Now I Know Why You Had To Do It—A Christmas Parable

Once upon a time there was a man who looked upon Christmas as a lot of humbug. He wasn’t a Scrooge.  He was a kind and decent person, generous to his family, upright in all his dealings with other men.  But he didn’t believe all that stuff about Incarnation which churches proclaim at Christmas.  And he was too honest to pretend that he did. “I am truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, who was a faithful churchgoer. “But I simply cannot understand this claim that God becomes man.  It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

On Christmas Eve his wife and children went to church for the midnight service. He declined to accompany them. “I’d feel like a hypocrite,” he explained. “I’d rather stay at home. But I’ll wait up for you.”

Shortly after his family drove away in the car, snow began to fall.  He went to the window and watched the flurries getting heavier and heavier. “If we must have Christmas,” he thought, “it’s nice to have a white one.” He went back to his chair by the fireside and began to read his newspaper.  A few minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound.  It was quickly followed by another, then another.

He thought that someone must be throwing snowballs at his living room window. When he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the storm.  They had been caught in the storm and in a desperate search for shelter had tried to fly through his window. “I can’t let these poor creatures lie there and freeze,” he thought. “But how can I help them?” Then he remembered the barn where the children’s pony was stabled.  It would provide a warm shelter.

He put on his coat and galoshes and tramped through the deepening snow to the barn.  He opened the door wide and turned on a light. But the birds didn’t come in. “Food will lure them in,” he thought.  So he hurried back to the house for bread crumbs, which he sprinkled on the snow to make a trail into the barn.  To his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to flop around helplessly in the snow.  He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around and waving his arms.  They scattered in every direction – except into the warm lighted barn.

“They find me a strange and terrifying creature,” he said to himself, “and I can’t seem to think of any way to let them know they can trust me.  If only I could be a bird myself for a few minutes, perhaps I could lead them to safety. . . .”

Just at that moment the church bells began to ring.  He stood silent for a while, listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.  Then he sank to his knees in the snow. “Now I do understand,” he whispered. “Now I see why You had to do it.” ”

This is A Christmas Parable written by Louis Cassels many years ago, one of the religion editors of United Press International and is a simple but beautiful way to explain the mystery of Christmas.

Think of the many ways God has reached out to us to communicate with us since the beginning.  The climax of God communicating with us in the Old Testament was when God formed the covenant with Moses on Mt. Sinai.  God joined himself to us in a covenant and we were joined to God in a covenant.   But we still sinned so God raised up prophets to call us back but only a small number of people paid heed to the prophets.  Through one of the prophets, Hosea, God said that Israel has been like an unfaithful wife committing adultery by going after false gods.  All through the centuries of the Old Testament God pursued us like a lover but we had broken the covenant and God had to make a new unbreakable covenant with us.  For this new covenant, God would become flesh and bones like us, and shed his blood in the person of Jesus to convince us once and for all to accept his invitation to be his people.  Jesus was the climax of God reaching out to us. As we hear in the Gospel of John:

   “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory…”

“Now I see why You had to do it” wrote Louis Cassels in A Christmas Parable.  And indeed God had to do it, had to become one of us to make us understand because despite God’s best efforts throughout all the Old Testament we still didn’t get the message.  Sometimes you have to, as we say, rub their noses in it to make them understand.  Christmas is, in a sense, God rubbing our noses in it to make us understand.   Christmas is God saying, “Maybe this will grab your attention.” The Letter to the Hebrews expresses it beautifully,

“At various moments in the past and by many means, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our time, the final days, he has spoken to us in the person of his Son.” (Heb 1:1-2)

God has spoken to us, the Word has become flesh.  Let us allow God’s word to sink into our hearts.  I will conclude with the prayer from Ephesians 1:17:

“May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.  May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit.”

This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland by Fr. Tommy Lane. S.S. L; S.T.D.  Modification to text.

Adult Formation

 

In the Gospel passage we will hear on Sunday we have an amazing event taking place.  It is the story of Mary’s visit to her cousin, Elizabeth.

But the account of the meeting of these two expectant women is about more than Mary and Elizabeth coming together to talk about babies.

In this meeting, called by the Church through the centuries, The Visitation, we see the merging of the Old Covenant with the New Covenant.

