Homily for Sunday, 10 December 2023– Second Sunday of Advent, Year B

Readings of the day: Isaiah 40:1-5,, 9-11; Psalm 85:9-10, 11-12, 13-14; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

We find ourselves at the beginning, sisters and brothers: “The beginning,” Mark’s Gospel proclaims by its very first words, “of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Mark wastes no time in revealing to us who Jesus is, “the Son of God,” and that his coming to live as one of us, in our human flesh—his advent—is “good news.” Spoiler alert! Mark does not even give us a nice, long account of Jesus’ infancy and childhood, to help us ease into the story, this “good news” he proclaims. Mark begins with the powerful preaching of John the Baptist, “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” By this point Jesus is already an adult. Jesus, the one John announces as “more powerful” than he is, has probably already attracted followers. He has caused some “good [and necessary] trouble” in the minds and consciences of many already, the minds and consciences of the comfortable and powerful of this world.

So much for starting at the beginning of the story! And today we are not even at the beginning of Advent. We are a full week into the shortest possible Advent this year—three weeks and a day between the first Sunday of Advent, a week ago, and Christmas Day. And I do not know about any of us, but as of now I have yet to do much at all to prepare for Christmas. Gift shopping? Not started. Visiting family and friends I may not have seen for a while? Okay, I have done some visiting. Taking time to be with, or at least to pray for, people in need—the sick, the poor, those who find this time of year to be a struggle for many reasons? Okay, but I could do better. Tidying my physical spaces—my room, my office—let alone doing a little Christmas decorating?! Yikes! I think, if Jesus were to step into my room now, let alone the spiritual room that is my heart, my conscience, he might sound a little like my mother did when I was a kid: “Did a tornado hit here, or what”?!

(By the way, I will offer this little advertisement for those of us who want to do some spiritual—heart, mind, conscience—tidying soon: St. Joseph’s College’s Advent penance service is this Friday at 7:00 pm).

So, in a way it is okay if we are a little behind on our Advent-Christmas preparations, if our spiritual let alone physical spaces look chaotic to say the least. Advent offers us a new beginning. God meets us where we are in our present; in fact God sends messengers ahead of himself and his Christ—John the Baptist, the saints, holy people we know and meet in our own lives—to draw us closer to him and to eternal life. That is the “good news”!

Yet Advent is a bit of a strange time of year. We are at a beginning of the Church’s liturgical year, of the story of our world’s first encounter with God in the human person of Jesus. But we are, at the same time, well into this story, after many encounters in history and in our own lives already with God’s “good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Last Sunday, the first Sunday, the very beginning of Advent, our readings at Mass gave the sense more of an end, or a story very much in progress, than a beginning. We began this time of Advent by hearing from near the end of the Gospel of Mark: Jesus, just before his passion and death, urging his disciples to “keep awake,” ready for the events of Jesus’ passion and death that would happen right after that point, but more importantly for an unknown “Last Day” when Jesus will return in glory. St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians also oriented us toward that final “day of our Lord Jesus Christ,” exhorting the Corinthian Christian faithful to remain “blameless” until that day by the Lord’s strength and grace. The Psalm reinforced our plea for divine strength. And, a week ago, we heard Isaiah making final plans for the return of the people of Israel from a long exile in Babylon. That exile, it seems, had made the people of Israel stubborn; only a small “remnant” would return to their land to rebuild the nation and its temple in Jerusalem that had been the centre of the Jewish faith. So Isaiah pleads for divine intervention to break through Israel’s sin and hardness of heart: “O [LORD] that you would tear open the heavens and come down”!

Today, this second Sunday of Advent, our readings start back at beginnings: Mark speaks of “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The second letter of Peter gives us a sense of being closer to a beginning than an end. The people for whom 2 Peter is written have become impatient. The first Christians of that community had suffered persecution. Many had already died. 2 Peter reminds them that, in God’s time, this is only the beginning: “The Lord is not slow about his promise… but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”

Peter’s message is very similar to that of John the Baptist in today’s Gospel. For John the Baptist, there is urgency to repentance to prepare for the coming of Jesus, the “one after” John. Yet, 2 Peter says, there is also urgency to know God’s mercy and peace, God’s meeting us in the sometimes-chaotic events of this world and our lives, even as we strive to repent, to tidy our spiritual spaces, our minds and consciences.

