Year B Third Sunday of Advent

Readings: Isa 61:1-2a.10-11; Luke 1:46-50.53-54; 1 Thes 5:16-24; John 1:6-8.19-28

Today we celebrate the Third Sunday of Advent or Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is a Latin word that means Rejoice! We call this Sunday Gaudete Sunday because the entrance antiphon for Mass today is taken from the fourth chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. The antiphon exhorts us to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.” After this exhortation, the antiphon ends with these words: “Indeed, the Lord is near” (see Phil 4:4-5).

Advent means either “coming” or “arrival.” We know the Lord has come, has died, risen, and ascended, promising to return. He sent his Holy Spirit as the mode of his presence in us and among until he comes. Our lives as Christians, therefore, can best be described as living the tension between the already of the Lord’s Incarnation and the not yet of his glorious return.

The season of Advent reflects this tension. From the beginning of the season until today, we look forward to Christ’s return at the end of time. Beginning with the Third Sunday, Advent pivots as we begin look back towards Christ’s first arrival. He arrived in the world as a marginal person among a marginal a people who had long been subjected to foreign occupation. He arrived as an infant, born in a cave where animals lived, wrapped in rags and laid in a feeding trough. Jesus was not born in a nice, clean, well-lit place. He was born in a smelly, dirty, dark and dank place.

I sometimes think that instead of drawing us deeper into the mystery of the Incarnation, our Nativity scenes obscure its reality by reducing faith to mere sentiment. In case you didn’t notice, we have two Gospel readings today. Our Responsorial Psalm is taken from Mary’s Magnificat, which is found in Luke’s Gospel (see Luke 1:46-55). Mary says of the Lord’s coming: “He will fill the hungry with good things and the rich he will send away empty.” In this regard, it bears noting that the spiritual fruit of the Third Mystery of the Holy Rosary- Jesus’s Nativity- is poverty.

In our culture, there are few things more vexing than having to wait. Advent is about the discipline of waiting. The good news is the efficacy of our waiting doesn’t depend on how faithful we are. Rather, it depends on the fidelity of the One on whom we wait. I think a good question to ask ourselves today is, what, or who, are you waiting for? If you are waiting for Christ, which the Scriptures say you should, then how are you to wait?

Our second reading today, from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, tells us we are to wait with joy, praying ceaselessly, and giving thanks. The Apostle tells those to whom he wrote and by extension us: “this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thes 5:18). As you likely know, Eucharist is the Greek word for giving thanks. In Mass we gather together to joyfully celebrate, to pray and give thanks. Participating in Mass is not just important to your waiting, it is vital and crucial for it. Mass is where we say, “Maranatha” – “Come Lord Jesus.”

The first part of our first reading, which is from Isaiah, is a passage that Jesus cited in St. Luke’s Gospel in the synagogue at Nazareth, which marked the beginning of his public ministry in that Gospel. After reading this passage, as he rolled up the scroll, Jesus said to the people of his hometown: “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:16ff). The congregation responded by trying to kill him because he claimed to be the Messiah, the Anointed One, which, of course, he is, albeit one who did not meet human expectations.

The response of the Nazoreans present in the synagogue that day is not only that of people with no hope, but the response of people who are so deaf and blind that they are unable to see or hear hope when he is standing in front them and talking to them about hope. Let’s be honest, our hopes are so often placed in things that can never satisfy our infinite longing, be it professional or academic achievement, making money, acquiring possessions, having a big house, a nice car, going on trips and adventures, or even in human relationships. I think for children Christmas day is often an anti-climax. Like the Nazoreans who heard Jesus proclaim himself as their hope, we, too, try to throw him off a cliff when we place our hope on other things or other people.

Hope is the one-word summary of the phrase “Advent waiting.” Along with faith and love, hope is a theological virtue. Unlike natural virtues, which are acquired through habit, that is, by practicing them, the theological virtues are gifts from God. Of these, hope is probably the least understood. We often think of hope as synonymous with wishing. But hope is more about trust than it is about wishing. God is trustworthy.

