1. Fr Jude Botelho:
In the first reading from the prophet Isaiah we hear about the coming of the Messiah and the kind of justice and peace he would bring. Isaiah foretells that even though the family tree of Jesse has been reduced to a mere stump, nevertheless from that stump will spring - a true king filled with the Spirit and endowed with all the virtues of his ancestors. The new king, the Messiah will be a champion of the poor and will restore justice and peace for all. The prophet has a marvelous vision of the kingdom of God in which all violence will be overcome and people will live in unity and harmony with nature and with one another.
Vision Of A New World
The astronauts were the first human beings to see the earth from outside. As they gazed down on the earth from space, they realized as never before, that we are one family, with spaceship Earth as our common home. One of them said later: "The first day in space, we all pointed to our own countries. The second day we pointed to our continents. By the third day we were all aware of only one Earth." -The prophets had the same kind of high and wide vision of how things could be. But how real is that vision? As for the wolf and lamb living together, often two neighbours, or even two members of the same family, have a fall out and refuse to talk to one another. Are our dreams a utopian fairy tale? We need to keep the vision before us then it will give us the energy to live it out. Instead of encouraging us to escape from real life a beautiful vision can summon us to get involved.
Flor McCarthy in 'New Sunday and Holy Day Liturgies'
The second reading from St. Paul's letter to the Romans reminds the readers that God is faithful to his promises. God does not forget his promises to Israel and he is merciful with regard to the pagans. Paul speaks of the importance of hope on our faith journey. Those who do not give up will experience God's help. Paul also asks his followers to support one another by being tolerant and friendly towards one another. The model for us is always the Lord Jesus -'Treat one another in the same way as Christ treated you.'
Hope In The Lord
There is a story of a smith of the Middle Age who was taken prisoner and confined in a dungeon. Because of the knowledge his craft had taught him he carefully examined the heavy links that bound him, expecting to find a flaw that would show him a weak place which could soon be made to yield. But presently he dropped his hands hopelessly. Certain marks told him that the chain was of his own making, and it had always been his boast that one of his workmanship could not be broken. There are truly no chains so hard to break as those of our own forging, but they are not hopeless. The worst possible habits will yield to human resolution and strength from above.
- D. Williamson in 'Quotes and Anecdotes'
The message of John does not differ from that of Jesus Christ. In today's Gospel John is compared to the voice crying out in the wilderness: "Repent for the kingdom of God is close at hand. Prepare a way for the Lord and make his paths straight." John calls everyone to change, from the Pharisees and Sadducees, leaders of religion to the common man in the street. John calls the whole of Israel to change. If the people do not change, John says a catastrophe will destroy Israel. To repent would imply a change of heart, a change of attitude, a change of the way we live. John's life itself was a witness to his message. The people heard him and were drawn to him and were influenced by him. The gospel tells us that the crowds came to him, confessed their sins and were baptized by him. John was not satisfied with mere ritual actions. He confronted his listeners: "If you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruit, show with your lives your true repentance...... Any tree that fails to produce fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." He warns the Pharisees that it will avail them nothing to plead that Abraham is their father. To the Jew Abraham was unique. So unique was he in goodness and in his favour with God that his merits sufficed not only for himself but for all his descendants also. He had built a treasury of merit which not all the claims and needs of his descendants could exhaust. So the Jews believed that a Jew, simply because he was a Jew, and not for any merit of his own, was safe in the life to come. Similarly, we too sometimes tend to believe, that just because we were baptized Catholics we will be saved. Jesus challenges this belief. If we are followers of Jesus Christ our lives should bear evidence of this fact. Jesus also warns us of retribution to come which imposes on us a two-fold task: personal repentance, and preparation of the ways by which he who saves is to come.
Untattoo You
A few years ago a newspaper columnist reported on an unusual programme. It dealt with removing unwanted tattoos -especially gang-related tattoos -from the bodies of young people. A surprising thing happened after the column appeared. Over a thousand letters flooded in from young people all over the country, asking more about the programme. Because of this remarkable response, the Los Angele School District and a local cable television company produced a film called Untattoo You. It told of the dangers of amateur tattooing and showed how difficult it was to remove small tattoos from arms and faces and larger tattoos from chests and backs. The stars of the film were young people themselves. They talked frankly about why they were tattooed in the first place and why they now wanted the tattoos removed. The film eventually won a national award and was distributed throughout the country. - The story behind the film Untattoo You illustrates an important point. All of us have done things in our past that we now regret and would like to erase. This is not just true of young people. It is even more true of older people. The tragic thing about all of this is that so many people regret what they did but don't know what to do about it now. So they live with the mistake. However, just as young people rejoiced when they discovered a way to remove their unwanted tattoos, so we Catholics rejoice that Jesus gave us a way to remove our sins. Advent reminds us of the great gift Jesus made available to us, and it urges us to use this gift. Something can be done now about our mistakes. "Prepare a way for the Lord!"
- Mark Link in 'Sunday Homilies'
"Jesus and John preached the same message to the same people. John, 'the voice crying in the wilderness' expressed his own sense of being unworthy to precede the Messiah. His baptism too, is only 'in water' and not 'with the Holy Spirit'. We are put off by this single minded and severe prophet, just as we are by the seemingly formidable and intolerant God of the Old Covenant. Perhaps we can forget them both, since we are children of a kingdom of love and grace? John the Baptist's message should make us see the range of our problems in the light of God and with reference to God. It should lead us away from the domain of sin into the domain of love, which is 'strong as death'-of love whose ray is like a flash of fire -the fire of Yahweh himself. This love cannot be taken lightly, John warns us. We must look to the Christ's coming - the King who is here and now and on the last day separates the chaff from the wheat."
- Glenstal Sunday Missal
God At The Window
There was a little boy visiting his grandparents on their farm. He was given a sling to play out in the woods, but he could never hit his target. Little discouraged, he headed back home for the evening tea. As he was walking back he saw grandma's pet duck. Just out of an impulse, he let the sling fly, it hit the duck on the head and killed it. He was shocked and grieved. He quickly dug a hole and hid the duck in the mud, only to find his sister watching him. Mary kept quiet. The following day, after lunch, grandma called Mary to do the dishes. Mary smiled and said, "Grandma, Johnny said he wanted to help you in the kitchen." Then she turned to Johnny and whispered. "Remember the duck." And Johnny did the dishes. In the evening grandpa called the children to go fishing. Grandma said, "Sorry, I want Mary to help me make the dinner." Then Mary smiled and said, "Well grandma, Johnny told me that he would like to help you to prepare the dinner." Then turning to Johnny she whispered, "Remember the duck." Mary went for fishing while Johnny stayed back to help grandma to prepare the dinner. After many days of doing his chores and his sister's he could not stand it any longer. He went and confessed to his grandma that he had killed the duck. Grandma knelt down and hugged him and said, "Sweetheart, I know that you killed the duck, I was standing at the window and saw everything. But because I love you, I had forgiven you. I was just wondering how long you would allow Mary to make a slave of you." -Johnny's confession led to his liberation. When we confess we do not tell God what he does not know. He knows everything because he is standing at the window. Our failure to confess enslaves us.
- John Rose in 'John's Sunday Homilies'
Do It NOW!
According to the label, Drambuie was the liqueur of Prince Charles Edward, the famous 'Bonnie Prince Charles.' In a recent magazine, Drambuie was advertized as: Why wait for your promotion or next raise? Why wait for the holidays? Why wait for tomorrow? In other words, now is the time to enjoy Drambuie. Now is the time to sip this smooth liqueur. Now is the time to savour its distinctive taste. Typical of many ads, there is a note of urgency in the Drambuie commercial. Tomorrow may be too late. Act now! -Today's Scripture too has a note of urgency in it, not for the purpose of selling a liqueur, but for the purpose of arousing us to reform our lives. Why wait for the prophet to return? Why wait for the promised Messiah to come? Why wait for the kingdom of God to be established? All these things are already happening. Now is the time to experience these events by reforming your lives. Now is the time to change your attitude and conduct. Tomorrow may be too late. Act now!
- Albert Cylwicki in 'His Word Resounds'
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Background:
Advent and Christmas represent a very special intervention of God in the human condition, a revolution indeed because it revealed to us just how much God loves us, one that, as G.K. Chesterton said, turned the world upside down and, astonishingly, when viewed from that perspective the world made sense. God, in the words of the Irish Dominican poet, Paul Murray, loves us so much that if we should cease to exist, he would die of sadness.
The Christmas stories reveal to us that God loved Her human children so much that He took on human form so that he could show us how to live and how to die, even walking with us down to the valley of death itself. The stories today tell us that even from the beginning it was not easy to be the special light of the world. Jesus was under threat all his life. The threats would finally catch up with Him as they catch up with all of us. But from Christmas we learn that finally the darkness can never put out the light.
Story:
When Mollie Whuppi and her friends were in eighth grade, they discovered at one of the parks in their neighborhood a game called women’s softball. It wasn’t really sixteen inch softball like we play in Chicago but smaller softball which is played in most of the rest of the country which is not as civilized as Chicago. Anyway, they liked the game and decided that there should be a women’s team at Mother Mary High School So the first week of their Freshman year in high school Mollie walked into the principal’s office and demanded that their be a team. The principal had yet to learn that Mollie was the boss, so she said. Go organized your team Mollie. We don’t have money for coaches or uniforms or a team bus but we can buy a couple of bats for you. Mollie said that was just fine. She’d be manager and coach too and they’d save money to buy their own uniforms.
So, even though she was busy with other things like being class president and president of the chess club and chairman of the social action committee – and lots of other things besides, she organized the softball team. Now as everyone knows young women are much more serious about sports then young men so they practice very hard. Mollie told them it would take three years of experience before they could win city.
The first year, they were terrible, the second year they were pretty good and the third year they surprised everyone by getting to the city finals. They had to ride across town in their parents’ SUVs and the reception was very unfriendly. The crowd booed them. Boys shouted bad words at them. The other team snarled and made fun of their uniforms. But with Mollie on the mound Mother held the others scoreless and hitless for six innings.
In the first half of the seventh Mollie hit a home run so going into the last of the seventh (softball games last only seven innings) Mother Mary was up 1-0. Mollie struck out the first two batters. Then she pitched three straight strikes to the last batter. But the umpire, who made no secret of which side he was on, called them balls. Everyone knew that Mollie’s four pitch was a strike too, but the ump waved the batter down to first based. Then the next batter hit a long foul ball – everyone knew it was a foul ball, but the ump called it fair. The tying run scored. The throw from right field was slow but Mollie caught it and ran to the plate to tag the hitter out by a mile. The ump called her safe. The crowds went wild with laugher.
The winners stalked off the field.
The Mother Mary players didn’t curse, they didn’t shout. They just cried. All except Mollie. Chill out, she shouted, we’re still on our game plan.
Next year we will play them at home and we’ll win, just like we planned. The players from Mother Mary stalked out of the field chanting, “Wait till next year” the battle cry of defeated sports teams and political parties – a hint of the Christian Hope that next year will be better even when this year is the last year of our life.
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3. A number of years ago a couple traveled to the offices of an Adoption Society in England to receive a baby. They had been on the waiting list a long time. They had been interviewed and carefully scrutinized. Now at last their dreams were to be fulfilled. But their day of happiness was another's pain.
Arriving at the offices of the Society they were led up a flight of stairs to a waiting room. After a few minutes they heard someone else climbing the stairs. It was the young student mother whose baby was to be adopted. She was met by the lady responsible for the adoption arrangements and taken into another room. Our friends heard a muffled conversation and a few minutes later footsteps on the stairs as the young mother left. They heard her convulsive sobbing until the front door of the office was closed. Then, there was silence.
The lady in charge then conducted them next door. In a little crib was a six week old baby boy. On a chair beside it was a brown paper bag containing a change of clothes and two letters. One of these, addressed to the new parents, thanked them for providing a home for her baby and acknowledged that under the terms of the adoption each would never know the other's identity. Then the young mother added one request. Would they allow her little son to read the other letter on his eighteenth birthday? She assured them that she had not included any information about her identity. The couple entrusted that letter to a lawyer and one day the young man will read the message which his mother wrote on the day, when with breaking heart, she parted with him.
I wonder what she wrote? If I had to condense all I feel about life and love into a few precious words what would I say? I would have no time for trivia. I would not be concerned about economics, politics, the weather, the size of house or the type of car. At such a time I would want to dwell on the profundities, on what life was all about and what things were absolutely essential.
John in the desert was in the great tradition of the Hebrew prophets. He was aware that time was running out. In his burning message he had no time for peripheral matters. He was not playing Trivial Pursuit nor was he prepared to splash about in the shallows. Soon the sword of Herod's guard would flash and his tongue would lie silent in the grave...
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4. A few years ago, when Etsy and Ebay were first battling it out, an Ebay commercial urged people to buy Christmas gifts on its website. It started off with comedian Jim Gaffigan saying something like "Hand-made gifts for Christmas? Who wants that?" Then he mentioned all the "it" gifts you can buy on Ebay (electronics, sports equipment, etc). The commercial ends with Gaffigan holding a pair of hand-knitted mittens, smelling them, wrinkling up his nose and saying . . . "Smells like church."
The online discussion that followed showed widespread indignation. How could Ebay do this . . . to Etsy? How could Ebay mock and make fun of . . . the homemade, the homespun, the handmade tradition of gifts? People were offended by Ebay's slam on homemade items. Only a couple registered displeasure at the slam on the church.
Welcome to the 21st century.
Every year there is the "it" gift - the big score, big cheese, the big dog goodie that is sought out and sold out long before Christmas Eve. The "it" gift is, of course, age-related, although increasingly it seems that the greatest wish lists of ten year olds, thirty year olds, sixty year olds, and eighty year olds, have a lot more in common than not.
[Note: If you can find any of these and hold them up for everyone to see, or get their owners to hold them up before the congregation, so much the better.]
The "it" gift in 1929 was a "Yo-Yo" - high tech for its time.
In 1943 the must have toy was a strange doo-dad called a "slinky."
Throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties, at Christmas we were greedy for gifts of the stuffed animal, dolls, action-figures variety: Cabbage Patch dolls and Care Bears, Elmo ("Tickle Me," "Live," or "Let's Rock"). Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles headed the list.
But the Barbie (1959) and BMX Bike (1982) eras have long been replaced by a wish list that is governed by microchips. Ever since the appearance of the Game Boy in 1989, electronic gadgets and games and gizmos have dominated the "it" list of must have gifts.
This year "kids" of all ages want the Apple Mac Book Air, the iPhone 5s, the Xbox-One, a Kindle Fire, or Play Station 4.
When you look back on Christmases past, what were your best gifts? Were they any of those "it" gifts from childhoods past? Do you really think that any of this year's 2013 "it" gifts will be remembered in the future as your "best gift ever?"
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5. Are You Swapping Heaven?
The great old evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, used to tell a legend about a beautiful swan that alighted one day by the banks of the water in which a crane was wading about seeking snails. For a few moments the crane viewed the swan in stupid wonder and then inquired:
"Where do you come from?"
"I come from heaven!" replied the swan.
"And where is heaven?" asked the crane.
"Heaven!" said the swan, "Heaven! have you never heard of heaven?" And the beautiful bird went on to describe the grandeur of the Eternal City. She told of streets of gold, and the gates and walls made of precious stones; of the river of life, pure as crystal, upon whose banks is the tree whose leaves shall be for the healing of the nations. In eloquent terms the swan sought to describe the hosts who live in the other world, but without arousing the slightest interest on the part of the crane.
Finally the crane asked: "Are there any snails there?"
"Snails!" repeated the swan, "No! Of course there are not."
"Then," said the crane, as it continued its search along the slimy banks of the pool, "you can have your heaven. I want snails!"
"This fable," said Moody, "has a deep truth underlying it. How many a young person to whom God has granted the advantages of a Christian home, has turned his back upon it and searched for snails! How many a man will sacrifice his wife, his family, his all, for the snails of sin! How many a girl has deliberately turned from the love of parents and home to learn too late that heaven has been forfeited for snails!"
Moody spoke those words a century ago, but people are still swapping heaven for snails. How about you? John the Baptist's words are for each of us: Are there some changes that need to be made in your life?
Moody's Anecdotes, Page 125-126, adapted by King Duncan
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6. It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
Snoopy of Charlie Brown comic strip fame is typing a novel. He begins his story, "It was a dark and stormy night ..." Snoopy always starts his stories in this manner. Lucy looks at what Snoopy has written. She goes into a tirade, putting down Snoopy for such a silly beginning. Doesn't Snoopy know that any good story starts with the words, "Once upon a time ..."
The last frame of the comic strip has Snoopy starting his story again. Now he is ready. He types, "Once upon a time, it was a dark and stormy night." Do you feel like Snoopy sometimes? No matter how you begin your story you somehow revert to "a dark and stormy night." If you feel that way today you are not alone. Most of us are struggling in one way or another to overcome the dark side of our existence.
The Advent season leading to Christmas should be a time of joy, anticipation and hope. But, the very fact that it is supposed to be such an upbeat time only compounds the problem.
Richard A. Hasler, Empowered by the Light, CSS Publishing Company
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7. I Will Be There
In her wonderful children's picture book "We Were There: A Nativity Story," Eve Bunting (illustrator: Wendell Minor) turns Christmas upside down for us in ways that are revealing.
The simple story shows us first a slithering snake, then a warty toad, a scary scorpion, a shiny cockroach, a swooping bat, a hairy spider, and a furry rat all on a journey. Each creature introduces itself and then concludes with the words "I will be there."
As the book ends we are shown more common nativity creatures: fuzzy lambs, doe-eyed donkeys, gentle cows. But as those traditional figures in the stable stand around the manger in which the Babe has been laid by his mother Mary, we see in the corner, unnoticed, that small gathering of the snake, toad, scorpion, cockroach, bat, spider, and rat.
Bunting has found a lyric way to remind us that the coming of the Christ is not all about the traditional and cozy trappings in which we have for too long ensconced the Christmas story but that this is a story for all creatures and that Jesus came to embrace and renew the good, the bad, the ugly; the expected and the unexpected.
A simple children's story like this reminds us of the paradoxes and unexpected twists of the season, rather the way John the Baptist can shake things up for us if only we take time to listen to his message.
Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations
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8. We Need John
When our children were small, a nice church lady named Chris made them a child-friendly crèche. All the actors in this stable drama are soft and squishy and durable - perfect to touch and rearrange - or toss across the living room in a fit of toddler frenzy. The Joseph character has always been my favorite because he looks a little wild - red yarn spiking out from his head, giving him an odd look of energy. In fact, I have renamed this character John the Baptist and in my mind substituted one of the innocuous shepherds for the more staid and solid Joseph. Why this invention? Because, over the years, I have decided that without the disconcerting presence of John lurking in the shadows of our manger scenes, the Jesus story is mush - nothing but child's play, lulling us into sleepy sentimentality.
Susan R. Andrews, Sermons for Sundays: In Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany: The Offense of Grace, CSS Publishing Company
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9. The King Is Coming
Can you imagine complete silence? It's hard to in our culture today in which televisions, radios, etc. are constantly blaring. But in this morning's text a silence of 400 years is broken. Don't misunderstand me, not everyone was silent during this period. Women and men were talking.. Boys and girls were talking. But there was no prophet speaking the Word of the LORD. No one was truthfully saying, "Thus says the LORD..."
In reality two silences are broken in this morning's text. For one, the 400 year period without a Word from God and for another, a gap of approximately 30 years in the life of Jesus. Matthew skips directly from his birth and infancy narrative to an event that occurs approximately 30 years later: the ministry of John the Baptist. Both of these silences are broken by the sound of a voice.
The voice which breaks the silence is the voice of John the Baptist, who may rightly be called the last of the Old Testament Prophets. He is functioning as a Herald by announcing the coming of the King. In the ancient world, a herald was one who went ahead of a king's chariot to prepare the road. He would command a crew which would smooth out the usually rough roads of that day by filling potholes and removing boulders. The herald would also go before the king shouting, "Make way, the King is coming!" One commentator noted that such "efforts to make a road level and smooth were restricted to times when royalty was on its way" (Robert Mounce, Matthew NIBC, 23).
This was the function of John the Baptist.
Steve Weaver, The Herald of the King
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10. Time to Prepare
Christmas season. A time of preparation. Most Americans prepare for the holidays with lights and gifts, cards and good cheer. But the Church reminds us to prepare spiritually. What does that mean? In Matthew's gospel, John the Baptist gave us a direction. Matthew's gospel presented the Baptist in the context of prophecy about him, his arena and audience, his place in the religious pecking order, and his reason for preaching.
Larry Broding, Spiritual Preparation
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11. Taking the Fun Out of Christmas
We prepare for Christmas by repenting. Repenting in the Biblical sense is more than having a change of heart or a feeling of regret. It is more than a New Year's Eve resolution. Repentance is a turning away and a turning back. A turning away from sin and a turning back to God.
Bishop Joe Pennel of the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church, once attended a Christmas worship service in Bethlehem at a place called Shepherd's Field. As he heard the songs of the season, he thought to himself and later wrote: "I did not look to God and say: See how virtuous I am. I did not utter: God, pat me on the back for all of the good things I have done. I did not pretend by saying: God, look at all of my accomplishments, aren't you proud of me? Indeed, I found myself asking God to forgive me of my sins. That is how it works. The more we turn away from Christ the more enslaved we become to the power of sin. The more we turn to Christ, the more free we become from the bondage of sin. Turning toward Christ enables us to repent."
Someone once said half jokingly: If we are not careful, John the Baptist can take all of the fun out of Christmas. I disagree. I think that it is John's message that puts the joy into Christmas. For it is his message that calls us not to the way that Christmas is, but that the way Christmas ought to be. Christmas ought to be free from guilt and self-absorption. For that to occur there must be repentance.
www.Sermons.com
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12. Recognizing our Need to Repent
One critic said he had gone to many churches and heard the preacher say, "Don't try to impress God with your works" or "Don't attempt to please God with your merits" or "Don't try to keep the rules and regulations and thus win your way." He looked around at nearly slumbering collections of utterly casual Christians and wondered, "Who's trying?"
Martin Marty
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13. What the Future Holds
Have you seen ancient maps of unexplored portions of the world? Maps that portrayed the prevailing ideas of what lay beyond, the unexplored lands and the uncrossed seas? Maps from before the adventures of Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan? How grotesquely inaccurate those maps were! How vastly they differed from what the explorer eventually found! How fantastic were the notions the ancients had about what was out there - a dropping-off-place, mammoth sea serpents to swallow up ships. But as things turned out, it wasn't that way at all. You know, if Columbus had believed half the maps and legends of his time he would never have lifted an anchor!
Well, we are all traveling into the unexplored land, and we ought to be careful how we map it until we've traveled there. Certainly we shouldn't let the future do things to us it never meant to do. It is my faith that the future means to be friendly; and I don't think we ought to treat it as an enemy. If we do, and start in to do battle with it, I can tell you this: it's a battle we can never win. Let's not suspect it of standing over us with a club waiting for a chance to clobber us into the ground, or of lurking in the shadows to pounce upon us around the next dark corner...
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From Father Tony Kadavil's Collection:
In the first reading from the prophet Isaiah we hear about the coming of the Messiah and the kind of justice and peace he would bring. Isaiah foretells that even though the family tree of Jesse has been reduced to a mere stump, nevertheless from that stump will spring - a true king filled with the Spirit and endowed with all the virtues of his ancestors. The new king, the Messiah will be a champion of the poor and will restore justice and peace for all. The prophet has a marvelous vision of the kingdom of God in which all violence will be overcome and people will live in unity and harmony with nature and with one another.
Vision Of A New World
The astronauts were the first human beings to see the earth from outside. As they gazed down on the earth from space, they realized as never before, that we are one family, with spaceship Earth as our common home. One of them said later: "The first day in space, we all pointed to our own countries. The second day we pointed to our continents. By the third day we were all aware of only one Earth." -The prophets had the same kind of high and wide vision of how things could be. But how real is that vision? As for the wolf and lamb living together, often two neighbours, or even two members of the same family, have a fall out and refuse to talk to one another. Are our dreams a utopian fairy tale? We need to keep the vision before us then it will give us the energy to live it out. Instead of encouraging us to escape from real life a beautiful vision can summon us to get involved.
Flor McCarthy in 'New Sunday and Holy Day Liturgies'
The second reading from St. Paul's letter to the Romans reminds the readers that God is faithful to his promises. God does not forget his promises to Israel and he is merciful with regard to the pagans. Paul speaks of the importance of hope on our faith journey. Those who do not give up will experience God's help. Paul also asks his followers to support one another by being tolerant and friendly towards one another. The model for us is always the Lord Jesus -'Treat one another in the same way as Christ treated you.'
Hope In The Lord
There is a story of a smith of the Middle Age who was taken prisoner and confined in a dungeon. Because of the knowledge his craft had taught him he carefully examined the heavy links that bound him, expecting to find a flaw that would show him a weak place which could soon be made to yield. But presently he dropped his hands hopelessly. Certain marks told him that the chain was of his own making, and it had always been his boast that one of his workmanship could not be broken. There are truly no chains so hard to break as those of our own forging, but they are not hopeless. The worst possible habits will yield to human resolution and strength from above.
- D. Williamson in 'Quotes and Anecdotes'
The message of John does not differ from that of Jesus Christ. In today's Gospel John is compared to the voice crying out in the wilderness: "Repent for the kingdom of God is close at hand. Prepare a way for the Lord and make his paths straight." John calls everyone to change, from the Pharisees and Sadducees, leaders of religion to the common man in the street. John calls the whole of Israel to change. If the people do not change, John says a catastrophe will destroy Israel. To repent would imply a change of heart, a change of attitude, a change of the way we live. John's life itself was a witness to his message. The people heard him and were drawn to him and were influenced by him. The gospel tells us that the crowds came to him, confessed their sins and were baptized by him. John was not satisfied with mere ritual actions. He confronted his listeners: "If you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruit, show with your lives your true repentance...... Any tree that fails to produce fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." He warns the Pharisees that it will avail them nothing to plead that Abraham is their father. To the Jew Abraham was unique. So unique was he in goodness and in his favour with God that his merits sufficed not only for himself but for all his descendants also. He had built a treasury of merit which not all the claims and needs of his descendants could exhaust. So the Jews believed that a Jew, simply because he was a Jew, and not for any merit of his own, was safe in the life to come. Similarly, we too sometimes tend to believe, that just because we were baptized Catholics we will be saved. Jesus challenges this belief. If we are followers of Jesus Christ our lives should bear evidence of this fact. Jesus also warns us of retribution to come which imposes on us a two-fold task: personal repentance, and preparation of the ways by which he who saves is to come.
Untattoo You
A few years ago a newspaper columnist reported on an unusual programme. It dealt with removing unwanted tattoos -especially gang-related tattoos -from the bodies of young people. A surprising thing happened after the column appeared. Over a thousand letters flooded in from young people all over the country, asking more about the programme. Because of this remarkable response, the Los Angele School District and a local cable television company produced a film called Untattoo You. It told of the dangers of amateur tattooing and showed how difficult it was to remove small tattoos from arms and faces and larger tattoos from chests and backs. The stars of the film were young people themselves. They talked frankly about why they were tattooed in the first place and why they now wanted the tattoos removed. The film eventually won a national award and was distributed throughout the country. - The story behind the film Untattoo You illustrates an important point. All of us have done things in our past that we now regret and would like to erase. This is not just true of young people. It is even more true of older people. The tragic thing about all of this is that so many people regret what they did but don't know what to do about it now. So they live with the mistake. However, just as young people rejoiced when they discovered a way to remove their unwanted tattoos, so we Catholics rejoice that Jesus gave us a way to remove our sins. Advent reminds us of the great gift Jesus made available to us, and it urges us to use this gift. Something can be done now about our mistakes. "Prepare a way for the Lord!"
