Growing in Faith. By Terry A. Modica. In meditation we find the strength to bring Christ to birth in ourselves and in others. - Saint Charles Borromeo

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1 Growing in Faith The Daily Good News Reflections Celebrating the Year of Faith for the Seasons of Advent and Christmas Liturgical Year I & Sunday Cycle C By Terry A. Modica In meditation we find the strength to bring Christ to birth in ourselves and in others. - Saint Charles Borromeo

2 First Sunday of Advent December 2 St. Bibiana: Pray for the bereaving Jeremiah 33:14-16 Ps 25:4-5, 8-10, 14 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2 Luke 21:25-28, To honor the 50 th anniversary of the start of Vatican Council II, we are participating in the Year of Faith as requested by Pope Benedict XVI. For that purpose, this Advent, let's prepare for Christmas by asking Jesus to build our faith. Today's world needs Christians who truly understand that faith gives us hope and victory in the midst of any and all difficulties. Taking this even further, today's world needs Catholics who truly understand that going to Mass means having faith in miracles especially the miraculous transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Are you changed by the presence of Christ in the Eucharist? If so, then after you exit the church, others see evidence of this faith right? There's a difference between "knowing" the truths of our faith and authentically living these truths. What prayer requests have you made in which you're still waiting for God to provide his help? When you offer them to Jesus during the prayers of Mass, do you feel the hopefulness that comes from faith? During the consecration of the Eucharist, if we do not have faith in God s ability to change bread and wine into Christ an ability that does not rely on the how holy the priest is we won t have faith to recognize that Jesus is ministering to us in the Eucharist. In today s Gospel reading, Jesus speaks of his Second Coming, but we can also relate it to our daily lives today. We all have new tribulations looming in the future, unknown and unpredictable. That s life on earth! And Jesus wants to help us through them. Faith in this gives us hope and victory. However, when our focus is on our troubles instead of on Christ, we are not living in faith. Jesus warned comes our way. us about our hearts becoming spiritually drowsy. This is when we lose faith. We forget to remain centered in Christ. We neglect to listen for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But when we ask Jesus to restore us to a life of faith, we become vigilant, expectant, and aware that we can rely on God to help us in whatever Our tribulations makes us fearful. Faith gives us reasons to hope in Jesus and to live in joy instead of fear. It's not easy! It takes conscious effort. But spiritual drowsiness is a miserable way to live. Questions for Personal Reflection: What are you waiting for from Jesus? How will you use the Season of Advent to grow in faith by noticing the loving, generous, merciful activities of God? Questions for Faith Sharing: What are your favorite ways to prepare for Christmas? How do you make Advent a season of hope and a time of growing in faith? Share your ideas with the other community members and listen for new ideas that you can adopt. The minds of the faithful must be directed primarily toward the feasts of the Lord (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, para. #108). Sundays and Holy Days are themselves lessons of faith.

3 Monday - December 3 Saint Francis Xavier: Pray in sacrificial suffering Isaiah 2:1-5 Ps 122:1-9 Matthew 8: True faith When was the last time you had a mountaintop experience of faith? Faith in Jesus is what makes it possible to climb the Lord's mountain. Advent is meant to be a time of reaching new heights in spiritual growth. Consider today s first reading. To climb the Lord's mountain and reach the top requires actively seeking the greatest peace and the fullest joy for our lives today, which only Christ can provide. The prophet Isaiah saw this being promised for the "days to come." He had grown up praying Psalm 122 for the peace of Jerusalem. Israel had not experienced peace since the days of King Solomon's reign and it still hasn't. Does this mean that Isaiah's prophecy has never come true? Has the Lord's house never been established as the highest mountain? Indeed it has: And it's in you! God the Divine Son became the child of a human to establish on earth the greatest peace, the fullest joy, and the clearest revelation of God's instructions. Through faith in Jesus, we become the new Jerusalem, the Zion that Isaiah foresaw. Through faith in Jesus, we become the answer to the psalmist's prayer. Without faith, we live in the valley. When life's hardships get bad enough or when we stay in sin long enough, we hit bottom. Faith in Christ raises us up to the new heights in our spiritual growth. This kind of faith is exampled by the centurion in Capernaum in today s Gospel passage. His faith "amazed" Jesus. This Roman enemy of the Jews had climbed the Lord's mountain while the Jews were still squabbling in the valley. Amazing. Have you ever amazed Jesus? True faith means we trust that God is embracing us and holding us securely, even when conflicts and trials shake us up; this trust gives us peace. True faith means we believe that God will turn every hardship into a benefit; this belief gives us joy. True faith means we allow Jesus to be our Lord, our Teacher, our Guide; thus through his Word and his Holy Spirit we receive the best possible guidance. Think of a conflict you re currently enduring. What sword have you been using to win the battle instead of trusting God to show you a stress-reducing way to handle it? Faith can turn your sword into a plowshare, i.e., a tool that will plow the soil of your life to make room for new growth and new fruit. Make peace with your enemy (an "enemy" is anyone whose will is opposed to yours). Even if you're an innocent victim of the battle, do a good deed that will melt your enemy's heart. This might feel like a difficult mountain to climb, but it is the route of faith. It is the route that leads us away from the emotional angst of the conflict to the inner peace that only Christ can provide the only peace that lasts. The obligation of spreading the faith is imposed on every disciple of Christ, according to his state (Lumen Gentium, para. #17). We share our faith more effectively and more successfully when we live a life of faith. The peace we get from such a life is a testimony that speakers louder than words.

