If you cannot recognize in another's face the face of your brother or sister, the darkness has not begun to lift and the light has not yet come.

So Advent begins! A new liturgical year begins! A new Lectionary year begins anchored in the Gospel according to Matthew.

The theme of today’s Gospel can be summed in two words:  STAY AWAKE.

Stay Awake – we preachers like to give this good advice to you who listen to us.

In some ways, this Advent theme to stay awake is counterintuitive.  It doesn’t mean “don’t get any sleep.”  Stay awake is certainly not the advice parents give to children when it is time to go to bed.  Staying awake doesn’t mean setting your alarm clock to anticipate this major religious event of the coming of the Day of the Lord.  It can’t have this meaning as the Gospel tells us we do not know the day nor the hour.

To stay awake is to stay awake to the spiritual center that is within each one of us.  To stay awake is to pay attention to that which matters in life, paying attention to the relationships of our lives, paying attention to our relationship with God.  Within us, there is a deeper longing that never goes away.  It is the longing for love.  It is the longing to experience the mystery of God’s love in our life.

In the Gospel, the evangelist Matthew sharpens our awareness that if we live our daily lives actively waiting for the Lord, we will not be caught off-guard when Jesus makes his appearance.  “For at the hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

We are getting better and better at protecting ourselves and our property from would-be intruders.  Does your home have a burglar alarm?  Do you leave lights on when you are away to give the impressions that someone is home?  Our schools are becoming more and more vigilant in protecting our students from those who would harm them.  Getting on an airplane is becoming more and more of a security event to provide for our safety.  We spend millions, perhaps billions of dollars, for the Department of Homeland Security for the safety we seek to protect ourselves against unwelcome intruders who could come like a thief in the night.

The Advent season is our spiritual Department of Homeland Security to help us recognize the Lord in our midst coming at a time we least expect.  In fact, Advent is more that a season of four weeks.  Advent is a spiritual way of life lived in watchfulness to the God who comes – not just on Christmas but everyday.  The best to get ready for the coming of the Lord is simply to be ready. 

We are to say awake – not just for the next crisis that may or may not appear in our lives.  We are to stay awake to the God who is relentlessly pursuing us in every situation and in every relationship of our lives.

We are not to bucket God’s presence to the heavens; rather, in the ups and downs of our daily life, may we experience the presence of God with us.  May we have an inner resource which speaks to us the mystery of God’s love that is within each one of us.

It goes without saying that the run-up to Christmas is a busy time.  We as a parish hesitate to schedule activities during the Advent season because everyone is too busy.  There are the Christmas cards, Christmas shopping, Christmas parties and decorating the Christmas tree.  There is nothing wrong with this Christmas run-up except that it is all consuming.  In fact, the demands of the Christmas season can be merciless.  There is always more to do and not enough time to do it.

Unfortunately this busyness can put us asleep spiritually.  The rush of the season works against the message of the season.  It is what T. S. Eliot calls living and partly living.

How do we as a parish stay awake during this Advent season?  In the midst of the schedule of all our activities and gatherings, may we be deeply conscious that we are an incarnational people.  In four words:  God is with us.  The light of Christ shatters the darkness of our world.

I have heard the story of a wise old Rabbi who instructed his students by asking questions.  He asked:  “How can a person tell when the darkness ends and the day begins?”  After thinking for a moment, one student replied, “It is when there is enough light to see an animal in the distance and to know if is a sheep or a goat.  Another student ventured, “It is when there is enough light to see a tree, and to tell whether it is a fig or an oak tree.

The old Rabbi gently said:  “No, it is when you can look into a man’s face and recognize him as your brother.  For if you cannot recognize in another’s face the face of your brother or sister, the darkness has not begun to lift and the light has not yet come.

As the old Rabbi suggests, we are to stay awake to the ways that indeed we are all brothers and sisters to each other.  In so doing, we are staying awake to the presence of the Lord in our midst.

