First Sunday of Advent_A - The True Ascent of Advent: Preparing for His Coming_113025

Deacon Tom writes,
The True Ascent of Advent: Preparing for His Coming

 

First Sunday of Advent, Year A

The Season of Advent marks the beginning of a new Liturgical year—a time of waiting, expectation, and preparation.

Expectation is what the Prophet Isaiah envisions as he looks forward to the glorious end of the age. He pictures a time when people from every nation will make their way to Jerusalem, their final destination, the place where their journey comes to an end 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.” (Isaiah 2:3)

For many people today, the Advent journey feels like 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 online and calling upon retailers for overnight delivery of our digital shopping bargains. Is it 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 this pace leaves little energy or time for reflection on the profound meaning of the Incarnation—the gift from God Most High who is eager to enter our world and the recesses of our hearts from his divine realm.

These words of the Prophet Isaiah as we begin this Advent season encourage us to reclaim the true journey of Advent—a pilgrimage not to a geographical Jerusalem, but to the center of our own hearts.

We don't have to pack our bags and head off to Jerusalem. Instead, we can use this spiritually enrich time 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 you will, that keep us from experiencing the depth and totality of God’s love for us.

This path of self-improvement and peace is our vigilance. The Gospel calls us to "stay awake" (Mark 13:33) and not let the anxieties and cares of this life make us drowsy to the Lord's coming.

The journey to overcome the hurts and scars others have caused us and to forgive them may be more difficult than climbing the highest mountains. How very difficult is it for us to change our mindsets and be open to the ways of peace as Jesus taught throughout his ministry?

Isaiah invites us to do just that in the 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 thoughts and ways to the One who came to dwell among us. May we all reach higher terrain this holy and grace filled season.

Perhaps that journey begins today, with a simple five minutes of silence, listening for the direction of the Holy Spirit, or committing to a nightly reading of the Scripture for the following day.

Enjoy the day, Deacon Tom

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com where you will find contemporary conversations with several Paulist Deacon Affiliates and their guests exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer to those on the threshold of our church… those thinking of joining our Catholic Community or walking away from it 

 

OTHER RESOURCES

Recommended Reading:  The Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser, OMI probes the question “What is spirituality?”, cutting through the misunderstanding and confusion that can often surround this subject with his trademark clarity.

 

Recommended Web Site: The 1st Sunday of Advent: Gospel Reflection, Year A, Fr. Tim Peters. Fr Tim unpacks the Gospel for the First Sunday of Advent – Matthew 24:37-44. A good reflection to enter in this holy season.

Image credit: inapenafrancia360.weebly.com/

 

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. If our loyalties and fidelity lie elsewhere, be assured, we do not belong to the kingdom Jesus inaugurated and is running its course before our very eyes.

 

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 come to completion on this 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 the one to whom they too must one day render an account. 

 

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

 

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com where you will find contemporary conversations with several Paulist Deacon Affiliates and their guests exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer to those on the threshold of our church… those thinking of joining our Catholic Community or walking away from it.

 

 

OTHER RESOURCES

Recommended Reading: The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius may be the best way to prepare ourselves to receive the Christ Child into our lives this Christmas.   

 

Recommended YouTube Video: Meaning of Life: Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. A Philosopher’s view of Frankl’s Man’s search for Meaning.  prayerful reflection on the people, events and happening of the day and where you met Jesus in them.  

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time_C - The Days to Come_111625

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 since early September is a sure sign that our holiday shopping season has arrived. In the spiritual realm it is a reminder that this current 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...tic, toc. 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 the things that matter, on the things that will endure, Jesus and the kingdom he inaugurated. As citizens of God’s kingdom, we are invited to live 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. Watch what happens if you welcome a political refugee from Venezuela into your home.  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. Today, we wait in hope for “the Lord to come and rule the earth with justice.”

 

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

 

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com where you will find contemporary conversations with Paulist Deacon Affiliates and their guests exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer to those on the threshold, those thinking of joining our Catholic Community or walking away from it. 

OTHER RESOURCES

Recommended Reading: Letters From an Understanding Friend by Isaias Powers, C.P., draws the reader into Christ's loving care to experience his love and compassion.

 

Recommended YouTube Video  Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI on Catholic Social Teaching. This is an excerpt from his lecture series "Simply Being Good-Hearted is Not Enough: A Spirituality of Charity, Justice, and Prophecy." I hope you will find this very interesting.

Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome_C - Holy Space_110925

Lateran Basilica, Rome

 

Deacon Tom Writes

Holy Space

 

Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome

 

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. It is dedicated to St. John the Baptist, St. John the Evangelist, and to Jesus Christ, our Savior. It became the Mother Church of Christendom around 313 A.D. when the Emperor Constantine gave it to the Bishop of Rome. Many Councils, referred to as Lateran Councils, were held within its walls in the early days of the church. It was there that much of the dogma of our faith that we profess today was formulated.

 

I have seen this beautiful church and indeed it is a masterpiece. The architecture, the decorations, the adornments are works of art description. This is true for many of our basilicas and cathedrals. Many of our churches are a sight to behold. Yet, what gives them their real beauty is not the adornments. It’s not the gold and silver decorations, nor the famed renaissance paintings, nor the jeweled sacred vessels. What makes these grand structures so magnificent is the One in whose name and memory these houses of worship were built - the Lord, God Almighty. 

 

We know from our Old Testament history that David desired to build a house for the Lord and that his son, Solomon, is credited with building the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem. But buildings come and go. The temple that God wanted to establish among His people was made of human flesh. It was Christ, the God-Man. Salvation History is the story of God visiting His people and creating within them “holy space” that would be the living, breathing temples of His Holy Spirit.

 

Whenever we enter into this “holy space”, we come into a communal celebration to share in the banquet Christ has prepared for us through His sacrifice on Calvary. We enter into a mystery that is beyond us and that summons within us a faith that rises above our understanding. Within this “holy space” we are joined by other believers to be nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ and enlivened by the Words of Sacred Scripture. Then, reenergized by God’s love for us, we are commissioned to take our gifts out into the world and share them eagerly with everyone we meet. The gifts we receive inside our “holy spaces” will atrophy and die if we do not bring them to each and every person we encounter; if we do not used them in every situation we find ourselves, if they are not a part of all our decisions and judgments we make in the course of the day. We are the church, the living, breathing, holy spaces God desires to dwell within and fill with His Glory.

 

Enjoy the Day!

Deacon Tom

 

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com where you will find contemporary conversations with Paulist Deacon Affiliates and their guests exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer to those on the threshold, those thinking of joining our Catholic Community or walking away from it.

 

 

Recommended Reading:  John the Baptizer by Bonnie B Thurston. This "narrative biography" of John the Baptist, drawn primarily from New Testament texts, introduces the reader to the life of John the Baptist in the Gospels and Christian spirituality.

With more verses devoted to him than anyone except Jesus, John the Baptist appears some ninety times in the New Testament. This book introduces the reader to John's life, especially its importance in the ministry of Jesus, the development of the early church, and his enduring spiritual significance. This is a good read for our upcoming Advent Season.

 

Recommended YouTube Video: What is Contemplative Prayer and Why is it so Needed? with Fr. Richard Rohr "A Long, loving, look at the Real" – If you have not yet discovered contemplative prayer for yourself get ready. Soon you'll want to be doing nothing else! In this video Fr. Rohr dives into the essence of a contemplative inner life, what it is, how to start and its historical context in the Christian story.... Check out his daily meditations at cac.org for more. This particular issue is all on contemplative prayer: