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, 28 May 2023– Pentecost, Mass during the Day

Readings of the day: Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23

I invite us to think of how often we gather together in a place only to set out from that place. This is a very ordinary human experience. We might meet with one or several friends, and then set out for home happy and grateful that we have had that time with friends: The joy and the strength that we receive from friendship. If we work, many times we have regular meetings in our workplaces, to discuss individual and collaborative tasks in the workplace. And then we go forth to do the work. Some of us may gather for regular family or household meetings, or pray together at home.

In a religious sense, on Sundays (and, for many of us, on weekdays also) we gather in this place, in a church. We celebrate the Eucharist. And after we receive communion—a word that literally derives from gathering in one place as one, in union—we are sent forth to put into action in our world what we hear from the word of God: “Go, the Mass is ended”!

Pentecost is a special occasion of gathering together so that we may then be sent forth. Many of us may think of Pentecost as the birthday of the Church. The Acts of the Apostles recounts for us today the first time in Christian history that people of such astounding ethnic, linguistic, and geographical diversity—“Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome…Cretans and Arabs”—were all gathered into one place and heard Jesus’ apostles proclaim the word of God in their own language.

Acts’ account of the first Pentecost is truly an amazing story! Yet, if we have ever read Acts, Chapter 2, beyond the end of the reading we have just heard (and I encourage us to open our Bibles and do so at home, especially if you have rarely or never done so), we quickly notice that what we have heard from Acts today is only the beginning of the story. It is only the beginning of the first Pentecost event! The earliest Christians from all over the Roman Empire at the time stay in the one place long enough to hear a long speech from Peter, covering the earthly life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. But then, at some point, all those people need to return to their homes. They take their Pentecost experience back home with them and tell of it to their friends, families, neighbours. And, by the end of this chapter, the Acts of the Apostles says, the number of believers—the number of “those who were being saved”—was growing astoundingly “day by day” in all those parts of the Roman Empire and beyond.

But that first Pentecost would not be the first time, nor the last, when God would gather great numbers of people together only to send them forth with something to nourish the whole world; to nourish their homes, their workplaces, their relationships. It is no accident that Pentecost, fifty days after Easter, coincides closely with the Jewish feast of the “weeks of weeks” (Shavuot) or of “seven times seven” days after Passover.

On that first Pentecost day, of which we hear in Acts, Jewish people scattered all over the Roman Empire and beyond are on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the holy city that is the center of their faith. Shavuot is originally an agricultural holiday; it had been the day on which Jews gave thanks to God for the harvest and made a sacrifice of part of their harvest at the temple in Jerusalem. By Jesus’ time, Shavuot had developed into a feast of thanksgiving not only for the harvest but of thanksgiving to God for the gift of the Law, the Commandments on Sinai God gave the Jewish people through Moses. There are seven weeks of seven days between two great Jewish pilgrimage feasts: Passover—when God delivered the people of Israel from Egypt—and Shavuot, when God gave the same people of Israel the Law on Sinai.

Between Passover and the Festival of Weeks (Shavuot), the particular gift that God gives to God’s people, as a sign of God’s loving promise of salvation to us, changes. First, God gives freedom from slavery in Egypt. And then second, God gives the harvest—food from the earth to sustain our bodies—together with the Law to sustain our souls. But together with this second feast, God gives us yet another gift: God gives God’s own Holy Spirit. This divine gift of God’s Holy Spirit is the most universal yet. If the feasts of Passover, of the harvest, and of the receiving of the Law of Moses had been Jewish feasts, even if they were for all Jewish people living everywhere, God’s Holy Spirit would be for all people and all nations, starting with the Jewish people and then those who had come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah.

The Book of Acts is clear about this: God’s gifts to us keep escalating. God’s gifts to us keep becoming more and more universal. God’s gifts (and God’s ultimate gift of salvation that awaits us at the end of time) are not static; they keep becoming greater and more widespread. This is why God waits until all the pilgrims from all over the known world at the time were in Jerusalem to give them his Holy Spirit through the preaching of the apostles. The Holy Spirit descends on the apostles “like the rush of a violent wind” and as tongues of fire. But then God gives the Holy Spirit to everybody present as the sound of speech, each speaking—giving the Holy Spirit—to one another in their own languages.

God waited to give this astoundingly expanding, audible gift of the Holy Spirit to the nations until all those people were gathered together in pilgrimage to the Holy City, Jerusalem. But this gift was not for the people who received it to hold onto it for themselves. Those whom God had gathered together in Jerusalem, God now would send back to their homelands, to give God’s Holy Spirit to all the people there. And so the Church, those baptized, those being saved, would keep expanding, becoming more truly universal. Pentecost is the birthday of the Church. Yet it is only the beginning of the story of the birth and rebirth of the Church in God’s Spirit. The first Pentecost was only one of many times God has gathered God’s people together to receive a great gift, only so that God might send us forth to offer to all people the gift we have received.

God gathers together only to send forth. Every time we gather for Mass is a celebration of this reality. Every Mass is a little Pentecost!

But we can resist going forth with the gifts, with the Holy Spirit God offers us to give to all peoples and all nations. We are free to do this. And to resist or even try to impede God’s gift of the Holy Spirit in this way is easier for us than maybe we would like to think. Just ask Jesus’ apostles, huddled in the upper room after Jesus had died, for fear of the Jewish authorities who had had him crucified.

This is the setting as our reading today from John’s Gospel begins: Hardly an auspicious start for the apostles, to the history of our Church! Like the apostles, we may find ourselves afraid to emerge from where we are gathered, holding onto God’s gift of the Spirit for ourselves, sometimes not even realizing that we possess it. We might find ourselves afraid of, mired in, our own sin. We might find ourselves in a state of pessimism about the world, or our own relationships: What good will my going forth with the Holy Spirit, living my faith boldly yet lovingly and kindly, do amid all the problems and even evil of the world?

It is into this anxiety, this pessimism, our own sinful state, that Jesus breaks through and offers us, once again, God’s Holy Spirit. And once again, it is audible: Jesus’ voice proclaims, “Peace be with you (shalom)… Receive the Holy Spirit.” And, yet again, we whom God has gathered together are sent forth: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

That is some power God gives us, to forgive and retain sins! This was a power Jews of Jesus’ time—including Jesus’ own apostles—would have said that only God possesses, no human being. Now Jesus gives us the height of divine power, the power over sin, evil, and death itself! God’s gift of the Holy Spirit is not to be kept for ourselves. It is not static but living and dynamic. It is meant to be given away. It is meant to grow. It is meant for all peoples and all nations, this gift for which God continually (and here, yet again) gathers us together only to send us forth, to proclaim audibly, for the rest of the world to hear: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Homily for Saturday, 1 January 2022– The Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

Readings of the day: Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

Does anybody here besides me find how we, the Church, present and venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary to be, in a word, ambiguous? We celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary, today especially, as Mother of God.

We believe, going back to the Council of Ephesus of 431, that Mary is the Mother of the Christ, or Christ-bearer, but that she is more than this. To call Mary the Christ-bearer was fine, Ephesus said. But if she were only Christ-bearer, this could lead to confusion among the faithful (and even bishops and other authority figures in the Church) that somehow the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, can be divine and human, but never at the same time. To avoid any confusion, the bishops of the Council of Ephesus emphasized the divine nature of the Christ (without, let us be clear, ever forgetting his human nature, distinct but never separate from his divine nature). Ephesus first called Mary not only Christ-bearer but God-bearer or Mother of God.

We believe Mary to have been preserved by God from sin, from the very moment of her conception in the womb of St. Anne. We believe that, at the end of Mary’s earthly life, God took her, body and soul together, into heaven; that neither Mary’s soul nor her body ever knew decay. We believe that Mary was ever-virgin, before and after the birth of Jesus.

We venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary as the model or ideal image of the Church. And we are right to believe and venerate all these aspects of Mary. Yet, in a way, does our celebration; our veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all these events and aspects unique to Mary not make Mary so different from us, or so much greater than any of us, so that imitating her in our lives becomes unrealistic?

None of us were conceived immaculately, without sin from the very moment of our conception. None of us have given birth and raised a child who is actually God. None of us, at least before the return of Jesus Christ in glory at the end of time, will be assumed, body and soul, into heaven.

This is the ambiguity about our celebration and veneration of Mary of which I speak. So, if we cannot imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary (at least not immediately) in many of the ways in which we celebrate her—immaculately conceived; the Mother of God, the bearer of God in the flesh into our world; assumed body and soul into heaven—how can we imitate Mary? How can we follow Mary’s example, so that we become, as well as possible, the Church of which Mary is the ideal image or model?

Our readings today give us clues as to how we can imitate Mary, Mother of God and Mother and model of the Church, and how we can imitate Jesus, even though, of course, none of us is God. Today St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians reminds us of who we are in relationship to Jesus by reminding us of Jesus’ (and so our) relationship with Mary. “When the fullness of time had come,” St. Paul says to the Galatians, “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.”

Unless any of us were born into this world by some other miraculous way, I am sure that all of us, like Jesus, were “born of a woman.” All of us, like Jesus, or Mary, or any person who has ever lived, have been born of a human mother. This common (we can say, biological) feature to all of us is so important to our Church, insofar as our relationship with Mary and with Jesus, that Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, begins its final chapter, on “The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, in the Mystery of Christ and the Church,” with the words we hear today from the Letter to the Galatians.

Jesus was “born of a woman.” So was each of us. This is our starting point, sisters and brothers, when we consider our relationship with Jesus through Mary, Mother of God; when we consider our identity as Church, in relationship with Mary, Mother of the Church. “Wishing in his supreme goodness and wisdom to effect the redemption of the world, ‘when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman… that we might receive the adoption of sons and daughters,” this final chapter of Lumen Gentium begins.

We, who have each been born of a woman, have been redeemed precisely by God’s choice to enter this world as one like us, born of a woman; born of the most blessed among women, Mary, Mother of God. So when we honour the dignity of women (beginning with, but not only, our mothers)—in our homes, in our public places, in our workplaces, in our Church—in all our actions and our words, we honour the way in which God has chosen to save us: By being born into this world by a woman, Mary, Mother of God. When we speak and act so that women, our sisters in God’s creation, are spared any form of violence especially on account of gender; when we speak and act in ways that value and revere women as true subjects of God’s beautiful creation, and not mere objects for economic or other selfish, loveless gain, we honour the way in which God has chosen to save us.

In his homily two years ago today, on this Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, Pope Francis reminded us of the essential role of Mary for our salvation, and connected this with the honour and respect due women today, honour and respect too often denied our sisters in the image of Mary of Nazareth. Pope Francis says, strikingly, “From [Mary], a woman, salvation came forth and thus there is no salvation without a woman… Humanity’s salvation came forth from the body of a woman: We can understand our degree of humanity by how we treat a woman’s body. How often are women’s bodies sacrificed on the profane altars of advertising, of profiteering, of pornography, exploited like a canvas to be used? Yet women’s bodies must be freed from consumerism; they must be respected and honoured.”

The more we respect and honour women in our lives and in our world, the more we draw close to Mary, Mother of God through whom our salvation entered our world. The more we respect and honour women, the better we are, as individuals and as a Church.

How else might we honour, respect, and revere women? How else, by honouring, respecting, revering women, might we glorify God by being more like Mary, our mother; Mother of God; Mother and model of the Church? We might honour women, and so honour Mary and, ultimately, give glory to God, by actively striving for peace. Women in our world are disproportionately poor; disproportionately among the people subject to unpaid, unrecognized, if not slave labour; disproportionately affected by war and violence; overrepresented (along with children) among those who flee their homes and countries because of violence.

Yet today the Book of Numbers gives us an ancient blessing. It is God’s blessing through Moses. It is God’s blessing to “the children of Israel”; to us as God’s children, born of and saved through a woman: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.”

Today we, the Church, also mark the World Day of Peace. And, when we think of progress toward greater peace in our world, we might think first of working to end war and violence on this greater scale. But we hear in Numbers this prayer for peace. Have we ever prayed this for our mothers; for our fathers; for the members of our families and households, for peace in our homes and among our loved ones? Have we ever prayed this prayer for somebody we have difficulty loving as God loves us, especially if this person is a member of our family or somebody close to us: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace”?

This prayer, my sisters and brothers, is one way in which we might honour God; our God who chose Mary to be Mother of God; Mother of our salvation; Mother of the Prince of Peace, our Lord Jesus Christ. Mary’s eyes were the first to gaze upon the infant Saviour of the world. Mary’s arms were the first to cradle the Son of God. Mary’s body gave birth and nourished the Christ child. Mary’s heart, as Luke’s Gospel reminds us beautifully today, was the first to treasure and ponder what all this would mean for the world: That God had chosen her, the Virgin daughter of Nazareth, daughter of God, to bring our salvation into this world; to raise him alongside faithful St. Joseph; to be with him as he served, healed, preached, suffered, died, rose and ascended to heaven; to be taken, body and soul, to God’s and her Son’s side in heaven when her earthly life was ended.

On this day, like Mary we, too, might let our hearts treasure and ponder. We might pray and act for the Lord’s peace in our world, in our country, in our families and households. In this we honour one another, each born of a woman; we honour, venerate, imitate, and celebrate Mary, Mother of God, Mother and model of our Church; our mother; the mother of the Salvation of the world.

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 Wednesday, 1 January 2020– Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

Octave Day of Christmas

Readings of the day: Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67:2-3, 4, 5, 6, 8; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

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

The LORD bless you and keep you;

The LORD make his face to shine upon you

and be gracious to you,

The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

This prayer with which the LORD asks Aaron, through Moses, to bless the people of Israel in the Book of Numbers, in the reading we have heard today, is maybe one of the most recognizable blessings in the Jewish or Christian traditions; in our Bible. But what is peace? With what kind of peace was Aaron to bless his people as he and Moses led them through the desert back to their homeland, Israel?

The Hebrew word for “peace” in this Aaronic or “priestly blessing” of Numbers is, I am sure, a word many of us have heard before: Shalom. But is shalom not one of those notoriously difficult words from an ancient language to translate into a current language like English? Shalom may mean “peace,” in a sense, though, that is much richer than the absence of a dispute or of war. It may mean anything from wishing somebody wholeness or prosperity to a simple hello or even goodbye.

“The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you shalom.” This blessing of Aaron has several echoes throughout our Scriptures and our Mass. In John’s Gospel, at the Last Supper, Jesus blesses his disciples with a prayer for them reminiscent of Aaron’s prayer for the people of Israel in Numbers: “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you.” And then, in the same Gospel, the risen Jesus greets the disciples three different times: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

In a few moments here, we will echo these words of Jesus, which are in turn an echo of God’s voice through Aaron to his people: “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you… Shalom be with you.” In this way, we will exchange a sign of peace just before we receive communion, shalom given for us in the form of bread and wine. And then we will be sent forth from here at the end of this celebration: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”… to be shalom to our world in profound need of our peace as a people of God.

Is it not appropriate, then, that each year, on January 1, New Year’s Day, in addition to this liturgical celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, as Church we also celebrate this day as the World Day of Peace? We have, I think, a lot to celebrate each year on this World Day of Peace, New Year’s Day, Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Our world becomes more peaceful year by year: Fewer wars; more respect for freedom of thought, freedom of religious faith, and other basic human rights and freedoms; more governments and forms of government that uphold these human rights.

Still, our world is far from perfectly at peace, much less at shalom that is so much more than the absence of conflict; shalom that is peace only possible for us through God. Parts of our world still remain mired in war; still send record numbers of people fleeing from violence and abuse, in search of peace. Households, families, marriages still experience brokenness; shalom still eludes us at this most foundational level of any healthy human society.

