Christmas

Readings: Isaiah 9:1-6; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

After living more days that we can count 
amidst death and desolation,
the cure has been announced,
the promises of an end 
to the deadly contagion
that has afflicted our world.
This happy news is greeted 
with skepticism by some
and with joy by others,
but even those who believe this good news 
know that there are still dark days ahead.
Victory is assured,
but it will take time—
and we do not know
how much time—
before we can let down our guard
and live and move freely, 
as we are meant to live.
But the corner has been turned,
the deadly foe has been defeated,
and a better day is coming.

This enemy of which I speak, 
of course, is sin—
the deadly contagion that has spread
throughout the human race 
down the centuries—
our primal alienation from God 
that is the yoke that has burdened us.
It is sin that has separated us from others,
sin that has robbed us
of the sustaining breath of the Spirit,
sin that has condemned us to eternal death.
But today we celebrate
the glad tidings of victory,
the announcing of sin’s defeat
by the one who is called
“Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero,
Father-Forever, Prince of Peace,”
the “good news of great joy
that will be for all the people,”
the news that 
“a savior has been born for us 
who is Christ and Lord.”

Yet, even as we celebrate good news,
we know that sin still stalks the world;
we see its effects around us 
and feel its power in our souls.
The new age has dawned 
and defeat of our ancient foe is assured,
but we still, as St. Paul writes,
“await the blessed hope,
the appearance of the glory 
of our great God and savior Jesus Christ.”

In our waiting, we can fall prey 
to one of two temptations.
On the one hand, we can be tempted
to disbelieve the good news of so great a victory
because the signs of triumph
are so small, 
so easily overlooked—
as obscure and hidden 
as a newborn child 
laid in a feeding trough in a stable.
It is easy to doubt news so astounding:
the eternal God 
has come to dwell with us in time.
It is easy to doubt a victory
that our eyes cannot yet see.
On the other hand, we can also be tempted
to think that God’s victory means
that the struggle for justice and mercy is over,
that it doesn’t matter what we do, 
that we no longer need to guard ourselves from sin
or work for a world that is less cruel,
less marked by the yoke of sin.
We can forget that we still have a role to play,
still have the path of cross and resurrection ahead of us,
still have an unknown length of days before us
until the reign of Christ arrives in its fullness.

Christmas calls us to resist both these temptations
by being people of hope and patience.
Hope and patience should not be confused
with optimism and resignation.
Hope is not the belief 
that things will work out fine on their own,
but rather that God is even now,
in ways that may escape our eyes, 
at work in our world to defeat evil.
Patience is not throwing up our hands
and sinking into resigned desolation;
patience is rather the chief remedy for desolation,
the active choice to wait for the God
who can heal our lacerated souls.
This is always a hard discipline:
to genuinely believe that God has won the victory,
and yet to recognize that we must still live and labor
amidst the ruin that sin has made of our existence.

This Christmas more than most
we need this hard discipline.
We need to be people of hope and patience
as we hear news of vaccines 
that can protect us from the novel coronavirus,
even as we continue to live amidst a global pandemic
that has killed 1.7 million people worldwide
and over 330,000 people in our country alone,
that has turned our lives upside down,
that has isolated and separated us 
precisely when we most need each other.

This Christmas more than most
we need the gift of hope 
to believe better days are coming,
and the gift of patience 
to combat the desolation 
of hard days still ahead.

This Christmas more than most
we need to hear the good news of great joy
that God is with us in our waiting;
we need to hear 
the message of the angel to the shepherds:
“Do not be afraid.”
Do not be afraid to hope and believe.
Do not be afraid to patiently wait.
Do not be afraid
because God in Christ 
has plunged into the depths 
of human desolation and pain
and planted there the seed of the kingdom,
the seed of hope and patience
that can sustain us through our darkest days.
Christ is born for us today.
Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice,
for he comes to save us from our ancient foe.

May the joy of this day 
make us people of hope and patience,
and may God have mercy on us all.

