Καθολικός διάκονος: moving ahead after a shaky year

This is the post in which I can blog a bit (more) about blogging. 2024 was touch-and-go for my little effort here on Καθολικός διάκονος. This year, I composed the fewest number of posts in the history of this effort, excepting the eleven months between when I made my first tentative start in 2005 and began blogging in earnest in July 2006.

Counting this one, I put up 66 posts this year. That still averages out to five and-a-half per month. I posted nothing in April, May, or September, and in August only once. As Advent approached, I had to reckon with the possibility of just letting my blog go after a run of a little more than eighteen years or continue. It was either walk away or commit.

I took time to give this dilemma some prayerful thought. I feel very good about continuing my efforts. This is what led to 17 posts in December, more than one every other day! I posted more in December than I did the previous 8 months combined. Due to length, this post may count for several. For my fellow Miranda fans- Bear with...

It's hard to believe that August 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of when I first discovered I was able to post stuff onto the worldwide web. It seems silly now, but back then, as someone who grew up before any of this existed, it was astounding to me. As the original title of this effort- Scott Dodge for Nobody- indicated, I didn't launch with great expectations.

What I did in August 2005 was compose 6 quite lame posts and then left it for almost a year. So, July 2025 will mark the 19th anniversary of Καθολικός διάκονος. This blog had some golden years when I achieved more popularity than I had ever dared hope for. I didn't do anything different during that time, but I was very prolific. Back then I was writing for a few online publications, such as Il Sussidiario- an ezine I still miss.

In 2010, I posted 386 times. This marked the peak. I am quite certain I will never come anywhere close to that again- something for which we can all be grateful. I don't have a goal for either a minimum or a maximum number of posts. I think somewhere around 10 posts per month on average is sustainable with some months being a bit more and others a bit less. I write this even as I realize that blogging like I do is a bit outdated.

On Good Friday this year, I hit a wall with social media. I logged out, deactivated, and felt absolutely no pull back for nearly two months. Since then, I have reduced my social media presence. I also took a hiatus in the summertime. Coming back from that I posted something about how politicians are actors and really bad ones at that. I used an appearance by Tim Walz as a case-in-point.

I could've easily chosen someone other than Walz but he was the newly selected Democratic VP candidate and was making the rounds, which means for all politicians trying look and sound "relatable." At the time, I knew little-to-nothing about him other than he was a politician, the governor of Minnesota.

My observation about the fakeness of politicians was taken by a now (I guess) former friend as not only some kind of attack on Walz but as a sign of MAGA affiliation. This despite both my original post and my subsequent comments indicating that my criticism applied across-the-board. Egads! Let me just say, it ain't only the MAGA folks, folks (using "folks" makes me relatable, right?). Getting bogged down in that interfered with an otherwise fun family get-away. Stupid me. Never again!

So, in 2025, I plan to spend less time on algorithm-driven platforms programmed to make us stupider (this is a word, I looked it up to be sure), narrower, and to divide us. Riffing off The Miami Sound Machine: "The algorithim is going to get you." This blog will once again be my main medium for online engagement.

Comments are on, though moderated. I am happy to engage in constructive, charitable discussion. If your starting point is that I am acting in bad faith, resulting in not giving me the benefit of the doubt, then we have nothing to discuss. I remain convinced that how you communicate is as important as what you communicate. I am fine with straigt forward. I look to my readers to hold me accountable for being honest, accurate, and charitable.

Writing is a means of growth for me personally. I have also received a number of communications recently about the impact my writing has had on a number of people and their urging me to continue. I like doing what I do non-commercially and with no pressure on me or those who read what I post. If someone, anyone, benefits from reading what I write, then I am quite happy. As a Catholic Deacon (it's in the title!), I write from a Catholic perspective.

I remain convinced God loves each and every one of us with a love that is incomprehensible, even to those of us who have experienced God's love in some measure. The old line "God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it" applies. As a deacon, it is my calling to express in my limited, fragile, and very incomplete way, God's love to others without exception, even as I struggle myself to receive it in the measure God deigns to communicate it to me. I do my best never to belittle, demean, or derogate anyone.

Blogging has certainly made me a better writer. I don't claim to be a great writer, or even a very good one. But I am better than I used to be. Hopefully, I am still improving.

In 2025, I plan to resume my reflections on the readings for Sundays and Solemnities I do not preach as well as posting my homilies for the Sundays, Solemnities, and weekdays I do preach. I plan to work on bringing back the Friday traditio. There will be occasional posts on matters theological, cultural, political. I like having some consistency in my cyberspace in an otherwise dizzyingly dynamic online environment. Judging from communications from readers, you appreciate it too.

I have great reading plan for 2025, which consists of digging into the pile of books I've managed to accumulate over the past 18 months. My plan, at least for now, is not to add to the pile. We'll see how that goes!

In November 2025, I turn 60. Yeah, I know! Hence, I will retire from moderately successful career, which will give me more personal time and more time to focus on my responsibilities heading up the Office of the Diaconate for my Diocese. I don't mind saying, the past 5 years have been more than a little exhausting, which has contributed to my inability to write more.

Through the intercession of our our Blessed Mother, may 2025 be filled with good health and blessings for you and your family. Catch you on the other side of midnight. Ciao until the New Year.

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

Readings: Sirach 3:2-6.12-14; Psalm 128:1-5; 1 John 3:1-2.21-24; Luke 2:41-52

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. Our Gospel for this Feast, which marks the end of Saint Luke’s Infancy Narrative, is an episode unique to this Gospel.

Our Gospel tells of the time when Jesus was a boy of twelve and traveled with his family from Galilee to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. His age is notable because, among Jewish people, thirteen is the age when a male is reckoned to be a man, when he takes responsibility for himself before God.

Mentioned in the Mishnah and Talmud, written centuries before Christ, a young man turning thirteen marks the occasion by becoming bar mitzvah. Bar is a Babylonian Aramaic word, dating from that exile (ben in Hebrew), meaning “son.” Mitzvah is Hebrew for “law” or “commandment.” Hence, by becoming bar mitzvah, he becomes “son of the Law.”

His age makes what Jesus does remarkable because he is not yet considered bar mitzvah. Yet, he is found, in rabbinical fashion, asking questions, listening, and asking more questions. Among us Gentiles, we call this the Socratic method, which is mystagogical as opposed to didactic. Being largely didactic, lacking in mystagogy, is why our catechesis isn’t as effective as it needs to be. Mere information can’t save you.

We’ve all heard the stories of the child left at the gas station or rest stop during a long road trip. Hence, it’s easy to imagine Mary and Joseph’s anxiety once they realize Jesus is missing from their group. It took them four days to find Him. Unlike a panicked child abandoned at the gas station while using the restroom, Jesus was not the least bit worried or concerned. He was at home in His Father's house.

It’s wonderful that the fruit of the Fifth Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary- Finding Jesus in the Temple- is the joy of finding Jesus. To find Jesus is an experience unlike any other. It is lifechanging. It brings about a profound change, a conversion. Conversion is required even if you were raised in the faith. Speaking of families, while it is of the utmost importance to hand the faith on to children, God has no grandchildren, only children.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”¹ Faith is an experience, an encounter with a Person. Faith is the joy of finding Jesus!

