DAILY BIBLICAL SERMONS. Fr. Steven Scherrer

Transcription

1 DAILY BIBLICAL SERMONS Fr. Steven Scherrer Year C (I)

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS (The regular numbered Sundays, week days, and major feasts of the temporal cycle are not listed here, since they are easy to find.) 1 Sunday of Advent 7 Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, December 8 9 Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December Memorial of St. John of the Cross, December December Feast of St. Stephen, December Feast of St. John the Apostle, December Feast of the Holy Innocents, December Feast of the Holy Family, Sunday within the Octave of Christmas 30 Epiphany 37 Baptism of the Lord 38 Friday, 1 st Week of the Year 39 2 nd Sunday of the Year 41 Memorial of St. Anthony of Egypt, January Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Apostle, January Solemnity of our Holy Founders of the Cistercian Order, January Presentation of the Lord, February 2 53 Ash Wednesday 63 1 st Sunday of Lent 67 Solemnity of St. Joseph, March Transitus of St. Benedict, March The Solemnity of the Annunciation, March Palm Sunday 90 Feast of St. Mark, April Feast of the holy Apostles Philip and James, May Feast of St. Matthias, May Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord 122 Solemnity of Pentecost 129 Tuesday, 8 th Week of the Year 131 Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, May Trinity Sunday 135 Thursday, 9 th Week of the Year 138 Solemnity of Corpus Christi 141 2

3 Thursday, 10 th Week of the Year 143 Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus th Sunday of the Year 146 Nativity of St. John the Baptist, June Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, June Feast of St. Thomas, Apostle, July Solemnity of St. Benedict, July Feast of St. James, July Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, August Feast of St. Lawrence, August Memorial of St. Clare, August Memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe, August Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August Solemnity of St. Bernard, August Feast of St. Bartholomew, August Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, September Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist, September Feast of Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels, September Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi, October Memorial of St. Bruno, October Feast of St. Luke, October Memorial of St. John de Brebeuf and St. Isaac Jogues, October Solemnity of All Saints, November All Souls Day, November Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, November Feast of All Saints of the Benedictine Family, November rd Sunday of the Year 261 Thanksgiving Day 262 Solemnity of Christ the King, Last Sunday of the Year 266 Feast of St. Andrew, November

4 INTRODUCTON You have in your hands a collection of homilies on the Liturgical Year. In them, I have tried to catch the flavor and color, the feeling and tone of the various seasons and feasts of the Liturgical Year. Each season, each feast, has its own special character and particular way of presenting its message, showing us ever new aspects of the mystery of Christ come among us. You will find that there are four homilies for each week of the year, and that these include all the Sundays and feast days of the Liturgical Year. You will also see that in the arrangement of this book I have decided to preserve the order of the Liturgical Year, just as it occurs, rather than dividing it into the temporal cycle, ordinary time, and the sanctoral cycle, which I think is too mechanical and loses something of the beauty and particular flavor of each season and time of the year, for the Sundays and weekdays after Christmas and Epiphany, for example, still have a sense and taste of Christmas about them, something which is lost when we just put them into the generic category of ordinary time. The same is true of the Sundays and weekdays following the Easter season. The mystery of the Resurrection still colors this time too, as it does many of my homilies during this time of the year. The same is also true of the saints days, which often take on the flavor and emphasis of the season in which they occur. This is true both of those which occur during the Christmas and Easter seasons, as well as those which come towards the end of the Liturgical Year, for these latter are often touched by the expectation of the Parousia and hope for the heavenly Jerusalem. I have, therefore, placed them within the seasons during which they occur. Any difficulty this might cause in finding a particular Sunday or feast day I have solved by listing them in the table of contents. The Sundays are arranged according to the three year cycle (Years A, B, and C), each in a separate volume. The weekdays also have their own two year cycle for the first reading (Years I and II). Since I am not separating them from the Sundays, they will appear in these volumes in the order in which I wrote them. That way their thematic connection with the Sundays between which they fall will be the more apparent. So, for Year A, the week days will follow cycle II; for Year B, cycle I; and for Year C, cycle I again, for this is how the cycles fell when I wrote them. Thus one may shift between the three volumes for the appropriate weekday cycle, and will have a choice between two different versions of cycle I. 4

