The Nativity of the Lord
Scriptures for the Four Masses:
Vigil Mass:  Isaiah 62:1-5  + Acts 13:16-17,22-25  +  Matthew 1:1-25
Mass during the Night:  Isaiah 9:1-6  +  Titus 2:11-14  +  Luke 2:1-14
Mass at Dawn:  Isaiah 62:11-12  +  Titus 3:4-7  +  Luke 2:15-20
Mass during the Day:  Isaiah 52:7-10  +  Hebrews 1:1-6  +  John 1:1-18

And the Word became flesh / and made his dwelling among us, / and we saw his glory ….

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references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church cited for this Sunday by the Vatican’s Homiletic Directory:

CCC 456-460, 466: “Why did the Word become flesh?”
CCC 461-463, 470-478: the Incarnation
CCC 437, 525-526: the Christmas mystery
CCC 439, 496, 559, 2616: Jesus is the Son of David
CCC 65, 102: God has said everything in his Word
CCC 333: the incarnate Christ worshipped by the angels
CCC 1159-1162, 2131, 2502: the Incarnation and images of Christ

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Who doesn’t like receiving a gift?  It’s only human nature to light up at the chance to receive a gift.  However, there are times when receiving a gift can make us unsure about just how to respond.

For example, you are in a large supermarket, and an employee holding a tray of little cheese and weenie sandwiches offers you one.  How do you respond?  Remembering what your doctor has told you about the shape you’re in, you may say, “No, thank you.”  Or maybe in spite of your condition—because you really like those cheese and weenie sandwiches—you may say, “Thank you,” and take three of them.

Or, for example, your spouse on Christmas morning, hands you the keys to a brand new Yukon Denali, or F-150 pickup, or Mustang GT500.  One response might be joy:  this is just what you’d been dreaming of.  Another response might be fear:  “What about our finances?  How was this paid for?”  Yet another response might be suspicion:  “Hmmm…  He wouldn’t be getting me a gift like this unless he were in need of major absolution.  What in the world did he do this time?”

We hesitate when receiving some gifts from some persons.  We hesitate because we know that this two-way street of receiving and responding to the gift reflects the relationship between the giver and the receiver.  Whether we respond, and how we respond, reflects the relationship that we want to have going forward with the giver.

It can be intimidating, if we look beyond the cuteness of Christmas and instead look intently on the “reason for the season”, to recognize what kind of gift God has given us.  God the Father has given us His only-begotten Son for a specific reason.

We have the entire Christmas season to reflect on this gift.  Christmas does not end at 11:59 pm on December 25^th.  Christmas begins with the celebration of Jesus’ birth, but that’s only the first of five mysteries celebrated throughout Christmastide.  Christmas Day is followed by the feasts of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph; Mary, the Mother of God; the Epiphany of Jesus to the whole world; and finally the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River.

The best way to respond to God the Father’s Gift starts with remembering why God gave us His only Son.  God has gifted us with His Son in order to meet our greatest need in this world.  What is this need?

We might first consider what it’s not.

Our greatest need is not knowledge:  if it were, Jesus would have preached from the Cross, instead of opening not His mouth as the Lamb who was slain.

Our greatest need is not power:  if it were, Jesus would have come down from the Cross to show us His strength over the forces of evil.

Our greatest need is not wealth:  if it were, Jesus would not have died penniless and wearing a single piece of cloth.

Our greatest need is not the removal of pain from our lives:  if it were, Jesus would never allowed nails to pierce His hands and feet; and a sword, His side.

Our greatest need is salvation:  the forgiveness of our sins.  Jesus accepted the agony of His Passion and Death to open the gates of Heaven for us by offering up His Body and Blood, soul and divinity.  In humility, Jesus was born into this world, so that some thirty years later he could die to open the Gates of Heaven.  As the saying goes, “the wood of the crib is the Wood of the Cross.”

God the Father sent His divine Son down to earth so that the Father might adopt each of us.  The Nativity is the dawning of our life as God’s very dear children.  But this new life of ours takes place within Christ.  Through grace, each us becomes one member of Christ’s Body, so that we might live on earth, die, and live in Heaven, in Christ.  When God adopts us, Christ becomes our life.  Saint Paul stated it this way:  “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” [Galatians 2:20].

Adoration of the Shepherds by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682)

Late Advent Weekday — December 20
Isaiah 7:10-14  +  Luke 1:26-38

“May it be done to me according to your word.”