You’re not a Christian by virtue of being Italian, Argentinean, Irish, Polish, French, etc. Sentimentality is easily mistaken for faith. As Saint Paul insisted, “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the holy Spirit.”² Being a supernatural virtue, faith is a gift from God.

Der_zwölfjährige Jesus im Tempel, by Max Liebermann, ca. 1879

You can’t give another person faith. Sometimes parental efforts are frustrated by trying too hard, sometimes having the opposite of the intended effect. You can, however, live in such a way as to make your faith credible.

Since faith without works is dead, to have faith means bearing good fruit by performing good deeds.³ In our day, faith really comes to the fore in how one deals with life’s disappointments, even with its devastation. As so many saints show us, it is important to experience the joy of finding Jesus in your sorrows.

It’s not uncommon when going through a difficult time to wonder and even ask out loud- “God, where are you?” It’s easy to say, “What have I done to deserve this?”, seeing circumstances as God’s punishment. Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, always says, “I am right here.” Let’s not forget that weird word Paraclete, which is Greek and refers to an advocate who comes alongside you. The Lord accompanies you through the valley of the shadow of death.⁴

“Disciple” comes from the word “discipline.” Hence, a disciple is a person who practices the disciplines of a Master, like an apprentice. It isn’t just hard to be like Jesus, it’s impossible without God’s grace. But the Lord does teach disciplines: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These spiritual practices aren’t only meant for Lent.

Our reading from 1 John encourages us, as Christians, to be bar mitzvah- bat mitzvah, bat meaning “daughter,” for the women. Through baptism, which is the result of faith, or at least should be, we are children, not of the Law, but of God through Christ. Just as faith without works is dead, a good child is an obedient child. Therefore, to follow Jesus is to be about the Father’s business, which is reconciling the world to Himself through Christ. Christ, in turn, does this through the Church, the family of God, composed as it is of God’s children.

Through experience, through the circumstances of your life, your faith needs to mature and grow in order to flourish. According to the inspired author of 1 John, you can only be confident that God will give whatever you ask because you “keep his commandments and do what pleases him.”⁵ This is not transactional: do what I am supposed to do and God will do what I want Him to do. No!

Doing what pleases God can only be done for love of God. This changes what you want and so changes how you pray and what you pray for. It is those “who keep his commandments,” scripture teaches, who “remain in him, and he in them.”⁶

Being a Christian, to borrow the title of a book written years ago by Eugene Peterson, is A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. Keeping in mind that in Luke, Jesus only goes to the holy city one other time, consider the path He trod from that Passover trip to Jerusalem at age 12 to the journey there for Passover about twenty years later.

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1 Pope Benedict XVI. Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est [God is Love], sec. 1.^↩
2 1 Corinthians 12:3.^↩
3 James 2:17.^↩
4 Psalm 23:4.^↩
5 1 John 3:22.^↩
6 1 John 3:24.^↩

Reflecting during the Christmas Octave

Days two through four of the octave of Christmas are glorious feasts in and of themselves. First comes the Feast of Saint Stephen, followed by the Feast of Saint John the Evangelist, and then the Feast of the Holy Innocents. These days respectively are for deacons, priests, and altar servers. Following these days is the Memorial of Thomas Becket, which this year, falling on a Sunday, is superceded by the Feast of the Holy Family.

The liturgical year, too little understood, is such a great gift. It's sad when knowledge of the year fades and along with it the traditions that have developed. One example is near disappearance of Ember and Rogation Days. Hence, I think it is largely a good thing that many people, younger people, young couples raising families, are retrieving these concrete ways of living the Christian faith, receiving what has been handed on, developing it with the aim of, in turn, handing it down. Tradition doesn't develop by disappearing. It just disappears in the sea of secularization.

I am struck each year when reading A Christmas Carol by Scoorge's promise to the Ghost of Christmas Future to "live in the Past, the Present, and the Future." This is what means to live Tradition, which we too quickly only associate with the past. As Pope Saint John XXIII insisted when speaking about the Christian life, “We are not on earth to guard a museum, but to cultivate a flowering garden of life.” Cultivation, not brute force, is how Tradition and traditions develop- the word for this kind of development is organic.

Living the days and seasons of the liturgical year is one of the best ways of imparting the faith to children because their are fun activities and crafts that can be done together. This is a form of mystagogia. Rather than a didactic "lesson" or lecture, it's important to engage imagination and hands.

The Christmas octave is brought to its conclusion by the Church's celebration of the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin on 1 January, which is a holy day of obligation.

I love the octave because all the hussle and bustle that too often mark Advent is over. At least for me, it's usually a time of quiet and rest. This year it is for sure, something for which I am grateful.

While composing this today, I ran across this book review on The Gospel Coalition: "Post-Christianity Is an Opportunity for Real Christianity." It seems very relevant to understand our present moment in order to move into the future while not forgetting our past, maybe even retrieving our distant past.

There has never been what one might call a Christian society, "Christendom" not withstanding. "Christians need to learn (or re-learn"- this is how Christianity started and remained for its first several centuries- insists the reviewer of Post-Christian: A Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture, "how to be creative and faithful minorities. The transition may be painful and difficult, but nostalgic attitudes toward a status quo somewhat marked by Christianity will not serve the cause of the gospel."

Happy Feast of Saint John the Evangelist. A special greeting to all my friends who are priests. Our traditio for today is my favorite Christmas hymn, "O Holy Night"-

Feast of Saint Stephen, First Martyr

Readings: Acts 6:8-10; 7:54-59; Psalm 31:3-4.6.8.16-17; Matthew 10:17-22

In his first encyclical letter, Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI noted:

The Church's deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia)¹

Today, the Second Day of Christmas and second day of the Octave, the Church celebrates the Feast of Saint Stephen, who is the Church’s first martyr. Stephen is the most representative of a group of seven men set apart by the apostles after their selection by the community to serve the community.² At least initially, their service consisted of ensuring a fair distribution of goods within the early Christian community, which held all things in common- an aspect of the faith that often goes overlooked.

At least from the time of Saint Irenaeus of Lyons in the second century, the Church has viewed these seven men as “the seed of the future ministry of ‘deacons’.”³ The criteria according to which these seven were chosen was threefold: their good reputation, their wisdom, and being filled with the Holy Spirit.⁴

That Stephen is an important figure in the nascent Church is made clear by the fact that in his second volume, known as the Acts of the Apostles, Luke “dedicates two whole chapters to him.”⁵ It seems that Stephen’s martyrdom marked the beginning of the persecution of the primitive Church. It was this persecution that caused those who followed “the Way’ to flee Jerusalem.

Philip is the only other one of the seven named in Acts 6 about whom Luke writes more. He fled the persecution by heading to Samaria.⁶ There he continued he continued proclaiming the Gospel, winning and baptizing converts. This early persecution was the first great push of the Church beyond Jerusalem. While God was certainly not the immediate cause of the fulfillment of this prophecy given by Jesus in today’s Gospel, God used this to further the Gospel, thus expanding the Church.

The Stoning of Stephen, by Giovanni Battista Lucini, ca. 1680

Of course, the next big push would be when Saul, the one holding the cloaks and encouraging those stoning Stephen, was converted and, after a period of preparation, would begin to proclaim to the Gospel to the nations, that is, to the Gentiles.

