Micah 5:1-4a

Hebrews 10:5-10

Luke 1:30-45

Remembering, in faith, is not an invitation to look back.  Rather, it is the challenge to make present and so be inspired to look forward with confidence.  In the Eucharistic prayer, in the words of institution, Jesus says to the Assembly: Do this in my memory. That ought to translate for the Assembly as, do this and the whole mystery and I are present.  The dying and rising are renewed and the Assembly is in the midst of the event that won’t be complete until the end of time.  It’s apt that our response then is: Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again. We celebrate the full span of the mystery and are firmed in the hope of the second coming.

What has been your focus during these Advent days?  By now there are not a few who are tired of all that goes on during the holiday season, that is, the way these days are observed in the world, all the pressures and demands and even the parties.  It is almost as though we are like the dancers in The Masque of the Red Death who think if they dance frenetically enough they will be able to ignore the plague that is ravaging their neighbors beyond the doors of their ballroom.  If we party enough and shop hard enough and laugh enough and don’t give ourselves too much time to listen and reflect, we will be spared the direness of these times.  We will be spared having to think about the wars and the harshness of the economy.  We won’t have to think about the number of the unemployed and how many homes are being foreclosed upon, much less the possibility of our own fortunes being compromised.  We will be able to forget about the 23 millions of people in Africa afflicted with AIDS, and the others suffering from malaria, and sleeping sickness, to say nothing of the millions starving to death.  All the more reason we need Sunday mass, the Liturgy of the Word and the Eucharist, this gathering of church so that we can put all of this in context and find reason to hope and even to find peace.

Micah, in the only reading we hear of his in the Sunday Lectionary, proclaims a message of hope.  From a backwoods town of little significance, except for the fact that David was born there, will come the Messiah who will shepherd his flock by the strength of the Lord (and) he shall be peace. What might be missed in this joyful prophecy is this little phrase: Therefore the Lord will give them up. Micah, who lived in post Davidic times, saw a terrible invasion of foreigners that threatened to destroy the Kingdom.  What he saw to be at stake are God’s promise and the people’s need to hope in its fulfillment.  So, in effect, Micah is saying, in spite of the havoc and destruction that you are witnessing God is faithful and from a young woman in Bethlehem a child will be born who will be the Messiah whose greatness shall reach to the ends of the earth; he shall be peace. There may be nothing you are experiencing now to support the truth of this proclamation, but it is God’s promise and God who is faithful will not disappoint.

Many rejected Jesus as Messiah precisely because the longed-for messianic age did not follow.  When Jesus was crucified all the disciples fled in horror except Mary, his mother, Mary Magdalene, and the Beloved Disciple.  The hopes of the disciples were dashed by the event that spoke only of defeat.  And, in the ages since that event, where has been that promised era of peace that should have reached to the ends of the earth?  The talk of Resurrection hasn’t outweighed the sufferings that seem to deny Jesus as Lord and Messiah.

The reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, if we listen carefully, might help support our flagging faith in these difficult times.  Holocausts and sin offerings, i.e., offerings of atonement, were regular parts of Hebrew worship.  The lifeblood of animals was poured out and the carcasses were burned as signs of repentance and sorrow for sin.  The Writer proclaims that those kinds of sacrifices no longer work before God.  Christ has come into the world to exhibit the response God longs for from God’s people: Sacrifice and offering (God) did not desire, but a body (God) prepared for me…Then (Christ) said, as is written of (Christ) in the scroll (Torah), behold I come to do your will. In that declaration is our salvation.  In Christ’s will offering of himself and our baptism into Christ we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The words take away the scandal of the Cross.  What the world sees as defeat is proclaimed to us a victory.  At last there is the perfect response, the desire to do always God’s will.  That is the one sacrifice for all.  Do you remember that Christ’s great challenge to those who would be his disciples, besides loving one another as he loves, was to take up the cross every day.  That is not an invitation to complacency, an excuse for ignoring the terrible things that happen in these times.  Rather, it is a command to those who walk with Christ on the Way to enter into the sufferings of our brothers and sisters in Christ and to work for the alleviation of those who suffer, all the while believing that the ultimate victory and vindication will be the sharing in Christ’s resurrection when he comes again.  We are to work for the end of wars.  We are to search for cures of the diseases that ravage the millions and make those medicines available.  We who have are to share with those who do not have so that the obscenity of poverty may be eased.  In all of this we are to pour out our lives in service as Christ does.  Then we enter into the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Finally in the gospel reading from Luke, we come to imagery that speaks of what we would rather hear during these Advent Liturgies, the coming birth of Christ.  Isn’t that what Christmas is really about?  Perhaps.  But there is more to the feast than that.  Were it solely that, we would be looking back.  Remember, in faith we don’t do that.

The pregnant Mary comes into the presence of her pregnant cousin, Elizabeth.  Mary, the young maiden, greets Elizabeth who was thought to be long past childbearing years.  Nothing is impossible with God.  Mary, with the Angel’s words of Annunciation reverberating in her heart, comes to see the sign that will validate the message and assure her that it is God who is acting in her life.  When Elizabeth hears Mary’s voice, the fetal John the Baptist leaps in her womb.  It’s like a victory dance that someone does when s/he sinks a hole-in-one.  Elizabeth exults at the affirmation of her own faith, marveling that God has seen fit to bless her with this amazing grace.  But above all it is Elizabeth’s moment to praise the one who believed that what was spoken to (her) by the Lord would be fulfilled.

Bear with me.  There is something more that I think we need to understand from this reading and about the coming feast.  If we believe that Mary is an image of and the mother of the church, then oughtn’t we recognize the challenge the way Mary did?  The Holy Spirit came upon her and she conceived.  The Holy Spirit has come upon us, individually and collectively, and so do we conceive Christ in us.  The wonder of this feast breaks forth when we realize that God is inviting us each day to give birth to Christ in our times and situations.  Through the Eucharist we are transformed just as the bread and wine are into the Body and Blood of Christ.  We share the Meal and are sent to be Christ’s presence in the world.  The actions that we do in, with, and through Christ, bring him forth to all we meet and serve.  And the charity of our lives that has no other explanation than the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit, strengthens the faith of the broken and down-trodden, and helps us all to believe that God’s promises will be fulfilled.   For now (God’s) greatness shall reach to the ends of the earth; (Christ) shall be peace.

Sincerely,

Didymus

Zephaniah 3:14-18a

Philippians 4:4-7

Luke 3:10-18

You will notice the difference as soon as the Liturgy begins.  Gone will be the purple vestments that connote somberness and can hint of penitence, and in their place the priest and deacon will be clad in rose colored vestments.  The entrance hymn ought to be joyful urging that response from us as we enter into worship.  The church seems to be encouraging the faithful to hang on.  The dark days won’t last forever.  We’re half way there.  The anticipated feast is nearer than when we entered the Advent Season.  The celebration of the Lord’s birth is near.  And so is the Day of the Lord closer than when we first believed.

In former times, when the Liturgy was in Latin, this Third Sunday of Advent was called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is the Latin word for rejoice. Zephaniah’s opening words in the first reading are: Shout for joy, O daughter Zion! / Sing joyfully, O Israel. Paul, in the second reading will urge us: Rejoice in the Lord always.  I shall say it again: rejoice! It might not be as obvious, but John the Baptist has the same theme in Luke’s Gospel.  It may not be obvious, but it will become apparent as we consider the implications of his message.

We don’t hear from the prophet Zephaniah very often – only twice in the cycle of Sunday readings.  Historically, he precedes Jeremiah and prophesies to a Jerusalem in which many of the Jews have given themselves over to pagan practices and have wandered from the strict monotheism announced by Moses.  The majority of his writing is harsh and foretells dire consequences for the people’s infidelity.  God’s wrath will surely follow.  Today’s reading comes from near the end of the short book.  What do you make of it?  With some knowledge of what came before these lines we must infer that Zephaniah is proclaiming God’s love for the people and the desire to forgive and restore that goes beyond the ability of the people to repent.  God forgives even before sorrow for sin is expressed.  No one is able to plumb the depths of that love.  No one can comprehend the love that is unconditional and eternal.  But struggling to grasp the wonder and accept that it applies to us, how can we not rejoice?