Our God has never been one to wait until we have everything in order—our hearts, our minds, our consciences—before coming to be with us in our present time. The second letter of Peter offers us a very typical (for a biblical text) vision of the end of time. It will be chaos: “The heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire.” But 2 Peter invites us not to worry about this chaos. Instead, lead “lives of holiness and godliness,” practice conversion and repentance here and now; “strive to be found by [the Lord] at peace.”

Jesus promised to return at the end of time. I think we can be almost certain that the end of time, when Jesus will re-enter this world, will be chaotic. We do not know what the world will look like when Jesus returns on the Last Day. But we can remain at peace if we think back to the beginning, the first time Jesus entered our world. God took our human flesh in a world that was chaotic then. Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary into a poor, chaotic, smelly stable with barn animals, at a time when the Romans ruled Jesus’ homeland by force.

God does not wait for us to have everything in order before entering into our present in a way that changes our existence profoundly and irreversibly. Well before Jesus’ time, the prophet Isaiah was calling to a people still in exile in Babylon, preparing to return to, well, chaos and ruin—a ruined temple—in Jerusalem. And Isaiah says, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid.”

Isaiah’s cry to Jerusalem is something like, “Yes, what you see, what is left of your homeland is chaos, ruin. But God is not waiting. God brings comfort, peace, justice, salvation now.” As the Psalmist says, here and now, “justice and peace” are about to “kiss each other.” This is a new beginning for the people of Israel!

God does not wait for us to have everything in order. God enters and changes our existence when God wills it. That is what we celebrate this Advent season, sisters and brothers! God has already entered this world, amid its chaos—our not having everything quite in order—many times. Ultimately, God entered our world in the human person of Jesus Christ, into a poor, chaotic, smelly scene, a nation ruled by foreign force.

Finally, Jesus promises us that he will enter our world again on the Last Day. All we can do to be ready for the Last Day, Jesus’ return in glory, is the same thing we can do be ready for this day, for the next day, the day after that, and so on: Remember how God has intervened in our world in the past. Remember that God did not wait until we had everything in order to bring peace, justice, order, comfort, mercy. May we be at peace, knowing and reflecting on this. Our time of Advent takes us back to those beginnings even as we anticipate with hope the Last Day, Jesus’ return in glory.

Today, in the midst of Advent, we remember the beginning of God’s comfort to Israel, still in exile, through the prophet Isaiah. We remember the preaching of John the Baptist, a message of repentance and hope. We pray with the Psalmist for a time when “justice and peace will kiss each other.” We remember 2 Peter’s exhortation to remain at peace. These have been our new beginnings in history, God entering our story when we most need God, with peace, justice, order, comfort, mercy. This is the “good news” our Scriptures proclaim today, “the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Homily for Sunday, 6 December 2020– Second Sunday of Advent, Year B

Readings of the day: Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11; Psalm 85: 9-10, 11-12, 13-14; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

This homily was given through St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, via Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

When we hear today’s readings—beautiful, comforting, and timely for our celebration of Advent—do any of us immediately think of George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah”? I am often tempted to break out into song from those very first words we hear today from the prophet Isaiah: “‘Comfort, O comfort my people,’ says your God, ‘Speak tenderly to Jerusalem”…

In fact, after an instrumental introduction to Handel’s “Messiah,” the next three movements of the “Messiah” follow the first part of our reading today from Isaiah closely: “Comfort Ye”; “Every Valley”; “And the Glory of the Lord… Shall be Revealed”! Handel’s glorious libretto, which begins with these as-glorious, comforting words from Isaiah we hear in today’s first reading, draws me into the “Messiah,” every time I hear it.

But, when we hear these first movements of Handel’s “Messiah,” or the prophecy of Isaiah on which they are based, do we ever pause to think of the original context of the time of Isaiah; of what experiences of the people of Israel inspired Isaiah to speak this message of comfort to them?

Fr. Jim spoke a bit about this last Sunday: Bible scholars believe that the Book of Isaiah as we know it is probably the work of at least three authors from three different phases of about a seventy-year period of ancient Israel’s history called the Babylonian Exile. Isaiah the First was active in the years just before the people of Israel were deported into exile in Babylon, through the beginning of the Exile itself. He tried, mostly without success, to warn the people of Israel and its kings that their injustices against their most vulnerable people and their worship of other nations’ false gods in a vain attempt to fend off these nations’ greater economic and military power would result in Israel’s ruin and exile. Isaiah the Second was active during the latter part of the Exile; Isaiah the Third prepared the people of Israel to return home, and to rebuild once they were back in Israel.

