Christmas, 2018

John 1:1-5, 9-14

You've just heard the beginning of the Gospel of John. It used to be the last part of the old Tridentine Mass, and it was said at every Mass. No shepherds, no wise men, no angel choirs or manger. The Gospel of John begins at the beginning of everything. So what does this have to do with Christmas?

Well, lets go back to the beginning, to the Book of Genesis. It introduces God the Creator. And God creates with his word. He says, “let there be. … and there is. And he creates by drawing lines. Lines define. GK Chesterton once said, “every beautiful painting begins with a line”. We remember how god separated light from darkness, the waters of the heaves from the waters of the earth, the land from the sea. He then assigned the fish to the sea, the birds to the air, and the animals to the land. He finally created man in his image and likeness. He formed man out the earth and breathed his own spirit into him. Then he drew another line; he made eve from the side of the man. Sometimes we interpret this to mean that the woman was created as an afterthought; but the old rabbis said that what God created out of the earth was neither male nor female, and when God created Eve the woman, what was left was the man. Man and woman came into existence as such at the same time. First there was Word, then flesh, then community. And God assigned them to the Garden of Eden. This was the place made for them; a place of abundance, of every good thing to eat and drink; a place where there was no death or suffering. Having completed all this, God rested; because what he had created was perfect and needed nothing else.

And then we have the story of the Fall. The couple were not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But the serpent begins to undo God's work. He tells Eve a lie – that if they eat the fruit, they will be like gods. The words of creatures begins to undo God's perfect creation. The man hides from God; he says it is because he is naked, but the truth is that he knows he disobeyed God. He blames the woman even though he made the decision to eat the fruit, and the woman blames the serpent. And the beautiful order God created becomes disorder when mankind leaves the Garden prepared for him. Death and suffering are the result.

Now we know the story in Genesis is theology, not history. But the theme continues. Abraham, the friend of God, lies about his relationship with his wife Sarah. Jacob and his mother Rebekah conspire to lie to Isaac about who Jacob is. Jacob's father in law lies to Jacob to marry off his daughter Leah and so forth. Lies are always about words that no longer describe a reality. Lies always put disorder into creation. And today we can see that still. When we lie about gender, when we lie about the nature of marriage, when we lie about who is and who isn't a human being we get farther and farther from the creator's intentions.

And that's where John comes in. In the beginning was the Word, he says. The Word through which all things were made. And the Word became flesh. In the beginning God created humans; now the Word that is God becomes human. And the Word, now flesh, dwells among us. Again, first Word, then flesh, then community. The vision of John is that what God did in the beginning, which mankind destroyed, God is doing again. This time the Word itself comes forth to create a new community, a community formed through light shining in the darkness.

It's good to think about that image. If you have a light shining in the darkness, there is still darkness. And if you are in darkness, you can move toward the light or away from it. So we have learned that The Word came to repair God's creation, but through those that receive him, who would receive the power to become Children of God. It is through the children of God that the Word will repair creation. The Word of God, unlike the words of mankind, can never be false.

I once talked with a Unitarian minister. In the course of our conversation, he said something that I knew already – Unitarians aren't big on dogma. Dogma, by the way, simply describes statements about God and man's relationship to God which we know to be true. Many of our friends in other denominations and other religions no longer hold to dogma of any kind. But when people no longer believe in something, they eventually believe anything.

John ends his introduction to the story of Jesus' life by proclaiming that “we saw his glory, glory as of the Father's only son, full of grace and of truth.” He goes on to say that the law came through Moses, but through Jesus Christ, grace and truth. And this Word, who is God, has revealed God to us.

Grace we understand – God's favor, God's gifts, God's unmerited mercy. But truth? Truth represents reality. And as we approach the light shining in the darkness, not only do we receive grace upon grace, but we also receive that for which our whole beings desire – ultimate truth.

