THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Matthew 5:1-12 Dear Friends, On this Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, we have the first gospel selectin of the next five Sundays. This is our invitation into the Sermon on the Mount. These are three chapters (5-7) in Matthew. They are a summary of the Gospel message. Today’s passage on the Beatitudes is a summary of the Sermon on the Mount.

The Beatitudes are not laws. They are a summons into the mystery of Jesus. He is the one who is truly blessed. The Beatitudes are a revelation of the depth and breadth of the mystery of love in our broken world that is Jesus Christ.

The Beatitudes are not some pious thought that has nothing to do with the ordinary life of a true follower of Christ. On the other hand, they are not some law that a sincere Christian must follow. They are an invitation to witness to the coming of the Kingdom that Jesus has proclaimed. They are an invitation into a deeper commitment to the gospel message. They are an expression of hope in midst of present suffering and loss on the way to the ultimate victory. They express an assurance of the final victory of the kingdom, a return to the Original Innocence.

The beatitudes are a call to a life of faith, a life of hope and a life of love in the footsteps of Jesus on the Road to Jerusalem. It is in the Crucifixion and Death that the final victory of our present agony and mortality will be overcome. This final and complete victory of the Beatitudes in the Risen Christ is the first stage of the final kingdom of God!

The Beatitudes are a description of Jesus. They are an invitation to cross the threshold into the mystery of God. They are a call to ponder the Word that is Jesus. This draws us to embrace God’s will. The next step for us is to translate this new wisdom into action. This is exactly what should do. We are called to connect our inner experience of God’s call and our life, the lived experience of the gospel.

Thomas Merton gives us a definition of prayer that highlights this linking between our prayer and life. He says, Prayer is yearning to be in the presence of God, a personal understanding of God’s Word, knowledge of God’s will and the capacity to hear and obey it.”

I would like to use one short example of this wisdom of the gospel world of the Beatitudes where the first are last and we need to lose our life to save it.

Jesus says, “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted”. (Mt 5:4) This, like all the Beatitudes, shatters our common sense perception of reality. Mourning and being comforted just do not fit together in our ordinary quest for happiness.

A deeper look at the mourning that Jesus is proclaiming begins to shed light on the reality. For Jesus, death is truly part of life. Death is part of a passage to a new life that is eternal. This destiny to eternal life has always been part of God’s plan for each of us.

Why do we mourn? The reason we mourn is because we love. Without love there is no need to mourn. Jesus is teaching us that in the end, love will win out. All our losses are in transition when we walk with Jesus. He invites us into a way and a life and a truth that guarantees the victory of love. He reveals that victory in the Resurrection. He gives us the presence of a new reality where every tear will be wiped away. That reality begins now when we love. In the end, that love will share the fullness of the victory that is the Risen Christ. We are much richer when we mourn because we love. When we are indifferent and have no need to mourn we operate in a selfishness that leads to death not life. Indeed, we can say in the fullness of truth and joy, “Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Mt 5: 4)

In similar fashion, all of the Beatitudes are an invitation into the upside down world of the gospel. They each reveal to us a deeper truth of the great reversal that is the coming of God’s kingdom where love will have the last word.

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THIRD SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Mt 4:12-23 

Dear Friends, Today we have our first selection from the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus introduces two themes that will be the foundation of his message throughout the year: the kingdom and the call.

It is helpful for us to remember the mentality of the people at the beginning of Jesus’s public life. For the Jews, at that time, Satan was in charge. His power for evil was seen in all of life: sickness, violence, injustice, poverty, division. Likewise, the oppressive Roman Empire was seen as an expression of this evil. Even the turbulence of nature was experienced as the display of Satan’s domination. The hope for the Messiah, and his gift of deliverance, was defined in relation to this overwhelming control of the demons’ devastating power.

Jesus enters the scene in the context of apparent helplessness in face of evil. The first words of his public ministry are: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Mt 4:17) In this declaration Jesus is telling us that the end of evil’s unchallenged reign of darkness and destruction is coming to an end. In his teaching, his miracles, and most of all, in his life and death, a new day is arriving. The battle of good and evil, the constant conflict of love and hatred, sickness and health are now in a final stage. Jesus’s proclamation of the kingdom is the beginning of the end. Justice and peace, like the mustard seed, will ultimately prevail in this transformation. Jesus will strike the final blow to death in his resurrection.

We are called to repent. We need to open our hearts to this changing reality in the humble acceptance of our sinfulness and God’s gracious call to new life.