3rd Week of Advent--Friday

Readings: Jeremiah 23:5-8; Matthew 1:18-25

What exactly did Joseph think was going on?

Having discovered that the woman he was to marry
is now pregnant, and he is not the father,
an angel then appears to him in a dream,
and tells him “it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived…
you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.”

Did the term “holy spirit” mean anything to him?
He was surely aware that the prophets
were said to have been inspired 
by the “spirit of the LORD,”
but what could that possibly have to do
with the girl to whom he had been betrothed?

Did he grasp the meaning of the angel saying,
“he will save his people from their sins”?
Joseph, like many in his day, no doubt hoped 
that God would send a savior to deliver Israel
from the degrading subjugation to Rome
under which they groaned—
a king sprung from David, 
as Jeremiah had foretold,
who, “shall reign and govern wisely,”
so that “Judah shall be saved,”
but what could any of that possibly have to do
with an unplanned and unexplained pregnancy?

Did he recall the prophecy of Isaiah: 
Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,
which means, “God is with us”?
While Joseph certainly believed 
that God was with his people,
what could that possibly have to do
with a child born out of wedlock to a young girl?
How could this be a sign that God is with us?

The dream of the angel did not really explain things.
If anything, it rendered the whole situation
that much more perplexing.
I suspect Joseph had very little idea 
of what was going on.
He probably didn’t have notions 
like “virginal conception”
or “pascal mystery” 
or “incarnation.”
But even in his perplexity, he had faith.
He had faith enough to heed 
the angel’s words: “Do not be afraid.”
He had faith enough to ignore 
what other people might think and say.
He had faith enough to take Mary into his home
and to be a father to a child he knew was not his own.

Of course, we don’t really grasp these things
any better than Joseph did.
The Holy Spirit is for us too 
a mystery that blows where it will,
bringing with it new life.
Salvation through Christ is for us too,
as Thomas Aquinas said,
“so tremendous a fact that our intellect 
can scarcely grasp it” (Comm. Symb.).
God’s presence among us in the flesh is for us too
something before which our understanding
must simply bow in reverence.

As we approach the celebration at Christmas
of the mystery of the Incarnation,
let us imitate Joseph in his faith and obedience
even in the midst of not knowing,
let us not be afraid,
and may God have mercy on us all.

Advent 3

Readings: Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28

On this Gaudete Sunday—the Sunday of rejoicing—
our scriptures seem most insistent that we should rejoice.
Isaiah tells us, “I rejoice heartily in the LORD, 
in my God is the joy of my soul.”
Paul commands us, “Rejoice always…
In all circumstances give thanks.”
Yet as the year 2020 stumbles to a close
many of us might look both outward and inward
and wonder if there is any joy to be found.
What joy is there in over a million and a half deaths
in a worldwide pandemic?
What joy is there in the prospect 
of another socially-distanced holiday?
What joy is there in the rancorous bickering 
and outright lying
that have become our public discourse?
“Rejoice”?
We might hear this as more oppressive than encouraging,
a demand that we squeeze out one more drop
from a sponge that was long ago wrung dry.

But God knows that we, on our own, 

are but dry sponges.
God knows that after many hard months
the reserves of joy within us
are depleted, and we are weary. 
It doesn’t matter if our reserves of joy are depleted,
because we are not the source of our own joy.
This is why Paul assures us that 
“The one who calls you is faithful,
and he will also accomplish it.”
The God who calls us to joy 
will accomplish that joy within us.

Now I know that it runs counter to our American ethos 
to say that our happiness can or should
depend on someone or something other than ourselves.
We Americans practically invented the notion of “self-help,”
the idea that we can, through hard work,
pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps 
into health, wealth, and, yes, even into joy.
To quote just one 
randomly chosen writer from the internet:
“Regardless of your personal circumstances, 
it is possible to find internal happiness, 
that form of happiness that feeds on nothing, 
except your own desire to find it.”
In my experience, such statements 
are typically followed by a list of imperatives:
eat healthy,
get exercise,
take a walk,
get off social media,
keep a journal,
declutter,
get a dog,
and so forth.