Deacons are ordained for the threefold munera of word, liturgy, and charity.⁷ In this way, deacons participate in the Apostolic ministry of their Bishop, which consists of teaching, sanctifying, and governing, to whom they are closely connected. While Acts is a bit early to see the distinctive office of deacon emerge in the Church, Philippians 1:1 is not ("overseers"=episcopoi and "ministers"=diakonoi). Hence, a good argument can be made that, along with the episcopate, the diaconate is an older office in the Church than the presbyterate.

In Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict also noted that three distinctive activities of the Church, which he calls “duties,” “presuppose each other and are inseparable.”⁸ Hence, the beautiful quote by theologian Herbert Vorgrimler that beautifully captures the essence of the diaconate- it is the deacon who “makes it clear that the liturgy must have consequences in the world with all its needs.”⁹

In Saint Stephen, who is usually depicted as vested in a dalmatic in paintings of his stoning, martyria, leitourgia, and diakonia come together.

Sancte Stephanus, ora pro nobis.

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1 Pope Benedict XVI. Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est [God is Love], sec. 25a.^↩
2 See Acts 6:1-6.^↩
3 Pope Benedict XVI. Catechesis for General Audience 10 January 2007.^↩
4 Acts 6:3.^↩
5 Pope Benedict XVI.Catechesis for General Audience 10 January 2007.^↩
6 See Acts 8:4-40.^↩
7 Second Vatican Council. Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church], sec. 29.^↩
8 Deus Caritas Est, sec. 25a.^↩
9 Herbert Vorgrimler, Sacramental Theology, 270.^↩

Urbi et Orbi- Christmas 2024

URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
FRANCIS

Christmas 2024

Dear sisters and brothers, happy Christmas!

The mystery that never ceases to amaze and move us was renewed this night: the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus, the Son of God, wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger. That is how the shepherds of Bethlehem, filled with joy, found him, as the angels sang: “Glory to God and peace to men” (cf. Lk 2:6-14). Peace to men and women.

This event, which took place over two thousand years ago, is indeed made new thanks to the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit of Love and Life who made fruitful the womb of Mary and from her human flesh formed Jesus. Today, amid the travail of our times, the eternal Word of salvation is once more truly made incarnate, and speaks to every man and woman, to the whole world. This is the message: “I love you, I forgive you; come back to me, the door of my heart is open for you!”

Brothers and sisters, the door of God’s heart is always open; let us return to him! Let us go back to the heart that loves and forgives us! Let us be forgiven by him; let us be reconciled with him! God always forgives! God forgives everything. Let us allow ourselves to be forgiven by him.

READ THE ENTIRE ADDRESS

Nativity of the Lord- Mass during the Night

Readings: Isaiah 9:1-6; Psalm 96:1-3.11-13; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

Silent night! Holy night!
All is calm, all is bright

How is the night bright? The night is bright when the Light of the World, the Son of God descends into this darkness. As the psalmist observed, singing to and about God: “Darkness is not dark for you, and night shines as the day.”¹ This anticipates the Gospel for Christmas Day, which comes from the prologue to the Gospel According to Saint John:

What came to be through [the Word] was life,
    and this life was the light of the human race;
    the light shines in the darkness,
      and the darkness has not overcome it²

I love walking into the Church on Christmas Eve night. The tree by the bell tower is alight. Light is pouring out of the round window above the main doors and emanating through the windows along the north and south sides of the Church. Coming from the dark and the cold into the light and warmth of the Church takes on profound meaning. As our first reading for tonight, taken from Isaiah, puts it:

The people who walked in darkness
     have seen a great light;
  upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom
     a light has shone³

We gather to worship the newborn King. Yet, “born of the Father before all ages,” the Son of God existed before there was anything. In Him the past, the present, and the future come together. After being visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, a humbled, if not humiliated, Ebeneezer Scrooge, swears to the Ghost of Christmas Future: “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.”⁴ You see, to be made holy, you must first be made whole.

One of the most neglected readings in the lectionary is our reading from the Letter to Titus. This beautiful passage brings some much-needed gravitas. “The grace of God has appeared.”⁵ Grace is nothing other than God sharing divine life with us and since this life is brought into the world by the Word, Jesus Christ is God’s grace. He is the One who saves us.

Salvation consists in being trained in God’s grace, trained to reject godlessness and worldly desires, trained to live temperately and devoutly “as we await the blessed hope.”⁶ Advent ended at sundown this evening. When viewed from a Christian perspective, history both before and after the coming our Savior is an advent, a time of expectant waiting.

The Lord’s Nativity is the third Joyful Mystery of Our Lady’s Rosary. The fruit of this mystery is poverty. It is poverty that brings us to Saint Luke’s account of the birth of our Lord. It’s important not to miss out on the poverty of the Lord’s nativity.

Even in modern translations, we still read that the Blessed Virgin Mary wrapped her newborn babe in “swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger.”⁷ At the time those words were used to translate from the Greek they were not as stylized as they are now, more descriptive and less poetic then than now. What they sought to convey was that the Lord was born in a cold, dark cave surrounded by animals, wrapped in rags, and placed in a feeding trough.

Being no mere happenstance, the circumstances of the Lord’s birth matter greatly. How you follow the Lord through the sojourn of life greatly matters too. In the end, it is the only thing that truly matters. Celebrating Mass is what the Lord taught his followers to do. Mass gives this day its name: Christ mas. It is in the Mass that the babe of Bethlehem makes himself present under the unassuming signs of bread and wine.

Just as it was not glaringly obvious that the baby wrapped in rags and lying in a trough was God in the flesh, so it is not readily apparent that bread and wine, by the power of the same Spirit by whom the Son of God was conceived in the womb of the Virgin, are transformed into His body and blood.

In Holy Communion we receive the greatest gift imaginable: Jesus Christ. He is not the means to some other end. Just as in His sacrifice He is both victim and priest, He is both means and end. The reward for following Jesus is Jesus. Therefore, it is truly right and just that we celebrate “the most sacred night on which blessed Mary, the immaculate Virgin brought forth the Savior for this world."⁸

Silent night! Holy night!
Son of God, Love’s pure light
radiant, beams from Thy Holy face,
with the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth

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1 Psalm 139:12.^↩
2 John 1:4-5.^↩
3 Isaiah 9:1.^↩
4 Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol, Stave IV, “The Last of the Spirits.^↩
5 Titus 2:11. ^↩
6 Titus 2:12-13.^↩
7 Luke 2:7.^↩
8 Roman Missal. The Order of Mass. Eucharistic Prayer I, Communicates for the Octave of the Lord's Nativity, sec 86.^↩

Giving the gift of life and Jesus' toughest commandment

Fifteen years ago last summer while driving to my sister's wedding in Carmel, California, in the midst of a political conversation in which I had been highly critical of both President Bush and the still fairly new President Obama, my then-fifteen year-old son said, "Dad, you just don't like anyone who is the president." There is no little truth in that observation. You know what? I wouldn't want to be any other way!

I am writing this to laud President Biden for commuting the death sentences of 37 federal prisoners (see "Biden commutes sentences of 37 of 40 inmates on federal death row"). There are forty total federal prisoners who've been sentenced to die. As someone who opposes the death penalty, I would've like for the president to have commuted all the sentences. I am not alone in this.

Nonetheless, I commend the president for commuting the death sentences of what amounts to a little under 93% of condemned federal prisoners. Responses to the president's act of mercy have been mixed (see "'A mistake': Biden faces backlash upon commuting sentences of death row inmates").

It disappoints me that the death penalty remains so popular among people in the United States. So many people of different political stripes favor the death penalty that many Republican and Democrat office holders and candidates tend to officially support it. President Biden, for example, was a supporter of the federal death penalty for a long time. In 2023 53% supported the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, while 44% did not (see Statistica).

I have personally been opposed to the death penalty since reading George Orwell's short story "A Hanging" my junior year of high school. Now, as a Cathoilc and a member of the clergy, I oppose the death penalty not only on personal grounds, but on religious grounds as well.

In August 2018, Pope Francis promulgated a change to section 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This same section, which sets forth Church teaching on the death penalty, was also altered by Pope John Paul II in 1997, just a few years after he promulgated this wonderful compendium of Catholic teaching. Here is what the Catholic Church's officially teaches on the death penalty:

Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide

For brief history of section 2267 through three the first three editions of the Catechism see "State Your Peace Tonight."

Too often being pro-life is reduced to being opposed to abortion. Opposing abortion, while neccessary, is not sufficient of itself to be pro-life. Being pro-life includes opposing the death penalty, physician assisted suicide, euthanasia, and certainly requires coginizance of the relevant facts concerning firearms (see Pew Research Center "What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.").

President Biden's commutation of 37 death sentences is good news. Forty of forty would've been better news. Stating this in no way diminshes the suffering caused by the crimes those sentenced to death committed both to their victims and the victims families. The death penalty does not bring either healing or closure to survivors of victims. It merely perpetuates the cycle of violence.

In his Sermon on Mount, Jesus addresses the lex talionis directly. The result of an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth is blindness and toothlessness. It is in this context that the Lord gives what is probably His most challenging commandment: "love your enemies" (see Matthew 5:38-48).

ADDENDUM:

Following President Biden's commutations of the death sentences of thirty-seven federal prisoners to life in prison without the possibility of parole, President-elect Trump vowed: "As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters... We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!" Being a country of law and order can be achieved without making recourse to the death penalty. No one is advocating for the release of violent criminals.

The Mystery of the Incarnation

Sunset marks the beginning of the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Tonight, we light all the candles! At the Easter Vigil, as the deacon enters the Church carrying the lit Paschal Candle, he sings three times, "The Light of Christ." The response to this is a sung, "Thanks be to God." Indeed, Christ is the Light of the world, the One who illuminates us. It's nice that we light up the Advent wreath this year on the Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year.

Our Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Advent is the closing prayer for the Angelus. Maybe it's the other way around. Either way, this prayer is one many faithful Roman Catholics don't just say daily, but three times a day. During Easter, we recite or sing Regina Caeli instead of the Angelus.

Beginning as it does with "The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary. And she conceived of the Holy Spirit," followed by a Hail Mary, which, in turn, is followed by our Blessed Mother's fiat: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord: Be it done unto me according to Thy word," the Angelus is all about the Incarnation. So is the Fourth Sunday of Advent.

For Year C of the Sunday lectionary, our Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent comes from the first chapter of Saint Luke's Gospel. It follows the stories about the previously barren Elizabeth conceiving John the Baptist and her kinswoman, Mary's, miraculous conception of Jesus. Known as "the Visitation," this Gospel episode is the Second Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary.

Love of neighbor is the fruit of the Joyful Mystery of the Visitation. These two women were happy for each other. Elizabeth also recognizes and honors the freedom with which Mary assented to God's plan. "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb" are also words with which we're very familiar. As Gabriel foretold about the Blessed Virgin, "all generations will call you blessed." This began with that very generation.

Life is a miracle. It seems we increasingly see it as a burden. Human beings are the point at which creation becomes conscious of itself. Only we ponder the mystery of life, its meaning and purpose. When observed, Advent is a time to reflect on these things, these big questions. In a real sense, history both before and even after Christ's coming is Advent. Life is an Advent, an expectant waiting.

The Visitation, by James B. Janknegt, 2016?

Chatting with a friend online earlier today, the subject of Advent came up. Agreeing that we both really enjoy this season and try to observe it, we noted the advent nature of life, and the subject of hope came up. Insisting, as is my wont, that hope and optimism aren't the same thing at all, my friend averred "sometimes I feel like my hope comes from my pessimism." This summarizes my relationship with hope very well- it comes pretty much exclusively from my pessimism.

In my view, pessimism is what differentiates hope from optimism. I revisited something today from an article by Anglican bishop David Welbourne that appeared in the Church Times back in 2020. He wrote about an interview playwright Dennis Potter gave to television journalist, author, and Member of Parliament Melvyn Bragg shortly before the former's death. Potter was a man of Christian faith and Bragg, who was not, asserted that faith was merely dressing on a wound. I guess he was referring to the wound of death, the awareness of the shortness of life, something like that. "No," replied Potter, "it is the wound, faith is the wound."

Jumping ahead chronologically is Luke and liturgically, the righteous old man Simeon tells the Galilean virgin that faith is wound by letting her know that her heart would be pierced. When praying the Rosary, I have little narratives for each Mystery. For this, the Fourth Joyful Mystery, the fruit of which is obedience, I use the phrase "hope through suffering."

As our reading from Hebrews tells us, in coming to do His Father's will, Jesus did away with the offerings and sacrifices that constituted the rituals Temple worship. Leaping all the way to the twenty-second chapter of the Gospel According to Saint Luke, we see what the Father’s will was. Praying, Jesus implores, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done." This is hard to comprehend, like a young woman from Nazareth agreeing to bear the Son of God.

I think this petition from the Intercessions for Evening Prayer I of the Fourth Sunday of Advent rounds this reflection off beautifully:

In your life on earth, you came to die as a man
   -save us from everlasting death

A dream and making sense of reality

My post yesterday, through which I am trying to resurrect the Καθολικός διάκονος Friday traditio, focused on the last chapter of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware's book on healing for peace through the Sacraments of Healing (the link to the book is where you can read it for free online; see "Taking it 'as it comes'"). This chapter was about death as the ultimate healing. You don't have to be a Heidegger aficionado to grasp that from birth, life is a journey toward death.

Of course, for a Christian, death is not the end. Even so, death is a horizon over which we cannot see. Immortality, at times, can seem like a mere wish.

Last night I had a dream. My dreams tend to be pretty realistic, as opposed to fantastical. I kind of envy people whose dreams seem to be, well, more imaginative and fun. In my dream, I was on a bus in my hometown. The bus was driving down one of that city's main thoroughfares, making its way toward my house, which was just off the furthest northern end of this boulevard. The dream started with the bus pulling into a bus stop.

This stop would've been the last one before I got off the bus. Once the bus stopped, one person stood up to get off. I recognized this person as a dear friend. So, I stood up and greeted her enthusiastically. Moving past me to get off the bus, she managed a curt "Hi" with an equally curt glance. She exited without looking back. I sat there devastated. End of dream.

I woke up still feeling the way I did at the end of the dream. It took me a minute to realize that it was a dream and not an actual occurrence and to shake it off.

As I laid there reflecting on my dream, I realized the friend was amalgam of two friends but the appearanceo of the person in the dream wasn't in the least bit odd. They are people I met at different points in my life and with whom I've had quite different relationships over years. One has more or less "unfriended" me and the other has inexplicably gone from a relationship communicating back and forth to me checking in once in a while with answers indicating that with a short, polite reply the conversation is done- have a nice day.