Today we hear the beginning of the prophecy of Isaiah the Second. If we were to read from just before the part of Isaiah we heard proclaimed a few minutes ago (maybe a little bit of homework—optional, of course—if we do not already have our fair share of end-of-term assignments and exams to focus on?), we would notice a distinct change in tone at, “Comfort, O comfort my people.” Just before this point in the Book of Isaiah, (First) Isaiah is still trying to warn Israel’s king of the impending exile to Babylon.

And then there is a great shift in Isaiah: “Comfort, O comfort my people,” (Second) Isaiah says to a people still in exile. Jerusalem, religious and royal center of Israel, was by then a distant memory. Many Israelites, we can imagine, would have given up hope by this point of ever returning to their homeland. They or the generations before them had witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, the heart of their religious practice, at the hands of the Babylonians. If they were ever able to return home, the people of Israel would be returning to ruins.

This is the glum context of Isaiah’s prophecy of comfort and God’s pardon. But Isaiah does not stop there. Isaiah gives his people some homework: Not a test to study for, or a paper to write, or a Bible passage to read. No, Isaiah asks the people of Israel to return to their ruined homeland, to Jerusalem, and to rebuild it, and also to rebuild all the roads leading back to their homeland. “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God,” Isaiah says to the people of Israel.

“Some comfort,” we might imagine many of the Israelites in Isaiah’s time thinking. We can only have comfort at the price of doing our homework; of rebuilding Israel from its ruins! We might imagine that many Israelites never took up Isaiah’s call to return and rebuild, but enough of them did. And they built Jerusalem back better than before. They rebuilt Jerusalem’s Temple. They made “straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Valleys were raised; ground leveled; hills “made low.” “Righteousness and peace”; peace and justice, in the beautiful imagery of our Psalm today, seemed to “kiss each other.”

But then, as the years passed, the people of Israel gradually forgot that right worship of God involves right action, especially in favour of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, the poorest, the sick, the lost, the persecuted and the abandoned; those without a voice among our sisters and brothers. Israel (like any nation including our own will do, if we let it) fell into disrepair: Physical, but also religious and moral. Several nations would take it over, one after another. Jerusalem’s glorious Second Temple would be destroyed by the Romans. Righteousness and peace, instead of kissing each other, would be driven back into exile from the hearts of Israel’s people.

Into this renewed mess of Roman-occupied Israel stepped (or waded, in the Jordan River) John the Baptist. “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the LORD; make his paths straight,” John preached as he baptized people in the Jordan. Sound familiar?

That homework that Isaiah gave his people in his time, well, it was the same homework that John gave the people he baptized in the Jordan. John the Baptist led and preached by example. He did the same homework Isaiah and he asked of us, preparing “the way of the LORD”: “I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he (Jesus) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

I do not want to discourage us, sisters and brothers, but the homework Isaiah, John the Baptist, and then Jesus have assigned us is still not finished. Great, that is just what we need, the everlasting homework assignment, right? We will finish it and turn it in—do not despair—but only at the end of time, when Jesus returns to us as he promised. This, as much and even more than the anniversary of Jesus’ birth we celebrate at Christmas, is what we wait for; what this time of Advent is all about.

And we are uniquely strengthened by the gift of the Holy Spirit John the Baptist foretold and Jesus the Lord himself gave us at our baptism and confirmation, sisters and brothers, to complete this homework assignment; this feat of desert highway engineering!

But how do we complete our homework successfully, between now and the end of time? We do not need to look far: Take time to comfort somebody we know who is alone, who may be struggling with their mental health (especially during this COVID-19 pandemic and its distance from human contact), or who needs help with work, study, or some other task. Give to the poor; to those who can ensure the disadvantaged have food, shelter, clothing, medical care... Speak up, support, or volunteer for organizations that defend human rights regardless of race, religion, or any other factor; that defend the migrant and the refugee; that defend the environment; that defend all human life from conception to natural death... Forgive those who have wronged us. Seek forgiveness from God; from those we have wronged; from ourselves. Pray for one another. Practice simple acts of kindness toward one another.