It’s really all just repackaging of the advice given years ago 
by that most American of self-help gurus, Henry Ford: 
“There is joy in work. 
There is no happiness except in the realization 
that we have accomplished something.”
Joy is only found in what you yourself can do.
It all seems to come down to this:
if your life feels sorrowful and joyless,
you’re just not trying hard enough.
There is nothing wrong with you
that a little more effort won’t fix.
So get to work: grab those bootstraps 
and pull.

But this is not the Gospel.
The Gospel is that none of us
finds joy from within ourselves
or through our own efforts;
we find it in the kingdom of God
that has drawn near in Christ.
The Gospel is not a call 
to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.
The Gospel is that while we lay dead
in the sorrow of sin
God has come to our rescue.
The Gospel is not that things are not really that bad,
that they are not really beyond our capacity to repair.
The Gospel is that, yes, things are that bad,
but God is greater.

Despite what the self-help gurus will tell you,
we are not our own saviors,
we are not our own source of joy.
We are like John the Baptist 
who confesses that he is not the Christ,
but only points us to the Christ;
who proclaims that he is not the light,
but only bears witness to the light.
In confessing our inability to save ourselves
we can hear the words “rejoice always”
not as some shallow assurance that we can be okay
if we just try a little harder,
nor as some command that we cannot possibly fulfill,
but as the announcement of glad tidings of salvation,
the announcement that one is present in our midst,
whom we may not yet recognize,
who has come to fill us with joy and light
and peace that passes human understanding,
one in whom we can rejoice always, 
in every circumstance,
because in Christ there is 
no human circumstance
from which God is absent.
In Christ God has placed himself
in the midst of disease and death,
of sorrow and separation,
of conflict and division.
We rejoice always
because Christ is always with us,
even in our joylessness,
to share with us his joy.

Paul tells the Christians at Thessalonica,
“Do not quench the Spirit.”
Perhaps in our anxious efforts 
to bootstrap our way into joy
we smother the Spirit of genuine rejoicing.
Perhaps we need to let the darkness be dark
so that we can see the light 
that is coming into the world,
coming to save us.
In these remaining days of Advent,
let us pray that God’s Spirit would burn within us,
consuming our sorrow and bringing us light,
so that at Christmas we may see the one
who is already dwelling in our midst,
enabling us to share his joy.
And may God have mercy on us all. 

34th Week in Ordinary Time II—Tuesday (Vietnamese Martyrs)

Readings: Revelation 14:14-19; Luke 21:5-11

We are all familiar 
with images of the Grim Reaper,
the hooded figure of death 
carrying a scythe in its hands
and coming to collect the harvest of souls.
This figure is rooted in the imagery 
of the Book of Revelation,
which depicts a final harvest 
in which first “one like a son of man”
and then “another angel”
use their scythes to reap the earth,
after which the angel throws his harvest 
“into the great wine press of God’s fury.”

This is pretty terrifying stuff.
And puzzling as well.
Interpreters differ as to exactly what
the writer of Revelation is telling us.
The one like a son of man 
seems to be Jesus himself.
But who is this second, 
grimly reaping, angel?
We don’t really know.
And what do the two harvests symbolize?
Does the first represent the righteous,
whom Christ takes to himself
and stored like wheat in barns,
and the second the unrighteous,
who are crushed in God’s anger?
Again we don’t really know.
Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel
that it is perfectly right 
that we should not know.
 
Apocalyptic visions of the end
are not given to us 
as a timetable or itinerary
but to fire our imaginations
with a vivid sense of God’s power to save
and an urgency about our own lives,
a reminder to be prepared at every moment
to give an accounting before God
of what we have done with our lives.
Living as we do 
amidst war and rumors of war,
amidst plague and famine,
we should take comfort 
in God’s almighty power and loving mercy.
We should remind ourselves 
that the time of reaping comes for all of us
and pray that it may be for us a time of grace.
If we live at every moment seeking Christ’s reign,
then we have no need to fear.