Yet still we (rightly) celebrate as we pray for shalom; for peace. And we connect this celebration of and prayer for peace with a celebration of Mary as Mother of God. So what might Mary, Mother of God, have to do with peace, in our world, among and within nations, or within households and families? Let me suggest that our celebration of this Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, has a lot to do with peace; I will go so far as to say that a healthy Christian devotion to Mary is essential for our peace; for shalom.

Our Gospel today, from Luke, shows us this essential connection between the Blessed Virgin Mary and peace; shalom. When the shepherds first arrive at the scene of our Lord’s birth, we might imagine their excitement and the excitement and amazement of everybody present with them. Luke’s Gospel says in fact that, as the shepherds “made known what had been told them about this child… all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.”

All this excitement, activity, and even amazement is a good thing, especially this time of year, is it not? Yet (and maybe we can all relate to what I am about to say) is this Christmastime not one of the more exhausting times of the year? Amid all the activity, we need time to rest; to pray; to celebrate with joy, yet still to be at peace. So, after Luke describes the excited joy of the shepherds, everybody’s amazement “at what the shepherds” had to say “about this child,” Jesus, Luke turns our attention toward Mary. Luke says that “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”

My sisters and brothers, let me suggest that these two verbs, “treasured” and “pondered,” are most essential to the Gospel we have just heard. They are essential for our peace, in its fullest sense of shalom. Amid the noise, the excitement, the activity, the words of the shepherds, her own probable exhaustion at having just brought a child into the world, of all the people in our Gospel account today, Mary is the most “at peace.” And she teaches us something central to our own being “at peace”: Treasuring and pondering.

But to treasure and ponder as Mary does is not to hold onto the joy of this celebration of the Lord’s birth as if it is ours to keep to ourselves in a selfish way. The joy of this celebration has been given to us by God through Mary, a young woman God chose and preserved from sin in order to bring God’s own Son, Jesus, into our world. Because this joy; this gift of God’s Son through Mary that we treasure and ponder, has been given to us, God calls us now to hand on this gift of shalom enveloped in our human flesh to the world around us. And how might we treasure and ponder while handing on this gift we have received?

Again, may we look to Mary as an example of treasuring and pondering while handing on. From the moment Mary conceived Jesus in her womb, through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and Mary’s own assumption into heaven, body and soul, Mary allowed the peace, the shalom of God to settle into her very depths. Shalom became the foundation of who Mary was, treasuring and pondering, such that then this shalom was able to flow from her. God calls us now to the same willingness to treasure and ponder, to allow shalom to take on our human flesh and become the essence of who we are, not only the historical event of the birth of a child in Bethlehem two thousand years ago.

Every time our prayerful celebration here, our treasuring and pondering before the altar of the Lord, allows and strengthens us to act in even small ways of kindness, mercy, and justice toward one another, shalom incarnate becomes a little more who we are and flows from us as it did from Mary into the world.

Let me go back (briefly but to some time ago) in history, to the Council of Ephesus of 431. There, at Ephesus, our Church’s bishops first encouraged all Christians to pray through Mary under the title of Theotokos, “God-bearer” or, as we Roman Catholics usually refer to Mary, “Mother of God.” Outside the place where the bishops of Ephesus assembled, the faithful chanted, as if as a prayer for the unity of the bishops and the Church, which was anything but assured in 431, “Mother of God”…

Here, now, on this first day of 2020, may we join in this prayer of Ephesus: “Mother of God,” Mother and Queen of Peace, through your Son Jesus Christ, give us, our Church and our world the gift of shalom. May we treasure and ponder, allow to become incarnate in our depths, and then hand on this gift as you did. Shalom chaverim, as our Hebrew-speaking sisters and brothers might pray: “Let us go forth in peace” into this New Year to bear to the world, enveloped in our human flesh, the peace we have received, pondered, treasured, and that we celebrate today.