We can flippantly say, “God is faithful,” because we know this is the right answer, at least when we’re in church. But you can only come to know God’s faithfulness through your own experience of waiting. God will do what he promised, just as he sent Israel not only his promised Messiah but a Lord and Redeemer who extended the covenant God made with Israel to the whole of humanity. But, as the Lord’s Nativity demonstrates, God most often fulfills his promises in very unexpected ways that are not dictated by our expectations.

“Indeed, the Lord is near.” Even now, by the power of his Spirit, Christ is near to us. We need only attend to his presence. We attend to his presence by doing nothing other than doing nothing. Deep prayer must always begin with recollection, with silence, with awe in the presence of the Lord. We don’t have to summon Christ up like a genie from a lamp, we need merely sit, breathe and just let ourselves be in the presence of the One who created us and redeemed us, the One who loves us enough not only to die for us, not only enough to rise and return for us but enough to accompany us on our way.

The truthfulness of the assertion that the quality of our waiting depends on God’s faithfulness and not on ours is borne out by the prayer St. Paul offered in the final two verses of our reading from 1 Thessalonians:

May the God of peace make you perfectly holy and may you entirely, spirit, soul, and body, be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will also accomplish it (1 Thes 5:23-24)

The Shroud of Turin: Short Take

It is Advent. I am committed to resuming blogging on a regular basis. I hope to post something 2-4 per week, including a Friday traditio and a reflection on the Sunday readings. In an effort to follow through on this commitment, I am posting something I provided when requested to give a short-take on the Catholic Church and the Shroud of Turin. I didn't have a lot of time to go digging and so I went with what I knew off the top of my head and researched the statements of modern popes on the shroud, which demonstrated a more nuanced view of the shroud, beginning with Pope Benedict.

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The origin of the Shroud of Turin is unknown. The cloth’s whereabouts prior to 1357 are unknown. But from 1357 onwards, the location of the shroud is well-attested. The shroud has been in Turin since 1578. Initially, it belonged to the Royal Savoy family. It was only in 1983 that the family gave the shroud to the Catholic Church.

Far from avoiding or evading attempts to scientifically examine this unique artifact, since being gifted the Shroud of Turin by the Savoy family, the Catholic Church has sought to gain as much scientifically-derived information about the shroud as possible. In these undertakings, great effort has been made to maintain the shroud’s integrity.

In 1898 the first negative image was taken of the Shroud of Turin. This is the image from which most people would recognize it because the image it bears of the beaten and crucified man is more pronounced than just looking at the shroud itself. The shroud has been subjected to 2 carbon dating tests. The first test, conducted in 1988, indicated the shroud dated from approximately 1,000 years after the time of Jesus. The range given for the shroud’s age based on this initial test was sometime between 1260-1390. It bears noting that the shroud’s appearance in historical documents beginning 1357 falls within the range of time during which those who conducted the first test concluded it originated.

A second test, performed in 2008, suggested the initial test might be 1,000 years off. It is safe to say these efforts to date the shroud are inclusive. As a result, opinions as to whether it is the burial garment of Jesus or an ingeniously made relic from the Middle Ages remain divided. It is not a matter of faith for Catholics to believe the Shroud of Turin is the burial garment of Jesus. It is not something the Church holds de fide.

The Holy See has never officially proclaimed (or denied) the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. Popes since Julius II in 1506 have encouraged devotion to Christ and belief in his resurrection the shroud facilitates among the faithful. Some popes, including John Paul II, have referred to the shroud as a relic. Commenting on the shroud in 1980, John Paul II called it “a distinguished relic linked to the mystery of our redemption.” Pope Pius XII referred to it as “the holy thing perhaps like nothing else.” For an object to be a genuine relic, however, its origin must be sure.

