The Nativity of the Lord, Cycle B - December 25, 2023

 The Nativity of the Lord – Christmas – Cycle B

December 25, 2023 – 6 and 9 pm

Our Lady of Grace Parish, Parkton 

 

When Night Ends

 

There is a story that several centuries ago, a wise old rabbi asked his students this question: how can you tell when night had ended, and day is on its way back?

 

One student responded, “Could it be when you see an animal in the distance and can tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?” The old rabbi answered, “No!”    

 

Another student chimed in, “Could it be when you see a tree in the distance and can tell whether it is a fig tree or a pear tree?” And again, the old rabbi shook his head, “No!”

 

The students were becoming frustrated. One of them called out, “Well, then, when is it?”

 

The old rabbi responded, “It is when you look on the face of any man or woman and see that he or she is your brother or sister. Because if you cannot do that, then no matter what time it is, for you it is still night.”

 

O Holy Night

 

Well, on Christmas, we celebrate a very special night.

 

We sing, in one of our beautiful Christmas carols, O Holy Night. And we call it Holy because what happens on this night is intended to mark the end of night.

 

The birth of Jesus Christ is the moment when “day is on its way back,” to use the words of the wise, old rabbi. I see this happening in several ways.

 

Day Returns: All as Brothers and Sisters

 

First, the infant in Bethlehem embraces all human beings.

 

I find it significant that the Christ child attracts and reaches out to the poor, lower-class, uneducated shepherds. And he attracts and reaches out to the affluent, upper-class, educated wise men.

 

With his outstretched arms, Jesus sees everyone as brother and sister. And so, with him, the day is on its way back when we see our oneness with all other persons – be they refugees fleeing oppression or family members from whom we are alienated. 

 

The Christmas carol O Holy Night invites us to see others in this way. Just think of the words: 

 

“Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His Gospel is peace.” 

 

Day Returns: Self-Worth

 

And then the infant in Bethlehem affirms our worth as persons.

 

God, taking on our humanity in Jesus, proclaims our inherent value as human beings. No longer do we need to feel worthless or doubt our self-worth.

 

The birth of Jesus has so fused the human with the divine that the night of a diminished sense of self is over. We can now find the basis of our worth in the day that the birth of Jesus brings. 

 

And again, the Christmas carol O Holy Night proclaims this. Just think of the words:

 

“Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.”

 

Day Returns: Hope

 

And finally, the infant in Bethlehem gives us hope.

 

Sometimes we can grow weary trying to keep up with the stresses of everyday life. Sometimes we can grow weary as we look at the problems facing our country and our world – and those problems are very evident right now.

 

In the midst of this, the Christ child offers us the hope of “Emmanuel,” a name which means“God is with us.” He offers us the assurance of sustaining us through each minute of “night” until “day” starts to come back.

 

And again, the Christmas carol O Holy Night proclaims this hope. Just think of the words:

 

“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”   

 

Conclusion

 

So, the night begins to end, and the day is on its way back.

 

That’s what the infant in Bethlehem offers us. No wonder we sing:

 

“O holy night, the stars are brightly shining;

It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!”

3rd Sunday of Advent, Cycle B - December 17, 2023

 3rd Sunday of Advent – B Cycle 

December 17, 2023 – 5pm

Our Lady of Grace Parish, Parkton 

 

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

The hymn that I have always linked with the Advent Season is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.We sang this at the beginning of Mass.

 

I remember singing this hymn from when I was a child. It is a real classic and it dates – amazingly –all the way back to the year 800 – 1200 years ago!  

 

It contains verses like these: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel. That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear.”

 

Then, another verse: “To us the path of knowledge show, And teach us in her ways to go.”And one more: “Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death’s dark shadow put to flight.” 

 

A Savior?  From What?

 

This hymn beautifully expresses our human yearning for a savior and for salvation.

 

This desire lies at the heart of the Advent Season. But I think there is an important question here.

 

Do you and I, as people who generally like to be independent and self-sufficient, do we really believe that we need to be saved? Do we really believe we need a savior?

 

Or, to put it differently, from what do we need to be saved? This is an important question, and it is especially appropriate during Advent.  

 

A twentieth-century theologian named Paul Tillich has a great insight into why we need a savior and what we need to be saved from. He says that we need a savior because, deep-down, we feel three anxieties.

 

We feel anxiety 1) about darkness, 2) about meaning, and 3) about death. These three anxieties exist right in the core of our humanity.

 

From Anxiety about Darkness

 

First, deep-down we feel anxiety about darkness.

