The Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, Sunday, January 1, 2023

Luke 2, 16–21

The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them. When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Karl Ratzinger’s election to the papal throne was greeted with rejoicing and relief by faithful Catholics who looked forward to continued stability in the Church after the rocky years of the 1960’s and 1970’s.  He ruled the Church with a steady hand, appointed some good bishops and member of the Curia, and he laid out a logical and clear explanation that the Mass of the 1962 Missal had never been abrogated and that any Catholic priest was free to offer it.  This proved a great boon to the Church in many ways, not the least being that priests who trained to offer the traditional Mass discovered the riches and beauty of the Mass in both forms.  Bizarre but true, seminaries spend very little time training men to say the Mass.  The Mass is considered a function rather than a ritual by those in charge.  A function can be carried out without much thought, but a ritual requires attention to every detail, for every word and gesture contains meaning.  A priest who is aware of this and offers the Mass with this awareness will truly worship God and help the congregation to worship him too.  I know of a number of priests who discovered this during Ratzinger’s reign as Benedict XVI.  His abdication came as a tremendous shock to a Church still healing from the unsettled times after Vatican II and brought forth a new pope whose ways are very different from those of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.  We thank God for the bit of sunshine that glowed upon the world while Benedict reigned and pray for his immortal soul, which surely stands in need of prayers just as any of ours do.

“The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger.”  If we think about this for a minute, we might wonder why the angels directed anyone at all — let alone shepherds — to Mary, Joseph, and Jesus just after he was born.  The shepherds could do nothing for the Holy Family and might even prove an embarrassment or inconvenience.  The sole possible reason would be to comfort the parents with the news and the reassuring words of of the exulting angels.  The Birth of Jesus caught them out of doors and perhaps without a woman to assist Mary.  While the sight of the Infant would have provided consolation, we should keep in mind that in the Birth itself there were no angels, no glory, no divine words.  It is possible that the reason the Virgin Mary went with Joseph to Bethlehem though she was heavily pregnant was that they intended for her to give birth to the King of Israel in Jerusalem, and to remain there.  This would have seemed much more appropriate than for the Child to be born in Nazareth in Galilee.  We get a hint of confirmation that this was their plan from Matthew 2, 22, when we are told: “Hearing that Archelaus reigned in Judea in the place of Herod his father, [Joseph] was afraid to go there: and being warned in sleep returned into the region of Galilee.”  In God’s Providence, Herod’s son became king so that Joseph would not be able to take his family back to Judea, as though he had planned to do so.  The Lord Jesus did not will to be born or to live in the royal city, but to grow up as a nondescript Galilean.  He did not come to save kings but to redeem slaves.  

“And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”  This would be better translated as, “Mary was preserving all these words, pondering them in her heart.”  The main verb is in the imperfect, meaning an action continuously carried out in the past.  Mary did not think about these words and forget them, but continued to think about them for the rest of her life.  Also, it is not “things” but “words” or “sayings” or “spoken accounts”.  Because Mary’s intellect was untainted by sin, her memory would have held the words of the shepherds and all the circumstances of the Birth of her Son in perfect retention.  And the words upon which she reflected she revealed later to St. Luke, which he put into his Gospel for us.  It is as though she herself were speaking these words from the shepherds to us through Luke’s pen.

“Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.”  One day we will learn whether this experience led to these shepherds leading virtuous lives or whether, like so many of us after great experiences, they soon forgot what they had seen and heard and kept on as they had been doing.

“When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”  Formerly and for many centuries, January 1, eight days after Christmas, the Church celebrated the Feast of the Circumcision.  The Fast of Mary, Mother of God, occurred in the Fall.  It was at the Circumcision of the Lord that Joseph gave the Child his name, Jesus, thereby also officially claiming his paternity.  Jesus became a Jew at this point.  And so on this day we celebrate the legal fatherhood of Joseph, the beginning of his life as a member of the Chosen People by Jesus, and the Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 Friday in the Octave of Christmas, December 31, 2022

John 2, 18-21

Children, it is the last hour, and just as you heard that the Antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us. Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number. But you have the anointing that comes from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth.

In the Book of Revelation, the Antichrist is described in this fashion: “A beast coming up out the sea, having seven heads and ten horns: and upon his horns, ten diadems: and upon his heads, names of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like to a leopard: and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his own strength and great power. And I saw one of his heads as it were slain to death: and his death’s wound was healed. And all the earth was in admiration after the beast” (Revelation 1-3).  This is a travesty of the Lamb of God, who is described in Revelation: “A Lamb standing, as it were slain, having seven horns and seven eyes: which are the seven Spirits of God” (Revelation 5, 6).  The Antichrist will attempt to appear as the true Christ who is to come into the world, and denouncing Jesus Christ as false.  He will set himself up as God, to be worshipped, and will seem powerful.  St. Paul describes him thus: “The man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition who opposes and is lifted up above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God” (2 Thessalonians 2, 3-4).  

He will make himself out to be Christ and will appear to perform many signs, as our Lord himself warns us, but these are merely tricks without substance: “For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect” (Matthew 24, 24).  How will we know that he is the Antichrist? Because his deeds will be wicked and his teachings will attempt to overthrow the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He will lead many astray, some of whom will also seem to perform signs and to prophesy.  The Lord solemnly warns us: “By their deeds you shall know them” (Matthew 7, 6).  