5 These homilies cover many themes, far more than I could comment on in this introduction. They are the themes of life, of our life, the life of faith, and of our daily struggles to live as followers of Christ. Christ gives us new hope, light in our darkness, courage when we are hurting and confused, love when we feel alone, and direction when we do not know which way to turn. His word comes to us through the Scriptures, and is most often mediated to us through the liturgy and the Liturgical Year, in which are collected the wisdom, inspiration, and piety of the ages. During Advent we long for the fulfillment of prophecy, the Parousia, the coming of the Lord in glory; but we also prepare ourselves to celebrate and experience anew the beauty and awe of his first coming to the world in human flesh. Having taken upon himself our humanity, he illumines it from within, starting with his own personal humanity. But he does this in order to illumine all human flesh which accepts him in faith, is baptized, and seeks to imitate him. Then at Christmas we see the splendor of God come among us for our transformation and illumination through our contact with the flesh of Jesus. We have this living and life-giving contact with his illumined and light-giving flesh in his word, in the Eucharist and sacraments, and in the meditative and prayerful celebration of the Liturgical Year. Particularly at Christmas are we aware of his divinity passing into and illumining our humanity from within. Hence Christmas is the splendid feast that it is, filled with light and wonder. I hope these homilies capture something of this for you. During Lent we become more aware of our sins, and we repent with the whole Church. We follow Jesus into the desert, and we also recall and relive Israel s wandering in the desert. We meditate on many Scripture passages during Lent which touch upon the theme of repentance. Thus do we prepare ourselves to celebrate the Paschal mystery, the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and the renewal of our baptism at Easter. Holy Week leads us through the drama of Jesus painful suffering and death on the cross for our redemption. In the person of his eternal Son, God himself suffered for our sins. Hence we are forgiven and filled with divine life and light, since God himself, in his Son, suffered the penalty due to us. Our sins are thus forgiven through his painful death; and we are set free to live a new life in the glory of his Resurrection. We then continue daily and weekly to join the Son in his sacrifice of love to his Father every time we celebrate the Eucharist, thus offering ourselves in self-gift with Christ to the Father in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Week homilies explore these mysteries. During Lent but at other times too these homilies explore our call to holiness and purity of heart. God calls us to himself in love, and wants us to respond. The trouble is that so many good things in his creation, which surround us on all sides, can pull us now this way, now that, so that we become stressed and distracted, and God begins to recede from our view and consciousness, and we discover that our heart is becoming not only distracted and stressed, but also divided and scattered in both its interests and affections. Yes, we discover that our affections too can become divided among many of the good things that God has made, and that God himself often comes out on the short end, and so we feel that something is missing in our life. We reflect then, especially during Lent, and discover that we are forgetting the main ingredient. It is as though we were making bread, and have the water, the yeast, and the sugar, but have forgotten the flour! We have left God out the main ingredient. And so, during Lent we go into the desert with Jesus for forty days of increased prayer, 5

6 silence, and solitude, as we simplify our life, our needs, our food, and our recreations. We engage ourselves with Christ in his prayer and fasting in the desert, and find that we are renewed by our Lenten observance for our celebration of Easter. At Easter we die and rise with Christ. We die to sin, to our old self, and even to our imperfections, although it seems that it is impossible to overcome our imperfections completely, for once we have conquered one, a new one appears, which we were not previously aware of. Nevertheless, we try to overcome them. We do what we can. And thus Christ s victory over death and sin, over darkness and sadness, over depression, guilt, and alienation from God and neighbor becomes our victory too. In him we rise to newness of life, as St. Paul says (Rom 6:4), to life in the Spirit, to a risen life with the risen Lord. The splendor of his Resurrection then begins to illumine us. And yes, it even divinizes us; not, of course, in the sense that we become God, but in the sense that we become like God in becoming like Christ, with his divine life flowing more abundantly within us. We thus become an Easter people, a people living a risen life even now ahead of time in our risen Lord. These homilies also explore our call to be a people of prayer, following the prayer of the Church, the liturgy, the psalms, the Liturgical Year, and our own personal prayers; but we also try to develop a spirit of prayer, so that we can sit in peace with God for some time each day without the need of many words, perhaps using only an ejaculation continually repeated or the rosary to draw us into God s presence, and to focus our attention on God. In this, it is a great help always to be trying to purify ourselves more from so many delightful things in this world, so that we might have a greater singleness of heart and mind in our devotion to God, loving him above all the other good things of his creation, and even voluntarily denying ourselves some of these good things in order to focus more undistractedly, undividedly, and singly on God, to love him with our whole heart and soul, which is the first and greatest commandment. The more we can grow in this direction, normally the deeper will our prayer become, and the more will it overflow into our whole day, so that we are always communing with God. Yet, as we grow spiritually, we will discover ever new faults in ourselves, things which we have always been doing, but which never bothered us before, and which we never even recognized as faults. These things will now begin to bother us as we grow, and as God begins to call them to our attention, so that we might work at overcoming them one by one. And so, as we grow spiritually, we remain humble in our opinion of ourselves, being humbled by ever newly discovered and ever smaller imperfections within us. Indeed, to our surprise and dismay, we find it to be a rule of the spiritual life that smaller and smaller things are now beginning to trouble us more and more as we make ever greater progress in our life with God. So it seems has God designed things to keep us ever humble, ever learning, ever growing in his love, ever becoming more like his Son. These are but a few of the many themes that are explored in these homilies on the seasons and Biblical reading of the Liturgical Year. 6

