from glory unto glory.

Our discipleship, with all its triumphs and failures throughout our lives, does not end in the dying process, but is empowered and intensified through it. As in life, so in death, we are called to cling to the Lord Jesus, truly risen from the dead, and give him all our fears and anxieties. In the dying process, we are especially called to be united to Jesus Christ.

In light of the resurrection, we see our dying process as the last gift that we can give to the Lord Jesus. As such, the Church walks with us and gives us helpful instructions to the various medical procedures and questions surrounding the process of dying.

Whether it’s the use of breathing tubes, the continuation of nutrition and hydration, or the use of pain medication and palliative care, the Church interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ on these matters and guides us so that we can die well and in the full abundance of his grace.

We are called, therefore, to give our dying process- and all the decisions surrounding it-to the Lord Jesus. Again, it is our last earthly gift to our loving Saviour.

In response to people who fearfully say, “I want to die with dignity,” the Church - echoing the teachings of Jesus Christ - confidently teaches us, “You will die with dignity. Nothing can take your dignity from you. In whatever way you die, and whatever might happen to you in the process, the God who created you and gave you your dignity will be the God who walks with you and gives you the strength to die a good death in his grace. You can trust him!”  

In the process of dying, we have to be aware of the influence of fear. Whether it’s a fear of diminished capacity, or losing our control, or being kept alive in ways we would not prefer, such fears can be matured, enlightened, and consoled by the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the sure guidance of the Church on how to die a holy death.

While death can be unsettling, it’s a part of life. The more we prepare for it, pray about it, and discuss the various possibilities surrounding it with loved ones, the more it becomes less fearful and a regular part of our lives.