It is also the first meeting of the two baby boys Mary and Elizabeth are carrying inside of them, John the Baptist, and Jesus.

At the sound of Mary’s greeting, John, in the womb, does a joyful little leap. The angel Gabriel told John’s father, Zechariah, that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit even in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15).  And so, when Mary greets Elizabeth, the Spirit causes John to leap for joy at the recognition and presence of the Messiah.

Two expectant mothers, one old, one young.  One was six months along; the other, newly pregnant.  And the fact that they were expecting was totally unexpected!  Both were pregnant when neither one of them should have been, under normal circumstances.  But these circumstances were anything but normal.

The word “frantic” fits much of the activity in this last week before Christmas.  There are even hints of it in Luke’s Gospel: “Mary set out and traveled… in haste”.  But Mary’s urgency was the deep and tremendous drive to share the greatest good news this earth has ever heard.  The Messiah is coming! 

What fuels our haste?

Here we stand in front of this Gospel.  The words hitting our eardrums, but is the event, the message, hitting our hearts?

We believe in the Incarnation. We believe in the paschal mystery. Yes, we believe!  From the stable to the empty tomb, we believe, and we trust in God.

The presence of Christ among us should bring us great joy and the Gospel sound that greets us in Mass lets us know that Jesus is here; a most blessed visitation indeed!

Let us also leap for joy and into his word!

https://www.flipsnack.com/sjvhouston/liturgy-of-the-word-4th-sunday-of-advent-yr-c/full-view.html

Adult Formation

Our scripture passage for Sunday follows on the heels of John the Baptist preaching a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” (3:3).  Unique to Luke’s account of John’s ministry is the response of the “multitudes” to his message.

In Sunday’s passage, three particular groups, after hearing John’s call to repentance, approach him with the same question: “What should we do?”   It certainly would have been easier for them to ask, “How must I pray?” or “How should I feel?” but they didn’t.  They asked the real question of discipleship: for a concrete expression of repentance.

John’s response made repentance immediate and attainable.  He gives them practical ways to exhibit generosity, integrity, and justice.  These are “the fruits of repentance”.  Jesus will say later that his followers will be recognized by the fruit their life produces.

John’s message to the multitudes was that repentance should affect how they do business and how they treat their neighbor.

Generosity is not something possible only by the wealthy.  It is the fingerprint of a gracious God upon a transformed soul and flows from the heart’s desire to give something because God has given so much.

The central question for us on this Third Sunday of Advent is this: What would John say to you, to me, if we asked him “What must I do”?  What are the fruits of repentance, which I might bear?  Real repentance is personal, specific, and expressed. 

All we need to do is turn.  We can take a million steps away from God, but it takes only one step back to him.

Repent and believe in the Gospel!

https://www.flipsnack.com/sjvhouston/liturgy-of-the-word-3rd-sunday-of-advent-year-c/full-view.html

Adult Formation

Sunday’s Gospel begins not with John the Baptist’s ringing call to repentance, but with a long and detailed list of rulers.

Luke’s litany of imperial, regional, and religious authorities does more than date John’s ministry; it also contrasts human kingdoms with God’s reign.  The claims to authority that Tiberius or Herod or the high priest may make are not ultimate.  God’s people owe allegiance first and foremost to God.  And it is God’s word that sets John’s ministry in motion.  John has been commissioned to prepare the way not for lord Caesar or any other earthly lord, but for the one true Lord.

Like the prophetic voice of Isaiah 40, John challenges God’s people to see the wilderness as a place not of desolation, but of hope. God is calling them, like the Babylonian exiles, to leave their captors behind and head home through the wilderness. God is calling them, like the people of Israel in Egypt, to an exodus out of slavery, into God’s promised fresh start.  John preaches that the first step on this journey toward freedom is a baptism of repentance.

Twenty centuries after the fact, we are interested in Jesus, not in tetrarchs and obsolete geography.  But these details reveal something crucial about Jesus: He is not an abstract God.  He weaves his action and presence into the fabric of our day-to-day lives—into our own personal histories.

