THE LITURGICAL YEAR

Sermons, hymns, meditations and other musings to guide our annual pilgrim's progress through the liturgical year.

Sunday, December 29, 2019

A NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

A SERMON FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE CHRISTMAS OCTAVE


The last few days of 2019 are now ebbing away into history, and we have entered that strange limbo between last year and the new year of 2020 when we both look back at what has been (and possibly with a tinge of regret at what should have been) and then forward to what we hope will be.  We have no control over the past—it’s over and done with, it is what it is, and we cannot change it.  The future of course, is a different story, and much, though obviously not all of it lies within our power to shape as we will.  That’s why, at the start of every year, we make New Year’s resolutions… 

Here’s a quick resolution you can keep:  every morning, spare a quick glance at least to your liturgical wall calendar.  As you know, to help us keep our sense of the Church’s spirit, the Guild of St. Peter ad Vincula has published a liturgical calendar.  It’s available still at the back of the church, and I encourage you all to buy at least one and keep it prominently displayed in your home.  It should be the family’s quick and easy reference for every day of the year, answering questions that we really ought to be asking, but alas so seldom do.  “What’s today’s feast day?” for instance, so that you can honour the saint of the day as he or she deserves.  Or why not take that daily morning look at the calendar to see if, by chance, today might be a fast day or a holyday of obligation that you’ve forgotten about?  That’s one quick and easy resolution I would encourage you to make.  But let’s go beyond the superficial, and come up with something a bit more meaningful, something that should be essential even, in your lives.  

Before we leave the subject of our calendar altogether, I wanted to mention my favorite image from the 2019 calendar, the one from December.  Perhaps you’ve seen it on your wall, but haven’t realized the significance of it.  You see, I try whenever possible to choose images that have a particular relevance to the theme of the month, or even to a particular feast day.  Our December image this year shows the ancient cathedral of Canterbury in England, its rooftops covered with the cold winter snow.  And why Canterbury?  Because of today’s feast day.  December 29th this year falls on the Sunday after Christmas—today.  It is the feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury, otherwise known as St. Thomas à Becket, Bishop and Martyr.  He was the Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of King Henry II, and was martyred inside Canterbury Cathedral on this very day in the year 1170.


Rather than take up our precious time here this morning, I’ve included the story of St. Thomas Becket more fully in today’s Bulletin.  If you haven’t read it yet, please take the time at some point today to get to know a little more about him, and particularly the way he died.  I think it might help us have the right spirit when we make our New Year’s resolutions in time for Tuesday night.  We try so hard to think up things we want to do—stop smoking, lose weight, not spend so much money online, be more obedient to our parents, and so on.  But there’s one resolution and only one that makes any real, spiritual sense for us.  It is this resolution above all others that I’d like to encourage you to make this New Year’s Eve, and commit to it with all your heart and soul.   It is simply this—to follow the example of St. Thomas Becket and place God above all, giving the highest priority in our lives not to our friends, our employers, not even our family and their needs, but to God and our duties and obligations we owe him alone.  If we do this, we’ll find that all those other things we want for ourselves, all those things that have some natural importance in our lives, will fall into place. 

If you make this resolution and really commit to it, don’t be afraid of the consequences.  And yes, you may find that by doing so you’ll encounter a few unintended, perhaps even unwanted effects in your personal life.  But don’t worry about that—you can be sure that if you make God First at all times, it’s a resolution you will not live to regret, especially as you approach your last days on earth.  Look at our saint today, St. Thomas Becket, for example.  By maintaining supreme allegiance to the Creator, he could no longer tolerate the anti-religious behavior of the King, and that, of course, spelled trouble for Thomas.  But what of that?  A violent death, yes, but a glorious death—martyrdom, in fact—and an eternity of triumphant joy in heaven.  Was that terrible death in the cathedral such a hard price to pay for this, his ultimate reward?

So whatever the consequences, remember that everything does eventually fall into place.  And if something falls into a place that you don’t like, remember that it’s a place that God wants it to be in, even if we don’t.  Let’s take just one example.  And it is just one, but it’s very common today and I doubt there are many parents here who haven’t encountered it in their own lives.  Here’s the deal—when it calls for a little tough love with your teenage kids, remind yourself that their little acts of rebellion against you are really just a part of their battle between them and their own fallen nature, rather than against you, and even less so against their God.  It’s part of growing up.  That’s why it’s so common and exists in almost every family.  Your job is to provide the firm hand they need to help them get past these little battles and temptations.  Your job is to get them to heaven.  But if you give in to their sloth, their lack of faith, their refusal to go to Mass on Sunday, their sinful lifestyle, or whatever it might be, you’re not going to help them get to heaven.  Yielding to their whims isn’t going to help you either—your prime duty as a parent is make sure as best you can that they do get to heaven.  So simply, quietly, but firmly and with true charity, remind them that as long as they live under your roof they must obey your rules.  And of course, make sure your rules are based on the Ten Commandments, so that by obeying you, they’re obeying God.  Once they’re eighteen and they flex their muscles of independence, it’s even easier for you—“You don’t want to obey the rules of the house, well, there’s the door!”  You may feel guilty, you may feel uncharitable, but actually, you are performing your duty to God.  Remember St. Thomas Becket, and ask yourself why on earth you would give priority to a rebellious teenager over the great High God!

Kids aren’t really bad, for the most part.  They’re simply growing up as God intended them to, becoming more and more independent, as they need to be in life.  All the more reason why you must instill in them the rock-solid belief that independence doesn’t mean “doing whatever they want.”  That’s the devil’s code, as we all know, and their free will must be grounded on loving God first and above all, in other words, on keeping the commandments.

Like I said, this is just one example, but it’s one you can apply anywhere—to the workplace and the relationship between employer and employee, to school and the relationship between teachers and students, even to friends whose lifestyle is so sinful that perhaps you can’t attend their wedding, or visit their homes.  All of this is called “tough love.”    It’s the “God First” principle in action.  And it’s one I’d like you to consider adopting and committing to, as we venture into the New Year.  