Before the Antichrist’s coming many antichrists, as St. John informs us, will appear and attempt to destroy the Church and her teaching.  Indeed, they were at work from Apostolic times, as we see in the excerpt from his First Letter used in today’s Mass.  They teach what is false and try to make a mess of Church doctrine and authority.  They oppose what is right and use the cover of authority to cause the Faithful to worship false gods.  They delight in every kind of perversion and strive to make it normal.  The Antichrist and his minion antichrists will possess a certain charm which will aid in his deception, for, as St. Paul tells us, “False apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder: for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11, 13-14). 

The Antichrist and those that precede his coming will test the faith of those who belong to Christ, strengthening it in those who choose to persevere so that they will be made perfect in it.  He will cause great confusion and will usher in a fierce persecution of those who refuse to worship him, but his time is short.  At the end of the world, “the Lord Jesus shall kill [him] with the Spirit of his mouth and shall destroy [him] with the brightness of his coming: him whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power and signs and lying wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2, 8–9).  The ancient tradition is that the Lord will slay him on Mount Sinai.

Who will he be?  Much speculation has swirled over this question through the ages.  The earliest Christians thought it would be Nero, come back from the dead.  Each generation of the faithful has named its worst enemy as the Antichrist.  While these maybe have been antichrists, none of them were the Antichrist.  He could be anyone and he could come at any time.  He will possess some kind of official authority, teach a parody of the Gospel, and seemingly perform wonders.  

We pray that we will remain faithful to the Lord Jesus and his teachings in the face of all the trials the devil and his agents can throw against us.

 The Feast of the Holy Family, Friday, December 30, 2022

Colossians 3, 12–21

Brothers and sisters: Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged. 

The Feast of the Holy Family is normally celebrated on the Sunday following Christmas except when Christmas falls on a Sunday, meaning that the Feast of Mary, the Mother of God, also falls on a Sunday.  In that case, which occurs this year, the Feast of the Holy Family is moved to December 29.  The Feast itself is a late addition to the calendar, only added to it by Pope Benedict XV in 1921.  The purpose of the Feast is to honor the Lord Jesus within his little Family consisting of his Mother, the Virgin Mary. And his legal father, St. Joseph, who watched over him and helped him grow, and to encourage us to model our families after his.

The excerpt from St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians used in today’s Mass is similar to the Apostle’s instructions in Ephesians 5, 21-33.  He is presenting the Church’s teaching on the relations between members of a Christian family.  We should not underestimate the necessity for him doing this because these Gentile Christians did not have Jewish tradition and culture to draw on.  That is, they did not have even the foundation for understanding how members of a Christian family should understand and act towards each other — in short, how to live as the Holy Family lived.  

He prefaces his teaching with general admonitions to the Colossians on how to live in society, particularly within their own community of believers: “Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”  We should notice that he first of all reminds them that they are “God’s chosen ones”, his “elect”, chosen before the world began.  They belong to him and now should act as he directs them.  They therefore should act with one another as he has acted with them, with compassion and patience.  “And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection.”  For Paul, love was the love of Christ Crucified for us which we share with one another.  It is not a mere affection or feeling but “a bond” that makes us members of one another in the Body of Jesus Christ.  Another translation of the Greek word for “bond” is “chain”, and for believers in the Lord Jesus, our chain is not one that restricts but that liberates.

“Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them.”  The Greek word translated here as “subordinate” means something more like “make yourself subject to”, which is not quite the same thing.  To be “subordinate” has the sense of making oneself less than another in all things.  To “make oneself subject to” has the sense of a person placing him or herself at the service of another while remaining and being treated as an equal.  We see this is what follows the instruction to wives: “Husbands, love your wives.”  In understanding what Paul is saying we must refer back to how he understands “love”, a supernatural gift from God.  We can also look to a similar verse in Ephesians 5, 21: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ”, and Ephesians 5, 25: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her” — keeping in mind that out of his love for the Church, his Bride, Christ died for her.

“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged.”  The place of a child in the Gentile world was a matter of great uncertainty.  For example, unwanted children were left in the woods by their parents to be devoured by the beasts.  Under Roman Law, a father could kill his child up to the age of twelve and not be charged with murder.  For a certain period in Rome, if a parent was sentences to death, his wife and children were killed with him.  For the Christian, a child is a welcome sign of God’s love.  Paul teaches children to obey their parents not out of servile fear but in order to make Jesus happy, Jesus, who obeyed his parents.  Parents are also counseled not to “provoke” their children, that is, to spew their rage at them or blame them for what they have not done.  Paul repeats this counsel and adds to it in Ephesians 6, 4: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”  Teach your children who come to you from God, to serve him.

As never before in history, society is attacking and attempting to redefine the family.  That is, society is engaged in destroying that out of which it consists, for it is based on the family — and always has been — not on the individual, as it is claimed today.  It is self-destructive behavior which will lead to final disaster there is no conversion.  Let us give good example through our families of the beauty and love that are possible for anyone to have, and which will lead them to the model of all families, that of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

 Thursday in the Octave of Christmas, December 29, 2022

Luke 2, 22-35

When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, the parents of Jesus took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord, and to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. He came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying: “Lord, now let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.”  The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

St. Luke knows that his Greek readers are very interested in signs early in life of a great person’s future.  An example of this in Greek mythology is the story of Hercules as an infant strangling two giant snakes sent to kill him.  Luke is therefore very attentive to stories of Jesus as an infant and child which must have been told him by the Virgin Mary who was very much still alive at the time he wrote his Gospel and lived in places he is known to have visited.  In the excerpt from his Gospel used for today’s Mass, we read of the very ordinary event of his parents presenting him, as the first-born, in the Temple.  As distinct from the Greek myths, though, Luke presents clear and natural details that highlight the historicity of this event.  That points up the extraordinary actions of Simeon and Anna.