John the Baptist is Christ’s precursor, the one sent to announce His coming and get people ready to welcome Him. John plays a central role in the liturgies of Advent, the season during which the Church recalls Christ’s first coming, readies itself to welcome Him anew on Christmas, and looks forward to His definitive, second coming at the end of history.

Luke emphasizes the incomparable importance of Christ’s coming by pointing out how Isaiah had prophesied not only the arrival of Jesus but the appearance of the precursor, John. God had long been preparing for this pivotal moment in the world’s history and wanted to alert his people, through John, of its imminence.

Although Christ has come to the earth, and although He has come to dwell in many human hearts and societies, many more have still not heard of Him or welcomed Him. They have yet to have their advent. But even with these God sends His heralds ahead of Him.  We are those heralds.  Every one of us is another John the Baptist, called to boldly draw others to the truth, love, and life, of Christ with our words, deeds, and example. Among the many responsibilities and privileges each of us has, none is greater than joining with the Holy Spirit to prepare hearts for the Lord.

Let God’s word set your ministry in motion!

https://www.flipsnack.com/sjvhouston/liturgy-of-the-word-2nd-sunday-of-advent-yr-c/full-view.html

Adult Formation

On the First Sunday of Advent we hear, as we did two weeks ago from the Gospel of Mark, about “end times.” 

There has always been much discussion and speculation about the Second Coming; when it will be and what it will be like.  However, as we’ve heard from Jesus himself, that time is not ours to know. 

But the one great truth we do know is that history is going somewhere. We are not on a treadmill through time rather, our life has a goal, and that goal is Jesus Christ.  He spoke clearly about the Second Coming (also known as the Parousia), and other New Testament writings emphasize it as well.

And so, it follows that we must never think that we are living in a settled situation. We are called to live in a state of expectation, not drowsiness. We must live in the shadow of eternity with the certainty that we will, fittingly or unfittingly, stand before the Son of man.

The Gospel passage for Sunday has its beginning earlier in the Chapter when Jesus predicts that the Temple will be destroyed (21:6), and with the disciples’ question, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign when this is about to happen?” (v. 7).  Jesus responds by telling of wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, and plagues (vv. 9-11), the arrest of his followers and resultant opportunities for witnessing (vv. 12-19), and the destruction of Jerusalem (vv. 20-24).  Then come the cosmic signs of verses 25-28, our Gospel for Sunday.

Jesus does not say these things to frighten us, but to prepare us.  Our proper response is not to be terrified (v. 9), but to avoid being led astray by false teachers (v. 8) and to take advantage of opportunities for witnessing created by the turmoil (v. 13). We are not to be concerned about preparing our defense, “for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict” (v. 15).

This is a very different view from that which is too often proclaimed from apocalyptic pulpits today. There is no car suddenly left driverless at a “Rapture”.  Jesus does not lift us above turmoil and suffering but drops us into the middle of it.

Jesus’ purpose is not to insulate us from discomfort, but to prepare us for redemption.

Be prepared – read the instructions!

https://www.flipsnack.com/sjvhouston/liturgy-of-the-word-1st-sunday-of-advent-yr-c/full-view.html

Adult Formation

 

Sunday marks the end of our liturgical Church Year.  On the following Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, we begin anew the ancient pattern of days, the circle of the Church Year. 

The Scripture passages proclaimed this weekend tell the story of Christ the King.  The Psalmist portrays a King, a man with splendid apparel, whose throne stands firm and will not be moved.

The Second Reading from the Book of Revelation has Jesus rolling in with the clouds proclaiming, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the one who is and was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Strength, power, dominion, glory.  This is the picture of the King these passages convey.

But then we get to the Gospel and the picture changes.  We find Jesus in front of Pilate.  Already arrested.  Already committed to what He knows will take place all too soon.

The exchange between Pilate and Jesus is about kingship.  Jesus’ royal status dominates the interrogation of Jesus by Pilate.

What kind of King is Jesus and what exactly does His kingdom look like?  The Gospels are full of parables about the Kingdom of God. “The Kingdom of God is like…” they begin. 

Jesus is a King whose power does not come from amassing troops or money or land.  Rather, He is a King whose dominion comes from His willingness to lay it all down; to lay His very life down for others – for us.