7 ON THAT DAY, SWEET WINE WILL FLOW FROM THE MOUNTAINS, MILK AND HONEY FROM THE HILLS 1 st Sunday of Advent Jer 33:14-16; Ps 24; 1 Thess 3:12 4:2; Lk 21:25-28,34-36 Days of great expectation have finally arrived. We hope for the day on which the Lord will fulfill his promises to Israel and Judah, when he will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth for David; and execute justice and righteousness in the land, when Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely (Jer 33:15-16), as Jeremiah prophesied in the first reading. We await the coming of Christ into this world to transform and divinize it, to bring it his celestial light and heavenly peace. We hope for his mercy, as the verse before the Gospel says: show us, O Lord, your mercy and give us your salvation (Ps 84:8). We hope for the blessed days of his coming to the earth, because The Lord will show us his mercy and our land will yield its fruit (Ps 84:13), as we say today in the communion antiphon. What is the fruit which the earth will produce when God shows us his mercy? It is a new and illumined world, full of God, full of divine love. He will come to transform us by his glory, and shine upon us. We will be illumined by his splendor, as were the shepherds, who kept watch over their flocks, when the angelic herald appeared to them, surrounding them with glory. This is the work of the righteous Branch which the Lord will cause to spring forth for David. And he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land (Jer 33:15). He will justify us through our faith in him, clothe us with the garments of salvation, and cover us with a mantle of justice (Is 61:10). It is for this that we now prepare ourselves, because he who began a good work in us, will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Phil 1:6). Why did Jesus Christ come into our world? He came for its transformation into his own image, into the image of the Son, so that we too might become resplendent like him, with his divinity illumining us from within with its own splendor. He came to fill us with his splendid love, and therefore at his birth the angels wished peace on earth to those of his good pleasure (Lk 2:14). Thus, full of his love, we can radiate it to all. Is this not the transformation of the earth which Christ came to inaugurate? It is for the realization of this wish of the angels that we long during Advent. We hope for the realization on earth of what Christ began at his birth. We hope to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints (1 Thess 3:13), as the second reading today says. On that day, when the powers of the heavens will be shaken (Lk 21:26), then we will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory (Lk 21:27). It is for that great day that we live and prepare now, in order to be blameless before God at the 7

8 coming of our Lord with all his saints. Advent is a special time of expectation and preparation for this. It is a time when we meditate on the coming of the Lord, and try to realize in ourselves and in our world the transformation and divinization which he came to work within us. We want to live within the enchanted spell of waiting for the coming of the Lord, because he who came, comes to fill us with divine love, so that we might truly be blameless before God at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Each day we try to be more prepared, more transformed, more illumined, more distant from the temptations and occasions of sin, living a life ever more filled with love, more loving, more filled with the splendor of Christ. See the Lord coming from afar; his splendor fills the earth (Magnificat antiphon, 1 st vespers). We now live by faith, love, and hope in this spender of the Lord who comes. When he came, he enkindled our hearts with the splendor of his love, and said to us: abide in my love (Jn 15:9). And now, abiding in the splendor of his love, we hope for his coming with all his saints; for that day will dawn with a wonderful light (antiphon of 1 st vespers). This glorious hope makes us too long to be resplendent on that day. We want to shine even now, contemplating his glory, and radiating the splendor of his divine love into the world for its transformation from glory to glory in the very image of the Son of God (2 Cor 3:18). We have seen his glory (Jn 1:14), and we have received from his fullness, grace upon grace (Jn 1:16). This is the mystery of the incarnation which transforms the world into the Kingdom of God, and into heavenly sweetness. Therefore we long, during Advent, for the full realization of this transformation and divinization of the earth; and we prepare ourselves and our world, for On that day sweet wine will flow from the mountains, milk and honey from the hills. alleluia (antiphon of lauds). HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO DO THE WILL OF GOD! Thursday, 1 st Week of Advent Is 26:1-6; Ps 117; Mt 7:21,24-27 Today the readings teach us how we should live in order to have peace. First, from Isaiah we hear this important verse: you keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you (Is 26:3). If we completely trust in God and obey him, we will be in peace, and live in his splendor once we have been purified. The part about obedience we also hear today in the words of Jesus. He says, Not every one who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven (Mt 7:21). Then he gives an example, saying, Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock (Mt 7:24). How important, then it is to build our house the house of our life of faith on the rock of doing the words of Christ, for if we only hear his words, but do not do them, we will have built the house of our life on sand, as Jesus says today: everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish 8

