Joseph's Quandary

The First Reading (Isaiah 7: 10-14) and the Gospel (Matthew 1: 18-24) for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Cycle A, contrast two figures—King Ahaz and Joseph, the husband of Mary.

Ahaz was King of Judah from 735-715 BC. He resisted God’s direction as it was proposed to him by the prophet Isaiah and chose, instead, to rely on human ingenuity and power.  He did not want a sign from God and so he hypocritically declared “I will not tempt the Lord!”  But God gave him the sign anyway.  It was that God will send “Emmanuel” and will save his people.  Human resources are powerless.  God alone saves.  Therefore, trust God!

Joseph is an example of this.  He trusts God’s guidance and is open to God’s direction even in the most confusing situations.  Joseph is described as “a righteous man.”  He is “Law-abiding” and committed to doing God’s will. 

God gave the Chosen People a Law to help them on their journey through life.  But the Law did not cover every conceivable situation and so the religious leaders and scribes “fine-tuned” the Law with many additional laws to cover every eventuality, to spell things out in black and white in order to avoid any confusion and to help people faithfully follow God’s Law.

But life is not black and white.  There is a lot of gray.

In Joseph’s case, the laws were clear.  Deuteronomy 22: 20-21 states: “if evidence of the girl’s virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her father’s house and there her townsmen shall stone her to death because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father’s house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.”  Mary, Joseph’s betrothed,  was to be stoned.

But Joseph cannot do this.  His love for her is greater than this law.  In a quandary, he chooses a middle path: he will not allow the full force of the law to be carried out, but will quietly renounce his relationship with her.

Speaking about this in his Angelus Address of December 22, 2013, Pope Francis said:

“The Gospel does not explain what his thoughts were, but it does tell us the essential: he seeks to do the will of God and is ready for the most radical renunciation. Rather than defending himself and asserting his rights, Joseph chooses what for him is an enormous sacrifice. And the Gospel tells us: ‘Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly’ (1:19).

“This brief sentence reveals a true inner drama if we think about the love that Joseph had for Mary! But even in these circumstances, Joseph intends to do the will of God and decides, surely with great sorrow, to send Mary away quietly. We need to meditate on these words in order to understand the great trial that Joseph had to endure in the days preceding Jesus’ birth.”

Then Pope Francis went on to compare Joseph and Abraham:

“It was a trial similar to the sacrifice of Abraham, when God asked him for his son Isaac (Genesis 22): to give up what was most precious, the person most beloved.

“But as in the case of Abraham, the Lord intervenes: he found the faith he was looking for and he opens up a different path, a path of love and of happiness. ‘Joseph,’ he says, ‘do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 1:20).”

Faith in God who is Love, faith in the Law of Love, wins the day.  Joseph, open to the Word of God that came to him through an angel, follows God’s will. 

Some say that Joseph knew the origin of Mary’s child and chose to break off the engagement because he felt himself unworthy to be the foster father of the Son of God.

Either way, true humility means obedience to God’s will even in the midst of confusion and the disruption of one’s own plans.  Pope Francis continued:

“This Gospel passage reveals to us the greatness of St Joseph’s heart and soul. He was following a good plan for his life, but God was reserving another plan for him, a greater mission. Joseph was a man who always listened to the voice of God, he was deeply sensitive to his secret will, he was a man attentive to the messages that came to him from the depths of his heart and from on high. He did not persist in following his own plan for his life, he did not allow bitterness to poison his soul; rather, he was ready to make himself available to the news that, in a such a bewildering way, was being presented to him. And thus, he was a good man.”

Joseph was the perfect man to be the husband of Mary and the foster father of Jesus.  He had the freedom to surrender to God’s will perfectly and to follow the Holy Spirit’s direction in the midst of life’s complexities. 

“Life father, like son.”  Jesus showed similar freedom in following the Law of Love even when it conflicted with the many laws that were designed to offer black and white answers to life’s complex and morally confusing situations.  He was accused of breaking God’s Law by ignoring purification rituals and working miracles of healing on the Sabbath. 