It is not the kind of King Pilate was familiar with nor anybody else around Jesus for that matter.  A King whose strength and power come from love and sacrifice not dominion and might.  The boundaries of His kingdom are not defined by anything other than God’s unfailing love.

It is easy for us to agree with Jesus, to confess Him as King and agree that His kingship was something quite different than either the Roman or the Jewish leadership understood by the term. 

The problem for us is not proclaiming Christ’s kingship.  Rather, the problem may be living as if we believe that Christ is King, that our allegiance to Him transcends every other allegiance or commitment or connection. 

The problem may be that we suffer from the same malady that plagued Pilate.  Throughout his dealings with Jesus, Pilate reveals himself as indecisive and noncommittal.  He is looking for ways to negotiate through the situation in order to preserve his power and avoid difficult decisions.

It is that temptation that confronts us today.  The temptation to confess with our lips but deny with our lives that Christ is King.

When Pilate begins his interrogation with his question to Jesus: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus, in typical fashion, responds with a question of His own by asking Pilate a crucial question: “Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?”    

Today Jesus is asking us if we call him King merely because we’ve heard others say it or because we personally know Him to be King.  Is he really our King, or is this just a slogan we’ve heard in church?  Do we believe that He is King or do we merely parrot what we’ve heard others say?

Today, the Lord invites us to allow Him to be our King.  And to those who say “yes”, the Lord has this further question: “Are you saying this on your own…?”

Is He really your King?  There are implications to your response.

Let us thank God that through the length of our days, from season to season, we are enabled to grow into the knowledge and love of His kingdom by pondering the King’s proclamations!

https://www.flipsnack.com/sjvhouston/liturgy-of-the-word-solemnity-of-christ-the-king-yr-b/full-view.html

Adult Formation

Each year at this time, as we approach the end of the current liturgical year, the Church asks us to meditate on the “last things” – Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell – as they apply to us.

This Sunday’s Gospel passage, together with Mathew 24 and Luke 21, is often called the “Little Apocalypse.”  Apocalypse literally means, “unveiling.”  What is unveiled in Sunday’s readings is the assurance that God will be with us all the days of our lives and is in our midst now – guiding, protecting, and strengthening us.

Jesus uses a parable of the fig tree to warn for watchfulness.  The fig tree sprouts its leaves in late Spring heralding the summer season.  The application of this image to the end of the world suggests that the end of the world will mean good times, or “summer” for Jesus’ faithful disciples.  God will bring things to a triumphant end and his truth, love, and justice will prevail forever.  Let no one frighten us with disturbing descriptions of the end of the world because “the end” is all about birth into eternity.  We affirm our readiness each Sunday when we profess, in the Creed, “….and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.  Amen.”

But we must always be well prepared to face our “end” because we do not know neither the day nor the hour of the ending of the world nor of our own life.  We live in the shadow of eternity.  Hence, faithful disciples are to watch and wait in a state of readiness.  “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord”, the Psalmist tells us (Ps 27: 14).

Instead of worrying or becoming alarmed about “end time” events, we are to live every day of our lives loving God, loving Him in others, and in committed service.  We must so live that it does not matter when he comes.  This gives us the great task of making every day fit for him to see. Thus, will we enter into a deeper relationship with Him now; one which will continue when we pass through death into a different kind of life.

Let us take heart and not be frightened.  The end of the world should never be thought of as depressing, disheartening, or frightening, because we are in the hands of a good and loving God.  He journeys with us in the trials and difficulties of life and His word is ever-present as a light of hope.  Through it, he speaks to us, consoles us, guides us, and holds us.

Don’t let go!

https://www.flipsnack.com/sjvhouston/liturgy-of-the-word-33rd-sunday-ot-yr-b-2021/full-view.html

Adult Formation

After a positive exchange with a scribe, which we heard about in last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus proceeded to discuss the negative practices of other scribes he had encountered.

Jesus points to men entrusted with religious leadership who have turned their positions of trust into a means for selfish gain and aggrandizement. These scribes focus on what they can get rather than what they can give.

Their long robes, expensive and impractical for manual labor, identify them as professionals.  The tassels on their robes are intended to be a reminder of the Mosaic Law (Numbers 15:38), but the excessive length is for show (Matthew 23:5).  Jesus has no more respect for long tassels than He does for large offerings.