9 man who built his house upon the sand (Mt 7:26). And we all know what happened to his house: The house of his life fell; and great was the fall of it (Mt 7:27). We are called to holiness and to a life of perfection (see Mt 19:21: If you would be perfect ). We are justified by our faith in Christ, not through works; but once justified, we die with Christ to the past and rise with him to walk in the newness of life (Rom 6:4), and we do this by obeying his will. Jesus said, My mother and my brethren are those who hear the word of God and do it (Lk 8:21). And when a woman said: Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked, he, responding, said to her, Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it! (Lk 11:27-28). That which will make us like his very mother is to hear and do the word of God. Therefore St. James says, be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves (James 1:22). If we sin, we have to confess our sin, and obey again and better in the future. Thus we will walk in the splendor of Christ, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts and he shall be blessed in his doing (James 1:25). Jesus said, My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work (Jn 4:34), and I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (Jn 6:38), and in this he is our model. We should follow the example of him who humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:8) if we want to live a life of perfection, which is our call (see Mt 19:21: If you would be perfect ). MARY, OUR EXAMPLE IN LIVING AN ILLUMINATED LIFE Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, December 8 Gen 3:9-15; Ps 97; Eph 1:3-6,11-12; Lk 1:26-38 Today, in the middle of Advent, we honor the Virgin Mary. The angel said to her: Rejoice, O full of grace, the Lord is with you (Lk 1:28). We honor and celebrate Mary today for her Immaculate Conception, that is, she was conceived immaculate, without original sin, by the anticipated merits of the passion and death of her divine Son. If she was immaculate since her conception, she was full of grace, as the angel says in greeting her. And we believe that she was not only free from original sin, but also from all personal sin and imperfection for the whole of her life. In this, she is a spiritual marvel, and a mirror for us all, even though we cannot reach her degree of perfection. Nonetheless, we can be inspired by her example and by the beauty of her spirit, seeing with such clarity in her the beauty which God also wants to work in us. In his incarnation, God clothed himself in our human flesh to illumine it from within and divinize it, making it resplendent before God, justified by the merits of Jesus Christ, and transformed and sanctified, without stain. Such was the plan of God, for which reason he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him (Eph 1:4), as St. Paul says today. It was for this reason that Christ redeemed us, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him (Col 1:22). Truly he wants to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (Ef 5:27). Mary 9

10 is an icon of this for us, that our hearts might be blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints (1 Thess 3:13). To be free from sin is a great thing. What is it which most darkens and depresses us? Is it not falling into sin and imperfections? I am not thinking here of mortal sins. For a purified person, even small sins and imperfections torment him. Mary was completely free of all this. That is, she passed her whole life in the presence of God, living in the heavenly places in Christ to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved (Eph 1:3,6), as St. Paul says today. And what was this life full of grace like, this life lived on the heights, in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph 1:3), praising the glory of the grace which she had so abundantly received through her Son, and in a way that so surpassed every other creature? We know a little about this from our own experience; but what we know must be multiplied many times over for her. In short, she was a human being transformed by Christ. She lived in the light, because she followed Christ perfectly, and Christ said, he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (Jn 8:12). She had the light of life. She lived on the heights in the heavenly places (Eph 1:3; 2:6). She lived not only a risen but also an ascended life, because, as St. Paul says, God raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:6). Mary was happy, and lived in heavenly peace, a peace not of this world. She was always with God the Father, and with God the Son in her home, and she lived in the splendor of God the Holy Spirit. She lived plunged into the Trinity. I believe that she was also a moderate and modest person (Phil 4:5), living a just sober, and pious life (Titus 2:12), in the nearness of the Lord (Phil 4:5). She lived in the divine love which shined in her heart (2 Cor 4:6). All this we also can do if we are obedient. We can live a transformed and divinized life, a life full of the splendor of divine love, a life which abides in this splendid love (Jn 15:9) and which basks in its splendor, a life which pitches its tent on the heights. We do not always experience this to the same intensity, and the imperfections into which we fall will darken this splendor for us when we fall into them, but in all this Mary is our example and inspiration. She is a human being like us and shows us more clearly our vocation also to live a new, risen, ascended, illumined, and divinized life, living already in the world with Christ in the heavenly places (Eph 1:3) in spirit. We can live in this enchantment of divine love which illumines us. We can live a modest, quiet, and sober life, as she did, in moderation and in a silence full of God. Living thus, as friends of God, we bless the world, showing it the way; and we are thus its lights (Phil 2:15; Mt 5:14-16), radiating to all the light and beauty of the divine love which fills us. Thus do we follow the example of Mary. 10

