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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It’s telling that the Gospel passage on Christmas morning is repeated just six days later, on December 31.  This Gospel passage speaks to the beginning and end not only of our salvation, but in fact of God’s entire work of creation.

The English author G. K. Chesterton wrote in his book The Everlasting Man that:  “Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether he likes it or not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars.  His instincts and imagination can still connect them, when his reason can no longer see the need of the connection; for him there will always be some savour of religion about the mere picture of a mother and baby; some hint of mercy and softening about the mere mention of the dreadful name of God.”

Chesterton was a master of paradox, and through paradox he insightfully explained the depth of the Christian mysteries.  Christmas and Easter are intimately related to each other, by means of a divine paradox:  Christ was born for us, so that He might be able to die for us.  Christ rose from the dead so that you and I might find the strength to die, so as to live forever.

The great Anglo-American poet T. S. Eliot captured this paradox in his poem titled “The Journey of the Magi”.  Towards the end of this poem one of the Three Wise Men asks, many years after the epiphany they had witnessed:  “were we led all that way for Birth or Death?  There was a birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt.  I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter Agony for us, like Death, our death.”

May this Christmas Season lead you to the gift of dying to everything in this world.

Late Advent Weekday [Morning Mass]
II Samuel 7:1-5,8-12,14,16  +  Luke 1:67-79
December 24, 2018

“…the dawn from on high shall break upon us….”

This morning’s Scriptures are beautiful in their simplicity.  The Gospel passage is a prophecy.  We’re so familiar with the Benedictus from praying Lauds each day that we might forget the words by which St. Luke the Evangelist introduces this hymn:  “Zechariah his father, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied, saying….” Continue reading →

The Fourth Sunday of Advent [C]
Mic 5:1-4  +  Heb 10:5-10  +  Lk 1:39-45
December 23, 2018

“‘…behold, I come to do your will, O God.’”

In today’s Gospel passage we hear about the second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary:  the Visitation.  In the person of Mary we see someone bearing her Lord and God within her.  We also see Mary as someone who brings Him into the lives of others. Continue reading →

Late Advent Weekday
Genesis 49:2,8-10  +  Matthew 1:1-17
December 17, 2018

…Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.

“Late Advent Weekday” is the term that describes the last eight days of Advent, beginning on December 17.  The Sacred Liturgy—from the Divine Office to Holy Mass—shifts slightly in tone as the Church’s preparation for the Messiah intensifies. Continue reading →

The Third Sunday of Advent [C]
Zeph 3:14-18  +  Phil 4:4-7  +  Lk 3:10-18
December 16, 2018

“Now the people were filled with expectation, and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ.”

“[T]he people were filled with expectation,” but what exactly were they expecting?

Every December as my sisters, brother and I were growing up, a large part of our joy came from the presents that would appear under our Christmas tree throughout the course of the month.  Naturally, most of the Christmas presents were delivered by Saint Nicholas in the earliest hours of December 25^th.  But a fair number simply appeared throughout the course of December, remaining wrapped until Christmas morning. Continue reading →

Monday of the Second Week of Advent
Isaiah 35:1-10  +  Luke 5:17-26
December 10, 2018

Our God will come to save us!

The refrain to today’s Responsorial is from the First Reading, from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah.  It’s rare for the Church, in selecting Scriptural texts for Holy Mass, to weave a verse from the First Reading within the proclamation of the Responsorial Psalm.  “Our God will come to save us!”  Continue reading →

The Second Sunday of Advent [C]
Bar 5:1-9  +  Phil 1:4-6,8-11  +  Lk 3:1-6
December 9, 2018

“A voice of one crying out in the desert….”

Are you afraid of the dark?  God wants you to enter into a dark place during this season of Advent.  That’s what the practice of penance and the Sacrament of Confession are about:  putting aside your usual self-denial, and entering into the dark places in your conscience.  In those places, you hide your knowledge of the sins you have done, and the good you have failed to do.  In that darkness, Christ can appear as light, if you are willing to allow Him entrance. Continue reading →

The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Genesis 3:9-15,20  +  Ephesians 1:3-6,11-12  +  Luke 1:26-38
December 8, 2018

“Hail, full of grace!  The Lord is with you.”

Like the Assumption, our celebration of Mary’s Immaculate Conception tells us something very important about our common humanity:  that is, humanity as man was meant to bear it “in the beginning”.  Our belief that Mary was conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, without Original Sin tells us as Catholics that Mary is exactly the type of human being God meant each of us to be.  In the words of St. Paul, “God chose us in him[,] before the world began, to be holy and blameless in his sight, to be full of love.” Continue reading →

St. Francis Xavier, Priest
Isaiah 2:1-5  +  Matthew 8:5-11
December 3, 2018

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.  This mountain is not on the scale of the Rockies or Himalayas, yet it’s a mountain as considered by the ancient peoples of the Holy Land. Continue reading →