The Holy Innocents

For many, this feast of the Holy Innocents will bring to mind aborted children, whose souls like those of the innocents who died at the hand of Herod have already fled home to God. Beyond that, and in no way to minimize that, I find the day also brings to mind children who were victims of genocide, which would also describe Herod’s action. It brings to mind children who have been abused and neglected and who have died as a result. It brings to mind children who live, live in households without love and suffer as a result, children who are living in the darkness of the selfishness of others and are dying from a lack of hope. Yet that hope is ready, waiting and available in the one Child Herod was unable to kill.

A Blessed Christmas Octave...

Have taken a few days off, which means that I have pretty much shut down my professional and media-related activities in order to have a quiet, reflective Christmas with my beloved wife. It is a good Christmas here and I pray that yours is as well.

Turn Toward the East...

This has been a quiet and wonderful Advent. Since we decided not to travel this year, I have been able to spend more time immersing myself into the prayer of the season and finding more time to listen. (Note: my wife and I have fairly well dropped out of the cultural Christmas thing.)

I especially have been focusing on the "O Antiphons." Today, right after the Radiant Dawn, the King of all nations. One writer points out that now the focus swings to mankind and not just he people of Israel. Thinking about that, I realize that this is also the day the sun starts to come back.

The beauty and depth of these liturgical practices never fail to amaze me. A deep, quiet place to go in these outwardly hectic days.

The King of All Nations, Yes, yes indeed.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy?

Once again, we hear the story of the Annunciation as we draw close to Christmas day, and once again we get to ponder Mary's "yes." To me, this "yes" says so much to us whose lives don't make sense to people who wonder about faith. "After all you have been through," they ask, "how can you have faith?" Somehow we associate faith with a "good" life, one free of pain and filled with "blessings" and "goodness." Ever notice how we equate blessing with comfort and "good" things? Mary was not saying "yes" to that. Neither was Christ. Neither are we, really.

Mary's "yes" makes our "yes" possible. Mary's "yes" was yes to carrying the Son of God and mothering the incarnate Son. "Yes" to making her life his. Our "yes" is so much like that, though far less perfect. Our "yes" is inviting Christ to be in our lives, with all their muck and mire. Come, Lord, join me in my mess and guide me through it.

Matthew 1:1-17

What appears to be such a boring reading is really this beautiful panorama of the mystery of God's love for his creation. He is constantly working to bring us home. The acts of generations all played a part in his grand plane, perhaps knowingly and perhaps knowingly. Finally it reaches a point where it depends on the "yes" of two apparently common and unknown people, Joseph and Mary, who said "yes" over and over again. And from there, it continues. It is continuing now as I write this or you read it. I don't know about you, but I've got to sit down for this. This great, holy tapestry of salvation, this on-going active relationship between the Creator and the created. The God who we know yet is mysterious in his ways just the same. The God who loves us and baffles us simultaneously. There is a oneness to this that cannot be summed up in a few words.

We are deeply entangled with our God, one way or another. We can join in or struggle to stay away. Or we can ignore it and grow cold. But we cannot escape it.

Isaiah And the Radio Station...

For the mountains may depart

the hills be shaken,

but my love for you will never leave you

and my covenant of peace with you will never be shaken,

says the Lord who takes pity on you.

Isaiah 54:10

Years ago, wrote the old radio guy, there was a station in New York City that was renowned for constantly changing its programming. The station's call letters were WPIX, the FM sister of the TV station owned at that time by the Daily News. At one point, 'PIX decided to try a "love songs" soft pop approach and it worked fairly well for them. What I recall, and why I bring this up here, is the ad campaign for the station. " Your 'X' wants you back!!!" was the slogan. So as I read Isaiah this morning, what pops into my mind? Yep. "Your 'X' wants you back."

Sorry. Old radio guys think this way.

What is this season all about? Your Ex wants you back. 'PIX wanted its listeners back one more time, and our Creator wants us back as well, and he wants us back forever. So we have the promise of love and the delivery of love in Jesus Christ.

Your Ex wants you back. Actually, the Ex should be us, Ex as in "Exile." We are in exile. We are looking for that love. We are working our way back. And He is making it very, very possible.

So, widen the tents in these remaining days of Advent. Make room for the Ex who wants you back.

Third Sunday of Advent

It's always been a little interesting to me that John the Baptist questioned who Jesus was after he had actually baptized him. Yet here we are this morning, reading in Matthew how the Baptist sent his people to Jesus to see what was going on. The notes in my Jerusalem Bible say that perhaps John was questioning Jesus because Jesus was not the kind of Messiah John expected.

How often does God not live up to our perceptions of who we think he ought to be?

How often have we discarded those perceptions, sometimes painfully, only to get still yet another glimpse of who God actually Is?