4 Tuesday - December 4 St. John Damascene: Pray about violent games and shows Isaiah 11:1-10 Ps 72:1, 7-8, 12-13, 17 Luke 10: New growth in faith Name your stump. Today s first reading contains that often-quoted, sometimes sung prophecy in Isaiah about the coming of the Messiah, a new branch growing from the dead stump of the tree of Jesse. Jesse was the great King David's father. Out of this family tree, Jesus was born. The tree of Jesse was a healthy, fruitful family because of their faith in God, which inspired them to be good servants his kingdom. David became a servant-king 1,100 years before the human birth of Jesus. His reign was strong and branched out into the whole nation of Israel. During much of his son Solomon's reign, the tree continued to flourish, but then it became diseased. Israel cracked in two, divided and weakened by a civil war after Solomon's death. Foreign enemies came and cut down the tree, taking the Israelites into captivity. The Jews never again had a king as great as David. Through the prophet Isaiah, God promised that the tree of Jesse would spring back to life. In the midst of suffering and loss, God was offering a reason for hope based on faith in him. Think of a chopped-down tree in your own life. What relationship has been cut off? What ministry has died? Has a job been axed? Has a dream withered? Name your stump. The Jews thought that when the new shoot finally grew from the stump of Jesse's tree, it would be a new king like David and he would rescue them from their human enemies. Of course, we know that Jesus was the Messiah that Isaiah had prophesied, and he was quite a different sort of king. The branch of Christ grew into Christianity and its many branches of Christ-rooted ministries. Jesus rescued us from the spiritual enemy and its weapons of sin. Faith-filled followers serve God s kingdom, producing many good fruits. Now think of your own tree stump. If we watch for our stumps to come back to life and grow the same old tree, we will fail to see our Messiah. A cut-off relationship cannot be restored unless Christ becomes the center of it and each person's heart is converted and healed from the cut. A dead ministry will take new shape only when Jesus resurrects it; the roots will be the same, but the new growth will be surprisingly different. Christ's life is springing forth from the axed job as he points the way down a path that will glorify God. The withered dream will pass through the cross of Christ to be resurrected into a glorified new goal that will be empowered by a Pentecost of the Holy Spirit. When we allow Isaiah's prophecy to come true for us in our current situations, we hear Jesus say, as we read in today s Gospel passage, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!" Do you have faith to see? Fertilize your tree stump by increasing your prayer time, scripture reading, other spiritual reading, and participation in parish programs. Jesus himself is the new growth that will be born in you, but you have to nurture your soil. The laity must make progress in holiness in a happy and ready spirit, trying prudently and patiently to overcome difficulties (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, para. #4). Faith assists us in this progress, which in turn strengthens our faith.

