The First Sunday of Advent [A]
Isaiah 2:1-5  +  Romans 13:11-14  +  Matthew 24:37-44
St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Garden Plain, KS
November 30, 2025

So much of our preparation for December 25^th is made up of customs.  You have Grandma’s recipe for cookies, the family Christmas stocking to be hung up, and the Christmas tree decorations that have been passed from one generation to the next.  These customs are like well-worn slippers:  comfortable and without surprises.

However, this comfort stands in contrast to the shocks and unexpected surprises that we hear in the Gospel accounts about the nine months leading up to the birth of Jesus.  Unexpected surprises also surround His birth at Bethlehem, and also occur after His birth, as others try to learn more about the new-born king, some for good reasons, and some for ill.

Of course, we might say that that’s all ancient history.  But the mystery at the heart of Christmas—which we are preparing for in these weeks of Advent—is not just about history.  Advent and Christmas are about allowing God to come into your life, as He came into the lives of Mary and Joseph.

God wants to enter into your life throughout your days on this earth.  He wants to enter into your life often, from the day of your baptism to the day of your death.  He wants to enter your lives with specific graces, and for specific reasons.

So for a moment, step back and look at the big picture of your life on earth.  In your life as a Christian, God shapes your life at three different levels. The first is your baptismal vocation, which of course started on the day of your baptism.  This is the most general call that God makes to you:  it’s the call to holiness, or you might say, the call to be a saint.  The second is a more specific vocation that God asks from most Christians:  either the vocation to Holy Matrimony, or the vocation to Holy Orders, or the call to consecrated life.  Those vocations give a more specific shape or form to a person’s call to be holy.

The third is what we’re talking about today.  It’s the most specific call, and occurs often throughout the course of one’s life.  You might say that God calls a specific Christian to carry out a specific mission for God.  These are usually temporary, unlike the first two calls, which last until death.

So regarding these specific calls that God makes to you throughout your life, the challenge is that you do not know the specifics of these calls.  This is what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel Reading:  “… you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”

Nor do you know in what form the Lord’s grace will come into your life.  Nor do you know how, or though whom, the Lord’s grace will come into your life.  God has missions in store for you in the new Church year which starts today.  Some of God’s missions may challenge you, some may console you, some may give you needed support, while some of God’s graces may lead you to make difficult decisions.  But the Season of Advent is about fostering the virtues that help you to be ready for God, no matter where, when, how or through whom He wishes to be present to us, for us, and finally within us.

+     +     +

So there are three very practical ways that you can engage with the Season of Advent, in order to be ready whenever and however the Lord wants to come into your life at specific times, for specific reasons.  These three practices can help you to recognize and accept the Lord when He chooses to come into your life.

These three are poverty, silence, and penance.  Just remember the first letter of each.  Poverty, silence, and penance:  P-S-P.  Not E-S-P:  because if you had ESP than you would know on which day the Lord will come.  The letters P-S-P stand for poverty, silence and penance.  Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition both show us how the three practices of poverty, silence and penance can help you as a Christian prepare for God.  On this First Sunday of Advent, focus upon the practice of poverty.

+     +     +

We don’t usually think of “poverty” as something that’s meant to be practiced.  Usually we just think of poverty as a state of life for some persons.  Likewise, poverty is not usually something that we think of as a means of drawing closer to God.  Usually when we think of “poverty”, we think of what in fact is destitution, where individuals do not have food to eat, or shelter from the elements, or clothing to wear.  When God, in His Sacred Scriptures and Sacred Tradition, commends the practice of poverty to His children, He’s not talking about destitution.  But Jesus does commend poverty to His own disciples, saying to them:  “every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple” [Luke 14:33].