The scripture readings for the first Sunday of Advent always look to history’s end.  We look forward to the second coming of Christ.  We are to direct our minds to the Day of Judgment.  Today’s readings invite to focus on the end, not to emphasize our vulnerability but to remember where we are going.

The invitation of Advent is to remember our future so that it will transform our present.  As we look forward to the Second Coming of Christ at history’s end and the end of our lives, we are to stay awake in the present moment for the ways we encounter the Lord.

Staying wake means recognizing that ordinary life is permeated with God’s loving presence.  In the words of the great poet Gerard Manley Hopkins:  “The world is charged with the grandeur of God!

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

Today as we celebrate our family life and our many blessings on this day of Thanksgiving, the Church has us ponder in the Gospel the story of the ten lepers. All ten were cured of a disease that had been eating away their flesh and bones,  that had made them the worst of outcasts and forced them to stay at least 50 feet away from any non-leper, that had compelled them at all times to yell out “unclean!, unclean!,” anytime someone was approaching. Only one of the ten returned to thank the Lord Jesus. Jesus poignantly asks, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?”

But while all ten were cured of the physical leprosy, nine retained a leprosy of the soul, an ingratitude that took for granted the greatest gift they had received in life until then.

There’s a lot that we all have to learn from this scene to help us understand and celebrate better Thanksgiving, because this attitude of the grateful leper was the attitude that marked the pilgrims who celebrated the first day of Thanksgiving.

When the pilgrims lowered the anchor in Plymouth harbor in December 1620, they were filled with hope. They had survived a perilous three-month journey on an inhospitable Atlantic ocean with only one casualty. Their incessant prayers for a safe arrival had been heard. They had finally landed in the new world and were ready to begin a new life.

Little did they know the year that would await them.   Of the 103 that disembarked, more than half would die before winter was over. Governor John Carver, their leader, succumbed quickly to fever. Ten of the seventeen husbands and fathers died. Fourteen of their seventeen wives also perished. The young wife of soon-to-be Governor William Bradford drowned in Plymouth harbor before even reaching shore. Those who avoided the grave remained in grave danger because of fevers, famine and freezing temperatures. Yet they didn’t give up hope.

The fifty-one survivors easily could have looked at the previous eleven months as the worst year of their lives. The reason they were able to thank God so heartily in spite of the suffering they had endured was because they believed those hardships and blessings were both part of God’s providential care. No amount of personal suffering could shake their faith. No amount of hardship could rock their trust in a God whom they knew loved them and was looking over them. They convened full of gratitude on that first Thanksgiving.

I like to think of today, Thanksgiving Day, as a moment which clearly puts life into perspective. Do we have that same spirit of Thanksgiving that marked the grateful leper and the Pilgrims who had survived?   May we approach this day with hearts and souls bursting with thanks to God and to others for all of the blessings we have received, including the crosses and hardships?  Lord God, give us grateful hearts. 

I am mindful every day but especially on this day of Thanksgiving, that there’s a very important dialogue of prayer that happens in the heart of every Mass.  After the priest prays that the Lord be with all present and the people pray that God will be in a special way with the priest to do what God ordained him to do, after the priest commands the people in God’s name to lift up their hearts, the desires and their lives to God and the people reply that they have in fact lifted them up to the Lord, the priest says, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God” and the people respond, “It is right and just.” The priest then echoes that sentiment saying, “It is right and just, our duty and salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, holy Father, almighty and eternal God.”

To give God thanks always and everywhere is the right thing to do, whether we’re perfectly healthy or have leprosy, AIDS, cancer or any other suffering. To give God thanks always and everywhere is the just thing to do even when whether we win or lose the lottery, whether we get a promotion or a pink-slip, whether we are celebrating a wedding or a funeral. To give God thanks always and everywhere is our duty and our salvation. We are saved through thanksgiving! The grateful leper received salvation by faith precisely through his gratitude, not because God makes salvation conditioned on our saying thanks but because if we’re not grateful, if our hearts are hardened, we can’t receive that grace.