More recently both Popes Benedict XVI and Francis have referred to the Shroud of Turn as an “icon” rather than a relic. Addressing the public display of the Shroud of Turin during the first year of his pontificate, Pope Francis called it an “icon of a man scourged and crucified.” For a similar showing of the shroud in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI referred to it as an “icon written with the blood of a whipped man, crowned with thorns, crucified and pierced on his right side.”

Year A Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Readings: Ezk 34:11-12.15-17; Ps 23:1-3.5-6; 1 Cor 15:20-26.28; Matt 25:31-46

Last week Fr. Rene began his homily by singing a hymn. Since today, the last Sunday of the liturgical year, we celebrate the end of the world, I thought about singing REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” You’ll be relieved to know that I thought the better of it. I do think the refrain that runs through this song is relevant for Christians, who hopefully await the Lord’s return: “It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.”

Believing that Christ will return is fundamental to Christian faith. In the Nicene Creed, we profess: “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.” In the Apostles Creed, we say: “He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from there He shall come to judge the living and the dead.” Belief in Jesus’s return as the judge is not optional because it was revealed to us by the Lord himself, as our Gospel today clearly shows.

Jesus Christ is King of the universe because he has vanquished all of God’s foes, including death. As St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth: Jesus will hand over the kingdom “to his God and Father, when he has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power” (1 Cor 15:24). No earthly kingdom or nation will endure beyond Christ’s return. This feast invites us to live sub specie aeternatatis – under the auspices of eternity, which simply means giving what matters priority in our lives.

Pope Pius XI instituted the Solemnity of Christ the King in 1925. He did so in response to growing secularism as the ancien régime overturned at the end of the First World War was replaced by a new political order. One result of secularism is the temptation to seek exclusively worldly ends using only worldly means, as the rise of fascism in Europe after the establishment of today’s observance amply demonstrated.

Observing the feast of Christ, the King does not call for us to disengage from society and culture, or to retreat from the world. On the contrary! What makes Christians the best citizens of any nation, as St. Justin Martyr noted in his First Apology way back in the second century, is our commitment to living God’s kingdom as a present reality, as if it were already fully established. Too often we live in the mistaken notion that the definitive establishment of God’s reign has little or nothing to do with us.

In positive terms, I think G.K. Chesterton summed it up nicely when he wrote: “it is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.” One almost-saint who stands in stark contrast to our age is an American of the twentieth century: the Capuchin friar, Solanus Casey. Bl. Solanus Casey, whose Mass of Beatification was celebrated in Detroit last weekend, spent most of his life as a Capuchin friar welcoming and caring for guests at the urban friaries where he served, first in New York and then in Detroit. He is a splendid example of living God’s reign as a present reality while “we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Solanus Casey left us 5 ways of living in God’s love and 2 ways for living in the awareness that we are always in God’s presence. As to living in God’s love, this simple friar, writing from his experience and not as the result of academic study insisted 1) detachment from earthly affections, or singleness of purpose, what the title of a book by the Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard urged: Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing - do not be half-hearted in your love for Jesus; 2) meditation on the Passion of Jesus Christ – meditating on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, walking the Stations of the Cross, or reading an account of Jesus’s Passion from one of the Gospels; 3) uniformity with the Divine Will, which means seeing God’s will and purpose at work in your life, in your failures, setbacks, and disappointments as well as in your triumphs, successes, and satisfactions; 4) mental prayer (i.e., meditation and contemplation)- praying the Rosary and/or the spiritual practice of lectio divina; 5) intercessory prayer for your own needs and those of others, heeding Jesus’s words “Ask and it shall be given you.”

The 2 ways Bl. Solanus Casey gave for always living in the awareness that you are in God’s presence are the importance of praying short prayers to God throughout the day, or, as he put it: “Raise your heart to Him by frequent aspirations” and to “Make a good intention at the beginning of each week.” Sunday Mass is a wonderful time to make a good intention for the coming week. My sisters and brothers, holiness does not happen incidentally. You can’t accidentally be a disciple of Jesus Christ. While holiness is only ever fully realized by the grace of God, attaining it requires your cooperation. Your pursuit of holiness cannot be a passive endeavor. God won’t make you holy against your will.