On the one hand, when Jesus ask us to enter into the spirit and practice of poverty, he’s not asking us to become destitute.  But on the other hand, we should never water down Jesus’ commendation of poverty by thinking that it does not connect in any way to our relationship with our material possessions.  That might sound like a strange phrase, to speak of someone’s “relationship with their material possessions”.  Unfortunately, some people not only have a relationship with their material possessions, but in fact have more of a relationship with their material possessions than they do with the other persons in their lives.

Our standard-bearer when it comes to poverty is Jesus Himself.  Jesus never sought material possessions as a way to grow in the sight of Himself, in the sight of others, or in the sight of His Father.  This is one of the first principles of spiritual poverty:  to realize and believe down to the bottom of our hearts how little spiritual value material possessions hold.

The second principle of poverty is trust:  trust in the providential care of God our Father.  Practically speaking, we can ask God to increase our trust not by praying a petition asking for trust, but by making a concrete sacrifice.  When we make such a real sacrifice, we’re implicitly placing our trust in God to provide what we truly need.  So we can grow in the conviction that material possessions hold so little true meaning by making a sacrifice of what we do possess.

Here’s one simple example among many that you might practice this Advent:  tithe your wardrobe.  Maybe some people have never heard of doing such a thing, but it’s a simple practice, and does not need to take a lot of time.  Tithing your wardrobe means giving 10% of your clothes and accessories to the poor.

Although that practical sacrifice is one that the whole family can participate in, I’d like to offer a second challenge just to young people, by which I’m referring to anyone who still lives at home.  This may not make me very popular with our young people, but a priest is not ordained to be popular.  Young people, when you make your Christmas wish list, put down only three gifts that you’d like to receive at Christmas.  And if, for some reason, you receive more than three gifts, resolve now—at the start of Advent—that you will choose only three of the gifts that you receive, and donate the rest to children who are poor, and who might well receive fewer than three Christmas presents if not for you.  Maybe you could donate them to St. Anthony’s Pro-Life ministry, for distribution to families that this Pro-Life ministry serves.

Regardless of how you put it into practice, starting or deepening the practice of poverty has just one aim:  to conform oneself to the person of Jesus.  In other words, poverty is practiced by Christians in order to dispose themselves to the grace by which God wants to make us more like Jesus.

Jesus became one of us when He was conceived at the Annunciation, so that you and I could become like God by opening our hearts and minds to God’s grace.  God works the change by His grace.  But we have to open our lives to God’s grace, as the Blessed Virgin Mary did at the Annunciation.  In our own lives, we accomplish this “opening” through our good works, especially virtuous practices such as poverty.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe [C]
II Samuel 5:1-3 + Colossians 1:12-20 + Luke 23:35-43
St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Garden Plain, KS
November 23, 2025

One day an old professor spoke to large corporations about time management.  Standing before a group of CEOs, he pulled out from under the table a large, empty glass vase.

Then he carefully placed a dozen rocks the size of tennis balls inside the vase.  When he could not add any more, he asked the crowd:  “Does the vase look full to you?”, and they all nodded in agreement.

He waited a moment, and then he pulled a box full of pebbles from under the table.  He poured the pebbles into the vase, moving the vase back and forth so that the pebbles shifted downwards.  Then he asked, “Is the vase full?”  In the audience, several shook their heads, “No.”

The professor picked up a bag of sand and poured it into the vase.   The sand filled all the crevices between the rocks and the pebbles.  He asked again: “Is the vase full now?”, and the crowd all answered “No.”  Then the professor took the pitcher of water from the table and poured it into the vase up to the brim.

At this point he looked up at his audience and asked:  “What great truth does this experiment show us?”  The most successful CEO in the audience stood up and declared:  “This shows us that even when our schedule is full, with some effort we can always add another task.”

The professor replied, “You are exactly wrong.  You are looking at what happened from exactly the wrong perspective.  What you’ve just seen in fact demonstrates that, if you don’t put the big rocks in the vase first, then you will never be able to put them in after.”