In the story of the call of the first disciples, Jesus it telling us that we have a role in the coming of the kingdom. Our participation is critical to our salvation. The life of the faithful disciple of Christ is basically an open-hearted acceptance of God’s call to love that is the kingdom.

As we see the first disciples leaving their boats and apparently everything else, we have a model of our personal call to walk with Jesus. Like Peter and the others, the initial call is extremely important. Yet, the Gospel story will show us that the “call of Jesus” is a repeating event always expanding the test of our generosity. It is seemingly never finished. New horizons keep us unsettled in our search for security and stability. In Peter, we will have a mirror to see the depth of our commitment that continuously comes up short. His story is a marvelous example of the need for humility ever seeking release from personal deception, blindness and ignorance.

Jesus reveals the unyielding insistence of God. At the same time, we encounter an equally effective demonstration of God’s patience and mercy. In spite of our human ambivalence, the divine call gently persists. Our faithful walking with the Gospel of Matthew will help us to be faithful to the call of the kingdom this year.

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SECOND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

John 1:29-34 

Dear Friends, St. Matthew is our guide as we walk with Jesus in the beginning of Ordinary Time of our liturgical year. I always look forward to a new journey that is the same but always deeper, always more inviting as we grow more in our personal maturity and in faith.

Today, however, we start out with St. John, and not only St. John, but seemingly the same story we had last week about Jesus’ encounter with the Baptist. This has got to tell us that we need to dig deeper for the message from John’s version of the baptism to grasp how it connects to St. Matthew’s journey.

A note about St. John’s Gospel will be helpful. John was written many years after all the other Gospels. It has a deeper and more mature understanding of the identity of Jesus. That is one of the reasons that it is so different than the other Gospels.

John realized that Jesus was the fullest and most perfect revelation of who God is. In the person of Jesus, we have that glorious discovery.

To see Jesus is to see God. Today’s “I am” statement as the Lamb of God is the first of many. They all are revelations directly about God in the person of Jesus. This is one of many titles John gives to Jesus such as the Light of the World, the Living Water, the Bread of Life, the Life and the Resurrection and, of course, the Way, the Life and The Truth.

There is a second point in John that is helpful as we begin our endeavor with Matthew. It is the title, “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”. This title leads to a Messianic expectation in a different way. It was not the national liberator or the person of political and economic power. It was the beginning of a transformation of the idea of salvation and the nature of the Messiah that was much more meaningful and richer and universal than the common anticipation of the people in Jesus’s time. The seeds of the Suffering Servant Messiah were being sown right at the beginning.

We still struggle with the idea of a crucified Messiah rather than a “make me feel good Jesus” in our day also. We still are much more prone to see God as the answer to our problems than the God who will deliver us from our selfishness and call us to service and surrender on the road to Jerusalem with Jesus.

The message of today’s Gospel is clear and to the point. Jesus is the fullness of God’s revelation. He will lead us on the journey to salvation. We need to be faithful to his call because He has the answer to the deepest yearnings of the human heart.

As we begin the journey with St. Matthew we need to know the answer to our search is in an openness to God’s call in the person of His Son. Jesus is the Lamb of God leading us to the freedom of the Gospel message of Good News. This is why the Church invites us to begin with this passage at the beginning of John’s Gospel, a picture of Christ that is strong and forceful right from the very beginning.

Just as the disciples walked the dusty roads of Galilee, we, too, have the opportunity to walk once again with the Son of God made flesh who calls us out of darkness into the light.

The refrain of the Responsorial Psalm captures this Lamb of God image for us. Jesus is the servant, the Suffering Servant for a sinful, broken world. He has come to deliver us from the consequences of sin that is our heritage from Original Sin. We are called also to be servants in that cause of salvation. The Psalm has the answer for us: Here I am Lord; I come to do your will.

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THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

Matthew 3:13-17 

Dear Friends, St. Matthew begins the public life of Jesus with the Baptism of the Son of God. In spite of the Baptist’s reluctance to baptize, Jesus tells John to go along with this public ritual. God has a plan and the baptism fits into that divine scheme. God wants Jesus to share the human experience including the ritual of repentance that John was celebrating. By his desire to be baptized, Jesus was showing a desire to plunge into the human reality. This was a reality in the ongoing conflict of good and evil, sin and grace. Ultimately, the depth of this sharing will lead to his death on the Cross.

