Friday of the First Week of Advent
Isaiah 29:17-24  +  Matthew 9:27-31
December 6, 2019

   And out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see.   

Although the Season of Lent evokes the themes of darkness and blindness, these themes are also fundamental to the Season of Advent.  The Sacred Liturgy during Advent often uses these themes to help Christians appreciate what man is without God.

Both the First and Gospel Readings today speak to the experience of blindness.  The reference in the First Reading is only in passing:  it’s one of many metaphors that speak to the power that will be seen “on that day”, the day of which the Book of the Prophet Isaiah speaks at length.  That day sees reversals of fortune and wonders of nature, all testifying to the majesty of the Lord’s coming.

In comparison, the Gospel Reading seems to have a simpler focus.  After curing the blindness of the two men, Jesus “warned them sternly” not to tell others about the miracle, and then the cured men ignore Jesus and spread their good news.  Jesus doesn’t tell them, and St. Matthew doesn’t tell us, the reason for Jesus’ warning.  However, in the bigger picture of the Gospel, it seems that the good news that Jesus brings to individuals isn’t necessarily the same as the Good News about the Person of Jesus.

Putting the two readings side by side, they point our attention in the direction of today’s Responsorial Psalm.  It is not to cure physical blindness that God sent His Son into the world.  Nor are wonders of Mother Nature anything but signs of the Lord’s Power.  When the Psalmist declares that the Lord is his light and his salvation, he’s singing of God’s desire and ability to raise us out of our sins and out of our very world, into His own sight in Heaven for eternity.  To the imagery of light the Psalmist adds his admission that the “one thing” he seeks is to “gaze on the loveliness of the Lord”.  Here in Psalm 27 we hear the focus of Advent come into sharp relief.  Here the liturgical seasons of Advent and Christmas point our attention to our hope for life in Heaven.

Thursday of the First Week of Advent
Isaiah 26:1-6  +  Matthew 7:21,24-27
December 5, 2019

   For the Lord is an eternal Rock.   

Likely you’ve had a conversation with a fellow Christian who insists that the entire Bible—from Genesis to Revelation—must be interpreted literally.  The next time that occurs, offer your fellow Christian this sentence from today’s First Reading—”For the Lord is an eternal Rock.”—and ask if the Lord is literally a rock.  The absurdity of the question shows that a single Scripture verse may have a meaning that transcends the literal meaning.

Most of us would say pretty readily that describing the Lord as “an eternal Rock” is a metaphor that should not be taken literally.  This metaphor tells us how solid, sturdy and dependable God always is.  That’s a pretty simple and straightforward idea.  Jesus in today’s Gospel uses the same metaphor in a little different way.  In the way that Jesus tweaks this metaphor, He gives us a good Advent reflection.

Jesus begins by flatly telling us that “only the one who does the will of my Father” “will enter the Kingdom of heaven”.  Then Jesus presents a comparison in order to describe doing the will of God the Father.  Jesus wants this to be a description of your life.  Here’s Jesus’ comparison:

“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them[…] will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”  In Jesus’ comparison here, what does the image of the “rock” stand for?  Jesus Himself answered that question that “the one who does the will of my Father” “will enter… heaven”.  It’s “the will of [God the] Father” that is the “rock” on which the wise man builds.

God’s holy Will, in other words, is rock-solid.  So we might reflect today on Jesus’ words as an encouragement to ourselves to be more like God:  that is, to be dependable in our decisions, and unwavering in the midst of influences that tempt us to take the broad and easy path.  We might furthermore reflect on the need to pray for insight into God’s holy Will before we make decisions, so that our human will is of one accord with God’s holy Will.

But then, thirdly, you might reflect on God’s holy Will in the light of the Messiah for whom we’re waiting.  Remember what the Holy Name of “Jesus” literally means:  it means “God saves”.  This is the Son whom God the Father wills unto sinful man.  The Messiah whose coming we await will not be a general seeking conquests.  He will not be a performer seeking applause.  He will be a Savior seeking lost souls.

God’s holy Will will not waver in seeking lost souls, even if you yourself buffet Him with sins.  God’s holy Will is “an eternal Rock”.  God wills to save you.  Even were you to join the soldiers on Good Friday and buffet Jesus’ holy Face with spitting, His Will would not waver.  All you need to do is to align your will to the Father’s holy Will.  Abandon your sins, and embrace the Father’s holy Will.  Accept in faith the salvation that Jesus is coming to give you.