Today’s Gospel Reading focuses our attention upon the First Joyful Mystery of the traditional Dominican Rosary (as opposed to the six-decade Carmelite Rosary, whose first Joyful Mystery is the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary).  The mystery of the Annunciation focuses upon the moment of the Divine Word becoming Flesh within the womb of Our Lady.  This moment, among other ways in which we might reflect upon it, symbolizes the way that each Christian disciple needs to accept Jesus into his or her own life.

Jesus is the divine Gift that God the Father gifts fallen mankind with.  We can prepare for Christmastide by pondering both the graciousness of this divine Father, and the bountiful goodness of this Gift who is the divine Son.  Yet another way to ponder the Mystery of the Annunciation is to reflect upon the manner in which Mary receives the divine Gift of Jesus.

Mary is the first and best disciple of Jesus.  She not only intercedes for each of us.  She is also a model for us, which means that each time we find her mentioned in the New Testament, we ought to consider how we can imitate her virtues as the first and best disciple.

At the scene of the Annunciation, Mary exemplifies many virtues, but perhaps no virtue more than that of humility.  It’s not a coincidence that the words “humble” and “humility” derive from the Latin word “humus”, meaning “ground” or “earth”.  Mary is grounded, or down-to-earth, because of her humility.  She knows what she is about, and never tries to be someone she is not.  This humility does not prevent her, however, from being surprised by God’s message that she is destined to be the Mother of the Messiah.  Nonetheless, without any assurances about what this vocation will demand of her, she assents to God’s will:  “May it be done unto me according to your [divine] word.”

Late Advent Weekday — December 19
Judges 13:2-7,24-25  +  Luke 1:5-25

“Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall name him John.”

St. Matthew and St. Luke are the only two evangelists to record any narratives about the events surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ.  But St. Luke spends far more time than St. Matthew doing this.  While it’s true that the first two chapters of both Matthew and Luke are dedicated to these narratives, it’s important to recall that the chapters of the Bible do not have an equal number of verses.  The first two chapters of Matthew consist of forty-eight verses, while the first two chapter of Luke consist of one hundred thirty-two verses.

Each day from today—December 19^th—through the morning of Christmas Eve, the Church proclaims Gospel passages from Luke.  Many of these passages are actually about the conception and birth of St. John the Baptist.  Yet St. Luke very artistically parallels these narratives with those about the advent and birth of Jesus Christ.

When people think of the word “annunciation” in relation to the Gospel, they likely think first—and perhaps solely—of the Annunciation made to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  But in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke, three annunciations are narrated:  of the birth of Jesus to Joseph in Matthew 1, of the birth of John to his father Zechariah in Luke 1, and of the birth of Jesus to Mary in Luke 1.

Today’s Gospel Reading focuses upon the annunciation to Zechariah about John the Baptist.  We should be alert here to comparisons and contrasts both between Zechariah and Mary and between John and Jesus.  An obvious contrast is between the advanced age of Zechariah and the youth of Mary.

More significant, however, and more important for the Christian who hears these passages proclaimed during Advent, are the contrasting responses of Zechariah and Mary to their respective annunciations.  While both of them respond by questioning how what was announced could come true, Mary goes a step further by accepting God’s will faithfully with a reply of “Fiat.”

Toward the end of today’s Gospel Reading, the angel explains how Zechariah will be punished for not accepting God’s will faithfully.  Nonetheless, God’s will in not deterred by Zechariah.  God’s will may be detoured, but never deterred.  God’s providential will always is accomplished.

Late Advent Weekday — December 17
Genesis 49:2,8-10  +  Matthew 1:1-17

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

It’s obvious that today’s date—December 17^th—begins the final week of Advent.  One week from today the Church will stand at the threshold of Christmastide.  What’s not so obvious is that the Church approaches this final week of Advent differently than the season’s first few weeks.  Beginning on December 17^th, the Gospel Readings at weekday Mass shift from scenes set during Jesus’ adulthood to scenes set before His birth.

Today’s Gospel Reading is the first seventeen verses of St. Matthew’s Gospel account.  The very first verse tells us what this passage is all about:  “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”  This genealogy of Jesus is different than the one recorded by St. Luke the Evangelist in Luke 3:23-38.  St. Matthew’s account of Jesus’ genealogy goes back in history only to Abraham, while St. Luke’s traces Jesus’ lineage back to Adam himself.

Nonetheless, the figures of David and Abraham help us understand the structure of the genealogy that St. Matthew records.  Today consider just the latter of these two persons.  The genealogy has three parts.  Abraham and Jesus stand at either end, revealing the most important truth of this genealogical record:  that Jesus fulfills what Abraham, “our father in faith”, could only foreshadow.  The shadows of the Old Testament are now giving way to the light of Him who soon will be born.