A sage once said that we ought to work as though everything depended upon us and pray as though we knew that it all depended upon God.  Who can argue with that?  Paul seems to be saying something akin to that in the second reading to the Philippians as he urges us to rejoice in the Lord always.  Having urged us to love one another with a love that gives testimony to our faith in Christ last week, he now tells us that the kindness with which we deal with others should redound when people think of us.  That is a pretty tall order.  Some of us may wonder if we have the strength and the fortitude to live out the faith-life that Paul envisions us doing.  What’s the secret to success?  Remember that the Lord is near.  Perhaps Paul is reminding us of the Lord’s promise: Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. It is that presence we celebrate in the Liturgy of the Word.  It is that presence we celebrate in the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  In Baptism, we put on Christ and from that moment live in Christ.  We need to remember.

If we focus too much on our weaknesses and ourselves when we consider the tasks before us as we walk in The Way, don’t we become anxious?   And anxiety paralyzes.   Focusing on the negative does the same thing.  And we haven’t even mentioned worrying about the world’s ending in 2012.  Hear Paul’s advice.  Doesn’t he say in effect, turn it all over to God?  If we believe that God has enveloped us in the love that comes to us in Christ, if we believe that we have been redeemed in Christ’s blood, then we ought to be able to let go, as they say, and let God.  In that letting go there is peace.  You remember the definition of peace, don’t you?  Peace is the confident assurance that nothing can separate us from the love of God that comes to us through Christ Jesus.  That’s probably what the martyrs remembered as they prepared for the axe’s fall.  Certainly something of that must have been at work in those heroic acts of service and sacrifice carried out by many of those in the collapsing towers in New York.  Didn’t you wonder as you heard the stories where people find that kind of courage?  Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. That’s where they find the courage.

The figure of John the Baptist is a dominant one in the season of Advent.  Last week we met the Voice crying in the wilderness urging all to make straight the way of the Lord.  As a result of his preaching a gospel of repentance, people came in huge crowds to receive his baptism of repentance.  This week people ask about the practical implications of what they have done.  A casual listening might delude us into thinking that John is saying that people should just try to be good.  But a more accurate hearing tells us that John is calling for conversion of life.  There is no room for selfishness here. Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. Those who have food are obliged to feed the hungry.  Notice what he tells the hated tax collectors who ask John what they should do.  He doesn’t tell them to stop being tax collectors.  He tells them not to add to the tax bill.  That sounds easy enough until you realize that it is from the addition to the bills that the collector makes his living.

Did you notice that even some pagans came to hear John’s message and were won over by it.  The soldiers that ask him what they should do would be Romans, not Jews.  And John tells them to continue as soldiers but do so with integrity.  No extortion.  No false arrests.  Be satisfied with you wages.  What we are to learn from all of this is that people of faith can make their livelihood in many worldly occupations.  There is nothing wrong with that as long as they work with honesty and fidelity to their calling in faith.

The final part of John’s message today is somewhat problematic, it seems to me.  Notice the imagery he uses in describing the One who is coming after him, the One whose sandals he is unworthy to untie.  That sounds like one who is coming in majesty to be served by his subjects.  John’s baptism will be replaced by a baptism of the Spirit and of fire.  His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. John is preaching the coming of the mighty Messiah, the one who will set up Israel as an invincible kingdom, the one who will drive out the Romans and all other foreigners that would dominate the Jews.  This would be a source of great conflict of John after he is arrested and put into prison.  There was no evidence of that kind of Messiah in the stories John heard about Jesus’ message and ministry.  He will send delegates to ask Jesus: Are you he who is to come?  Or, should we look for another?

We shouldn’t be scandalized by these thoughts.  John was a man of faith who was faithful to God’s call.  But, as is true for everyone who begins to believe, the rest of the faith walk involves the ongoing realization that the mystery is constantly unfolding and almost never what you thought it was when you began to believe.  John had to let go of his preconceptions regarding the Messiah and accept as Lord the Suffering Servant, who restored sight to the blind, enabled the lame to walk, cleansed the lepers, and preached the Good news to the poor.

If we are going to rejoice in the Lord always, to what preconceptions will we have to die?  What changes in attitude will have to become evident in our parish if all are to recognize the kindness that we practice?  How will our lives have to change in order to give evidence that we are convinced that the Incarnation has happened and that the Day of the Lord is near?

Sincerely,

Didymus 

Baruch 5:1-9

Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11

Luke 3:1-6

A prophet is one anointed by God to announce to the people a message God wants them to hear.  While foretelling is a part of the prophet’s task, more important is the prophet’s role as the one to encourage the people, to support their faith, and to give them reason to hope.  Ultimately the prophet calls the people to conversion, to the restoration of faith, and to take up again their vocation to act as God’s chosen ones.  Often there is nothing to support the prophet’s message, nothing in the people’s situation that would give evidence that the prophet’s proclamation will come to fruition.  Notice also that the prophetic message is for the people as a whole and not for the individual other than to support the individual’s response as part of that people.  The readings for the Second Sunday of Advent speak to the church as the people of God of which you and I are members and call us all to renewal as we await the fulfillment of the promised kingdom.

Imagine the situation of the Hebrews during the Babylonian captivity.  Jerusalem lies in ruins, the temple, destroyed.  Many of the people had been led off as slaves.  Others had been scattered afar in the gentile countries.  Some had forsaken Yahweh and gone after Baal and taken up pagan practices.  The circumstances are dire.  Nothing indicates that the present conditions will ever change.

For Baruch’s prophecy to have its impact, I think it is necessary for you to have experienced something akin to despondency.  You need to have known a dark night and to have stood on the brink of despair.  Or, at least to have entered with compassion the sufferings of another.  Isn’t it difficult under those kinds of circumstances to hear the hopeful message?  Disasters make it difficult to hope.

Now hear Baruch as he pulls up the people by their lapels and dares them, dares us to take off mourning clothes and put on the finery fit for rejoicing.  In other words, give evidence that we believe and live in hope.  Stand up in splendor as God’s chosen ones and know that that relationship initiated by God and enfolding them in love will never end.

Up, Jerusalem! Stand upon the heights! For what purpose?  See your children coming home.  See every obstacle to that restoration removed.  See God leading them out of slavery just as God did their ancestors when they were led out of Egypt.  God has promised.  God will do this.

Now hear Baruch’s words in your own situation.  For many, difficult times cause estrangement.  Broken relationships can be devastating.  Times of scandal can test the faith of the believer.  So can the realization of the magnitude of the problem, the numbers of those impoverished, the children starving, the millions afflicted with AIDS, and those killed in wars.  You would not be the first to cry out: Where is God in the midst of all this. Camus and Sartre wrote of the folly of faith in the shadow of the Holocaust and the Great War.  There is a surge of new writers proclaiming atheism and a godless universe.  Do you feel spiritually alienated?  Have you found it difficult to even think about praying?  Have you, or some of those dear to you, given up the practice of faith?  Up, Jerusalem!  Stand upon the heights. Baruch’s challenge is to believe the promise and hope in its fulfillment.  This all began with God.  God will bring about its completion for us in Christ, the one we recognize as Messiah and Lord.

Sometimes we can forget that we are supposed to live our faith in situ. Many of the great documents of the Second Vatican Council attest to that.  One was titled: The Church in the Modern World. Retreats are fine for spiritual renewal, but the faith is lived in community and in the world.  God works in the here and now.  Notice how carefully Luke places John the Baptist’s mission in a historical context.  It began in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and those other historical characters were acting on the civic and religious stage.  It was then that the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah in the desert.

John epitomizes the meaning of Advent.  His vocation is to be a prophet, akin to Baruch, and stir up a flagging faith.  Have you ever wondered what was so attractive about John the Baptist, why it was that people flocked to listen to him?  He called people to a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He told people it didn’t matter how far they had strayed or what sins they had committed, it didn’t matter how deeply they had sunk into despair, they could turn and return.  God forgives.  And nothing can stand in the way of that forgiveness.  They are loved completely and unconditionally, even if they are poor, or prostitutes, or tax collectors, or blind, or lame, or suffering anything else that others could deem to be a punishment coming from God for sin.  Up Jerusalem!  Stand on the heights! And so in droves they entered the waters and were renewed.  In spite of all the signs to the contrary, they believed the kingdom is at hand.

Do you think the challenge of Advent is to take up the mantle and be a prophetic people?  True, we have to respond individually, but our response will be all the more effective if it is in unison with the assembly.  That is why we are called to be church and our worship is communal.  We come together as part of the Assembly.  We listen to the Word in unison with the Assembly.  We celebrate Eucharist in the midst of the Assembly and share the One Bread and the One Cup in the one meal that transforms us.  And we are sent to exercise the Priesthood of the Baptized as the Church in the Modern World, convinced that the Church is the Body of Christ, the people of God.

Paul, believing his death is imminent, writes from prison to the Philippians.  Would it surprise you that he was looking for a response from them that would bolster his own faith as he faced execution?  That is what prophetic stances can do.  Paul loved the Philippians.  He had announced the Good News to them and they had believed and been baptized by him.  Paul saw them as coworkers with him in the on-going ministry of the Gospel.  From his prison cell, what is Paul urging them and us to do?  Love.  Love God.  Love the brothers and sisters in the faith.  Look at the world through the eyes of faith and following the demands of love determine what is really important.  And respond to the grace of ever-deeper conversion of life and conformity to Christ so that God may be praised.

Do you see why the challenge of Advent might be to accept the responsibility to be a prophetic people?  The challenge is to live as if we believe that the kingdom is at hand.  Love must be at the heart of everything we do.  That love must be practical.  Certainly we must respond to the grace of ongoing conversion in our lives and not be content with anything that is of sin.  Prayerful discerning might be necessary.  Then it is important to discern how we as a parish need conversion of attitudes that divide and alienate and what we then can do as a parish, as church, to help people find a reason to hope again.  Jesus commanded us to love one another as I have loved you. That means to love through pouring out of self in service.  If there are homeless people we must shelter them.  If there are naked people we must clothe them.  If there are hungry people we must feed them.  If there are sick people and people in prison we must visit them.  It is difficult for people to believe that God loves them unless they experience that love through human exchange.

Advent leads us to Christmas and the celebration of the Incarnation.  God takes on human flesh and becomes one of us in Jesus.  That’s important to remember as we think about Paul’s challenge and our response.  When love compels us to embrace the broken and lowly members of society, to welcome the alienated and the shunned, it is Christ we love and serve, it is his wounds that we bind up, him that we embrace.

We are reminded of this every time we gather around the Eucharistic Table and hear Jesus invite us to take this all of you and eat it.  This is my body that is given up for you.  This is the cup of my blood poured out for you.

Now, you do this in my memory.

Sincerely,

Didymus

Jeremiah 33:14-16

1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2

Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

Where are your thoughts as we begin this new liturgical year?  Is your faith being challenged by the events that are reported on the nightly news?  It seems that the wars will go on and on and death tolls will mount even as we hear that other arenas may become war zones and more troops will be sent into battle.  Then there is the state of the economy as the number of the unemployed in the land hovers around 10% and more and more homes go into foreclosure.  As you sit under the Word this Sunday what is the message you would like to hear?

I asked a friend that question the other day.  The answer I got?  Just tell me it’s going to get better, that these troubles will end. Remember what the word Gospel means?  Good news. This liturgical year we will hear the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ as it comes to us from Luke.  Each time we stand for the proclamation, we stand to let the Good News wash over us and inspire our assent, our ongoing conversion, our continuing transformation into the Body of Christ, i.e., the Church that is the people of God.  In that context and inspired by faith, even difficult scriptures become good news because of the hope they engender.

As we enter into the Season of Advent, it is important to remember that there are two comings the season promises: the birth of Christ and Christ’s coming in glory at the end of time.  The renewal of the first strengthens our hope for the second.  What is important for us as we journey through Advent is the sense of longing.  We long for the rebirth of Christ in our lives and we long for Christ’s return in glory when all that is promised will be fulfilled.  So enter into the silence.  Sit with the Word.  Let your heart be open.  Listen.

We ought to be able to hear the reading from Jeremiah.  The times in which it was written were desperate.  Four centuries after the era of King David, Jerusalem is in shambles and the Jews are enslaved by the Babylonians.  The people are enshrouded in the darkness of despair.  The terrible times will never end.  Will Jerusalem ever be restored?  There are not a few people proclaiming similar messages in our own times.  Have you noticed how popular apocalyptic stories are these days?  Have you noticed the warnings that the end of everything is going to happen in 2012?  No wonder the Mayan calendar runs out then, as do the predictions of Nostradamus.  What more evidence do you need?  Why shouldn’t we despair?

Jeremiah says to the troubled and nearly broken people: The days are coming says the Lord when I will fulfill the promise I made to the House of Israel and to Judah. Remember that the Lord had promised that David’s reign would last forever.  Those times seemed to say that there was no way that promise could be realized.  What physical evidence could the people seize upon to support their hope in that promise?  I will raise up for David a just shoot…in those days Judah shall be safe. The prophecy serves to strengthen the people so that they can be faithful to the One who chose them to be a people peculiarly God’s own and to believe that God will never abandon them.

We see the fulfillment of the promise in Jesus as the Just Shoot rising up from the stump of David’s family tree, the Messiah, the one who is sent to bring Good News, the one who is our hope and our salvation.  Even as Jeremiah’s prophecy reverberates in our consciousness, we hear the Gospel.

Jesus speaks to us from those final days before his passion, those final days before his disciples will witness the greatest test to their faith in him.  Jesus warns that the apocalyptic times will be filled with dreadful signs in the heavens and disastrous natural events on earth that will terrify even the strongest.  People will die of fright before the roaring wind and rushing waves.  There is no mention of earthquakes, but they might happen, too.  The challenge for disciples, those who walk with Jesus and believe in him, is to be different from the rest of people and stand tall in the face of all this turmoil, suffering and even death, as we recognize in those dreadful signs that our redemption is at hand.  Did you hear Jesus say that that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth? Remember that this is Gospel, Good News.  Why?  Because even in the face of the worst that can happen, Jesus is our hope and deliverance.

In these times that are so difficult for so many, we need to hear Paul’s words first addressed to the church at Thessalonica.  May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all. In other words, Paul is urging them and us to live what we have become through Baptism, to be Christ’s other self and do what Jesus did.  It is all about love, love that binds the community together and reaches out even to those who are not part of the community.  Imitate Christ.  Be a people whose lives give evidence to the fact that we believe, that our hope is in our Lord Jesus Christ, that like him we are willing to pour out our lives in service so that even the least will feel the embrace of God’s love that comes to us through Jesus.

Now do you see why the Eucharist is at the center of our faith lives?  Does it make sense that our lives revolve around the Sunday celebration of Eucharist?  We come together at the Table of the Word to be transformed by the proclamation.  Wearied by the labors of the past week, we gather at the Table of the Bread to be transformed by the Eucharist we celebrate in the renewing of Christ’s dying and rising.  The Assembly is transformed into the Body of Christ and is sent out for another week to be that presence in the market place.  Just as the Bread was broken and the Cup was poured out so that we could share the Meal, so must we be broken and poured out until all are fed.

Perhaps this Advent it is important for us to make the operative challenge for us to be in the word all. There is no shortage of those sewing the seeds of judgmentalism, fundamentalism and division.  Even in the Church, there are those telling others they are unworthy to approach the Table that seems to carry with it the judgment of their being sinners and therefore condemned.  Are we forgetting that we are all sinners and that our forgiveness is in, with, and through Christ?  Jesus did warn that what we sow we would reap.  What does that say about sowing the seeds of judgment and condemnation?