We should look to the example 
of St. Andrew Dūng-Lac,
a Vietnamese priest in the 19th century
who lived in a time of persecution of the Church
and who ministered, often in secret,
to his fellows Vietnamese Catholics.
Arrested several times, 
he persevered in his ministry
until finally he was beheaded in 1839.
St. Andrew lived his life knowing
that the time of harvest would come,
and yet he trusted that Christ, 
the one like a son of man,
would on that day gather him to himself.
May the prayers and example of St. Andrew
help us to live our own lives
ready at every moment
for the harvest of Christ’s kingdom.
And may God have mercy on us all.

Christ the King

Readings: Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17; 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28; Matthew 25:31-46

The folk singer Woody Guthrie 
once wrote a song
entitled “Christ for President”
that goes, in part, like this:
“Let’s have Christ for president,
Let us have him for our king.
Cast your vote for the carpenter
That they call the Nazarene…
Every year we waste enough
To feed the ones who starve.
We build our civilization up
And we shoot it down with wars.”

Guthrie’s words find an echo in, of all places, 
the words of Pope Pius XI from 1925, 
when he instituted this feast of Christ the King,
partly in response to the growing secularism of society,
but also in response to fascist movements
that substituted worship of the nation and its leader
for the true worship of Christ.
Both the open disbelief of secular atheism
and the manipulation of religion 
by fascists and nationalists
are seen by Pius as rejections of the reign of Christ
in the hearts and lives of people.
He paints a picture of a world consequently in crisis:
“seeds of discord sown far and wide… 
bitter enmities and rivalries between nations,
which still hinder so much the cause of peace… 
insatiable greed which is so often hidden 
under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism…
a blind and immoderate selfishness… 
the unity and stability of the family undermined; 
society, in a word, shaken to its foundations 
and on the way to ruin” (Quas Primum n. 24).
Woody Guthrie and Pope Pius seem to agree
that our private and public lives would be better
if Jesus were in charge.

While we might take some comfort in the fact 
that we seem to have navigated the last century
without the world falling into utter ruin,
we ought also to be sobered 
by how the ills enumerated by Pope Pius
find such familiar echo in our own day.
We still see seeds of discord 
sown far and wide;
we still see bitterness and rivalry 
between and within nations;
we still see the pretense of patriotism 
used as cover for greed and selfishness;
we still see families struggling to stay together
amid political, economic, and cultural forces 
that would tear them apart.
And we might add to this a global pandemic
that has not only killed 1.4 million people worldwide,
but has also revealed, as it runs its course,
some of the darker aspects of human nature,
as well as a presidential election that promises 
to leave people in this country
ever more divided, 
ever more entrenched in their ideologies,
ever more unwilling to presume 
good will in their neighbors.

But this feast of Christ the King 
offers us more than simply an occasion to reflect
on the dreary catalogue of the world’s ills and failings.
It also offers us a vision of a world renewed
by the royal power of the risen Christ,
who presents to his Father, 
as our liturgy today says,
“a kingdom of truth and life,
a kingdom of holiness and grace,
a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.”
This feast proclaims Christ’s kingdom
present even amid the sorrows of our world.
Indeed, this is a kingdom 
that is present most intensely
in the places of greatest sorrow.
It is present in the hungry homeless person
waiting for a meal.
It is present in the convicted criminal
confined in isolation.
It is present in the unwelcomed refugee
waiting at our border.
It is present in the Covid patient 
struggling to draw a breath.
It is present in these places of sorrow 
because Christ is present there.

