Patience and Hope

Be patient, says the letter of James from which we just heard [James 5:7-10], until the coming of the Lord. Now, whoever first picked that text to be read right at the mid-point of Advent probably was not intending to be ironic. For us who hear those words today, however, it may seem somewhat ironic to preach about patience in the middle of what has become, for most people, by far the busiest, most frantic time of the year. It is just one of the many paradoxes of our peculiarly post-natural, modern way of life that we manage to be busiest precisely at the very time of the year when everything else in nature is telling us it’s time to slow down. Winter is, among other things, nature’s way of slowing down. Note, for example, James’s reference to the farmer, who waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it, until it receives the early and the late rains. Back before modern technology made us think of ourselves as superior to and separate from the natural order of things, everything slowed down in winter. All sorts of activities came to a halt. Outdoor work and even wars stopped for the season. Of course, modern technology has made all these activities possible now even in winter – and indeed (if something is not done about it soon) may eventually even eliminate winter as we have known it.

Folkloric customs, like our Advent Wreath, remind us that, when winter was really winter, people paused. The Advent Wreath likely originated in the once common custom of removing wheels form carts at the beginning of winter. The practice developed of decorating such a wheel with evergreen branches and candles. If the light of the candles has come to signify the bright light of Christ coming to penetrate the dark night of our present world, the wreath itself signifies our readiness to slow down enough to be able to see the light despite the winter dark.

It may or may not have been winter, but John the Baptist was in the dark too. Confined in Herod’s prison, he too was looking for light and so sent his disciples to Jesus to ask [Matthew 11:2-11]: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”

John’s problem (besides being in prison) was whether or not his life’s work had really made sense. John had confidently proclaimed the coming of God’s kingdom and had forcefully challenged people – including Herod – to repentance. Just how successful he was is hard to gauge, but he obviously had made an impression. He’d also acquired enemies powerful enough to put an end to his mission and put him in prison. He had, however, also made disciples, whom he now sent to evaluate Jesus.

Jesus’ (somewhat indirect) answer was meant to reassure John, by recalling the biblical prophecies in which they both believed. Look, Jesus seemed to be saying, the things that are supposed to happen when the Messiah comes really are happening! What more evidence do you need? “Go, and tell John what you hear and see.” In other words, the reality of God’s kingdom is already happening – happening here, happening now!

The Gospel gives us no record of John’s reaction to Jesus’ response. He departs the scene with his question. But it’s a question that the world keeps asking: Jesus, are you the one who is to come, or should we be looking elsewhere? There are, after all, a lot of other places one could look. And increasingly people – particularly younger people, but not just younger people – are doing just that. The contemporary world is a kind of spiritual smorgasbord, with lots and lots of choices and alternatives. But it’s also a world full of confusion and chaos, of broken lives and broken hearts. In such a world, John’s question cannot simply go away – unless, of course, one is prepared to give up and abandon hope entirely.

That John was not willing to do, and people generally have not been willing to do. That is why Christmas is so important, now maybe more than ever. In the dark night of winter, full of fear, danger, and anxiety, in the long night of the present, haunting us, as yet another year comes to an end, with so many memories of lost opportunities, unfulfilled longings, and ruptured relationships, Christmas comes in answer to John’s – and our – question.

Christmas, of course, commemorates an historical event, some 2000+ years ago. Our celebration of Christmas, however, is only in part about remembering an event in the past. It is also – and primarily – about the future for which the coming of Christ into our world makes it possible for us to hope, already even in the present. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote, a few years back, in his encyclical On Christian Hope: “If we cannot hope for more than is attainable at any given time, or more than is promised by political and economic authorities, our lives will soon be without hope. It is important to know that I can always continue to hope, even if in my own life, or the historical period in which I am living, there seems to be nothing left to hope for.”

It was as the historical spokesman for our hope – the perennial hope of men and women of every time and place – that John in prison posed his question, a powerful question, a question the world keeps on asking. To us, as to John, Jesus challenges us to pay attention, and so to hear and see the signs – the powerful signs – of God’s presence and action in our lives and in our world, enabling and inviting us to live in hope, as people of hope.

And because it is we (who continue Christ’s life and mission in the world as his Church), we, who are now the voice of Christ for the world to hear and the face of Christ for the world to see, it is we who are being asked John’s question and we who must answer it by the witness of our own hope – hope for ourselves and hope for the whole world.

Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God … he comes to save you [Isaiah 35:4].

Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, December 12, 2010.

Cuauhtlatoatzin

Today the Church celebrates the memory of St. Juan Diego. Born Cuauhtlatoatzin (“Talking Eagle”), he took the Christian name Juan Diego at his baptism. On December 9, 10, and 12, 1531, the Blessed Virgin Mary (since then invoked under the title Our Lady of Guadalupe) appeared to Juan Diego on Tepeyac hill, near the old Aztec imperial city Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City).

Speaking to Juan Diego, Mary identified heerself as "the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of the True God who is the Author of life, the Creator of all things, the Lord of heaven and earth, present everywhere." She asked "that here, there be raised to me a temple in which, as a loving mother I shall show my tender clemency and the compassion I feel for the natives and for those who love and seek me, for all who implore my protection, who call on me in their labors and afflictions: and in which I shall hear their weeping and their supplications that I may give them consolation and relief.”