In the meanwhile, in Mathew’s Gospel we are called to walk with Jesus once again in our life and in our liturgical year. Though we know the story of Jesus, we will never know it well enough. Likewise, we need to bring the story into our experience, an experience that is always entering into new and demanding stages our our journey. St. Matthew presents Jesus as our guide.

In today’s gospel passage we hear the Father sharing with us his love for his beloved Son. We need to let him touch our heart and to enlighten our mind s we may be enlightened to share in this love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Slowly, this continuing encounter will draw us into the freedom of the truth and the new energy of love that only Jesus can give.

We are encouraged to remember our own baptism on this feast of Jesus’ Baptism. Our baptism is a sacred commitment we tend so often to forget. This remembrance should encourage us to recommit ourselves to walk with Jesus in his role as servant. The call of justice should inflame our hearts to be present to all the needs of our neighbor. It should shed a light on the demands of our life-giving relationships and responsibilities. It is a call to be a healer, a reconciler and a proclaimer of the Good News in imitation of Jesus.

Our baptism is an initiation to service as a gospel decree. Like Jesus, we are called to hear the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. Like Jesus we are called to reach out to those in need in our midst. Like Jesus, we are to be a healing presence in the midst of a very conflictual world. Like Jesus, we are to extend a welcoming hand and a welcoming heart to all. This is our baptism call. This is our sacred bond to Jesus that must continue to deepen by a life of gospel responsibility that is energized by dying to self.

Each week in the Matthew version of the Jesus story we will be called into the gradual realization that we are loved beyond our wildest dreams. This love, if freely embraced, will set us free to journey to our own Jerusalem where we can die so we can live and give life to all.

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EPIPHANY

Mt 2:1-12 

Dear Friends, The Infancy Narratives in Matthew in chapters one and two are called a miniature Gospel. They affirm three basic points of the Good News of salvation:

God intends salvation for all.

Jesus is the long-awaited Messianic Savior.

The mission is to the whole world with all the variations of languages cultures and races.

Jesus speaks to all people. This includes a message of wisdom directed to all the variables of age, stage of life, culture and individual gifts. All are welcome at the table of life and salvation for the Bread of Life. All are enlightened by the Light of the World.

The Epiphany is commonly known as the feast of the Three Kings. The scriptural text says nothing about the number three. It also makes no mention that they are kings nor anything about their racial makeup. These are various cultural expressions developed over the centuries. The Gospel message of the feast is about the universality of God’s saving grace and love. All peoples are invited to the heavenly banquet.

Cultural and folkloric expressions have always enriched the proclamation of the Gospel. Often, these additions have been enlightening to the basic message of salvation. On the other hand, the message also has been deeply distorted with the overlay of pietistic exaggerations and even contradictions rooted in national and cultural prejudices.

One of the major hopes of Vatican II was to get us back to the central Gospel message, to put Jesus at the center. One of the most important developments of that holy gathering occurred a decade later when Pope Paul VI gave us one of the all-time great papal documents on the topic of Evangelization. Paul VI pointed out that the message of the Gospel is never free of cultural expressions but that we have to work to always go beyond any particular cultural, national or racial expression that limits the Gospel.

Whether it is the St. Patrick’s Day Parade or the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Cristo Negro of Esquipulas, or the celebration of Our Lady of Lourdes they all have a pull to limit the Gospel to some partial view of one group or nation. Today’s feast of the Epiphany opens us up to universality. We are invited to include everyone. This is no small challenge.

At the center of today’s feast is not the three kings, but the elusive truth that all human beings share a common dignity and destiny. Every human being is called to union with God. There is a gospel inclusiveness that is a never ending challenge to the followers of Christ. Our great obstacle is the endless ways that we divide and degrade, often in the name of Jesus.

Jesus relentlessly proclaimed the dignity of women and children. Jesus constantly attacked sin, disease and ethnicity as barriers to the common unity of all. The Church and all other religions and ideologies have struggled mightily down through history even to this mornings news with this call to universal acceptance.

Today’s Gospel account of the Magi is much more than a lovely tale about strange visitors coming in an unexpected way to a poor family. The Magi are a symbol of the universality of salvation. This is a message of Good News that informs us that this child is the long-awaited Son of David, the promised ruler and savior of Israel. He will open the gift of salvation to all peoples. No one needs a visa or a green card or residential papers at the crib! All are welcome!

Today’s Gospel tells us we need not travel far to seek Jesus. Exotic places do not have to be part of our search. The Epiphany, the revelation of Jesus, is always taking place in the midst of our life. Jesus is all around us. We need only look with faith to embrace Him in our brothers and sisters especially the poor and needy among us.