The Mass is a school of Thanksgiving where we are trained how to give thanks to God always and everywhere as the right thing to do, as a duty of justice, and as the path to salvation. It’s highly significant that when the first Christians described what they were doing when they got together to “do this in memory” of the Lord, they didn’t called it the celebration of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus. They didn’t call it the Feast of the Lord’s Supper or the Banquet of the Lamb. They called it the Eucharist, from the Greek word, Eucaristein, which means thanksgiving.

 Every time they came together for Mass, it was Thanksgiving Day. It was Thanksgiving during the times of growth and peace. It was Thanksgiving during the times of persecution. But their fundamental approach to the Mass was that it was the greatest way possible for them to thank God for the gift of life, to thank God for so many blessings of family and friends, to thank God for the gift of the Christian faith and the new life and family they had received in baptism, and to thank God for the gift of salvation.

They saw what they were doing as entering into Jesus’ own prayer of Thanksgiving to the Father. To enter into Jesus’ prayer is to become filled with a spirit of Thanksgiving. His prayers were always marked by gratitude. He thanked the Father before the multiplication of the loaves and fish. He thanked the Father for revealing his wisdom to the merest of children instead of to the clever and proud of the world. He thanked the Father before raising Lazarus from the dead. During the Mass, he thanked the Father profusely even before he was to give his own body and blood during the Last Supper. He thanked the Father before he would be crucified because through that sacrifice he would be able to save us all out of love. The Mass is the school in which we enter into Jesus’ own thanksgiving, always and everywhere, to the Father. The Mass is our continual thanksgiving from the rising of the sun to its setting. It is a school that transforms us to be fully Christian and to be Christian is to be grateful.

The Lord has done far more for us than he ever did for the ten lepers or the Pilgrims. Here at Mass he gives us in a concrete way even more than what he gave to the one grateful leper when he said: “your faith has saved you.” This is where we receive salvation-in-the-flesh. No matter what we have experienced in this past year, no matter what hardships we’re still enduring, God comes into our world, to accompany us, to strengthen us, to heal us, to help us.

Our best response is always gratitude.  Thanks be to God.  And so, we gather to give thanks to the Lord our God.

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

A retired teacher decided to volunteer at a local hospital and tutor some of the children who were going to be there for an extended period of time.

She was given the name of a 9 y/o boy, named Jimmy.  She called Jimmy’s teacher at his school and got the assignments which his class was studying-- nouns and verbs.  The teacher brought all the material with her to the hospital.

When she arrived, she found out that Jimmy was in the burn unit.  For those of you who don’t know much about burn units, the sights and smells can be overwhelming.  The teacher almost turned around and went home, but she gathered up all of her courage and went inside and introduced herself to Jimmy.  He was not a pretty sight, and he wasn’t responding well to the treatment.

She said, “Hi, Jimmy, my name is Mrs. Smith and I’m going to be your teacher for a while, until you can return to school.  Today, we’re going to learn about nouns and verbs.  It’s very important that a person knows how to speak and write properly”.  After the lesson was over, she told Jimmy that she’d be back in a few days.

Two days later, Mrs. Smith received a phone call from Jimmy’s mother asking if she would be coming to the hospital that day.  Mrs. Smith thought that she had done a poor job with Jimmy and that the mother was calling to tell her not to come back.  “Oh no”, said Jimmy’s mother, “On the contrary.  You have it all wrong.  I don’t know what you said to my son, but, since your visit, Jimmy has been really trying hard to respond to his treatment.  It seems like he has finally decided to live.”                                                                                                                                                               

When Mrs. Smith returned to the hospital, she found Jimmy with his therapist and his mother.  Jimmy said to his mother, “Now I know that I’m going to live.  They wouldn’t send a teacher to teach me nouns and verbs if I was going to die, if I was a lost cause, would they”?