This is how we “prepare the way of the LORD”; how we “make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” This is how we will reach the destination of our highway, which is eternal life; heaven (which is much better even than that A+ on any typical homework assignment).

This is how we live this prophetic message: “O comfort my people… Make straight in the desert a highway for our God… Speak tenderly,” words of consolation and forgiveness. This is how we will “see… together” the glory of God we proclaim together with Isaiah (the First, Second, and Third); with John the Baptist; with all the prophets and saints. This is how righteousness and peace “kiss each other” (or at least bow or text “peace” over Zoom, if we are concerned about physical distancing for now). This is like that glorious piece of music we can only fully appreciate as we live by it, as we complete our homework; our highway for our God: A sound more glorious yet than Handel’s “Messiah”; a sound that will draw still more of our sisters and brothers toward it; closer to God; closer to heaven, every time they hear it.

Homily for Sunday, 7 July 2019

Readings of the day: Isaiah 66:10-14c; Psalm 66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20; Galatians 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, 16-20

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This homily was given at St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

How many of us have heard or are aware that, normally in Ordinary Time, the Old Testament reading and the Gospel reading at Sunday Mass share a more-or-less common theme, and that the New Testament reading usually does not share this common theme with the other readings on Sundays?

Today, it may be more difficult for us to find this common thread between our reading from the prophet Isaiah and our reading from Luke’s Gospel. Toward the end of Isaiah, in the text we hear today, the prophet calls the people of Israel home from a roughly seventy-year exile in Babylon. The Babylonians have been defeated by their enemies, the Persians, and the Persians have allowed the people of Israel in exile in Babylon to return to their homeland.

Today we hear one of a few of the more magnificent expressions of maternal imagery for either Jerusalem, or God, or both, in Isaiah. The last third or so of the Book of Isaiah alternates between two types of addresses by God through Isaiah to the people of Israel: One type of address is to Israel or Jacob, always masculine, and tends to depict God as a stern judge of Israel for Israel’s sins that led its people into exile and its continued stubbornness in returning home from exile. The other type of address from Isaiah, which we hear today, is to Jerusalem or Zion, always feminine, and tends to feature God and God’s prophet Isaiah as more merciful and consoling.

It may also be helpful for us to remember the social conditions of the people Isaiah was addressing in his time. Isaiah was calling the social elites of Israel, who had spent up to about seventy years (several generations) in exile in Babylon, to return to their homeland. It is appropriate that a prophet like Isaiah would make the case for return from exile to a people who had never known their homeland in the most consoling and inviting terms possible. So Isaiah presents Jerusalem as a motherly figure, in the image of a motherly God, nourishing and comforting her child: “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her… that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast… As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.”

In Isaiah’s time, on the one hand, not only had the generation of exiles at the end of the Babylonian Exile never seen their homeland, but many were quite comfortable and wealthy in Babylon. On the other hand, Jerusalem had been sacked by the Babylonians and other invaders. It was what we might call “a fixer-upper.” Anybody who had an ancestor who had seen the destruction of Jerusalem and been deported to Babylon may have questioned the soundness of somebody like Isaiah: “This imagery of ‘mother Jerusalem’ ready to receive and comfort her children home from Babylon must be some kind of awful joke,” we could imagine the Israelites saying to Isaiah with contempt. Many of these Israelites would have turned on God, too: After all, what kind of God—surely not a consoling, merciful, maternal God—would have allowed Jerusalem to be destroyed? These Israelites could not have been blamed, in one sense, for thinking that they were better off under Babylon than under God, in a ruined homeland most of them had never known.

In contrast, in Luke’s Gospel today Jesus calls a more expansive group of “seventy others” to be his disciples, immediately after he had called his first Twelve Apostles to follow him. Unlike the first Twelve Apostles, Luke’s Gospel does not even give us the names, let alone any information whatsoever, about these “seventy others.” We might imagine that maybe most of these “seventy others” became excellent disciples of Jesus. Luke says to us today that this group of seventy enjoyed some early success in the mission to which Jesus appointed them; that they “returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us’”!