Some five decades ago, Vatican II stated the truth of this feast in this insightful and beautiful declaration:

"The joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially those who are poor and afflicted in any way, are the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts."

Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965

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HOLY FAMILY

Mt2:13-5, 19-23 

Dear Friends. The fundamental message of our Christmas Season is that “the Word was made flesh” (Jn 1:14). The emphasis is not the baby story of Jesus. It is about the humanity unveiling the divinity, about grace and love entering a sinful world. The paradoxes of the Gospel penetrate the infancy narratives of Luke and Matthew. The divine becoming human exposes the incessant pull of birth and death, innocence and suffering. This is the light and the way to our journey in our search for God.

The stuff of every family, regardless of the vast cultural differences of the relations of spouses and that of parents to children, is found in the Holy Family. It was through the institution of the family that God chose to relate to humanity. Jesus learned to live and to love in his relations to Mary and Joseph. In spite of the shock and trial of being refugees and immigrants and the horror of unimaginable violence in the Holy Innocents, love opened a way for them.

Matthew had an additional message beyond the family relationship of the three. He intended to offer us a prologue of the Gospel. Jesus was to summarize in the dramatic story of his infancy the saving history of Israel. In this way Jesus was modeling and addressing the Messianic expectations of Israel.

There are three stories in Matthew’s Infancy narrative: the escape to Egypt, the massacre of the Holy Innocents and the return from Egypt to Nazareth. They all mirror a particular experience of the Chosen People and Moses.

Our faith calls us to accept Jesus as truly human. In this genuine humanity he grew as we all do. He was part of a family, a truly holy family. It was in the context of these family relations that Jesus learned who God intended him to be. In his role as Savior, Jesus learned how to respond to life and its many mysteries of good and evil in the warmth and acceptance of his loving parents, Mary and Joseph.

The message for us today is clear. No matter what the cultural variations and limits, the family is the school of love. All our fundamental relations and responsibilities are filtered through the basic foundation of a family experience that gives us our personal identity. Our task is to build on the good points and eliminate the elements of selfishness and entitlement to let love flow openly in spite of all the inherent conflicts. Privilege and power in family life have to give way to acceptance, service and humility if we expect to continue to create a joyful and meaningful life for all.

Joseph and Mary found themselves drenched in confusion and bewilderment. They were uprooted, impoverished, exiled, threatened and isolated all in a matter of weeks. All this was the result of a child promised to be a Savior. Only the deepest commitment of faith and trust allowed them to continue the struggle. They were not following script. They were living an apparent tragedy of monumental depth. We need to ponder the beauty of their simplicity and generosity in the midst of a situation that would challenge any our lives.

Today’s feast invites us into this mystery of darkness and pain. We are invited to bring our story of family struggles to find light and direction. The message was eventually clear to Mary and Joseph as it will be to us as we walk in faith. God is with us no matter how desperate the circumstances. “The Word was made flesh” and we are gifted with the best all gifts, Emmanuel! God is with us!

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CHIRISTMAS REFLECTION

As we celebrate this Christmas day the truth is that we have no place on earth and no individual that is free from the consequences of our first parents sin described in Genesis. It is so rampantly clear we need salvation. Wherever we look, be it far or near, we need peace. We need reconciliation. We need justice. We need mercy and compassion.

God knows this and he has sent his Son to engage us in the conversation that will bring this healing and this freedom. This is what we celebrate this Christmas day.

In the most consequential event in history, The Word has become Flesh. When we lose sight of the Child becoming one of us, we also miss another consequential point. We are called become one with the overwhelming Mystery that is Love, the God of Abraham. We are getting lost in the darkness on this great day of Light! Our celebration quickly fades into a passing illusion.

Putting Christ back into Christmas is surely the desire of most Christians. The intensity of the “Black Fridays” and “Cyber Mondays” seems to never let up. It is truly difficult to break through the message to “shop till you drop.” On a personal level, a great number of people try to balance the gross commercialism and the spiritual significance of the feast. An honest and intelligent reading of the Scriptures opens up the chasm between our celebrations and the great mystery of the feast. The truly radical message in Luke and Matthew of the birth of Christ go wildly beyond the catchy slogan, “Put Christ back into Christmas”. We are caught in a conundrum of the incredible cultural pressure of the commercial conquest of Christmas and the simple overwhelming act of love that is the Word made flesh.

