Radical Claims

Advent 4A 2022 Homily

About two weeks ago the US Congress passed a law that codifies the modern understanding of marriage as being between any two people that want to declare themselves married. In the Congress there are about 140 publicly declared Catholic Congressman. Of those 140, only about 40 voted against this bill. So, something less than one-third of Catholics in that group were willing to defend their faith when it might cause them to be called radicals. The Catholic teaching on marriage is that it is the lifelong partnership between a man and a woman faithful to each other and open to life until death do them part. It is the sad reality these days that the Catholic definition of marriage is considered radical. Apparently it is too radical for two thirds of the Catholic Congressmen to defend.

Our faith is radical. If we are going to be truly Catholic Catholics, then we need to embrace the radical nature of what we claim. Today’s gospel includes one of the most radical claims that we make as Christians: that the eternal creator God humbled himself to come into his own creation and share our humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, born in the manger in Bethlehem and then raised in the remote village of Nazareth. No other religion claims that God became fully human and dwelt among us.

We have the period of Advent to prepare us to receive this radical truth that God loves us so much that he became like us, so that we could love him unafraid. Who is afraid of a little baby?

There is another period of preparation on the church calendar, and we call that period Lent. Lent is a time to prepare us for the other radical claim that we make as Christians: that God, who became man for us so that we could love him, allowed himself to be sacrificed on the Cross for our sins so that we could have a chance to return to the state of life for which we were made. We were made for love. We were made by love itself. We were made for communion with love. We were made for heaven. And, through the Cross, we have a chance to go to that place for which we were made. So the joy of Christmas cannot be fully understood apart from the deeper joy of Good Friday and the Easter resurrection.

As Catholic Christians, we claim that God became man out of love for us, and then took on himself all of our sins and died for us because he loves us. As truly Catholic Catholics, we are challenged to embrace these radical claims of our faith. And we are challenged to fight against the constant efforts of the forces of evil to dilute our faith, to soften it and make it more conventional. Our God, because he loved us, came down to dwell among us. But he remains God, completely other. And we remain his creation, made by him and made for him. As radical Christians, we need to embrace that reality. He loves us, but he is not like us. He is greater than us, and we should follow and obey him.

In today’s epistle, St. Paul describes himself as a slave of Jesus Christ. How many of those 140 Catholic Congressmen described themselves as slaves, especially slaves of Jesus Christ? Maybe 40. St. Paul is the great Apostle to the Gentiles, explaining that it is not necessary to become a good Jew in order to become a good Christian. That was a radical claim when he made it in the first decades after the death of Christ. But he persisted in holding on to that truth, and it was confirmed in the first ecumenical Council of the church in Jerusalem just a few years after the death of Jesus.

Our challenge as Advent wraps up and the Christmas season truly begins is to embrace the radicalism of our faith. The English word “radical” has for its root the Latin word for root. We need to strip away what has grown up around the root and return to that pure faith of the apostles. That pure faith starts with faith that God became man in the Incarnation and was born at Christmas. That pure faith continues with the claim that the God-man accepted death on the Cross to save us from sin and eternal death.

If we are willing to own and to defend these two root or radical claims of our faith, then we should have no problem with the secondary, or derivative, claims like the true definition of marriage. And in just a few minutes, we are going to make another radical claim of our faith: the real presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Polling suggests that about the same percentage of Catholics believe in the Real Presence as Congressmen defend the sanctity of Holy Matrimony. We must all commit ourselves to being faithful radicals, willing to endure confrontation and even persecution in defense of the truth of our faith.

Preparation for Justice

Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of God. In a couple of weeks, the readings will focus on the coming of God in the flesh to dwell among us in the Nativity of our Lord. But the readings today focus on preparing for when that same person comes in glory and justice at the end of time.

So I would like us today to focus on two key words: one is justice and the other is preparation.

We know that our Lord will come in justice on the day of judgment. And that can be an intimidating thought. We know in our moments of brutal honesty that we do not deserve eternal life in heaven, and that we only get it because of God’s love and his mercy. But do we appreciate how true justice cannot be separated from the same love that is at the heart of mercy? All the other virtues derive from the virtue of love. That means that there cannot be real justice without love. So let us focus on the love that is part of the day of judgment so that we can appreciate the beauty, the truth, and the goodness of the justice that will be dispensed on that day.