One of my favourite Eastern Orthodox icons is of the calling together, or “Synaxis,” of the Seventy Apostles. In the halos of each of the seventy in this icon is a name, drawn from the names of Jesus’ disciples throughout the New Testament. But the reality is that we do not and cannot know the names of these “seventy others” whom Jesus called to follow him. We might imagine that most if not all of them were holy people. We might imagine the same of hopefully most of the billions of Christian disciples in our world today, most of whom are unknown to us and who certainly do not have visible halos with their names written in them (although quite possibly, and hopefully, many of their “names are written in heaven”)! Yet, much like we experience today, is it too far-fetched to presume that some of these “seventy others” whom Jesus called followed him out of a misplaced desire to secure their own comfort, status, pride, or prestige? Could a few of these “seventy others” have agreed to follow Jesus because, to them, Jesus was the latest fad; the latest celebrity, this astounding preacher and healer from Nazareth and not much more?

It is not too far-fetched, I think, to imagine that (hopefully only) a few of these “seventy others” may have agreed to follow Jesus for less-than-noble reasons. Even among the first Twelve Apostles was one who used his comfort, status, pride, and prestige to betray Jesus. Among the billions of Jesus’ disciples today, there are (hopefully only) a few who draw scandal to the name Christian by abusing their comfort, status, pride, and prestige, placing themselves and their worldly priorities above the priority of discipleship. This happens today, as it happened among the Twelve and realistically among the Seventy, because we are subject to the effects of the Fall; the effects of our sin.

This is why the Gospel of Luke, especially during Jesus’ and his disciples’ long journey to Jerusalem, which takes up about a third of Luke’s Gospel, includes several moments of what we might call “fraternal correction” of Jesus’ disciples, lest they place their comfort, status, pride, and prestige above following Jesus faithfully. At the very beginning of the journey of the “seventy others” with Jesus, we hear one of these moments of fraternal correction. Jesus says this to the seventy before they even set out: “See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.”

“See, I am sending you out” like prophets “into the midst” of a people in exile, the heavenly mother Jerusalem a distant reality for many who will not want to hear, no matter how gently we speak the message, how “exiled” they are (and perhaps we may be, insofar as our consciences will tell us) captive to comfort, status, pride, and prestige, without even realizing it, much like many Israelites in Babylon in Isaiah’s time.

“‘See, I am sending you out’ on a journey whose destination is Jerusalem,” Jesus might say to us today. Our destination, the same destination as that of Jesus, is indeed the heavenly Jerusalem. But, in order to reach the heavenly Jerusalem; in order to allow God to save us, we, like Jesus and like the people of Israel called home from exile by Isaiah, must enter and experience the Jerusalem in ruins, the destination that is at first glance a homeland strange and unknown to us.

“See, I am sending you out” toward a destination that is eternal salvation, but must pass by way of the cross. We will, without a doubt, do great works in this world, perhaps cure the sick, preach the immediate presence of God’s reign on earth, or have “the demons submit to us.” But more often, as God expects of us, we will work small but still significant acts of kindness and love toward one another. Yet all this will mean nothing if our discipleship does not place Jesus before ourselves and our comfort, status, pride, and prestige; if we boast, as St. Paul says to the Galatians, “of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“See, I am sending you out.” Our destination, and the destination of Jesus Christ, is eternal comfort in our God, like the comfort provided by the most tender of mothers, but more profound than we could ever imagine: “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her… that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast… As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” But our consolation; our true comfort; our eternal salvation pass by the way affliction; anonymity; the cross; the ruined and the unknown. This is the only way by which we may be saved, because this is the only way by which we journey with the Lord, who goes before us by the same way to open for us the gates to the heavenly Jerusalem.

Homily for Friday, 30 July 2015– Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Friday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Leviticus 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37; Psalm 81:3-4, 5-6, 8-9, 10-11ab;  Matthew 13:54-58

This homily was given at Most Holy Trinity Church, Webster, NY.

How many of us know somebody so well, maybe a close friend; your wife or husband; your child, that you can know beforehand what this person will say or do.

To know somebody this well can be wonderful. Those among us who have been married for a long time: How many of you can complete each other’s sentences or have lighthearted fun at each other’s expense by anticipating one another’s mannerisms or personality traits? But to know another person so well can also be dangerous. We can think we know another person better than we do.

This is the problem the people in the synagogue in Jesus’ hometown experience. These people know Jesus and his relatives very well: “Is not his mother named Mary, and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Are not his sisters with us?” They know Jesus as “the carpenter’s son.” But how well do they really know Jesus beyond the labels they attach to him? When this “carpenter’s son” begins to teach them in their synagogue, “they [take] offense at him.”