Wednesday of the First Week of Advent
Isaiah 25:6-10  +  Matthew 15:29-37
December 4, 2019

   You spread the table before me in the sight of my foes….   

Today’s Gospel describes the Lord Jesus providing in two ways.  The first sentence sets the scene.  It echoes two earlier scenes in Scripture.  One is ten chapters earlier in Matthew.  There, before beginning the Sermon on the Mount, we hear this:  “Seeing the crowds, [Jesus] went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him.”

These disciples are models for us in their ascent of the mountain to be near Jesus.  Of course, both of these occasions in Matthew echo the scene far earlier in the Bible:  that is, in the Book of Exodus, where Moses brings the Law of God down from the mountain.  In his Gospel account, Matthew goes to great length to portray Jesus as the new Moses.  It’s as the new Moses that Jesus provides for the “great crowds” in two ways.

First, Jesus cures “the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute, and many others….”  Second, knowing the hunger of the crowds, Jesus compassionately works the miracle of multiplying the loaves and fish.  Both of these works of Jesus—healing and nourishing—are also portrayed in the great 23^rd Psalm, the source of today’s Responsorial.  Of course, to receive nourishment and healing from the Lord, we have to be willing to admit our real hungers and hurts.  In your private prayer today, ask the Lord to enlighten you to see clearly where your mind and heart are in need of healing and nourishing.

St. Francis Xavier, Priest
Isaiah 11:1-10  +  Luke 10:21-24
December 3, 2019

   The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him….   

In today’s First Reading, the verbs “judge” and “decide” are each used twice.  The first sentence is negative, in that Isaiah describes how the “root of Jesse” will not judge and decide:  that is, “not by appearance”, “nor by hearsay”.  In the next sentence, Isaiah gives a positive description of the judgments of the “root of Jesse”.  However, these phrases describe not only how he will judge—that is, “with justice” and “aright”—but also for whom he will judge.  He “shall judge the poor”, “and decide… for the land’s afflicted.”

These two brief sentences foreshadow the person of Jesus Christ, the awaited Messiah.  They also describe those who live in Jesus Christ:  those who through the Holy Spirit are empowered to let Christ live in them and work through them.  During Advent, as you wait for the coming of the Messiah, ask yourself (especially as you prepare for the Sacrament of Penance) to what extent Isaiah’s words today describe yourself.

Do you judge the significance of others’ lives, or even worse the significance of your own life, according to appearances or by hearsay?  Or do you judge matters “with justice” and rightly?  I say “even worse” because you have more authority to judge yourself then to judge others.  Also, the ways in which you may rightly judge others are less important than how you must judge yourself in preparation for the Sacrament of Penance.  Thanks be to God, He is all-merciful.

Today is the Obligatory Memorial of St. Francis Xavier

Monday of the First Week of Advent
Isaiah 4:2-6  +  Matthew 8:5-11
December 2, 2019

   Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.   

Psalm 122 describes the image of “the house of the Lord”.  In this Old Testament passage, “the house of the Lord” refers not to Heaven, but to the sacred, earthly city of Jerusalem.  The passage also mentions that Jerusalem sits atop a mountain (not on the scale of the Rockies or Himalayas, but a mountain as considered by the ancient peoples of the Holy Land).  That “the house of the Lord” sits atop a mountain implies an ascent, which in turn implies personal sacrifice.  One must stretch and climb to reach His house.  We can relate this ascent both to the long course of Old Testament salvation history, and/or to our own religious practices during the Season of Advent.

Today’s Gospel passage presents the Lord’s response to such human initiative.  The pagan centurion not only shows initiative in appealing to Jesus, but also faith.  This pagan utters the cry that each of us echoes before Holy Communion:  “‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.’”  Jesus responds to him with a prophecy that fulfills Isaiah’s:  “‘… many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven.’”  Jesus adds further to the direction given us by Psalm 122 and Isaiah 2, by pointing our attention beyond any earthly city to the heavenly Jerusalem.