These are dark days.  The Advent Season for us in the Northern Hemisphere happens as the daylight hours are the fewest.  Maybe this year we should focus on the darkness and imagine what our lives would be like without our faith, what it would be like to be still in our sins.  And when the darkness threatens to envelop us, then remember the Light whose coming we will celebrate this Christmas.  Jesus is our hope as he comes with a love that is universal and unconditional.  His table fellowship proclaimed that message.  So ought ours.

Sincerely,

Didymus

Daniel 7:13-14

Revelation 1:5-8

John 18:33b-37

Another Church Year comes to its conclusion with the celebration of the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King.  What began nearly a year ago on the First Sunday of Advent has taken us another year on The Way.  We have journeyed with Jesus to be formed and transformed by the Spirit he pours out on us.  Each time it begins, few know where the journey will take them even if they have been for many years faithful followers.  Sometimes we forget that conversion is a life-long process, that the Lord will not be through with us until we breathe our last in this world.    This year some made their way as Catechumens on their way to Baptism, learning along the way what it meant to be part of a faith community, learning to pray with and worship among them, experiencing what it meant to be disciples.  The Liturgy of the Word is basic to their formation.

Some made the trek for the first time as neophytes when during the Easter Vigil having died in the Font to their old ways, they rose from the waters reborn in Christ to be identified with Christ for the rest of time and all of eternity. They might have thought that their work was over.  Who could blame them given the joy and enthusiasm they felt as the Assembly welcomed them to the community and to the Table?  How could they know that the journey was just beginning?

Those journeyers more weathered know that if they allow themselves to be vulnerable as they sit under the word there will be new deaths to die even as there will be a deepening sense of life in the Risen Christ.  These are the ones, too, who will welcome the new cycle wondering where they will be the next time they celebrate this feast of Christ the King.

Many have a fascination and curiosity about Jesus like that of the disciples of the Baptist in John’s Gospel when John told them to behold the Lamb of God and they started following Jesus.  Jesus asked them what they were looking for.  They said, Master, where do you live? And he said, Come and see. They came to understand that abiding in Jesus, walking in his footsteps, listening to him and imitating him, all these make up the only way to come to know Jesus.

As our faith-life goes on we come to see more clearly that our Sunday Mass obligation comes from our need to be present and part of the celebration, our need to be fed at the Table of the Word and the Table of the Eucharist if we are to have strength for the journey.  Each Sunday the Spirit broods over us and opens our hearts to be penetrated by the Word.  Each Sunday we have to ask ourselves what we heard and how we are to respond.  And each Sunday we need to gather with the Assembly and give thanks to God in the dying and rising of Jesus renewed in the Eucharist, there to be fed and so come to recognize that we are formed and transformed by the celebration even as we are sent into the world to continue it until the world is transformed and Christ comes again in glory.

Do you remember where you were in your faith-life a year ago?  How have you grown in the course of this year?  What did you learn as you walked in Jesus’ footsteps and gazed over his shoulder?

Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again. That is our proclamation in the course of the Eucharistic Prayer voiced just after we hear Jesus command us to do this (celebrate Eucharist) in my memory. If we obey, the whole Mystery is present.  And if we take and eat, and take and drink, the Meal we share transforms us and sends us to be broken and poured out in ministry until the world is transformed and in Christ offered to the Father.

It is one thing to have the vision of Christ the King coming in glory.  It is another to understand how Christ reigns.  Splendid visions of glory and majesty thrill us in the first two readings.  In the reading from Daniel, the son of man comes on the clouds of heaven.  All peoples, nations, and languages serve him.  In the reading from Revelation we hear Jesus Christ proclaim: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty. And if we believe him, we know who and what he is, that he is human, that he is divine.  The Son of Man is the Son of God.

Isn’t it jarring then when we hear the gospel proclaimed?  What section would you have chosen to be read in the context of this feast?  I think I would like one of those majestic moments – a great miracle, the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus walking on the water calming the wind and the waves, Jesus shouting into the tomb, Lazarus, come out! But in stead, what is proclaimed is Jesus in his passion bound with ropes, crowned with thorns, standing before Pilate in what the world would see as a moment of profound defeat.  Why?  Because over and over again we have to be renewed in our understanding of what kind of Messiah Jesus is, what kind of King.  This is a king who can be handed over for crucifixion.  So the scandal continues.  This is the king who scandalized by the company he kept, by those with whom he broke bread in table fellowship.  This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. This is a king who washes the feet of his subjects.  The realization can scandalize us, especially if we were hoping for something more to come from our relationship with Jesus.  Make no mistake about it.  There are those who preach Jesus as the means to prosperity.  People turn out in droves to hear that message, convinced that if they let Jesus be lord of their lives, any day now their coffers will fill and they will be living the good life.

On the other hand, it is we who give scandal if everything about us doesn’t imitate this messiah and king who serves and is vulnerable.  Think about it.  If Jesus is the full revelation of God, then Jesus reveals to us a God who wants to serve rather than be served, a God who pleads with us to let God be God in our lives and for us to be God’s people.  If we hear the message, each of us must respond with a willingness to be servants who exercise a ministry that evidences a fundamental option for the poor.  If we hear the message, our parish proclaims that same preference for the poor even as it avers that all are welcome here.  If we hear the message, the Church will proclaim the gospel of reconciliation and peace, will proclaim the dignity and worth of every person, and the conviction that forgiveness is for all people God embraces in the unconditional love that comes to us through Jesus our King and our Lord.

There may be evidence that we still have a way to go on this journey with Jesus.  Please God, there is evidence that we are nearer than when we first began.

Sincerely,

Didymus

Daniel 12:1-3

Hebrews 10:11-14; 18

Mark 13:24-32

So, the Church’s Year draws to an end.  We have completed the cycle once more and await its glorious conclusion next Sunday with the celebration of the Feast of Christ the King.  That celebration will affirm all that has gone before and will support the faith of even the weariest believer struggling along The Way.  But before we get to the Feast we must go through the end times and what they will be like.  We shall see that those times will not be for the faint of heart, and especially not for those who lose sight of what we were called to be and what this journey along the Way is all about.

We in the Northern Hemisphere have signs surrounding us that support the Word proclaimed in these readings.  Light wanes.  In much of the country cold takes hold and wind and rain strip the trees of their once green leaves.  Bare limbs reach up into the heavens pleading for light’s return, and warmth and spring.  Depending on the severity of this season, those who experience it may wonder if winter will yield this time.  Will there be the renewal of life and vegetation?  We’re people of faith, remember.  Trial does not mean defeat.  No winter is forever.  God’s love is constant and unconditional.  We have God’s Son’s death to prove that.  And the Resurrection!

There are televangelists who milk the First Reading from the Prophet Daniel and this Sunday’s Gospel reading from Mark and use them to strike terror in the hearts of their hearers.  Fear for some may be a motive for towing the moral line but fear will neither inspire nor long support faith.  The highways and byways are strewn with those who could stand the condemning message no more and gave up on the faith.  Did you know that Former Catholics is the second largest denomination of believers exceeded only by those who still claim to be members of the faith?  Alas.

Beware of fundamentalism.  Properly interpreted, the First Reading and the Gospel for this Sunday are not meant to inspire dread, much less seen as condemnatory.  The End Times means that things as we know them will pass away and horrors may be part of those days.  Remember last spring when the lilacs first bloomed and the daffodils blanketed the hillsides?  Then came the warmth of summer and the zephyrs that made the aspen leaves flash like sunlight through prisms in the trees.  On an ideal summer day, did you sit beneath a willow, dappled by the suns glow and wish these days would go on forever?

