2nd Sunday of Advent Year C 2021

2^nd. Sunday of Advent (C)

(Baruch 5: 1-9; Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11; Luke 3:1-6)

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Why all these names of men and places?  Why all these precise details about time in this section of St. Luke’s Gospel?

 

Because, People of God, individuals are most important to God.  Our faith is not based on imagination or legendary tales, but on public facts that occurred and are recorded in human history.  Jesus Christ is the best attested fact of the past: we have immeasurably more information about Him than about any other person in ancient history.

 

But Jesus did not intend to be simply a fact of past history for all time.  He came to offer salvation to all mankind, not only to those of Jewish faith in Palestine some 2,000 years ago, but to us and to all our brothers and sisters throughout time: an offer of salvation leading to eternal life in and with Jesus, before the God and Father of all creation Who shows no favouritism. And therefore, Jesus is with us Personally today in and through His Holy Catholic Church -- of which we are (or should be) most gratefully proud to be members -- fulfilling the promise He made to be with her, to guide and protect her, by His Holy Spirit to the end of time.

 

How are we, individually, to become more personally aware of this saving presence, because, obviously many former Catholics and many, many, more former Christians seem have lost any meaningful contact with Jesus?  How are we to enter into personal contact and communion with Him, now, in a world boasting in its secularity and in its disdain for Christian, and indeed for religious teaching of any sort?

 

John the Baptist was sent by God to prepare the Jews to welcome Jesus with understanding and appreciation; and his message, his preaching, of which we have just heard the introduction from St. Luke’s Gospel reading for today, still performs that same function …. it tells us how we are to first enter into contact, and subsequently how to deepen that contact and communion, with Our Lord.  We heard that John:

 

Went through the whole Jordan district, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 

 

That -- for John sent by God -- is the first step for us towards awareness and acceptance of God’s offer of salvation: a recognition of ourselves as sinners in need of God’s salvation; and a recognition of God, that He is Lord of all, able and willing to save, renew, and restore for eternal beatitude with Himself, all sinners, according to their recognition of and response to the One He is sending them.

 

John went proclaiming:  Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths.

 

And that, dear People of God, is the supreme difficulty for our modern world, because modern society likes to think that it is sufficiently holy to do good things without any acknowledgement of Jesus, or help from His Spirit.  And that is why John’s continuing words are supremely relevant:

 

Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low.  The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

 

That is, every aspect of religious indifference, every vision of pseudo-holiness, every manifestation of, and all satisfaction with, human pride in our society and world, must be brought to see the salvation of God.

The original inspiration of Isaiah made a great impression on God’s Chosen People because we heard how the prophet Baruch -- long before John the Baptist quoted by St. Luke -- made use of Isaiah’s words in that beautiful prophecy we heard in our first reading:

 

Jerusalem, take off your robe of mourning, for wrapped in the mantle of justice from God, (He) will show all the earth your splendour.  Look and see your children gathered from the east and the west at the word of the Holy One.  For God has commanded that every lofty mountain be made low, and that the valleys be filled to make level ground, that Israel may advance securely in the glory of God.

 

What Isaiah had originally foretold as preparations to be made for the coming of Israel’s Messiah, Baruch used to envision God bringing His people back from their Babylonian exile home to Jerusalem; before ultimately, John the Baptist used them to speak of the imminent fulfilment of Isaiah’s original prophecy, and the way being prepared for the coming of Jesus the Messiah.

 

Baruch thus showed that Isaiah’s prophecy was powerful enough to bear several interpretations or adaptations, and we today can use it to understand our own calling before God as disciples of Jesus:  called to prepare – by our own conversion and renewal in the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit of Jesus – the way for Jesus’ final coming at the end of time.  Jesus Himself originated the Kingdom of God on earth by His life, death, and resurrection, before bequeathing His own most Holy Spirit to His disciples in Mother Church that she might continue His work here on earth until the time appointed for its culmination and fulfilment in Jesus’ final coming in glory.