The famous image, which miraculously appeared on Juan Diego’s cloak (tilma), has been venerated ever since in the magnificent shrine in Mexico City near the site of the event. In 1988, in the course of a summer spent studying in Guadalajara, I had the privilege of venerating the miraculous picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Basilica in Mexico City. Fifteen years later, in 2003, I was present in New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral when a small, half-inch square relic of St. Juan Diego’s tilma was exposed for veneration. The only known such relic in the United States, it was originally a gift from the Archbishop of Mexico to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1941, and in recent years has been displayed in various U.S. cities in commemoration of Juan Diego’s canonization in 2002.

In his homily on that occasion, Pope John Paul II said “Guadalupe and Juan Diego have a deep ecclesial and missionary meaning and are a model of perfectly inculturated evangelization. … In accepting the Christian message without forgoing his indigenous identity, Juan Diego discovered the profound truth of the new humanity, in which all are called to be children of God.”

In 1531, Mary asked for a church to be built. Almost immediately, the Church began to be built among the peoples of this continent, calling and forming disciples throughout North and South America. Under the patronage of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the building of the Church continues on this continent - inspired by the example of St. Juan Diego to be constantly more evangelizing and more missionary.

The Immaculate Conception

It was my one of the first phone calls I received at my first assignment after seminary. On the line was someone wanting advice - because the Devil was throwing books at him. At first, I felt totally at a loss how to answer. Nothing in my training had, I thought, prepared me for this. I remember thinking to myself, “I hope at least they are paperbacks,” which thankfully I didn’t say out loud and which would probably not have been very helpful if I had. As we talked, however, it became obvious to me what the right answer really was – namely, that in Christ God has already defeated the Devil, decisively defeated the Devil. For God is more powerful than anything we can throw at him – or the Devil can throw at us. God is more powerful than sin. And that is essentially what we celebrate today on this great festival of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the patronal feast of our historic parish.

When the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous in what was then more-or-less a garbage dump in a very cold and wet, little town in the Pyrenees Mountains, known as Lourdes, in 1858, she identified herself with the words, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Poor Bernadette did not recognize the reference or understand the meaning of those words. No surprise there! Intellectuals had been arguing about their meaning for centuries. In 1497, the University of Paris had decreed that no one should be admitted to the University without first swearing to assert and defend Mary’s Immaculate Conception! (One can only wonder, if that rule were still on the books, how much better off European society might be today!)

It was only in 1854 – just four years before the miraculous events at Lourdes – that Blessed Pope Pius IX finally defined infallibly the essence of the Church’s belief about Mary’s Immaculate Conception – the Church’s faith that, thanks to the salvation accomplished on our behalf by her Son, Jesus, Mary was preserved from all sin, from the very beginning of her earthly existence, and so was from the very start completely holy. She is, as the English Romantic poet Wiliam Wordsworth (1770-1850) famously called her:

Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! above all nature glorified,
Our tainted nature’s solitary boast.

The story we just heard from the Old Testament [Genesis 3:9-15, 20] highlights the serious damage done by Adam and Eve to themselves and to the whole rest of the world. Adam and Eve symbolize and represent all of us and the damage all of us have continued to do to ourselves and to our world, through our sinful alienation from God. Mary, however, holy Mary, represents the healing effect of God’s far-greater power – and his powerful plan to save us form ourselves.

The story calls Eve the mother of all the living. In spite of sin, human life continued – the very first sign that God is not ready to give up on us. Of course, the serpent still lives and continues his mischief, but his doom is already certain. He (Eve’s greatest descendant and Mary’s Son) will strike at the serpent’s head and crush him.

When Our Lady appeared in Mexico in 1531, she spoke in the Aztec language, Nahuatl (as at Lourdes she would later speak not in fancy French but in the local Pyrenees dialect). The Nahuatl word, which to the Spaniards sounded like an already familiar title, “Guadalupe,” literally meant “Who crushes the serpent.”

God’s great plan for our salvation, the mystery decided upon from all eternity and hidden for so many centuries, has been realized in Mary’s Son, Jesus, and is now revealed in the life and mission of the Church. Mary’s holiness at the very beginning of her earthly life is the Church’s holiness at its beginning and invites us to look forward to the Church as it will one day be in the perfect holiness of God’s kingdom.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you!

Homily on the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, December 8, 2010.

The Tree on Summit Hill

This morning, as snow is falling on Knoxville, our parish Christmas Tree stands in front of the Church – dark, but standing. Tomorrow, December 8, I will bless it and then the lights will be turned on. Given the church’s prominent location – at the summit of "Summit Hill" – an outdoor Christmas Tree seems like such an obvious thing to do. The flip side of being at the top of a hill, however, is the wind, which has already blown the tree down. But we got it up again, and have it anchored all that much more securely, so as (we hope) to guarantee that it won’t fall over again!