There was a moment of silence, and the professor continued: “What are the big rocks—the priorities—in your life?  The important thing is to put these big rocks at the top of your agenda.  If you give priority to a thousand other little things—the pebbles, and certainly the sand—your life will be filled with things of small meaning, and you will never fit in what’s most important.”

+     +     +

Not many of us are CEOs, but each of us makes choices each day about our priorities.  On this final Sunday of the Church year, the Church is very sober is speaking about Christ the King.  As a king, Christ judges.  This Sunday focuses our attention on what the Church refers to as “the four Last Things”:  Heaven and hell, death and judgment.   Christ the King judges us in the light of these four Last Things:  Heaven and hell, death and judgment.

+     +     +

When God created the heavens and the earth, including Adam and Eve, God set a plan in motion.  In this plan, Adam and Eve and their descendants could have been perfectly joyful.  However, this plan was derailed by Adam and Eve’s Original Sin.  Adam and Eve chose to divert God’s grace from flowing through this world as God had planned.

So at that point, God had several choices:  He could have said, “These human beings are just not working out:  I’ll think I’ll just destroy the human race and start over.”  In all justice, God had the right to say this.

Or God could have said, what in fact He did say.  God in fact said:  “Unfortunately, Adam and Eve ruined my plan for them.  But I love them.  I will not leave them.  So it’s time to offer them my ‘Plan B’.”

That ‘Plan B’ is what we call “salvation history”.  God’s grace is like a mighty river flowing through the course of human history, which of course includes each human life on this earth.  God was willing to allow His grace to be diverted from His original plan in Eden.  But He also was willing to channel that grace in another direction, so that it could still offer salvation to those whom He loves.

On this feast of Christ the King, we celebrate the victory of God over sin and death, which Christ won on the Cross.  In Christ, who reigns from the Cross, we see the King who wants us to share in His victory by our entering into His life, and through His life, to imitate Him.

However, God only offers you His grace:  He does not force it upon you.  God’s grace will flow around you if you divert it from your life.  Yet God’s grace is always there, ready to flood your life, to destroy sin and the power of death, and to fill you with the graces you need to carry out what He asks of you.  That’s why we have to make God our first priority.  Otherwise, like in the professor’s demonstration to the CEOs, we won’t be able to give God His place into our lives later.  He just won’t fit.

God’s offers His grace to us through the Sacraments and through prayer.  God’s grace conforms your life to the life of Christ.  But you must accept that gift.  That’s where priorities come into play in our lives.

There’s an old saying about life’s priorities.  It’s only six words long:  “Play hard.  Work harder.  Pray hardest.”

These priorities are not about how much time we give to each.  Someone who works to feed the family has to work as much as the job requires, and that’s likely more time than one has for prayer.  Prayer being a higher priority than work doesn’t mean giving more time to prayer.  It means that prayer is a non-negotiable each day.  The priority of prayer also means that while work is done for the family, prayer is done with the family (in addition to being offered at times in solitude).

Work may be, for example, five days a week, but prayer is seven days a week.  Work also lasts, hopefully, only until the age of 65 or 70 or 75.  But prayer only becomes more important each year of one’s life on this earth.  There are two reasons why prayer becomes so important in the later years of life:  first, one’s health becomes a frequent concern, and a subject of prayer; second, the older one is, the more children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren one has, and that means more people to pray for.  Yet if a Christian doesn’t in his 20s and 30s and 40s dedicate time to prayer, the foundation of prayer won’t be there to build upon in the later years of life.

+     +     +

Advent starts a week from today.  The four weeks of Advent are a good time to make some changes based on those six simple words:  “Play hard.  Work harder.  Pray hardest.”