“This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.”  Simeon is described almost in the same way as Luke had described Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist.  The significant addition here is that “the Holy Spirit was upon” Simeon, whereas he was not upon Zechariah, which led to the latter’s doubts.  Now, we are not told of the Holy Spirit was upon him more or less permanently or for this occasion, but because Christ has not yet died on the Cross and the Spirit has not yet been sent, we can assume that it was for a particular action.  In theological terms, we call this “actual grace”, grace that enables a particular action at a particular time.  It is unlike sanctifying grace in that it does not consist of the sharing of God’s divine life.  “The consolation of Israel” is an interesting choice of words for it would not mean much to the Greeks, but for the Jews would call to mind God’s tender words in Isaiah 40, 1: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned.”  Perhaps this verse was already known by the Greek Christians for whom Luke wrote his Gospel.

“He took him into his arms.”  We ought to think about this for awhile.  A human being very much us took the Creator of all things into his arms, the God who causes our hearts to beat and our lungs to breathe, whose will keeps the universe in existence.  Unlike the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, he possesses no special abiding graces and has undoubtedly committed sins in his life, and yet God permits this man to hold him in his arms, even to take him from his parents.  He even gives this man leave to prophesy about him.  He looks upon the tiny infant wrapped up now in a blanket, but recently wrapped in cold, dirty swaddling clothes, and sees him for who he is: “The salvation which you prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.”  Significantly, the Jew, Simeon, recognizes this Savior as for the nations, the Gentiles, as much as for Israel.  Also to be noted, Simeon is not described as a Pharisee or a priest.  He is simply a devout Jew who is acting under the impulse of the Holy Spirit.  It is a sign to the Greeks that the Lord is already not recognized by the very people — the Pharisees and the priests — who should have recognized him.  Why not?  Because the Holy Spirit did not come upon them?  And why did he not?  Because Simeon was “righteous and devout” and was waiting for “the consolation of Israel”, and they were not.  This taught the Greeks that the Holy Spirit will come upon a person of good will and who strives to live the virtuous life, but will not come upon those who pursue their own ends, even if outwardly they seem godly.  It is the interior disposition that matters.

Mary and Joseph “wondered” at this, that an ordinary man and not a festooned Pharisee or priest could speak in such a way.  To Mary, Simeon said, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”  Only an ordinary man could speak of “the rise and fall of many in Israel” because, full of faith, he stood to rise, while the Pharisee and the Jewish priests would fall.  The prophecy of the sword that would pierce Mary’s heart is something not spoken of directly in the Prophets.  The Virgin was the only person at that time who could have connected the prophesies about the glory of the Savior with the tribulations of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, but Simeon would have confirmed this for her.

Let us also live devoutly and righteously so that when the Holy Spirit comes upon us to prompt us to do God’s will, we will do so with eagerness and joy.

 The Feast of the Holy Innocents, Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Matthew 2, 13-18

When the magi had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled, Out of Egypt I called my son. When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet: A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.

On this day the Holy Church honors those little ones killed by King Herod’s henchmen at his order out of hatred for Jesus Christ.  Devotion to the Holy Innocents, as they care called, goes back into the Church’s antiquity.  The following is a literal translation of the hymn used in the traditional Breviary, written by the early Christian poet Prudentius (d. 413):

Hail, O flowers of the martyrs whom the persecutor of Christ destroyed at the threshold of light, ye newborn roses, as by a whirlwind.

O first victims for Christ, tender flock of sacrificial offerings, ye simple ones play under that altar with your palms and wreathes.

To you, O Jesus, born of the Virgin, be glory, who with the Father and the dear Spirit, is forevermore.  Amen.

We do not know the number of these innocent children.  Some estimates based on our understanding of the population of Bethlehem and the region immediately around it give between a dozen to a few dozen male children to the age of two years old.  During the Middle Ages and later, the popular conception had thousands of children being slaughtered.  Though not actually possible, the high number gives an idea of the horror which people felt for Herod’s savagery.  

We might think about the course of action Herod might have taken.  When apprised by the magi of the Birth of the King of the Jews, he could have prudently or out of simple curiosity sent an emissary from his court with them as they departed for Bethlehem, as advised by the Book of the Prophet Micah.  Certainly that would have proven the wisest path.  He would have learned the poor circumstances of the Child’s Birth and that the parents came from Galilee.  Whatever the magi called him, this Child would have appeared as no threat to Herod’s throne.  If Herod had thought about the magi’s appearance and words a little more, he might have gone himself.  If the stars indicated that this was the King of the Jews, then he could not prevent the Child from growing up and taking his place as King no matter what he did.  It behooved Herod, then, to see for himself and even offer assistance to the Family simply for his own good.  His decision to kill broadly so as to be sure of destroying the destined One shows an reckless use of power that has its origin in both a panicky fear and a thorough disregard for human life.  We might wish that people with these qualities were reserved for nightmares and frightening novels, but they walk among us in all sorts of guises.  Rather than fear them, though, we ought to seek their conversion, remembering the Lord’s own commandments to pray for our enemies.  Not all such people openly wage war or regularly and openly commit violent acts and so we may not know who they are, and so it is incumbent upon us to be careful to give good Christian example and to ready to give the reasons for what we believe.

We pray to the Holy Innocents, asking them to intercede for us that though we cannot match them in their simplicity we might still become as children for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.

 The Feast of St. John the Apostle, Tuesday, December 27, 2022

John 20, 1–8

On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we do not know where they put him.” So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed.