I readily admit that I am not a great friend. Like most men my age in this culture, I don't really have many friends. While I am at it, I am not a great son, husband, father, or cousin either. Some of this is driven by the fact that I am an introvert. One aspect of growing older for me is being more gracious in accepting my limitations and knowing what they are.

I am not writing that out of self-pity, as easy as that is for me to do, but as a way of facing reality. Most days, I find myself older and none the wiser. Beyond that, like most middle-aged men, I have developed something of a hardened shell, a protective layer. It's a battle sometimes to keep sorrow from turning into self-pity. Sometimes I lose the battle.

Considering Met. Kallistos' wise observation that "the secret of true life is to accept each state as it comes," the only sense I could make of the dream that was not self-pitying is that the bus ride is my journey. On this journey, most people only travel with me part of the way. This is okay, maybe even how it's supposed to be. From my youngest years, I have found life a bit heartbreaking. Plus, all relationships wax and wane.

What I want to genuniely feel and say with deepest sincerity is "May God bless them on their journeys." I hope my probably not-that-great friendship was of some benefit to them along their way and that they know, somewhere in their hearts, how truly I appreciate their love, care, and concern for me.

I can see this as part of the interior work I mentioned in yesterday's post. With respect to the loss of friendship- trying to be grateful and not bitter while working through disappointment. Lord, hear my prayer.

Taking it "as it comes"

Friday in the Third Week of Advent. Time to reflect. Not just during Advent and Lent but all year, Fridays are days of penance. Days of abstinence and, hopefully, recollection. Today is an Ember Day following the Memorial of Santa Lucia last Friday.

On the recommendation of a trusted teacher, my spiritual reading for Advent has been a little book by the late Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. The book, Sacraments of Healing, published posthumously, consists of conferences for a retreat he led in 1999. While his overall theme is peace, he discusses the sacraments of healing: penance and anointing. To start, he sets forth a lovely Christian anthropology and he ends with a deep and deeply moving reflection on death.

Since today is a penitential day in a penitential season, I am focused on Metropolitan Kallistos' meditation on death. The aspect of his meditation that struck me, especially in light of the fact that I am turning 60 next year, is how, as a Christian, to live life, to pass through life's various stages.

Here I am going to get a little personal. For some reason, lately I have felt the need for affirmation. This feeling holds in all domains of my life: professional, ministerial, and personal. When I don't get it, I find myself feeling disappointed and even angry at times.This is not a wholly new experience for me. Quite the opposite. For some reason, in this season, this unhealthy need has been set in bold relief.

Admittedly, this deep need is quite juvenile and I am grateful for the grace to recognize this. I am even aware enough to know that it stems from some developmental issues.

Concurrently, this year more than other times, I have really struggled with praying. Nonetheless, I feel the Lord drawing me closer to Himself. One evening not too long ago, feeling unaffirmed and unappreciated, I was really struck by a palpable intuition from the Lord. He wants me to find my affirmation primarily in Him, not from Him, but in and through Him. As for the rest, whether I am affirmed or not, whether I am appreciated or not should be a matter of indifference. This has been reaffirmed several times since then. What this means for me right now is dealing with some disappointments.

Reading the final chapter of Ware's Sacraments of Healing, I came across this: "Surely, the secret of true life is to accept each state as it comes." True wisdom, it seems to me, is not verbose or complicated but direct and simple. As with most true wisdom, easier said than done. Along these same lines, there are a couple more things from this chapter I have been mulling over. One is from a Cecil Lewis poem, "Walking Away," that Met. Kallistos used:

How selfhood begins with a walking away

Reflecting on this, Ware states: "By hanging on to the old, we refuse the invitation to discover the new."

Lord, help me walk gracefully into a new season of life, always in the newness of life in You.

For our traditio today, let's turn to the late Rich Mullins. It's funny, Rich always thought he wasn't enough to lead people to Jesus. In honesty, none of us are. We lead people to the Lord, as Saint Paul insists, not through our strength but through our weaknesses, through our need and how He strengthens you and more than meets your needs. In and through Him, you come to recognize what it is you truly need and what you really don't need and, therefore, what you shouldn't seek.

Year I Monday of the Third Week of Advent

Readings: Numbers 24:2-7.15-17a; Psalm 25:4-9; Matthew 21:23-27

Authority is a big issue for Christians. Historically, authority is the main reason for the two major splits in the Christian Church: the East/West schism of AD 1054, when what are now known as the Orthodox and Catholic Churches split, and the protest or Protestant split in the sixteenth century, usually dated to 1517, when the Augustinian friar, Martin Luther, nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Wittenburg, Germany.

As human beings, we like things to be neat and clean. But God is not bound by our tidy ways of thinking. While the history of the Church with regard to its fracturing is contrary to God’s expressed will, through the Holy Spirit, God never ceases to answer the prayer of His Son that we all be one as they are one.¹

When you look at today’s Gospel from the perspective of a twenty-first century Christian, it seems absurd that the chief priests and elders asked Jesus, the Son of God, who is true God from true God, by what authority He taught what He taught and performed the miraculous deeds He performed. While always done in concert with the Father and the Holy Spirit, we can safely say, the Lord acted on His own authority.

It isn’t Jesus who provides the parallel to Balaam in our readings. Rather, it is John the Baptist. Both prophets came out of nowhere to tell others of the ways of God and to foresee, even if dimly in the case of Balaam, the Lord's coming. The Baptist comes into play when the Lord turns the tables on his interlocutors by asking them what they thought of the baptisms John performed.

It’s easy to see the chief priests and elders "of the people," which I prefer take as the inspired author being sarcastic, wanted to deny the divine nature of the Baptist’s ministry. His ministry, if you remember, consisted of calling Jews to repentance, that is, back to fidelity to the Covenant by the righteous observance of the Law and baptizing those who heeded his call. This was a scandal to these Jewish leaders. Jesus put these men on the horns of a dilemma. Maybe it’s more accurate to say the Lord highlighted the existential dilemma we all must face in the realization that choices have consequences.

There is a line from the chorus of the song “Freewill” by the band Rush that states this dilemma well: “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” By choosing not to decide in that moment, the chief priests and elders “of the people” only kicked the can down the road.

Ultimately, these men were forced to decide. Unwittingly, their choice to call for the condemnation and brutal execution of the Messiah, the Son of God, accomplished God’s purpose: the redemption of the world. So much for tidiness.

In His life and ministry as set forth in the Gospels, Jesus is always driving those who encounter Him to make a choice, to decide who He is for yourself. In the Gospels, this choice is somewhat evidence-based, especially regarding the miracles and wonders he performed.

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, himself a Roman Catholic, albeit in adulthood not a practicing one, summed this dilemma up very well:

“No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.”² - And it is true: I cannot call him Lord; because that says nothing to me. I could call him 'the paragon', 'God' even - or rather, I can understand it when he is called thus; but I cannot utter the word “Lord” with meaning. Because I do not believe that he will come to judge me; because that says nothing to me. And it could say something to me, only if I lived completely differently (italics in original)³

Unlike many professing Christians, Wittgenstein understood his dilemma. He understood, quite clearly, that were he to acknowledge Jesus’s authority by professing Him as Lord he would need to live “completely differently.” Do you?

