Ahaz or Mary: Friday of the Third Week of Advent (IS 7:10-14, PS 24:1-2, 3-4AB, 5-6, LK 1:26-38)

At first glance, Ahaz may seem very pious, but the more we get into the details of the context, we come to realize his response has less to do with piety and more to do with a desire to simply remain ignorant to the truth.

All of this reminded me of a stage I went through when I was first coming back to the Church.  

Shortly after I started to attend Mass with Virginia, I noticed an ad for Covenant Network radio on the back of the bulletin and I decided to check it out.  Long story short, one of the first shows I caught was  “The Lamb’s Supper” with Scott Hahn and Mike Aquilina.  I was immediately captivated by their descriptions of the book of Revelation, and I was hooked to Catholic Radio.

I started listening to the afternoon call-in shows.  These shows were invaluable in terms of how they helped me in the initial phases of my conversion process.  Especially in terms of resuscitating some level of conscience and rebuilding some sense of a catechetical foundation/framework from which I could live life.

All of that being said, I was still avoiding the Truth.  

It was common for me to shut off the radio because I didn’t want to hear what they were about to say.  If someone asked a question where I could tell they were talking about some sinful pattern I was still entertaining in my life, I just shut the radio off.  I remember thinking “surely the Catholic Church does not teach that”.  The reality is: I was still blind and didn’t want to see.  I wanted a sign but, deep down, I knew I didn’t want to see it.

After a couple of months of this, Virginia and I went to a Bible study here at Incarnate Word.  One evening, the facilitator (a lady named Alice Watson) went on a tangent about living a sinful life, and she shot a look at me that bore a hole right through my skull and touched my very soul.  I have no doubt God spoke through her in that moment.  It was extremely powerful.  I feel like I blushed the deepest darkest red you can possibly imagine and I looked around to see if anyone else noticed the look she gave me.  I will tell you this, she could have hit me with a sledgehammer and the hammer would have had less of an effect on me than that look did.  

I knew at that point, that it was time to take a hard look at my sinful life.  I immediately stopped turning off the radio whenever a personality was about to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.  I finally started to learn about the true Jesus, the true Christian faith, and the true moral life.

A big topic on the radio at that time was examinations of conscience.  I found a good one, and I went to work.  The level of conviction I received from the Holy Spirit left me literally trembling for two weeks before I could muster the strength to go to the confessional.  My first confession in over 15 years.

In many ways that evening with Alice was the beginning of my spiritual journey.  A spiritual journey that has been both beautiful and challenging, and has culminated (so far)in the diaconate.  That change was not overnight by any means, and the Good Lord knows I still have a lot of conversion to go.  

Throughout this journey, I have learned that every day offers a choice…a choice to be an Ahaz or a Mary…a choice to ignore the Truth or embrace it.  I’m not going to lie, I have chosen to be Ahaz more times than I care to admit.  But, gratefully, I have chosen to be a Mary more than I probably realize.  

For me, I simply endeavor to simply do the next right thing…the thing where God has the opportunity to do great things through me in order to extend the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the world around me…which is ultimately what Christmas is all about.

That is our spiritual invitation for today, particularly as we continue to prepare for the Christmas season.  What are those ways that we tend to be an Ahaz?  When are those times that we choose to look the other way when we are confronted with a hard teaching of the Church or another objective truth revealed by God?  When are those times that God is trying to work through us, but we would rather do our own thing?

Saint Maximilian Kolbe said, “No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it.”   

Brothers and sisters, when we truly become a servant of Truth, then we (like Mary) will more clearly see the favor we have with God.

Thanks be to God!

Live-stream Recording

Rejoice! The Lord is Near!: Third Sunday of Advent (ZEP 3:14-18A; IS 12:2-3, 4, 5-6; PHIL 4:4-7; LK 3:10-18)

I want to wish each of you a joyful Gaudete Sunday.  Not only is this one of the two days of the year where we get to make the color rose look really cool, but this is the day that the Church seems to shift gears during the Advent season as we get closer to the highly anticipated Christmas feast.