The “other disciple” is understood to be John the Apostle and the writer of this Gospel.  John and Peter were known to belong to the innermost group of the Apostles, witnessing events in the life of Jesus to which the other Apostles were not privy.  Later, we seem them acting together in the Acts of the Apostles in the healing of a crippled beggar.  John takes part in the action of the Gospel but he writes of himself as “the other disciple” or “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, not using his name out of a sense of modesty.

John was a young man at the time he began to attend the preaching of St. John the Baptist, perhaps no more than fifteen or sixteen, the son of Zebedee and the younger brother of James.  His age can be estimated because he was not married when the Lord called him to be an Apostle, and we can say this because he was working with his father as a fisherman.  If he had been married, he would have had his own boat  so as better to support his family.  This also accords with tradition, which counts him as the youngest of the Apostles.  The Lord recognized his zeal and perhaps also a certain excitability, calling him and his brother James “the sons of thunder”.  St. Mark gives us reason for this by describing their desire to call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan town which forbade them entrance of their way to Jerusalem.  Perhaps this mixture of zeal, excitability, and innocence is what drew the Lord especially to him in friendship.  The love between the two men shows most in John’s presence beneath the Cross, and in the Lord’s entrusting his Mother to his care.

Following Pentecost, John remained for some years in Jerusalem.  His acquaintance with the city shows itself in the precise details he gives of it in his Gospel, details which in some cases were proven to be accurate through archaeological discoveries.  A Galilean would only know about these things if he had spent much time in Jerusalem.  In fact, his familiarity with the city and its people as well as the focus he put on the Lord’s preaching in the city in his Gospel make it plain that the Gospel was written for Judean Christians.  Although tradition tells us that John wrote his Gospel late in his life — as late as twenty years after the city fell to the Romans — it would seem that he wrote it before that time.  When he writes of the deeds Jesus performs in the city, he tells us just where he performed them or where he preached, as though to guide people to these places, which would have made no sense of these places no longer existed.  And if he had written either long after the city was destroyed or for Gentile Christians, there would have been no need for him to speak so specifically about places and times.

After writing his Gospel, he moved on to Asia Minor to spread the Gospel.  He is associated with the city of Ephesus, seemingly years after Paul had spent time there.  It was there that he wrote his three Letters.  It was on the island of Patmos, off the coast or .Asia Minor, that he experienced the visions which he set down in the book we call that of Revelation, or as the Apocalypse.  In the book he speaks of being exiled there for his preaching the word of God.  He is said to be the last of the Apostles to die, and if he were fifteen or sixteen in 30 A.D., he could have lived into the 90’s as tradition also hands down to us.  He is supposed to be the only one of the Apostles to die naturally.

We give thanks to God for the writings and the holy example of this man and pray that we may know Christ crucified so as to know him in the glory of his Resurrection, as John did.

 The Feast of St. Stephen, Monday, December 26, 2022

Matthew 10, 17-22

Jesus said to his disciples: “Beware of men, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved.”

The Holy Church places the Feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr, immediately after the celebration of the Son of God’s Birth on earth for the same reason that St. Matthew relates how, just after his Birth by the Virgin Mary, King Herod sought to kill him.  The fact is that holiness attracts persecution.  The Jewish Christians for whom Matthew wrote his Gospel suffered for their faith very soon after they professed it and were baptized.  The Jewish authorities in Galilee and Judea seized their property, denied them employment, arrested them, beat them, and killed them.  On the very day that Stephen was martyred, “a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles” (Acts of the Apostles 8, 1).  

We also see how just as Christ was persecuted soon after he was born, so was the Church, his Body.  After the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles at Pentecost, they began to preach the Gospel in Jerusalem.  Within a few days, Peter and John healed a beggar of his lameness and used the occasion to preach.  The Jewish authorities rushed upon them and arrested them (Acts 4, 3).  A little later, they arrested all twelve of the Apostles and beat them.

Suffering and persecution are a normal part of the Church’s life, and the Christian’s life.  But this is merely a prelude to glory in heaven.  St. James, the son of Alphaeus and bishop of Jerusalem, knew suffering in his own life as he struggled to hold his congregation of Judean Christians together, finally laying down his own life for the Lord.  In his Letter, he counsels his people, “Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1, 2-4).  Persecution is a sign that the devil sees us as a threat, and the Lord permits us to be tested by it so that our faith can be strengthened even further.  As we are tested, we should keep in mind,  “Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him” (James 1, 12).

Let us be renewed in our faith by the graces up during this holy season so that we may persevere in it at all times for the reward at the end of doming into the presence of the living God.

 The Solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, Sunday, December 25, 2022

John 1, 1–18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  A man named John was sent from God. He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of 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. John testified to him and cried out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’ ”  From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace, because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him. 

“In the beginning was the Word.”  The Greek logos, usually translated as “word” has a wealth of meanings, including “reason”, “plan”, and “speech”.  Because the verb to-be is in the imperfect in John 1, 1, the Word “was being” or “was existing” in “the beginning”.  St. John does not tell us “in the beginning” of what or who, but we can look back to the very beginning of the Bible, which seems to provide the inspiration or model for the first verse of John’s Gospel.  This is usually translated into English as “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”, but the Hebrew grammar is not so clear as that.  Noting the grammar, this phrase might be also be translated as “When, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  The phrase means that God himself is “the beginning” of all things.  Understanding the phrase this way, “In the beginning was the Word” tells us of the intimate union of the Father and the Son — his Word.  This is strengthened by the next phrase, “and the Word was with God”.  The Greek pros does not mean “with” in the sense of accompaniment, and is better translated as “towards” or “before”.  Thus, the Father and the Son are  face-to-face in their intimate union: they are not the same Person, but distinct Persons, and yet in perfect union.  “And the Word was God.”  The Persons are both divine and they are equal in power and majesty.