God made us in his image, and he made us for communion with him. It is his heart’s desire that he be our hearts’ desire. What he desires more than anything is for us to desire him more than anything. And because of the original sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, a lot of the time we do not desire God more than anything.

How God responded to that original sin reveals how much he loves us. He let Adam and Eve go. They had made their choice, and he let them go where their choice led. Most of us have made a choice that we soon regretted, and we regretted it deeply. I am sure that Adam and Eve quickly and deeply regretted their decision to follow Satan instead of following their creator.

God our Creator gave us in his image the freedom to choose. Adam and Eve chose poorly, but God respected that choice in his justice. He respects our choices today. That is the measure of his love for us; he loves us so much, he will let us walk away from him.

Most of us are here today in church because we don’t want to walk away from God, in fact, we want to return to God. We hear his voice, and we are responding. Because of our fallen nature, we don’t often respond the way we wish we would respond. Because our thinking is unclear, and because our choosing is somewhat corrupted, we make bad decisions. I know I do. But God loves us through those bad decisions. He loved Adam and Eve through their bad decision.

Now there are always consequences to decisions. And Adam and Eve were no different. The consequences of their decision were that they could no longer remain in the garden of Eden. But as they were leaving, they heard the promise that God would find a way to call them back. God promised to call them back into the relationship that He made them for. And he makes that promise to us. His justice is grounded in his love. He is coming in justice at the end of time, but he is coming in love to call his children home. The day of judgment for all who love Jesus will be a homecoming. Thursday was Thanksgiving, and many of us were in family homes surrounded by our relatives. So imagine the perfect Thanksgiving celebration, with all of the joys of family and none of the fights of family. For those who claim the name of Jesus, that’s what the day of judgment is going to be: a day of love and celebration and blessing.

Let us now consider our second word: preparation. Those of us who claim Christ as our king are in a special situation. We are in the world, but the kingdom of Christ to which we belong is ultimately beyond the world. Father Romano Guardini was a famous German priest in the 20th century, and in one of his meditations before Mass he wrote this:

Essentially a soldier, the Christian is always on the lookout. He has sharper ears, and he hears an undertone that others miss. He is never submerged in life, but keeps his head and shoulders clear of it, and his eyes free to look upward.
Romano Guardini

I think this is a great description of how we are supposed to live in this world without being “of” this world. We must always be preparing for life in the next world. And we have to be willing to behave this way even when we feel so alone. The power of the crowd cannot be overstated. Guys will do things in a crowd they would never do on their own. The Christian life means always doing the right thing even when everybody else is not only doing the wrong thing but trying to get you to do it with them. The Christian life is not for wimps.

And it’s understandable when we run out of strength. We are never alone; God is always inviting us and the devil is always tempting us. So it’s a lot of work to be as Father Guardini describes and to keep our ears sharp and our eyes bright. Father Guardini explains the consequences:

When this awareness and watchfulness disappear, Christian life loses its edge; it becomes dull and ponderous.

Without a posture of preparation, Christian life loses its edge. Without its edge, Christian life loses its heart. St. Paul in his letter to the Romans exhorts them this way: “You know the time; it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.” Whenever you’re doing something that requires concentration and you lose your edge, you frequently fall asleep. As Christians preparing for eternal life, we have to keep our edge.

Jesus in the gospel today reminds his disciples that there was no two-minute warning before the flood in the days of Noah. He says: “They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away. So will it be also at the coming of the son of man.”

We must commit to preparation because God’s love and God’s justice are linked. He loves us enough to keep inviting us to turn back and live his life in the world today. But he wants us to make our choice independently. Everybody rushes to get on the train when they know it’s the last train leaving the station that day. We will not be told things like that. So we must remain committed to a posture of preparation every day so that when the last day comes, he will recognize us as his sons and daughters. He will look on us with love on that day of justice, and we will look on him with love because we were prepared for his coming.

Incola Ego Sum

Incola ego sum, et apud te peregrinus. “Oh God, I am a stranger, and with you a wanderer.” This verse is from the end of Psalm 39, which was not our Psalm today, but it is an excellent way to begin the season of Advent.