 

Until that ultimate manifestation of the glory of God and the obliteration of sin, however, the devil has been and is still able to worm his way into the hearts and minds of many fragile disciples of Jesus to mar, or even totally disfigure, their lives, work, and aspirations.   In that way those wonderful words of Baruch’s prophecy have often been falsely portrayed as fulfilled:

 

Jerusalem, wrapped in the mantle of justice from God, He will show all the earth your splendour: you will be named by God forever the glory of God’s worship.

 

How easy, dear People of God, for those fragile in faith to betray words such as ‘splendour’ and ‘glory’ by pomp and arrogant display; how easy to imitate ‘wrapped in the cloak of justice from God’ with an outward show of humble discipleship cloaking hypocrisy and lustful pride!  So human, to want glory for God along with power for oneself!  So devilish, to pretend devotion and commitment while seeking reputation, pleasure, and profit!

 

It is easy to recall figures past and present -- popes, bishops, clerics and religious -- who have been prominent in such betrayals and transgressions.   But we must never forget, however, those innumerable nominal Christians past and present who, most sadly, lived and are still living their lives largely forgetful of the commandments of God and the teaching of Jesus: abusing Jesus in the sacraments of Mother Church out of human respect, rarely if ever bearing witness to the faith they publicly still profess as so-called Christians, with their hearts and minds fixed firmly on the things of earth.

 

All of us, all like us, are weak in one way or another; so weak, that though we may and should regret, even hate, the ignorance, betrayals, cowardice and corruption that have gone before and are still ripe and rampant around and among us, nevertheless we can never despise or denigrate those persons whose weakness has led them to such faults, for we share their weaknesses if not – thanks to God – their faults and failings,  and we should all be most attentive and grateful to St. Paul for his teaching in our second reading:

 

This is my prayer: that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

 

Jesus is at the right hand of the Father in heaven, never forgetful of us, always interceding for us in all our needs; and we, as His disciples, are called to continue to proclaim His Gospel for the salvation of mankind, in His Name and by the power of His Spirit.  We cannot do this work unless we allow His Spirit to expand and extend, enlighten and inflame, our minds and hearts, so that Jesus may be presented and offered to all those yet to come in a way that will help them both recognize Him and, embracing His truth, respond to, and find joy in, His love:

 

May your love increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.

 

People of God, thanks to the Spirit Jesus has bestowed on her, Holy Mass in Mother Church is -- as the prophet Baruch foretold -- the glory of God’s worship; and Mother Church herself is, as St. Paul declared her to be:

 

Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

 

Ultimately, the Spirit will make the glory of Mother Church’s worship perfectly manifest to the whole world, as a faithful reflection of the heavenly liturgy celebrating her God and Saviour.  Let us, therefore, pray that our lives may indeed reflect something of the beauty of her inheritance by our knowledge of her teaching and our appreciation and proclamation of her values.

 

Much good is being done in our irreligious, non-Christian, and increasingly God-denying world of today, People of God, but it is being done in the name of enlightened humanity, freed from the shackles of religious oppression!  And all such self-styled benefactors of humanity will not, in any way, accept what they regard as the odious Christian doctrine of mankind’s native sinfulness and weakness; nor will they consequently entertain any idea of -- let alone obey and worship -- a Personal God Who wills to raise mankind up to an eternal and beatifying personal relationship of love with Himself, in Jesus – God made Man for men -- by the Holy Spirit.  And so, despite human good being intended, the root of all evil, human pride is more deeply embedded than ever in the minds and hearts of many of our contemporaries, while those other curses of humankind, the desire for money, the love of power, and the lusts of the flesh are -- in closest accordance with our modern tastes – openly flourishing in glaring vulgarity, along with other, rarely acknowledged, even greater evils and betrayals of the dignity of man, secretly indulged in in our society.

