First Sunday of Advent - Rend the Heavens_112920

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Rend the Heavens”

The First Sunday of Advent, Year B

 

No one likes waiting! We anxiously await hearing from the doctor about the last CAT Scan; waiting for word that we were hired for that new job that will advance our career; waiting to get the acceptance letter from the college we desperately want to attend; waiting for a vaccine to enable us to resume what we took for granted back in February… going about our lives as we have been accustomed. This Sunday we begin a New Liturgical Year, one that calls us into a period of, guess what? “Waiting”, but a different quality of waiting, a waiting of the soul, an entry into a time of “holy longing” for that event that has been prophesied throughout Holy Scripture, the arrival of the Prince of Peace. We wait in expectant hope for the heavens to open and for the presence of the Lord to fill the earth. Waiting is a sign of our faith, just as it had been for the people of Israel. The waiting, longing, hoping for arrival of the Messiah was an essential mark of their faith also. They awaited the Messiah, a King, a Warrior, a Liberator who would save His people from foreign oppression, who would usher in a Kingdom of Justice, of Mercy, and Peace and restore Israel to its promised glory as the Light to the Nations. Generations lived and died without this desperate longing being fulfilled. Yet, generation after generation kept watch. And now, it’s our turn. It is our turn to keep not only the watch, but the faith to believe that this ancient promise will be fulfilled… at any moment. 

It is for this long-awaited Redeemer and Savior of the world that we Christians keep a vigilant watch and that distinguishes these next three plus weeks as a most special time of the Church year. It is a time when we watch and wait in hopeful anticipation for the heavens to open and the coming of our Lord and Savior; a time of longing for His return as He promised.  We wait while we seek God’s peace and consolation to come into our lives because there is so little of it in our world today. We are desperate for God’s peace.  We truly hunger for His joy and consolation.  There is an emptiness in our lives that cannot be filled by all the creature comforts this world has to offer. And so “we wait”.  

Isaiah knew this.  He begged God, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down”   And you know what???  God did just that!!!.  He became one of us in every way except sin.  Jesus, Son of God, entered into the human drama as a tiny infant born into our world of material poverty, into a world at war, a world of scarcity and want, a world of fear and anxiety Sounds pretty much like the world around us today! 

The problems of the world didn’t go away when Christ entered into it.  And they still haven’t.  No one person has the power to fix what is wrong with the world.  The only way to fix the world is to fix ourselves.  And Christ showed us how to do that.

When we were Baptized, we were called by name and anointed with the Sacred Chrism to share Christ’s work.  St. Luke quotes these words from the Prophet Isaiah to describe the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee:  

  

“The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners”.

Let this Advent season be one of waiting, waiting for the Spirit of the Lord to fill us with His Presence so we may be the instruments of His peace, the bearers of His glad tidings, the healing balm for those who are brokenhearted and discouraged, and witnesses and agents of hope and encouragement for all who are bound up.  And may He who came down from heaven, take away our emptiness and fill us with His never-ending Joy.

Happy Thanksgiving and Enjoy the Day!

Deacon Tom

Image Credit: A Peaceful Christmas from Charlie B, Italia, dec.2006

 

 

Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe_112220

Deacon Tom Writes,
“Sheep to the Right; Goats on the..”

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

 

By way of history, Pope Pius XI established the Feast of Christ the King in 1925 to counterbalance the growing movement toward secularism that arose in the early 20th century. In Germany there was a rise in exaggerated nationalism and the emergence of Nazism. At the same time there was a rising tide of Communism, atheism, totalitarian governments that demanded total sovereignty over people, substituting a nation or an ideology in place of God. This led Pius XI instituting today’s Feast as a way to make us aware that nations can never have complete sovereignty over what belongs to God.

Yet, we know from Sacred Scripture that Jesus rejected the notion of being a 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.”

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 is explicitly revealed in today’s gospel from the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel. The image is stunning. All the people who have ever lived throughout time, the inhabitants of “all the nations”, are gathered before the “Son of Man”, that is, the King, who separates them into two groups, “the sheep on his right and the goats on his left”. Those on His right He finds favor with because they have acted justly; they have fed the hungry, given water to the thirsty, clothed their neighbor, visited the sick and imprisoned. In other words they were able to show mercy and compassion to others during their lifetime by helping them with the necessities of life. Those on His left, however, are damned for they had no sense of the needs of the other. All their efforts were self-directed. They had no consideration for the suffering and wanton deprivation of their neighbors. They cared not for the widow and the orphan. Their punishment appears to be the result of any evil they may have done but rather that they did nothing in the face of evil. Whatever their failure, each group goes on to share in the joy or suffering they helped create in this life. 

Given the outcome from this “judgment” scene that St. Matthew depicts, we can easily conclude that the King ruled over a kingdom that required its citizens to care for one another’s material, emotional and spiritual well-being; a kingdom whose people were instructed to see to it that no one suffered from want of food, clothing, shelter, or loneliness, or fear of being forgotten, or of being a stranger. We can deduct from Matthew’s text that the Kingdom of God favors those whose suffering and poverty go unnoticed by the world.  In God’s eyes they are the “blessed” who will inherit the earth. 