This prophecy can be fulfilled in your own life only because God the Father took the initiative of sending His Son down to be our Messiah.  Jesus offers us the fruits of His sacrifice on the Cross through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  Each of us, even if a member of Christ’s Body from birth, should not presume on God’s grace, but imitate the faith of the pagan centurion.  Make a two-fold prayer on this first weekday of Advent.  (1) Pray that many others will come to Jesus in Holy Mass.  (2) Pray that you will generously take the fruits of the Eucharist to many others though the sacrifices of your daily life.

The First Sunday of Advent [A]
Isa 2:1-5  +  Rom 13:11-14  +  Mt 24:37-44
December 1, 2019

   “For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”   

+     +     +

click HERE to hear Scott Hahn’s reflection for this Sunday (2:59)

click HERE to watch Jeff Cavins’ reflection for this Sunday (4:10)

click HERE to read the homily of Monsignor Charles Pope for this Sunday

click HERE to watch the homily of Archbishop Charles Chaput for this Sunday

+     +     +

click HERE to read Pope Francis’ 2013 homily for this Sunday

click HERE to read Pope Emeritus Benedict’s 2010 homily for this Sunday

click HERE to read St. John Paul II’s 1998 homily for this Sunday

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Jesus Christ, on this First Sunday of Advent, warns us that we do not know on which day the Lord will come.  That seems like an odd statement as we prepare for Christmas.  After all, we know exactly when the Lord will come:  December 25^th.  So much of our preparation for Christmas is customary, and customs are like well-worn slippers:  comfortable and without surprises.

But surprise leaps off every page of the Gospel accounts of the nine months leading up to the birth of Jesus.  Surprise also surrounds His birth at Bethlehem, and surprise follows His birth as others try to get a good look at the new-born king.  The Season of Advent is about being ready for God, no matter where, when, how or through whom He wishes to be present to us, for us, and finally within us.

There are three very practical ways to engage in the Season of Advent.  These three practices will help you, if you choose to enter into them, to recognize and accept the Lord on the day 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:  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.  Scripture and Tradition both show us how these three can help you as a Christian prepare for God.  Focus here just on the first.

When we think of poverty, we might think of destitution, where families do not have food to eat or shelter from the elements.  When God, in His sacred Scriptures and Tradition, commends poverty to His children, He’s not talking about destitution.

Where most Christians are concerned, God is not even talking about material poverty, but about a spiritual form of poverty.  While consecrated religious take a vow of material poverty, God doesn’t ask laypersons or diocesan priests to take such a vow.  Yet he does expect every Christian to be detached from every material thing.  Jesus spoke to this expectation when He declared:  “every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple” [Lk 14:33].  This points to the first principle of spiritual poverty:  to realize and believe how little value material possessions hold.

The second principle of spiritual poverty is trust:  trust in the providential care of God our Father.  Practically speaking, we can ask God to increase our trust by making a concrete sacrifice.

Here’s one example:  tithe your wardrobe.  This means giving 10% of your clothes and accessories to the poor.  It might take one morning to go through your shirts, slacks, dresses, coats, shoes, and so, boxing them up.  It might take another morning or two to deliver this tithe to worthy causes.  Advent is a good time to offer this sacrifice, as the cold months of the year are settling in.

Parents can put the second challenge to their children.  When children make their Christmas lists, they put down only three gifts that they’d like to receive at Christmas.  If a child receives more than three gifts, he or she selects only three of them, and donates the rest to less fortunate children who might otherwise receive fewer than three presents.

Poverty can help us conform our families and our homes more closely to the Holy Family and their dwelling in Bethlehem.  God the Father, in His providential will, chose for His only-begotten Son to be born in a stable amid the stench of animals.  But the Holy Family’s lack of material things and material security wasn’t intended as a good in and of itself:  that poverty was good inasmuch as it focused attention upon the goodness of the Holy Family in general, and the divine goodness of the newborn child.

Spiritual poverty is sought by Christians in order to dispose themselves to the grace by which God wishes to conform each of us the Image and Likeness of Jesus.  Jesus became one of us when at the Annunciation so that you and I could become like God by opening our hearts and minds to God’s grace.

St. Andrew the Apostle
Romans 10:9-18  +  Matthew 4:18-22
November 30, 2019

And how can they hear without someone to preach?