 

We see that there is darkness in the world, and this is very clear right now with the wars that are being fought. We wonder if we have some responsibility for this darkness.

 

We are also sure that there is some darkness within us. We know that sometimes we do wrong despite our good intentions.  

 

And so, we need salvation from this anxiety about darkness, a savior who can forgive us and love us unconditionally. And this is why we sing, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel.”    

 

From Anxiety about Meaning

 

And then, deep-down we feel anxiety about meaning.

 

This anxiety may show itself in our need to be right. Or it may show itself in our need to have our thinking or our accomplishments affirmed all the time. 

 

Or we may worry that we are missing something in life. We may have an inner, gnawing feeling that our basic life choices have left us incomplete and that there must be more to life.

 

And so, we need salvation from this anxiety about meaning, a savior who gives us the way and the purpose and the goal for our lives. And this is why we sing, “To us the path of knowledge show, And teach us in her ways to go.”  

 

From Anxiety about Death

 

Finally, deep-down we feel anxiety about death.

 

We know that eventually we will die but we don’t like thinking about it. Our hair starts to turn gray, and we probably aren’t too pleased.

 

We may find ourselves getting tired and having less energy, and we try to avoid admitting it. We resist facing up to these things because they remind us, maybe only subconsciously, of death.

 

And so, we need salvation from this anxiety about death, a savior who can transform death into new life. And this is why we sing, “Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death’s dark shadow put to flight.”

 

Salvation from These Anxieties

 

What I recommend is that Advent addresses these deep-down human anxieties – about darkness and meaning and death.

 

John the Baptist in today’s gospel and this entire Advent season point us to a savior, to the savior. And this is why we can make today’s words of Isaiah our own: “I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul; for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation.” 

 

2nd Sunday of Advent, Cycle B - December 10, 2023

 2nd Sunday of Advent – B 

December 10, 2023 – 8:30 and 11am  

Our Lady of Grace Parish, Parkton

 

Penance/Reconciliation/Confession 

 

I remember that when I was a child, my parents would take my brother and me to Confession every two weeks or so.

 

Okay! I know that some of you are probably thinking that I needed it! Well, maybe I did, but that kind of frequent Confession was standard practice back then. 

 

I remember also that I had to come up with a kind of grocery list of sins and numbers – like disobeying my parents ten times and things like that. I felt anxious that I would forget something.

 

Well, today, the understanding and practice of this sacrament is a bit different. And that’s what I want to talk about this morning. 

 

The Name

 

The first thing I want to comment on is the name of the sacrament.

 

It is officially called the Sacrament of Penance. Penance means that we bring some area of sinfulness to God for forgiveness and that we resolve to try to do better. 

 

That’s what John the Baptist is talking about in today’s gospel. He was offering a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

 

Part of our Sacrament of Penance is a penance. This is some prayer or action that the priest asks us to do as a way to begin living out our renewed relationship with God. 

 

Now, this sacrament is also called Reconciliation. That is really its purpose anyway – our reconciliation with God, with ourselves, and even with others. 

 

I know we often refer to this as confession. That’s okay, but in truth, the word confession names the entire sacrament by just one part of it. 

 

Why?

 

That’s a good segue to this question: why do we as Catholics have this individual confession of sin to a priest?

 

This is a distinctive feature of Catholicism. Well, for one thing, Jesus gave us this sacrament when he said to the apostles: “Whose sins you forgive shall be forgiven.” 

 

Through our 2,000-year history, this sacrament has taken different forms, but it has always been there. Still, the question is: can’t we just confess our sins directly to God without going to a priest? 

 

And the answer is yes and no, and that will be clear in just a minute. Right now, I want to say that this sacrament with individual confession is an opportunity for a personal experience with God. 

 

God relates to us supremely in the humanity of Jesus. The core of our faith is incarnational, the divine being expressed in the human. 

 

So, in this sacrament, the intention is for us to experience God’s forgiveness in a very human way, through the absolution of the priest. This brings a fullness to the experience of forgiveness.      

 

How Often? 

 

Okay, with that said, the next question is: when or how often are we to receive this sacrament?

 

The Church teaches that we only have to go to confession when we need to be forgiven for some serious sin. Now, most of us have a sense of what serious sin is; I plan to focus on that some other time.

 

The Church, and this is important, also encourages us to come to confession more often, for ordinary or less serious sins. And some of you, like myself, do that. 

 

This is for things like losing our temper or being untruthful and a host of other things. The idea here is that this sacrament is a means to receive God’s grace and keep growing in our relationship with God. 