We miss the point of Christmas if we do not open our eyes to the evil at our doorstep and in our heart. Christmas invites us to share in breaking the stranglehold of darkness by embracing the Light that is the Word become flesh. The often-hidden message is we are called not only to celebrate the Light. We need to become the Light to bring hope to our broken world by the way we live.

In our Christmas liturgies we use the Gospels of Luke, Matthew and John. We have created a sentimental and flowery description of the birth in Bethlehem that distorts Luke’s story. The commonly accepted version hides the uprooting, poverty and deep bewilderment of Mary and Joseph. How could God allow his Son to enter the world in such destitution?

Our “Silent Night” is the sentimental interpretation of the event that leaves little room for the true message of Luke, and practically no room for Matthew’s description of the story. Both evangelists are inviting us into the deepest and truest dimension of our reality, a graciousness that is always calling us out of the darkness into the light. The evangelists’ harsh and challenging description of the birth offers a suitable backdrop for God’s ultimate conversation with a broken humanity in the person of Jesus Christ.

An important point to remember is that both Matthew and Luke describe the birth of Jesus as an overture for the entire gospel message. The child in the manger is the beginning of a journey that leads to the Messiah on the Cross. God speaks to us in both events that are of the one reality: God’s saving love for us. A few cultures capture this profound truth by using the wood of the creche for the wood of the cross for their Good Friday celebration. Matthew’s story emphasizes the connection of Jesus’ birth to the Jewish longing for the Messiah as the Son of David. This Messiah in Matthew is Emmanuel, God with us. The reaction to the birth, seen in Herod’s effort to manipulate the Wise Men, prefigures all the intrigue and violence that will happen in the journey to Golgotha.

While Luke has a strong element of song and joy, the somber note in Matthew continues in the exile into Egypt and the killing of the Innocents. Mary’s infant avoids the slaughter by divine intervention only to face the Father’s will in the Garden.

Matthew’s version of the conflict of good and evil features the Holy Family and Herod. It looks back at Moses and the Pharaoh and looks forward to the saving death that concludes in the resurrection. The world Matthew is portraying in Jesus’ birth is a portrait of our world today with our unwelcome migrants and sexual slavery, gangs and abuse in families, grossly unjust distribution of wealth and vast investment in arms, the ever-present curse of racism all crystallized in Putin’s war and the horror of the people of Gaza. On top of it all, we hardly have a newscast that does not start out with the ravages of climate change.

From the moment of her call to be the Mother, Mary faced the irony of utter joy and wonder in her heart against the continual disorientation, confusion and total displacing of her plans and events in her daily life.

Both Matthew and Luke are addressing the question that pervades all the Gospels: What kind of Messiah will Jesus be?

Our cultural and commercial celebration of Christmas is filled with an answer that Jesus challenged at all times in his life, ministry and teachings and especially in his death and resurrection. He will not be a Messiah isolated from the poor and marginalized. He will not be draped in wealth and power. He will be a Messiah of sacrifice and service wrapped in swaddling clothes. The salvation Jesus offers as a suffering Messiah is not one of the easy fix. It is a salvation that calls for our purification and self-giving leading to a personal transformation and even the washing of the feet of our neighbor in need!

Luke’s message of hope and joy is more wonderous in the context of this full gospel message.

Just a few months before his death, Archbishop Romero captured the spiritual depth of Christmas. He said, “Today, we recall God’s reign is now in this world, and that Christ has inaugurated the fullness of time. Christ’s birth attests that God is now marching with us in history – that we are not alone, and that our aspiration for peace, for justice, for a reign of divine law, for something holy is far from earth’s realities. Nevertheless, we can hope for all these things, not because we human beings are able to construct that realm of holiness which God’s holy words proclaim but because the builder of a reign of justice, of love and peace is already in the midst of us.”

These words, on the Christmas message of hope, draw me into my Christmas story which I experienced a few years ago. I was at a police station filling a report on my stolen phone. Waiting for my report, a young mother and her six-month-old son sat next to me. I shared how crazy it was to lose your phone. She responded, “If you want to know about crazy, you need to have a violent and abusive husband.” In our conversation I learned she was an immigrant from a Muslim country only here two and a half years. Even though they both still live in the same building, the situation between her and her husband is so bad, they must exchange the child at the police station. This happens four days of the week when she goes to school. She is pursuing a Doctor’s degree in clinical psychology.

What struck me about this scene was how hopeful she was despite being an abused woman, a Muslim immigrant and the mother of a young child in a failed marriage.