What did the people expect of Jesus when he returned to his hometown? Maybe they had heard reports that described him as a great healer, a powerful preacher, a teacher of their faith, or maybe even a prophet. Maybe the people expected to rekindle a childhood friendship with this Jesus, the boy who lived down the street in the home of Mary and Joseph the carpenter when they had last seen him. But something Jesus says in their synagogue challenges them; makes them uncomfortable. By Jesus’ time, prophets had been known to upset people, especially people who had become comfortable in their way of life; comfortable in their labels they had placed on people they thought they knew.

But for a long time the people in Jesus’ hometown synagogue had not been enough of a factor in Jesus’ life. They knew what they did of Jesus second-hand at best. Might it be the people’s lack of having been in Jesus’ life to know him beyond the superficial; to believe in him that Jesus brings to light in their synagogue and so upsets them?

How well do we know Jesus? How intimate and engaged are we in Jesus’ story; Jesus’ and our Gospel? St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose feast we celebrate today, encouraged prayer with our Scriptures in which we place ourselves in the event we are reading or hearing. And we meditate on our experience of God; of Jesus in our Gospels; of the Biblical event itself. This kind of prayer is not easy. It takes a surrender of our will; our comfort zones; our labels to God. This surrender is at the heart of Ignatius’ prayer: “Take, Lord, receive all my liberty; my understanding; my memory; my entire will… Give me your love and your grace; this is enough for me.”

God, give us “your love and your grace” with which we will be able to enter into Jesus’ life; Jesus’ Gospel. May we be moved to know Jesus Christ ever more deeply; not to be upset by the surrendering of our labels; our will; our memory; our understanding; our comfort.  And by “your love and your grace,” O God, may we one day know eternal life.

Homily for Friday, 10 April 2015– Friday in the Octave of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 4:1-12; Psalm 118:1-2, 4, 22-24, 25-27a; John 21:1-14

How often does our Lord encounter us exactly where we are in our lives? And, at the same time, how often are we unprepared or even afraid to encounter our Lord in these humble, everyday circumstances?

From Acts today we hear the continuation of the story of Peter’s and John’s healing of a crippled man outside the temple. Peter and John are brought before the religious leaders for healing in the name of Jesus Christ: “Annas the high priest,” the “elders and scribes,” and “all who were of the high-priestly class.” The two Apostles face with tremendous courage this same group of leaders who had killed Jesus. Peter and John, as well as the religious leaders themselves, know that this strength to witness to Christ and the power to heal the crippled man in the first place was not their own. This power; this strength, Acts emphasizes over and over, is from the Holy Spirit. We hear that Peter, “filled with the Holy Spirit, answered” the elders, scribes, and priests who were trying him and John.

When have we been “filled with the Holy Spirit”? If we were to face persecution for our faith, would we have the same strength and courage of Peter and John; the strength and courage that are gifts of the Holy Spirit that we receive in baptism and confirmation? For us to face persecution for our faith here in the United States is unlikely, but not so in many places in our world. And so we pray for the people who are persecuted and killed; who are witnesses to Christ by their lives today. And let us pray for the same Holy Spirit to give us the strength to end violence and poverty in our world and here in our country and city.

But are there not times when we feel anything but strong and courageous? Have there been times in our lives when we are more like Peter and the other disciples in our Gospel reading this morning than like Peter and John in Acts? Are there times when we expect a great sign or surge in strength and courage from our Lord, and here we encounter him in simple, everyday events of our lives?

Imagine this: After his resurrection, Jesus had appeared to his disciples twice. But eventually Jesus’ disciples want to return to their everyday activities. Are they maybe still fearful for their lives should they identify openly as followers of Jesus, who had been brutally killed? Peter, the same Peter who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, would later show great courage before hostile religious leaders, announces, “I am going fishing.” And the others follow him: I am going back to my everyday activities; back to the life with which I was comfortable.

And it is then when Jesus encounters us again, not with a great sign at first but humbly and quietly. Jesus joins us; joins Peter and the Apostles, for a simple breakfast. Jesus breaks bread and fish with them. In this simple act, the Apostles recognize that “it is the Lord.”

In the same way, Jesus encounters us in our everyday activities, but also calls us beyond our comfort zones to acknowledge him as our risen Lord and to be his disciples.

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.