So I think you can see why this gospel is so appropriate to read and reflect upon on the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. God became flesh, became man, to form a new community. Moses' community was formed by laws. God gave the law and it provided a fence around the people. When you broke the law, you were outside the fence, you were no longer part of the people. But in the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, we become children of God, we are part of God's family, we are partners in making a new world, a kingdom in which God will reign as he does in heaven.

The incarnation is about God giving us power, power which we may accept or reject, power which has something to do with whether we turn toward the light or away from it, whether we embrace the truth He has revealed, truth which creates – or whether we reject it. No angels, no shepherds, no manger for John – but John celebrates something much more powerful – the Word which creates dwells among us.

Fourth Sunday of Advent, cycle C

Luke 1:39 - 45

I’m sure you've had the experience of thinking you know someone, and then discovering that you had it all wrong.

We Catholics have been brainwashed, I think. There is hardly anything in the New Testament about Mary, so down through the ages we've evolved this image which we see in statues and stained glass windows – a young woman, almost always dressed in blue and white, wearing something like a nun’s habit, eyes cast down, hands folded. Passive and pious. Of course we have other images, but they don’t stray too far from what I've described. Even our manger scenes this time of year generally have her kneeling as she worships her newborn son. And down through the ages this is all reinforced. She says to Saint Bernadette, “I am the Immaculate Conception” “Build a Church in my honor’, she tells Juan Diego. “Have them make a medal”, she tells St. Catherine Laboure. And so it goes. I believe Mary has appeared to many saints down through the ages, and maybe told them things along those lines. But if she did it was at the request of her Son, not on her own. The Mary I know would not do that.

So what do we know about Mary from the Bible? Today we hear that she went to her cousin Elizabeth in haste. I think that’s a good adjective for Mary. When the angel appeared to her, and scholars think she was about 12 to 14 years old, Gabriel says, “you are going to be the mother of the Messiah”. And Mary doesn't fall on the floor and shake with fright; she replies, “How can that be? I don’t have a husband.” Mary knows where babies come from. And when the angel tells her that the Holy Spirit will do the job, she replies, and I am paraphrasing, “Do to me what you say will happen.” Mary doesn't want to wait around to do what God wants of her. Once she knows His will, she is totally on board.

Right after the annunciation she goes to Elizabeth in haste. Why? She learned from the angel that Elizabeth, against all expectations, was expecting a child as well. Did Mary seek out her older cousin to share her own news? I think there were many reasons Mary went in haste to Elizabeth. One very human reason was that Mary probably had no one to turn to when she discovered she was pregnant. Tell mother and father? Not a great idea. Tell Joseph? No. Who might understand? Cousin Elizabeth! The angel said she was with child as well. But on another note, I think Luke gives us a hint. He tells us that Elizabeth is in the sixth month of her pregnancy and Mary stays with her for three months. Mary is there to help out. She will cook and clean and sweep; Zachary and Elizabeth are elderly; Zachary has lost his voice, and Mary goes to help them out until they get back on their feet. And she does so with haste. She sees this menial task as God’s will, and can’t get there fast enough.

And of course we have one more moment to think about. The Wedding Feast of Cana. We don’t know Mary’s relationship with the young couple. Since the story only appears in the Gospel of John, some people have speculated that John is the one being married. But whatever the case, Mary does not sit quietly in the corner. She says, and I again paraphrase, “Son, they have no wine. Fix this!” Mary notices a problem and immediately, in haste, does something about it. I don’t know what she expected Jesus to do – maybe go to the local wine merchant and buy some more wine – but she knows that if she asks, he will do whatever he can.

So what little we know about Mary from the scriptures make her anything but a passive icon. She isn’t afraid to be pregnant and go through childbirth, which in those days was a lot more dangerous and painful than it is now. She isn’t above cooking and cleaning and taking out the trash for Zachary and Elizabeth. And she isn’t one to sit by and watch a young couple’s special time be ruined.

And why is this? I think Elizabeth tells us. She says, “Blessed are you among women!” And “Blessed is she who believed the Lord would fulfill his promises to her.”