Advent is about the coming of Christ. As we have been reading in the Scriptures for the past few weeks, he will come at the end of time in justice, when he will separate the sheep from the goats. He will gather unto himself those who love him, and those who do not love him he will cast into Gehenna. So Advent is a season to prepare ourselves for that moment at the end of time when Jesus comes in judgment.

Advent is also a season that prepares us for the coming of Christ in human form at Christmas. He came in mercy as a baby to share our human experience. Like us in every way except sin, he came as the Son of Man to take upon himself all our sins and redeem us. He, who is without sin, gave up his life so that we might die to sin.

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Watch

“My kingdom is not of this world.” Jesus said this to Pontius Pilate during his Passion, but Jesus is King and Lord of the universe. He will come, so be awake. He will come to destroy the creation that God willed into existence. But he won’t destroy us. We were made in God’s image, and our souls are eternal. When Creation is destroyed, we won’t be. It doesn’t end in nothingness for us. We will survive. Somewhere. Either in the bliss of God’s presence or the suffering agony of his absence. If you have been paying attention to the theme of the readings for the past eight or nine Sundays, you might be getting a little down, for we have had two solid months of “judgement Day is coming.”

As Advent begins, we are getting ready for the coming of Christ in the manger on Christmas night, but the lectionary is still talking about his second coming. In today’s Gospel we are warned to watch. I think why the Church spends so much of the year reminding us of the second coming is because the Devil spends all his time distracting us from thinking about it. Who spent this weekend shopping? Did Judgment Day pop into your head while you were online or at the mall? Probably not. If I hadn’t been preparing this homily, it probably would not have popped in mine.

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17 out of 100

When I was a freshman in college, I took Calculus II because in high school I had earned college credit for the first part of Calculus. And I was doing great in that class until we got to something called Taylor series. And for some reason, my brain hit a brick wall and I could not understand the what or the why of Taylor series. The professor gave us a test and gave us every advantage: it was an open-book, take-home, test that wasn’t due for a whole week. And I got a 17 out of 100 on that test. I just couldn’t do it on my own.

Our lives are in some ways an open-book, take-home, test. Our lives are a test for our eternal destiny. The test isn’t done until we receive our particular judgement at our death, and the grade is eternal life with God or eternal death without God. And the grim picture painted in the Old Testament seems to be that we will probably get no more than 17 out of 100 on our life-long test if we rely exclusively on our own talents and abilities. We simply are not good enough to earn Heaven on our own merits. Continue reading “17 out of 100” →

The King is Coming as an Infant

The_Embrace_of_Elizabeth_and_the_Virgin_Mary This is the fourth and last Sunday of the season of Advent. Advent is the season in the church year when we anticipate the coming of the King. The King is coming. We know he is coming in the flesh in just a few days, when he comes as a little baby born in a manger because there was no room at the inn. We know he is coming in all his glory at the end of time, when the world as we know it ceases to be, and he makes a new creation and gathers into his heavenly kingdom all who loved him. And we know he is coming each and every day in how we choose to live the days that he has given us.

Why did our king choose to come in the flesh in the way that he did? The Christmas story is perhaps the best-known story in all of human history. We have been reminded in the readings over the last few weeks and today that he was born in meek and humble circumstances. Our Advent season has been a season of waiting for the coming of the King. The history of the Hebrew people was one sustained experience of waiting for the coming of the King, the descendant of David whose rule would be everlasting, and whose kingdom would never end. Continue reading “The King is Coming as an Infant” →

Mary, the handmaid of the Lord

The Ark of the Covenant and the Temple of the Lord were important physical manifestations of the presence of Yahweh in the lives of the Israelites. God was the creator of everything, willing it into existence in the creation story by saying, “Let it be so.” Adam and Eve, the first human persons, were his greatest creation. They were conceived without sin, they were full of grace, they were made in his image and likeness. Only when they chose to follow the serpent did the fullness of God’s grace depart from them, and suddenly they were ashamed of their nakedness and had to leave the Garden of Eden.