Besides, of course, making an Advent confession, and making sure to plan for the Holy Day of Obligation of the Immaculate Conception on Monday, December 8, one very good goal for each week of Advent is to spend time each week here in church in front of the Blessed Sacrament.  It doesn’t have to be on a Monday or Tuesday morning when Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament takes place.  If Christ is in the tabernacle, and you are praying here in church, then you are praying in His Presence.  It doesn’t have to be an entire hour, either.  If you believe you can only sacrifice thirty minutes each week, then make a “Holy Half-Hour”.  Like in Jesus’ parable, Jesus can take the mustard seed of your time and accomplish great things through your efforts to make Him a stronger priority in your life on this earth.

The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica
Ezekiel 47:1-2,8-9,12  +  1 Corinthians 3:9-11,16-17  +  John 2:13-22
St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Garden Plain, KS
November 9, 2025

The word “temple” is found in all three of today’s Scripture readings.  In the First Reading, a temple is the heart of Ezekiel’s vision.  In the Gospel Reading, the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem is the focus of Jesus’ cleansing.  In the Second Reading, Saint Paul tells the Corinthians that they themselves are a temple.  Although the image of a “temple” is described differently in these three Scripture passages, taken together they help us see where we can find God in our lives on earth.

But why are those Scripture passages chosen for today’s feast?  What is today’s feast, anyway?

Every year on November 9^th, even if it falls on a Sunday, the Church celebrates the feast of the dedication of St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome.  This church, which was founded in the year 324—just over 1,700 years ago—is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome.  Most people assume that St. Peter’s Basilica is the cathedral of Rome, since the Pope lives next to it.

But St. John Lateran and St. Peter’s are two of the four most important churches in Rome.  Whenever you make your lifetime pilgrimage to Rome—and every Catholic ought to make a pilgrimage to Rome at least once in their life—these four churches need to be at the top of your itinerary.

The most important is St. Peter’s Basilica, built over the tomb of St. Peter, and the largest church in the world, its inside length measuring 300 yards (the length of three football fields).  The second most important is St. John Lateran Basilica, the cathedral of Rome.  The third is St. Mary Major Basilica, the oldest church in the West dedicated to Our Blessed Mother, and containing relics from Bethlehem in the grotto beneath the high altar.  The fourth is St. Paul Basilica, built over the tomb of St. Paul.

As far as what the dedication of a church is in general, you could say that a dedication is to a church what a baptism is to a person.  The ritual of the dedication of a church is a lengthy ceremony performed by a bishop, consecrating a building made by human work so that the building can be used by God for His divine work of making those who dwell there holy.

+     +     +

So why is a church building even important, or needed?  You may be familiar with the old Western song called “Cowboy Church”, the lyrics of which suggest that a church building is not important.  Here are some of the lyrics (sing along if you know the melody):  “My church is the great out of doors / My song is nature’s sound / The sky is my cathedral / My altar is the ground”.  And a little later he sings these words to God:  “Don’t think that I don’t love you / because I’m not herd bound / It’s just that I’m uncomfortable / With other folks around / I know you’re all around me / I see you every day / It’s just that I don’t go to church / Where other people pray”.

Of course, the composer of this song is not the only one who thinks you don’t need a church building to worship God.  Others will tell you that you can worship God in the mountains, on the beach, in your recliner at home, or on the golf course.

However, both Jewish and Christian Scripture and tradition tell us that having sacred spaces in our lives—spaces dedicated by God used only for the purpose of prayer and worship—is important for several reasons.  All of these reasons are summed up in a single word:  “church”.

The word “church” literally means “assembly”, as in God’s people assembling—coming together into one body under one roof—for the purpose of worshipping God.  It’s in this assembly that the two great commands of Jesus come together:  to love our God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength; and to love our neighbor as our self.

Yes, it’s true that you can pray in the mountains, and if you’re ever in the mountains, you certainly ought to pray there.  But the detriment of praying there is that you’re not with others in the way that you are at Sunday Mass.  When we pray with others, we praise God more fittingly.  It’s more fitting to praise God by joining together with other believers, because we show God that we are united with each other, and with Him, in the same act of worship:  the worship He Himself has taught us how to offer.  The Sacraments, after all, are not man-made.  The Sacraments and all the Divine Liturgy were crafted by God and given by Him as a gift to man.