This is the great scandal of the Gospel,
over which so many of us stumble.
We think that Christ the King 
must be sought among the sleek and strong
and cannot possibly identify himself
with the wayward, the wicked, or the weak.
But that is precisely what he does 
throughout his ministry.
As the prophet Ezekiel foretells:
“The lost I will seek out,
the strayed I will bring back,
the injured I will bind up,
the sick I will heal, 
but the sleek and the strong I will destroy,
shepherding them rightly.”
And we who would be servants 
of Christ our King must seek him out,
not in places of power
but in those places of sorrow:
by feeding the hungry,
visiting the captive,
welcoming the stranger,
caring for the sick,
seeking to share their lot
so that we might have a share in Christ.
For it is in doing these things
that we find ourselves heirs to his kingdom:
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father.
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
from the foundation of the world.”
As Pope Pius writes, the Kingdom of Christ,
“demands of its subjects a spirit of detachment 
from riches and earthly things, 
and a spirit of gentleness.” 
Those who serve Christ as King,
“must hunger and thirst after justice, 
and more than this, they must deny themselves 
and carry the cross” (Quas Primum n. 15).

The great scandal of the Gospel
over which we stumble,
both as individuals and as societies,
is that true power and authority
are not found in the sleek and the strong
but in the crucified and risen one,
the one whose glorified body 
still bears the marks of torture
so that he might unite to himself 
all those who suffer 
the torments of hunger and thirst,
of rejection and captivity,
of illness and deprivation.
To embrace the Kingdom of Christ
is to embrace such weakness;
it is to deny ourselves and carry the cross,
serving Christ in those places of greatest sorrow.
This is the way to true life in Christ’s kingdom,
for Christ our king has come 
to vanquish death by his cross,
and has been raised up 
as sign and promise of that victory.

So let’s have Christ for president,
let us have him for our king,
let us ask him for the grace
to seek him out in places of sorrow
so that when he comes to judge the world
we might hear him say to us with joy,
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father.”
And may God have mercy on us all.

33rd Week in Ordinary Time II--Tuesday

Readings: Revelation 3:1-6, 14-22; Luke 19:1-10

In the Book of Revelation,
Christ dictates to John the Seer 
letters to seven churches.
While offering to some words of encouragement,
these letters are not entirely good news.
Today, we hear perhaps the two harshest:
to the Christian community at Sardis—
“you have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead”—
and to the Christian community at Laodicea— 
“because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold,
I will spit you out of my mouth.”
In both these cases we have communities
that are smug and self-satisfied,
thinking themselves on fire with the Spirit
when in fact their spirits have cooled.
These are perhaps the toughest nuts to crack:
those who are convinced that they know 
what God wants of them
and are equally convinced 
that they are doing it in exemplary fashion.

But the letters end on a hopeful note.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”
Christ is not deterred by our spiritual coldness;
he does not give up on us.
He keeps pounding on the door of our hearts;
he keeps asking us to let him in. 
And he promises, 
“If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,
then I will enter his house and dine with him,
and he with me.”
It is not too late even for those 
whose hearts have grown cold.
But to heed his knock, 
we must first know our neediness.

Unlike the self-satisfied churches of Sardis and Laodicea,
Zacchaeus, in today’s Gospel, 
knows that there is something wrong with his life.
A tax collector who had grown wealthy
off of the pain and misery of others,
he recognizes in Jesus a call to conversion.
Jesus stand at the door of his heart and knocks:
“Zacchaeus, come down quickly,
for today I must stay at your house.” 
At these words 
the self-satisfied, righteous people
in the crowd begins to grumble
that Jesus is, once again,
hanging around with sinners.
They think their lukewarm piety
is somehow superior to Zacchaeus’s 
heartfelt repentance.
But Jesus can see that Zacchaeus
has truly opened wide the door to him:
“Today salvation has come to this house.”
Unlike the grumbling crowd,
unlike the spiritually dead church of Sardis,
unlike the lukewarm Laodiceans,
Zacchaeus knows himself to be lost,
and so can also know what it means to be found.