 

God, the very idea of God, demands reverence, obedience, and supreme love; and therefore, there can be no God where human pride and self-love rule.  Dear People of God, such is our modern dilemma, and we should therefore, throughout this Advent season, put all our trust in, and all our prayers along with, those words of Our Blessed Lord Himself when coming into our world (Hebrews 10:7):

 

            Behold, I come to do Your will, O God!  

 

Words which He solemnly recommended to us in the one prayer He bequeathed us in response to His disciples’ explicit request:

 

Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

1st Sunday of Advent Year C 2021

 

1^st. Sunday of Advent (C)

(Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1Thessaloneans 3:12-4:2; St. Luke 21:25-8, 34-6)

 

Our Blessed Lord tells us in our Gospel reading for today that, at the end of time and just before the Son of Man returns with power and great glory, the heavens will be shaken on a day that will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth.

And how will those alive at that time respond to what is happening around them?  Wondering what will come next, they will be so terrified as to die of fright: dashing here, fleeing there, in frenzied attempts to find some bolt-hole, because all former familiar and safe places no longer offer refuge.

And what about the disciples of Jesus in such days?

Having learnt from His words and trusting in His Spirit they, on the contrary, will strive to remain both calm and confident, because they will understand what is happening: the old regime, under which they were derided and despised by sinful men, dismayed and oppressed by God-less social laws and structures, is coming to its end, and a new order is at hand:  where love, justice, peace, and righteousness, will bear witness to God’s triumph and herald the advent of that salvation for which they have prayed so long and endured so much:

The Son of Man is coming in a cloud (signifying His divinity) with power and great glory!

And striving thus, those true disciples of Jesus will be enabled by His Spirit to stand erect and raise high their heads, looking heavenward with eyes alight with hope and grateful hearts beating apace.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, you who are true, and aspire to become ever-more worthy, disciples of Jesus, surely you hope to find yourselves among those disciples pictured by Our Lord?  The words He uses are, therefore, most important for our guidance and protection, for they show what you and I should aspire to, what we should model ourselves on.

First and foremost, dear People of God, notice and hold close to your heart and firm in your mind, that those told to stand erect as the ultimate reality of cosmic destruction begins, should not now be found seeking to flee anywhere and everywhere to avoid, escape from, the sufferings and trials of life in our present-day world.  Neither should we be deceived by those spiritually sick ones who embrace suicide -- self-murder -- as an instantaneous moment of peace or pseudo-glory before washing up on the shores of imaginary oblivion.  Above all, we should not allow ourselves be provoked by the response to modern life of those despicable fanatics who cherish hatred as an easier and preferred option to that of authentic religious discipline and zeal for God

When the end comes, we Catholics and Christians will need to be found trusting God with a sure and steadfast spirit, and we will only be able to do that if we have gradually built up, over the years, a habit of calmly and confidently committing ourselves to His loving care in the many and various trials and troubles which life inevitably brings.  It is our duty, but much more than that, it is indeed our truest blessing and surest strength, that we learn -- for love of Him -- to fear only one thing: evil, personal sin.

But how are we to attain such a sure and steadfast spirit?  How can we to learn to rejoice in the Lord no matter what distress may rule the world?  By prayer!

First of all, if we do not wish to give way to the world’s fears, we must not yield ourselves to the world’s pleasures, as Our Blessed Lord puts it most perfectly:

Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of life.

We have to grow in the habit of communing with God our loving Father, with Jesus our self-sacrificing Saviour, and with the Holy Spirit, our strength, peace, and hope: a communing and communion to be developed and made ever more truly personal and intimate by prayer that no one around needs know anything about.  Such prayer is a simple expression of our most intimate human feelings … gratitude, fear, joy, hope, wonder and desire … arising in the course of an ever-deepening spiritual relationship with our God, being-lived out as His children in Mother Church, and as disciples and protagonists of Jesus in our flesh-and-blood experience of daily life in the modern and antagonistic world around us.

