First Sunday of Advent_A - An Advent Journey_120119

Deacon Tom Writes,

“An Advent Journey”

First Sunday of Advent, Year A

Advent is traditionally a time of waiting, expectation and preparation. Expectation is what the Prophet Isaiah envisions as he looks forward to the days when people from every nation will make their way to Jerusalem where their journey finally ends as they “…climb the mountain of the Lord and arrive at the house of the God of Jacob, where they learn his ways and walk in his paths”.

For many people today the Advent journey is drudgery. It is a time of going to the malls and wandering through a maze of stores and kiosks. For the tech savvy, it is endless hours of searching on-line and calling upon Amazon for overnight delivery of our digital shopping tour. Any wonder that the real meaning of the season is lost in the busyness of buying gifts and preparing for the “Holidays”. The sheer exhaustion from the pace leaves little energy or time for any reflection on the profound meaning of the Incarnation and the gift from God most highthat is eager to enter our world and the recesses of our hearts from God most high.

The words of the Prophet Isaiah invite us to go on a journey this Advent. No, we don’t have to pack our bags and head off to Jerusalem and climb Mount Zion, although that would be a wonderful experience. We can stay right at home and be engaged in just as challenging an experience. We can use this Season of Advent as a spiritual ascent, a time of reflection to identify and resolve to overcome the obstacles that limit our growing closer to Our Lord, surmounting the mountains, if your will, that keep us from experiencing the depth and totality of God’s love for us. The journey to overcome the hurts and scars others have caused us and forgive them may be more difficult than climbing the highest mountains. How very difficult is it for us to change our mindsets and be opened to the ways of peace as Jesus taught throughout His ministry.

Isaiah invites us to do just that in this image he presents today of recasting spears into pruning hooks. Can we use this holy time to seek all that is necessary to find interior peace within ourselves for all that is troubling us? Can we find the time this holy season to consult and listen to the Holy Spirit to direct our lives and heal our troubled consciences for all the wrongs we have done, and all the hurts we have caused others? I doubt there is a more difficult uphill climb than this: finding peace by yielding our thought and ways to the One who came to dwell among us. 

A  very Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones also.

Enjoy the day,

Deacon Tom

Find this blog on the web at www.deacontomwrites.com

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Year C_112419

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Christ the King”

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Year C

Pope Pius XI established the Feast of Christ the King in 1925 in response to the growing sense of secularism that arose in the early 20th century. Germany was experiencing the rise of Nazism and exaggerated nationalism. There were populist movements toward Communism, atheism and totalitarian governments elsewhere that demanded total sovereignty over people, substituting a nation or an ideology in place of God. This led Pius XI to institute today’s Feast, as a way to make us aware that nations can never replace God in claiming sovereignty over the people.

Yet, we know from Sacred Scripture that Jesus rejected the notion of being an earthly king. St. John tells us that when asked by Pilate if he was a King, Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.” (John 18:36)

So, just what does Jesus’ kingdom that is “not of this earth” look like and how do we show our fidelity to it? The answer to this may be hidden in the choice of today’s gospel that is taken from St. Luke’s account of Jesus’ death on Calvary. (Luke 23:35-43) In Jesus’ perfect surrender of himself on the cross, we get a glimpse of the kingdom to which we have been called along with a sense of the nature of the Christ’s Kingship. His is a kingship of suffering the insufferable, a kingship of forgiveness in the face of terrible injustice, a kingship of surrendering self and any authority or power we may have in this life into the hands of God the Father. Christ is king for those who live the beatitudes; he is king for everyone who suffers with those who suffer injustice, persecution, victimization, or deprivation; he is king for those who side with the immigrants, refugees, widows, the powerless, afflicted, disenfranchised; he is king for anyone who attempts to bring a sliver of hope to our world where hope is so desperately needed. 

It is fitting that the Feast of Christ the King marks the end of our liturgical year. It enables us to move into the Season of Advent anticipating the day when God’s justice and peace will break forth upon the earth. That time when all the kings and prime ministers, chancellors, presidents and all who have ever ruled this world, will pay homage and tribute to the one from whom they have received their power and their authority and to whom they too must one day render an account. 

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

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Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time - The Days to Come_111719

Deacon Tom Writes,

“The Days to Come’”

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Seeing Christmas decorations in the stores and hearing the countdown to Christmas is a sure sign that our Liturgical Year is drawing to a close. As it does, Sacred Scripture invites us to consider “the days to come”. Today we hear the first of several prophetic warnings about the judgment that will take place in “the days to come”. The Prophet Malachi issues a warning that the proud and evildoers will be punished, and those who fear the Lord and follow his ways will be rewarded in “the days to come”.

Jesus, too, sees that in “the days to come” there will be a judgment rendered upon Jerusalem, a day when the magnificent Temple standing before him will be leveled…. “so that not one stone will be left upon another”, a painful image for the people of his day.

What Malachi and Jesus both envision for us today is that the days of this world are numbered. The clock is running… History, with its wars, famines, revolutions and plagues will give way to a new chapter in the Creator’s plan in “the days to come”. These readings remind us that everything around us is temporary. The world and all that has been developed over the ages in the course of human achievement and progress will one day fade away. What will not fade away, however, is God’s judgment!