Mary is blessed because she believes the Lord. She is free of original sin, so there is nothing in her that doubts that God loves her, that God wants the best for her, that God will never desert her. She is free of original sin, so there is nothing in her that fights against what God wants her to do. Being in haste, haste to do God’s will, is a characteristic of those who are freed from original sin. I’m sure you can think of many saints who were like this. And when you think about it, you and I are freed from original sin. We still suffer from having had original sin at one point, so we have a little disadvantage compared to Mary. But we also know that God loves us and wants the best for us; and we know what God wants us to do. We’ve got the commandments, we’ve got the Church, and we’ve got our consciences. God speaks through all of these to us. So as we once again await the birth of our Lord, let us resolve to go in haste to do God’s will.

Third Sunday in Advent, cycle C

Luke 3:10 – 18

Today’s gospel would be more exciting if we could hear the passage just before what you heard. So here goes. “John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Now I think it’s interesting that right after John insults the crowd, questions their motives for being baptized, tells them that being children of Abraham means nothing before God, and tells them that if they don’t produce good fruit they will be cast into the fire, the crowd instead of stoning him, says, “What shall we do then?”

The people of Israel remembered the age of the prophets. They were individuals who delivered messages from God to the people of Israel. The book Deuteronomy gives criteria for believing a prophet. First, if you used a method of fortune telling, you weren’t a prophet. Second, if you advocated in any way accommodation with other religions, you were a false prophet. Third, what you said came from God had to be true – sometimes the prophets would talk about things that were going to happen in the near future; other times they would address the current situation as caused by the failure of the people to obey God. Fourth, a prophet had to live according to the law; sinners couldn’t be prophets. And Fifth, prophets had to demonstrate that they did not fear authority, and of course that got them into trouble now and then. The way a prophet worked was by acting out God’s message and then interpreting it. Remember the story of Ezekiel? God told Ezekiel that his wife was going to die, and he was not to mourn. When the people saw this, Ezekiel explained that God would not mourn his people who had been taken into exile, because of their sins.

If the people accepted you as a prophet, then they accepted your words as coming from God. The Jewish people had not had a prophet in their midst since the time of Malachi, about 400 years before Christ.

John had been acting out his prophetic character. He had lived in the desert as had the Israelites who had been wanderers for 40 years. He came out of the desert to the Jordan river, where the Israelites had crossed into the promised land. There he offered baptism as a sign that the baptized person was returning to that relationship with God that had characterized those ancestors; this commitment was repentance. So the people recognized John as an authentic prophet, and when he called them snakes and compared them to stones and told them they better shape up or they would be cast into the fire, They hear the voice of God, and say, “What shall we do, then?”

And that’s where we take up today’s gospel. John could have told the crowds anything. Fight the Romans, perhaps; pray more often and more seriously; give up everything and go live in the desert. But God, speaking through John, gives simple answers to the question. First, he tells the crowd, and the crowd stands for everyone, to be generous. If you have an extra cloak, give it to someone who has none; if you have extra food, give it to someone who has none. There are very few of us who could not be more generous than we are. The call to greater generosity is there all the time, because as long as we live in a world where some people have more than others, that is not the world God has in mind. God, speaking through John, points to the world where everyone will have enough. That’s how it will be in the kingdom to come.

Second, he addresses tax collectors. They were about as low as you could get in Jewish society. To be a tax collector, you would volunteer to pay the tax for your community; then you were entitled to collect that sum, plus a commission, from your friends and neighbors, with the help of a few soldiers, if necessary. It was a great system for graft, and nobody trusted tax collectors, but what could you do? John doesn’t tell the tax collectors to quit their jobs and do something more honest. He says, follow the rules, take only what you are entitled to. Remember, that’s God talking. He’s telling us to be scrupulously honest in our dealings with each other. The very nature of trade is that each person goes into a transaction with the idea of getting more out of it than they put in. If you’ve ever bought a car, you know that creating this appearance is almost an art form. The salesman knows you are a little interested, so the strategy is to convince you that you are getting a bargain. But God is saying that that’s not the way it will be in the kingdom. There dealings between people will be based on equal value, all the time.