Don’t worry too much about Ludwig. From there he launches into a reflection on faith by asking: “What inclines even me to believe in Christ's Resurrection?”

It’s important to see, as we do in our Gospel today, that Jesus never asserts His authority by making a power move. In Christ, there is no coercion, only freedom. After all, He did not reply: “On whose authority? Being God’s only begotten Son in the flesh, by my own authority given me by my Father!”

It is important to always keep in mind that for Christians, freedom is first and foremost freedom for not freedom from. As Saint Paul insisted in his Letter to the Galatians: “For freedom Christ set us free.”⁴

And so, back to Rush:

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice

---

1 John 17:11.^↩
2 1 Corinthians 12:3.^↩
3 Ludwig Wittgenstein. Culture and Value, 33. Trans. Peter Winch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.^↩
4 Galatians 5:1.^↩

Year C Third Sunday of Advent

Readings: Zephaniah 3:14-18a; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:10-18

Charity, which requires self-sacrifice, is the way to joy. By contrast, living only for yourself is the shortcut to misery and meaninglessness. This truth is clearly revealed to us in scripture, especially in the Gospels, which tell us of the life of the Lord. It is also the theme of what is perhaps the best-loved Christmas story in English: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol, as with most things Christmas-related, has been trivialized. Dickens, himself a Christian, albeit one with significant flaws, making him like the rest of us, did not write a story about a grumpy old man overcoming his grumpiness and finally joining in all the holiday cheer because, it’s just plain fun or on the premise “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Rather, A Christmas Carol is about a disappointed old man who, granted the great grace of visits by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, responding to God’s grace and becoming a new man, or, perhaps more accurately, the man he was destined to be before life’s concerns jumped in, bringing him to where the reader initially finds him: alone and miserable on Christmas Eve.

After his harrowing night, Ebeneezer Scrooge not only seems to be a different but a much younger man, embodying these words from T.S. Eliot’s poem “Little Gidding”-

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time¹

Scrooge’s change, his rebirth, his finding true joy was his heeding the Baptist’s call found in our Gospel for today. Doing these things are the fruit of repentance, proof that you have repented, that you’ve undergone a metanoia, a Greek word that denotes a transformation.

Becoming charitable is not the price you pay to earn God’s favor. Rather, being charitable is the result of realizing that, in and through Christ, you always already have God’s favor. Hence, each genuine act of charity is an act of rejoicing.

Today is Gaudete Sunday. It is the Sunday of the pink candle and the pink vestments (“rose” for those who prefer). The Third Sunday of Advent is called “Gaudete” because Gaudete is the first word of the Introit (that part of Mass that is sung prior to ringing the bell for everyone to stand). Gaudete is Latin for “Rejoice!” It is an imperative, urging us, maybe even ordering us, to rejoice. Note that “joi” is at the heart of “rejoice.”

Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, Gaudete = “Rejoice in the Lord always: again, I say rejoice.”² This comes from our second reading today, taken from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. As the apostle wrote in his Second Letter to the Corinthians:

Each must do… without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you, so that in all things, always having all you need, you may have an abundance for every good work³

Charity should not be a once-a-year thing, acts you perform between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Being charitable is what it means to be a Christian. Being a Christian, at least on this side of eternity, amounts to becoming. It is a journey, like the one described by Eliot in his poem. In Christian parlance, caritas, the Latin word from which “charity” is derived, is a translation of the Greek word agape.

Scripture teaches that “God is love.”⁴ Agape is the word translated as “love” in this passage. Unlike English and most Western languages, koine Greek- the original language of the New Testament- has four words for love. Three of these are used in the New Testament. Eros refers to what we call romantic love; philos to brotherly love- think the city of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love; agape to self-giving, self-emptying love.

I think motherhood is the closest human analog to agape. It’s beautiful that during Advent, this year in the week leading up to Gaudete Sunday, that we celebrate Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe. Agape, self-emptying love, is the essence of the nature of the Most Holy Trinity.

It is through the Incarnation of the Father’s only begotten Son, whom the Father sent because He so loved the world, that we can begin to understand what the revelation “God is love” really means.⁵ A few chapters earlier in Philippians, in the “kenotic hymn,” we read this of Jesus:

though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness⁶

True charity doesn’t consist only of giving something to someone in need, as important as that is. It requires giving something of yourself. While well-intentioned, things like “Giving Machines” make giving transactional rather than relational. Frankly, I find it fairly easy to give money and donate items. It’s much harder to give something of myself, to give time, attention, and care. Vulnerability is scary.

Our Lord only ever gives Himself whole and entire. In the Eucharistic exchange, you pledge your entire self to Him. In response to His self-giving, you pledge yourself to others, to charity, to self-giving, self-sacrificing love. You pledge to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Like Ebeneezer Scrooge, doing this is how you discover true joy. Only the joyful can rejoice.

---

1 T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” Part V.^↩
2 Philippians 4:4-5; Roman Missal, The Third Sunday of Advent, Entrance Antiphon.^↩
3 2 Corinthians 9:7-8.^↩
4 1 John 4:8.16.^↩
5 John 3:16.^↩
6 Philippians 2:6-7.^↩

Advent & kwanzhanuaukamas

Apart from August, the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is, at least for me, the least wonderful time of the year.

About the only thing born anew this time of year in late capitalist societies is consumerism. My typical response to "What do you want for Christmas?" is, "For it to be over." What I mean by that is that I want secular Christmas, which runs concurrently with Advent, to be over and done.

I enjoy celebrating Christmas after all the hoopla has died down and it's actually Christmas. I love the week between Christmas Day and New Years. I love St Stephen, St John the Evangelist, Holy Innocents, Thomas a Becket, Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, etc., playing games, reading books, watching movies, eating good food, thinking about the New Year. I am no Scrooge. I actually love Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It is a deeply Christian book.

This year, I made it almost to the Third Sunday of Advent before realizing I've had enough already. This is pretty good for me. I have been fascinated this year by the fact that Padre Pio's favorite liturgical season was Advent (for a short treatment of this, see "Padre Pio and Advent: A Journey of Renewal and Grace"). Of course, he lived in a Capuchin monastery, but still, his advice given in some letters is most helpful.

Here is a late Friday traditio that, I believe, captures well the spirit of this season. The Kinks' "Father Christmas":

In any case, here's to those who wait in quiet expectation, preparing their hearts to once again not merely celebrate, but experience the great mystery of the Incarnation, those and who ponder this great mystery in their hearts. The mystery of Christ, "hidden from ages and from generations past," we read in Colossians, and has now "been manifested to his holy ones... Christ in you, the hope for glory" (Col 1:26-27).

As for the rest, as John Calvin put it: "The human heart is a perpetual idol factory." For the Latinists, who are, rightly, suspicious of translations- from the 1559 definitive edition: hominis ingenium perpetuam, ut ita loquar, esse idolorum fabricam (Institutes I.11.8). "Man's genius, so to speak, is to perpetually make idols."

Kwanshanuakkhmasdinosaurias- a photo from my walk this morning

"by a singular grace and privilege"

Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Of course, this does not refer to the conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit, thus becoming "incarnate of the Virgin Mary." Rather, it is a celebration of the conception of our Blessed Mother herself by her mother, who tradition hands on was named Anne. Saint Anne's conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary happened in the normal way.