It was obvious to me that the message of hope and the grace of the Infant of Bethlehem is for all people and at all times even if they do not have the label Christian. The Word made flesh has exposed a reality pregnant with life and love for all people at all times no matter how challenging the circumstances.

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FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Mt 1:18-24

Dear Friends, No matter how much we try, it is a truly an uphill battle to truly grasp, “Jesus is the reason for the Season!”

Over our lifetimes we have been the recipients of billion upon billions of advertising dollars to immerse us in a neatly packaged idea of a commercial Christmas. It is a subtle and attractive enticement. In the end, however, it has little, if anything to do with the Christ of the Gospels.

In the opening prayer of today’s liturgy, the Church, like a voice in the wilderness, is calling us back to Jesus in the stark beauty and wonder of the gospel message. It directs us to be aware of the Angel’s message of the Incarnation. Then, in almost shocking contrast to our vision for the Season, has us pray that we may “by his Passion and cross be brought to the glory of his Resurrection.”

It is a message that cuts through all the fluff and deception. It tells us if we really are going to enter the mystery of the Babe in the crib, we need to accept the totality of the message. This is actually only possible by accepting the Crucified and Risen Christ. In this broader view, we are able to grasp the genuine truth of the Bethlehem experience. It is the beginning of the final battle of good and evil that is opening the darkness of our life and world to a new Light of the World that is Christ.

In this approach to the Christmas mystery, Dec. 26th or any other day of the year is not a letdown of the emotional high when we clean up the mess left by the commercial event. The true experience of Christmas engulfs us in a message of hope every day.

So, today, in this final Sunday before Christmas, we are invited to ponder two clearly comforting and revealing phrases in our Scriptural lessons.

In today’s Gospel story the two phrases are, “be not afraid” and “Emmanuel” which means God is with us. These phrases mark the change in focus of the Advent message. The Incarnation of the coming Christmas Season is moving to center stage. Each of today’s readings is on this theme. Emanuel is born in time to be forever with his people as the new presence of a loving and saving God.

While the phrase “be not afraid” is used over three hundred times in Scripture, the Infancy narratives of Luke and Matthew convey this expression four times. It is always related to the supportive presence of God in a challenging situation such as Joseph’s dilemma with Mary’s pregnancy.

Just like the almost destructive ambiguity that Mary and Joseph faced, our lives are never free of the consequences of evil. Sickness, ignorance, prejudice, violence, and hatred come at us in all manner of ways. This is the reality of living with the seemingly endless battle of good and evil in the events of our day. No sooner has Covid been reduced as a threat, than we have Putin’s war in the Ukraine or the apparently endless violence in the Middle East. These incredible horrors confront us with human carnage, destruction of the environment, threat of nuclear disaster and the waste of all these resources to the neglect of the poor and hungry. This gross manifestation of evil affects everyone.

“Emmanuel” reveals God’s faithfulness and involvement in all human reality. God is always present calling us into the mystery of new life and new love amidst the evil. On this fourth Sunday of Advent, we begin to recall the great event of God becoming human in the person of Jesus. This is the ultimate revelation of God’s saving involvement in our broken world. Our challenge is to be open and accepting of the call on God’s terms.

While “be not afraid” and “Emmanuel” are profoundly comforting statements, Mary and Joseph needed all the support they could get. If you do the minimal analysis of their situation, the challenge to their relationship was enormous. Anytime the betrothed says she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit, where does the dialogue go from there? Add the fact that the child is to be the Savior of his people, the only saving grace would have to be divine intervention. That’s what happened!

Mary and Joseph had to dig deep into the comforting and reassuring message of the angel to make any kind of sense of the reality of their poverty and uprooting that was to be part of the crisis that surrounded them. It truly challenged them to look with faith on the baby who needed a diaper change and see hope for the world.

On this fourth Sunday of Advent as we recall the wonder of God’s becoming flesh, we are invited to embrace the great gift of Emmanuel. God is with us in love, mercy and saving grace in the person of Jesus, the son of Mary. Our challenge is to respond to this call of love on God’s terms.

For Mary, it was just the beginning of a long journey of confusion and bewilderment. Only her faith and trust could comfort her in the midst of a perplexing series of events that ultimately brought her to the foot of the Cross.

When you think about it, it is similar to our journey! It is no wonder that the great prayer of Advent is so relevant to our life. Come, Lord Jesus!