Israel knew glory days.  Jerusalem, bedecked in jewels, with the Temple at its heart would certainly be eternal, wouldn’t it?  But then came destruction of the city and of the Temple and the people were led away enslaved like their ancestors before them had been in Egypt.  A winter of discontent descended upon God’s chosen ones, a time unsurpassed in distress since nations began until that time. But that is not where the reading ends.  The hearer is not invited to peer down into a bottomless chasm of despair.  Rather there is an invitation to remember God’s fidelity.  In the worst times some people will escape and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake…and live forever. That is the word for those who are faithful to the call.  We don’t have to go into the fate that awaits the unfaithful ones.  We remember that Jerusalem was restored.  The Babylonian captivity ended.  The people returned rejoicing.

Israel has known times of suffering in many ages down through the centuries.  Among the worst of times was the Holocaust during Hitler’s reign.  That horror is not without parallel.  The sufferings of others who endured the ravages of ethnic cleansing in other countries are etched in our memories.  At least they ought to be.  Think of the Hutus and the Tutsis of recent memory in Uganda and Rhodesia.  The Serbs and the Croats.  There can be only estimates about the numbers of millions of Russian people Stalin exterminated.  The point is that each of these atrocities would qualify as the worst of times.  Daniel speaks to those who suffered and to their survivors.  Death will not hold sway forever.  Tyrannies will end.  And the dead will rise to vindication.  God is faithful and bring his own from every nation safely home.

Jesus quotes Daniel at the beginning of the gospel: In those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Is it possible to imagine a scene more terrifying?  What is the purpose of the quote here?  We have to think back over the journey that we began at the start of this Church’s Year.  We have to remember our own individual faith journeys along The Way.  We must ponder the reality of each Eucharist we celebrated and each Meal that we shared.

Jesus, through every lesson that he taught and through every healing at his touch and through the feeding of the multitudes and the announcing of the good news to the poor, proclaimed himself to be the Messiah.  That said, we also know that there has been a struggle to accept the kind of Messiah that he is.  Some imagine Jesus to be the mighty, all-powerful warrior, the one who will drive away all oppressors and set up a secure kingdom forever.  The Jews would not have the Romans enslaving them ever again.  Some hold that should hold true for every enemy in every age since then – if Jesus was the Messiah.  And, too, in the Lord’s time and in every age since there were those who saw Jesus as a way to their own power and wealth as they lusted after the positions at his right and left in the Kingdom.

It ought to be safe for us who have listened this year to say such thoughts and values are not in the message Jesus was sent from the Father to deliver.  Jesus models himself after Isaiah’s Suffering Servant.  Servant is the operative word of the one who always sought out the little ones, the lost sheep, the poor, the blind, the lepers and the lame.  This Messiah is the one who scandalized many by the company he kept and by those for whom he practiced table fellowship.  Tax collectors. Prostitutes.  Roman legionaries.  Gentiles.  Name an unsavory group of his time that did not have representation at his table.  Even women reclined at his table.  The challenge for all of them, if they were to be his disciples, would be to do what Jesus did and to exhibit a poverty of life that bespeaks a complete and total dependence on God and a trust in God’s promises.  The command will be to love one another as they are loved.  One can not be invincible and do that.

Then Jesus speaks of those days.  They will be days of great trial.  The faith of many will be broken.  How can a Messiah reign if he is led away, scourged, crowned with thorns, carries a cross, is crucified and dies like so many common criminals before him who had made Calvary a common place for execution?  How can the Messianic age have followed Jesus’ time if Jerusalem and the Temple are destroyed again?  Most of the disciples ran away, scandalized by the death Jesus died.  But we know that was not the end.  Jesus rose on the Third Day and ended death’s tyranny forever.  That is what the disciples had to remember as Jesus, resurrected, reclaimed them.  That is what disciples in every age must remember as new horrors abound.

Remember spring.  Even the deepest winter yields to spring’s thaw as life and light return.  The promise that we are to cling to, the second spring in which we are to live is the yearning for the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that we will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.

What does it mean to live in faith?  It means that we remain convinced of the promise of the Second Coming in spite of the direst signs to the contrary.  It means that each of us determines what the Lord is calling him or her to be and how we are to serve and then, with the Lord’s grace to strengthen us, strives to live that calling.  It means that we are to be a Eucharistic people, gathering each Lord’s Day to renew his dying and rising in Bread and Wine, the prayer of Thanksgiving.  It means that we take and eat, take and drink, and do this in Jesus’ memory until he comes again.  It means that having eaten and drunk we allow ourselves to be bread broken and cup poured out until all from the four winds, and from the end of the earth to the end of the sky have been fed and know the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We don’t know the day or the hour when the glory will be revealed, only that it has been and will be once again.  Do you believe this?

Sincerely,

Didymus

1 Kings 17:10-16

Hebrews 9:24-28

Mark 12:38-44

No one said it would be easy.  Jesus didn’t when he invited those first ones to come and follow him.  He didn’t when the crowds and the disciples gathered around him and he taught them what being a disciple would mean.  And if the Good News is being proclaimed with sincerity and truth, you won’t come away from the preaching saying there is no big deal here.  Much less will you think that anybody can do this, be a disciple, and go on living life as it was lived before you met Jesus.

By now in this Church’s Year, having journeyed this far with the Gospel of Mark, you realize that the Year is coming to a conclusion with the celebration of the Feast of Christ the King in just a couple of weeks.  The questions you have to ask yourself are: How have I been changed?  How am I different from what I was when the Year began? How you respond to the Liturgy of the Word for this Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time will tell you a lot.  If you have sat under the Word each Sunday of this year and been open to it, you will notice a change – provided, of course, that you remember where you were inside when you began the trek.  And regardless of where you are at this point, remember that conversion is a life-long process.  God’s grace and the Holy Spirit will not be finished with you until you breathe your last in this world and hasten to the Kingdom that is dawning.

How much do you trust in God?  What place does God occupy in your life?  That’s not easy to say, unless you have been through a period of trial.  The widow of Zarephath, in the first reading, has been living through a season of famine and draught when Elijah happens upon her as she is gathering sticks for a fire to be laid in her hearth.  Widows, remember, are among the most vulnerable and dependent people in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Often their very survival rests on the kindness and generosity of neighbors.  This widow expects to use the fire for the preparation of one last meal for herself and her son and then await death.  That meal will be a hearth-cake made from the last bit of oil and flour in her possession.  Did we say she was desperate?

Elijah, the prophet of God, asks her to first make a cake for him and bring him some water to go with it, then she can tend to her son’s and her own needs.  When she hesitates, Elijah tells her to be confident: The Lord, the God of Israel, says, The jar of flour shall not go empty; nor the jug of oil run dry until the day when the Lord sends rain upon the earth. Her decision turns about her trust in the Prophet’s word and in his God.  Remember, Zarephath is the god Baal’s territory.  The Widow might not even know the God of Israel.  But she trusts, does as she is asked, serves Elijah, and neither the flour nor the oil runs out before the drought ends.

This reading will resonate with you only if you have known difficult times and have had nowhere to turn.  Have you known what it is like to have your faith tested to the breaking point?  Then you understand the widow’s desperation and the magnificence of her response.  This reading challenges all of us to trust and believe in the God of the Israelites, and to believe that this God has sent Jesus who is the Bread of our Lives.  This reading challenges us to remember that what will strengthen us along the way is the Bread that is given to us each time we celebrate Eucharist.  That will never fail.  Of course you do realize that if we take and eat the Body what will be expected of us in return is that we will allow ourselves to be broken and distributed until all have been fed.

The widow is the link between the first reading and the gospel where we experience the witness of another widow.  But before that we are confronted by Jesus and have to ask what kind of witness are we giving as Church.  As often is the case in the gospel, the scribes are held up before us as examples of how we are not to live if we are disciples.  Clearly these people were stuck on themselves, as we would say today, and gloried in their image of bounty and success.  They loved to be praised and never felt that praise to be an exaggeration.  They exploited those they should have served – the widows and probably the orphans too.  They are not bent on serving but on building up their own fortunes and living the good life.