Finally God addresses soldiers. These soldiers were lower even than tax collectors. Most were recruited from nearby countries – they weren’t Romans, but they were pagans. The Jews didn’t like them because they did the work of the Romans and because they were pagans. The feeling was mutual. And if you were a soldier it was easier to intimidate people to get them to do what you wanted than to reason with them. And you could always make a little extra money by saying “That’s a nice little shop you have; too bad if something happened to it.” And God doesn’t say, quit being a soldier. God says, be content with your pay, and don’t use your power and position for selfish ends. In the kingdom, no one will take advantage of another person.

God is telling us, through John, how to begin bearing fruit; how to begin living in the kingdom for which we pray every time we say the Our Father. And during Advent we should be looking at our own lives. Can we be more generous? Are we being totally honest in our dealings with each other? And do we ever try to get someone to do something for us through intimidation or because we are in a position of authority.

Remember, God is speaking through John, and answering the question, “What shall we do to bear good fruit?” And God gives very simple, straightforward answers. And if we follow what God has told us through John, we will be bringing on the Kingdom of Heaven.

Second Sunday of Advent, cycle C

Luke 3:1 - 6

Once a long long time ago my older sister and I, who were about 9 and 12 respectively, pooled our meager funds to buy our younger sister, about two, a toy rocking horse for Christmas. We spoke a lot about how happy she would be. We anticipated squeals of glee and sheer bliss for our little sister. Finally one day when my mother was out on an errand and my sister and I were supposed to watch the baby, we couldn’t stand it any longer. We took the toy from its hiding place and sure enough, her eyes lit up, she squealed and laughed and mounted the horse and rocked away. We eventually took her off of it and put the toy away. She fussed a great deal and we calmed her down with a cookie. Our mother came home and we thought that was the end of it. But a few days later Mom wondered aloud why the baby sister was always going into my older sister’s room and whimpering in front of the closet, where we had hidden the rocking horse. That’s kind of what we do when we put up ornaments and play Christmas music during advent; we lose sight of what Advent and Christmas are all about.

I’m sure you remember Christmas as a child. Sometimes you kind of knew what Santa Claus was going to bring you. Other times you looked forward to the surprise your grandparents might get, which was in my case often the disappointment of some article of clothing, even though I always hoped for something more easily played with. But the anticipation was important. It made Christmas morning so much more delightful.

That’s part of the reason for Advent. It is not like Lent, a time of penance and fasting. Almost all the readings reflect instead anticipation. If we listen to them they speak of something wonderful that is going to happen. It will come as surely as Christmas morning comes, but it isn’t here yet We only need to wait a little longer. The prophet Baruch tells Jerusalem to throw off its garments of mourning and put on the splendor of glory of God. The apostle Paul prays that his readers be pure and blameless for the day of Jesus Christ. And Luke pins down the exact time and place that the coming of the Lord, predicted by Isaiah and other prophets, will happen.

You and I need to enter into this anticipation. We need to take time to think about the coming of the Lord, and whether we are prepared, and if not, what we can do about it. Isaiah talks about making crooked paths straight, knocking down mountains and filling valleys, smoothing out rough ways – making straight the way of the Lord. Preparing for Christmas is kind of a practice for the real thing – the coming of the Lord once and for all into our lives.