- Mark Link in 'Sunday Homilies'
"Jesus and John preached the same message to the same people. John, 'the voice crying in the wilderness' expressed his own sense of being unworthy to precede the Messiah. His baptism too, is only 'in water' and not 'with the Holy Spirit'. We are put off by this single minded and severe prophet, just as we are by the seemingly formidable and intolerant God of the Old Covenant. Perhaps we can forget them both, since we are children of a kingdom of love and grace? John the Baptist's message should make us see the range of our problems in the light of God and with reference to God. It should lead us away from the domain of sin into the domain of love, which is 'strong as death'-of love whose ray is like a flash of fire -the fire of Yahweh himself. This love cannot be taken lightly, John warns us. We must look to the Christ's coming - the King who is here and now and on the last day separates the chaff from the wheat."
- Glenstal Sunday Missal
God At The Window
There was a little boy visiting his grandparents on their farm. He was given a sling to play out in the woods, but he could never hit his target. Little discouraged, he headed back home for the evening tea. As he was walking back he saw grandma's pet duck. Just out of an impulse, he let the sling fly, it hit the duck on the head and killed it. He was shocked and grieved. He quickly dug a hole and hid the duck in the mud, only to find his sister watching him. Mary kept quiet. The following day, after lunch, grandma called Mary to do the dishes. Mary smiled and said, "Grandma, Johnny said he wanted to help you in the kitchen." Then she turned to Johnny and whispered. "Remember the duck." And Johnny did the dishes. In the evening grandpa called the children to go fishing. Grandma said, "Sorry, I want Mary to help me make the dinner." Then Mary smiled and said, "Well grandma, Johnny told me that he would like to help you to prepare the dinner." Then turning to Johnny she whispered, "Remember the duck." Mary went for fishing while Johnny stayed back to help grandma to prepare the dinner. After many days of doing his chores and his sister's he could not stand it any longer. He went and confessed to his grandma that he had killed the duck. Grandma knelt down and hugged him and said, "Sweetheart, I know that you killed the duck, I was standing at the window and saw everything. But because I love you, I had forgiven you. I was just wondering how long you would allow Mary to make a slave of you." -Johnny's confession led to his liberation. When we confess we do not tell God what he does not know. He knows everything because he is standing at the window. Our failure to confess enslaves us.
- John Rose in 'John's Sunday Homilies'
Do It NOW!
According to the label, Drambuie was the liqueur of Prince Charles Edward, the famous 'Bonnie Prince Charles.' In a recent magazine, Drambuie was advertized as: Why wait for your promotion or next raise? Why wait for the holidays? Why wait for tomorrow? In other words, now is the time to enjoy Drambuie. Now is the time to sip this smooth liqueur. Now is the time to savour its distinctive taste. Typical of many ads, there is a note of urgency in the Drambuie commercial. Tomorrow may be too late. Act now! -Today's Scripture too has a note of urgency in it, not for the purpose of selling a liqueur, but for the purpose of arousing us to reform our lives. Why wait for the prophet to return? Why wait for the promised Messiah to come? Why wait for the kingdom of God to be established? All these things are already happening. Now is the time to experience these events by reforming your lives. Now is the time to change your attitude and conduct. Tomorrow may be too late. Act now!
- Albert Cylwicki in 'His Word Resounds'
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2. Andrew Greeley
Background:
Advent and Christmas represent a very special intervention of God in the human condition, a revolution indeed because it revealed to us just how much God loves us, one that, as G.K. Chesterton said, turned the world upside down and, astonishingly, when viewed from that perspective the world made sense. God, in the words of the Irish Dominican poet, Paul Murray, loves us so much that if we should cease to exist, he would die of sadness.
The Christmas stories reveal to us that God loved Her human children so much that He took on human form so that he could show us how to live and how to die, even walking with us down to the valley of death itself. The stories today tell us that even from the beginning it was not easy to be the special light of the world. Jesus was under threat all his life. The threats would finally catch up with Him as they catch up with all of us. But from Christmas we learn that finally the darkness can never put out the light.
Story:
When Mollie Whuppi and her friends were in eighth grade, they discovered at one of the parks in their neighborhood a game called women’s softball. It wasn’t really sixteen inch softball like we play in Chicago but smaller softball which is played in most of the rest of the country which is not as civilized as Chicago. Anyway, they liked the game and decided that there should be a women’s team at Mother Mary High School So the first week of their Freshman year in high school Mollie walked into the principal’s office and demanded that their be a team. The principal had yet to learn that Mollie was the boss, so she said. Go organized your team Mollie. We don’t have money for coaches or uniforms or a team bus but we can buy a couple of bats for you. Mollie said that was just fine. She’d be manager and coach too and they’d save money to buy their own uniforms.
So, even though she was busy with other things like being class president and president of the chess club and chairman of the social action committee – and lots of other things besides, she organized the softball team. Now as everyone knows young women are much more serious about sports then young men so they practice very hard. Mollie told them it would take three years of experience before they could win city.
The first year, they were terrible, the second year they were pretty good and the third year they surprised everyone by getting to the city finals. They had to ride across town in their parents’ SUVs and the reception was very unfriendly. The crowd booed them. Boys shouted bad words at them. The other team snarled and made fun of their uniforms. But with Mollie on the mound Mother held the others scoreless and hitless for six innings.
In the first half of the seventh Mollie hit a home run so going into the last of the seventh (softball games last only seven innings) Mother Mary was up 1-0. Mollie struck out the first two batters. Then she pitched three straight strikes to the last batter. But the umpire, who made no secret of which side he was on, called them balls. Everyone knew that Mollie’s four pitch was a strike too, but the ump waved the batter down to first based. Then the next batter hit a long foul ball – everyone knew it was a foul ball, but the ump called it fair. The tying run scored. The throw from right field was slow but Mollie caught it and ran to the plate to tag the hitter out by a mile. The ump called her safe. The crowds went wild with laugher.
The winners stalked off the field.
The Mother Mary players didn’t curse, they didn’t shout. They just cried. All except Mollie. Chill out, she shouted, we’re still on our game plan.
Next year we will play them at home and we’ll win, just like we planned. The players from Mother Mary stalked out of the field chanting, “Wait till next year” the battle cry of defeated sports teams and political parties – a hint of the Christian Hope that next year will be better even when this year is the last year of our life.
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3. A number of years ago a couple traveled to the offices of an Adoption Society in England to receive a baby. They had been on the waiting list a long time. They had been interviewed and carefully scrutinized. Now at last their dreams were to be fulfilled. But their day of happiness was another's pain.
Arriving at the offices of the Society they were led up a flight of stairs to a waiting room. After a few minutes they heard someone else climbing the stairs. It was the young student mother whose baby was to be adopted. She was met by the lady responsible for the adoption arrangements and taken into another room. Our friends heard a muffled conversation and a few minutes later footsteps on the stairs as the young mother left. They heard her convulsive sobbing until the front door of the office was closed. Then, there was silence.
The lady in charge then conducted them next door. In a little crib was a six week old baby boy. On a chair beside it was a brown paper bag containing a change of clothes and two letters. One of these, addressed to the new parents, thanked them for providing a home for her baby and acknowledged that under the terms of the adoption each would never know the other's identity. Then the young mother added one request. Would they allow her little son to read the other letter on his eighteenth birthday? She assured them that she had not included any information about her identity. The couple entrusted that letter to a lawyer and one day the young man will read the message which his mother wrote on the day, when with breaking heart, she parted with him.
I wonder what she wrote? If I had to condense all I feel about life and love into a few precious words what would I say? I would have no time for trivia. I would not be concerned about economics, politics, the weather, the size of house or the type of car. At such a time I would want to dwell on the profundities, on what life was all about and what things were absolutely essential.
John in the desert was in the great tradition of the Hebrew prophets. He was aware that time was running out. In his burning message he had no time for peripheral matters. He was not playing Trivial Pursuit nor was he prepared to splash about in the shallows. Soon the sword of Herod's guard would flash and his tongue would lie silent in the grave...
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4. A few years ago, when Etsy and Ebay were first battling it out, an Ebay commercial urged people to buy Christmas gifts on its website. It started off with comedian Jim Gaffigan saying something like "Hand-made gifts for Christmas? Who wants that?" Then he mentioned all the "it" gifts you can buy on Ebay (electronics, sports equipment, etc). The commercial ends with Gaffigan holding a pair of hand-knitted mittens, smelling them, wrinkling up his nose and saying . . . "Smells like church."
The online discussion that followed showed widespread indignation. How could Ebay do this . . . to Etsy? How could Ebay mock and make fun of . . . the homemade, the homespun, the handmade tradition of gifts? People were offended by Ebay's slam on homemade items. Only a couple registered displeasure at the slam on the church.
Welcome to the 21st century.
Every year there is the "it" gift - the big score, big cheese, the big dog goodie that is sought out and sold out long before Christmas Eve. The "it" gift is, of course, age-related, although increasingly it seems that the greatest wish lists of ten year olds, thirty year olds, sixty year olds, and eighty year olds, have a lot more in common than not.