What the Immaculate Conception refers to is set forth very well in the dogmatic formula found in the Papal Bull Ineffabilis Deus, promulgated by Bl. Pope Pius IX in 1854:

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful

It was not until four years after the promulgation of Ineffabilis Deus that the Blessed Virgin appeared to the peasant girl, Bernadette Soubrious, introducing herself to Bernadette as "the Immaculate Conception."

Since the dogma of papal infallibility was not formally defined until 1870, the apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes, France served as a kind of proof of the truth of the dogma of this de fide belief. It's important to keep in mind that dogmas do not appear out of nowhere. They are tenets of the faith that have to be shown both to be a part of divine revelation and, even if in seed-like form, believed always, everywhere, and by all. While theological reflection, examination, and even disputation are vital for the Church, even with regard to dogmas of the faith, for faithful Catholics, belief or at least assent to dogmatic teaching is of the utmost importance.

The Immaculate Conception of Los Venerables (Soult Madonna), by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1660-1665

It surprises many people that since the First Vatican defined the dogma of papal infallibility in the constitution Pastor Aeternus, which was promulgated by the same Pope Pius IX 1870, there has only been one exercise of papal infallibility. This occured in the Jubilee Year of 1950, when Bl. Pope Pius XII infallibly proclaimed the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven in Munificentissimus Deus.

Falling as it does during the season of Advent, today's Solemnity, which, this year, is moved to Monday because the Second Sunday of Advent takes precedence, also reminds us something very important: the Son of God, as it pertains to his humanity, is consubstantial with His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. And so, through Blessed Mother, who is also our Mother, is consubstantial with us.

To answer a popular song of yesteryear, "What If God Was One of Us?," through the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, He became one of us. Through His Holy Spirit he remains present not just among us but, if we let Him, in us. If He is in us, then we can make Him present to others. This the famous third advent of our Lord set forth by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in an Advent sermon a long time ago. Like the Gospel itself, while old, it is ever new.

Today, pray Our Lady's Rosary, say a Memorare or two, or three... Of course, observe this Holy Day of Obligation, this gift of the Church. Don't neglect to ask for the intercession of Saint Bernadette.

Baruch's message of hope

Reading: Baruch 5:1-9

It isn't often that we hear a reading from the Book of the Prophet Baruch at Sunday Mass. But in Year C of the Sunday lectionary, on the Second Sunday of Advent, our first reading comes from this little-known book of Sacred Scripture. Baruch is numbered among the deutero-canonical books. As such, many Christians do not consider this book to be part of the scriptural canon.

One of the features of deutero-canonical books is that they were written in Greek, not Hebrew. With regard to Baruch, some scholars believe that this book may have been originally written in Hebrew and then translated into Greek and that only the Greek manuscripts were preserved and handed down. There is a similar theory, albeit not widely held but with some credibility, concerning the Gospel of According to Saint Matthew.

While attributed to an assistant of the prophet Jeremiah, the Book of Baruch is not a unified text. The different texts that comprise the book were probably not written by the same author. It may have been during the compilation of these texts into a unified book that it was rendered into Greek.

Like a number of deutero-canonical books, the texts that comprise it were composed later than the time in which they are set. Given the disparate nature of the texts that make up the Book of Baruch, no definitive dating is possible. However, the book in its final form was likely put together between 200-1 BC.

The setting for Baruch is the Babylonian Captivity (597-539 BCE). Our passage for today comes from the part of the book known as "Baruch's Poem of Consolation." It is the final part of this poem. It is addressed, not to the exiles, but to the Holy City, Jerusalem, and those Israelites not exiled. I think that its being written much later than Babylonian captivity of Israel is a great aid for us in seeing how these inspired words have something to say to us today.

From the beginning, the Church has viewed herself as enduring a kind of capativity between Pentecost and Parousia. Especially during the first few weeks of Advent, the theological virtue of hope is the underlying theme. Hope should never be confused with optimism. Hope is what remains when all options are exhausted. I am probably one of the least optimistic people you will ever meet. Because of Jesus Christ, I have hope. But that is to state the matter poorly.

Jesus Christ is my hope! He is hope of the world, just as Baruch posits God as the hope of Jerusalem. I can only imagine how in, say, the middle of the 58 years of Babylonian exile how hopeless their situation must've seemed both to the exiled Israelites and those left behind. To many, it probably seemed like end. So much for being God's chosen people! At least to my mind, one of the greatest miracles of history is the survival of the people of Israel as a people.

I am not going to lie, I think the Church is currently going through a very difficult time. We are experiencing difficulties from within and without. While these struggles are real and, like many, I am deeply concerned about much of what is happening within the Church, we can't lose sight of our need, as Christians, to simply and steadfastly live our faith in its fullness, holding fast to what has been faithfully handed on. In other words, you must not lose hope, even as your optimism wanes.

Living your faith is what it means to "take off your robe of mourning and misery; put on the splendor of glory from God forever," even if some days it doesn't feel like it. Let's face it, many days it doesn't feel like it. But God is faithful. Yet, God is God. God's fidelity is made manifest according to your criteria or on your timeline. Knowing God, which means cultivating a relationship with God, is the only way to really understand what this means. Such understanding is a matter of experience.

In light of revelation, it's weird and detrimental to faith that we have made the Lord's return such a scary thing. "Apocalypse," which means uneveiling, revelation, is used synonymously with destruction, death, catastrophe. But for early Christians, whose prayer was Maranatha (an Aramaic word meaning something like "Our Lord, come!"), the day of the Lord's return is the day of liberation, the end of exile, salvation, the fulfillment of genuine hope. Stated simply, they lived in joyful anticipation of the Parousia. They knew the meaning of Baruch's exhortation:

Up, Jerusalem! stand upon the heights;
    look to the east and see your children
gathered from the east and the west
    at the word of the Holy One,
    rejoicing that they are remembered by God

Note: With this, I am getting back to the practice of posting reflections each Sunday. Time permitting and inspiration allowing, I may get back to posting the Friday traditio. I appreciate the encouraging messages from so many of you to continue my efforts here. I hope each of you are having a blessed Advent.

Year I Monday of the First Week of Advent

Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122:1-9; Matthew 8:5-11

Advent is the season during which the theological virtue of hope comes into full relief. Longing is almost a one-word description of human experience. As human beings, we long for what we desire. When you think about it, desire expressed as longing, that which drives us, is what constitutes our humanity.

Longing often remains ambiguous because the object of one’s desire is often not clear. There is a tendency to think if I acquire this or accomplish that I will be fulfilled. Within a short time, one is left asking questions like, “Is this all?” or “What’s next?” It takes us time to learn that all accomplishment and all acquisitions are fleeting.

For those who are attentive to experience, the fleeting nature of things reveals over time that human desire is infinite. Infinite desire can never be satisfied by finite things. Infinite desire requires an infinite object.

Our reading from Isaiah paints a picture of something worth desiring: God’s kingdom as place of peace and tranquility. In this passage we hear the words “ways,” “paths,” and “walk.” These all refer to God: God’s ways, God’s path, walking in God’s light. We don’t need to wait until eschaton to walk in God’s paths, to follow God’s ways, to walk in the light of the LORD. In reality, these describe how to live between already and not-yet of God’s kingdom.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux preached about the Lord coming three times. His first coming is as man, His Incarnation. In the end, He will come again in glory. But in between, this span between the already and not-yet, there is a hidden advent that happens in the one with true faith.