This tough love may be a big step forward in your spiritual life.  Just remember that no matter how tough it might be, it is at the same time truly Love.  When they prepared St. Thomas Becket’s body for burial, they found that he was wearing a hairshirt under his episcopal garments.  His love for God was such that he applied this tough love even on himself.  And that, of course, is the ultimate tough love, which eventually we too must apply to our own life.  We should dwell on that hairshirt, that nasty, itchy, scratchy, but voluntary penance that was always rubbing against his skin.  It’s a little-known fact about Saint Thomas Becket, and yet it says it all.  Let’s pray that the light of Christ illuminate the darkness of our ill-conceived tolerance not only of the faults of others, but especially of our own.  Let us be enlightened by a sense of horror at how far we really are from being holy, and by a renewed fire within us to spend the future trying to catch up.  By the time this sermon is over, the future will have begun, so let’s waste no more time.  You want to make a New Year’s Resolution?  Here you have it.  Go forth and make the year 2020 the holiest of your life so far.  Put God First. 

A MEDDLESOME PRIEST

A MESSAGE FOR THE FEAST OF ST. THOMAS BECKET


Today’s Sunday within the Christmas Octave this year falls on the feast of St. Thomas, the Archbishop of Canterbury, better known as Saint Thomas Becket, who was murdered on this day in his cathedral.  In one sense, it’s kind of a sad story, the gradual erosion of a great friendship between the English King Henry and Thomas.  In their youth they had been inseparable, together in their hunting, their feasting and even their womanizing.  We should remember, all saints were once sinners, and all sinners have the potential to become saints.  As such, we who are indeed sinners, may take our inspiration from St. Thomas of Canterbury, who ended up putting God first, and giving up his sinful life.  

King Henry, however, was less willing to give up his selfish ways.  In an effort to ensure every effort was being made to enforce the king’s sources of revenue, he decided to appoint his good friend Thomas to the post of Chancellor of England, sure that he could be relied upon to carry out his royal wishes.  Thomas thus became Chancellor in 1155, and at first continued to exact taxes from all landowners, including churches and bishoprics.  However, a few years later in 1162, Thomas was nominated and then elected Archbishop of Canterbury, perhaps a surprising development for the king, as he didn’t think he was particularly religious and wasn’t even a cleric.  However, the Church wasted no time, ordaining him a priest on June 2 and then consecrating him a bishop the very next day.  King Henry was happy at first with Thomas’s appointment to England’s primatial see of Canterbury, no doubt hoping that he would continue to put the wishes of the royal government first rather than the Church.  However, it was at this time that Thomas the sinner changed his lifestyle to that of an ascetic, a holy man who observed the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  And that meant obedience to Rome.  It had become his prime duty to protect the rights of the Church, something that would inevitably lead to conflict with his old friend, the King.

Thomas’s last days were fast approaching, thanks to a new-found commitment to his supreme duty to God.  His one-time friend, King Henry, grew more and more frustrated, and around Christmas time in the year 1170, is said to have exclaimed in the presence of some of his loyal knights, those fateful words, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”  With this, four of his knights set off for Canterbury.

They arrived there in the late afternoon of December 29th.  The holy Archbishop was vested in his cope and mitre, preparing to officiate at the Office of Vespers.  As he made his way to the High Altar, word came that the knights were outside the Cathedral armed to the teeth.  The other monks tried to bolt the doors of the church, but Becket said to them, "It is not right to make a fortress out of the house of prayer!" and ordered them to reopen the doors.  The four knights, with swords in their hands, ran in saying "Where is Thomas Becket, traitor to the King and country?" They found Becket in a spot near a door to the monastic cloister, and the stairs leading up into the cathedral, where the monks were chanting vespers.  Upon seeing them, Becket said, "I am no traitor and I am ready to die." One knight grabbed him and tried to pull him outside, but Becket grabbed onto a pillar and bowed his head to make peace with God.

The following is the account of eyewitness Edward Grim, who was wounded in the attack:

“The impious knight suddenly set upon him and shaved off the summit of his crown which the sacred chrism consecrated to God... Then, with another blow received on the head, he remained firm. But with the third the stricken martyr bent his knees and elbows, offering himself as a living sacrifice, saying in a low voice, "For the name of Jesus and the protection of the church I am ready to embrace death." But the third knight inflicted a grave wound on the fallen one; with this blow his crown, which was large, separated from his head so that the blood turned white from the brain yet no less did the brain turn red from the blood; it purpled the appearance of the church.  The fifth – not a knight but a cleric who had entered with the knights placed his foot on the neck of the holy priest and precious martyr and (it is horrible to say) scattered the brains with the blood across the floor, exclaiming to the rest, 'We can leave this place, knights, he will not get up again.”

Soon after, the faithful throughout Europe began venerating Becket as a saint, and on 21 February 1173—little more than two years after his death—he was canonized by Pope Alexander III.  On 12 July 1174, in the midst of the Revolt of 1173–74, Henry humbled himself with public penance at Becket's tomb, which became one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in England.


Saturday, December 28, 2019

UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN

A SERMON FOR CHRISTMAS DAY


“Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.”  I was thinking the other day how little we know about the birth of history’s famous men.    Kings, presidents, great explorers and inventors, writers and artists, men renowned in their generation, whose names we remember and admire even today.  We may be quite familiar with their exploits and their works, and many of them are even famous for the way they died, but what do we know about the circumstances of their birth, or even their childhood?  The fact is, we usually don’t care to know or bother to remember, because quite simply, that part of their life just isn’t relevant to the deeds for which they are famous.

So why has God revealed so much about the birth of his only-begotten Son at Christmas?  Why did the evangelists St. Matthew and more especially St. Luke, record so much about the birth of Christ?  It would surely have been sufficient if the Gospels had begun with the baptism of our Lord in the River Jordan, and the start of his earthly ministry at the age of thirty.  Or would it?