The connection between this story and the Gospel is striking.  God the Father would not send his only begotten Son, Jesus, Christ the King, if we are a lost cause.  He wouldn’t let his son die a miserable death on the cross for us if he didn’t know that some of us would call out to him, as did the good thief --“Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom”.

Many people, unfortunately, only see the negative in their lives.  They have given up.  But Jesus hasn’t given up on us.  He refuses to ever give up on us.  He is Christ the King who loves us.  He loves us to death.  The goal and dream of Jesus is to have us live with him forever.  Our goal and dream should be the same too.  Every other goal and dream is transitory and of very little importance, no matter how important that they may seem at the moment.  They will pass away.

Only eternity and eternal dreams and hopes will remain.  Many of us struggle with the basic fear, “Will I be remembered after I’m gone”.  We try to leave our ‘mark’ while we’re still here.

If we are followers of Christ, we don’t have to worry about being remembered, do we?  Jesus, our Lord and King, will remember us and love us for eternity.  That is the great hope of today’s gospel for us.

This unnamed man, known only to us as the ‘good thief’, is dying for crimes which he committed, whatever they were.  How many people did he swindle or rob?  Who knows?  But, here he was, very close to Jesus on that darkest of days -- Good Friday.   He didn’t know much about Jesus, when he asked to be remembered.  Basically, his future hung in the balance.  This ‘good thief’ knew somehow that his eternal future hung on his faith that Jesus was exactly who he said he was -- the Son of God.  In that faith, he asked simply to be remembered.  He didn’t ask for some mansion in heaven -- just to be remembered.  It is mercy in its purest form that he seeks.

We are that thief, aren’t we?  All of us are sinners, maybe neither better nor worse than that thief on the cross.  There is hope for people like us.  Just a prayer away is the mercy of Christ-- just one prayer away.  This has been the message of the Jubilee Year of Mercy.  Jesus is the face of the Father’s mercy.

This last Sunday of the Church year challenges us to decide -- who is our king?  What are the goals and dreams that we should really be working and sacrificing for?  May we pray for each other that we are all centered in our faith that Jesus is the Lord and King of our lives.  We believe that nothing, not even death, can steal the dream of his kingdom from us.  This day Christ the King isn’t just the conclusion of the Church year.  It’s a sign of our hope.  We are one prayer away from being immersed in the mercy of Jesus.  “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 

Have a blessed day.

Just rermember that far beneath the winter snow lies the seed that in the spring becomes the rose.

As we head toward the end of the liturgical year, the evangelist Luke uses apocalyptic language to describe the end of the world.  We are confronted with the end of our own life and the judgement of God.  At first glance, today’s Gospel is not a feel-good Gospel of the merciful love of Jesus.

It leaves us ill at ease and puzzled about the end of the world.  The evang0elist says:  “Nation will fight against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.   There will be great earthquakes and plagues and famines here and there; there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven.”

At the time of Jesus, the Jerusalem Temple was an architectural masterpiece admired by Jews and Gentiles alike.  Imagine the shock effect of hearing Jesus declare that this grand building is headed for total destruction.  It will end up as nothing more than rubble.

We would be alarmed if these words were spoken about St Joseph’s Church.  We have sacrificed much to build this Church – this magnificent organ, our baptismal font, our beautiful stained glass windows, our beautiful mosaic.  We are attached to it.

The people who were present with Jesus were attached to their temple and all of its magnificence.  But Jesus admonished them not to be too attached to this external structure.

During times of adversity, Jesus was directing his disciples to focus on a more important Temple – the Temples of the Spirit.  Temples of the Spirit are being built for eternity.  Through baptism we become incorporated into Christ and become temples of the Holy Spirit.