11 A TIME OF WAITING Saturday, 1 st Week of Advent Is 30:19-21,23-26; Ps 146; Mt 9:35 10:1:6-8 Today we hear a message of Advent hope. The future will be better than the present: Hope for it! Although God afflicts you for your sins, he will manifest himself to you, and you will see him, and he will guide you clearly on that day, showing you with clarity his will and the way you should choose, so that you can follow it with security and without error. Therefore, wait for him! Have confidence in God! Isaiah says, though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left (Is 30:20-21). Days will come in which we will be well directed by God and will have no more doubt concerning his will. We will know clearly what he wants of us, and we will do it without doubt, without confusion, without error, without making so many mistakes. We hope for that day now, the day of the coming of the Lord. When he comes, we will have an abundance of the water of life and light. Even upon every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water (Is 30:25). And what better water is there than that which flows in the mountains? And for light on that day, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days (Is 30:26). We hope now for those happy days which will come, although now the Lord is still giving us the bead of adversity and the water of affliction (Is 30:20) for our sins to purify us. We live in hope of future blessings when the Lord will come. We prepare ourselves now for those days, the days of his coming. This Christ, whose coming we await, we see in today s Gospel. He is compassionate towards those who are fainting and scattered abroad, like sheep having no shepherd (Mt 9:36). He wants to teach us his will with more exactitude so that we do not transgress it and fall into a pit of sadness for offending God. Therefore he teaches us his doctrine; but he also teaches us interiorly by means of our experience of consolation and desolation, so that we might know the correct way. He will say in our heart, This is the way, walk in it (Is 30:21). Christ then wants to send us into his harvest which is plentiful, but the laborers are few (Mt 9:37). Therefore he sends his apostles today, to help so many who are fainting, like sheep having no shepherd (Mt 9:36). But why are there so few workers in the plentiful harvest? Is it not because few truly live the Gospel and perfectly do his will? If they do not obey him, how can they be his workers? How can they shepherd and help the fainting sheep if they themselves do not obey the shepherd? Only those who are obedient live in the light, and therefore can illumine the rest with the light which shines in them. PREPARING IN THE DESERT TO BE BLAMELESS FOR THE DAY OF CHRIST 11

12 2 nd Sunday of Advent Bar 5:1-9; Ps 125; Phil 1:4-6,8-11; Lk 3:1-6 The Entrance antiphon today, this Second Sunday of Advent, says: People of Sion, see, the Lord is coming to save the peoples, and he will make his majestic voice to be heard in the joy of your heart. Advent is a time of great joy because we hope for and prepare for the coming of the Lord. When he comes, he will fill us with heavenly light and with a peace not of this world. Therefore Arise, O Jerusalem, go up onto the heights and see the joy which is coming to you from God, as today s communion antiphon says. We hear his majestic voice in the joy of our heart. It is for this reason that we listen in silence, waiting for his voice. It is for this reason that we go with John the Baptist to the desert during Advent: to listen and hear better. The desert is a place of silence, far from the noise of the world. There John prepared himself for many years, until the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert (Lk 3:1,2). And this word directed him to begin to preach, to be The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths (Lk 3:4). At this moment began the work of John to prepare in the desert a people for the Lord, that they might be ready for his coming. John preached for only a short time; but he lived many years in the desert, preparing himself first in silence and austerity, in prayer and fasting, until he was ready prepared and purified. Then God could reveal himself to him in his splendor and majesty, allowing him to hear his majestic voice in the joy of his heart. Then he could rise up and contemplate the joy which was coming to him from God; and he could be filled with heavenly light and a peace not of this world. He prepared himself in an earthly wilderness, a wasteland, but experienced heavenly manifestations. Now then, purified and prepared, he was an apt instrument in the hands of God to prepare his people for their Messiah. John helps us too to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord. His life was his most important sermon. He showed us by his way of living how we should prepare the way of the Lord, in the desert. By imitating him, we will see that every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God (Lk 3:4-6; see Is 40:4-5). He prepared himself by a life of silence and austerity, far from the world and its pleasures, until he was filled with heavenly light. But we have something greater than John here, namely, Christ himself already present within us. He has completed his paschal mystery, and he lives in and among us as Emmanuel, God-with-us, illumining us from within. He assumed our nature, our humanity, our flesh, and filled them with himself, with his divinity and splendor. If only we believe in him, are baptized, and imitate him, obeying him, we will be made new (Rev 21:5), new men (kainon anthropon) (Eph 4:22-24), a new creation (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15). But to be able to perceive and experience this newness, this illumination, this splendor, this divinization, we have to be prepared. We have to go into the desert with John and this we do during Advent. There, in the desert, far from the world, in silence, we are purified for the coming of the Lord, so that Christ can be born in us and shine 12