The scribes relish the public honor that accompany their positions.  In the marketplace, people rise respectfully when they approach.  In the synagogue, scribes sit in seats of honor on the dais facing the congregation — seeing, but more importantly, being seen.

These are temptations for every age.  Who does not like red carpet treatment?  Who does not enjoy wearing finely tailored clothes?  Who does not enjoy being addressed by honorific titles?  All of these can be innocent or corrosive, depending on how they affect our relationships.

Juxtaposed with the scribal class is the widow in the second part of the passage.  She, too, becomes an example in Jesus’ teaching, a positive object lesson.  Jesus’ observation and teaching about the “poor widow” who sacrificed all that she had is a natural progression from His critique of scribal abuse of widows’ homes.

Jesus does not condemn the large gifts of wealthy people but says that the poor widow’s offering is even larger.  He measures the widow’s gift based not on the amount she gives but on the amount she keeps back for her own use—nothing!

Jesus’ appraisal of the widow’s two small coins reveal that what is measured is not the size of the gift, but the size of the heart.  The small coins most likely hardly made a sound as she dropped them into the metal receptacles.  But Jesus noticed the two small clinks and understood and treasured their significance.

Give a little of your treasured time to ponder God’s word—he’ll notice!

https://www.flipsnack.com/sjvhouston/liturgy-of-the-word-32nd_sunday-ot-b-2021/full-view.html

Adult Formation

In the previous controversies recorded in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ questioners were Pharisees and Sadducees.  Unlike them, the Scribe in Sunday’s Gospel is positively disposed toward Jesus, agrees with him, and is praised by him.  This Scribe approaches Jesus with a question regarding a matter which was regularly debated in the rabbinic schools of the day: “Which commandment is the first of all?”

 Rabbis espoused 613 commandments: 248 of them positive in form and 365 negative in form.  There was a tendency to either expand the Law limitlessly into hundreds and thousands of rules and regulations or, to try to gather up the Law into one sentence, one general statement, which would be a compendium of its whole message.  Hence, the Scribe who poses this question to Jesus was asking about something which was a living issue in Jewish thought and discussion.

For an answer Jesus took two commandments and put them together.  The first commandment Jesus cites is a quotation from Deuteronomy 6:4 and part of the Jewish daily prayer (the Shema):

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”.

 Thus, Jesus’ answer is thoroughly within the Jewish tradition.  Interestingly, Mark adds “mind” to the citation from Deuteronomy.  This reflects concern among Jews about “the things of the mind” prevalent in their Hellenistic environment.

Nonetheless, the reason for “piling up” parts of a person – “heart”, “soul”, “mind”, “strength”, – is to insist that the whole person is to love God.

The second part of Jesus’ response to the Scribe is a quotation from Leviticus 19:18b: “but you shall love your neighbor as yourself…”.

The Scribe willingly accepted Jesus’ response and went on to say that such a love was “worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices”, echoing what is written in 1 Samuel: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?  Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…” (1 Samuel 15:22); and Hosea, “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings…” (Hosea 6:6).

It can be easy to let ritual take the place of love.  It can be easy to let worship become a matter of simply stepping inside the church building instead of a matter of letting Jesus inside one’s whole life. 

Perhaps this is why the Scribe found favor with Jesus and “not far from the kingdom”; after all, the King was standing before him.

Draw near to the King through his word.

https://www.flipsnack.com/sjvhouston/liturgy-of-the-word-31st-sunday-ot-yr-b-2021/full-view.html

Adult Formation

The man in the Gospel “ran up” to Jesus, eager to know how to “inherit eternal life.”  How quickly his demeanor changed when Jesus, looking on him with love, challenged him to one thing further: he must sell what he had, give to the poor, and then, follow Jesus (“follow me”). 

Following Jesus demands that we choose not to be possessed by things, but by Jesus himself.  To be possessed by Jesus we must be willing to give up our greatest possession of all – what is that for you?

“Brothers and sisters: Indeed the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.  No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.”                          Hebrews 4:12-13

Live into his word!

https://www.flipsnack.com/sjvhouston/liturgy-of-the-word-28th-sunday-ot-b/full-view.html