I think making crooked paths straight means that I try to destroy the delusions I have, that we all have, about our spiritual lives. We all have excuses, when we think about it, why we put off our spiritual growth. We haven’t got time, we get distracted, we really don’t need to go to confession because we haven’t really done anything terrible, and there are lots of worse people in the world. We believe Christ is present in the Eucharist, but that belief isn’t real enough to us to bring us to a few minutes of adoration before the blessed sacrament. We know the bible is the word of God, but except for the weekend masses, that’s about all the bible we care about. Tearing down mountains and filling up valleys, suggests to me that we need to find those parts of our lives where we are resisting the Spirit. If you go through a day and look back, you can always see times when you might have done things differently, more in keeping with living in the Spirit. Every day we have the opportunity to receive the fruits of the spirit, to exercise the beatitudes. When we fail to exercise kindness, when we allow anger to take over, when we allow things to deprive us of our joy, we are fighting the Spirit. Only by reflecting on our actual experience can we hope to tear down mountains and fill up valleys. One of the best ways to tear down mountains and fill valleys is to develop a habit of daily reflection; where did we respond to the Spirit? Where did we exercise the beatitudes? And smoothing out rough ways – what are we doing well? Where if someone looked at our life, would they suspect us of being a Christian? Well, lets do those things better. Lets take our strengths and make them stronger.

The purpose of advent is to prepare for the coming of the Lord. We are not really preparing for Christmas – that celebrates a day 2000 years ago. We are not preparing for the Second Coming; we don’t know when that will be or how, and it is the Church that must make the world ready for that. We are indeed the Church and we could ask how we could do this better, but that’s not the prime issue here. There is a coming of Christ for each of us, though. As certain as the sun rises in the morning, a day will come when Christ will come for me, and I will see once and for all how I am and how I should have been, and the closer these visions are to each other the happier I will be. And that is the real coming of Christ for which we are preparing.

My sister and I anticipated the joy our little sister would have on Christmas morning. Because we couldn’t wait, all we did was make her sad, and when Christmas came the rocking horse wasn’t a surprise anymore. So try to enter into that holy expectation, that time in the near future when we will each meet Jesus. What will he say? What will I say? Will he see that the good work he began in me at baptism has been completed? Or will I be sad because I have squandered the gifts he’s given me?

First Sunday of Advent, cycle C

Luke 21: 25-28; 34-36

Christians are supposed to be citizens of two worlds, and this time of year it seems very obvious. Here we are beginning the Advent season, and we are hearing about the Last Judgement and wearing penitential purple and many of us will use the season to take advantage of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. But it seems like society in general is ringing bells, wearing festive red and green, dreaming of acquiring more stuff and putting on six or seven pounds between now and New Years. As Christians we feel out of place; we have those images of the end of time when some of us will be frightened literally to death, and the Son of Man will descend from the heavens to judge us all.

Judgment. We talk about God being a just judge, and that frightens us a little bit; we hear in other parts of scripture that what has been concealed will be revealed, and that frightens me even more, to be frank, because there are things in my life that I would prefer not to be revealed except to my confessor. And sometimes in the middle of the night I worry that I haven’t done what God put me on the earth to do, and if the great saints were aware of their sinfulness to the point of flogging themselves and wearing hair shirts as penance, how do I stand a chance with my charmed life and my aversion to discomfort of any kind?

But God does not judge. We judge ourselves. God condemns no one, but we can put ourselves in hell. It’s that simple. With the Incarnation, God’s light and God’s truth come into the world. We can choose to live in darkness, we can choose falsehood. Saint Paul gives us a very clear picture of this. He says the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is not the spirit of self-indulgence, sexual vice, jealousy, rivalry, antagonism, bad temper, quarrels, drunkenness or factionalism. When we cultivate these vices we can be sure that we are not living in God’s spirit. And we may not think we can cultivate vices, but we can. Whenever you exercise your bad temper, it’s easier the next time. When you have that extra piece of pie or that fourth Martini that you don’t need, you are cultivating self indulgence or drunkenness. And we are all guilty of cultivating vices, hopefully less so as we get older and wiser. Saint Paul tells us that the spirit of God is the spirit of charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and chastity; and when we cultivate these virtues, we are living in God’s spirit. We judge ourselves, we punish ourselves, we put ourselves in hell when we choose to live outside of God’s spirit. When we live in God’s spirit we find salvation.