Prayer is a communing with God, I say, not a talking to Him; neither is it a communication of information He might not otherwise know.  Prayer is essentially an opening-up of self in ever greater trust to the One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Who loves us, lives with us, in us, and for us, and Who knows us most intimately because He is ever forming us, from within, into a true likeness of His beloved and only-begotten Son, Jesus the Christ.  For such an opening-up-of-self, for such true soul-revealing prayer, words are not always necessary, but spiritual commitment is its very essence; and it is pre-eminently by such prayer and commitment to Him Who is our All that we will obtain:

The strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent, and to stand before the Son of Man.

And so, dear People of God, Advent – the season in which we prepare for the coming of the Son of Man anew into our lives – is a season during which we should endeavour to grow in calm steadfastness of spirit in the face of increasing worldly tribulations, social tensions, and perhaps, of personal trials too.  Advent is above all, however, a season to nourish spiritual joy of heart on the basis of a firm assurance and unshakeable hope in God’s goodness and grace, by persevering prayer and personal commitment.

Ask our Blessed Lady to help you, for she is the one who knew supremely well how to prepare for Jesus’ coming, and who communed sublimely with God in her heart; she is now your mother, she will not ignore your cry for help.   Oh! How our ‘televised’ world of today lavishes words of extravagant praise on ‘mums’ of whatever sort, but never turns to Mary with even a semblance of admiration, love, or trust!

We should, however, realise that although God always knows and appreciates our efforts and desires for good, He will never reward our pride and self-esteem with present and immediate success.  He seeks, above all, to bless our dutiful self with a heavenly and eternal reward for all our humble efforts and endeavours, and for that we need first to become true children of Mary, able to say most gratefully with her:

The Lord has looked upon the lowliness of His servant.

 

 

Christ the King Year B 2021

Christ the King (B)                  (Daniel 7:13-14; Apocalypse 1:5-8; John 18:33-37)

 

In our readings today we are given a magnificent portrait of Him Who is our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Son of God become Son of Man:

As the visions during the night continued, I saw coming with the clouds of heaven One like a son of man.  When He reached the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him, He received dominion, splendour, and kingship; all nations, peoples and tongues will serve Him.  His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, His kingship one that shall not be destroyed.

Behold, He is coming amid the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him.  All the peoples of the earth will lament Him.  Yes.   Amen.

And Jesus, in answer to Pontius Pilate’s question, pictured Himself as follows:

You say I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice.

Jesus is therefore our King, and today we celebrate His saving rule in our lives.  As He told us, He came, as King, to bear witness to -- that is to proclaim in word and deed, by His death as throughout His life – the truth about God and His plan for our salvation.  He came as King in this respect because His proclamation of the truth had to be both authoritative and unambiguous, subject to neither frustration nor failure; and His message of love and forgiveness had ultimately to be heard in all the fullness of its beauty and power by all men.  As King, therefore, Jesus not only proclaims the Truth, He makes the Truth manifest, because He is the Truth:

            I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

That means, that those who have embraced the love that God has for us by believing in Our Lord Jesus’ proclamation and manifestation of that truth by His life and death, His words and works, have God -- Who is love -- abiding in them.

Consequently, we can appreciate that truth is not just words to be heard, it is a revelation of God’s very self, meant to be lovingly believed in order that God’s purpose for it may be fulfilled as Isaiah prophesied:

My word that goes forth from My mouth shall not return to Me empty, but shall do what pleases Me, achieving the end for which I sent it;

So will the Lord God make justice spring up and praise before all the nations (Isaiah 55:11; 61:11);

a fulfilment most beautifully celebrated by the Psalmist (Psalm 85:11) with the words:

Love and truth will meet; justice and peace will kiss.

It was strange, however, to hear the author of the book of Revelation emphatically assuring us that, when our Lord and Saviour comes in His glory:

Every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him.  And all the peoples of the earth will lament Him.  Yes.   Amen.

His coming will cause all the tribes of the earth to mourn, every eye to lament?  Obviously -- it would seem to us -- those who killed Him will mourn at His return in glory; but why should it be that all will lament, even those who loved Him?  