13 resplendent in our hearts (2 Cor 4:6). We should contemplate his glory in the silence of our heart, in the austerity of the desert, eating simply locusts and wild honey, and dressing plainly with a camel s hair, and a girdle of skin about our loins (Mk 1:6). Then, once we are prepared and purified, having prepared the way of the Lord in the desert, we will be transformed into the glory which we contemplate, that is, into the image of the Son by the work of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 3:18). We will be transformed from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:18), receiving from his fullness, grace upon grace (Jn 1:16), for we have seen his glory (Jn 1:14). He wants us to live in this glory, in this splendor (Jn 15:9), and to radiate it upon others. Thus we shall be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of justice which come through Jesus Christ (Phil 1:10-11), as St. Paul says today. Then we will be the people which Baruch prophesied today, saying: Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on for ever the beauty of the glory from God. Put on the robe of divine justice; and adorn your head with the glory of the Everlasting. For God will show your splendor to the world [and] will lead Israel with joy in the light of his glory (Bar 5:1-3,9). Let us live, then, in the joy of preparing ourselves in the desert to be pure and blameless for the day of Christ (Phil 1:10), that we might be transformed and divinized by his coming, filled with heavenly light and a peace not of this world. JESUS, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, COMES TO US THROUGH MARY Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12 Zechariah 2:14-17; Lk 1:26-38 Today, in the middle of Advent, we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, remembering and honoring her appearance to Juan Diego on this day in 1531 on the hill of Tepeyac, Mexico. As proof of her appearance, she filled his cloak with roses in the middle of winter, and left imprinted on it her image, which is enshrined in the Cathedral in Mexico City, and is honored to the present day. Her feast, like that of the Immaculate Conception, has become a part of our Advent devotion and preparation for the coming of the Lord. The Lord comes to us through Mary. The mystery of his birth in the cave of Bethlehem is also the mystery of Mary. This is how God entered our world and our life. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for lo, I come and I will dwell within you, says the Lord. And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell within you (Zech 2:14-15). God dwelt within Mary, and through her he dwells in our human flesh and in our human nature. He has made his dwelling in our humanity. He did so to renew our humanity, to illumine, transform, and divinize it, filling it with his own splendor and divinity, illumining it from within, like a crystal filled with the light of the noonday sun. He became incarnate to shine resplendent within our hearts (2 Cor 4:6), giving us the illumination of the knowledge and love of God, and making us also resplendent in his sight, new creatures (2 Cor 5:17), a new creation (Rev 21:5; Gal 6:14). 13

14 We now await his coming in glory with all his saints in great light (1 Thess 3:13), and we seek, especially during Advent, to be blameless in holiness before him at his coming. This transformation will happen through the incarnation of Christ and through the merits of his passion, death, and resurrection, whereby we die with him to our sinful past, to rise resplendent with him to walk in the newness of life (Rom 6:4), in the splendor of his Resurrection. This mystery of Christ coming into our world, into our humanity, to renew and illumine it with his own splendor, takes place through our baptism and faith in him, and through our imitation of his poor, obedient life. As we obey him in faith and do his will, imitating the poverty of his birth in the cave of Bethlehem, we are transformed and divinized by our contact with the mystery of his incarnation. All this comes to us in a human way through Mary, who was the first person to be so intimately transformed by his illumining presence within her. We thus also seek to imitate Mary in her transformation in Christ. She is our model, the icon of the Church, herself being the resplendent image of the Son. During Advent especially, we imitate her silence, her listening to the Lord in the quiet of the night, her moderation, her gentleness, and her modesty. She rejoiced in the Lord, living quietly in his presence. Rejoice in the Lord always says St. Paul. Let your moderation be known to all. The Lord is near (Phil 4:5). We live in the nearness of the Lord, in quiet moderation, in gentleness, in peace so as not to dissipate the enchanting spell of his nearness. We live in waiting and quiet, longing for the Lord s coming in glory, thankful for his dwelling within us as Emmanuel. We imitate Mary as she awaited the birth of her son. Like her, in the words of St. Paul, we renounce impiety and worldly desires, and live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world, awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:12-13). ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, DOCTOR OF THE ASCETICAL-MYSTICAL LIFE Memorial of St. John of the Cross, December 14 Is 41:13-20; Ps 144; Mt 11:11-15 Today we commemorate St. John of the Cross on this his memorial. St. John of the Cross has taught us much about the inner life of the soul in its journey towards union with God. In his book, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, he teaches us about the active purifications of the senses and of the spirit necessary to come into union with God. The senses must be purified of their appetites and of worldly pleasures: tasting, smelling, hearing, seeing, and touching. This takes place through mortification of the five senses. In the first book of The Ascent of Mount Carmel St. John of the Cross gives many explanations of the importance of this mortification of the five senses from the pleasures of the world. Then in books two and three of The Ascent of Mount Carmel he speaks of the necessity also for us to actively purify our spirit from its appetites for the pleasures of this world. Our thoughts of these things must be purified, so also our memories and imaginations about them, and our inner desires for them. This constitutes the purification 14