[Note: If you can find any of these and hold them up for everyone to see, or get their owners to hold them up before the congregation, so much the better.]
The "it" gift in 1929 was a "Yo-Yo" - high tech for its time.
In 1943 the must have toy was a strange doo-dad called a "slinky."
Throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties, at Christmas we were greedy for gifts of the stuffed animal, dolls, action-figures variety: Cabbage Patch dolls and Care Bears, Elmo ("Tickle Me," "Live," or "Let's Rock"). Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles headed the list.
But the Barbie (1959) and BMX Bike (1982) eras have long been replaced by a wish list that is governed by microchips. Ever since the appearance of the Game Boy in 1989, electronic gadgets and games and gizmos have dominated the "it" list of must have gifts.
This year "kids" of all ages want the Apple Mac Book Air, the iPhone 5s, the Xbox-One, a Kindle Fire, or Play Station 4.
When you look back on Christmases past, what were your best gifts? Were they any of those "it" gifts from childhoods past? Do you really think that any of this year's 2013 "it" gifts will be remembered in the future as your "best gift ever?"
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5. Are You Swapping Heaven?
The great old evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, used to tell a legend about a beautiful swan that alighted one day by the banks of the water in which a crane was wading about seeking snails. For a few moments the crane viewed the swan in stupid wonder and then inquired:
"I come from heaven!" replied the swan.
"And where is heaven?" asked the crane.
"Heaven!" said the swan, "Heaven! have you never heard of heaven?" And the beautiful bird went on to describe the grandeur of the Eternal City. She told of streets of gold, and the gates and walls made of precious stones; of the river of life, pure as crystal, upon whose banks is the tree whose leaves shall be for the healing of the nations. In eloquent terms the swan sought to describe the hosts who live in the other world, but without arousing the slightest interest on the part of the crane.
Finally the crane asked: "Are there any snails there?"
"Snails!" repeated the swan, "No! Of course there are not."
"Then," said the crane, as it continued its search along the slimy banks of the pool, "you can have your heaven. I want snails!"
"This fable," said Moody, "has a deep truth underlying it. How many a young person to whom God has granted the advantages of a Christian home, has turned his back upon it and searched for snails! How many a man will sacrifice his wife, his family, his all, for the snails of sin! How many a girl has deliberately turned from the love of parents and home to learn too late that heaven has been forfeited for snails!"
Moody spoke those words a century ago, but people are still swapping heaven for snails. How about you? John the Baptist's words are for each of us: Are there some changes that need to be made in your life?
Moody's Anecdotes, Page 125-126, adapted by King Duncan
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6. It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
Snoopy of Charlie Brown comic strip fame is typing a novel. He begins his story, "It was a dark and stormy night ..." Snoopy always starts his stories in this manner. Lucy looks at what Snoopy has written. She goes into a tirade, putting down Snoopy for such a silly beginning. Doesn't Snoopy know that any good story starts with the words, "Once upon a time ..."
The last frame of the comic strip has Snoopy starting his story again. Now he is ready. He types, "Once upon a time, it was a dark and stormy night." Do you feel like Snoopy sometimes? No matter how you begin your story you somehow revert to "a dark and stormy night." If you feel that way today you are not alone. Most of us are struggling in one way or another to overcome the dark side of our existence.
The Advent season leading to Christmas should be a time of joy, anticipation and hope. But, the very fact that it is supposed to be such an upbeat time only compounds the problem.
Richard A. Hasler, Empowered by the Light, CSS Publishing Company
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7. I Will Be There
In her wonderful children's picture book "We Were There: A Nativity Story," Eve Bunting (illustrator: Wendell Minor) turns Christmas upside down for us in ways that are revealing.
The simple story shows us first a slithering snake, then a warty toad, a scary scorpion, a shiny cockroach, a swooping bat, a hairy spider, and a furry rat all on a journey. Each creature introduces itself and then concludes with the words "I will be there."
As the book ends we are shown more common nativity creatures: fuzzy lambs, doe-eyed donkeys, gentle cows. But as those traditional figures in the stable stand around the manger in which the Babe has been laid by his mother Mary, we see in the corner, unnoticed, that small gathering of the snake, toad, scorpion, cockroach, bat, spider, and rat.
Bunting has found a lyric way to remind us that the coming of the Christ is not all about the traditional and cozy trappings in which we have for too long ensconced the Christmas story but that this is a story for all creatures and that Jesus came to embrace and renew the good, the bad, the ugly; the expected and the unexpected.
A simple children's story like this reminds us of the paradoxes and unexpected twists of the season, rather the way John the Baptist can shake things up for us if only we take time to listen to his message.
Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations
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8. We Need John
When our children were small, a nice church lady named Chris made them a child-friendly crèche. All the actors in this stable drama are soft and squishy and durable - perfect to touch and rearrange - or toss across the living room in a fit of toddler frenzy. The Joseph character has always been my favorite because he looks a little wild - red yarn spiking out from his head, giving him an odd look of energy. In fact, I have renamed this character John the Baptist and in my mind substituted one of the innocuous shepherds for the more staid and solid Joseph. Why this invention? Because, over the years, I have decided that without the disconcerting presence of John lurking in the shadows of our manger scenes, the Jesus story is mush - nothing but child's play, lulling us into sleepy sentimentality.
Susan R. Andrews, Sermons for Sundays: In Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany: The Offense of Grace, CSS Publishing Company
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9. The King Is Coming
Can you imagine complete silence? It's hard to in our culture today in which televisions, radios, etc. are constantly blaring. But in this morning's text a silence of 400 years is broken. Don't misunderstand me, not everyone was silent during this period. Women and men were talking.. Boys and girls were talking. But there was no prophet speaking the Word of the LORD. No one was truthfully saying, "Thus says the LORD..."
In reality two silences are broken in this morning's text. For one, the 400 year period without a Word from God and for another, a gap of approximately 30 years in the life of Jesus. Matthew skips directly from his birth and infancy narrative to an event that occurs approximately 30 years later: the ministry of John the Baptist. Both of these silences are broken by the sound of a voice.
The voice which breaks the silence is the voice of John the Baptist, who may rightly be called the last of the Old Testament Prophets. He is functioning as a Herald by announcing the coming of the King. In the ancient world, a herald was one who went ahead of a king's chariot to prepare the road. He would command a crew which would smooth out the usually rough roads of that day by filling potholes and removing boulders. The herald would also go before the king shouting, "Make way, the King is coming!" One commentator noted that such "efforts to make a road level and smooth were restricted to times when royalty was on its way" (Robert Mounce, Matthew NIBC, 23).
This was the function of John the Baptist.
Steve Weaver, The Herald of the King
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10. Time to Prepare
Christmas season. A time of preparation. Most Americans prepare for the holidays with lights and gifts, cards and good cheer. But the Church reminds us to prepare spiritually. What does that mean? In Matthew's gospel, John the Baptist gave us a direction. Matthew's gospel presented the Baptist in the context of prophecy about him, his arena and audience, his place in the religious pecking order, and his reason for preaching.
Larry Broding, Spiritual Preparation
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11. Taking the Fun Out of Christmas
We prepare for Christmas by repenting. Repenting in the Biblical sense is more than having a change of heart or a feeling of regret. It is more than a New Year's Eve resolution. Repentance is a turning away and a turning back. A turning away from sin and a turning back to God.
Someone once said half jokingly: If we are not careful, John the Baptist can take all of the fun out of Christmas. I disagree. I think that it is John's message that puts the joy into Christmas. For it is his message that calls us not to the way that Christmas is, but that the way Christmas ought to be. Christmas ought to be free from guilt and self-absorption. For that to occur there must be repentance.
www.Sermons.com
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12. Recognizing our Need to Repent
One critic said he had gone to many churches and heard the preacher say, "Don't try to impress God with your works" or "Don't attempt to please God with your merits" or "Don't try to keep the rules and regulations and thus win your way." He looked around at nearly slumbering collections of utterly casual Christians and wondered, "Who's trying?"
Martin Marty
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13. What the Future Holds
Have you seen ancient maps of unexplored portions of the world? Maps that portrayed the prevailing ideas of what lay beyond, the unexplored lands and the uncrossed seas? Maps from before the adventures of Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan? How grotesquely inaccurate those maps were! How vastly they differed from what the explorer eventually found! How fantastic were the notions the ancients had about what was out there - a dropping-off-place, mammoth sea serpents to swallow up ships. But as things turned out, it wasn't that way at all. You know, if Columbus had believed half the maps and legends of his time he would never have lifted an anchor!
Well, we are all traveling into the unexplored land, and we ought to be careful how we map it until we've traveled there. Certainly we shouldn't let the future do things to us it never meant to do. It is my faith that the future means to be friendly; and I don't think we ought to treat it as an enemy. If we do, and start in to do battle with it, I can tell you this: it's a battle we can never win. Let's not suspect it of standing over us with a club waiting for a chance to clobber us into the ground, or of lurking in the shadows to pounce upon us around the next dark corner...