Each day, we are called to further conversion, further surrender of self. The hope we have is not that God fits into what we think he should be but that we turn out to be what he had in mind when he created us.

Coming To The Turn

The third Sunday is approaching and we'll get to light the pink candle. We round the bend and head for home for Advent 2010. Funny, but when I worked in broadcast sales, this was the date I always told my sellers they needed to have their goals met, because after about today, people tend to shift away from the heavy lifting and focus more on the holidays. We are drawn to what's to come, whether we're in it for our eternal life, or just looking forward to the toys. There are two weeks to go, but this Advent to date has been a journey of both hope and emptiness. Hope for the miracle of life that God created out of death, and emptiness because of the longing that comes from still being on the journey, still feeling the pain, the loneliness and, as David writes, truly knowing your sins; the 51st Psalm which we pray each Friday in morning prayers. When your friends start passing, you know your Advents are truly numbered. When your friends suffer from illness and loss, you know there is no escaping the path. And when your friends go through their personal valleys of death in a peaceful, almost joyful way, you know there is a God. It has indeed been a blessed Advent.

Star of the Sea

Growing up, and into adulthood, I have to admit that I was never a Marian person.  It was not that I had any sort of theological problem with Mary as Mother of God. I simply did not see how Mary fit into my relationship with God. To my way of thinking, she was more of a historical figure than anything else.  Throughout much of my life, I took Mary with the passive acceptance of a lot of cradle Catholics.
Not anymore.
There's no point in my life where I can say the light went on as to my knowing the Blessed Mother. Except that I found that the prayer I pray more often than any other is the Hail Mary.  That, the Our Father and the doxology.  Then there was the realization that if anyone understood the grief of a parent for a lost child, it would be Mary.  Above all, Mary has come to mean to me our "yes" to God. She has shown us the way, like a good mother will.  Without her "yes," well...
Of all the titles bestowed on Mary, my favorite is Stella Maris, Star of the Sea.  When I was a kid on Long Island, whenever we sang of the Star of the Sea, I would think about being on south shore beaches when night rolled in, and how different the ocean would seem.  Now I think simply of navigation.  Two stars in our skies to get a fix from...The Mother and the Son.
For your homework, go to the Liturgy of the Hours for today and read St. Anslem on Mary.

Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent

The reading of Isaiah through these
Advent days now turned dark and cold where I am has revived hope and faith in
my heart, running with me each day, like a song that stays on your mind.  Today, no different. 

"Shout with a loud voice, Jerusalem, Shout without fear.

Say to the towns of Judah, ‘Here is your God!”

Tooday another theme enters the song.  The God of “caritas,” the God of
love.

“He is like a shepherd feeding his flocks, gathering lambs in his arms…”

This wonderful, great Creator is simply the One who Loves.  It is his motive in
everything he has done and will do. There is no greater sign of this love than the Cross.  There is also no greater lesson for us who are made in his image and likeness, and who proclaim to follow him.

Earlier I  wrote earlier that there is faith and hope, and that they cannot exist without love. What is the love our Lord calls us to? The love of being third.  God first, everyone else second. The love of being the humble servant who gives himself over to complete service.  The love reflected back to God that comes from him initially. 

On a Really Cold Friday Morning In Advent

Yesterday, I was reminded of the loss of a friend to death this past month as I looked at his picture on the kitchen desk. Looking out the window, all I could see was the grey winter sky and the stark branches of the empty trees and the weird glare of the street lights strung along the cross street not far from our house.  I was left with the feeling that we truly are in exile in this world, that none of this is the final destination, that I will not stay here, in this place, "forever."   I, too, and my wife as well,  and all of us at some time will follow my friend into death.  We will move on to what's next.

Enter the readings of this week.  The themes of faith and hope have run through them.  The theme of hope jumps off the pages of Isaiah, what life will be like when the Lord God restores his people.  This morning in Matthew we have the faith of the two blind men, who believe Christ can truly cure them.

This is our story in Advent.  We know that we are an exiled people.  We hope for the eternal feast that Isaiah writes, and we have the faith of blind men that Jesus Christ is the Way to that eternal life.  So we choose to live a life that is in this world and yet is not.  It is because of this choice that we may not always fit in with those who choose this world and this world alone.  Isaiah writes about them as well, and it's not a fate to look forward to!  It is because of this choice that others may not fully understand the view we have, the view of faith and hope.

Faith and hope, as I wrote earlier this week, lead to charity. If you truly have the first two, you are instinctively led to the third. In this exile, your choices are always before you.  Am I faithful and hopeful and therefore act in the love of God, or do I deny what I know and turn against it in my weaknesses.  Someday, this conflict will be resolved with eternal finality.  But for now, well, it's the life of the blessed exile, isn't it.