God doesn’t reveal his truths to us for no reason.  And there are many, many reasons why we have been given so much information about our Blessed Lord’s birth.  We can learn so much about our Saviour from the events surrounding his nativity in Bethlehem.  We witness his poverty and humility, as he is born in a stable, and at the same time, his royalty, born the descendant of the House of King David.  We behold his divinity, declared by the herald angels, and his humanity as he is wrapped in swaddling clothes to keep him warm.  He manifests himself first to his chosen people the Jews, when the shepherds come to adore him, and then to the Gentiles, Wise Men from the east who follow the star and bring him gifts.

All these things and more we learn from the Christmas story.  The Nativity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the stable at Bethlehem is a scene familiar to all Christians.  We meditate upon these events in the Third Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, and it is truly a joyful festival day unalloyed by sadness of any kind.  “Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King.”

For no matter how incongruous it might sound, this newborn baby was born a king.  Kings are not usually born as king.  The normal procedure is that a king and queen have a baby boy, who spends his early years as a prince until his father, the king, dies.  At that point, and at that point only, does he become king.  But in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, his Father was the most High Almighty God, who was and is eternal and shall never die.  Thus, the Son of God was never a “king in waiting” but the living Heir, human and divine, born the King of Israel.

And so we have this apparent contrast between the idea of a high and mighty king on the one hand, a ruler and judge of his people, and this tiny newborn infant, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, the epitome of innocence, pure of soul and body, and so apparently indifferent to the world around him.  

God has reasons for presenting us with this paradoxical concept of an Infant King.  He is our King whom we revere and worship, our Judge whom we must fear, but at one and the same time he is a tiny baby whom we would cherish and protect and love.  Our Christmas carols provide some hints as to this mysterious contrast.  For example, in the carol “Hark, the herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King,” we find a most meaningful and consequential line in the  third verse, where we sing “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate Deity.”  Think about those words for a moment—"Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate Deity.”  It’s not just the kingship of God’s own Son hidden in the form of a little Child, it’s far more.  What we have in this little Child of Bethelehem is the Divinity itself hidden in the form of a human being.  And not just any human being, but a human in his most simple, most innocent, and most vulnerable form of all, that of a tiny baby.

The mystery of God made man, “the incarnate Deity”, is the very essence of the Christmas story.  It is the reason and purpose for which Christ was born, that he may take on human form so that he could suffer and die, while retaining his divine nature so that he could make the sufficient and infinite reparation for the sins of humanity.  God and man, it was the only possible way to reopen the gates of heaven after Adam’s Fall.  

With this in mind, we Christians should be quite open to the mystery of the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament.  If the Godhead can hide himself in the form of a little baby, then why not in the form of a tiny piece of unleavened bread?  Is it any more or less a miracle than the events of this wondrous day when God’s presence became visible for the first time in this world of sin?  “O Godhead hid, devoutly I adore thee.”  Adoro te devote, latens Deitas.   It’s a famous eucharistic hymn known to all of us, written by St. Thomas Aquinas for the feast of Corpus Christi.  We could equally sing it before the image of the Christ Child lying in the tabernacle of his manger.  Remember what a manger is.  It comes from the French word, manger, which means “to eat”, and it’s a trough or rack, a feeder used to contain food for the animals in the stable.  The Christ Child’s first home in this cold world was where animals take their food.

The Child who lies in the manger would grow to change water into wine at Cana, and wine into his Precious Blood at the Last Supper.  His flesh would become “food indeed,” he told his disciples, and he described himself as the Bread of Life, an unambiguous reference to the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  He was born in the House of Bread, which if you translate the words into Hebrew, are Beth Lehem, Bethlehem.  The manger where the animals fed was his first tabernacle, and he still dwells today in the tabernacles of our churches, his new House of Bread and our new Bethlehem, where we once again “Come to the Manger,” where all we faithful “Come and Adore Him, Christ the Lord.”  There is no essential difference between the Child in the Manger and the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.  They are one and the same, God divinely human.

It’s Christmas Day.  Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.  And this gift of a Saviour is a gift that keeps giving.  If you don’t believe me, come back to Mass next Sunday, every Sunday.  What we celebrate so very specially on this, Christ’s birth-day, it’s our joy to celebrate every day the Mass is said on our altars, where the Word is made flesh, and dwells amongst us.  

For now, blessed be this day on which it all began.  Let us kneel in awe before this mystery of our Redemption, and give Glory to God in the highest.  Come, all ye faithful, joyful, triumphant, and let us give thanks unto God for the gift of the Infant King.

Sunday, December 22, 2019

THE GRINCH THAT STOLE CHRISTMAS

A SERMON FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN ADVENT


Just a few days left now before the arrival of Christmas morning.  How do we feel about that?  Are we doubling our prayers, preparing our soul for the greatest gift that God has ever given to the world—the gift of a Redeemer?  Are we growing in excitement as the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph approach the little town of Bethlehem, there to present to the world and to us an Infant Saviour who will save our souls?  Does the thought of Christmas morning awaken in us the unparalleled joy of knowing that the Light of the World will be born to dispel the darkness of this world of sin?

I hope that this is the case.  However, pardon my cynicism.  It comes from a life of observing the way in which people actually do prepare for Christmas.  And I don’t just mean the non-believers, whose life is wrapped up in themselves and their own little world.  For them, Christmas means nothing more than an annual break from the dismal routine of life, a mix of nostalgia and materialism in which they stuff not only their stockings with trinkets, but their minds too with hollow memories of childhood—vague warm and fuzzy images of little Currier & Ives villages with sleigh bells ringing and the crunch of snow beneath their feet.  And are we any better?  What about us, as practicing Catholics?  So let’s take a quick break from the Christmas bustle, take a deep breath, and ask ourselves, “What about me?”

Is my chief concern at this time the approaching birth of the Saviour of the world?  Or am I so bogged down with last-minute shopping, decorating, celebrating, cooking, writing cards, wrapping gifts, travel plans, that there isn’t a minute left, not a second, to spare for what I should really be thinking about?  It’s sad we have to question ourselves like this, but I fear the answer in some cases may be even more sad.  In fact, if we’re honest with ourselves, don’t we all have to admit that the Grinch has stolen our Christmas?