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From Father Tony Kadavil's Collection:
1: Accept divine forgiveness by true repentance: An attempt was made in 1985 by some fans of O Henry, the short-story writer, to get a pardon for their hero who had been convicted a century before of embezzling $784.08 from the bank where he was employed. But a pardon cannot be given to a dead man. A pardon can only be given to someone who can accept it. Back in 1830, George Wilson was convicted of robbing the U.S. Mail and was sentenced to be hanged. President Andrew Jackson issued a pardon for Wilson, but he refused to accept it. The matter went to Chief Justice Marshall who concluded that Wilson would have to be executed. “A pardon is a slip of paper,” wrote Marshall, “the value of which is determined by the acceptance of the person to be pardoned. If it is refused, it is no pardon. Hence, George Wilson must be hanged.” For some, the pardon comes too late. For others, the pardon is not accepted. Today’s readings remind us that the Advent is the acceptable time for repentance and the acceptance of God’s pardon and renewal of life.
2: John’s invitation is to practice the octopus-evangelism of mega-churches as opposed to the sponge evangelism of traditional churches: Most traditional churches are pretty good about sponge evangelism. We soak up visiting folks with warm welcome, ushers offer them seats of their choice, many members greet them with miles of smiles. But octopus-evangelism of mega-churches is something else. It means reaching, stretching, finding, touching, drawing in those who are in need of the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ and may not have even realized it yet. Mega-churches are growing, not primarily because of their programming or preaching, buildings, video screens or cute, thirty-something pastors. They are growing primarily because members are actively inviting others to join them in worship. Eighty percent of all first-time visitors to a Church come because a friend or neighbor invited them. It’s the active verb…inviting, reaching, gathering…which makes all the difference. A mega-church is a non-denominational, Bible-centered Christian congregation that draws thousands of people to its weekly services. The phenomenon started about thirty years ago as a way to bring people back to the basics of Christianity – a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You may have heard of Rick Warren, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Warren) pastor of a mega-church in southern California whose book, The Purpose-Driven Life, has over 20 million copies in print You may also have heard of Joel Osteen, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Osteen) author of two national bestsellers, who runs a mega-church in Houston, Texas that attracts 38,000 people to its Sunday services and 200 million households to its television broadcasts (https://youtu.be/GA6uE2CPo1I) . You may even have heard of Bill Hybels [HIGH-bills] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Hybels) , the founder of what many consider the first mega-church ever – Willow Creek Community Church, near Chicago, Illinois – that currently has more than 100 ministries operating out of its home base (https://youtu.be/jbtbgkh_bfE) . These are just some of the better-known mega-church leaders, but mega-churches are springing up throughout North America, and they are even sending missionaries abroad. One little known fact about these mega-churches is that more than 25% of their members are former Catholics whom nobody in their former parishes actively invited to the liturgical celebrations and whom nobody involved in various church ministries. Today’s Gospel presents John the Baptist reaching out and touching the lives of people through his fire-brand-octopus-evangelization.
3: The artist’s reconciliation: Leonardo da Vinci painted the fresco (wall painting), “The Last Supper,” in Santa Maria delle Grazie church in Milan in three years (1495-1498). A very interesting story is associated with this painting. At the time that Leonardo da Vinci painted “The Last Supper,” he had an enemy who was a fellow painter. Da Vinci had had a bitter argument with this man and despised him. When Da Vinci painted the face of Judas Iscariot at the table with Jesus, he used the face of his enemy so that it would be present for ages as the man who betrayed Jesus. While painting this picture, he took delight in knowing that others would actually notice the face of his enemy on Judas. As he worked on the faces of the other disciples, he often tried to paint the face of Jesus but couldn’t make any progress. Da Vinci felt frustrated and confused. In time, he realized what was wrong. His hatred for the other painter was holding him back from finishing the face of Jesus. Only after making peace with his fellow-painter and repainting the face of Judas was he able to paint the face of Jesus and complete his masterpiece. Be reconciled with your fellow human beings, says today’s Gospel. (http://www.lifeinitaly.com/art/last-supper.asp)
4: Waiting for the Lord to be reborn in our lives: Waiting, an inevitable and even necessary aspect of human life, is not something that most of us relish. We wait in lines: in order to purchase groceries; to be served at popular restaurants; to be assisted in a bank; at stop signs and traffic signals; at amusement parks; to see a play or film. We must also wait for flowers to grow and bloom; for babies to be born; for wounds to heal; for bread to rise and cheese to age; for children to mature; for friends to call; for love to deepen. Statisticians have estimated that in a lifetime of 70 years, the average person spends at least three years waiting! Today’s readings invite us to wait for the rebirth of the Lord in our lives with repentant hearts and renewed lives. (Sanchez Files).
5. Lent versus Yom Kippur: A priest and a rabbi were discussing the pros and cons of their religions, and inevitably the discussion turned
to repentance. The rabbi explained Yom Kippur as the solemn Jewish Day
of Atonement and as a day of fasting and penitence, while the priest told him all about Lent, and its 40 days of self-denial as reparation for sins.
After the discussion ended, the rabbi went home to tell his wife about the conversation, and how they discussed the comparative merits of Yom Kippur versus Lent. She turned her head and laughed. The rabbi asked, “What’s so funny, dear?”
to repentance. The rabbi explained Yom Kippur as the solemn Jewish Day
of Atonement and as a day of fasting and penitence, while the priest told him all about Lent, and its 40 days of self-denial as reparation for sins.
After the discussion ended, the rabbi went home to tell his wife about the conversation, and how they discussed the comparative merits of Yom Kippur versus Lent. She turned her head and laughed. The rabbi asked, “What’s so funny, dear?”
“What a comparison!” she said. “Forty days of Lent for the poor Christians and one day of Yom Kippur for the Chosen People of God!”
21- Additional anecdotes
1) John’s challenge to the spirit of sharing love: One of my favorite Christmas stories is O Henry’s short story, “The Gift of The Magi.” You are all familiar with it. It is a story about a desperately poor young couple living in New York around the turn of the last century. Neither had money sufficient to buy a gift for the other so they each secretly went out and sold something of worth. He sold his prized pocket watch to get her decorative combs for her long hair. When he presented them to her she removed her scarf to reveal that she had had her hair clipped and sold to purchase a chain for his pocket watch. The thrust of the story is obvious. It is not what you give that is important, but the sharing spirit of love with which it is given.Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
2) “Do you carry a dead soul in a living body?” The Romans sometimes tied a captive face-to-face with a dead body and kept him in a dungeon until the horrible secretions of the dead one’s putrefying body destroyed the life of the living victim. Virgil describes this cruel punishment: “The living prisoners and the dead were coupled and tied together, face to face, body to body, until the wretched prisoners pined away and died.” Without the pardon and forgiveness of sins by Christ, our bodies, too, are shackled to a soul dead by mortal sins. Only genuine repentance and confession of sins can free us from certain death, as John the Baptist says in today’s Gospel, because life and death cannot co-exist indefinitely.Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
3) Community renewal during Advent: I am sure you are familiar with the amazing story of the migration of the monarch butterfly, a lovely little creature who blesses our gardens and forests in the summer. Every autumn, millions of monarchs from all over the eastern United States and Canada migrate thousands of miles to a small handful of sites in Mexico where they rest for the winter. Then in the spring, they begin their return trip to the north. The amazing thing is that no individual monarch ever makes the trip to Mexico and back. A butterfly that leaves the Adirondack Mountains in New York will fly all the way to Mexico and spend the winter. In March, it begins the trip northward, but after laying eggs in the milkweed of Texas and Florida, it will die. Those butterflies will continue northward, laying eggs along the way until some of them, maybe three or four generations removed from the original, make it back to mountains of New York. But when August comes, they will head south, aiming for the exact place their great grandparents visited, a place they have never been. Sue Haplern says: “The monarchs always migrate in community and depend on each other. Although a single monarch may make it from New York to Mexico, it is the next generation who completes the journey.” Now here is the word for the Church. She says: “No one completes the Advent journey solo. It is only as a community that we discover the fullness of God’s plan for us.”Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
4) God takes our sinning seriously: In John Steinbeck’s story, “The Wayward Bus,” a dilapidated old bus takes a cross-country shortcut on its journey to Los Angeles, and gets stuck in the mud. While the drivers go for assistance, the passengers take refuge in a cave. It is a curious company of people, and it is obvious that the author is attempting to get across the point that these people are lost spiritually as well as literally. As they enter into this cave, the author calls the reader’s attention to the fact that, as they enter, they must pass a word that has been scrawled with paint over the entrance. The word is repent. Although Steinbeck calls that to the reader’s attention, it is interesting that none of the passengers pays any attention to it whatsoever. All too often, this is our story. Yet, John the Baptist calls upon us to take our sinning seriously. Why? Because God does.
5) Return to God and renew your lives: There is a legend about a beautiful swan that alighted one day on the banks of a pool in which a crane was wading about seeking snails. For a few moments the crane viewed the swan in stupid wonder and then inquired: “Where do you come from?” “I come from Heaven!” replied the swan. “And where is heaven?” asked the crane. “Heaven!” said the swan, “Heaven! Have you never heard of Heaven?” And the beautiful bird went on to describe the grandeur of the Eternal City. She told of streets of gold, and the gates and walls made of precious stones; of the river of life, pure as crystal, upon whose banks is the tree whose leaves shall be for the healing of the nations. In eloquent terms, the swan sought to describe the hosts who live in the other world, but without arousing the slightest interest on the part of the crane. Finally the crane asked: “Are there any snails there?” “Snails!” repeated the swan, “No! Of course there are not.” “Then,” said the crane, as it continued its search along the slimy banks of the pool, “you can have your Heaven. I want snails!” This fable, has a deep truth underlying it. How many a young person to whom God has granted the advantages of a Christian home has turned his back upon it and searched for snails! How many a man will sacrifice his wife, his family, his all, for the snails of sin! How many a girl has deliberately turned from the love of parents and home to learn too late that heaven has been forfeited for snails!” (Moody’s Anecdotes, Page 125-126.)Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
6) Metánoia after (9/11)
On Monday people were fighting over public prayer.