Jesus still stands knocking at the door.
Can we hear him?
If we open the door,
if we remove from our hearts
the obstacles of sinful self-satisfaction,
then we truly will feast with Christ
in our sacramental sharing in his eucharist;
he will truly enter into our hearts
and into the heart of the Church.
“Whoever has ears ought to hear
what the Spirit says to the churches.”

32nd Week in Ordinary Time II--Wednesday (Martin of Tours)

Readings: Isaiah 61-1-3; Matthew 25: 31-40

Today is both Veteran’s Day
and the memorial of St. Martin of Tours,
a 4th-century monk and bishop 
who was himself a veteran,
though, according to the accounts of his life,
a highly unusual one.
As a young soldier he gave half of his cloak to a beggar,
only later to have a dream in which he saw Christ,
now clothed in the half-a-cloak,
telling him that in clothing that beggar
Martin had clothed Jesus himself.
This prompted Martin to be baptized 
and, eventually, after his baptism, to tell the emperor,
“Up to now I have served you as a soldier: 
allow me now to become a soldier to God…
I am the soldier of Christ: 
it is not lawful for me to fight” (Life of St. Martin ch. 4). 
When he was accused of cowardice for this,
he volunteered to stand unarmed 
on the front line of battle.
In God’s providence, the enemy army surrendered
before Martin had to face such a trial.
An unusual veteran indeed.

Martin then became a monk and later a bishop,
serving his flock with great dedication,
especially the poor and the suffering,
for he knew from experience 
that in serving them he was serving Christ.
His friend and biographer, Sulpitius Severus,
writes that, as the end of his life approached,
Martin placed his life in God’s hands:
“unconquered by toil, and unconquerable even by death…
he neither feared to die nor refused to live” (Ep. 3).
Martin, I dare say, had learned 
the great secret of the Christian life:
to know that in life or in death 
we belong to the Lord.
Such faith frees us from fear, 
so that we can pour ourselves into
the life to which God calls us,
and we can pour ourselves out
even into the mystery of death.

I think of St. Martin and his example of courage
as I ponder the newly released Vatican report 
on the case of former-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick,
a cleric who rose to great heights of power
and who used this power to abuse a series 
of seminarians, young men, and boys,
aided and abetted by others in the Church
who turned a blind eye to his crimes.
I think of the contrast 
between St. Martin and these false shepherds.
I think of the contrast between his courage
and their cowardice,
between his dedication to the people entrusted to him,
and their use of their office to satisfy their own lusts, 
between his ability to see Christ in the least of these
and their blindness to the abuse of the defenseless.

I have no ready explanation for such evils,
nor any easy remedy for what ails our Church,
nor words sufficient to comfort
the victims of clerical abuse.
But we do have the promise 
of Christ’s enduring love 
and power to heal,
and we have the intercession 
of St. Martin, Christ’s brave soldier. 
Let us ask him to pray for justice 
for victims of abuse,
and conversion for our Church’s pastors,
that they might serve Christ’s flock
with courage, dedication, and insight,
and may God have mercy on us all.

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Wisdom 6:12-16; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

Whatever your desired electoral outcome,
I dare say that for many of us
these past few days
have been days of anxious waiting:
hitting the refresh button on vote counts,
watching to see states on the map
get colored in as blue or red,
waiting to form a picture 
of what the next four years might look like.

And even though an outcome has been projected,

there seem to be many uncertainties in the days ahead,

as we wait to see how we will mend our fractured nation.

But we should be pretty good at waiting by now,
since the past eight months 
ought to have taught us 
something about waiting:
waiting for a vaccine or better treatments,
waiting to see what is closed or opened,
waiting for life to return to normal,
waiting to see what “normal” looks like
in a post-pandemic world.  
Even prior to this remarkable, terrible year
our lives have been marked by waiting:
waiting for a child to be born,
waiting to hear about a college application,
waiting for a diagnosis,
waiting for a loved one to die.
You would think by now 
we would be pretty good at waiting,
but I suspect most of us have not really learned 
the art of waiting wisely.