The honest and objective truth about Christmas is that it’s the greatest gift we’ve been given by Almighty God.  Christmas is a gift from God, the gift of his only-begotten Son.  What better gift could there ever possibly be?  To commemorate this wonderful gift, we too give Christmas presents, simple tokens of love that are supposed to remind us of the love God has for us.  Alas, God giveth, but the world taketh away.  The world robs us of this beautiful gift of Christmas.  No sooner do we begin the holidays, rejoicing in God for all his good gifts on the National Day of Thanksgiving, than the Grinch steps in to bring us down to earth, stealing our thoughts of God and replacing them with worldly, material distractions.  We wake up the morning after Thanksgiving, with thoughts of God banished from our minds.  As our alarm clock goes off, those thoughts are instantly invaded by the Grinch, reminding us that it’s Black Friday, time to go shopping, time to spend some money.  The Grinch takes away that motivation of love for God and neighbor, and replaces it with the ignoble incentive of taking advantage of the sales and saving a few dollars 

And off to the mall we go, blithely ignoring the Christmas carols that try to cover up the sound of the cash registers.  Besides, these days, they don’t even play real carols,  there’s no First Noel, no Silent Nightplaying in the streets, reminding us of God’s gift, the Christ Child.  Now all we hear is “Here comes Santa Claus,” with warnings that “We’d better watch out” in case “Grandma gets run over by a reindeer,” and other such nonsense.  Let’s make no mistake, the world is not interested in the coming of the Saviour, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.  Nor should we be surprised by that.  Why would the world be anything other than worldly?

It’s good to keep our Christmas traditions, especially as a family.  Decorating the Christmas tree, cooking the turkey, sitting round the log fire and watching “It’s a Wonderful Life,”—however you choose to celebrate the holiday.  Even silly secular Christmas songs have their place.  But please, let’s remember that these customs are meant to enhance the holiday, not to re-place what is the essence of Christmas, that Christ is born of the most pure Virgin Mary.  

So as we sit, raging in our cars as we try to find a parking place at the mall, let’s use the experience to remember Mary and Joseph trying to find room at the inn.  As we climb our ladders in the piercing cold to hang lights from our roof, let’s remember how St. Joseph cleaned out the stable as best he could, turning it into a palace for the newborn King.  And as we rack our brains to think up gifts for people we barely know who couldn’t care less, let’s spare a thought for the poor Christ Child, whose gift of salvation would be spurned and rejected by so many.  In other words, just as the Grinch tries to take away our Christmas by replacing it with the material, let’s use those material distractions for our own sanctification, twisting them around back to God and against the world, all the better to remind us of the things of our salvation.  In this spirit, this holy Christmas spirit, we will find ourselves as ready as we can be for the big day.

Let us turn our eyes to the bright night sky, as three wise men once did in the East.  Set our sights on the stars, and then past them to the infinite heaven beyond.  Imagine the descent of the holy herald angels over Bethlehem, coming to announce with great joy the birth of the Messiah.  And then, on Christmas Day, be ready to give our Christmas gift to God.  Be ready to join those angels in singing out in our hearts our Gloria in excelsis Deo.  Give “Glory to God in the Highest” for our Redemption is nigh.  And in return, we will receive our own, our greatest, Christmas gift from God, the gift of Peace on Earth to Men of Good Will.

LONG AGO, PROPHETS KNEW

A HYMN FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN ADVENT


By Rev. F. Pratt Green

Long ago, prophets knew
Christ would come, born a Jew.
Come to make all things new;
Bear his People's burden,
Freely love and pardon.
Ring, bells, ring, ring, ring!
Sing, choirs, sing, sing, sing!
When he comes,
When he comes,
Who will make him welcome?

God in time, God in man,
This is God's timeless plan:
He will come, as a man,
Born himself of woman,
God divinely human.
Ring, bells, ring, ring, ring!
Sing, choirs, sing, sing, sing!
When he comes,
When he comes,
Who will make him welcome?

Mary, hail! Though afraid;
She believed, she obeyed.
In her womb God is laid;
Till the time expected
Nurtured and protected.
Ring, bells, ring, ring, ring!
Sing, choirs, sing, sing, sing!
When he comes,
When he comes,
Who will make him welcome?

Journey ends! Where afar
Bethlem shines, like a star,
Stable door stands ajar.
Unborn Son of Mary,
Saviour, do not tarry!
Ring, bells, ring, ring, ring!
Sing, choirs, sing, sing, sing!
Jesus comes!
Jesus comes!
We will make him welcome!

JUDGE NOTHING BEFORE THE TIME

A REFLECTION FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN ADVENT


I was driving around the evening streets of Cincinnati on Thursday, admiring all the Christmas lights and decorations, Christmas trees in all the windows, all brightly lit with colors glowing and lighting up the night.  And with all this light, it’s hard to remember that Advent is actually a time of darkness.

It’s not meant to be the kind of darkness that brings despair.  On the contrary, it’s the darkness before the dawn, a time of hope that soon a Saviour shall be born, and that the Light of the World will dwell among men, dispelling that darkness and giving light to mankind.

In today’s Epistle, St. Paul reminds us that in times of darkness we must not wander blindly about, but must wait for the light to illuminate and dispel the darkness.  Then and only then may we see our way to performing our tasks.  The particular task St. Paul has in mind is that of judging others.  “Judge nothing,” he says, “before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts.”

Christmas is coming.  Unto us shall be born a Child, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.  He it is, who with his coming, did indeed bring to light the hidden things of darkness.  He did so with the light of his teaching, with the light of the sacraments he instituted, with the light of the Church he founded.  All this light, and yet today, it seems to be dimming once again.  If this be the case, it is not because, the light was insufficient to last longer than two thousand years.  It’s not a case of the battery having to be recharged.  If the light of faith is diminishing in this 21st century, surely it is because of the free will with which the Creator adorned us.  In other words, it isn’t God’s failure to create enough light.  On the contrary—“Let there be light!”  It was first thing God did when he created.  And when man first dared to switch off that light with his original sin, God’s response was to send his only-begotten Son to redeem his creation and to be once again the Light of the World.

When it comes to judging those who act today as though there were no God, who sin as though there were no heaven to hope for, nor hell to fear, we are certainly free to light a match in our darkness to see what they’re doing.  It’s for our own protection, sometimes possibly to allow us to correct the actions of others.  Parents may punish and reward their children, the courts may send people to prison, we judge all the time.  But let’s remember, we are viewing them only by the light of a matchstick.  We can never have enough light to illuminate the workings of their mind, to judge their motivations, their conscience, all the factors that contribute to their actions, good or bad.

Only the Light of the World is sufficient to allow us to see into people’s minds, to judge the sincerity with which they do unpleasant things, the love of God in their hearts as they fight temptation or repent their crimes.  Only the coming of Christ can possibly “make manifest the counsels of the hearts.”  So judge nothing before the Lord shall come in glory to judge both the quick and the dead.  Rejoice, the Lord is nigh…

Sunday, December 15, 2019

O WISDOM!

A SERMON FOR GAUDETE SUNDAY


The two chief periods of penance in the Church’s liturgical year are Advent and Lent.  During these times, no flowers are permitted on the altar, the organ remains silent, no marriages may be solemnized, and the Ember Days are commemorated with fasting and abstinence.  Each of the two seasons has its one day where our thoughts of penance are mitigated somewhat—the fourth Sunday in Lent, known as Laetare Sunday, and the third Sunday in Advent, Gaudete Sunday, which we celebrate today.  Both Laetare and Gaudete Sundays herald in a kind of “mini-season” that continue the spirit of Lent and Advent, and yet take that spirit to a new level, the better to prepare for the great feasts of Christmas and Easter.  In Lent, the Sunday after Laetare starts the season of Passiontide, while now in Advent, our Gaudete Sunday occurs just before the start of Sapientiatide.

Passiontide and Sapientiatide are, however, completely different in the turn they take towards the feasts they precede.  Passiontide moves us from thoughts of penance and self-improvement to focus exclusively on the Passion and Death of our Lord.  For before we are permitted to celebrate the Resurrection and the start of the Glorious Mysteries of our Redemption, our blessed Saviour must first endure all five of the Sorrowful Mysteries, all within the space of a single day.  We live our penance more fruitfully by keeping the sight of his suffering in our constant view.  

Sapientiatide is a very different story.  There are no Sorrowful Mysteries between our penances of Advent and the joys of Christmas, only the unrelenting progress towards the coming of our Salvation.  We begin our Advent with thoughts of our blessed Mother’s Annunciation, and the Word becoming flesh in her womb.  This theme is continued through the feast and octave of the Immaculate Conception, as we turn our mind to thoughts of sanctification through penance.  And now we enter the final phase of Advent, the season of Sapientiatide.

It’s a long name, “Sapientiatide”.  It takes its name from the first words of the antiphon at Vespers on the first night of the season, December 17thO Sapientia.  During Sapientiatide, the antiphon that is said before and after the Magnificat has special solemnity, and is sung standing rather than sitting.  There are seven days of Sapientiatide, and each antiphon announces an attribute of our divine Saviour who is to come.  On the first night, the Antiphon begins with the words O Sapientia, “O Wisdom, which camest out of the mouth of the Most High, and reachest from one end to another, mightily and sweetly ordering all things:  Come, and teach us the way of prudence.”  

Sapientia is the Latin word for Wisdom, not in the sense of the virtue of wisdom, but rather as representing Christ the Saviour, the perfection of divine wisdom, who comes forth “from the mouth of the Most High”, the Incarnate Word of God the Father.   On the following six nights we extol other attributes of the Redeemer, singing these Great ‘O” Antiphons in turn: O Adonai, O Root of Jesse, O Key of David, O Dayspring, O King of the nations, and finally on December 23rd, O Emmanuel.

Bear in mind that the name Emmanuel means “God with us”, and as if to emphasize the point, if we take the initial letters of all seven of the O Antiphons, starting with O Emmanuel and working backwards to O Sapientia, we find that they spell out the words “ERO CRAS” (“Tomorrow, I will come.”)  Indeed, the very next day after the final O Antiphon is sung, we find ourselves at Christmas Eve, when our blessed Lady and St. Joseph come to Bethlehem and, in a cold and simple stable, the Saviour of the world is born, a Saviour who is Christ the Lord, God with us, Emmanuel.

The Great O Antiphons have given rise to the well known carol, O come, O come, Emmanuel.  Each of its verses is a paraphrase of the corresponding Vespers antiphons for the seven days of Sapientiatide.  The words invite our Lord to come into this world, ransoming captive Israel from all his iniquities, and re-opening the gates of heaven.  We should sing this carol, not only in commemoration of this greatest of events, but also for our own souls, which like Israel, lies captive to the sins we can’t stop committing.  We want to be good, we try to be good, and yet we so often fail to be good.  The answer to our sincere repentance, the sorrow we bear for having offended God, who is infinitely good and deserving of all our love—the answer lies in the coming of Christ into our souls, Emmanuel, God with us.  This is the second “true meaning of Christmas”, the one which takes the primary, awe-inspiring mystery of “God dwelling amongst us” and applies it to our own lives in an efficacious and redemptive way.

The coming feast of Christmas is one of unparalleled joy in the Church’s year.  Joy that mankind has been redeemed, yes, to be sure.  But also the very personal joy that Christ is still with us, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, truly present in our souls when we worthily receive him in Holy Communion.  It reminds us of another carol, one we sing on Christmas Day.  It could be described as the Christmas O Antiphon, beginning with the words, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”  If we take its last verse and think of the words as representing the Christ Child not only in the manger, but also in the Divine Eucharist, we may look forward to that fullness of Christmas joy, of which today’s Gaudete Sunday is but a pale and fleeting presentiment:

How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is giv’n! 
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heav’n.
No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.

