Homily for Sunday, 21 December 2014

4th Sunday in Advent

Readings of the day: 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16; Psalm 89:2-3, 4-5, 27-29; Romans 16:23-27; Luke 1:26-38

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.

Whatever you may do, I thank you:

I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul;

I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,

for I love you, Lord,

and so need to give myself,

to surrender myself into your hands,

without reserve, and with boundless confidence,

for you are my Father.

For how many of us is “abandonment” a strange or scary word? It can convey a sense of recklessness, as in “reckless abandon” or avoiding responsibility. Abandon can mean accepting to give our lives for our faith; accepting martyrdom. This was likely the sense of abandon weighing on Charles de Foucauld, the Trappist monk who wrote the prayer I have just shared. Knowing his life was in danger, Charles de Foucauld wrote his “Prayer of Abandonment” not long before armed bandits broke into the desert hermitage where he was living in Tamanrasset, Algeria, kidnapped him and killed him on December 1, 1916. Blessed Charles de Foucauld lived and died in service to God; in service to the Touareg people whose language he learned and wrote down; to whom he brought our Christian faith. He lived and died by the words of his prayer: “Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will…”

Can abandonment not have another sense, no less strange or scary? Abandonment can mean, as I think it does in the truest sense of Blessed Charles de Foucauld’s “Prayer of Abandonment,” total self-giving trust in another; total trust in God. This trust is not reckless, but neither is it passive: “We’ll just trust in God and all will be well. We do not need to work to make God’s presence felt in our world.” No, the kind of abandonment of which I speak, the kind of abandonment that is Charles de Foucauld’s example of trust in God, is complete, active, and creative. If, in our Advent journey, anybody here has achieved complete, active and creative abandonment; trust in God, I hope to see you after Mass, because I do not think I have achieved this yet.

In Advent, do we not begin with anticipation?  Is not Advent is a time of anticipating the celebration of Christmas; of when God first sent his Son, Jesus Christ, among us in a manger in Bethlehem? In Advent we also anticipate in a more focused way the return of Jesus Christ at the end of time. If we move beyond anticipation in our Advent journey, we may be able to prepare more actively for the Christ. Our preparation to receive Christ may mean deeper examination of conscience; of where God is in our lives; building peace and mending broken relationships; attention to prayer; to opportunities for kindness and mercy toward one another; penance for the times we have fallen short in our preparation for our Christ. Our Advent preparation may lead us to profound joy, shown especially when we light the rose candle on our Advent wreath! But the goal of our Advent journey, complete, active, and creative abandonment into God’s hands, to God’s will, is a most difficult and scary goal to meet.

What do I mean by complete, active, and creative abandonment into God’s hands? This is the example of abandonment; trust in God given us by the Blessed Virgin Mary in our Gospel reading today from Luke. “May it be done to me according to your word,” Mary says to God through the angel Gabriel.

Luke’s Gospel says that Mary “was deeply troubled at” Gabriel’s announcement: She was to bear and give birth to the Son of God. And yet do we not still, at least sometimes, think little beyond the beautiful, peaceful aspects of this event (and so, I think, it is right that we be taken up by the beauty of this Advent and Christmas time)?

Gabriel visits Mary to say that she will bear Jesus, the Son of God. Mary agrees to God’s plan announced by Gabriel. Joseph silently trusts in God; also abandons himself to the will of God; to God’s plan for our salvation in which he, too, is now a part. We end up with a cute little baby, Jesus, in swaddling clothes in a manger on Christmas morning.

But how often do we think of how scary these events we celebrate, the Annunciation; the Birth of Jesus, must have been to Mary and to Joseph? The lifetime of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus was troubled, with the Romans exerting a reign of terror over Israel. No one, I am sure, would have wanted to find themselves expecting a baby they had not planned for, then or now, even if this baby were conceived by “the Holy Spirit”… and then to travel a great distance by donkey and on foot, only to find no room in the inn and to give birth in a stable. Imagine this!

And yet Joseph abandons himself to God; trusts in God’s plan through Mary; silently takes Mary as his wife and cares for Jesus as though he were his own son. Mary speaks the words of abandonment that change our world; that save us and our world, even amid the fear she must have been feeling: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

Would we be capable of this same abandonment to God’s will as Mary and Joseph were? Or would we attempt to limit God in our times of fear? Would we try to limit God by political ideology; by wanting to plan each aspect of our lives to a fault (I can be bad for this); by believing, as a society, in God, as long as our God interferes as little as possible in our lives; by our well-meaning plans and actions, like those of King David in our first reading from 2 Samuel, that are still subtle attempts to limit God…

But what does God do with our attempts to limit him? Consider David’s experience: David knows that God will give him anything he wishes. “The LORD is with you,” the prophet Nathan says, giving his blessing on God’s behalf to David’s plan to build a temple, a permanent house of God in place of the Ark of the Covenant. But then God asks David: “Should you build me a house to dwell in”? God has created our universe. God has created us to be the house for God to dwell in. It is futile to try to contain God; to “put God in a box,” even if this were possible.