Please God, that does not resonate with your own experience of Church.  The condemnation with which Jesus threatens the scribes reflects that that awaits those who exploit positions in the Church.  Ambition has no place among the baptized who are all called to live their priesthood, to live a life of service and ministry to those who are in need.  We must never forget that we are a servant Church.  Our greatest ambition in the Church is to be feet-washers, the lesson we learned on Holy Thursday.  Any other ambition is fraught with danger.  Can you hear that?  It’s okay if you cannot.  But sit with the idea.  Let it wash over you and wear down your resistance.  That’s how grace works.

So we come to another widow, this time in the area of the Temple treasury.  Apparently it was the custom for the people to make their offerings there the way we make ours when the basket is passed during the time of the preparation of the gifts at Sunday Mass.  As is true today, so was it in our Lord’s time.  Some of the wealthy love to be conspicuous in their offering.  The wealthy would dump their coins with loud clamber to the amazement of those standing around.  Jesus notes that they gave from their surplus.  In other words, they had plenty more where that came from.  Do you know that if all the families in a parish tithed, that parish would have plenty to take care of the administration of the parish and support missions of outreach as well?  There are parishes where such giving is the norm and they can attest to what I am saying here.  Do you give from surplus or from substance?  Just a question to ponder and about which to pray.  Then, when you are ready, ask, what is the Lord expecting of his disciples?

And this is where the widow comes in.  No one in the Treasury area is paying any attention to her.  She has no celebrity in the community.  No one clamors after her asking for her autograph.  She has no significance to those who should be giving her primacy of place among them.  In the midst of the hubbub, she makes her way to the offering box and drops in two small coins, all she had, her whole livelihood. And Jesus says: This poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. She gave of her substance.  Do you think she was a believer in God and trusted in God’s promises?

Nearing the end of the Church’s Year as we are, The Liturgy of the Word confronts us and dares us to consider where we are on our faith walk.  Have we grown in our desire to imitate Jesus, to live our baptismal priesthood?  Whose giving does ours imitate – the wealthy scribes or the poor widow’s?  Have we grown as a servant people?  Are all welcome when we assemble?  Is the love in the assembly’s welcome tangible?

We gather to celebrate Eucharist.  Jesus gives his very substance to be food for our journey.  There is promise in that.  Each Eucharist makes the whole Church present and all are fed.  This meal foreshadows the banquet that Christ is preparing for us at the Lord’s Table in heaven.  Now if you are wondering who can do what Jesus expects?  Who can live this kind of life of charity and service?  The answer probably is, very few, maybe none, on their own.  But, remember what Paul said when he pondered that question in his own life: I can do all things in him who strengthens me.  All we have to do is let go of our fears and trust that Jesus meant it when he said he would be with us until the world ends.

Sincerely,

Didymus

Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14

1 John 3:1-3

Matthew 5:1-12a

It is said that the experience of the extended family is not all that common today.  Many children are being raised in single-parent households.  Those growing up with both parents often have little or no experience of their relatives who live in other parts of the country or the world.  In the consciousness of most youngsters the day will dawn when they become aware of a desire to know their story.  From where did they come?  Who were their ancestors?  What were their stories?  Something about the human condition demands context.  There is an innate sense that no man is an island. No woman is, either.

That may be why we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints, so that we can know the stories of our ancestors in the faith, and knowing the stories, be stronger in our desire to be their imitators.  After all, every saint became one in exactly the same way.  Each one imitated Christ.  Isn’t it odd that no two saints have matching stories?  Each one is unique.

Schoolchildren often times as part of this celebration of All Saints will be encouraged to come to Mass in costume, dressed like the saints whose names they bear or like saints they greatly admire.  It is a particular blessing if, as part of the preparation for the children’s celebration, they research or are told the story of the saints whose costumes they will be wearing.

What is the danger in this celebration?  The danger is that too ethereal a picture will be painted resulting in the saints seeming distant, remote, and only accidentally human.  Who can be like that? Who would want to be like that?  The fact of the matter is the saints are our brothers and sisters in the faith.  They are flesh and blood as we are.  They knew what it meant to struggle with faith, to experience temptation and even sin, and to doubt.  The struggle is an important part of their stories, just as our struggles will one day be important parts of our stories.  Of course they are saints because they continued on The Way to the very end.  One day, please God, so will we be if we do the same.

Don’t miss the leads in the first reading from the Book of Revelation.  The writer recounts a vision into glory.  144, 000 from every tribe of Israel stand around the throne of God.  Don’t make the mistake that some fundamentalists have of thinking that that number exhausts the count of those who will make it to heaven.  That is not the point.  In the writer’s mind the number is huge, limitless really, representing those from the New Israel caught up in glory.  Then later in the reading, notice those in white robes, those who have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb. These are the baptized that entered the Waters to die to sin and to everything that is not of Christ, to rise from those waters reborn to live Christ’s own life.  And they were faithful to the end and have received the reward for their labors in Christ.

If there is a verse of Scripture that should be committed to memory and repeated like a mantra it is the verse from the second reading from the First Letter of John.  Beloved we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. If that is too long, stick to the first part and say it over and over again, especially in times of difficulty and trial.  Beloved we are God’s children now. Or if the situation becomes desperate for you, it’s okay to put it in the singular.  It remains true.  I am God’s child now.

I had the privilege of visiting Uganda and while there of visiting the place where the Ugandan Martyrs died.  I read the stories of the 23 young men, some newly baptized, some still catechumens, and of the gruesome, torturous, slow and agonizing deaths that one by one, in isolation, they died.  Read their stories for yourself if you are curious about the details.  My point in mentioning them here is that to a person, each one sang the praises of Jesus and the Father, convinced of where they were going, as each one slowly breathed his last.  How can anyone do that?  Only by being convinced that they had washed their robes white in the Blood of the Lamb and are God’s children now.  And there was not a doubt in their minds about what they would become.

Not every person is called to a martyr’s death.  That is not the only path to sainthood.  On the other hand, you never know.  I always remember St. Thomas More’s words to console his wife while he was in confinement in the Tower of London: This is not the stuff of which martyrs are made. This is the same man who, as he knelt at the block and as he lifted his beard over it asked the man about to behead him to be mindful of the beard since it had no part in the treason.  Who can do that?  Only one who is convinced that s/he is God’s child now.  Only one who is convinced that God’s love is unconditional and forever.

No Feast or Solemnity is celebrated just so that we can look back and be nostalgic about the past.  We gather to celebrate Eucharist, the word means to give thanks, and to remember, which in this context means to make present.  We enter into Mystery to be caught up and transformed in the ongoing process of conversion, of dying with Jesus and rising to live in his resurrection.  And we celebrate that we might be sent with thankful hearts to continue the tradition.

It has been said that the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel is the Magna Carta of the New Testament.  Or, if you prefer, the Constitution of the New Way.  Jesus preached The Sermon on the Mount, seated as one with authority and as the new Moses, the new Law Giver.

Twice-told tales have a way of becoming familiar and, therefore, lessening their impact.  You are not likely to gasp as the words of the Beatitudes wash over you.  In the midst of the Assembly standing to hear the proclamation there probably won’t be many who will be in jaw-dropping amazement wondering if s/he heard what s/he thought s/he heard.  There may even be many who know the Beatitudes by heart.  I hate to sound like a naysayer, but if that dulls the impact, it is not for the good.  The fact is that all those conditions we think of as deplorable are lauded in the Beatitudes.  Blessed are the poor.  Blessed are those mourning.  Blessed are the meek.  Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness. These conditions are blessed because they create in the sufferer a longing that only God can satisfy, an emptiness that only Christ can fill.  They are conditions that look to heaven for deliverance and forge a desire for the coming of God’s reign of justice and peace.  These blessed statements apply to those who are powerless in their circumstances. The remaining speak to those with power.