Friday of the Third Week of Advent
Isaiah 56:1-3,6-8  +  John 5:33-36

Come, Lord, bring us your peace / that we may rejoice before you with a perfect heart.

The verse for today’s Gospel Acclamation asks the Lord to come and bring us His peace.  Peace, of course, is a basic theme of our wishes and prayers during this time of year.  But the Gospel Acclamation continues in a way that specifies why we want the Lord to bring us His peace:  “that we may rejoice before you with a perfect heart.”  This petition is not a basic theme of this time of year, but perhaps it ought to be.

By contrast, we might ask what keeps our hearts from being perfect to begin with?  God gives a human person a heart so that she or he might love.  A “perfect heart”, then, is a heart that loves as God loves.  To be more specific, a “perfect heart” is a heart that loves God and loves one’s neighbor in the manner in which God loves.  These two forms of love—loving God and loving one’s neighbor—are challenging for contrasting reasons.

It’s a challenge to love God because God is love, and His love for us in infinite.  The immensity of God’s love challenges us, and tempts us to despair of loving as God loves.  While finite human persons cannot love with the infinite love that God loves, we can love Him perfectly:  with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

By contrast, it’s often a challenge to love our neighbor because our neighbor can be lacking in love.  The smallness of our neighbor’s love challenges us, and tempts us not to bother with him.  Why should we love our neighbor in a loving way when he has been unloving to us?

In both cases, it’s important to recognize that Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us so that we could love with a perfect heart.  Jesus, in His preaching, miracles, and self-sacrifice on Calvary, reveals what God’s love looks like.  Through prayer and the sacraments, God pours His love into our hearts so that we can imitate Jesus’ loving ways more perfectly.

Thursday of the Third Week of Advent
Isaiah 54:1-10  +  Luke 7:24-30

“‘Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, he will prepare your way before you.’”

Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading quotes two Old Testament verses:  Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3.  Together, these two verses illustrate Jesus’ image of John the Baptist.  They help us understand how John the Baptist stands in relation to Jesus.  John goes first, but only to prepare the way that leads to Jesus.

As the first half of Advent concludes tomorrow, Jesus’ quotation in today’s Gospel Reading brings up an important principle of our Catholic Faith.  We need to keep this principle in mind as enter tomorrow into the second, more intense half of Advent.  That principle is intercession.

Many of our separated brethren dismiss the principle of others interceding between “me and Jesus”.  Protestant leaders had statues and paintings of saints destroyed because they suggested that certain persons might be important in the process of bringing us to Jesus.  The dismissal of the role of saints went hand-in-hand with the dismissal of the ordained priesthood, another important means by which human persons intercede for us in bringing us closer to Jesus.

So as the first half of Advent ends today—and with it, its focus upon St. John the Baptist—we ought to reflect on two points.  First, what do I need to learn from St. John the Baptist, and how can he lead me to Jesus?  Second, how can I imitate St. John the Baptist and lead others to Jesus by my own words and sacrifices?

Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent
Isaiah 45:6-8,18,21-25  +  Luke 7:18-23

“In the Lord shall be the vindication and the glory of all the descendants of Israel.”

Confusion sometimes arises from the question that John the Baptist in today’s Gospel Reading instructs his disciples to ask Jesus.  People wonder:  “Doesn’t this question—‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’—suggest that John the Baptist wasn’t really familiar with his cousin Jesus, and was even uncertain about the role of Jesus in the Lord God’s plan for Israel?”  The answer, of course, is “No.”  But why then does John instruct his disciples to ask this question?

By way of answering, we might point out that John isn’t sending his disciples for his own sake, but for theirs.  John wants each of them to encounter Jesus and hear Jesus’ answer to the question as a sort of initiation into a relationship with Jesus.

However, one might in response ask a further question.  “Why, then, did Jesus answer the disciples’ question by saying, ‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard ….’?”  The fact is that these disciples need for the time being to remain under the instruction of John the Baptist.

Jesus does not say to these disciples what He said to Peter and Andrew:  “Come, follow me.”  These disciples, like us during Advent, need to sit at the feet of John the Baptist and allow his message to sink more deeply into our hearts before we can be true disciples of the Lord Jesus.

The Fourth Sunday of Advent [A]
Isaiah 7:10-14  +  Romans 1:1-7  +  Matthew 1:18-24

references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church cited for today by the Vatican’s Homiletic Directory:

CCC 496-507, 495: Mary’s virginal motherhood
CCC 437, 456, 484-486, 721-726: Mary the Mother of Christ by the Holy Spirit
CCC 1846: Jesus as Savior revealed to Joseph
CCC 445, 648, 695: Christ the Son of God in his Resurrection
CCC 143-149, 494, 2087: the “obedience of faith”

Ask for a sign from the Lord, your God; let it be deep as the netherworld, or high as the sky!