Of course, there’s another argument that gets thrown in the face of church-attending Christians.  It’s illustrated in the story about the Baptist preacher, who one day was walking down the sidewalk in Mayberry when he met Mr. Cratitch.  After exchanging pleasantries, the preacher said, “Why don’t you join us this Sunday for worship?”  Mr. Cratitch replied, “Bah! I wouldn’t be caught dead there!  Your church is full of hypocrites!”  The preacher replied, “Don’t worry:  there’s always room for one more!”

There are certainly times when it would be easier to pray alone, without other hypocrites to “distract” us.  But maybe God wants us to take up this challenge because that’s what He Himself did.  After all, it would have been easier for God’s eternal Son to stay in Heaven, and never come down to earth to take on our human nature, and to take up the Cross that is ours.

But God did not choose Heaven over earth.  He did not choose solitude over the mess of human hypocrites.  He did not choose peace and quiet.  He chose the sword and insults, because His choice to dwell among us was not primarily for His sake, but ours.  Or rather, we could say that it was first for our sake, so that we could be redeemed, and as redeemed sinners, more fittingly give God the worship that we owe Him.

At the same time, if we can enter with humility into communal worship, we see how many blessings there are in communal worship.  We cannot enjoy these blessings in prayer offered in solitude.  The most obvious of these blessings—especially to those of us without such talent—is the spiritual joy of being surrounded by the voices of those who sing beautifully, and who play instruments beautifully.

We certainly don’t want to be like the old gentlemen in Ireland whom Father O’Sullivan chastised after Mass one day for never taking out the hymnal and singing.  Paddy replied, “Well, Father, it’s like this.  With the voice that God did not give me, I consider my not singing to be one of the spiritual works of mercy!”  Most likely, Father Sullivan worked to help Paddy see that we need to bring all our talents to the Lord, no matter how meager.  If you have a meager singing ability, you still need to sing. You might consider your singing to be like the widow who put the penny in the collection, as opposed to the choir members whose talent is like a hundred-dollar bill.  This is important to keep in mind during our parish’s annual renewal of Stewardship.

Our own weaknesses, and the weaknesses of others, are not reasons not to worship the Lord as He commands.  In fact, our weaknesses are opportunities to believe more deeply in the Gospel.  Remember that St. Paul preached to the Corinthians that he three times begged the Lord to take away his weakness from him.  But the Lord replied to St. Paul in the same words that He speaks to you:  “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” [2 Corinthians 12:8-9.]

You can take a virtual tour of the basilica at the parish website, by clicking HERE.

All Souls’ Day
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Andale, KS
November 2, 2025

The “communion of saints” is the Church’s focus this weekend.  The “communion of saints” is a familiar phrase.  We recite it during the Apostles’ Creed.  But some Christians have a narrow view of the Communion of Saints.

Some Christians think that the the “communion of saints” refers only to those who are already in Heaven.  But the “communion of saints” has three parts to it, or three divisions, or three degrees.  The Communion of Saints includes not only those who are in Heaven, but also the members of the Church in Purgatory, and those who are on earth.

Every year on November 1—on the Solemnity of All Saints—we who are on earth honor those who are in Heaven.  We ask their prayers for us and our intentions.  In other words, the prayers of those in Heaven are offered for those of us on earth.

Every year on November 2—on the commemoration of All Souls—we who are on earth remember those who are in Purgatory.  We pray for those souls in Purgatory.  In other words, the prayers of us on earth are offered for those who are in Purgatory.

In other words, those in Heaven, those in Purgatory, and those of us on earth are part of the same Family of God.  Every family member helps those in need to the best of their ability.