And so, like David, we have a choice: Abandon ourselves into God’s hands; trust in God, or not. Do not most of us desire to abandon ourselves to God, and yet do so imperfectly? Let us not worry; in this way our imperfect abandonment to God is part of being human. And yet we have the example of abandonment of Mary and Joseph; of Blessed Charles de Foucauld; of many saints; of people as human as we are. Their trust in God is an invitation to us to the same complete, active, and creative abandonment in our lives; to pray and to ponder in the times when this abandonment scares us: “May it be done to me according to your word,” in our Blessed Mother’s words. Or, in the words of Blessed Charles de Foucauld:

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.

Whatever you may do, I thank you:

I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul;

I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,

for I love you, Lord,

and so need to give myself,

to surrender myself into your hands,

without reserve, and with boundless confidence,

for you are my Father.

Homily for Friday, 19 December 2014– Ferial

Friday of the 3rd Week in Advent

Readings of the day: Judges 13:2-7, 24-25a; Psalm 71:3-4a, 5-6ab, 16-17; Luke 1:5-25

Do we see a pattern here? God sends an angel to a “barren” woman, unable to conceive a child due to age or other reasons. The woman becomes pregnant. The woman’s child is a key figure in God’s plans for us; for the world.

In our first reading, from Judges, the woman is the wife of Manoah. She gives birth to Samson, who is to “begin the deliverance of Israel from the power of the Philistines.” In our Gospel reading, God’s angel is named: Gabriel. And Gabriel appears to Zechariah, a temple priest whose wife, Elizabeth, like Manoah’s wife, is “barren.” Elizabeth bears John the Baptist, herald of our Lord Jesus Christ, another child conceived during an angelic visitation…

Now, who here would empathize with Zechariah, who is confused when Gabriel says to him that his wife Elizabeth “will bear… a son”? Poor Zechariah is silenced until John’s birth. Could this be because he did not trust that God could do anything, even make the barren conceive life? We cannot fully know why Zechariah was silenced, but I can empathize with him in his confusion at Elizabeth’s conception of John.

God seems to have a habit of making the barren able to conceive. After a few instances of this, God, this habit becomes somewhat strange and scary!

But there is something perhaps scarier than God sending an angel to somebody who is not able to conceive; is not expecting to conceive, to say to this person that she will bear a child and that this child will be significant. What is it?

Imagine (and please pray over) this: Are there any situations in our lives that are barren; that are lifeless? Perhaps it is a broken relationship, especially with someone we love. Perhaps it is difficulty finding calm and peace in our lives, even at prayer. Perhaps our barrenness is something that weighs on our conscience; sin that God invites us to lay down before God’s mercy, especially in the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist. Let us remember the words of Elizabeth at the end of our Gospel reading; trust God to take away any “disgrace before others” and before God that we might be feeling. Perhaps some of us share literally in the pain of Manoah’s wife or of Elizabeth: Inability to conceive of a child when you wish to do so. I pray for you especially as I hear and preach on our readings today.

To bring to light any situations in our lives that are barren; that are lifeless is perhaps most scary; even worse than an angel announcing a pregnancy to somebody who cannot conceive. To bring to light situations like these, our pain, our sin, our struggles in faith, makes us vulnerable. But may we know that God wishes to heal these situations in our lives. God loves us deeply. This Advent, God invites us to bring before him any situations of lifelessness; barrenness, that even when we are beyond any expectation, God may bring life to our lives where we need it most.

Homily for Wednesday, 17 December 2014– Ferial

Wednesday of the 3rd Week in Advent

Readings of the day: Genesis 49:2, 8-10; Psalm 72:1-2, 3-4ab, 7-8, 17; Matthew 1:1-17

“O Wisdom of our God Most High, guiding creation with power and love; come to teach us the path of knowledge”!

What is the significance of this prayer? It is our acclamation we have heard just before our Gospel reading today. From today until the morning before Christmas Day, our Gospel acclamations at Mass will all begin with the same word, “O.” These acclamations are called the “O Antiphons.” We can follow the “O Antiphons” through the hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”: “O come… Wisdom… Might… Rod of Jesse’s stem… Key of David… Dayspring from on high… Desire of nations.”