“All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.”  This verse completes the story of creation that we find in the very first words of Genesis.  The existence of the Son through whom all things were made was held back by the Father until the time came for him to “make his dwelling among us”.  “And the Word became flesh.”  The Greek verb for this phrase means “to be born”,  and the noun translated as “flesh” is in the nominative, not the accusative, as the lectionary translation would have it, but “the Word” is also nominative, so it is not an easy phrase to translate.  The best we can do, perhaps, is “And the Word joined himself to flesh and was born.”  Literally, it would be, “the Word-flesh was born”, or, “the Word was born as flesh” — though he remained the Word. “And made his dwelling among us.”  Literally, “he encamped among us”, or “dwelt in a tent among us”.  The root of the verb is the word for “tent”, and this draws the mind back to the long ago times when Israel lived entirely in tents and moved about through the land of Canaan.  It is as though God were returning the nation back to its original order under Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or, perhaps, as in the days of the Exodus.

The Son of God exchanged his intimacy with the Father in heaven for intimacy with us — the creatures made through him, that is, modeled on him.  We see the reality of this separation in his cry from the Cross: “My God, my God, who have you abandoned me?”  But we can also see his Incarnation and Birth of his returning us to the Father in an intimacy bonded by the Holy Spirit.

I wish everyone a Merry and Holy Christmas, and I will remember you at my Mass at 7:30 AM on Christmas morning!

 Friday in the Fourth Week of Advent, December 23, 2022

Luke 1, 57-66

When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, “No. He will be called John.” But they answered her, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,” and all were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God. Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, “What, then, will this child be? For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.”

The Virgin Mary departed from her relative Elizabeth’s town after staying with her for three months.  During this time, she would have managed the household and directed the servants for Elizabeth, which she certainly would not have been able to do herself at that point.  But there were limits on what Mary could do, as she herself was by now three months pregnant.  Traveling on the open road would have become difficult for her and even a little dangerous.  Yet she could not wait any longer to return to Nazareth, where her family, and Joseph must have been anxious for her.  Elizabeth doubtlessly persuaded Mary to go despite her desire to continue serving her, and it is possible that Joseph arrived to help her make the trip.  Losing the company of Mary and her unborn Child would have been hard for Elizabeth, but by the time Mary left, Elizabeth was ready to give birth.

It is not clear if Elizabeth had made her pregnancy known to her friends and neighbors after the Virgin Mary came to her.  Mary herself learned of it only through the revelation of the Angel Gabriel.  Yet it is hard to imagine that Zechariah’s fellow priests did not ask about her or that the servants had not talked to other servants.  The pregnancy might have been hidden for the first six months, especially since no one would have thought of it, but probably not for the last three.  Mary’s arrival might have been put down by observers as due to some infirmity Elizabeth was suffering (she was already an older woman), but by the time she gave birth, the whole town must have known, and surely the people there would have heard the labor cries.  

At the end of those cries, there was a baby.  Like all new babies, a sign of innocence and hope, but this one more than any other that had yet been born.  The mysterious circumstances around his conception, both Zechariah’s loss of hearing and speech in the Temple as well as the age of the parents, hung over it.  In addition, Elizabeth’s behavior after the conception aroused curiosity and concern.  The signs of some heavenly action seemed everywhere, but no one could say definitely what they meant.  The mystery and the strange behavior came to a head when Elizabeth insisted that the child be named John at the time of his circumcision, against the wishes of her well-meaning relatives.  Zechariah made this decision firm by writing on a clay tablet that the child’s name was John.  The crowd was astounded because, deaf and mute, Zechariah should not have been able to understand what everyone was arguing over.  His action silenced the crowd, and with that he began to speak for the first time in nine months.  Inspired by the Holy Spirit, with deep emotion, he explained what it all meant.

“What, then, will this child be? For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.”  Zechariah told the people assembled for John’s circumcision that his son would “be called the prophet of the Most High, for [he] will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins” (Luke 1, 76).  No father had ever spoken of his newborn son in this way.  He would “go before the Lord” to “prepare” his way invoking Malachi 3, 1; and that he would do this by preaching repentance, invoking Malachi 3, 24.  The people understood these verses very specifically as pertaining to the arrival of the Prophet Elijah, who would precede the Messiah.  But the fact that, all the signs aside, the birth seemed very much like any other birth in the obscure little town town where they lived.  When Elijah did come, he would come down from heaven, just as the Messiah would.  This was their thinking, though nothing in the Scriptures told them this.  And so, while they still wondered about what had happened, they went on with their lives.

We, to whom Christ has come in baptism and to whom he continues to come st Holy Mass, must not live as though this had not happened and was continuing to happen, but through virtuous lives we should proclaim that the Lord came, continues to come, and will come again.

 Thursday in the Fourth Week of Advent, December 23, 2022

Luke 1, 46-56

Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. for he has looked upon his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, and has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.”   Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months and then returned to her home.

If we compare the Canticle of Zechariah (Luke 1, 68-79), which The priest uttered after the birth of his son when his speech was restored to him, with the Canticle of Mary, which is contained in today’s Gospel Reading, we can see points of similarity and difference.  One similarity is they are both spoken with joy.  Another is that they both mention Abraham.  In terms of differences, Zechariah’s leans more towards prophecy than Mary’s, and there are good reasons for this.  Zechariah is announcing the birth of the Precursor and explains what his mission shall be.  The Virgin Mary’s Son will be announced by Zechariah’s son and so there is no need for Mary to prophesy.  Also, were Mary to speak of even a small part of what her Son would do, hardly anyone would believe her.  It is sufficient for us, in God’s plan, that Zechariah put the world on notice about the mission of his son, and that his son put the world on notice as to the arrival of its Redeemer.