The city had its Christmas Parade this past Friday. But we are waiting until Wednesday to light our tree because, of course, December 8 is the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the patronal feast of the United States and of this - the first - Catholic parish in Knoxville. The Immaculate Conception celebrates our belief - as an article of Catholic faith - that “the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, was, by the singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Christ Jesus the Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin” (Blessed Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, 1854).

When the Church defines a truth as “revealed by God,” this does not suggest some new revelation but bears witness to what has been revealed from the beginning and has been transmitted over time through the tradition of the Church. In reference to the Immaculate Conception, scripture and Church tradition affirm that the grace of God filled Mary’s life from the beginning. In view of her vocation to be the mother of Christ, we recognize that Christ’s redeeming work was effective in Mary in the depths of her being and at her earliest beginnings.

Mary’s sinless conception prepared her for her special role in Christ’s coming into the world, and thus helped to prepare the world for that great event. This harmonizes especially well with the salient themes of the Advent season - preparing ourselves and the world for Christ’s return and disposing ourselves to recognize his presence among us here and now by contemplating his first coming into the world at Christmas.

On May 13, 1846, the 6th Provincial council of Baltimore, attended by 23 (out of 26) U.S. bishops, in the Council’s first decision requested the Holy See to name the Blessed Virgin Mary as patroness of the United States, under the title of the Immaculate Conception. On November 20, 1959, thousands of Catholics gathered with their bishops for the dedication of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Prominently located on the campus of The Catholic University of America, the National Shrine (now a Basilica) has become a major focus for pilgrimages for Americans from all over the United States, a vibrant testimony to our Catholic faith in this singular grace given, for our sake, to her whom, in consequence, we can constantly invoke as “Mary, full of grace.”

Meanwhile, here in East Tennessee in 1855, the first Catholic Church in Knoxville was erected on Summit Hill and dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. For 155 years, a Catholic Church has stood on this hill as a vivid sign of the Church’s outreach to all who live, work, or visit within sight of its tower. May our parish Christmas Tree, which will be lit in time for Wednesday evening’s festive Mass, be a beacon highlighting this parish's mission - the Church’s mission - to illuminate our world with Christmas grace.

On Jordan's Bank

Every year at this time, with the harsh Judean desert as his dramatic backdrop, John the Baptist returns to center stage each Advent, as we hear him shouting up and down the Jordan Valley, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

For us today, John seems a somewhat mysterious, elusive, and probably not very attractive figure. He appears, ever so briefly, at the beginning of Jesus’ public life. Then, before we have barely gotten to know him, he’s gone. From the little we do know, however, he comes across as the sort of person who may be much admired, but preferably from a safe distance – and after he is safely dead. So having heard his rather shrill shouting every 2nd Sunday of Advent, we are ready right away to put him back in storage, so to speak, while we focus instead on the more charming sounds of the holiday season. This is the season to be jolly, after all. And no one ever called John “jolly”!

We, of course, expect our celebrities to be good-looking and to wear the right kind of clothes. I suspect that most of us, were he to be transported into our time, might be tempted to treat him like any other odd-looking character, standing on the street haranguing us about the end of the world or whatever. Most likely, we would ignore him. Matthew, however, says that at that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.

Even the religious professionals, the Pharisees and Sadducees, took an interest – although all they got in return was to be denounced as a brood of vipers. Poor Pharisees and Sadducees! As the old saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished!

I really wonder how effective John’s approach was with the Pharisees and Sadducees. Like them, most of us respond better to positive reinforcement. Most of us would probably shy away from John’s message. Most of us, in fact, prefer our religion to be as predictable and comfortable as possible. John, however, had a whole other agenda, which is why we hear him in Advent. In a sense, John’s entire life was like one long Advent!

Of course, it’s easy for Advent to pass us by, overshadowed as it is by all the activity connected with Christmas. Overshadowed or not, however, Advent is a very special season, Christianity is, after all, a very historical religion, that takes time very seriously. We believe that time has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning, of course, was creation. The middle, not necessarily mathematically, but religiously the center of all history was when God became personally a part of human history in Jesus. Everything since then, however long, constitutes the last phase of human history – everything since Jesus’ return to his Father and his gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church to continue his presence and action in the world.

We don’t know how long this final phase of history will last. The point is not pinpointing the date of Christ’s 2nd coming (as many have tried to do and many would like us to be able to do), but rather what happens in this interval between Christ’s 1st coming at Christmas and his final coming for which we wait – as we say every day at Mass – in joyful hope. What we do in this interval between Christmas and the end is what living a Christian life ultimately comes down to. So each one of our lives, like the life of John the Baptist, has to be thought of as in a sense one long Advent.

John told those Pharisees and Sadducees: “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.” In other words, make good use of this time that we have been given. Advent is about re-examining our lives and allowing God to reshape us. It’s a process we dare not avoid, lest we get stuck in the same rut as the Pharisees and Sadducees.

God is still very much at work in our world. His great plan for the world – and for each one of us – is still enfolding. So John the Baptist appears on the scene very Advent to tell us it’s time to get on board, to re-examine our lives, and so be ready to participate in the glorious new world which God has already begun building.

Homily for 2nd Sunday of Advent, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, December 5, 2010.