In these last several weeks of our Liturgical Year, we are challenged to prepare ourselves for “the days to come” by setting our hearts and minds on Jesus whose teachings need to be the foundation upon which we model our lives. We are invited to have a healthy and mature spiritual life that leads to a deeper relationship with God; we are encouraged to develop a discerning spirit so that we know how to make the right choices for ourselves and our families; we are asked to conform our lives to Christ’s so that we live and act justly and do what we can to comfort and help the poor and the needy.

Following Christ’s example can be costly, as Jesus makes clear in the gospel today. Being a witness of the gospel can cause us hardship, suffering, and distress. Just try speaking out against capital punishment or advocating the principles of our Catholic Social Teaching. That’s because the gospel stands in contrast to the world around us, a world that is often indifferent, wasteful, unjust and, oh, by the way, passing.

As our Liturgical Year ends, we look forward to “the days to come”, when all that is temporary and lacking gives way to the plans that God has in mind for those who persevere in following his ways. We wait in hope for the Lord to come and rule the earth with justice.

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time - The Forces of Change: Prayer and Action_111019

Deacon Tom Writes,

The Forces of Change: Prayer and Action

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

In today’s reading, St. Paul asks the Thessalonians to pray that he and his companions, “be delivered from perverse and wicked people, for not all have faith”.

St. Paul had reason to be concerned about perverse and wicked people. He knew the history of the Jewish people and was certainly aware of the story of the seven Maccabees who were arrested, tortured and killed for their faith. Paul, a man of prayer, asks the community to pray for him and his companions that God will protect them from the perverse and wicked things that people without faith do as he continues his mission to spread the Good News about Jesus.

The question that this account from St. Paul’s life raises for us today is, “Does the evil and wickedness we experience in our world today come only from the hearts and minds and hands of ‘those without faith”? Unfortunately, the answer is to this question is...no. Discrimination, the exploitation of the poor, the profiteering from the hopelessness and misery of others is a business today and, and many are eager reap the profit from such enterprises. All we have to do is, “remove the wooden beam from your eye first” (Mt 7:5) in order for us to see how we may participate in the suffering of others by what we do… or what we fail to do. There are many ways in which we, the faithful, contribute to the suffering of so many people around us - people of color, the elderly and vulnerable, the immigrant, the single parents, the homeless and those “working poor” who struggle just to live simple lives. The sad reality is that so much evil and harm is done by people professing to be people of faith; those who fill our churches, temples, and mosques. Insane, but true nonetheless.

St. Paul was able to deal with the evil he experienced spreading the Word for two reasons:  he was a man of prayer, and he was a man of action. Prayer and work: pray as if everything depends on God and work as if everything depends on us, advice echoed by St. Augustine some 350 years after St. Paul.

If we are ever to have any success in eliminating the racism, poverty, discrimination and sexism from our society and in the world, we must find the right balance between prayer and action. Prayer is the way we get things right on the inside, “cleanse first the inside of the cup…” as Matthew writes, (Mt 23:26) so that the love of God can flow out to others. 

Perhaps this week we can commit some time to daily prayer. In the quiet of our hearts God speaks to us telling what we can do to bring about the world that he has in mind for us: one without poverty, or war, or hunger; a world of right relationships built on the sure knowledge that God’s abiding love rests upon each and every one of his children.

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time_C - Unexpected Company_110319

Deacon Tom Writes

“Unexpected Company”

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Poor Zacchaeus! When he left home that day to get a look at Jesus on his way through Jericho, I doubt that he had any inclination that Jesus would invite himself over for dinner.  Usually we need to tidy up somewhat before we have guests over…. Pick up the newspapers and magazines from the coffee table and bring them out to the trash, knock down a cobweb here and there, (the kids science projects, really…), run the vacuum around to pick up all those unidentified objects that follow us in from the yard. Yes, I’m sure that we all do a little “staging” of our homes to make it look a little more presentable for when our guests arrive.  However, Zacchaeus didn’t have time to run home and tidy up when Jesus told him invited himself over.

The beauty and décor of a home comes not so much from how neat it looks or the expensive furniture and accessories but rather from what takes place there. Being with friends, old and new, recalling old memories or giving life to new ones gives a home its character. So, I wonder what Zacchaeus experienced when Jesus entered his home and shared dinner with him? I wonder what they discussed.  Do you think that Jesus might have been interested in hearing about how the community reacted to his position as Chief Tax Collector in collaboration with the enemy, the Romans? In light of that, might they have discussed how the community was living out the “Greatest Commandment”, loving God and neighbor? There was so much to talk about! There were so many feelings and emotions in need of healing. The man who invited himself to dinner came to listen and to heal not just Zacchaeus, but us too.  

Jesus came, as is written, “to seek and save what was lost”. Life is harsh at times, too often it seems. It is in times of bewilderment and uncertainty, when we lack vision and clarity and we seem lost or confused that we become receptive to God and open to what he is saying to us. He appears, it seems, out of nowhere then, in a visit from a friend, a call from a loved one, kind words from a stranger or even a soft breeze and we hear him say “Here I am; today I must stay with you”. Our hearts are lifted up; and ever so slowly, gradually, ever so gently, he fills all our needs, healing us, forgiving us, loving us simply because he comes to stay with us for a while.   

Enjoy the day,

Deacon Tom  

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