Blessed are the merciful.  Blessed are the clean of heart.  Blessed are the peacemakers.  Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. In the midst of these positions of power are those with clean hearts.  What’s that all about?  Much more than chastity, which may be included here, the clean of heart are those who are single minded in their purpose, untainted by those values common in the world; they are those who do not lust after position, power, or prestige, those who do not give free rein to their tempers even if their tempers are short, those who are willing to imitate Christ in the pouring out of self to lift up the broken hearted, to give of their plenty that the poor might have something to eat and a place of shelter at day’s end, to work for justice and peace, to reverence the dignity of every living person and so condemn the unjust taking of any human being’s life, to create the bonds of love that bring about the realization of the human family.

Just when you are beginning to relax and foster images of all those who can do something about the evils in our times and others’ sufferings and admitting to their being blessed, Jesus turns from talking about them and addresses you. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.

The challenge before us is to take the Gospel seriously and to live as members of the Body of Christ.  Just as quickly as the proverbial blink of an eye, each one of us has been mandated to be merciful, clean of heart, a peacemaker. We’re urged to identify with the poor, those who mourn, the meek, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  We’re blessed only to the extent that we imitate Jesus so that our lives make uncomfortable those who exploit and demean others, those who deny the dignity of even the most abject, those who practice sexism, racism, or any of the other isms that debase and dehumanize.  Those kinds of witnesses down through our Church’s history often died martyrs’ deaths.  And so might we if we are faithful to the calling.  We address those who have gone before us as saints and celebrate them today. One day, if we are faithful to the end and witness as they did, we will be in their number and the Solemnity of All Saints will be ours as well.

Sincerely,

Didymus

Jeremiah 31:7-9

Hebrews 5:1-6

Mark 10:46-52

The end of October brings with it the astounding realization that we are nearing the end of another Church Year.  The current Year began with the First Sunday of Advent on November 30, 2008.  On that Sunday the first words we heard from the Gospel of Mark were: Be watchful!  Be alert!  You do not know when the time will come. So began this journey we have been on Sunday after Sunday, intensified each time we gathered for the Liturgy of the Word and heard the Good News according to Mark proclaimed and had it broken open for us in the homily.  Each Sunday we had the opportunity to stand naked and vulnerable before the Word and let it penetrate our hearts to draw us deeper in relationship with Jesus with whom we journeyed as he transformed us and drew us to new life.  Our faith was challenged as, too was our hope, and we were challenged to live in love the way Jesus does.  There is something about faith that assures us that promises given will be fulfilled.  Along the way this year, were you watchful?  Were you alert?  What realizations crystallized?  How did you have to change?  How different are you today from the person you were last December?

Imagine yourself in that assembly before Jeremiah in today’s first reading.  There needs to be a context, of course, for his words to have their impact.  Judah, i.e., Israel, has been in exile and subjected to many trials during the captivity.  Many of their number wandered away from the Law and followed the ways of the pagan gods of Babylon.  Some were faithful, many, in fact.  Years later they were released and allowed to return to Jerusalem to reclaim and reconstruct their holy city.  Huge is the task before them.  And Jeremiah does his part to encourage them by that it is the Lord who has done this just as the Lord promised.  They departed in tears, but I will console them and guide them; I will lead them to brooks of water, on a level road, so that none shall stumble.  I am a father to Israel; Ephraim (a tribe of Israel) is my first-born. With God no situation is hopeless.  God, whose love is constant and unconditional, will not disappoint.  Do you believe that? It takes time to come to that conclusion.  Don’t despair if you are not there yet.  That is what this journey of formation with Jesus is about for us.

In the gospel we meet Bartimaeus, a blind man.  Mark tells us Bartimaeus is the son of Timaeus.  That kind of specificity usually means that the one cited is a believer.  Bartimaeus is the son of a disciple, not yet a believer himself.  He is in desperate straits, begging by the roadside when he hears the ruckus as Jesus and his disciples and a sizable crowd pass by on their way out of Jericho.  Notice that it is Jesus with disciples, i.e., those who have made a faith-decision about Jesus, and a sizable crowd, i.e., those who have not yet made up their minds about him.  Bartimaeus makes an embarrassing scene as he tries in desperation to get Jesus’ attention.  Jesus, son of David, have pity on me. Some try to quiet Bartimaeus, but Jesus, hearing the plaintive cries, says to hose near him: Call him.

This is a very important detail not to be missed.  Bartimaeus does not come to Jesus alone but is brought to Jesus by those who can see who urge him not to be afraid. After all, it is Jesus who calls.  (What does that say about our faith communities?  See the implications for the RCIA process?)  Another important detail might be missed if we do not listen attentively.  (Bartimaeus) threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. He is willing to give up everything to come to Jesus.  It is much more than a garment that Bartimaeus gave up.  The cloak provides shade from the intense sun and shelter from the rain.  It is his tent under which he sleeps through the night.  More than likely, the cloak is all he has.

Have you ever wondered how you would deal with it were you to find that magic jug, rub it, and have the emerging Genie tell you, you have three wishes that the Genie will grant you?  What would you ask for?  Last week Jesus asked James and John what they wanted.  They asked for the most prominent positions in Jesus’ kingdom and withered when Jesus revealed the implications of their request, that they would have to drink of the cup from which he will drink and be baptized in his baptism.  In other words, following Jesus will not be about power and position, comfort and wealth, it will be about the pouring out of self in service and imitating Jesus in his dying.  Following Jesus will entail a cross.

This week Jesus asks Bartimaeus: What do you want me to do for you? And Bartimaeus’ answer is simple and straightforward with a second title for Jesus.  Master, I want to see. It would be easy to conclude that Bartimaeus is simply asking for the restoration of his sight.  But that would not necessarily result in his being able to see. Something deeper is happening here.  And it is all summed up in the terse conclusion to this pericope.  Immediately (Bartimaeus) received his sight and followed him on the way. Bartimaeus is changed to the core.  Whatever had kept him from sharing the faith of his father, whatever hurdle he could not get over, whatever it was that blindness falls away and he sees Jesus as Lord. He follows Jesus on the way that means he is willing to go where the way leads.  He will drink from the cup from which Jesus will drink.  He will be baptized in Jesus’ baptism.  Jesus will be his all-in-all.  You notice that nothing is said about Bartimaeus’ going back to pick up his cloak again.

It is important to ask yourself where you are in this gospel.  With which character do you most closely identify?  Jesus?  A member of the crowd?  A disciple?  Bartimaeus?  If the truth be known and we are honest with ourselves, we will have to admit that we can identify with each character.  There is something of each one in each of us.  The hardest to admit is our identity with Jesus.  Our pride gets in the way.  Not humility, but pride.  We’ll talk about that later.

We have to remember that as long as we are on the way we are in the process of conversion.  That’s why I asked at the start, where were you in your faith life last November when we began this journey with Mark’s Gospel.  That is why some days we wonder if we believe yet, if by our lives we can say Jesus is Lord of my life.  On other days something wells within us, we call it grace and the life of the Spirit, and we know we believe, that we are disciples willing to follow and try to imitate Jesus.  But what about Bartimaeus?  For that we have to journey back to the day we first knew we believed.  For many of us, that involved a struggle.  There were things we had to work through, life-decisions we had to make, emptiness we had to admit, cloaks we had to toss aside.  The day we recognized that we could not do this alone, that we needed others to support us and encourage us along the way because there was something preventing us from being able to see and, therefore, to believe, that was the day we were Bartimaeus.  So were we the day we had to let go of everything and let Jesus be Lord of our lives.

A couple of final points in conclusion.  The Church very wisely sees our faith journey as communal.  That is what distinguishes the Catholic (communal) Way from the Protestant (individual) Way.  We believe that the Church is the people of God.  We are united in the process of ongoing conversion along the way.  We assemble around the tables of the Word and of the Eucharist to be nourished and transformed, just as the bread and wine are, into the Body of Christ.  The assembly is the Body of Christ just as is the Eucharist.  And we are sent, as the Body of Christ, to continue Christ’s work until he comes again.