What does Mary do in her Canticle?  She tells us straightway: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”  The Greek says, “My soul extols the Lord; my spirit exults in God my Savior.”  Now, in Greek, the soul and the spirit are two different things, the first meaning the immortal soul of a human being, and the second meaning a person’s physical life, his breath.  Mary, then, rejoices in God with her whole being, body and soul.  She calls God her “Savior”, according to this translation, but the word can also mean “preserver”, and this hints at a reason for her exultation: she is saved by God in that she is created free from original sin and destined for heaven after this life.  But he also preserves her virginity, which was a concern she had when the angel spoke to her about becoming the Mother of God’s Son.  Deep in her heart, she always loved God so deeply and passionately that there was no possible room for any distraction, precluding relations with husband.  She always felt called to virginity, she knew it to be from God, and so when Gabriel announced to her that she would be the Mother of God’s Son, this seemed to run contrary to God’s plan for her, as she had understood it till that time.  The resolution of the issue, that hers would be a virginal conception, brought her great joy in her understanding that she would continue as a Virgin, and it gave her some insight into what further use God would have with her.  Mary encapsulates this joy in saying, simply, “For he has looked upon his lowly servant.”  That is, in the Greek, “He has looked upon the lowly condition of his slave.”  Better than anyone who has ever lived, she knew that she could do nothing without God.  (Mary must have wondered often about her unique and divine call to virginity, since it did go against what the Jews believed and indeed against human nature, and how she was going to live this out in her town.  Perhaps, in her simple and unwavering acceptance of God’s plan for her, she maintained that, With God all things are possible.  When Gabriel repeats this to her, she rejoices: what she had known all along went perfectly with what Gabriel was revealing to her now).

We ourselves rejoice, recognizing the sorry and helpless condition we have sunk into because of our sins, and yet God, in his wondrous mercy, has provided us so dear and so holy a Mother, and so stunning a Savior.

 Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Advent, December 21, 2022

Luke 1, 39-45

Mary set out in those days and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

Following the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary informed her betrothed husband Joseph what had occurred, that she was with child by the Holy Spirit, and then she left him to go “in haste” to her kinswoman Elizabeth’s house.  She goes very soon after the Annunciation and her learning of Elizabeth’s miraculous pregnancy because of her desire to help her relative, and her desire to see Zechariah, who, as a priest, ought to be a help  to her in knowing how she should prepare for the Birth of Jesus.  She goes right away in order to help at this late stage in Elizabeth’s pregnancy and because she knows that soon it will be difficult for her herself to travel.

“She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.”  We are not told that Zechariah greeted Mary at the door so it may have been that he was away from the house at the time.  The servants would have let Mary into the house and Mary’s jubilant calls brought Elizabeth out from the back of the house where she had secluded herself for these past several months.  In the same way, the Blessed Virgin’s prayers bring us the graces we need to get up from our complacency and perform holy actions.  Now, Elizabeth heard Mary’s voice through the walls of the house even before she saw her, and it was this voice that caused John the Baptist to leap in Elizabeth’s womb.  It was not the sight of Mary nor her clear voice heard in the open.  We can only imagine the power of her presence at this time.  Indeed, her holiness before the Annunciation was so great that it must have been felt by all who came around her, but now with her Child in her womb, it must have been magnified greatly.  Moses gives us some idea of how it was: “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain . . . the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God” (Exodus 34, 29).  Mary carried not the tablets of the Law, but the Lawgiver himself. 

Elizabeth’s response tells us of how the presence of Mary and her unborn Son affected her: “Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice.”  This is the cry of Adam and Eve, of Noah, and of all the Patriarchs and Prophets who had languished in expectation for the redemption of the world.  One day, it will be the cry of all the saints of the Church when the Lord returns.  Elizabeth cries out in a joy and wonder made possible for her by the Holy Spirit.  This should be our inner cry, too, when Christ comes upon our altars and when we receive him in Holy Communion.  How does this happen to us, that the Lord of heaven and earth comes to us?

“Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”  Elizabeth marvels at Mary’s faith, particularly at the act of faith that was her consent to the angel’s message.  Elizabeth’s conception of John, though miraculous, came about naturally.  The conception of the Son of God in Mary’s virginal womb required an act of faith so great that only one who herself had been conceived immaculately could have made it.  We imitate this today when we consented to the Faith and strive to live out the will of God in our lives, guided by his commandments and looking forward to that fulfillment we shall experience in heaven with the Virgin Mary.

 Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Advent, December 20, 2022

Luke 1, 26-38

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”   But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.”  Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

All the essential doctrines concerning the Virgin Mary are found in these verses of the Gospel of St. Luke: her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, and her divine motherhood.  From these flow all that we understand about her, as her Assumption is the logical consequence of her Immaculate Conception.

“Hail, full of grace!”  The traditional translation follows the Vulgate translation of the Greek, which is oddly insufficient.  The Latin rendering was not that of Jerome, who corrected but did not create the much earlier Old Latin translation.  At any rate, the Greek participle the Latin translates means, rather, “You who have been graced [from the beginning]”.  The Greek perfect passive participle gives the meaning of an action completed in the past which has an effect in the present.  The Virgin Mary was perfected in grace at the beginning of her life, at the instant of her conception.  “Grace”, of course, is the divine life which God shares with us.  To be completed by grace means to be filled with God’s life, to be most holy.  This means that she was born without the effects of original sin and possessed in inner harmony of her emotions, intellect, and will that we cannot imagine.  We would be as the blind and her as the only one who could see, by comparison.