As his life of care and concern for others demonstrates, the practices set forth by Solanus Casey constitute a proven way of cooperating with what God is seeking to do in and through you to accomplish his purposes in and for the world. Of course, engaging in these practices, like our participation in this Mass, is not an end in itself but a means to the end of establishing God’s reign. We establish God’s reign by caring for those in need, by feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, as well as visiting and assisting those who are sick and in prison. Grouped together, we call these the Corporal Works of Mercy. Our need to engage in these works has been a persistent theme of Francis’s pontificate. It's how we bring about the end of the world as we know it and feel fine in the process.

I urge each of you between this Sunday and next, which is the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new year of grace, to spend some time reflecting on how you can enthrone Christ as King in your heart. Being a subject of Christ the King is not a matter of being subjugated, as it is with those who exercise worldly power, but a matter of knowing you are loved and “in the hands of the one who writes straight with crooked lines” (Pope Benedict XVI).

Religious freedom

In my presentation, What the Catholic Church Learned from the Reformation, I highlighted 5 lessons: "Baptism and the Priesthood of All Believers," "Scripture for Liturgy and Life," "Liturgy: Full, Active, Conscious Participation," "Religious Freedom," and "Indulgences: Pope Paul VI addresses Martin Luther." Today I am posting my brief section on religious freedom.

We’re so used to understanding religious freedom as a human right that the revolutionary nature of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignatatis humanae is often lost. But the Catholic Church’s recognition of the importance of freedom and the primacy of conscience when it comes to religious belief and practice, is very much a lesson learned as a result of the Reformation. It was a lesson perhaps best articulated by that reformer of the Reformation, John Wesley, about whom Dennis Shaw spoke last week. It is a lesson learned by both Catholics and Protestants as a result of the religious pluralism wrought by the Reformation in Europe.

Wesley’s best articulation of the principles underlying religious freedom were two notable sermons: “A Caution Against Bigotry” and “Catholic Spirit.” Fourteen years prior to his birth in 1703, the Toleration Act, which permitted Protestant communions other than the Church of England to freely gather and worship.¹ What Wesley sought to demonstrate is that religious tolerance and the freedom to which it gives rise is part and parcel of being a Christian.

John Wesley

In his “Catholic Spirit” sermon, Wesley noted that religious toleration and freedom are often confused with religious indifferentism. He asserted that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, he noted that religious toleration and freedom indeed gives rise to many different religious viewpoints and acknowledges that this can be very confusing. Such confusion, he asserted, is a curse, not a blessing. Therefore, a person who has the catholic spirit “does not halt between two opinions, nor vainly endeavor to blend the two into one.”² In other words, such an environment requires what Pope Francis has dubbed a culture of encounter.

In Dignitatis humanae, the Catholic Church asserted that each person is “bound to seek the truth,” especially as it pertains to God, “to embrace the truth they have come to know, and to hold fast to it.” ³ The Council also declared “that the human person has a right to religious freedom.” ⁴ According to the decree, religious freedom means being “immune from coercion” by any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.” ⁵

The Council further declared “that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself.” ⁶The Council stated unambiguously that “the right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right.” ⁷

Pope St. John Paul II went so far as to assert that next to the right to life, the most fundamental right a human being possesses is that of religious freedom.

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1 Jake Raabe, “What John Wesley Would Say to Bernie Sanders and Diane Feinstein,” Christianity Today, November 8, 2017. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/november-web-only/john-wesley-diversity-bernie-sanders-vought-barrett.html ^↩
2 Ibid.^↩
3 Second Vatican Council, Dignatatis humanae [Declaration on Religious Freedom], Vatican website, December 7, 1965, sec. 1, accessed November 8, 2017, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html ^↩
4 Dignatatis humanae, sec. 2^↩
5 Ibid.^↩
6 Ibid.^↩
7 Ibid.