“In case someone should think that what we say about this middle coming is sheer invention,” says Saint Bernard, “listen to what our Lord himself says: ‘If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him’ [Jn. 14:23].” He then exhorts his listeners: “Keep God’s word… Let it enter into your very being, let it take possession of your desires and your whole way of life.”¹ This is how one brings desire into focus.

Christmas is not only about celebrating the Lord’s birth in Bethlehem, which often becomes very sentimental. It is much more about the present, about Him being born anew in you. Advent, then, is a gestation period. It is Jesus present in the Eucharist who bridges the span between the already and the not-yet.

If the Lord is truly present in the consecrated bread and wine and you receive Him under these signs, it stands to reason that He is in you. He comes to be present in you not merely for your own sake, but for you to make Him present to others.

Making the Lord present to others, thus living in and for Him is how you begin to fulfill your longing, to satisfy your desire. The title of a lovely hymn composed by Bach summarizes this well: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.

Rightly, the issue of worthiness comes up. As a wise mentor said to me years ago, “You’re not worthy. Get over it.” Try as you might, you will never make yourself worthy. Only One is worthy: Jesus Christ.

The words of the Roman centurion from our Gospel today should sound very familiar to you. At each Mass, we say aloud, or should say aloud, a variation of what this man says to the Lord in today’s Gospel: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

To be fully healed is something we all desire because it is something we all badly need. Wholeness and holiness are integrally related. To become holy is to be made whole. We’ve all been wounded and all of us have wounded others. To be healed, therefore, is to become, in the words Father Henri Nouwen, a wounded healer.

Attend to the fact that the centurion did not reject what Jesus did because he was unworthy. His honest profession of unworthiness is a sign of genuine faith. It is what hope looks like. On the one hand, this pagan recognized who Jesus is and understood he had no right, no standing, to ask the Lord for anything. On the other hand, he recognized that this is what the Lord came into the world to do and so humbly implored Him, confident in the Lord's mercy.

If we follow the story beyond the bounds of our reading from the lectionary, after lauding this Roman soldier to his fellow Jews by way of rebuke, Jesus tells this pious pagan, “You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.” The inspired author ends this pericope with these words: “And at that very hour [his] servant was healed.”²

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1 St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Sermo 5, "In Adventu Domini," 1-3: Opera Omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 4 {1966}, 188-190..^↩
2 Matthew 8:13.^↩

Year C First Sunday of Advent

Readings: Jer 33:14-16; Ps 25:4-5.8-10.14; 1 Thess 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28.34-36

Prior to Mass yesterday, we celebrated the first liturgy of this new year of grace. With Evening Prayer last night, the Church throughout the world entered the season of Advent. Being a noun, “advent” means arrival. This is a season meant to prepare us both for the Lord’s return and celebrating His humble birth in Bethlehem at Christmas. Advent, therefore, is consciously living between the already and not-yet, about letting Christ be born in you as “we look forward to his second coming.”¹

The liturgical year is a great gift. Understanding it and living the seasons of the Christian year, not only at Church, but at home, and in your personal life, grounds Christian spirituality in the Paschal Mystery. In the words of pastor/theologian Trevor Hudson, all the seasons of the Church year “are ‘time-gifts’ that the church offers to help us participate more fully in what God has done [and is doing] in human history.”²

God has done nothing in human history greater than being conceived by the Holy Spirit and made incarnate of the Virgin Mary, thus becoming fully human.³ This is why, when reciting the Creed, we bow while professing this central truth of our faith, which marks the beginning of the Paschal Mystery. Jesus Christ is not only consubstantial with the Father as it pertains to His divinity, He is also consubstantial with His Mother as to His humanity.

During Advent, we celebrate two great Marian observances: the Solemnity of Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Holy Day of Obligation, which we will observe this year on Monday, 9 December y el doce de diciembre, celebramos la Fiesta de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. En virtud de la Inmaculada Concepción, la Madre María es la patrona de Estados Unidos. Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe es patrona de todas las Américas. Under the Immaculate Conception, Mother Mary is patroness of the United States. Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of all the Americas.

Keeping Christ in Christmas starts with observing Advent. Observing Advent requires you to live contra mundum, to swim against the stream of well-meaning but premature and excessive festivities that leave everyone exhausted. Let’s face it, Santa Claus has little in common these days with Saint Nicholas. By all means, in the fullness of time, let’s celebrate Christmas! In the meantime, let’s prepare ourselves so we are properly disposed to do so.

Christmas starts on 25 December and, here in the United States, lasts until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which we will observe this year on 12 January. Traditionally, Christians prepare for great solemnities by observing a time of more intensive prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Advent is to Christmas as Lent is to Easter.

While a relatively short season, Advent has a twofold character. We begin Advent as an extension of Christ the King, when we celebrate, not the end of the world, but end of time. Time will end when Jesus returns “to judge the living and the dead.”⁴ And so, for roughly the first two weeks of Advent, we look forward to the Lord’s Advent, His second coming. In a very real sense, the whole of human history is mostly an Advent, a time of waiting on the Lord.

Our reading from Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, is indicative of the beginning of Advent. Likely written in AD50, it is probably the first book of our uniquely Christian scriptures to be written, First Thessalonians possesses what might be called an eschatological urgency. In other words, it urges Christians to live in readiness for Christ’s return so as “to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.”⁵

“Eschatology,” in case you’re wondering, is just a fancy theological word referring to the end of time, to last things. It is often the case today that our eschatology does not extend beyond the fact that someday we'll all die. This even though Christ's return to judge the living and the dead (yes, judge) is credal, dogmatic, de fide, that is, an essential and indispensable element of Christian belief. Our dogmatic beliefs should have bearing on how we, as Christians, live our lives. Yes, you may die before the Lord returns. Then again, you may not.

As Saint Paul wrote to the Church in ancient Rome, in a passage from the scriptural reading for the Church’s Morning Prayer on the First Sunday of Advent: “it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.”⁶ Put simply, it’s always later than you think. How can we regain the proper sense of urgency? While not a panacea in and of itself, observing Advent can help in this regard.

It is tempting to explain away hard passages like the one from Saint Luke’s Gospel that is our Gospel for this First Sunday of Advent. But turning Christian faith into an exclusively this-worldly philosophy is to be unfaithful to what God has revealed in Christ. Note that our Gospel for today comes from the final chapters of Luke’s Gospel, not its beginning.

Let’s give our Lord the last word as we begin Advent, letting Him set the theme. After warning His followers not to be carried away either by excessive revelry or by excessive worry about “the anxieties of daily life,” thus living sub specie aeternatatis- under the aspect of eternity, always bearing foremost in mind the purpose of existence, He instructs us:

Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape
the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man⁷

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1 Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, Eucharistic Prayer III, sec. 113.^↩
2 Trevor Hudson. Pauses for Lent: 40 Words for 40 Days. Upper Room Books. Kindle Edition. Location 73.^↩
3 Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, The Liturgy of the Word, sec. 18.^↩
4 Ibid.^↩
5 1 Thessalonians 13:3.^↩
6 Romans 13:11.^↩
7 Luke 21:34-36.^↩