Life is not easy.  It’s filled with competing “goods” that create confusion.  But if we focus on God’s Word, discern the movements of the Holy Spirit, and ultimately trust in God rather than in ourselves and our ability to figure everything out, then, in the words of St. Julian of Norwich, “all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Gaudete Sunday 2016

The Gospel for Gaudete Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent, Cycle A (Matthew 11: 2-11), is curious.  John the Baptist is in prison.  He sends some of his disciples to Jesus to ask him if he is the Messiah.  Jesus tells them to report to John what they have heard and seen: that the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are healed, and even the dead are returned to life.  Moreover, the poor have received the “good news” of God’s love for them. curious.  John the Baptist is in prison.  He sends some of his disciples to Jesus to ask him if he is the Messiah.  Jesus tells them to report to John what they have heard and seen: that the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are healed, and even the dead are returned to life.  Moreover, the poor have received the “good news” of God’s love for them. 

Why did John send his disciples to question Jesus?  He baptized Jesus.  He should know who he is.  Perhaps he had doubts or his disciples had doubts about the identity of Jesus.  He wasn’t acting like the promised Messiah was supposed to act.  He didn’t come with military power and glory to liberate Israel from its oppressors. 

Jesus teaches that he is not that kind of Messiah.  Rather, he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (First Reading, Isaiah 35: 1-6a, 10).  His actions reveal that the Messiah came not to punish and destroy but to forgive and save.  He is a merciful Messiah who brings “divine recompense.”  To “make recompense” is to pay for something.  Jesus is the Divine Messiah who pays for the sins of the world.  On the cross he reconciled humanity to God and to one another by taking upon himself the sins of the world. 

Jesus praises John, calling him the greatest human being of his time.  But then he says “the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”  That’s you and I.  Jesus says we are greater than John the Baptist.  How?  Why?

John never saw the greatest act of love the world has ever known—the cross.  He was not baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus.  At the time of the Gospel, he was not joined to the Body of Christ.  Nor did he receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.  We, however, know about the cross, have been baptized and joined to Christ’s Body, and have received him, Body and Blood, soul and divinity, in the Eucharist. 

As the actions of Jesus provided evidence of his identity, so must ours.   We must show that we are joined to Christ and are members of his Body.  This is where our Second Reading (James 5: 7-10) comes in.  James tells his readers to be patient and to not complain “about one another.”  True Christians are like Christ—patient and merciful with sinners. 

Patience is a virtue.  I like to call virtues “spiritual muscles.”  Just as our physical muscles only grow and develop through nourishment and exercise, so too our spiritual muscles.  Patience does not appear out of the blue.  It grows through exercise.  Every time we find ourselves feeling impatient, we are being given an opportunity to exercise patience.  This thought can be especially helpful during the holiday season which is often filled with stress of one kind or another.  Exercise patience and mercy and they will grow, helping you to be more true to your deepest identity—a Christian in deed and not just in name.

Advent Thoughts

Advent began this year with a beautiful reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (2: 1-5).  Isaiah presents us with a picture of the world at peace, writing: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.”  

This is a vision that all people of good will share.  It is a hope that the Son of God, the Prince of Peace, came to fulfill.  Jesus is God in the flesh who came to enlighten us with wisdom, to show us the way that leads to peace, and to empower us to follow that way. 

Advent—a word that means “coming”—is our preparation time for the celebration of the fact that the Son of God came to live among us, to share our suffering and death so that we could one day share his risen life. That was his first coming.

But we are reminded this time of year that there will be a second coming.  Jesus will come again to establish his kingdom of peace once and for all.  Sin and death will be destroyed forever. 

Between these two “comings” there are others.  Today Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist. He is the Bread of Life who feeds our hunger for true love.  As the Jewish people longed with deep hunger for the Messiah to come and save them, so we hunger for Christ.  This hunger can help us “stay awake” for Christ’s second coming.  And if that second coming does not occur in our lifetime, then our hunger for Christ can help us “be prepared” for the day that he will come for us when our life on earth will end.

The coming of Jesus in the Eucharist also prepares us for another “coming” between the first and second.  St. Teresa of Kolkata understood this “coming” well.  She once said that when we look at a crucifix we see how much Jesus loved us and when we look at a tabernacle or monstrance we see how much Jesus loves us now.  Time spent in Eucharistic adoration helps us see Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  Time spent seeing Jesus under the appearance of bread and wine helps us recognize him in the “distressing disguise” of the person in front of us who needs our attention, care, and love.  Jesus comes to us every day in one another.

In his Apostolic Letter for the close of the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis wrote: “We are called to promote a culture of mercy based on the rediscovery of the encounter with others.”  This, he said, “can set in motion a real cultural revolution, beginning with simple gestures capable of reaching body and spirit, people’s very lives.” 