There are many things about a man entering the seminary that are misunderstood.  One important point, that many people are not clear on, is that a man enters the seminary in order to continue to discern the calling that the Lord has made to him.  He does not enter the seminary because he has already made a decision to be a priest.  The Lord calls out to every young man, “Come after me….”

What differs from one man to another is the phrase that follows “Come after me….”  For some, the words that follow are “Be my faithful disciple, and serve me through the wife and children I will gift you.”  To others, Jesus says those words by which we hear him calling Simon and Andrew:  “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  The prayer that a man offers while in the seminary asks the Lord for help in clarifying just which call it is that the Lord has made to him.

“Fishers of men.”  This is a metaphor, of course:  one that speaks to Simon and Andrew, whose lives as adults had been given to the livelihood of being fishermen.  Regardless of the livelihood which they had chosen for themselves, the Lord’s words mean “Come after me.  I chose you to be the servants of my Church.”  No matter the Christian, and no matter the vocation to which the Lord calls him or her, the root of each vocation is service.

Friday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Daniel 7:2-14  +  Luke 21:29-33
November 29, 2019

His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away ….

Today’s First Reading from Daniel follows naturally from last Sunday’s celebration of Christ the King.  There are few queens and kings in the world today who truly rule as monarchs, and the peoples of many nations (such as the United States) reject the very idea of having a queen or king.  Indeed, in modern Western thought, government is “by the people”, and all elected officials hold power only through consent of the governed.  While such ideas hold merit when it comes to civil government, problems arise when they are applied to the spiritual life and to the life of the Church.

In Daniel’s vision, the “son of man” “received dominion, glory and kingship; nations and peoples of every language serve him.  His dominion is an everlasting dominion”.  The word “dominion” comes from the Latin word “dominus”, meaning “lord” (either human or divine).  Older Catholics are familiar with the phrase “Dominus vobiscum” (“The Lord be with you”).  The English word “dominate” is a cognate.

Secular Western culture rejects all ideas of domination, even in the spiritual life.  There are many “brands” of religion and spirituality that reject even the notion that God should be seen as a “lord” who has “dominion”.  At the heart of many modern religions and spiritualities is the idea enshrined in a modern U. S. Supreme Court decision that each human being has a right to create her or his own view of reality, including the definition of life itself.  Whatever the origins of such ideas, they cannot be reconciled with the Bible, whose God is, at one and the same time, both a loving Father and a providential Lord.

For the Scriptures and reflection for Thanksgiving Day, click HERE.

Thursday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Daniel 6:12-28  +  Luke 21:20-28
November 28, 2019

Some men rushed into the upper chamber of Daniel’s home and found him praying ….

Jesus issues a sharp challenge to you today.  His words might even be described as frightening.  Yet Jesus is not preaching fire and brimstone.  He’s not preaching, at least directly, about sin and damnation.  He is preaching, though, about the worldly desolation of Jerusalem, and signs above and upon earth that will cause people to “die in fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world”.

Today’s First Reading from this last week of the Church year comes from the Book of the Prophet Daniel.  It is the famous story of “Daniel and the lions’ den”.  While the miracle of Daniel’s survival stands out as the dramatic hinge of the passage, less noticeable details deserve our attention, also.  For example, what was it that provoked the king’s anger at Daniel?  It was Daniel’s prayers of petition.  Daniel violated the decree that all were to petition no one—neither god nor man—except the king.  Daniel’s wisdom lay in trusting the Lord alone, or rather, knowing that petitions to anyone but the Lord would be of little meaning.

Many people find the idea of the end of the world very frightening, especially when it’s dramatized in literature or film.  The drama is enhanced by the physical destruction of worldly monuments and temples.  But physical destruction, no matter how vast the scale, pales in comparison to the destruction of a single human soul.

That phrase is not quite accurate, of course, because a soul can never be destroyed.  It would be more accurate to speak of “the destruction of a single human soul’s opportunity for eternal bliss”, or more simply, “the eternal damnation of a single human soul”.  Thanks be to God for His sending the Son of Man to redeem man from his sins.  This final truth is the reason for Jesus to speak hopefully at the end of today’s Gospel passage.  In effect, Jesus preaches that we need not fear the end of the world, or the end of earthly life, because when we place our faith in the Son of Man, we can have full assurance that our redemption is at hand.