“The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin.”  This tells us that Mary was a Virgin at the time that she became with child by the Holy Spirit.  We might expect this since the translation also tells us that she was “betrothed” but not yet living with Joseph, but legally she was married to him and need not have been.  The information Luke gives us here is crucial to our understanding what to do with her statement, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” The verb tense is present, and in the Greek language, this means the present progressive: “since I am having no relations with man [ever].”  She intended, at the time of Gabriel’s visit, to maintain the virginity she had possessed from birth.  The fact that she intended to remain a Virgin even after marriage — in sharp contradiction to human custom — is also shown by her not accepting that the Child would be born in the normal course of her life with Joseph.  Her question to Gabriel makes sense only if she has no intention of forsaking her virginity.

As to the manner of the Child’s conception: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”  The Greek actually says that the Holy Spirit would “approach” her and the power of the Most High would “envelop” her, as in an embrace.  The conception will be of a miraculous nature, with God himself as the Father of this Child.  Gabriel adds, “Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”  This is a Hebrew idiom meaning, “He will be the Son of God.”  “To be called something” is “to be that thing”.  This is a very different understanding than that which we have in the West, just as a person’s name is their character or identity, along with their ancestry.  Thus, the significance of the name the Child will have: “You shall name him Jesus.”  That is, God saves.  Clearly, this demonstrates that the Virgin Mary is the Mother of God, for the Son of God has no human Father, and so must be fully divine, taking his flesh from his human Mother.  And that Mary truly is his Mother and not merely a vessel through which the Son of God passed (which was an early heresy), the angel tells her that she is to name the Child — an action only the true mother could perform, with her husband, the child’s father.

All three of these teachings about Mary fly in the face of human experience, let alone the Jewish culture of her time.  They burst through human expectations and the limitations of the natural world, for “nothing will be impossible for God”.  You and I, poor frail mortals, are granted by the mercy of Almighty God the destiny of standing with the angelic hosts in heaven for all eternity beholding him.  This can be ours if we imitate what we can of the virtues of the Blessed Virgin, profit by her intercession, and believe with all our hearts that God can do this for us.

 Monday in the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 19, 2022

Luke 1, 5-25

In the days of Herod, King of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the priestly division of Abijah; his wife was from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both were righteous in the eyes of God, observing all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren and both were advanced in years. Once when he was serving as priest in his division’s turn before God, according to the practice of the priestly service, he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord to burn incense. Then, when the whole assembly of the people was praying outside at the hour of the incense offering, the angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right of the altar of incense. Zechariah was troubled by what he saw, and fear came upon him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall name him John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He will drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers toward children and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous, to prepare a people fit for the Lord.”  Then Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” And the angel said to him in reply, “I am Gabriel, who stand before God. I was sent to speak to you and to announce to you this good news. But now you will be speechless and unable to talk until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled at their proper time.” Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah and were amazed that he stayed so long in the sanctuary. But when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He was gesturing to them but remained mute. Then, when his days of ministry were completed, he went home. After this time his wife Elizabeth conceived, and she went into seclusion for five months, saying, “So has the Lord done for me at a time when he has seen fit to take away my disgrace before others.”

In his Gospel, St. Luke relates the events in the life of the Lord Jesus in a way that appeals to his Greek readership.  He is exact in his details, he is clear in his presentation, he sets the events in their proper chronological order, and he emphasizes the Lord’s wisdom and the way of life he teaches.  Alongside this he describes the prodigies attendant upon the Lord’s Birth.  His approach to the Nativity of the Lord differs from St. Matthew’s in that Matthew is interested in establishing that his Birth fulfills the prophecies, while Luke’s purpose is to show signs from the very beginning of Christ’s wisdom and power.  While Luke writes with an eye to the Greek Christians, he never turns Jesus or any of the Jews whom he includes in his Gospel into Greeks.  This is a real danger in biography, ancient and modern: to make the subject think and act the way the reader might.  We can see this in many of the films made about Jesus: they make him into a twentieth century American or European dressed in strange clothing.

A sign of Luke’s honesty as a historian comes in his treatment of the announcement to Zechariah that he will be the father of John the Baptist.  Zechariah is shown to act very much as a Jewish priest, and his wife Elizabeth as a Jewish woman.  Luke tells us, for instance, that Zechariah and Elizabeth were “righteous”, a uniquely Jewish concept.  Luke also understand and clearly describes the workings of the priesthood.  He gives details that could have come only from testimony, details such as that incense was burnt at a particular hour and that the priest was chosen by lot to offer it.  These details are not necessary to the story and could have had only marginal interest for the Greeks, but Luke includes them to remind his readers that they are not reading about a Greek priest but a thoroughly Jewish one.  Likewise, Gabriel’s instructions for the care of the child Zechariah and his wife will have ring with particularly Jewish concerns: “He will drink neither wine nor strong drink.”  This indicated, for the Jews, a complete setting aside of the child for God, going even beyond circumcision. Gabriel’s description of John’s mission also rings with Jewish concerns: “He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers toward children and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous, to prepare a people fit for the Lord.”  

Luke’s choice of including this event and the sensitivity to his sources in the way he presents it, satisfy both the Greek interest in wonders that occur before and at the birth of a hero as well as in their appreciation of the accurate history that is brought before them and so makes a strong case for belief in the Son of God who came down from heaven to save us from our sins.  You and I can also bear faithful witness to the Lord Jesus and his merciful love in the words and deeds we speak and perform every day.  And while Luke originally wrote for an audience already well-disposed to the Lord Jesus, we live our lives around people who do not know him or who think they do and reject him.  Through the grace of God, we can bring him to them.  Every Christian is a Gospel.