The word gaudete is Latin for joy.  This is the day where we are reminded to be joyful that the “the Lord is near” and that in the midst of the hustle, bustle, and sometimes outright struggles of this time of year, we are to “rejoice in the Lord always”.

Now we can look forward to Christmas, as we are reminded that Christmas itself is a Eucharistic feast, with the Eucharist as the primary and ultimate Christmas gift.

Now we can look forward to Christmas with great joy and exultation knowing the Great and Holy One of Israel is truly with us in a very real and substantial way through the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is the gift that is initially given to us at Christmas.

As Cardinal Ratzinger put it: “The Mass is the means by which earthly time is inserted into the time of Jesus Christ and brought into its present.”  Theologically, we call this anamnesis.  But, we can simply think of it as participating in the eternal now, which is something we do at every Mass.

Jesus Christ, who is omnipresent to all of time from the eternal now, is present to us through the Eucharist while at the same time present to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph at the moment of His birth. The same Jesus Christ omnipresent across time and space.

The same Jesus Christ, who is to be born of the Virgin Mary, is the same Jesus Christ given to us when we receive Him in the Eucharist under the veil of bread and wine.

Jesus Christ is to be born in the town of Bethlehem, which in Hebrew literally means “house of bread”.  Saint Bede said, “The place He is born is rightly called ‘The House of Bread’ because He comes down from heaven to earth to give us the food of heavenly life and to satisfy us with eternal sweetness.”

At every Mass, we mystically participate in the events of Bethlehem, a place where heaven truly touches earth.  Just as Jesus told us in the Gospel of John, “I am the living bread that comes down from heaven; whoever eats of this bread will live forever” (Jn 6:51).

In Arabic, the name of Bethlehem literally means “house of meat”.  This should remind us that the Eucharist is not a mere symbol.  The Eucharist is truly the very body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ.  As Jesus emphasized in the Gospel of John, “For my flesh is true meat, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him” (Jn 6:55-56).

Once Jesus is born on Christmas day, He will be laid in a manger.  Unfortunately, many of us have come to adopt a romanticized image of the Christmas manger.  But, we must always remember that we are really talking about a feeding trough for animals.  We’re in a farming community here.  I think we all know how pleasant animal feeding troughs can actually be.

The reality of the animal feeding trough is the authentic Christmas imagery that frames the message of Jesus in the Gospel of John when He declares, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”

The early Church fathers were quick to compare the manger of Bethlehem to the altar at Mass.  Saint John Chrysostom, for example, said, “You no longer see him in the manger but rather on the altar; you do not see a woman holding him in her arms, but rather the priest.  The priest who is standing with the Holy Spirit who flies with great liberality over the offerings placed on the altar”.

But, the reality of all of this lies in the word “manger” itself.  The word “manger” simply means “to eat”. But, the context isn’t ”to eat” in the sense we might picture a civilized person eating.  But rather, the word “manger”  is far more bestial in nature.  In fact, the Gospel of John, which was originally written in Greek, uses the Greek word “trogo” for the verb “to eat”.  The word “trogo” is a decidedly more gruesome term that literally means “to chew on” or “to gnaw on,” similar to when an animal is ripping apart its prey.

Now that is savage!  But, that is the savage reality of how Jesus comes to us at Christmas.  The reality is that the nativity is just as savage and brutal as the crucifixion itself.  And that should be a shocking thought.  But the shocking truth is that the nativity, the crucifixion, and the Mass are all intimately interconnected through the Eucharist.

We’re told that when Jesus is born, He will be wrapped in swaddling cloths.  This is an important detail.  The shepherds from the Christmas story are not normal shepherds.  They are Levitical shepherds associated with the Temple.  It was their job to raise the lambs to be used in the Temple sacrifices.  All sacrificial lambs were required by Covenant Law to remain unblemished.  These shepherds would swaddle the lambs to ensure they remained worthy of sacrifice.  