5 Wednesday - December 5 St. Galganus: Pray for hard case conversions Isaiah 25:6-10a Ps 23:1-6 Matthew 15: What's on your Christmas wish list? Remember when you were a child, how you felt about the approach of Christmas? If you were raised in a Christian home, you associated the excitement of the season with Jesus' birthday. But a big part of Advent, for most of us, was focused on our Christmas wish lists. We spent a lot of time hoping to get everything we wanted. Today as adults, we understand that we should focus more on the needs of others than on ourselves. However, before we put coal in our stockings as penance for selfishly making wish lists again, let's look at the psychological reasons for greed. There's nothing wrong with hoping for gifts. God wants us to be open to receive more than we actually have, because he is so very generous and has such great love for us. However, to desire materialistic gifts without wanting to share them with others is greed. And greed is a reaction to unmet needs. The cure for this is faith the faith that God meets all our needs. No parents, no friends, no spouses can ever give us all that we need. We wish they did, but we must place our hope in God. Only God can be all that we need for all that we need. But unless we turn to God and ask him to fill us unless we rely first and foremost on him for everything we will continue to have selfish desires springing from unmet needs. God wants us to give him our Christmas hope lists and then trust him to take care of us in his perfect way, in his perfect time, in his perfect generosity. In today s Gospel reading, Jesus has just finished giving a three-day seminar. His message was so captivating that most people forgot to go home and eat. Jesus understood their needs. He cared about them so much that he worked a miracle, taking what was insufficient and converting it into a generous heaping of more than what was necessary. Do you realize that Jesus wants to give to you more than is necessary? Today's first reading says, "The Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples." The responsorial Psalm says, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall lack nothing." Jesus understands your needs! Jesus cares about you! He can and wants to give you more than you need! Why do we find this so hard to believe? It s because first we have to turn to him and trust him rather than demand it from the people around us. Jesus often provides for us through our own talents and through the people he has placed in our lives, just as he provided for the crowd on the mountainside using the fish and bread of the people, but we must let him decide the best way to take care of us. He really enjoys taking what is too little and multiplying it into too much. Give God your hope list and let him do something surprising with it. Have no expectations of what he will do. Make no demands on him. Let him do it his way, and the results will be better than you could ever imagine! Christ continually distributes in his body, that is the Church, gifts of ministries in which, by his own power, we serve each other unto salvation (Lumen Gentium, para. #7). Faith is most fully lived, and hope is most completely fulfilled, in Christian community.

6 Thursday - December 6 St. Nicholas: Pray for children Isaiah 26:1-6 Ps 118:1, 8-9, 19-21, 25-27a Matthew 7:21, Will obedience get us to heaven? Today s Gospel reading answers the question: "Can a person lose their salvation?" Many Protestants believe in the theology of "once saved always saved" and that heaven is forever guaranteed on the day of conversion when a person says yes to the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus. Catholic teaching, however, acknowledges that a conversion might not be sincere or complete, and that deliberate, terrible sins will turn an unrepentant sinner away from Christ forever (we call such sins "mortal", because they kill the soul). Knowing this can happen, many good Catholics fear that someday they might choose to turn away from Christ. This leads some to become very scrupulous in obeying every Church law, rule, and norm as an insurance policy. Salvation is more than knowing who Jesus is. Many know who he is without having faith in him. He is more than a who. Demons know who he is and obey his commands. Obedience alone does not get anyone into heaven. Jesus is more than an authority we must obey. To know Jesus is to know what he's all about (his purpose, his love, and his life). Salvation is placing our faith in this to such an extent that we want to follow him, doing what he does, changing the world around us, all the way to heaven. We can believe in Jesus and yet remain in the darkness of sin and eternal death. To have faith in Jesus, we must not only believe that he is God. We must not only believe that he is Savior. We must also believe in everything oh yes, everything! that he taught by word and by deed. We enter the kingdom of heaven by listening to his words and acting upon them. Salvation is more than a statement of belief. It s more than going to Mass and reciting the Creed ( I believe in ). It's faith in action. We act the way Jesus acted and we do what Jesus did, because we love him so much that we want others to love him too. This scripture ends the Sermon on the Mount, which started with Matthew's fifth chapter. Read this entire sermon as an examination of conscience. How well are you are behaving like Christ with the people around you? We let our faith shine, for example, when we love our enemies, and when we forgive others as he forgives us and, as he said earlier in this sermon, when we do more than what is asked of us, going the extra mile not because he told us to, but because we genuinely care. Obedience is merely the minimum. To be heralds of hope and flames of light that Christ brings to the world, we have to embrace the way he delivers that hope and light. Going the extra mile is the way we go to the cross with him. And while the cross looks like the antithesis of Christmas, it is sacrifice that opens the door of hope in the hearts of others. Faith is what motivates to do more than the minimum. If we have faith in Christ, we love as he loves and thus we cannot help but want to do more for others. There is the guarantee of heaven: If we love others in him and through him, of course we will have eternal life with him. Just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and persecution, so the Church is called to follow the same route, that it might communicate the fruits of salvation to all (Lumen Gentium, para. #8). Your faith in Christ is a message of salvation for the people around you. It can change the world!