The RCIA process is a glorious expression of these convictions.  The one seeking faith comes to the community and in the midst of the community experiences what it means to worship and know the love of God.  It is through the experience of the community that they come to know what it means to be a servant church.  Through the community they experience forgiveness and reconciliation, a new faith and the renewal of hope.  The community supports the seekers through prayer and example.  The seekers come to know that the Church is always there for them even as they come to know that all are welcome here.  It is important that the seeker make the full journey, i.e., journey along the way through an entire Church Year.

Then, in that most holy of nights, when all the old has been consumed in the fire and from that fire came the light of the Easter Candle that proclaims Christ risen and glorious, surrounded by the faithful, Bartimaeus enters the waters to die there and to rise from there identified with Christ to live as Christ until he enters Christ’s glory forever.

Sincerely,

Didymus

Isaiah 53:10-11

Hebrews 4:14-16

Mark 10:35-45

Have you noticed that for the last several weeks the Liturgy of the Word has been becoming increasingly difficult to hear without our wanting to make accommodations so that they will be more palatable?  The readings are hard to take and increasingly demanding.  Wouldn’t you think that neophytes and those struggling with faith should hear gentler readings?  And what about those who are thinking about being Baptized, those catechumens on the way to the Font?  Shouldn’t they be spared?  Their journey is difficult enough without their having to see the full implications of what being Jesus’ disciples will mean for them.

It’s clear that Jesus is not interested in selling a product.  Were he, he would paint a brighter picture replete with rewards and benefits for those who would sign up.  Watch the way products are pitched today.  Pay attention and you will wonder how you have lived life this far without whatever is being touted.  And look how often the sellers are celebrities.  Doesn’t their having the product make it all the more attractive?  But that is not what Jesus does.

Bette Davis, in All About Eve, invited those present for that evening to fasten their seatbelts because it was going to be a bumpy ride.  Annie Dillard opined that seatbelts and safety equipment ought to be distributed to everyone at the doors of the church as they came together to celebrate Liturgy.  What if it (the Liturgy) worked this time?  The readings for this Sunday are among the most demanding we will hear, outside those of Holy Week, and should leave us most vulnerable to their transforming power as we move into the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

The Lord was pleased to crush him in his infirmity. The reading is taken from the fourth of the Suffering Servant songs in the Book of Isaiah.  We will hear these words again on Passion Sunday and Good Friday.  How does the Servant’s suffering and that of God’s son Jesus please the Lord?  God is pleased because of their link to the scapegoat in the Book of Leviticus.  As did the goat sent out into the wilderness laden with the people’s sins, so do the Servant and Jesus bear the sins of the many.  It is not pleasure in suffering that the Lord takes, but in their willingness to sacrifice themselves and be atonement for others’ sins.  Remember the words: By their stripes you were healed?

When you are discouraged in your faith-walk, go back to today’s brief second reading.  So often popular religiosity of the evangelical type paints a picture of Jesus as a distant and transcendent Lord, seated in glory upon a resplendent throne.  Make no mistake about it.  Jesus is Lord.  Jesus is enthroned at God’s right hand.  But listen to what Hebrews proclaims.  Yes, Jesus is the Son of God who has risen to the high heavens to reign in majesty.  Yet he is the high priest who remains sympathetic to us in our weakness because of the intensity of his testing, that is his passion.  He understands our suffering and wants to support us in ours.  So let us confidently approach the throne of grace knowing that we will receive mercy and grace in our difficulties.  That is the Gospel in succinct form and ought to be the constant proclamation of the Church.  Sinners ought to be constantly reminded that with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.  They and we ought to hear that message far more often than we hear threats of judgment and condemnation.  Heaven has much more allure than does hell as motivator of repentance.

Can you identify with James and John in this Sunday’s gospel?  Haven’t you ever wondered what’s in it for me? That’s basically the point the two apostles are pushing.  They have listened to Jesus.  They have seen his mighty deeds.  Remember that when Jesus does something particularly significant he always makes certain that Peter, James and John are with him.  Having seen those powerful deeds and been awed by the raising of Jairus’ daughter, they have concluded that through Jesus will come the Messiah’s reign, the Kingdom.  They want to be next in command after Jesus when that reign begins.  Sure they seem ambitious.  Perhaps they are naïve.  Most of all they are human and normal in their desires for position and power.  The more you can identify with them the more powerful will be the impact of what follows after Jesus asks them if they can pay the price for what they want.  Can you drink of the cup that I will drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?

James and John’s boast that they could drink from the cup and submit to a baptism, at this point in their journey, is not filtered through their experience of Jesus’ Passion and Death.  That hasn’t happened yet.  There is the youthful confidence that they can fight battles at Jesus’ side.  These two, remember, are known for their temper and are called Sons of Thunder.  Jesus affirms their declaration, assuring them that they will, indeed, drink from the cup and share the baptism, but the desired results may not follow since God is the determiner of position in heaven.

The other ten apostles are indignant following the exchange between Jesus and James and John.  Perhaps their indignation sprang from their own desires to have that that James and John sought.  Had they asked, they would have received the same response.  What is important is that this moment segues into the proclamation of a fundamental attitude that must be common to all who are disciples.  This should have served as a clear warning that their own attitudes had to adjust just as did their expectations for the type of Messiah Jesus would prove to be.

Jesus begins something entirely new, a new kind of kingdom unlike that experienced by the Gentiles.  Lording it over others can have no place in Jesus’ realm.  In Jesus’ kingdom, those who wish to be great among you will be your servants; those who wish to be first among you will be the slaves of all. In other words, among those who are Jesus’ disciples there can be no lusting after power.  All will have to imitate the One they follow.  That is how Jesus ministered, even to the shedding of his blood.  That is how the disciples must minister – even those who are in charge of the community.  Remember the pope’s revered title: Servus servorum Dei.  The servant of the servants of God. And that is what the Church should be all about, a servant people in imitation of Christ’s service.

A word about the cup and a word about Baptism follow.  You will drink of the cup that I will drink. Each time we come together to celebrate Eucharist and to share the meal we are invited to drink from the cup.  Jesus said: Take and drink, this is the cup of my blood… When we do that we enter more deeply into union with Jesus and those in Communion with him.  Our shared action is our pledge to be a people who see the full implications of the cup and are willing to live out those implications, even to shed our blood as Jesus did his.  And Baptism?  When we enter the Font, remember, it is to die there.  We enter into Christ’s dying.  We rise there to live in union with Christ’s resurrected life.  We put on Christ.  We are identified with Christ and called by name just as Jesus was in his Baptism.  That identification with Christ is so complete it is said that God loves the baptized with the same love God has for Jesus.  Think about that.  Personalize it.  And stand in awe even as you ask: Do I believe this?

Look back over the history of the Church.  We have to admit that there are dark periods in our history.  The Holy Wars, called the Crusades, were waged in the Holy Land to rescue the holy places from the hands of the infidels and resulted in the shedding of much blood and the taking of many lives.  The reign of the Inquisition resulted in many being burned at the stake.  The Church was wealthy during those periods when terror reigned.  Even so, in those terrible times Christ raised up those whose lives of poverty and service confronted the splendor of the Church and brought about reform.  Think of Francis of Assisi.  He started out to be part of the Crusades and came home to wed Lady Poverty and live a life in service of the poor.  Many followed him.  There are other sterling examples, too numerous to be mentioned here.  And isn’t it curious that the Church always thrives when the Church is being persecuted?  Watching those drink from the cup from which Jesus drank and being baptized with the baptism with which Jesus was baptized inspires others to want to come and do the same.  It never fails.

Perhaps that is why this Sunday’s readings are proclaimed even to those struggling with faith and to those on their way to baptism.  It is better to know the full implications of the call right from the start and then to remember that the one they will follow was similarly tested in every way and now invites all to approach even in their weakness and consciousness of sin, knowing their will be mercy and grace for timely help.

And those of us who have been on The Way for some time must remember, too, and remembering, pray for the grace to be faithful to the very end where life begins.

Sincerely,

Didymus