ON JORDAN'S BANK

A HYMN FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT


By Charles Coffin, 1676-1749;
Translated by John Chandler, 1806-1876 

1 On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry
Announces that the Lord is nigh.
Awake and harken, for he brings
Glad tidings of the King of kings!
2 Then cleansed be every life from sin:
Make straight the way for God within,
And let us all our hearts prepare
For Christ to come and enter there.

3 We hail thee as our Savior, Lord,
Our refuge and our great reward.
Without thy grace we waste away
Like flowers that wither and decay.
4 Stretch forth thy hand, our health restore,
And make us rise to fall no more.
O let thy face upon us shine
And fill the world with love divine.
5 All praise to thee, eternal Son,
Whose advent has our freedom won,
Whom with the Father we adore,
And Holy Spirit, evermore.  Amen.

THE RECORD OF JOHN

A REFLECTION FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT


“This is the record of John.” Thus begins today’s Gospel, “when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?”  Since the birth of our Lord, when wise men had come from the east, following a star to a humble stable in Bethlehem, the secular world had been in a state of unease.  The kings of the earth had consulted their scribes and priests, and had learned that a king was to be born in a little town called Bethlehem, one who would be the salvation of his people Israel.  For King Herod, the arrival of three foreign rulers in his kingdom, coming not to pay their respects to him, but bearing gifts and giving homage to a little child in a stable, this was an ominous portent, a threat to his rule, and something which must be stamped out.  As Psalm 2 prophesied, “The kings of the world rose up, and took counsel against the Lord and his Anointed.”

In spite of Herod’s best efforts to murder that Child, rumors continued to fly within the land of Judah.  And so, when a holy man appeared on the banks of the Jordan River, not only preaching penance and the hope of a Redeemer, but even going so far as to attack the wicked morals of Herod’s successor, a second King Herod who lived with his brother’s wife, people began to speculate exactly who this wild-looking man was.  They quickly figured out he was about the right age to have been born about the time those Three Kings had followed their star to Bethlehem, and that he was himself a descendant of the family of King David. The buzz began to grow—could this be the Messiah, the Christ?

And so the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?  And he confessed, and denied not, and said plainly, I am not the Christ.”  But they persisted in their questioning: “Art thou Elias… art thou the prophet?  And he answered, No. What was their motivation?  Was it because the Jews were seeking the truth about John the Baptist?  Or, more likely, was it to make sure he did not represent a threat to the status quo, the swamp of iniquity that Israel had become?  If so, Caiphas and the other high priests of the temple would work hand in hand with the evil king they despised, Herod, to make sure their deep state of veniality and exploitation would not be shaken.  It turned out that John was indeed the enemy of this deep state, and Herod would eventually have him arrested and executed.  But he was not THE enemy.  John observed to them that “there standeth one among you, whom ye know not.”  This man would be the one who would be the salvation that God had prepared before the face of all people, “to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of his people Israel.”

The events of our own times provide us with a secular parallel to these Biblical events of old, and it is in these verses of Scripture that we should turn to make sense of today’s happenings.  We must remember that as soon as the Deep State is disturbed and the Swamp threatened, the enemies of goodness and truth will rise up against what endangers their foul hold on power.  And we must equally bear in mind that while John the Baptist was not the Christ, nor can any president, no matter how righteous he may be, hold the title of Saviour.  That is reserved for the one who, at midnight in Bethlehem in the piercing cold, shall be born the Son of God, who soon will stand among us, and whom they know not.  Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

Sunday, December 8, 2019

BEFORE EVER THE EARTH WAS

A SERMON FOR THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

“Before ever the earth was, when there no depths, I was conceived.”  These words are taken from today’s Epistle for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Our Lady herself seems to be speaking to us, applying to herself the words of the eternal Wisdom.  She explains to us how her role in the story of our redemption has existed from all eternity, even before the sin of Adam, even before the creation of the world.  When Our Lady was conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, this was not the moment when Almighty God decreed to exempt her from all sin.  He had decreed this exemption long, long ago in the far reaches of eternity.  “I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.  When there were no depths, I was conceived.”  Conceived already in the mind of God.  Conceived by a Creator who wished to fill  this, his supreme Creation, with all his graces, to give her the extraordinary privilege of the Immaculate Conception, exempting her from all sin:  “Tota pulchra es, Maria, et macula originalis non est in te—Thou art all fair, O Mary, and there is no stain of original sin in thee.”
During the whole course of history preceding Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception, God was preparing for this great event which would play such an important part in our Redemption.  We see it during the entire history of the Old Testament—starting immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve, when God said to our first parents, "I will place an enmity between thee and the woman…..She shall crush thy head." Later, she was prefigured by the Ark of Noah, which alone escaped the general deluge uninjured; by the closed garden mentioned in the Canticle of Canticles, the enclosure of which nothing could violate; by the virtuous Esther, who by a solitary exception was not included in the decree of death issued against the entire Jewish race to which she belonged. Think of the story of Judith, another Image of Our Lady: she delivered the people of Israel from the hands of the wicked King Holofernes.  Judith cut off the king’s head, an act which was a precursor to the Immaculate Conception in which the Blessed Virgin crushed the head of Satan and saved the people of God.
During the Old Testament, and the whole course of history God wanted to prepare us for the coming of this most Holy Virgin.  She was continually present in God’s plan; and when the time was fulfilled when the Redemption should come to pass, she was conceived by her mother St. Anne, without any stain of original sin.  She was filled with the Holy Ghost, she was “full of grace” as the Angel Gabriel announced.  When something is full, there is no room for anything else.  Our Lady was full of grace.  There was no room for anything in her soul and body, in her whole being, other than grace.  No room for sin.  No room for the devil.  It is unthinkable that the devil could be present in the soul of the most Holy Virgin at the same time as the Holy Ghost, or in her body at the same time as the Son of God.  How could we ever dare think that any stain of sin could be present in one who was “full of grace”?
So full of grace was she that the Blessed Virgin Mary was not permitted to taste of the corruption of death.  At the moment God finally called her at the end of her life, she was taken up to heaven, body and soul.  Like the rest of God’s elect, her soul was to find its final rest in heaven.  But unlike the rest of God’s elect, her body too was assumed into heaven, never to be consumed by mortal decay, never to return into dust like the rest of us.  For it was a body that was never stained by sin, that was full of grace.
What lesson, then, must we draw from this history of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her Immaculate Conception?   Why did God grant to this particular young woman this extraordinary privilege?  If the Blessed Virgin Mary was Immaculate in her Conception it is because she was to be the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  It was because she was to be the Mother of God, she was to carry within herself, physically, Our Blessed Lord, the Son of God.  The living body of God was to be present in her womb, her blood was to flow through his veins, the very soul and divinity of the Creator were to dwell within her.  But do we too not receive this same Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Lord Jesus Christ every time we partake of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar?  Do we not receive the same Body, which was conceived by the Blessed Virgin Mary?  Like our Lady, we receive Him within us, in our bodies….in our souls.  If it was decreed that the Blessed Virgin Mary was to be immaculate in her conception, in order that she might receive the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ, His soul, His divinity, must we not also be immaculate, pure, without sin, full of grace? Of course we can never presume to be as full of grace as Our Lady was.  But we must strive to make sure that our souls are as immaculate as they can possibly be, by our prayers, by our repentance for our sins, by our dispositions, by our efforts, by the grace of God.  So that we might earn this privilege of receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion.  We must live without sin, we must struggle against anything that might tarnish our souls, so that Our Lord might say to our own soul: "Tota pulchra es, et macula non est in te -Thou art all fair, and there is no stain in thee." Let there be no stain in our souls so that we may worthily receive Our Lord Jesus Christ.
May Our Blessed Mother help us in this our firm resolve.  The Feast of the Immaculate Conception always falls during Advent.  Advent is the season of preparation.  God prepared Mary by giving her the unique privilege of being conceived without Original Sin.  And just as Our Lady was prepared by God for the coming of the Son of God in her womb, so let us prepare our souls for his coming.  Not just at Christmas, but today, and every day that we receive him in Holy Communion.  Advent is the season of Our Lady’s Expectation, and with her we should all look forward to Christ’s coming.    Prepare your heart.  Be as full of grace as you can be, be as immaculate as God gives you the grace to be.  Receive Our Lord into your hearts, and live always close to him as Our Lady did, so that when Christmas comes, we might ALL bring forth Our Blessed Lord in our thoughts, our words, and our deeds, that all men might see, by our example, their Redemption.