The shepherds would have most certainly realized that upon seeing Jesus in swaddling cloths that He was born for a specific sacrifice.  They would have known that He was born to be sacrificed for the salvation of the world.

This is the sacrifice that we, as Catholics, are privileged to substantially participate in at every Mass. 

 
Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life, born in the House of Bread, is truly the Great and Holy One of Israel.  Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, born in the House of Meat, is truly the savior of the world and truly the Eucharist we consume at every single Mass.

Of course the shepherds learned of the birth of Christ from angels on high.  The heavenly choir chanting most beautifully, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to people of good will” (Luke 2:15).  Brothers and sisters, it is our unique and extreme privilege as Catholics that when we worship God in the Mass, we are worshiping alongside that very same choir of angels.  All throughout the Mass, but particularly when we sing “Glory to God in the Highest” and when we sing “Holy, Holy, Holy,” we do so in unison with the angelic realm.

Every Christmas, in fact, every single time we go to Mass, we mystically experience Bethlehem.  Just as John the Baptist pointed the world to the coming savior, so too does Gaudete Sunday point to this reality and in doing so reminds us that "The Lord is near".  

With the angels, let us cry out with joy and gladness: for among us (through, with, and in the Eucharist) is the Great and Holy One of Israel.  Let us truly be glad and exult with all our hearts that we, as Catholics, get to truly receive the full body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ every single time we receive the Eucharist.  

Brothers and sisters, look forward now with great expectation for the primary and ultimate Christmas gift that God has for you….His only begotten Son in the Eucharist!   

Thanks be to God!

The Light of Lucy: Memorial of Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr (IS 48:17-19; PS 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6; MT 11:16-19)

The saint we are celebrating today, Saint Lucy, is another hero of the early Church, and a saint that it seems we have more legends for than actual history.  

While the lines between history and legend can sometimes blur, it is important to remember that Saint Lucy dedicated her life to Christ and to serving others.  She can be a true patron of how to carry the light of Christ to those living in darkness.

Saint Lucy lived in the third century.  She was a young woman from a family of wealth and influence in Syracuse, Sicily.  As a devout Christian, she consecrated her life to Jesus Christ at a very young age.  In doing so, she refused to marry the pagan man chosen for her by her family. I’m sure her family was frustrated by her proposal to donate her dowry to the needy. 

Lucy is known for feeding bread to the poor and the homebound.  She would even risk her life to deliver bread to the Christians hiding in the catacombs.

In order to avoid capture by the authorities, she would often deliver the bread under the cover of the night.  In doing so, she wore a crown of candles to light her way.

This legend sparked traditions in a number of European cultures.  In these cultures, a young girl is chosen to represent Saint Lucy in order to bear light and serve sweet bread on this feast day. The girl is dressed in white with a red sash and she wears a crown of candles on her head. In some places, crowds of candle-crowned girls lead public processions.  In other places, it is more of a family affair, where a daughter will dress as Saint Lucy and carry trays of coffee and sweet bread up to their parents' bedroom at dawn.

You may wonder what happened to this hero of faith and charity that would come to be celebrated in so many cultures.

In the third century, it was still illegal to be a Christian. The pagan man she refused to marry became increasingly jealous of and angry over her devotion to Christ.  Eventually, he reported her to the authorities.

First, they attempted to abduct her in order to place her in a house of prostitution, but God would not allow them to physically move her.  Next, they attempted to burn her, but God once again intervened for her protection.  

Then, the eyes of Saint Lucy were gouged out.  In some versions of the story, Saint Lucy did this to herself to spite the pagan man that wanted to marry her (evidently he was quite smitten with her eyes).  This is why Saint Lucy is often depicted in art carrying a platter with two eyeballs on it and why she is considered the patron saint of the blind.

Regardless of whether she removed her own eyes or her persecutors did it for her, God miraculously provided her with new eyes.