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THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Mt 11:2-11

Dear Friends,

In today’s Scripture, Isaiah draws a poetic picture of the Jews walking away into freedom after fifty years of anguish and exile in Babylonia. He uses his beautiful and poetic language to mirror the great event of the Old Testament, the Exodus from slavery to the Promised Land.

Today’s Gospel is about John the Baptist’s question, “Are you the one who is to come?” This plunges us into the mystery we celebrate this Advent season. Each of us in the depths of our heart has a basic yearning for Jesus. We long for him to bring salvation for us and for our world.

The message of Advent has many rich and beautiful dimensions. Most center on the coming of the Lord. Today we are called to experience this coming in the saving acts of Jesus as seen in the past and experienced in our life today. Faith will draw us into the wonderous truth that Jesus is truly the one for us and our world.

We have to see our life’s struggles in this context of these biblical journeys to freedom and healing. Jesus says, “Go tell John what you hear and see.” (Mt 11:4) The real message of Advent makes us able to see that not only are the blind given sight but the lame who now are able to leap like stags are even ready to go Dancing with the Stars. This is because the Advent message tells us that our reality is pregnant with a graciousness. The Advent implications for today reveal Jesus as still bringing restoration on the way to our original innocence. We are, indeed, being set free in our lives today. We do need to let the cry of Advent burst forth from our hearts: Come, Lord Jesus! Even more, we need to let this hunger in our hearts for a new day direct us to live the Gospel message. We have to walk in the footsteps of Jesus today. Our lived commitment brings the transformation of reality we yearn for right now. A life lived in love is the answer to our Advent prayer: Come Lord Jesus! The fullness of salvation we long for in the future will take place now when we walk in love in the footsteps of Jesus.

Jesus’ message to John in today’s Gospel is clear. There is a new day breaking through in his conquest of evil and the demonic power in his healing miracles. Just as the return of the Exiles from Babylonia mirrored the freedom of the great act of deliverance in the journey of people out of Egypt, God continues to manifest the great saving action of Jesus in our day. We need to see with eyes of the heart. The salvation we long for is taking place right now when we are sharing the compassion and love that Jesus continues in our day. This calls us to tear down the barriers. This calls us to work for reconciliation always and everywhere. This calls us to hear the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth.

The gift of hope leads us out of fear and despair to a life of action and commitment to the wonder of the Gospel message.

The battle of good and evil still dominates our world. The pull to freedom, the search for happiness and security still only find a lasting solution in Jesus. Jesus alone still possesses both the message and the power to draw us into eternal life. We still are the blind, the lame and the sinners that need healing and mercy. The answer to our cry for deliverance from the overwhelming power of evil in our day awaits us. That is what we pray for in our Advent prayer, Come Lord Jesus!

While we wait, we have to address our life situation now. St. Teresa of Avila gives us the direction in her classic Book Marker Prayer:

Let nothing disturb you,

Let nothing make you afraid.

All things are passing.

God alone never changes.

Patience gains all things.

If you have God you will want for nothing.

God alone suffices.

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SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Matt 3:1-12

Dear Friends. Advent is an invitation to ponder the Christian perspective on time. Time, for the Christian, is not the relentless and isolated moving of the the hands on the clock. It is not the mindless and purposeless waiting for Godot. The Christ event has made time pregnant with the endless possibility of new life. Time is the messenger of God calling us into a gracious future where a new day will prevail.

In Advent, we see the mystery of time intimately connected to the past, present and future in the Christ event. The past recalls in the Incarnation of the Word. The present is the encounter with God’s grace leading us to walk with Jesus. The future is the final completion of Christ’s victory in his Second Coming, the final fulfillment of both our personal destiny and human history.

To understand this mystery of time, we look back to the events of our saving past. Today, it is Isaiah who presents the beautiful passage of hope that foreshadows the coming of Christ. These seemingly impossible relationships will only be possible by the divine intervention of the Messianic presence in Christ both at Bethlehem and at the conclusion of our historic venture

“Justice shall be the band around his waist,

And faithfulness a belt upon his hips.

Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,

And the leopard shall lie down with the kid;

The calf and the young lion shall browse together,

With a little child to guide them.

The cow and the bear shall be neighbors,

Together their young shall rest;

The lion shall eat hay like the ox.

The baby shall play by the cobra’s den,

And the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.

There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain;

For the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord,

As water covers the sea” (Is 11:5-9).

Advent, more than anything else, is a time of joyful and purpose-filled waiting for God who has assured us of his coming. Because we already know the one we are waiting for, the best way to anticipate his coming is to become like him. We need to let our life express the joy and hope that is the central message of the Advent season. We need to be the instruments of peace and justice, of service and healing that anticipate the new day we long for.