We do well to reflect on today’s readings, the last of our Liturgical Year. They speak of a time to come when, as we hear, all will stand in judgment and render an account for our actions and attitudes. They invite us to reflect seriously on how we have treated the poor and marginalized around us and, if needed, to make any changes the whisper of the Holy Spirit may direct. At the least, today’s readings should remind us that Christ is our King who calls us to: live the beatitudes; stand besides our brothers and sisters who suffer injustice, persecution, victimization, or deprivation; and work alongside those trying 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 in hopeful anticipation of that day when God’s justice and peace will break forth upon the earth; that time when all the kings and prime ministers and presidents, all the rulers who have ever ruled this world, will pay homage and tribute to the One from whom they received their power and to whom we all must eventually render an account.

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom 

Image credit: holytrinity-oca.com

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time - From Servants to Sons and Daughters_111520

Deacon Tom Writes,

“From Servants to Sons and Daughters”

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A 

The Parable of the Talents is a cautionary tale that has been appropriate for all ages and especially to our own when the common perception is, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer!” Money, the economy, our social status are so very important to us that they can at times be an obstacle to our physical and spiritual well-being. That’s why Jesus frequently uses them as the subject matter for His parables. His perceptive and unique insights into wealth, possessions and our attitudes toward them captured the attention of so many of the people of His time. 

Today’s story is about a man as he makes arrangements to go away on a journey. He entrusts portions of his estate to his servants to manage in his absence. He doesn’t give them any instruction on how to manage his affairs but he does allocate the amount that each will manage according to their abilities. Because of this we may conclude that the Master had some expectations about how each of his servants would manage the portion of the property he entrusted to them. It’s obvious that the Master was looking to increase his wealth by virtue of the fact that praise and more responsibility is given to those who achieved sizable returns.  The thought that his money would sit idly by and not get so much as shekel’s worth of interest from the bankers was beyond his imagination.  

If we are able to imagine this parable with some spiritual insight we might easily see that we are the players in the very script we hear today. We are the servants, at least from God’s perspective. And, He has entrusted us with many talents. They are God’s gift to us. What we do with them is our gift to God. It seems from today’s lesson that God is pleased when we are willing to go all out for His kingdom; when we are willing to put the effort and energy into living those values that Christ taught us and actually incorporate them into our lives and giving good witness to those around us. As they say in the financial world… no risk, no reward. Make no mistake about it, trying to live the gospel values in our day is putting ourselves at great risk of rejection, humiliation, and even death in some corners of the world today. 

Being timid, hoarding or squandering the gifts God has given us stifles the spreading of His kingdom and condemns us to a life of deprivation...we will reap what we sow! We would do a much better job of building up the kingdom if we came to see ourselves not as servants managing someone else’s property, but rather as we really are, sons and daughters of the king who one day stand to inherit the riches of His entire kingdom. 

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

Thirty-scond Sunday in Ordinary Time - Spiritually Prepared_110820

Deacon Tom Writes,

"Spiritually Prepared”

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Science is gaining extraordinary insight into the cosmos in which we live. The Hubble telescope gives us fantastic images of worlds, stars, and galaxies hundred of million, even billions of light years away, images of universes and suns being born and dying. Scientists listen to ultra sound waves rippling through space containing the first heart beat from creation. As the search the heavens they perceive the reality that all that exists out there once had a beginning and one day will come to an end. 

That big picture, that notion that all existence is limited and finite escapes us for the most part as we go about our daily lives. Sure, we may see NOVA or a science fiction movie that depicts the end of the world. But, the thought that the days of our lives and those of our loved ones and friends are numbered is something that gets overshadowed by our need to provide for today. Let’s face it! Today we are confronted with numerous challenges that consume our time, energy and resources. There is little desire or capacity to consider that the days of our lives are numbered.  

We are living through extraordinary times. People are dying from a virus for which there is currently no cure. People who had planned to be on vacation, visiting friends and relatives for Thanksgiving and Christmas, who had things to do, weddings and anniversaries to attend, people to see… good things, all good things, planned for events in advance and written them down in their calendars, have had these plans canceled. They have succumbed to this dreadful virus. Many people now are dying alone and alienated from everyone they loved and who loved them in return. They didn’t plan it; it just happed. Hopefully, some were prudent and stored up treasures in heaven in anticipation of the brevity of their lives. Others, without doubt, made no such provision.  

When it comes to the things of this world, we put much effort into planning how to acquire the things we want. We work, we save, we make sacrifices to get them. That’s fine! There is nothing wrong with possessions. The problem is not that we own them but when they “own” us; when they become the center of our lives to the exclusion of other “important” needs and responsibilities.  

In today’s gospel, St. Matthew presents an image whereby He contrasts the two groups of Virgins: those who have thoughtfully planned for and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Bridegroom, and those whose plans were incomplete and inadequate. Those Virgins who needed to run off and buy oil to welcome the Bridegroom are exposed for failing to anticipate and adequately prepare for when the Guest of Honor appeared. The message here is don’t be caught off guard for that which we should be prepared. 

Our reading from the Book of Wisdom is our guide on how to prepare ourselves for an eventuality we will all face: that last moment of our lives, when this world fades away and we stand on the edge of the life to come. By befriending and loving wisdom, by keeping vigil with her and following her ways we keep our spiritual goal remains before us as we journey through this life. Death will not catch us unprepared; Wisdom will remind us to store up treasures in heaven so that we will be ready when the Bridegroom calls us to share His Wedding Banquet. 

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

Image credit:  Image © Justinen Creative Goodsalt.com