In Jesus’ parable of the waiting virgins—
who, as far as we can tell, were to serve
as attendants at a wedding—
the groom whom they await
takes an inexplicably long time to arrive.
And when the cry finally comes at midnight
“Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!”
those who had not anticipated such a long wait
awake to find their lamps flickering toward darkness
and, running out to buy more oil, 
they miss the moment of the bridegroom’s arrival,
and return to find the door barred
and themselves shut out.

How were they unwise?
What was their folly?
Were they foolish for failing to bring enough oil?
Perhaps, but the bridegroom did, after all, 
arrive much later than expected.
How were they to know?
It seems to me that their folly is found
principally in the panic that falls upon them
when they hear that the bridegroom has arrived.
They are so consumed by the rather trivial point
that their lamps might not be burning
that they leave just as that for which they have waited
in now coming to pass:
the bridegroom has arrived 
and the joyous celebration can begin.
The wise virgins show their wisdom
not simply by bringing enough oil—
though their awareness that things 
might not go as planned
is certainly a mark of wisdom—
but by staying focused on what really matters,
by keeping constantly in mind
what it is they are waiting for:
the bridegroom’s arrival.

Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians also speaks of waiting.
The first generation of Christians generally thought
that the risen and ascended Christ would soon return 
to usher in the reign of God in its fullness. 
Like the virgins in Jesus’ parable,
they had no idea 
that the one for whom they waited
would delay so long.
Paul writes to the Christians at Thessalonica 
because they have begun to wonder
about the fate of those who have died 
while waiting for Christ’s return:
like the foolish virgins, they have begun to panic:
will those who died somehow miss out 
on the fullness of God’s reign?
Paul addresses their fears by assuring them
that whenever it is that Christ returns
their beloved dead will be raised to reign with him
since Christ himself is life.
So, he tells them, they should not grieve 
like those who have no hope;
not that they should not grieve—
after all, death deprives us for a time
of those whom we love—
but that their time of grief should be marked 
by the wisdom that waits in hope for Christ’s return,
a return that may seem long delayed
but will occur in God’s good time.

Paul’s words to the Thessalonians echo Jesus’ parable:
be prepared for the time to be short,
but also be prepared for the time to be long,
“for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
Wait wisely for what will come:
you may mourn your waiting, 
grieve the bridegroom’s delay,
but you must also mourn with hope.
For the wise know this: 
time, like all things, belongs to God
and it is used by God to unfold God’s will for us.

If we wish to wait wisely in these anxious days
we need always to remember 
that ultimately that for which we wait,
for which our flesh pines and our soul thirsts,
is not simply the result of some election,
not simply the end of some pandemic,
not simply the resolution of our daily anxieties,
but is the Lord himself,
who will come to redeem our time of waiting,
to give life to the dead and end to our mourning,
to balance the scales of justice 
and wipe away every tear.

What does it mean to wait wisely?
It means in some sense knowing how to prepare 
for both the long haul and the sudden ending,
how to stand at the ready without wearing ourselves out.
It means knowing how to suffer time’s passing
as we await what is to come
without growing bitter, 
or panicking, 
or lashing out at others,
or losing sight of what matters most.
It means knowing that all time is God’s time,
the future is God’s future;
it is not something that we possess and control,
but something that we receive from God as a gift.
And the giver of this gift will not fail us.
May the God whom we await have mercy on us all.
 

31st Week of Ordinary Time (II) -- Tuesday (Martin de Porres)

Readings: Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 14:15-24

In the parable of those invited to a feast
Jesus paints for us a picture 
of people who are too wrapped up in their own lives—
their own acquisitions and accomplishments—
to join in the joy of the kingdom of God,
the great feast of heaven.
And he suggests that it is precisely the lowliest among us—
the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame,
those who in our worldly judgment 
seem to have acquired and accomplished nothing—
who will be the ones whose hearts are open 
to responding to God’s invitation.