Signs, symbols, oracles, portents:  man has since time immemorial sought assurance from God of His providential will.  King Ahaz in the First Reading is going against the grain in refusing to ask “for a sign from the Lord”, especially since the Lord Himself directed Ahaz to do so.  Yet in spite of the stubbornness of Ahaz, the Lord gives him a stunning sign:  “that the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.”

This sign has three parts.  The first is that “the virgin shall conceive”.  This seems to be a paradox that goes against the very laws of nature.  Yet God, who is the Author of all creation—both natural and supernatural—can work within His creation as He wills.  What seems to us to be an act against the natural order can be an instance of God working supernaturally within the natural order.  This particular act stresses that God is the Author of all life.

The sign’s second part is that the virgin shall “bear a son”, and the third that the virgin “shall name him Emmanuel”.  These latter two parts reveal more to us about the particular life that God has created.  God’s creation is the son of the virgin, and so he is human.  As her son, he is named by the virgin.  But the name she gives him reveals something extraordinary about this life, beyond the extraordinary means of his creation.

His name is Emmanuel, a Hebrew word which means “God with us”.  This phrase encompasses a broad range of possible meanings.  At its lower end, the phrase could mean simply that this human being named “Emmanuel” reminds us, or teaches us, of God’s presence in our collective midst.  However, at the opposite end of this range of meanings is the teaching of the Gospel and Christ’s Church.

The person of Jesus of Nazareth, while truly the son of Mary—and so truly human—is also the son of God:  “One in Being” with God the Father, as we profess.  Jesus is fully human and fully God.  Yet the Incarnation is but the prelude to the divine work that God will accomplish in Jesus at the end of His human life.

With that as a backdrop, we can reflect upon the Gospel Reading setting the stage for the Nativity.  The Reading’s focus is Saint Joseph and his vocation as the foster-father of Jesus.  Consider Joseph’s vocation in light of the two names by which his foster-child is described here:   Jesus and Emmanuel.

The name “Jesus” means “God saves”, while “Emmanuel” means “God with us”.  Taken together, they dispel two contrary beliefs:  that God will save us only at a distance; and that God comes into our midst only to condemn us.  Instead, these two names together confirm that God is with us in order to save us.

In Joseph’s dream, the angel of the Lord demands two things from Joseph.  The first is not to “be afraid to take Mary… into [his] home”.  The second is to “name [Mary’s son] Jesus”.  Both commands imply acceptance.  Generally, they imply acceptance of God’s providential Will.  Specifically, they imply acceptance of Mary and Jesus as Joseph’s own.  In spite of the apparent shame caused by Mary—because of her seeming infidelity—God calls Joseph to protect Mary as her husband, and to stand with her in accepting with patience the unfolding of God’s Providence.

In spite of Mary’s apparent betrayal of her betrothal to Joseph, God asks Joseph to name Mary’s son.  This act itself, independent of the name Joseph would give the child, is significant.  This act had legal significance within the culture of Joseph.  By this act, Joseph would have been claiming the child as his own.  In making this claim, Joseph undoubtedly would have invited shame upon himself, as many would have seen this act as an admission that he had fathered a child outside of a fully ratified marriage.

Part of the irony of this passage, then, is that Mary and Joseph, by their submission to God’s providential Will, foreshadow the life of Jesus.  Mary and Joseph are scorned and cast aside as sinners precisely because of their faithfulness to what God wants to accomplish through Christ.  We ought to expect this in our lives as disciples, as well.

Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent
Zephaniah 3:1-2,9-13  +  Matthew 21:28-32

“Which of the two did his father’s will?”

Like the one proclaimed on Thursday of the First Week of Advent [Mt 7:21,24-27], today’s Gospel Reading from the twenty-first chapter of Matthew focuses upon good works.  Both of these passages contrast mere words with resolute works.  Yet there’s a further similarity that’s even more important.

In the passage from Matthew 7, Jesus insists that for one to enter Heaven, one must do the will of God the Father.  In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus proclaims a parable at whose center is a father with two sons.  The human father in this parable is a symbol of God the Father.

This focus of God the Father can help you see that it’s not your own human will that’s key in your life.  The key is the will of God the Father.  This is the same Father who within salvation history loved His erring children—those resembling the first son in today’s parable—enough to send His only divine Son to die for them.  The Father “willed” that His Only-Begotten, the one who in all things does His Father’s will—even on Calvary—sacrificed His life for the sinful son, who is you and me.