+     +     +

The Mass of November 2 for the commemoration of All Souls bears many features of a funeral Mass.  The Scripture readings for today are taken from the options for funeral Masses, and the Gloria is neither recited nor sung.  Today’s Mass commemorates all the souls who have died, and have not yet reached Heaven, and therefore are in need of our prayers.

Here we have to focus on the Church’s teaching about the existence of Purgatory, and God’s reason for creating Purgatory.  The best start is to understand the differences among Heaven, Purgatory, and hell.

All three are on the other side of the “door of death”.  We on earth stand on one side of death’s door.  On the other side of death’s door are Heaven and Purgatory and hell.

When a person dies, that person’s soul goes to one of those three places:  either Heaven, or Purgatory, or Hell.  Which of those places a person’s soul goes to depends upon the state of their soul at the hour of death.  In other words, at the hour or death, to what extent is the person’s soul corrupted by sin?

If a person’s soul at the hour of death is completely free from sin and its effects, then that soul goes straight to Heaven.

If a person’s soul at the hour of death bears even one mortal sin, then that soul goes straight to eternal punishment.

However, if a person’s soul at the hour of their death bears no mortal sins, but is marked by venial sins or the effects of sin called temporal punishment, then that soul—in God’s eyes—deserves neither hell nor Heaven.  That is why God, in His Divine Mercy—created Purgatory:  to be a place of temporary purgation, where venial sins and temporal punishments could be purged from the soul, so that the soul could then fly to Heaven.

It’s St. John the Apostle and Evangelist who teaches us about the difference between mortal and venial sin.  In his first New Testament letter, St. John preaches that “If anyone sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life….  There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that.  All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal” [1 John 5:16-17 (NRSV)].

+     +     +

There are two important points that St. John is making in this passage, and which he develops more fully in all of his New Testament writings.  The first is the distinction between mortal and venial sin.  Mortal sin kills the soul, while venial sin wounds the soul.

The second point is that God calls Christians to pray for other Christians, and especially in regard to their venial sins.  Praying for other Christians is the type of prayer called “intercession”.

Even in heaven, saints pray for those Christians who are not yet in Heaven.  Saints do not have their full attention fixed on God in prayers of adoration, without regard for others.  Saints in heaven pray to God for the other members of the “communion of saints” who are in Purgatory and on earth.  St. Therese the Little Flower spoke to this when she promised to “spend her Heaven doing good on earth.”

We on earth are like the saints in Heaven in this regard.  While we might want in our prayer to fix our attention on God alone, God wants us to offer our prayer for others, because this is often where we find God revealed in our lives.  So it is with our prayers of intercession, both for fellow pilgrims on earth, and for those in Purgatory.

Of course, you likely know that some Christians falsely claim that asking others—whether saints in Heaven, or family members on earth—to pray for us is an offense against God.  They will explain to you that Jesus is the sole mediator of God’s graces.  What they will not explain to you is that each Christian is a member of Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church.  Therefore, each Christian shares in the work of Christ.

So does one Christian praying for another take something away from God?  No.  God wants us to turn to each other.  Intercessory prayer is one form of Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself” [Matthew 22:39].  If it’s valid in God’s eyes to pray for oneself, why wouldn’t it be to pray for others?  When a family suffers a tragedy, they often draw closer together.  Part of this occurs through prayer, and when they pray for each other, they all are stronger afterwards, and more closely knit.

Our prayer for others draws us closer to those for whom we pray.  Those in Heaven, in Purgatory, and on earth are drawn closer together through intercession.  When we intercede for another—or ask someone’s intercession—we don’t believe that that person is God.  We ask another to take our prayers to God.  When, for example, we call our mother on the phone and ask her to pray for us, we’re doing the same as when we kneel and pray a rosary:  we are asking our mother to pray to God on our behalf.

Through all prayers of intercession, the Body of Christ grows stronger.  In the person of Christ, God and man are united.  Within Christ, we live as members of his Body.  Within Christ, we build others up through our prayers for each other, and find God’s love for us all.