So when you hear someone say, “How can an all good and all merciful God send anyone to hell for all eternity?” the answer is, he doesn’t. God shows his goodness and mercy by sending his Son to share our human condition, from being a single-celled zygote to a fetus to a newborn baby, to a teenager struggling with mental and physical changes, to a young man doing labor to earn enough to take care of his loved ones. His Son studies scripture and worships with the others in his village, some of whom seem to be hypocrites. His Son is hungry and thirsty, is pushed around by the authorities. His Son is condemned as a criminal and flogged and beaten and mocked; his Son is put to death. Some people say this is so that his Son, who is truly God and truly man, can pay the price for our sin that we never could pay. Some say that this is so because it is the only way the human race can satisfy the demands of God’s justice. But maybe the answer is in Jesus’ own words: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” If we keep his word and love him, we will be inhabited by God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and we will share in His resurrection from the dead.

It’s probably almost impossible for someone to become completely holy, completely one with God while on this earth. Maybe Mother Theresa, Maybe Padre Pio, maybe Pope John Paul II – but if you read biographies of them you learn that they had faults and vices.

Mother Theresa suffered from the feeling that God was absent, leading to doubt and pain. According to her letters to her confessor, she felt as though she had lost that intimate connection with God that she had enjoyed when she was young. Padre Pio was known to have a problem with temper, and he often used shocking language in letting people know what he thought. Pope John Paul II appointed Theodore McCarrick an archbishop and a cardinal when he was being counseled not to because of the rumors of McCarrick’s scandalous life. And I believe every saint whose life is realistically known to us had something about him or her that showed the effects of original sin. In other words, the more you study the saints the more you realize you could be one too. If you can be a saint and still have faults, I have a chance.

The Son of God lived among us and loves us; the Father loves the Son and raises him from the dead. And the Son constantly asks the Father to do the same for those he loves. So Jesus’ life and death makes up, in some way, for all those impediments to holiness that you and I have, and Mother Theresa and Padre Pio and Saint John Paul II had. The wonderful thing is that Jesus left us a Church that is a constant source of holiness and grace and the way he designed to share the love his Father and he have for each other, which is the Holy Spirit The Church is like an oasis in the desert, a place where the thirsty traveler can get water. And the Church never runs out; it is constantly being replenished by the Holy Spirit.

Its a good thing to remind ourselves during advent that there will be judgment; that we judge ourselves by how we live; but we can hold up our heads because God has given us everything we need to enter eternal life in the Church Jesus founded. So today give thanks for the Church and resolve to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the weeks to come.

Feast of Christ the King, cycle B, 2018

John 18: 33 - 37

Many years ago when I was in my fellowship, the American Board of Internal Medicine offered the first board exam in my specialty, medical oncology. Since it was the first exam, we would be taking the exam with some of our teachers. When the exam was over, we were surprised to find that one of our favorite teachers had failed. His reason? Several of the questions had not caught up with the research. We all knew what answers the exam was looking for – if you read the latest textbooks, it was obvious. But my teacher’s answers were in keeping with the latest research. He could have answered the questions like the rest of us, but did not. He had more integrity, I guess, than the rest of us – or maybe he was just stubborn. In the long time since I've known him, he's always spoken exactly what he believes; he has passed up opportunities for advancement because he would have had to make compromises. He was one of the most authentic persons I've known.

The readings are interesting today. We have a reading from Daniel predicting the coming of the Jewish Messiah who will be given glory and power and come in the clouds. The reading from Revelation is similar; Jesus will come in the clouds and will rule over everything. The Psalm also describes a glorious king. And yet our Gospel reading shows Jesus bound in chains and standing before Pilate who will sentence him to death. I guess we can be forgiven for anticipating Jesus’ coming in glory. Most Christians today believe exactly what Daniel and Revelation prophecy – a time will come when Jesus will come in glory and establish his kingdom once and for all. And yet we are shown in today’s gospel that Jesus’ kingdom is not the kind of kingdom we imagine; he is the king over those who belong to the truth. And just what does that mean?