Ultimately, the life of Saint Lucy came to an end with a dagger to her throat.

Saint Lucy is another quintessential Advent saint in that she has come to be seen as a bearer of Christ’s light during the darkness of winter from her feast day until His birth at Christmas.  I find that extremely providential given the proximity of her feast day to Guadete Sunday.  So, let’s be joyful that we have an opportunity to imitate her devotion to Christ and to bring light to those in darkness, bringing those in darkness to the true bread of the Eucharist.  For indeed, those who follow the Lord in the Sacramental life of His Church will have the light of life.

Thanks be to God!

Live-Stream Recording

Lady Clothed with the Sun: Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (REV 11:19A; 12:1-6A, 10AB; JUDITH 13:18BCDE, 19; LK 1:26-38)

The Church is careful to not assign specific meaning to much of the imagery contained in the Book of Revelation.  However, I believe there is ample evidence to suggest the lady clothed with the Sun in Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation is none other than Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose feast day we celebrate today.

Revelation says our Lady is clothed with the Sun.  While Mary is not literally clothed in the Sun, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe certainly seems to have a bright light around her.  It is as though the Sun is directly behind her in the background of where she was standing, which makes sense considering the apparition occured at dawn.  The light of the rising Sun shining all around her, appearing to radiate from her clothing.

The Aztec people would have associated this light with their greatest god, their sun-god.  From their perspective, Our Lady is eclipsing their sun-god…potentially a sign to drop their pagan devotions and worship the true God.

Seemingly to support that sign to drop pagan devotion, the crescent moon in the  Our Lady of Guadalupe image symbolizes another Aztec god, their moon-god.  The Aztecs would have clearly seen Our Lady crushing this god.

Revelation says our Lady is crowned with stars.  On the mantle Our Lady wears in the image of Guadalupe we can clearly see a pattern of stars.  It just happens that this pattern of stars is an exact match to the arrangement of the constellations in the sky over Mexico on the morning of December 12th, 1531.   There is a constellation called Corona Borealis, or northern crown.  This constellation is depicted on the mantle of Mary, right at the crown of her head.  Our Lady of Guadalupe is indeed crowned with stars.

Revelation says the woman is with child.  The black sash worn by Our Lady of Guadalupe is an Aztec symbol that the woman is pregnant.  

Further, if the mantle of Our Lady was fully closed and the star constellation pattern continuing through the full mantle, the star Regulus, which means “little king”, would have fallen directly over the womb of Our Lady.  And, the constellation Virgo the Virgin would have fallen directly over her heart.

Since the image does not have a closed mantle, we can clearly see the spot over the womb.  In this spot we see the symbol for a Jasmine flower, which to the Aztecs indicates both life and God.  The Aztecs would have most certainly interpreted this that she is with a child that is God.

The Aztecs would have also recognized Our Lady of Guadalupe as a virgin since she wears her hair loose beneath her mantle. Virgins in the Aztec culture wore their hair loose.
 
The references to heads, diadems, and horns in the Book of Revelation are often thought to be images of secular or political power.  There is evidence that the success of the Protestant reformation had more to do with secular leaders seeking more power than it did with religious piety.  

Many dukes chose the Reformation as a way to gain power over the Holy Roman Emperor, and there were some bishops who left the Catholic faith in an attempt to convert their ecclesial bishopric to a secular duchy.  

I have never been able to substantiate these numbers, but I have seen an estimate where five million souls were swept away from the Church during the initial stages of the Protestant reformation, impacting the political alignment of roughly one-third of European land.  An interesting potential correlation to the imagery in Revelation concerning a third of the stars.

In turn, Our Lady of Guadalupe brought nine million souls into the Church.  

Regardless, the timing of the Protestant Reformation and the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe within the context of the imagery from Revelation can hardly be ignored.