This is the only revolution that will change the world and make Isaiah’s vision of peace attainable.  Political changes will never change the world.  Only a revolution of the heart will bring about true change.  It begins one heart at a time.  It begins with your heart and mine.

Unfortunately Advent is such a busy time that there is a tendency to forget the various “comings” of Jesus—the real meaning of Christmas, the second coming of Jesus at the end of the world or the end of our life, the way Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist, and the way he comes to us in one another, especially those most forgotten or in need.  It’s a good idea to slow down by spending some time in Eucharistic adoration this Advent.  This will help us to be alert to meet Christ when and where he comes to us.  

The Bridegroom of Souls

As far as I can determine, December 21 is the only day of the year when there is a Mass reading from Song of Songs, a title which basically means “The Best Song.” It’s also known as Canticle of Canticles and The Song of Solomon who is thought to have been its author.  This Old Testament book consists of a series of love poems and it’s the only book in the Bible that never mentions God. 

The Mass readings for December 21 offer an option to be used instead of the passage from Song of Songs 2: 8-14 which begins “Hark! My lover—here he comes springing across the mountains, leaping across the hills.”  This passage accompanies Luke 1: 39-45, the story of the Visitation when Mary, bearing the newly conceived Son of God in her womb, went to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth.

Jesus is the “lover” who travels across mountains and hills.  Jesus is God-in-the-flesh who, like any lover, wants to be with his beloved. He wants to be with humanity.  He wants to unite himself to each one of us.

I suspect that a second option is offered for the first Mass reading for December 21 because some people are squeamish when it comes to the love poetry of Song of Songs.  Various Biblical scholars have even described it as a celebration of erotic love which some might judge has no place in sacred writings. Yet erotic love or eros is not by its nature sinful.  It is only sinful when it becomes infected with lust which turns another person into an object to be used for pleasure.  In fact, God, who St. John declares is Love, is the origin of eros. God loves each person with a passionate love that is eros.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote about this in his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) which was issued on Christmas Day, 2005.  Writing about Song of Songs, he said: “According to the interpretation generally held today, the poems contained in this book were originally love-songs, perhaps intended for a Jewish wedding feast and meant to exalt conjugal love.”  He then wrote about eros and another form of love, agape, or self-sacrificing love: “God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape.  The Prophets, particularly Hosea and Ezekiel, described God's passion for his people using boldly erotic images.”

In his 2007 Message for Lent, Pope Benedict explained this interplay of eros and agape in God. He wrote: “These biblical texts indicate that eros is part of God's very Heart: the Almighty awaits the ‘yes’ of his creatures as a young bridegroom that of his bride. … Dear brothers and sisters, let us look at Christ pierced on the Cross! He is the unsurpassing revelation of God's love, a love in which eros and agape, far from being opposed, enlighten each other. On the Cross, it is God himself who begs the love of his creature: He is thirsty for the love of every one of us.”

This is the meaning of Christmas. God loves humanity and each individual so much that he sacrifices himself, empties himself, so that we could be one with him forever. Love desires union with the beloved and God sacrificed all in order to be one with us. 

It should be no surprise that the erotic poetry of Song of Songs is in the Bible. While expressing the passion of human romantic love, it also reveals the passionate love of God who has traditionally been called “The Bridegroom of the Soul.”

 

Advent Hope

We're in the final days of Advent, days of expectation and hope.  Many people, especially children, are hoping to find certain things under the Christmas tree. Such hopes are not very big.  God's hope for us is much bigger and as we prepare for Christmas we want to share that hope.

The world today and life in general offer plenty of opportunities to lose hope.  Pope Francis, following Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, has emphasized the need for hope. Hope is more than "wishful thinking."  We can say, "I hope it won't snow so that our Christmas travel plans won't be affected," but there is nothing we can do to stop the snow. However, if we are a student and say, "I hope I pass the test,"--that's a hope that we can do something about. We can study to make sure our hope is realized!

Hope is active.  It involves effort so that what we are hoping for is attained. 

So, what is God's hope for us and how do we share that hope? God's hope is for loving union with us. God created us to be one with him forever in the kingdom of heaven. This is why God became human, uniting in one person two natures--human and divine. That's the mystery we will be celebrating in a few days.  Because God is Love, he cannot force his hope upon us.  We are free to reject God's hope for us.  Advent and in fact our entire life is a preparation to accept God's hope for us once and for all when God comes to us at the end of our earthly lives. 