7 Friday - December 7 St. Ambrose: Pray for the holy use of words Isaiah 29:17-24 Ps 27:1, 4, Matthew 9: Why are you afraid? Have faith! In today s responsorial Psalm we say: "The Lord is my light and my salvation whom should I fear?" What are you afraid of right now? What disappointment are you afraid is coming? What's worrying you? What's stealing your joy? When we "gaze on the loveliness of the Lord," our faith grows and we realize that there is no reason to be afraid. We realize: God is so wonderful, so caring, so good, so awesomely powerfully concerned about my every need, my every hope, my every prayer, of course there is nothing that will happen to me that is so bad as to produce more harm than good! Fear is the opposite of faith. When we have fear, we're blind to the wonderfulness of the Lord, and like the two men in the Gospel reading, we need to be healed. Faith is the cure faith that identifies Jesus as Lord, faith that appreciates the loveliness of the Lord, faith that believes that God is going to make good come from every hardship, no matter how bad it looks. This faith is what empowers us to believe that we shall indeed "see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living", and it becomes the source of our hope. This is a faith that is willing to "wait for the Lord with courage," because we know that God is watching over us, and thus we can experience hope even during hardships. Fear is not of God. It does not belong in a Christian's life. Neither does worry, because worry is caused by fear. Whenever we become concerned about anything that might be worrisome, if the Lord truly is our Savior, as we claim him to be, then we choose to turn it over to him in trust, because we know we can trust him! Those who are blinded by fear are those who cannot see the Lord in the situation that worries them, and thus they have valid reason to live in fear. However, you and I should know better. We have already seen the Lord do much good. We have valid reasons to live in confident hope, despite all the visible evidence to the contrary. Are you living in this hope? How visible is it? Do you have more hope than fear, more peace than worry? Most faith-filled Christians experience temporary blindness from time to time. That's simply because we forget to gaze upon the loveliness of the Lord. In the darkness, we need to turn toward the light of Christ, but that s not all. We need to stare at it until it blinds us to whatever we were worried about! The goodness of God must become our focus. Fear sets in when we get distracted by the attractions of this world, losing sight of what is pure and holy and heavenly. Faith tells us to not be distracted by our trials and hardships. Instead of focusing on the evidence of impending disaster, we need to keep our eyes on Jesus, the reason for our hope. Victorious hope comes from remembering to keep our eyes focused on Jesus at all times! All are called to union with Christ, who is the light of the world, from whom we go forth, through whom we live, and toward whom our whole life strains (Lumen Gentium, para. #3). We naturally hunger for this union. In faith, we instinctively know that it conquers fear, fills us with hope, and secures our future for victory.

8 Saturday - December 8 Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Genesis 3:9-15 & 20 Ps 98:1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4 Ephesians 1:3-6, Luke 1: The grace that protects us from sin Today we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We celebrate the awesome miracle that God the Father granted to his specially prepared daughter so that she could become the mother of God the Son. We celebrate the all-knowing nature of God, who planned ahead for Mary's participation in salvation history, knowing before her conception that she would choose to say yes in faith. We celebrate the Holy Spirit, Giver of Life, who prepared a holy womb for the conception of Jesus' human nature by first creating Mary without the effects of Original Sin. As a new Eve, her conception was "immaculate" (untainted by Original Sin), because Jesus, who is fully divine and perfectly holy, could not grow in the womb of a sinner. Only later, when he had complete control over his decision as an adult, could he join himself to the sins of the human race. We celebrate Mary's motherhood. In today s reading from Genesis chapter 3, we see Eve become the mother of all the living, but she sins and she passes this sinfulness onto all generations. In the Gospel reading, Mary becomes the Second Eve, saying yes through faith empowered by grace to the vocation of becoming the mother of the only one who could redeem us from sin. Thus, Mary becomes the mother of all those who share in this faith, all those who want to be redeemed from sin and who want to give birth to Jesus in others. We also celebrate the Church's official pronouncement of Mary's immaculate conception, which Pope Pius IX made official in Because this occurred in recent history, it seems like an "invention" of Catholicism, but Christians have understood this dogma and taught it to each other since the early days of the Church. Pius IX merely drew special attention to it, because the world's influences had been eroding belief in this ancient dogma. The idea that Mary could be conceived without bondage to Original Sin, and the related idea that Mary could spend her entire life free of sin, is not a glorification of her. It's a glorification of God, who filled her with grace in order to protect her in a special way, to strengthen her faith, and to enable her to resist temptation throughout her life. "Let it be done to me according to your word" was not a sudden or temporary leap of faith for Mary; it was her life-long attitude. The power that enabled her to fulfill this desire came straight from the Holy Spirit as a gift of grace. Grace is a gift, pure gift. Grace is God's power received as a gift when we need it, regardless of what we do or don't do. Placing ourselves into God's grace, however, does depend on what we do. We were given this grace by baptism, but when we sin, we remove ourselves from the state of grace. We cannot sin and remain in God's good graces. When we repent, God's mercy restores us to his grace. When we rely on this grace at the moment of temptation, we overcome the sin and we are restored to the peace of Christ. The laity should be aware that they are cooperating with God the creator, redeemer, and sanctifier and are giving praise to him (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, para. #16) In faith, and through Mary s example, we are graced by God with whatever we need to overcome sin. He also graces us with whatever is needed to fulfill the calling he gives us for bringing Christ to others, tailored for our own unique circumstances.