Today we begin the “O Antiphons” by acclaiming God’s wisdom, most fully expressed in God’s gift to us of his Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. What is this wisdom of God? How does God show us his wisdom? Our readings are all about how God has shown us his wisdom from the beginning of creation, just not in ways we would expect. In Genesis, of the twelve sons of Jacob, Judah is associated with the image of the lion, an image of strength; of leadership; of wisdom. But Judah is the fourth of Jacob’s sons, neither the stereotypically independent oldest child nor the beloved youngest child, but a “middle child.” (Those of us who are middle children may be able to identify best with Judah). Judah, the “middle child,” would not ordinarily be the model of wisdom, or known for anything in particular among twelve sons in a story, but so he is.

Matthew’s Gospel begins with a magnificent genealogy from Abraham, our father in faith, to “Jesus who is called the Christ.” This genealogy, too, is an expression of God’s wisdom. But again, Matthew’s genealogy shows, God’s wisdom is demonstrated in unexpected ways; through unexpected people.

In Jesus’ family tree we hear of five women (it was rare to include women in a Jewish genealogy at all): Tamar, who disguised herself as a prostitute to marry Judah; Rahab, who was a prostitute; Ruth, the foreigner from Moab, not from Israel; Bathsheba, “the wife of Uriah,” whom David had killed so he could marry Bathsheba; and Mary, the virgin.

The men in this story are no less strange than the women. They range from the sinful (David, who was at least as great at repenting as in sinning, and many of Israel’s kings who misgoverned Israel into the Babylonian Exile) to the bizarre (Boaz: Who in Israel would marry a foreigner in those days?) to the silent, courageous, and obedient (Joseph, who took Mary as his wife and cared for Jesus as his own son).

God shows his wisdom in the unexpected: Through a line of strange people, sinners, “middle children” who would have been insignificant without God; through each and every one of us. Ultimately, God’s wisdom gave us a Savior, “Jesus who is called the Christ.”

And so today we celebrate in a special way God’s wisdom; a wisdom that shows itself in the unexpected; a wisdom that saves. And we pray, in the words of our Gospel Acclamation, “O Wisdom of our God Most High, guiding creation with power and love; come to teach us the path of knowledge”!

Homily for Tuesday, 16 December 2014– Ferial

Tuesday of the 3rd Week in Advent

Readings of the day: Zephaniah 3:1-2, 9-13; Psalm 34:2-3, 6-7, 17-18, 19, 23; Matthew 21:28-32

Who has the most to gain through our celebration of Advent? For whom is God’s transformation of our world; God’s readying us for the return of Jesus Christ in glory, good news?

Our readings today from Zephaniah and Matthew sound like anything but good news. Zephaniah sharply criticizes the people of a “rebellious and polluted… tyrannical city” (presumably Jerusalem). This city will be destroyed and its elites exiled. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells a strange parable about one son of a vineyard owner who refuses to work in his father’s vineyard but then agrees to go; and another son who agrees to work but then does not go.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ time, like the arrogant elites of Jerusalem to whom Zephaniah speaks, missed the key question that Zephaniah and then Jesus were asking: For whom will God’s presence among us be good news? Who will gain or lose most by God’s transformation of the world; readying of the world for the coming to fullness of God’s kingdom?

Let us frame these questions in terms of our contemporary society: Who has the most to gain or to lose in God’s readying of our world for the coming to fullness of God’s kingdom; for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ?

I am continually amazed at the depth of faith and joy of the poor, the homeless, the sick, and others in most need. For the last few months I have been presiding about every six weeks at Sunday Mass at House of Mercy. The people at the House of Mercy are grateful just for Sunday Mass; a chance to sing praise to God for the little they have. I have had this same experience in serving among the poor elsewhere, particularly in Colombia and in Windsor and Toronto, Canada among migrants and refugees.

Here at St. Kateri Parish, many of us give generously to people in need. Our Giving Tree and food baskets are examples of this. And so I am not saying that we must be materially poor or otherwise needy to gain most by God’s readying of our world for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, which we celebrate in Advent.

I am saying, though, that from my experience the poor; the homeless; the sick; those in need see most readily the joy of this Advent season; this preparation to celebrate Christmas. They and those of us who stand with them; in solidarity with those in need have the most to gain by God’s transformation of the world in preparation for Christ’s return in glory. I think this is at the heart of Zephaniah’s prophecy of the remnant who will remain to experience God’s joy of the city cleansed and rebuilt. This is at the heart of Jesus’ message: Those most in need; those of lowest social status; even the most hated, “the tax collectors and prostitutes” will see the kingdom of heaven first.

They and those who stand with them will experience God’s kingdom; Christ’s return most as good news. Are we among the people who will also welcome the fullness of God’s kingdom most as good news?