This will be because of the Truth; since it is, indeed, Gospel truth that all of us, each and every one of us on earth, have sinned:

There is no one just, not one; there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God.  All have gone astray; all alike are worthless, there is not one who does good, not even one. (Romans 3:10-12)

However, those who receive the truth manifested and proclaimed in the Lord’s first coming, lament the evil that was done to Him then, above all they mourn their own part in that evil.  That is, they lament and mourn out of love, out of sympathy, for Him, and out of regret for and displeasure with their own behaviour.  For them, when Jesus’ comes on the clouds in glory, those other words of Scripture will be gloriously fulfilled:

You have changed my mourning into dancing; You have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my soul may praise You and not be silent.  O Lord my God, forever I will give You thanks. (Psalm 30:11-12)

Those, on the other hand, who do not receive, do not embrace, that Truth made manifest in Jesus, will mourn simply and solely when He returns in glory: there will be no love for, no sympathy with, Him; nothing more than soul-deadening rejection of Him, and ever greater concern for themselves.

People of God, the kingdom of God, Jesus once said, is among you; and so -- today as every day -- the question, the drama, of truth and its reception is going on around us in society, in our community, and in the secret depths of our very own, individual, hearts and souls.  How do we, how should we, react to God’s truth in Mother Church?

There are those, who seem to think that truth is above all to be appreciated by our minds; as extensively and as accurately as possible.  On the other hand, there are those who think that heart’s love is really all that matters.   Let us consider aspects of those two attitudes a little more closely.

Many Catholics are perfectly content with themselves when they go to Mass and receive the Sacraments on the appointed days, as they have always done; they say they know the faith: they were taught it at school; or they received it in the instruction given them by a priest, say at conversion and baptism, or when they were preparing for marriage; and they gladly fulfil the obligations they originally accepted as part and parcel of the faith, but think no further.  Here we have an example of the proclaimed truth being retained by the mind -- believers doing what they have been taught and accepted -- but no longer provoking a responsive love of the heart for the God and Father originally embraced.  At the head of such disciples as these can be found clerics of all levels who will ‘say’ Mass and give the Sacraments in double-quick time, and present Catholic doctrine and spirituality with words that are, too often, little more than bloodless transcripts of Jesus’ words of life: mere abstract truths or cold mental concepts.

On the other hand, those who think that love is all that really matters are most content when they can give themselves exclusively to devotions or charity, to social involvement or emotional prayers: these have a full heart, indeed, but a mind which is not only relatively inactive, but even scornful of any need for better appreciation or greater understanding of the faith.  These Catholics rarely have any doubts about themselves, they do not experience any need to ask about, search for, deeper understanding of what they say they believe.  Quite satisfied with what they perceive as their own sure knowledge and warm heart, they fully approve of and aver the sincerity of their own actions and intentions.  And yet, how many sects have separated themselves from Mother Church over the centuries because of such disciples’ ignorance of personal maturity in Christ, and self-righteous scandal at others sins and failings!

People of God, Jesus has come to bear witness to the truth for us, and He tells us that:

            Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.

That is, everyone who is of the truth hears now, listens for, God’s voice calling throughout the whole of their life: HEARS day-long, alert at whatever hour to HEAR from and respond to Him they love and need above all.  And even though what they hear is not always to their immediate liking, even though the message they hear may at times, be about their own sinfulness and failings, nevertheless, even such words of the Lord are heard and embraced with reverence and contrite love.

So, People of God, on this feast of Christ the King let us open both our minds and our hearts to Him in His Gospel proclamation, which continues to be heard to this very day in our most modern world through Mother Church’s liturgy and life.  It is a proclamation of faith not just to be remembered as ammunition for argument, we need to appreciate and love it, by committing ourselves to live by it and for it and GROW in it; only thus will we allow it to fulfil God’s purpose in our lives.  Jesus assures us that for God, Truth and Love are one; let us also recall those other words of His to the effect that what God has joined together in life-commitment, none of us should ever try to separate.