On Tuesday, we prayed.
On Tuesday, we prayed.
On Monday, we were separated by race, sex, color, and creed.
On Tuesday, we held hands.
On Tuesday, we held hands.
On Monday, we argued with kids about picking up after themselves.
On Tuesday, we could hardly wait to get home from work to pick up our kids and hug them.
On Tuesday, we could hardly wait to get home from work to pick up our kids and hug them.
On Monday, we were obsessed with the sex lives of politicians.
On Tuesday, we joined hands with politicians to sing God Bless America.
On Tuesday, we joined hands with politicians to sing God Bless America.
On Monday, we were football fanatics. On the following Sunday, we went to Church because the football games were cancelled.Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
7) John’s preaching of messianic hope: There’s a story about a man who had experienced a seven-year series of setbacks in business and in his love life. Every decision that he made, every relationship that he had, seemed to end in failure. One evening as he was walking home, he saw a bright spotlight on the porch of a previously abandoned home. As he approached the house, he noticed that the light was illuminating a sign advertising the presence of a fortune-teller. “Fantastic futures forecast inside,” he read. So, thinking that nothing else seemed to offer any hope, he walked through the door. The fortune-teller placed her hands on the crystal ball on the table between them. As she did so, a frown spread across her face as she predicted, “The next seven years will be just like the past seven … filled with despair, unhappiness, and disappointment.” “Oh, no,” said the young man. Still clinging to a tiny spark of hope, he asked timidly, “Then what?” “You’ll get used to it,” responded the fortune-teller. John the Baptist on the other hand gave the desperate people hope of the immediate arrival of the long expected Messiah. Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
8) God’s view of our sins: Plato tells the story of a shepherd named Gyges, who was in the service of the king. One day there was a great storm and an earthquake where he was pasturing his flock. A great chasm opened in the earth and Gyges descended into the chasm. There he saw many astonishing things, including what looked like a human corpse. Although there were many amazing treasures in the chasm, he took nothing except a gold ring the corpse had on his finger. He then made his way out. He attended the usual meeting of shepherds which reported monthly to the king, and as he was sitting in the meeting, he happened to twist the bezel of the ring towards the inside of his hand. He immediately became invisible to his companions. He was astonished, and began twisting the ring again, and turned the bezel outwards, whereupon he became visible again. He experimented with the ring to see if it really had this power and found that every time he turned it outwards he became visible, and every time he turned it inwards, he became invisible. Having made this discovery, he managed to get himself invited to the palace where he stole great treasures from the king himself. Being invisible, he would never be caught. There would be no consequences for his actions whatsoever. Plato asks the question, if we remove all consequences, all fear of punishment, is there any reason to seek honesty, virtue, and character? It’s a good question. John’s answer is that God takes sins seriously, and, hence, we must repent and renew our lives. Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
9) “This side is done now; I think you can turn me over.” St. Lawrence was a deacon in Rome in the 200s, when it was still illegal to be a Christian. During one of the waves of persecution, the Emperor arrested the Pope and had him put to death. Then he arrested St. Lawrence and ordered him to give all the Church’s wealth to the Imperial Treasury. The next day, St Lawrence showed up with the poor, the widows and the orphans whom the Church was supporting and said, “Here are our treasures.” The Emperor, who had been expecting golden vessels and jewel-studded chalices, was furious. He sentenced St Lawrence to death by being roasted alive. But even while he was burning on the grill, Lawrence’s heart was at peace. Eyewitnesses actually recorded him as saying to the guards soon after his torture had begun, “This side is done now; I think you can turn me over.” When we let Christ rule in our hearts, his strength, peace and wisdom become our strength, peace and wisdom. (By the way, this is why St. Lawrence is the official patron saint of football players: he died on the gridiron.) E-Priest Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
10) “The Hound of Heaven”: One of the greatest Christian poems of all time was written by Francis Thompson, a British poet from the late 19th-early 20th century. He had a difficult life: his career in medicine was a failure; his rift with his father forced him into homelessness for years; his addiction to opium was a life-long plague. Both his circumstances and his sins made his life miserable. Yet, his greatest work, an autobiographical poem called, “The Hound of Heaven,” tells about a God who refuses to abandon even the most determined sinner. In it, the protagonist is madly searching for happiness in all the wrong places. During the search, he is being relentlessly pursued by a hunting dog, a hound. The hound is a symbol of God, who loves us too much ever to give up on us. God is like a well-trained hunting dog, a hound that is on our trail, and nothing we can do will ever shake him off! The poem begins with a description of the poet’s flight from God and his vain search for happiness in other things: “I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; / I fled Him, down the arches of the years; / I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways / Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears / I hid from Him, and under running laughter.” But at the end, when he has nowhere else to run to, the hound catches up to him and says, “Rise, clasp My hand, and come! …Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou drivest love from thee, who drivest Me.” Nothing we do can lessen God’s love for us: He is faithful, and His hand is always outstretched to save us from ourselves. Advent is the time of preparation to return to the “Hound of Heaven” by repenting of our sins and renewing our lives. (E-Priest). Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
11) The dream for mankind: When the three astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, landed on the moon, they were the very first human beings in history who could view our planet, Earth, from the outside. As they gazed from outer space and even tried to locate the various continents on Earth, they were wonderstruck and fascinated by their unanimous observation- that six billion humans, in spite of differing nationalities, languages, customs, religions and traditions, were just one gigantic family. To quote one astronaut: “The first day in space, we all pointed to our countries. The second day, we pointed to our continents. By the third day, we were aware of only one Earth.” -This was the magnificent vision and fantastic dream of Isaiah and the ancient prophets. They firmly believed and earnestly hoped the brotherhood of man would be as real as the Fatherhood of God. The prophets themselves were familiar with the injustices of an exploitative society and the horrors of senseless wars. But they still dreamed of a Messianic age -the day the lamb could lie down with the wolf and have nothing to fear. Their Faith and Hope in God urged them to dream of a time of universal peace, when the strong would no longer prey on the weak or the cunning exploit the innocent. The season of Advent each year rekindles our hope in this dream, also expressed by prophet Isaiah in the first reading, becoming a reality. We have to work and change ourselves to make that dream come true. (James Valladares in Your Words, O Lord, Are Spirit, And They Are Life; quoted by Fr. Botelho). Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
12) Let go and change! Perhaps you have heard the story of how hunters catch monkeys. They cut a small hole in the coconut, just large enough for the monkey to put its hand in and fill it with a sweet treat, and leave it fixed under a tree. The poor monkey would smell the treat, squeeze its hand into the coconut, grab the treat in its little paw and find that its fist would not come out through the hole. Since the monkey will not let go of the treat, the monkey holds itself prisoner. While it just sits there desperately grasping its treat, the smart hunter comes and catches it. Silly monkey! All it had to do was to let go of the treat and remove its arm from the coconut and run for freedom. But often we are like that monkey. We hold on to things that imprison us. In order to get our hand out of the jar, regardless of what the jar is, we need to change. We need to grow. We would like to think that we are smart enough to let go of something to gain our freedom; however, the truth is that many of us hold on to things so tightly that we imprison ourselves. We refuse to change because we are comfortable with what we have. To move forward in life, sometimes we have to just let go of the past and move ahead with confidence and Faith. During Advent, the Church challenges her children to free themselves from the snares of the devil and prepare their hearts and lives for the rebirth of Jesus. (John Pichappilly in The Table of the Lord; quoted by Fr. Botelho).Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
13) We can and must change: Many years ago, a man was shocked to read his own obituary in the daily newspaper. As can be surmised, his death had been mistakenly reported. But what shocked him most was how the obituary had described him: as someone who had devoted his life to making weapons of war and destruction. That very morning, he resolved to concentrate his energies and God-given talents in a new direction: to work for world peace and the improvement of conditions around the world in the best interest of one and all in our global family. Later, the wise and resolute individual became the founder of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. -Alfred Nobel! Advent is the time for us to change from our selfishness. (James Valladares in Your Words, O Lord, Are Spirit, And They Are Life; quoted by Fr. Botelho). Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
14) Dave Brubeck was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered to be one of the foremost exponents of cool jazz. He died of heart failure on December 5, 2012, in Norwalk, Connecticut one day before his 92nd birthday. He was also a man of faith. In 1980, Dave Brubeck was baptized into the Catholic Church. It began when Brubeck was commissioned to write a Mass made up entirely of jazz music. He worked on it for a few months. When it finally premiered, it was widely praised. A priest told the composer how much he liked the music, but he was puzzled by something: why hadn’t he included in the music the Our Father? Brubeck didn’t even realize the oversight. He thought about revising the score, but decided against it. It was finished, and he thought anything he wrote would disrupt the musical structure. He decided to just let it go. But a few days later, something happened that made him change his mind. While on vacation with his family, Brubeck awoke in the middle of the night, astonished: the entire Our Father had come to him in a dream, complete with orchestra and chorus. He got out of bed, wrote it all out, and later added it to the score. “Because of this event,” he said, “I decided that I might as well join the Catholic Church. Someone somewhere was pulling me toward that end.” Today’s readings are about listening and responding. (Fr. Chirakkal). Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