The Gospel today draws us to John the Baptist. It is a call to prepare for Christ as the total mystery of the Word made flesh, not a nostalgic return to the beauty of Bethlehem. We need to recall the entire Jesus event. This includes his challenging message and the saving events of the death and resurrection. In longing for Jesus, we understand John’ message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 3:20). This demands that we change our lives as we prepare for the coming of the Lord.

These changes will happen as part of personal and communal conversion. Along with our personal and communal transformation, we recognize that we are responding to the imitative of God’s call. This Advent season reminds us of the overwhelming mercy that is revealed in the coming of Jesus into our life and into our history.

The waiting of Advent is not like the drudgery of getting stuck in traffic nor is it the seemingly endless line in the market. Nor is it the anxiety-driven time waiting for the results of a test or other life-changing news from a doctor. Advent waiting is a joyful anticipation of new life. This new life demands a creative openness that leads to repentance and conversion. It means we welcome the God who continually comes and knocks at the door of the human heart. Advent leads us to develop a spirituality of watchfulness that opens to the appreciation of the giftedness of today and hope for tomorrow. We prepare for all of this Advent waiting with the special prayer of the season, Come, Lord Jesus!

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FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Matthew 24:37-44

Dear Friends, Advent invites us into a new year in which we journey with the Gospel of Matthew. This is a graced time when we are summoned once more to an encounter with Christ as our Savior and Lord. The Advent Season first guides us to prepare for the Second Coming and, in the final days, to plunge into the mystery of Word becoming flesh.

Advent has us look backward, so we can look forward. Both views call us to live in the present. Advent is not a penitential season but a celebration. We are called to rejoice in the gift of Christ. We recall He is coming today just as He came in the poverty of the first crib. A special element of Advent is the challenge of making the Second Coming produce consequences for our daily living. Jesus emphasized the suddenness and surprise of the final hours. There will be a swift judgement that sifts good from evil with a decisiveness that is final and absolute. However, he did not call us to do anything different beyond the utter importance of our ordinary responsibilities and relationships. Both in the incarnation and the Second coming we have a powerful invitation to embrace the gift of today, the now of the present moment, as a concrete opportunity to walk with Christ.

Isaiah is the featured Old Testament author of the Advent Season. The beauty of his poetry is filled with hope for deliverance and longing for the final expression of God’s saving power.

Matthew’s message in this time of Advent, is based on the fundamental confidence flowing from the Christian message. Christ will return in glory and with him will come the fullness of redemption. A new day is coming. Matthew is emphatic: we need to be ready.

This longing for the return of the Lord mirrors the passionate longing expressed in Isaiah. Yet it is incredibly enriched and supported by our gift of the Gospel reality. Paul tells us, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.” (Romans 13:14) So, we join together in our Advent liturgies and in our lives to proclaim the Advent yearning: Come Lord Jesus!

In the meanwhile, Isaiah, Paul and Matthew have a clear and simple message for us. Live today in faithfulness to the Lord. Enter into our reality. We do not know the future but we are gifted with the present. We are called to live the Gospel with acts of mercy and forgiveness, with concern for justice and the constant struggle “to beat the swords into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks.” Isaiah 2:4)

Swords and plowshares are not our ordinary arsenal in our daily battles with one another. We often have looks and words and attitudes that are up to the job of antagonizing our neighbor. Our anger and resentments join with our prejudices to create walls of isolation and hostility. We have a way of making our time, interests and convenience the measure of our actions, all to the detriment of fraternal charity. More often than not this is done with a facade of righteousness. Advent is a time to put away the weapons of hostility and division and isolation. It is a time to pray with a truly humble heart, “Come, Lord Jesus!”

Advent challenges us to look at the lost opportunities, the time wasted and misdirected. We all have more than enough to account for. Advent calls us to gather ourselves together and live today, with the gift of the present moment. Tomorrow is in God’s hands. We indeed need to cry out, Come Lord Jesus! A life seeking to walk with Jesus right now makes our Advent Prayer all the more real and focused.

God is very capable of keeping the schedule. He will do his job of finishing the program at the appropriate time. It is quite normal for us to use that familiar question of our youth, Are we there yet? God will let us know. In the meanwhile, our task is to be faithful to the Gospel message and express the hunger in our heart for a new day with the beautiful Advent prayer, Come Lord Jesus!

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