The Gospel of John is full of statements about truth. Jesus is full of grace and truth; if you follow his teaching, the truth will make you free; because he tells the truth you do not believe him; he is the way the truth and the life; he testifies to the truth; and after he is gone he will send the Spirit of truth to his followers. It seems as though truth is a big thing to Jesus.

I don’t think Jesus is talking about truth versus lies as in real news vs. fake news. He’s talking about the way he lives his life and by extension the way we should live our lives. The four Gospels are written from different points of view, but they all show someone who is authentic. We know Jesus is not afraid of what people think about him or even what they can do to hurt him. And we say, where does he get that? Is that from being the Son of God? But remember, Jesus is human in every way except for sin – that makes him perfectly human. And we all recognize that authenticity is a desirable quality in a human being. We admire people who don’t worry about appearances, people who aren’t afraid to speak their minds.

Authentic people also understand that while people can disagree over a lot of things there are certain things which are not negotiable – like gender, like the nature of marriage, like the prohibition against murder. Authentic people are willing to live and let live, providing certain lines are not crossed, lines that are written in our human nature. Jesus seems to have directed a lot of his attention to the very ones who were supposed to teach the people these things – the scribes and the Pharisees. He challenged them over and over again on what they were teaching; and he was a champion for the poor and the outcasts and the handicapped because authentic people recognize the human dignity in every person and grieve when some are living like animals or homeless or abused.

Authentic people recognize not only that they are fearfully and wonderfully made, that they are indeed made in the image and likeness of God, that they are so beloved by God that even if they sin terribly they will never be refused mercy and forgiveness – but they also recognize that they are completely dependent on God and that everything they have is a gift from God. Jesus spends whole nights in prayer as he goes about his ministry, and his prayer is not just asking for things – it is often acknowledging how God works. Remember when he said, “ I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to children.” Jesus prays prayers of thanksgiving and admiration for God’s work. And when Jesus works a miracle, he often reminds his followers that it is the person’s faith that accomplished the miracle. And faith, trust that God has one’s best interest at heart, is authenticity.

And people who live the truth feel a strong kinship with others who do so. I think that’s why Jesus chose Peter and probably the other apostles – because even though most of them were uneducated and worked as fishermen and carpenters, they were honest and spoke their minds. Every time we meet Peter, you can tell he’s saying exactly what he is thinking, except for the time he denied Christ – which he immediately regretted. And even that showed that he was trying to be authentic. When he failed, and we all do, he did not blame someone else or make excuses. But he also did not go off and hang himself like Judas. Presumption and despair are not part of authenticity.

We can see examples of human authenticity in most cultures and most religions. Mahatma Ghandi was authentic. So is the Dali Lama. But Christian authenticity is greater than this, precisely because the Christian is not becoming authentic by trial and error, but rather, by learning from the very model of authenticity, Jesus Christ.

So where should we go from here, on this, the last Sunday of Ordinary Time? How can we become more authentic? How can we belong to the truth? The best way and perhaps the only way is through the imitation of Jesus Christ. We can only imitate him if we get to know him. That requires a little work – we need to read the gospels and we need to pray for God’s help. Jesus came into the world to bear witness to the truth, and those who belong to the truth hear his voice. His kingdom is made up of people who struggle to live the truth, who work to be authentic human beings, who make it a project to get rid of all falsity and pretense and expose the living Christ that is our true self. Christian authenticity is the same thing as sainthood.

Thirty – third Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Mark 13:24 - 32

Have you ever felt like the world is going to hell in a hand basket? It seems like our whole political system is coming apart. Where people used to disagree, they now go to great lengths to destroy the person they disagree with. The tensions between countries is rising as well and we fear another cold war or worse. And whatever we may think about climate change, we can’t escape the fact that we are dumping a garbage truck full of plastic into the ocean every minute, and there is a patch of plastic the size of Texas floating around in the Pacific ocean. And it seems as though organized religion is dying out; certainly in much of Europe and increasingly in this country. For every convert to Catholicism, there are six and one half people who identify as “former Catholics”. And of those who identify as Catholic, about one third actually come to Mass once a week. Did I mention the clergy scandals? Are you depressed yet, because I could go on?