In his General Audience of November 27, 2013, Pope Francis said: "If my life has been a journey with the Lord, a journey of trust in his immense mercy, I will be prepared to accept the final moment of my earthly life as the definitive, confident abandonment into his welcoming hands, awaiting the face to face contemplation of his Face. This is the most beautiful thing that can happen to us: to contemplate face to face the marvelous countenance of the Lord, to see Him as he is, beautiful, full of light, full of love, full of tenderness. This is our point of arrival: to see the Lord."

On that first Christmas, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us" (Luke 2: 15).  May we be as eager as they were to see the Lord face to face.  May we have the same hope that God has for us and live in a way that leads to the realization of that deep hope. 

The Heart of Jesus in the Womb

I like to imagine the moment when Mary told the Archangel Gabriel, “let it be done to me according to your word.” At that moment the Holy Spirit overshadowed her and a new life, the likes of which the world had never seen, was conceived in her womb. Cell by cell the child developed. Within three weeks the first organ appeared. His Heart—human and divine—started beating right under the Immaculate Heart of His Mother. 

At Christmas we imagine the Christ Child, just born and lying in a manger. But what about Advent? Can we imagine the Christ Child in the womb of His Mother Mary?  Can we have a devotion to the Child Jesus at this stage of His life? And couldn’t such a devotion help us reverence human life at all its stages?

George A. Peate thinks so. His book, Unborn Jesus Our Hope, reflects on the first nine months of Jesus’ life

as He lived and grew in Mary’s womb. It’s filled with references by Christians of all times and places and denominations. It includes prayers: a Litany of the Unborn Christ Child and a Litany in Honor of Mary, the First Christian. And it makes a strong connection between Sacred Heart devotion and the Pro-Life Movement. Here’s an excerpt:

“And so we picture the unborn baby Jesus within His mother’s womb, skin almost transparent in these early weeks of human life, and His Heart, not yet hidden by a thicker, more developed skin, but visible, actually throbbing, pulsing with divine love for us! This is the miniature reservoir of that one commodity that could purchase the salvation of the entire human race, the blood of God Himself! This Precious Blood is separate and different from His mother’s. A small delicate vial of heavenly medicine. It is a tiny Heart, but proportionately—compared to the rest of its body, during the first and second months—it measures up to nine times the size of the adult heart. Appropriately, the Heart of Unborn Jesus (and His head) dominated His Body: for the incarnation is about God’s Love for us.”

Unborn Jesus Our Hope was published by Life Cycle Books in 2006 and is available at the Unborn WordAlliance. 

The First Tabernacle

Today and last Friday the Gospel at Mass was the story of the Visitation, how, after Mary heard that her kinswoman Elizabeth was pregnant, she raced off from Galilee to Judea to help her.  As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby in her womb leaped and she, filled with the Holy Spirit, made an act of faith in the fruit of Mary's womb.  She recognized that Mary was "the mother of my Lord," that she carried within her the Son of God. 

As the celebration of the birth of Jesus draws closer, I often think about a book that George Peate wrote called Unborn Jesus Our Hope.  It is a beautiful meditation on the first nine months of Jesus' life when Mary carried Him in her womb.  Recently the Unborn Word Alliance published on their blog, Unborn Word of the Day, a series of pictures of shrines and art that show the Christ Child in Mary's womb. 

As we believe that Jesus was truly present, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, within the womb of Mary s

o we believe that He is present in the tabernacles of our churches.  This is the "Hidden Jesus," an expression that the Fatima seer Francisco Marto used when he spent hours adoring Jesus in the tabernacle of his parish church. 

In his encyclical on the Eucharist #55, Blessed John Paul II made thisame connection between Mary's womb and the tabernacle:  "When, at the Visitation, she bore in her womb the Word made flesh, she became in some way a “tabernacle” – the first “tabernacle” in history – in which the Son of God, still invisible to our human gaze, allowed himself to be adored by Elizabeth, radiating his light as it were through the eyes and the voice of Mary."

The Annunciation, the Visitation, and Christmas are Eucharistic mysteries, for Jesus was only able to give His Body and Blood to us because He first took flesh in Mary's womb, was carried there for nine months, and was born.  May the coming celebration of Christmas during this Year of Faith increase our faith in the Christ Child's hidden presence in Mary's womb and in the Holy Eucharist.

Spiritual Road Building

I began a parish mission at St. Mary's in East Dubuque, IL today.  Here's part of what I said in my homily for Sunday Mass.