The humility that Jesus commends in his parable
is something that he himself lived out.
St. Paul tells us that Jesus, 
though he was the eternal Son of the Father
and heir to all the riches of God’s eternity,
emptied himself into our history,
joined himself to the lot 
of those without acquisitions, 
those without accomplishments,
the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame,
taking upon himself the death of a slave: death on a cross.
But God his Father raised him up,
calling him forth from the poverty of death
into the riches of the eternal feast,
exalting him beyond all powers of heaven and earth.

The humble welcomed to God’s feast:
this seems simply to be how God works.
It is not the powerful, 
with all their acquisitions or accomplishments,
but the poor and the wounded 
who find themselves welcomed to the feast 
and exalted to eternity.

We see this in the saint we remember today: 
Martin de Porres.
Born in Peru during the colonial period,
because he was of mixed race 
he was not allowed under Peruvian law
to join the Dominican order,
so he lived with them as a servant.
Eventually allowed to join as a lay brother,
Martin faced racist discrimination 
from some of his fellow Dominicans.
But he persisted, 
not out of a desire for acquisitions and accomplishments
but because he had heard God’s invitation to the feast,
and who was he to refuse such an invitation.
He became a great friend to the poor and the outcast,
and God greatly exalted him,
numbering him among the friends of Christ.

Today is election day:
a day dominated by people 
with many acquisitions and accomplishments
who are asking us to help them 
acquire and accomplish even more.
I sometimes wonder what our politics would look like
if we took the parable of the banquet 
as the key to how to acquire God’s favor,
if we took Jesus and his friend Martin
as our models of true accomplishment.
At the very least, it should remind us
that it is not the powerful of the world
who hasten the coming of God’s kingdom.
but rather the humble and the meek,
who spend their lives in loving service
of God and neighbor,
and who are open to hear God’s invitation:
“Come, everything is now ready.”

30th Week in Ordinary Time (II)—Tuesday

Readings: Ephesians 5:21-33; Luke 13:18-21

“Wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.”
That statement from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians
is not a sentiment that goes down too well
with most people in our modern egalitarian society.
Many quite rightly recognize that such scriptures
have been used, at times, to persuade women 
to stay in abusive situations,
or to coerce obedience to those 
who will not honor their full sharing 
in the image of God. 
Such statements seem, 
at best, culturally out-of-step
and, at worst, downright harmful.

St. John Paul II, writing in 1988, 
noted that Paul’s statement
is “profoundly rooted in the customs 
and religious tradition of the times.”
No one in the late ancient world
would be at all surprised at the idea
that women ought to be subordinate to men;
this was nothing new.
But, St. John Paul notes, 
this statement is prefaced, 
by something that is truly innovative:
“Be subordinate to one another 
out of reverence for Christ.”
Notice: this is not addressed just to wives,
but to husbands as well.
As Christians, husband and wife are both called 
to put the needs of the other ahead of their own,
and to do so to honor the example shown by Christ.
This is a call for all Christians
to serve each other out of love for Jesus;
this is the truly radical 
and counter-cultural message of the Gospel.
St. John Paul writes,
“This is a call which from that time onwards, 
does not cease to challenge succeeding generations; 
it is a call which people have to accept ever anew.”
To love and serve others rather than oneself
is as counter-cultural today as it was in the first century.
It is a way of living that rejects the worldview
that says you should look out for number one
and seek always to bend others to your will.

“Be subordinate to one another 
out of reverence for Christ.”
This brief statement, these ten words, 
are like the mustard seed from which
the Kingdom of God can grow;
it is the yeast that can leaven
the loaf of our world.

“Be subordinate to one another 
out of reverence for Christ.”
If we plant these words in our marriages,
if we knead them into our friendships,
our workplaces,
our churches,
our politics,
then even now 
the reality of God’s reign
will begin to show itself
in our midst.