Homily for Tuesday, 9 December 2014– Ferial

Tuesday of the 2nd Week in Advent

Readings of the day: Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 96:1-2, 3, 10ac, 11-12, 13; Matthew 18:12-14

Comfort: What is it? What is the comfort that God offers us through the prophet Isaiah in our first reading and through Jesus in our Gospel reading today from Matthew?

Ordinarily do we not think of comfort as having somewhat more than the minimal essentials: shelter, water, food, a clean environment, tolerable weather, and good health? We have phrases like “comfort food,” which describes foods we enjoy from time to time, but that may affect our health if eaten to excess. In Irondequoit, which I recently read has the most per capita pizza restaurants of any town or city in the United States, there is “comfort food” in abundance!

More than minimal shelter, water, food, cleanliness, good weather, and good health, and even occasional “comfort food,” are good things to have. But these are not the “comfort” of which our readings speak today. They are passing comforts. God’s comfort is everlasting.

And what is God’s greatest source of everlasting comfort for us? Our readings today say that God’s greatest source of everlasting comfort is God’s mercy.

“Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God,” Isaiah begins. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated.” “Indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.”

Through Isaiah, God speaks of the comfort of God’s everlasting mercy. God speaks to a people who had trusted in other nations’ might instead of in God, and so had been driven into exile in Babylon. Now, Isaiah speaks of pardon for the sin of failing to trust in God; in the everlasting and limitless comfort of God’s mercy:  “Indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.”

In Matthew’s Gospel, God’s mercy is to the point of foolishness. What shepherd would mindfully leave ninety-nine sheep behind to search for and to bring home one stray? This is how great God’s mercy is. It is everlasting; it is limitless; it is not bound by our logic.

Today’s readings call us to trust in God’s mercy more and more deeply. As Pope Francis has repeated, “God never tires of forgiving us,” as long as we never tire “of asking God for forgiveness”; of trusting in God’s mercy. There are many channels of God’s mercy, especially our Church’s sacraments of reconciliation, the Eucharist, and the anointing of the sick. Each of us, should we choose to be, is a channel of God’s mercy; of God’s everlasting comfort in our world. Let us all go out and find at least one person in need of comfort; in need of God’s mercy, and be the presence of God’s mercy to that person this Advent.

“Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God.” Comfort: May this be our gift to the world. The comfort we offer is not a passing good, like having more than minimal essentials or the occasional “comfort food.” No, we are invited to offer our world God’s comfort. Our gift is to be the presence of God’s everlasting mercy by our words and our works toward one another and to our world.