From 1989 to 1995 I lived in western South Dakota at a place that was 13 miles off a paved road where mail delivery came 3 days a week to a mailbox that was a mile and a half from the house.  The paved road was Highway 34 which runs between Pierre and Sturgis, site of an annual bike rally that swells the town's population from less than 7,000 to 250,000. It was a dangerous road because of its hills and valleys and curves.  It was common to come over a hill and almost run into cattle that had gotten out of their pasture. The state decided to upgrade the road by leveling the hills and valleys and softening and straightening the curves. 

Our first reading from the prophet Baruch contains a road building promise.  God promised not to forget the people who had been taken into exile when Israel fell to an invading army.  God promised to bring them home and even make the return easier: "God has commanded that every lofty mountain be made low, and that the age-old depths and gorges be filled to level ground." 

The gospel also speaks of road building.  St. John the Baptist fulfills Isaiah's promise: "Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight...." This was done to prepare a way for the Messiah to come to his people. 

Advent is our time for spiritual road building.  We are to prepare a way for Christ to come at the end of time or at the end of our lives. 

The hills and mountains that we level are our ego and pride.  We often build ourselves up, trying to look good in front of others.  How is this pride brought low?  By humility.  That doesn't mean putting ourselves down or beating ourselves up over our failures.  Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.  It means not being so concerned about "ME" but turning our attention toward God and our brothers and sisters.  Humility also involves gratitude by which we realize that all we are and have accomplished is a gift.  We can take no credit for our success because our life and health and talents by which we have accomplished all we've done are all gifts from God.  We could do nothing without those prior gifts, so all praise goes to God.

What are the valleys to be filled in?  Discouragement.  Discouragement never comes from God.  God never uses it to motivate us.  It always comes from the devil who would have us wallow in the depths of discouragement and give up.  How do we fill in this valley?  By living with gratitude in the present.  When we look at the past and our weaknesses and failures, we get discouraged.  When we look to the future and wonder how we will ever be able to stay on the good path we are on or do what we are called to do, we get discouraged.  The past is over and there is no guarantee we will be here tomorrow, so it's best to live one day at a time.  When we see the blessings of the present we can better overcome discouragement.

What are the curves in our life?  Blessed John Paul II, in a reflection on Psalm 51, said that one of the Hebrew words for "sin" in that prayer has the connotation of "twisting" and turning and getting off track.  How do we get back on track?  We begin by celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation.  In doing so we leave the way that points us in a different direction than the one God has laid out for us and we return to the path that leads straight to God.  Reconciliation gets us back on track. 

This year's Advent is special because we are celebrating it in the Year of Faith which, Pope Benedict said, "is a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord."  Through conversion we turn away from pride, discouragement, temptation, and sin.  We turn to God. We do so with confidence because, as St. Paul wrote in our second reading: "I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus."  God will complete the road building that will lead to our heavenly home, if we but let Him.

The Two Mountains

The readings at Mass today (Isaiah 25: 6-10 and Matthew 15: 29-37) show us two mountains.

In the Gospel, after walking along the Sea of Galilee, Jesus "went up on the mountain, and sat down there." It says that "great crowds came to him." They included "the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute, and many others" in need of healing. How did Jesus look upon them? What went through His heart? After healing them, the Gospel says that Jesus still felt compassion for them because they were hungry. Jesus told us what was going through His heart, saying, "My heart is moved with pity for the crowd." We can just imagine how Jesus, looking upon this sampling of suffering humanity, shared their pain. His human and divine heart felt all that a human can feel in the face of suffering, but with divine intensity. Thus, after healing them, He fed them.

This miracle in which loaves and fish were multiplied in abundance anticipates another meal, the Holy Eucharist. There we are both healed and fed. There we receive healing and food, not just for our physical lives on earth, but for eternal life.

These miracles--the multiplication and the Eucharist--point to the other mountain and another meal described in the first reading: "On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines. On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces...." This mountain, where death is destroyed forever, is obviously heaven where there will be a feast never-ending. On that mountain the word "good-bye" does not exist. As St. Augustine wrote: "We shall have no enemies in heaven; we shall never lose a friend."

On this weekday in Advent, the Church wants us to have longing: to long as the heart of Jesus did for healing and a life that will never end; to long for God's holy mountain where every tear will be wiped away. Come Lord Jesus! Take us to that mountain and feast!