From Season to Season

 And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,  until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star,  and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures  and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh .  —Matthew 2:9b-11 When Saint Luke wrote his account of the birth of Jesus, he spoke of shepherds tending their flocks by night. Inspired an angelic messenger and the multitude of the heavenly host with their songs of God’s glory, these shepherds “went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger” (Luke 2:16). We hear this story in the gospels proclaimed in the Masses of Christmas “ During the Night ” and “ at Dawn .”    Saint Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus has a very different tone. Concerned as he is with demonstrating how Jesus was the fulfillm...

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God…  And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us,  and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.  —Luke 1:1-2, 14 The Gospel of the Christmas Mass “During the Day” Every Christmas we celebrate the truth that God became a human being. This belief is so essential that to deny it or to try to explain it away is to give up the foundational belief of Christians. The Solemnity of Christmas invites us to pause and reflect on what these words really mean.  It is one thing to simply repeat the words of the Nicene Creed: “and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.” It is quite another to allow these words to effect a change in our lives. As Cardinal Basil Hume observed, “The words are simple and direct, but their meaning is far beyond our power to comprehend… But it is not flesh and blood...

  Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word." —Luke 1:38 The Gospels do not relate a single word spoken by Joseph, the husband of Mary. He is a silent, protecting figure standing in the shadows during the Season of Advent, coming into view only in the final days of this season of watching and waiting. And, while we do hear from Mary in the gospels of Luke and John, few of her words have come down to us.  Despite the fact that we hear so little from the parents of Jesus, we can nevertheless recognize one particular virtue that both shared: obedience.  “Obedience” isn’t a particularly popular word in our culture, including within the Church. Sadly, too many people have to come to associate obedience with some sort of blind submission. Instead, if we look at the history of the word, we see that it comes from two Latin words, ob and audire , and our English word “obedience” means to listen or to hear.  This sense of l...

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near. - Philippians 4:4-5; Entrance Antiphon for  the Third Sunday of Advent On this Third Sunday of Advent, the Church gives us a very particular mandate: Rejoice! And, during these pre-Christmas days, it seems that there is joy all around us. And yet, the essayist William Stringfellow makes a poignant observation that should give us pause: “For the greeting card sentiment and sermonic rhetoric, I do not think that much rejoicing happens around Christmastime, least of all about the coming of the Lord. There is, I notice, a lot of holiday frolicking, but that is not the same as rejoicing. In any case, maybe the outbursts of either frolicking and rejoicing are premature, if John the Baptist has credibility. He identifies repentance as the sentiment of Advent” (from Advent as a Penitential Season). The themes of judgment, repentance, and salvation preached by John the Baptist seem to be at odds with the spirit of C...

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the desert:  “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. —Mark 1:2-4 Advent is a complicated season. I’m tempted to say that this is the most complex season of the Church Year. Advent presumes that we Christians have been formed in an adult faith that is prepared to celebrate an adult Christmas. And, as we know, Advent isn’t a season that is focused only on the past, because this is the time we focus our attention on One who is among us right now and who will come in glory in the future. Although Advent is a season of hope, hope seems to be in short supply these days. So, as I was reflecting on this Sunday's readings , I thought about what hope might mean for our Church and the world. In this, I realized that I was making a mi...

"Watch, therefore; you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!'" ”     —Mark 13:35-37 “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” or so says the cheery holiday song by Meredith Wilson. And yet, when we enter our parish churches on Sunday, we won’t be greeted by Christmas trees and poinsettias or lift our voices in joyful hymns singing “glory to the Newborn King.” Instead, we will hear a “crisis mode” Gospel ( Mark 13:33-37 ) that calls us to vigilance, watchfulness, and prayer. It is certainly a disconnect. Unfortunately, for too many of us, Advent is a sort of pre-Christmas season that only thinly veils the all-out joy of Christmas. But with this Sunday’s readings and prayers , the Church is reminding us that there is much more to Advent than just anticipating the birthday of Jesus. ...

“The king said to him, 'My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?' But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, 'Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.' Many are invited, but few are chosen." —Matthew 22:12-14   This is a season of invitations. As the end of October approaches, many of us will be invited to Halloween parties and numerous parishes will send out information about special All Saints’ Day and All Souls Day services remembering those who have died in the past year. Then, only a short time later family and friends will begin making plans for Thanksgiving. Few of us will have a chance to take a breath before the invitations begin to roll in for the pre-Christmas parties. It almost seems natural, then, that our Gospel this Sunday is a parable that begins with an invitation to a party. In this passage, Jesus tells t...