Our Lady of Guadalupe appears to Juan Diego in order to herald in the child destined to rule all nations with an iron rod.  She came to the Aztecs with a message of love and motherly care, introducing them to the Savior that could free them from the dragon they feared.  

Since the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent French Revolution, the dragon has continued its war against the children of the Lady of Revelation, to continue to sweep them into the abyss of human secularism and moral relativism. We must now be heralds of this new evangelization, carrying Our Lady’s beautiful image and message of love far and wide to every aspect of our lives.  To boldly proclaim to the Masses: Now have salvation and power come (through the Eucharist), and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed (exercised through His One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church).

Thanks be to God.

The Advent Challenge: Friday of the First Week of Advent (IS 29:17-24; PS 27:1, 4, 13-14; MT 9:27-31)

Even though it is “just” a minor memorial on the official Roman Liturgical Calendar, I can’t help but reflect on Saint Nicholas today.  Part of the reason comes down to the last sentence of our first reading brought the jolly ole fellow to mind.  The last sentence refers to “those who err in spirit”, “acquiring understanding”, and “receiving instruction”.

It was at the First Council of Nicaea where, among other things, the heresy of Arianism was discussed.   Some estimates suggest 90% of Christians at the time the Council was convened had fallen for the Arian heresy.

A priest named Arius, was at the Council of Nicaea to defend his teaching against the Church.  Arius taught that God the Son was neither coeternal with the Father nor equal to the Father; essentially denying the divinity of Jesus Christ.

But Nicholas (the Bishop of Myra) couldn’t bear the claims of Arius. According to the legends at least, Nicholas stood up, walked over to Arius, and began to speak to him and over him.  But, Arius would not yield. In fact, Arius raised his voice all the more in defiance to the good bishop. In response, Nicholas raised his hand and slapped Arius.  

Shortly thereafter, the Nicene Creed was authored to infallibly declare the Son is consubstantial with the Father.  Meaning that, among other things, this means the Son truly is coeternal with the Father and equal to the Father in every way.  Thus, debunking the heresy of Arianism.

If you have ever felt like slapping a heretic, happy feast day to you.

But, in all seriousness, the focus of our readings is of course on the theme of Advent.  The readings describe the restoration and renewal of the coming Kingdom of God.  A Kingdom where darkness is conquered by hope, peace, joy, and love. The readings encourage us to spiritually enter into that sense of waiting…..waiting for the coming of Jesus Christ to enlighten the dark areas in our lives and the world around us.

I believe Saint Nicholas is one of those saints that in a special way encapsulate this Advent spirit.  He was a man known to bring hope to those in despair, peace to those troubled, joy to those in sorrow, and love to those who felt alone.  He was a man that stood for mercy and justice.  He was a man who was the light of Christ to those in darkness, leading them into the Sacramental life of the Church, which of course is the Kingdom of God.

The most famous story about Saint Nicholas involves the help he provided to a poor man with three daughters. The man was so poor that he couldn't afford a dowry for any one of his daughters.  In those days, that meant the daughters would have remained unmarried and most likely forced into prostitution. 

Nicholas interceded.  He secretly donated three purses of gold, one for each of the three daughters. In some versions of the story, he dropped the purses down the chimney, where of course they landed in the stockings of the daughters.

Perhaps that is our spiritual invitation for this Advent season.  An invitation to be a Saint Nicholas in a world that seems to only know Santa Claus.  To be a visible contrast of charity over (among other things) consumerism and individualism.  To search out those in our lives that are living in the darkness of a world without Christ.  A darkness void of hope, void of peace, void of joy, and void of love.  To empathize with them, to walk with them, and to be the light of Christ for them.  To show them how the Lord is the light and salvation of your life.  To show them what true reverence for the Holy One of Jacob looks like.  And, to help them experience the true awe of the God of Israel; particularly through, with, and in the Eucharist.  

To many of us, this can seem like a daunting, if not impossible Advent challenge.  Be not afraid.  It will be done according to our faith.

Thanks be to God.

Live-Stream Recording