O SANCTISSIMA

A HYMN FOR THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION


Sicilian Melody, translated by Fr. J.M. Raker
O most holy one!
O most lowly one!
Dearest Virgin Maria!
Mother of fair love,
Home of the Spirit Dove,
Ora, ora pro nobis.
Help in sadness drear,
Port of gladness near,
Virgin Mother Maria!
In pity heeding,
Hear thou our pleading,
Ora, ora pro nobis.
Call we fearfully,
Sadly, tearfully,
Save us now, O Maria!
Let us not languish,
Heal thou our anguish,
Ora, ora pro nobis.
Mother, maiden fair,
Look with loving care,
Hear our prayer, O Maria!
Our sorrow feeling,
Send us thy healing,
Ora, ora pro nobis.

HEAR IINSTRUCTION, AND BE WISE!

A REFLECTION FOR THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

We think of our Blessed Lady as a character of the New Testament, and indeed, she does rightly belong there.  She is first mentioned by name in the first chapter of St. Luke—we hear this in today’s Gospel, when the Evangelist describes the sending of the Archangel Gabriel to a city of Galilee, Nazareth, “to a Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the Virgin’s name was Mary.

We should remember, however, that our Lady was born under the old covenant, and was probably in her teenage years when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her.  Her life did not begin with the first chapter of St. Luke, but several years before that.  Life, of course, does not begin at birth, but at conception, and it is this great event in man’s history that we celebrate today.  For this was a conception unlike any other.  It was an “immaculate” conception, a stainless conception.  The rest of us were conceived with the stain of original sin inherited from our first parents.  The Blessed Virgin Mary was not.  By an exceptional privilege from God, she was never sullied by any stain of sin, be it actual or original.  She was, as St. Gabriel declared, “full of grace.”

We should take the time to recall how this great privilege came about.  As part of God’s plan for the redemption of mankind, it was not some spontaneous idea to make her conception immaculate.  God’s plans have no beginning or cause, they simply have been from all eternity.  Our Lady was “conceived” in the mind of God from all eternity.  Today’s lesson from the Book of Proverbs expresses it as though in the words of our Lady herself, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.  I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.”

“When there were no depths, I was conceived.” This everlasting aspect of our Lady’s Immaculate Conception impresses upon us the tremendous weight and emphasis this singular event possesses.  It is an essential part of God’s plan of redemption.  No sooner had Adam and Eve committed their first, original sin, than God himself announced to Eve that the heel of her seed would crush the head of the serpent, defeating the Devil’s plan to bring about the total damnation of mankind.  Centuries later, at the very first instance of our Lady’s physical existence on this earth, this daughter of Eve immediately fulfilled her role, crushing Satan’s head beneath her feet by her exemption from the original sin with which the Evil One had tried to bring about man’s destruction. 

Little wonder then, that it is in our Lady that our greatest life lesson is to learned.  “Whoso findeth me,” she tells us, “findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord.”  So let us look to our heavenly Mother, let us hearken unto her and keep her ways, let us watch daily at her gates and wait the posts of her doors.  For she is the very gate of heaven itself, and if we keep our eyes firmly fixed on her who is full of grace, we will never wander far from the path to our common goal, the throne of her beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sunday, December 1, 2019

THINGS TO COME

A SERMON FOR ADVENT SUNDAY

As there was no Mass last week, we didn’t get to hear the Gospel for what was the Last Sunday after Pentecost.  It was all about the end of the world.  End of the Church’s Year, end of the world.  Seems appropriate, right?  And yet today, this Advent Sunday, the first Sunday of the Church’s annual liturgical cycle, the Gospel is once again all about the end of the world.  And that somehow strikes us as not quite so appropriate as it was last week.