15 of the three faculties of our spirit from the appetites and pleasures of this world that is, the purification of the intellect, the memory (which includes the imagination), and the will. These three faculties of our spirit must be purified of their worldly appetites if we wish to arrive at union with God in supernatural, infused contemplation. St. John of the Cross teaches in the second and third books of The Ascent of Mount Carmel that it is the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which purify and renew the three faculties of our spirit, the intellect, the memory, and the will: faith purifying our intellect; hope purifying our memory, which includes the imagination; and charity purifying our will, which is the faculty with which we love. St. John of the Cross is unique in the tradition up to his time in the emphasis which he puts on this point. But it is through this process, according to his system, that our spirit is divinized or made godlike, namely, through the working of the three supernatural theological virtues in the three faculties of our spirit. These, then, are the active purifications of the senses and of the spirit in which we must actively work by a life of asceticism and mortification. They are called active purifications because we must actively play a dominant role in them by our own selfmortification. There remain the passive purifications in which God works in us, and in which we are passive. Hence they are called passive because we remain largely passive in them, while God is the main actor. These passive purifications he speaks of in his book, The Dark Night. All this purification is directed towards the end of being able to supernaturally contemplate God in infused, apophatic, wordless prayer, which is an ecstatic, mystical experience, and so come into union with God. This union should eventually lead us to a new, stable, peaceful state, which St. John of the Cross calls Mystical Marriage, or Spiritual Marriage. Today we express our gratitude to God for having raised up for us such a great teacher of the ascetical-mystical life, a Doctor of the Church, St. John of the Cross. JOHN THE BAPTIST SHOWS US HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE COMING OF THE LORD Saturday, 2 nd Week of Advent Sir 48:1-4,9-11; Ps 79; Mt 17:10-13 Today we hear Jesus telling his disciples that Elijah must return to the earth to prepare the way for the Messiah, and that he has already returned in the form of John the Baptist. When the disciples asked, why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come? Jesus replied, Elijah does come, and he is to restore all things; but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not know him Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist (Mt 17:10-13). In another place Jesus said, all the prophets and the law prophesied until John; and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come (Mt 11:13-14). Jesus also quoted Malachi when speaking of John 15

16 the Baptist, saying, This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee (Mt 11:10; Mal 3:1). The angel Gabriel said to Zechariah, John s father, at John s birth, that his son would go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared (Lk 1:17). And finally, the prophet Malachi says, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes (Mal 4:5). John the Baptist plays an important role in Salvation History, a role of continuing significance, as important to the present as to the past. His role is continually to show us by his way of life, by his preaching, by is call to repentance, and by his baptism how we are to prepare for the Lord s coming. John lived an ascetical life in the desert. He purified his senses and spirit of the world and its pleasures, and so God was able to use him as an apt instrument his own chosen instrument to prepare his people for the coming of the Messiah. During Advent we go into the desert with John the Baptist, to be prepared and purified for the Lord s coming. We long, during Advent, for the Lord to come to us to free us from our sins, imperfections, guilt, sadness, and darkness, and to illumine us with the splendor of his divinity incarnate in our humanity to renew and divinize us. John shows us our part in all this. We must undergo the purifications of the desert, to have a heart prepared to be able to perceive and experience the Lord at his coming. If we are not purified, we will not be able to perceive or experience him when he comes. The silence, the solitude, the prayer, and the fasting of the desert life, far from the superficiality and worldliness of the world, is the way that John shows us by his life that we are to prepare the way of the Lord. REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS 3rd Sunday of Advent Zephaniah 3:14-18; Is 12; Phil 4:4-7; Lk 3:10-18 In the entrance antiphon today we hear these words of St. Paul: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, Rejoice! The Lord is near (Phil 4:4-5). Today is Gaudete Sunday, a day of spiritual joy in the Lord, for we are now so close to Christmas, the great celebration of our redemption. St. Paul also tells us today, Let your moderation be known to all (to epieikes ymon gnostheto pasin anthropois). The Lord is near (Phil 4:5). The word for moderation can also be translated by modesty or gentleness. A Christian should be someone who lives in moderation, because he lives in the nearness of the Lord. The Lord is within him, divinizing and transforming him, filling him with himself, with his divinity, with his divine life, with his splendor. In order not to lose or dissipate these great gifts, he should live in much silence, speaking quietly, keeping custody of the eyes and guard over his words so as to remain in this enchanting spell of the divine presence. The presence of Christ shining resplendent in our heart gives us great joy. Therefore St. Paul says, Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice 16

17 (Phil 4:4). He repeats himself for emphasis. Then he says, Let your moderation be known unto all. The Lord is near (Phil 4:5). But why is it that many people do not rejoice in the Lord, and do not feel happy? It is because they are not doing the perfect will of God, or because God is purifying them for their imperfection and worldliness. How important it is if we want to be happy to do perfectly the will of God in all things, all the time, without exception! When we fall into imperfections, we feel sad. Then what we have to do is confess our imperfections, and, in a short time, or immediately, God will restore us to his presence and happiness. God punishes the unfaithful; but rewards the just. If we are still living a worldly life, we will not perceive the joy which St. Paul says that we should always have in the Lord. If we are living for the pleasures of this life, this joy and jubilation of spirit will be far from us. Therefore, during Advent, we go into the desert to be purified of all this, to be able to rejoice always in the Lord and live a life of gentleness, modesty, and moderation in the glorious nearness of the Lord. The Lord is so near that Zephaniah prophesies today that he is within us. He says: Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has cast out your enemies. The King of Israel the Lord, is in the midst of you; you shall fear evil no more (Zeph 3:14-15). This prophecy was realized in the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. He entered by his incarnation into our flesh, divinizing and filling it with splendor, illumining it from within. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in the midst of you (Zeph 3:15), dwelling and shining in your heart, transforming you into his image by the work of the Holy Spirit. If we are perfectly doing his will, and if we have confessed our imperfections, how is it possible that we will not rejoice in the Lord? Rejoice always, says St. Paul to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 5:16). This is the basis of Christian joy. Those who go into the desert with John know this joy and jubilation of spirit. They rejoice in the Lord. They have left their sins and their worldly ways, and live now only for the Lord, leaving all for him, seeking their joy only in him, eating simply locusts and wild honey; and dressing simply with camel s hair and a leather girdle around their waist (Mk 1:6). John the Baptist shows us the way to happiness in the Lord, in the desert, the way of jubilation of spirit. All are invited to follow him. In his preaching, John says: Bear fruits that befit repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Lk 3:8-9). If we choose the way of pleasure in this world, we will not see much of this great joy. We have to decide what it is that we want. The life of John the Baptist in the desert shows us the way of true spiritual joy and jubilation of spirit. 17