Ivan was born in 1896 in the village of Zhyvachiv (in modern-day Ukraine). He was ordained a priest in 1923. In April 1945, Bishop Hryhory Khomyshyn, Greek Catholic eparch of Stanislaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk), ordained Ivan as coadjutor bishop with the right to succeed him in case Bishop Khomyshyn should be arrested or killed by the Communist leadership. However, on June 2, 1945, Ivan was arrested and deported to the labor camps in Vorkuta, Russia. In 1950, he was transferred to labor camps in Mordovia, Russia. Following his release in 1954, Ivan returned to Stanislaviv. He was arrested again in 1962 and imprisoned for five years in a camp known for its harsh treatment of prisoners. Although he was released on November 30, 1968, he was interrogated by KGB officials every few weeks. The last visit was two weeks before his death, which was on December 2, 1973, in Stanislaviv. Because of his imprisonment and suffering, Blessed Ivan Sleziuk is honored among the “ Martyrs Kill...

Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, Jesus asked him to put out a short distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon said in reply, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.” When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. —Luke 5:3–6 This past week, as I was reflecting on this Sunday’s Gospel and thinking about what I would write in this reflection, I happened to have a conversation with another member of my religious community , during which he shared a question he recently asked the members of his parish in a daily homily: “How do you respond when someone confronts you about something you’ve done wrong?” It’s a good question. He shared three possible responses with his parishioners. “First,” he said, ...

In his novel, Brideshead Revisited , Evelyn Waugh tells the story of Charles Ryder and the Marchmain family. Near the end of the novel, Ryder has an awakening, an epiphany , as he watches the final act of faith of a man he presumed shared his ambivalence toward Catholicism. Despite himself, Ryder “felt the longing for a sign…the hand moved slowly down his breast, then to his shoulder, and Lord Marchmain made the Sign of the Cross. Then I knew the sign I had asked for was not a little thing, not a passing nod of recognition, and a phrase came back to me from my childhood of the veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom.” In the ancient world, an epiphaneia was a visible manifestation of a god or the solemn visit of a secular ruler to the cities of his realm. Today’s celebration of the Epiphany of the Lord brings together the quiet realizations of a Charles Ryder with the grandeur of a king’s visit. In this liturgy, we are not passively remembering the journey of the Magi—...

The utterance of one who hears what God says, and knows what the Most High knows, Of one who sees what the Almighty sees, enraptured, and with eyes unveiled. I see him, though not now; I behold him, though not near: A star shall advance from Jacob, and a staff shall rise from Israel. - Numbers 24:16-17   With today’s prophecy from Balaam ( Numbers 24:15-17a ), a non-Israelite prophet, our attention is drawn more and more to who Jesus is: the star rising from Jacob and the staff for Israel (cf. Isaiah 11:1 ).    Even a brief reading of the Old Testament will reveal that the people of Israel were a hope-filled, expectant people. Israel’s longing for the Messiah was shaped by the ways that God had manifested his power throughout their history, and prophets, like Isaiah, Amos, and later, John the Baptist never stopped reminding the people that God was coming to save his own. But, Israel also recognized that God had already shown his power and “visited his ...

In those days, like a fire there appeared the prophet Elijah whose words were as a flaming furnace. Their staff of bread he shattered, in his zeal he reduced them to straits; By the Lord's word he shut up the heavens and three times brought down fire. How awesome are you, Elijah, in your wondrous deeds! - Sirach 28:1-4 In the Advent carol “Watchman Tell Us Of the Night,” the lyricist, Sir John Bowring , presents a dialogue between a watchman and a traveler. In the song, the night is far spent and the morning star announces the coming of the dawn: Watchman, tell us of the night, What its signs of promise are. Traveler, o’er yon mountains height, See that glory beaming star. Watchman, does its beauteous ray Aught of joy or hope foretell? Traveler, yes—it brings the day, Promised day of Israel . The prophet, like the traveler in this carol, is the one who is able to discern the presence and action of God at work in the world  and who i...

I will set in the wasteland the cypress, together with the plane tree and the pine, That all may see and know, observe and understand, That the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it. - Isaiah 41:19b-20   Advent is a season of tension. It is a time to reflect on promises fulfilled, but somehow still incomplete. This built-in tension of Advent reflects the experience of waiting and expectation that is an essential part of life. When we think of a child counting the days until Christmas or listen to the hopes and excitement of parents awaiting the birth of a child, we can see the frustration (and even pain) that goes with expectation. Unfortunately, however, many people today live lives that are almost always oriented toward the next thing: we love novelty and distractions so much, that we often forget about the gift of the present moment. Advent isn’t only about the past and the future, it is also a season that invites us to see what Go...

Jesus said to the crowds: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, And I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, For I am meek and humble of heart; And you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” - Matthew 11:28-30   The words of Jesus are not simply idle, poetic phrases. Jesus addresses real human experiences of fatigue, despair, downheartedness, and even exploitation and abuse. Just as the Lord does not “faint or grow weary” in protecting the Chosen People, he gives strength and vigor to the fainting and weak, so that “they who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar as with eagles’ wings; They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint” (Isaiah 40:30-31). To live a life faithful to the demands of the Gospel requires conviction and strength that can waiver, no matter how good and pure our intentions may be. Jesus’ words are addressed to each of us: in the...