But of course, the Church would never present us with something that is inappropriate.  Believe it or not, the end of the world is as suitable for Advent Sunday as it was for the Last Sunday after Pentecost.  When we think about the things of God, we are no longer in the realm of nature with its causes and effects, its beginnings and its endings.  We are in the world of the eternal, the mystical everlasting present, of God who had no cause—he was caused by nothing, he just always was.  He had no beginning and will have no end, the Alpha and the Omega.  So the liturgical cycle begins and ends with the same thoughts of the world’s end, last week seen through the eyes of dread, and this week through the eyes of hope.

Unlike God, we, his creatures, had a beginning.  We were made, out of dust, and thanks to the cooperation of our parents, we were born into this world.  One day we will die, we will be buried, and we will return to the dust from which we were made.  And yet, thanks to the love that God has for us, another very special Man was born into the world, a man who would enable us to share God’s eternity with him.  Unlike us, he was not made out of dust, nor, for that matter, was he made out of anything else.  This Man was himself God.  He was born to be the Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, and on this Advent Sunday we begin the period of preparation for his birth.  

Today, our thoughts turn in anticipation, to the wondrous approach of our Redemption.  The Redeemer was a man like us, born through the cooperation of his “parents,”—his Father, who was the Most High and Almighty God, and his mother, a simple maiden from a little village in Galilee, one of the most far-flung provinces of the Roman Empire.  But when God asked this humble girl to be his bride, she was without hesitation in her reply.  And that most mystical of conceptions occurred, when the Holy Ghost overshadowed her, and the Son of God was made incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary.  

This Child, like us, was born to die.  And die he did, most savagely, most brutally, at the hands of the men he had come to redeem.   And like us he was buried.  Crucified, dead, and buried.  But unlike us he did not return to dust, because he was never made of dust in the first place.  Instead, he rose from the dead, signaling to us that although our bodies may one day lie a-mouldering in the grave, our souls will rise to judgment and the eternal life we hope for.  And when heaven and earth shall pass away, our bodies too will rise again to join our souls in their everlasting reward.

These then, are our Advent thoughts this Sunday morning.  Thoughts of hope and anticipation at the coming of our Redeemer, thoughts of hope and anticipation at the Redemption he brings to our souls, thoughts of hope and anticipation at the final coming of Christ to judge the quick and the dead, the resurrection of the body and the live everlasting.  Amen.

LO! HE COMES WITH CLOUDS DESCENDING

A HYMN FOR ADVENT SUNDAY

By Charles Wesley, 1758
1 Lo! he comes with clouds descending,
once for favored sinners slain;
thousand, thousand saints attending
swell the triumph of his train.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
God appears on earth to reign.
2 Ev'ry eye shall now behold him,
robed in dreadful majesty;
those who set at naught and sold him,
pierced, and nailed him to the tree,
deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
shall the true Messiah see.
3 Ev'ry island, sea, and mountain,
heav'n and earth, shall flee away;
all who hate him must, confounded,
hear the trump proclaim the day:
Come to judgment! Come to judgment!
Come to judgment, come away!
4 Now Redemption, long expected,
see in solemn pomp appear!
All his saints, by man rejected,
now shall meet him in the air.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
See the day of God appear!
5 Yea, amen! let all adore thee,
high on thine eternal throne;
Savior, take the pow'r and glory,
claim the kingdom for thine own.
O come quickly, O come quickly;
alleluia! come, Lord, come.

AWAKE OUT OF SLEEP

A REFLECTION FOR ADVENT SUNDAY

Today is the liturgical New Year’s Day.  It is our annual jolt of reality, our alarm clock if you like, that is meant to wake us out of complacency and sinful lifestyles.  It is a time for renewing our resolutions to become better people, to resume the hard work needed to climb our path to salvation. 

Read the Epistle today, St. Paul summarizes it perfectly.  Remember, he’s writing to the Romans, the Christians of Rome who were in the very beginnings of their faith.  St. Paul is exhorting them to cease their pagan ways and become true Christians, ready to live and die for love of the Lord who saved their lost souls.  We need no reminders how the Christians of Rome ended up—persecuted by one emperor after another, fed to the lions in the Colosseum, crucified along the highways, burnt alive on their crosses to act as “street lamps” for the pagan rulers.  What are our struggles compared to theirs?

Today, our own alarm clock has disturbed our slumbering.  We have a choice, as we do every morning when we’re woken up to go to work.  We can either hit the snooze button and go back to sleep; or we can get out of bed, make the coffee, and begin our daily duties. On this Advent Sunday, our choices are similar.  Sure, we can ignore St. Paul’s reminder to “awake out of sleep,” turning a blind eye to the call for action—but if we do, the consequences will be worse than missing the bus, or getting fired.  Really, our only sane choice is to do our Christian duty and “cast off the works of darkness.. and put on the armour of light.”  We can resolve that from now forward, our lives will be according to the will and precepts of God, avoiding sin, occasions of sin, fighting the inevitable temptations, and persevering in the perfection of every virtue.  

As always, it’s our own free will that will determine our choice.  But know this, God most certainly is allowing us sufficient grace to succeed if we make the right choice.  And if we don’t, we’re on our own!  And always will be, forever.

Every Advent we get another chance to make and then persevere in the right decision.  We never know if this will be our last, so it’s not a good idea to put it off till next year!  For every person who lives a long and fruitful life, we hear of children and young people who are taken from this life by terrible diseases and accidents.  Please pray especially today for Emilee Giamanco, who is ten, and has been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer.  She has been given three to six months. 

On a happier note, say a prayer of thanksgiving for Mr. Eugene Berry, Sr. who celebrated his 100th birthday last week.  Mr. Berry is a parishioner of Our Lady of the Rosary in Monroe, Connecticut where I used to work.  I first met him when I visited his son, Fr. Eugene Berry, at their home back in 1979.  Mr. Berry served his country during World War II as a member of the United States Army as a Chaplain's Assistant and in the Medical Services unit in the United States and in Europe.  He later worked as a volunteer firefighter in the Mount Vernon Fire Department.  Please pray for his continued good health.