But I ran across an article the other day that said the year 536 AD was the worst year in human history. We know based on written records from England to the middle east that report months without sunshine, crop failure and starvation, and eventually plague, resulting in a massive dying off of the human population and the subsequent dark ages. And recently they’ve shown that what started all of this was a massive ongoing volcano explosion in Iceland which made clouds of ash that hid the sun for about three years. Apparently there was something similar going on in the South Pacific, so that the whole world was affected.

If you were to read the whole thirteenth chapter of Mark you would hear Jesus talking about wars and rumors of wars, brother against brother and father against son, earthquakes, famines, the rise of false prophets, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and persecution of Christians. There will be false Messiahs, the sun will be darkened, and things will be so bad that no one could survive if it were not for the sake of the elect, for whom the time will be shortened.

The first reading from Daniel is similar. It follows Chapter 11, which is a prediction of terrible things that are going to happen, when whole nations will be destroyed.

Daniel is writing at a low point in the history of Israel. Since the time of Solomon, the powerful and influential Jewish kingdom had first of all divided into two parts, then the Northern kingdom had been conquered and the people sent into exile, never to be heard from again; and finally the little remnant kingdom of Judea was treated the same way. Daniel has never seen his ancestral home.

And Mark is writing, we believe, to Christians at the time of Nero’s persecutions and the rise in persecution throughout the empire. Crucifixion was common, and Nero even burned Christians to light up the night. And it was a time when the split between Judaism and Christianity became permanent, the Jews blaming the Christians for drawing down the wrath of Rome and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

And the messages of Daniel and Mark are similar – when it looks like everything is falling apart and the whole world seems to be against you, God will not fail you. The angel Michael, the protector of the Jewish people, will be sent to rescue them. And Jesus himself will return to save those who have kept the faith.

These so called apocalyptic writings are not really meant as predictions of the future except perhaps to tell us that we can’t control it. They are really written to remind their audience that turmoil and trouble in their respective worlds are in a way, reminders that God is in charge, that God has a plan, of which all these things are a part. They are being written to awaken hope.

We Christians receive the theological virtue of hope at Baptism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says this:

“Hope answers the Christian's strong burning desires for happiness, a desire that God has implanted in every heart. It includes the inspirations that lead to his actions, making them pure of heart so they are oriented towards the Kingdom of God. It gives the Christian strength so he will not become discouraged. It supports the Christian when he feels deserted. Hope makes the Christian's heart shine in anticipation of eternal supreme blessedness. Encouraged by the virtue of hope, the Christian is preserved from self-concern, leading him to greater happiness that comes from charity.”

Theological virtues are given to us, but have to be practiced. As with Faith and Charity, when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in exercising these virtues we grow in Holiness and closeness to God. How do we strengthen the virtue of hope? We remind ourselves that God is looking out for us. If I something terrible is happening, hope will remind me of this. If I am dying and we all will sooner or later, I can remember that my redeemer lives. The exercise of this virtue makes it become second nature, a habit of mind and heart. Hope springs from faith, which is the knowledge of God, His will, and His plan for us; and Hope leads to Charity, which grows out of the certainty that God will multiply our efforts and see to their success in building up His kingdom.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews, which we just read, the author is encouraging those to whom he is writing precisely to have this kind of hope. After reminding us that our high priest has actually saved us from our sins by his own offering of himself, the author will go on to say “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.

One of the great sources of hope for a Catholic Christian is when we gather together every week to celebrate the Eucharist. We are reminded that we are not alone in our journey, that we have brothers and sisters accompanying us, and that most importantly Jesus himself comes to us week after week in Word and Sacrament.

So today would be a good day to begin let the Holy Spirit remind us of the reasons for our hope.