 

This sacrament can also be especially good in the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent. It is a way of preparing for the sacred celebrations of Christmas and Easter.  

 

And, of course, Penance or Reconciliation can be wonderful at significant moments of our lives – like before getting married, or when a loved one has died, or when we are about to retire from our job or go off to college for the first time. It is a way to mark a new beginning or new chapter in our lives. 

 

Concluding Recommendations 

 

Okay, I have packed a lot into this, and now I want to conclude with two recommendations.

 

First, each day, maybe in the morning or at night, pray what we call an Act of Contrition. A sample Act of Contrition is printed in today’s bulletin.

 

Do this every day. It is a good practice to bring ourselves humbly to God and express our sorrow for any sin.

 

And my other recommendation is just to think about the place of Penance, Reconciliation, confession in your own life. Just think about this and see if it has a place for you. 

 

The important thing is a penitential spirit. That spirit will keep us alive and growing in God. 

 

 

1st Sunday of Advent, Cycle B - December 3, 2023

 1st Sunday of Advent – B

December 3, 2023

Our Lady of Grace Parish, Bel Air

 

The Evergreens 

 

Today, the Cherokee Nation is the largest tribe of Native Americans in the United States.

 

More then 141,000 Cherokee Nation citizens reside in the tribe’s reservation in northeastern Oklahoma. The Cherokee tradition has a story about creation.

 

The story says that when the plants and trees were first made, the Great Mystery (and that is their name for God) the Great Mystery said this to them. “I want you to keep watch over the earth for seven nights.”

 

The young trees and plants were so excited that the first night they did not find it difficult at all to keep watch. However, the second night was not so easy, and a few of them fell asleep.

 

On the third and fourth nights, more of them fell asleep. By the time the seventh night came, the only trees and plants keeping watch were the cedar, the fir, the holly, the laurel, the pine, and the spruce.

 

The Great Mystery said, “What wonderful endurance you have! You shall be given the gift of remaining green forever.

 

“You will be the guardians of the forest. Even in the dead of winter, your brother and sister creatures will find life protected in your branches.”

 

Ever since then, all the other trees and plants lose their leaves and sleep all winter. But the evergreens keep their leaves and keep watch. 

 

Be Watchful 

 

This story from some of our indigenous peoples has a good Advent message.

 

The evergreens are an image of being watchful. In today’s gospel, Jesus uses the expression “Watch” or “Be watchful” four times.

 

Some of Catholic and other Christian writers say that spirituality is the discipline of watching or being watchful. Being able to see God acting and hear God speaking depends on this.    

 

Two questions pop up for me. How do we become watchful? And what does this do for us?

 

How? 

 

First, how can we be spiritually watchful?

 

For me, this can be answered with one word: stillness. We need some stillness in our lives.

 

This is not easy. Most of us are busy people, most of us are doers, and we usually do not value just being still.

 

But from my own experience, I am convinced that we need this. So, I recommend that we try to carve out at least five minutes of stillness each day.

 

Ideally, to have this, we need to be alone and to be doing nothing. Maybe we can find a time and place in our home or somewhere else for this. 

 

Practically speaking, for many of us, this stillness may have to happen when we are alone but driving the car or walking for some exercise. But it is important to do this without any music or news coming from our radio or through our ear buds.

 

This stillness may be a new idea and five minutes may at first feel like five hours. But it is essential if we are going to be watchful as Jesus calls us to be. 

 

What?

 

That takes me to the other question: What does this do for us?

 

Well, when we are still, we can first be in touch with ourselves – with what is going on in our lives, with our commitments to family or friends, with the stress of our jobs, with the upset in a relationship. Stillness first makes us watchful in these ways.

 

And then, in this stillness, we watch for God. How is God speaking to me or nudging me right now?

 

What is it that God wants me to do? What does God want me to say?

 

Our stillness and our being watchful in this way will allow God to mold us, to make us who we really are to be. In our first reading today, there is the wonderful image of the potter and the clay.

 

Isaiah images God as a potter fashioning us like a lump of clay. So, in our stillness and watchfulness, God molds us as persons.  

 

This won’t happen for you and me quickly. But over time, little by little, God the potter will shape us more and more into his image and likeness and more and more in the way of Jesus.

 

Conclusion

 

I hope that the evergreens of our Advent Wreath remind us of the story from the Cherokees.

 

And I hope that this story reminds us to watch – to have some stillness and to stay watchful.