 The Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 18, 2022

Matthew 1, 18–24

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit. Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.

“Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man.”  St. Matthew, writing for the first generation of Jewish Christians, emphasizes righteousness in his Gospel, the essential attribute of God which humans could share in through following the Law of Moses.  For this reason, he shows the righteousness of the Lord’s parents.  He does not merely state that Joseph and Mary were righteous, but shows it in their words and actions.  In doing this, Matthew shows himself to be a reliable source since he does not wince at mentioning difficult situations but admits them freely, then presents Joseph and Mary as navigating through them in the way righteous people should.  

Here, he shows that Mary and Joseph are betrothed: he has formally gone to the house of her parents and asked for her hand, she has consented to be his wife, and the parents have signaled their approval.  She is to remain with her parents until Joseph can arrange the reception at his house to which he will lead her.  Weeks or months may pass first.  But then Matthew tells us that before Joseph can do this, she “was found with child through the Holy Spirit”.  That is, accounting for the Hebrew idiom Matthew undoubtedly used, Joseph found that she had conceived by the Holy Spirit.  How did he find this out?  Not through an angel, for an angel comes to him after he has learned this to guide him.  As the Fathers tell us, Mary told him, for only Mary could have known that she was with child “through the Holy Spirit”.  Joseph, then, as a righteous man must decide for himself what course he is to take in this unprecedented situation.  If he were not a righteous man and had not believed Mary, he would have denounced her.  

It is precisely because of his determination to act righteously that he has to decide what his place is.  Right away he rules out exposing her to “shame”, as the lectionary has it, though the Greek actually means “publicly announcing her secret”.  If her miraculous pregnancy was meant to be publicized, it would be the work of the angels, not of a carpenter.  Thinking over what Mary has told him, he cannot think of a role for him in her life and in the life of her Child.  Gabriel had said nothing to Mary about living with Joseph as his wife.  He concludes that he is supposed to simply walk away, thoroughly unworthy as he knows himself to be part of the life of the Virgin Mary and of the Son of God who would be born of her.  The matter of “divorce”, as the lectionary has it, does not come up for him.  The Greek, in fact, means “separation”.  There is no need of a divorce anyway, as she has not come to live with him.  

Through his prayers for divine assistance and his absolute determination to act righteously, God sent an angel (very possibly Gabriel) to point out to Joseph the most righteous course of action: to take the Virgin into his home as his wife.  He had not considered the lowliness with which the Son of God would come into the world and live in it.  According to the Pharisees, the arrival of the Messiah would be accompanied by great pomp and circumstance.  That the Son of God would live in the house of a carpenter in a remote town in Galilee required greater faith from him than that Mary, whom he knew to be holy, had conceived by the Holy Spirit.  

“When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.”  As a righteous man, he obeyed at once the command of the Lord as relayed to him by the angel.  Perhaps the reception was ready, perhaps not.  But God must be obeyed.  This obedience is the key to righteousness.  It marks the Incarnation itself in which the Son obeyed the Father in leaving his glory behind in heaven to walk the harsh roads of earth.  It marks the ready consent of the Virgin Mary to God’s plan for her to be both Virgin and Mother.  It marks the ready consent of Joseph, once he learned of God’s will, to throw away the plan he had made in good conscience and to humbly take his place as the foster father of God’s Son.  

Joseph never ceased to live righteously, and it awed him to look on his Lord growing up in his home and to know that Almighty God wanted him to be there with him.

 Friday in the Third .week of Advent, December 16, 2022

John 5:33-36

Jesus said to the Jews:  “You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth. I do not accept testimony from a human being, but I say this so that you may be saved. John was a burning and shining lamp, and for a while you were content to rejoice in his light. But I have testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.”

“You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth.”  The Lord means something specific here, tying the sending of the emissaries to testimony given by John, presumably to them.  In John 1, 10-28, we learn what John the Baptist said to these emissaries, whose primary mission was to find out if he was calling himself the Messiah.  John denied that he was and announced that he was preparing the people for the one who was greater than himself, “he that shall come after me, who is before me: the latchet of whose sandal I am not worthy to loose” (John 1, 26).  The other Gospels tell us that this one who comes after him will make a great judgment.  The Lord’s pointing this out to the Jews later is to tell them that if they regarded John as “a burning and shining light”, then how much more should they regard him, Jesus, who has the testimony of the Father through the miracles he performed, miracles that could not be performed without the Father’s approbation.  The Lord’s statement that he did not accept human testimony means that he goes beyond the Law, which required the testimony of two or more witnesses to establish the truth.  Jesus appeals directly to the Father for validation, which the Father gives.

The Son also bears witness to the Father in teaching about him, but even more importantly by the charity with which he treated the lame, the blind, the sick, and even the dead.  He went out of his way to heal, often spending all the night at this work.  He did this out of his love and obedience for the Father.  His long nights of prayer also tell us as much about the Father as about the Son.  As marvelous and generous as we see the Son in his works, how great the Father must be too.  And on the Cross, the Lord Jesus speaks his last words to the Father, entrusting his spirit to him, even as he died on the Cross in obedience to his command.

The Holy Spirit testifies on behalf of the Father and the Son through the Scriptures and through Tradition, both entrusted to the Holy Church.  We see his testimony through the wonderful spread of the Faith throughout the world and in the lives and teachings of the saints, those bright stars in the dark night of  human faithlessness.  

We are ourselves emissaries of Almighty God, sent by him to the people of the world.  We testify by our words and actions of his love and power.  May we also be burning and shining lamps that lead the way to him.