Even as he evicted them from the Garden, God promised Adam and Eve – us – he would in time send someone to bring us home again. Much of the rest of the Old Testament is a story of humanity’s repeated efforts to live well without an intimate relationship with the God of our being. But God kept calling us. And we kept turning away from him. Continue reading “Mary, the handmaid of the Lord” →

Preparing for his coming

After two months of Gospel readings about the day of judgment at the end of time we are given in the readings today a picture of who it is that will judge us in the General Judgment. We had story after of story of a day of reckoning, and there was Gehenna and locked doors and wailing and grinding of teeth. Those readings did not seem to suggest that the Day of Judgment is going to be a good day. Yet this is the day we Christians look forward to expectantly. Why is that? That day will be great because we know who will judge us on that day.

Our judge is a loving judge, one who tells the prophet Isaiah to “speak tenderly to Jerusalem,” to tell her that “her guilt is expiated.” Jesus Christ, who will sit in judgment is Jesus Christ who died on the Cross to expiate our sins, our guilt. Our judge that day is also our Redeemer.

The day of judgment will be a day, as the Psalm sings today, when “kindness and truth shall meet” and where “justice and peace shall kiss.” Our God of Justice will acknowledge on that day the times we were kind and gentle with others. He will recognize on that day the times we stood firm for the unchanging Truth, which is God. He will commend us on that day for our willingness to stand for justice against the great and small tyrannies in our lives, and when we were the peace that stilled the stormy seas, the peace that surpasses our understanding.

Advent is the season of preparation for the Lord’s coming. On one level, we are preparing for that day that marks the end of time when, as St. Peter writes, “the heavens will be dissolved in flames and the elements melted by fire.” On another level, we are preparing for the way of the Lord, like John the Baptist a voice crying out in the desert. The reading from Isaiah describes this Lord for whom we wait: “Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom.”

That sounds like a Lord worth waiting for. Even an impatient fellow like me can wait for a Lord who “leads his sheep with care.” St. Peter reminds us that we cannot time the Lord’s arrival, for “the day of the Lord will come like a thief.” In his letter, St. Peter gives us a plan of action for this period of preparation before the Lord arrives.

According to the Apostle, we should be the kind of people who are “conducting ourselves in holiness and devotion.” The season of Advent is a time when we can recommit to that kind of life. That kind of life is hard to choose when all around us the world is getting and spending in the Christmas Shopping Season. It takes work to avoid the many mall criers calling us to consume things that will ultimately not satisfy us, but here in this place God is calling us to consume Him, and in so doing be consumed by Him and swept up into his embrace of love and peace where kindness and truth shall meet.

Here at the parish, we have many opportunities for prayerful preparation for the Incarnation, that enfleshment of God we are waiting for in this season of Advent. You may have noticed our Mass is more subdued, as we do not sing the Gloria during Advent, and we don’t use incense as much, or maybe just don’t use as much incense.

Next week we will have a great sequence of beautiful liturgies and services to support our community in its preparation for the coming of our Lord. I invite you to come next Sunday evening and let our choirs sing praise to God along with Bible readings that foretell of the Messiah in our annual Lessons and Carols service.

Next Monday, we will have many priests here for our Advent night of Confession and Reconciliation. Talk to these gentle priests and be reconciled with God, washed clean of your sins and become as pure as the lambs that wait in the manger for Jesus.

And then we will have two days to absorb the wisdom and devotion of a great priest, our very own Monsignor Lopez, as he leads our Advent parish mission.

All of these events are opportunities for us to receive great gifts of peace and wisdom. Perhaps we should use this coming week to take action and prepare ourselves for those events next week.

To prepare for Lessons and Carols this week, try to listen to something other than the secular Christmas tunes that are on every radio station and Spotify playlist.

To prepare for the sacrament of reconciliation, perhaps we should spend time in prayerful reflection of the choices we made that pulled us away from God. If you’re like me and your mind sometimes goes blank when you walk into the confessional, maybe you can write your stuff on a small scrap of paper and then afterward tear it into tiny pieces and throw it in the trashcan as a sign of accepting God’s absolution.

To prepare for Monsignor Lopez, try to be a bit more like him. When you say your prayers, don’t rush through them. Remain in silence for a minute after you’ve said your prayers. Simply share a warm smile and a kind word with the next person you meet.

Advent is a time of prayerful preparation for the coming of our God. We await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Let’s use the days ahead so we can be with him at the Incarnation, found without spot or blemish, and at peace.