18 THE TIME OF CHRISTMAS JOY IS DRAWING NEAR December 21 Ct 2:8-14; Ps 32; Lk 1:39-45 We are now very near to Christmas, a time of flowers and songs, even though in many countries it is winter; but even so, in the world of the spirit, it is springtime, as the first reading today from the Song of Songs tells us: lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance (Ct 2:11-13). This joy comes from the Lord. When I look now through my window, it is winter, and there are neither flowers nor bird songs. All this joy of springtime comes from the Lord, from the birth of Christ the Lord, from the incarnation of God on the earth to inject into the world the beauty, splendor, and joy of his divinity. It is the just, those obedient to the will of God, who experience this joy of spirit caused by the indwelling of Christ within us, because God blesses them. If we disobey him, we will not experience this joy, but rather will drink a bitter cup. Christ dwells powerfully in this new and special way, rejoicing the soul, only in those who do his will (Jn 14:23). Only a few days remain now to prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ anew into the world and into our hearts. The preparation consists in discerning with more exactitude the will of God for us, and in doing it more precisely, so that he might dwell abundantly within us (Jn 14:23). Christ is already dwelling in the body of the Virgin Mary. She has already conceived of the Holy Spirit, and in her joy and simplicity, she wants to share this news with her cousin Elizabeth. St. Luke tells us that In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah (Lk 1:39). St. Luke notes that she went with haste, an indication of her joy. She had good news, and wanted to share it right away, without delay. And she went into the hill country, into a mountainous, elevated, fresh region, where the air is purer and more refreshing. She journeyed with joy. God was with her; and her joy in the Lord enkindled the hearts of Elizabeth and John, in her womb, who leaped for joy at hearing her voice (Lk 1:41,44). If we want to live in this Christmas joy, we have to perfectly obey the will of God for us, and do what he wants of us. If we have failed in anything, we should admit it and confess our sins and imperfections, and begin anew in the joy of obedience, which is the joy of the Holy Spirit, which John experienced even in the womb of his mother. 18

19 SALVATION AND GLORY ARE NEAR TO THOSE WHO FEAR AND OBEY GOD December 22 1 Sam 1:24-28; 1 Sam 2:1-10; Lk 1:46-56 Today we hear both the Magnificat of Mary (Lk 1:46-56) and the Canticle of Hannah, the mother of Samuel (1 Sam 2:1-10). Both are hymns of praise to God for his great deeds to the poor who fear him; while he leaves empty the rich and powerful of the earth who do not fear him. Mary says, And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts (Lk 1:50-51). And Hannah says today, He will guard the feet of his faithful ones; but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness (1 Sam 2:9). This is the mystery which we meditate today. God wants to lift up and exalt those who fear him in the rich Biblical sense which means, those who love, respect, and obey him with exactitude. His salvation is near to them, and they live in his glory, as the psalmist says, Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land (Ps 84:10). If we love God, we will obey him; and then his glory will dwell in our land, and in our hearts. And is this not what Mary says today, when she says, And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation (Lk 1:50)? God exalts them, even though they are humble and poor, as was Mary. These are his true lovers, those who do his will, as Jesus said, He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him (Jn 14:21). Jesus loves and manifests himself to those who love and obey him, because only those who obey him love him. They are exalted by God for their love and obedience, for their fear of the Lord, because fear in the Biblical sense is love. At the same time, the proud, who neither love nor obey him who do not fear him are scattered: he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts (Lk 1:51). Hannah says the same thing, namely, God will guard the feet of his faithful ones; but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness (1 Sam 2:9). Only a few days remain now until the coming of Christ anew into our world and into our hearts. We can prepare ourselves by truly fearing him, and we do this by loving and obeying him in everything and with exactitude, living only for him with all our heart. Those who do this will be blessed in his coming. He will take care of and exalt them, filling them with light and splendor. But to enjoy this, we have to be cleansed, prepared, and purified. Let us use well, then, these few days which still remain until Christmas. 19