15) Advent Optimism: Attempts to make sense of life are universal. A famous poet (T. S. Eliot) expressed the wish to have carved on his gravestone about life: “I’ve had the experience, but I’ve missed the meaning.” Viktor Frankl, an Austrian Jewish psychiatrist who was thrown into the concentration camp of Auschwitz during World War II, addressed his fellow-prisoners as they were lying motionless in despair-filled silence with only an occasional sigh in the darkness of their cell. He told them that whoever is still alive has reason for hope; that whatever they were going through could still be an asset to them in the future: that the meaning of human life includes privation, suffering, and dying: that someone was looking down on each of them with love -friend, wife, somebody else alive or dead, or God – and wouldn’t want to be disappointed. They should courageously integrate their life into a worldview that has a meaning beyond immediate self-grasping, and know how to die. -Does your acquaintance with life find this optimism and hope remote? Does your experience make you dwell upon the shadow side of life, the many ways in which we suffer, fail, lose heart, or feel that nothing’s worthwhile? Advent’s optimism should be realistic. We’re not like the little boy who was overheard talking to himself as he strode through his back yard, baseball cap on sideways and totting ball and bat. “I’m the greatest baseball player in the world,” he said proudly. Then he tossed the ball into the air, swung and missed. Undaunted, he picked up the ball, threw it into the air and repeated to himself, “I’m the greatest player ever!” He swung at the ball again, and again he missed. He paused a moment to examine bat and ball carefully. Then once again he threw the ball into the air and said, “I’m the greatest baseball player who ever lived.” He swung the bat hard and again missed the ball. “Wow” he exclaimed. “What a pitcher!” Rather, we ought to be like David of the Old Covenant. When Goliath came against the Israelites, the soldiers all thought, “He’s so big we can never kill him.” David looked at the same giant and thought, “He’s so big I can’t miss.” (Harold Buetow in God Still Speaks! Listen; quoted by Fr. Botelho).Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
16) Waiting for Godot: Waiting, an inevitable and even necessary aspect of human life is not something that most of us relish. We wait in lines: to purchase groceries; to be served at popular restaurants; to be attended to in a bank; at stop signs and traffic signals; at amusement parts; to see a play or film. We must also wait for flowers to grow and bloom; for babies to be born; for wounds to heal; for bread to rise and cheese to age; for children to mature; for friends to call; for love to deepen. Statisticians have estimated that in a lifetime of 70 years, the average person spends at least three years waiting! For believers, however, it is not inconceivable to think of the entire span of a human life as a period of waiting –waiting for the God who comes. Samuel Beckett, Irish author, critic and playwright, and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1969, cast a rather pessimistic eye on this aspect of the human condition. Along with Albert Camus, Eugène Ionesco and Arthur Adamov, Beckett regarded the very notion of waiting for fulfillment or Divine intervention as absurd. In his play, Waiting for Godot (1953), two people, Vladimir and Estragon (who are often portrayed as tramps) spend their lives patiently, but aimlessly, waiting for someone who never comes. To exacerbate the situation, the two characters have no evidence that Godot (probably God) intends to come or that he even exists. Set on a stage, empty except for a solitary tree, the two figures enunciate Beckett’s perception of human existence as mindless and purposeless. At this point, Beckett introduces a second pair of characters who unlike Vladimir and Estragon, pursue and attain their well-defined objectives, e.g. power, wealth, a desirable spouse, yet their lives also are empty and without meaning. Happily, the Theater of the Absurd with its hopelessness and pessimism has no place in the life of the believer, except perhaps to renew in him/her a gratitude for the gift of a God Who comes, Who has come, Who will come and Who never departs. Because of this, Advent is a season characterized, not by mindlessness and purposelessness but by a delicious joy and eager anticipation. (Patricia Datchuck Sánchez). Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
17) Change yourself — wear shoes!: Once upon a time there was a king, who ruled a prosperous country. One day he went for a trip to some distant areas of his country. When he came back to his palace, he complained that his feet were very sore, because it was the first time that he went for such a long trip, and the road he went through was very rough and stony. He then ordered his people to cover every road of the country with leather. This would need skins of thousands of animals, and would cost a huge amount of money. Then one of his wise advisors dared to question the king, “Why do you have to spend that unnecessary amount of money? Why don’t you just cut a little piece of leather to cover your feet?” The king was surprised, but later agreed to his suggestion to make a ‘shoe’ for himself. – We often say, “I wish things would change or people would change.” Instead wise people say: “Change your thinking and change your world!” Advent is the time for such a change. (John Pichappilly in “The Table of the Word”). Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
18) Word Power: The Greatest is a film about Muhammad Ali’s career as heavyweight boxing champion. It shows not only how he was gifted naturally with agility and strength, but also how he trained extensively with rigorous workouts and diets. But Muhammad Ali said one time that although all these things helped, the real secret of his power source was a set of inspirational tapes to which he listened. The tapes were recorded speeches of a Black Muslim leader, the honorable Elijah Muhammad. They deal with self-knowledge, freedom and potential. Muhammad Ali would listen to these tapes when he got up in the morning, when he ate his meals during the day and when he retired at night. He claimed that these inspirational messages gave him the power to fight for his black people, not only for their glory in the ring, but also for their civil rights in the arena of life. In the Gospel, we have the secret of the power of another man, Jesus Christ, revealed. At the very beginning of his Gospel, Mark wants there to be no mistake about who Jesus is and what the source of his power is. (Albert Cylwicki in His Word Resounds). Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
19) Repent! Let Go! I’m sure you have heard of the story of how hunters catch monkeys. They will cut a small hole in a coconut, just large enough for the monkey to put its hand in and fill it with a sweet treat and leave the coconut fixed under a tree. The poor monkey would smell the treat, squeeze its hand into the coconut, grab the treat in its little paw and find that its fist would not come through the hole. Since the monkey will not let go of the treat, the monkey holds itself a prisoner. While it sits there desperately grasping its treat, the smart hunter comes and catches it. Silly monkey! All it had to do was let go of the treat and remove its hand from the coconut and run for freedom. This story brings me to another level. To get my hand out of the jar, regardless of what the jar is, I need to change. Einstein said “We cannot solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used to create them.” We like to think we are smart enough to let go of something to gain our freedom, however, the truth is, many of us hang on to things so tightly that we imprison ourselves. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.” (John Pichappilly in The Table of the Word). Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
20) “Give Jesus a free hand! Give him permission!” Cardinal John O’Connor of New York was consecrated a bishop in 1983 in Rome. On his way down the aisle after the consecration, he blessed the people gathered in the church. Suddenly he saw a famous face, and went over to greet Mother Teresa of Calcutta. He gave her a blessing, but was not prepared for what came next. She grasped one of his hands in both of hers, and said to him: “Give Jesus a free hand! Give him permission!” Cardinal O’Connor never forgot those words, and he said that he tried to make them a watchword for the rest of his life. Giving God a free hand in our lives is what is expected of us, especially during the advent season. (E-Priest).Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
21) The Satin Slipper: In his play The Satin Slipper, Paul Claudel offers a gripping example of giving God permission even in the midst of what seems like a hopeless situation. Strapped to a mast, a Jesuit priest is dying on the high seas. His ship has been overrun by pirates, and he’s left to die. As he dies, he prays for his brother Rodrigo, an immoral man living far from God. The priest prays: “His business, as he thinks, not being to stand and wait but to conquer and possess all he can – as if there were anything that did not belong to You and as if he could be otherwhere than where You are. •But Lord, it is not so easy to escape You, and, if he goes not to You by what he has of light, let him go to You by what he has of darkness; and if not by what he has of straight, may he go to You by what he has of indirection; and if not by what he has of simple, let him go by what in him is manifold and laborious and entangled. And if he desire evil, let it be such evil as be compatible only with good; and if he desire disorder, such disorder as shall involve the rending and the overthrow of those walls about him which bar him from salvation…” Giving God permission also means giving Him permission in the lives of others, to work in ways that only He knows. It is the sign of repentance and renewal of life, the message of today’s gospel. (E-Priest). Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
22) “Sixty years, young man, sixty years!” Once, when a conference of ministers was held in a certain town, a certain old preacher had sat quietly through it for a number of days until, toward the end of the conference, he was suddenly and unexpectedly called upon to speak. He arose thoughtfully and almost stumblingly fumbled for his words. Finally, his thoughts took form, his words fell in the rhythm of a marching column, and his impassioned oratory beat down upon the upturned faces of his audience until, as he arose to his peroration and reached his climax, the whole sedate conference broke into a spontaneous applause that shook the room, according to an item in Printer’s Ink. He had delivered the master oration of the conference. When finally, the applause subsided, a cocky young Doctor of Divinity strolled up to him. “That was a masterly address you delivered extemporaneously. Yet you must have had some preparation to have done it so well. How long did it take you to prepare it?” The older man looked gently for some time at the younger one before he answered. And then he said: “Sixty years, young man, sixty years!” Every year, on this Advent II Sunday, as preparation for Christmas, the Church leads us on pilgrimage to the Jordan River, so that we might enroll in the school of John the Baptist, hear his message, and put it into action in our lives. (Fr. Lakra) Fr. Tony (https://www.frtonyshomilies.com/) L/19