We have within us the wellspring of eternal life; we have within us the spirit of Christ Jesus.  We are the Temples of the Holy Spirit.  We reverence the tabernacle in which the Eucharistic Christ is present.  We are to reverence the tabernacle of our own souls in which God dwells.  This presence within us will live beyond all the challenges of life and even beyond the death of our earthly life.

Yes, there will be adversity in life – struggles and suffering.  Some of this adversity will be the result of the forces of nature – earthquakes, fires, and flood.  Some adversity will be caused by brokenness in relationships.  Some setbacks will be caused by ourselves when our inner demons get the best of us.

But the meaning of the scriptural apocalyptic language is a story of hope in the midst of adversity.  In a word, God goes with us.  God is always a merciful, forgiving God -- not a hair on your head will be lost.  The fact that we face sometimes more than our share of issues to be dealt with that leave us vulnerable and potentially feeling hopeless does not contradict our deep faith in a merciful, forgiving God.  Please God we can continue to trust even when we feel very, very vulnerable.

The message of the crucified Christ which is in the center of our sanctuary and is at the center of our faith life is a story of hope in the midst of the challenges of life.  The most significant challenge we face as the disciples of Jesus is to trust that there is a way forward to the struggles we face.  In fact, the setbacks of life can and hopefully do lead us to trust more fully in God’s promise that the cross is our pathway to sharing more fully in the risen life of Jesus.

Yes, today’s scriptures at the end of our liturgical year invite us to consider our own mortality – what happens when we die; are we prepared to face God’s judgement?  Somehow, some way, we have to deal with the truth that we are going to die.  For those of us in the second half of life, this reality of our own death is more on our radar screen.

One of the deep truths of our Christian faith is that only when we do not fear death can we truly begin to live.  We live life with the end in mind.  We live with the faith that in dying we are born to eternal life.

How do we prepare for the final judgment of God when our time on earth comes to an end?   We do this best when we recognize the inbreaking of God in our daily life.  Our first encounter with God is not at our death; rather God seeks to encounter us this day.  How we deal with the little deaths of life is how we prepare to encounter the loving mercy of God ultimately.  The little deaths of life are all the setbacks, the disappointments, the times we have been misunderstood and treated unfairly.

Yes, it is easier said than done.  Yes, l can get very anxious when I am not in control of my destiny.  Yes, I get disappointed in the face of the hardship and unfairnesses of life, but I trust that our loving God wishes to keep me centered in His love in both the green pastures and the dark valleys of life.  I pray every day of my life for the gift of inner peace that is God’s precious gift to you and to me.  How did Mother Theresa of Calcutta stayed centered in her ministry in the midst of so much poverty and hardship.  She knew on the inside the gift of peace, the wellspring of God’s life that was within her.

God’s judgment of us will not be feared if we can trust in God’s merciful and forgiving love that is given to us each and every day of our life.  God never takes a vacation in his love for us.  Even though there are situations in life that leave us fearful and vulnerable, may we still hope and trust in the merciful love of Jesus goes with us.

God even uses Mother Nature to remind us of the story of hope in the midst of adversity.   This time of year is a time of dying, but this reality doesn’t have to be terrifying.  As the leaves fall from the trees and have died, as the days grow shorter and the hours of darkness increase, we are very much aware of the change of seasons and the cycle of life.  But as was inscribed in the haunting song of Bette Midler’s THE ROSE:  “Just remember that far beneath the winter snow lies the seed that in the spring becomes the rose.”

Have a blessed day.

What are you willing to die for? What happens when we die?

I recently heard two teenage girls commenting on a rather good-looking guy that had their undivided attention:  “Isn’t he just gorgeous?  He’s to die for.”  (They weren’t talking about me.)

So my question for you today is:  “Just what are you willing to die for?”  I realize this is a rather heavy question, especially if you haven’t had your first cup of coffee this morning.  This is the question the Scriptures invite us to consider.  Just what is big enough, important enough that I would give my life for it?

As we edge toward the end of another liturgical year and the beginning of Advent, the Scriptures address our deepest fears and offer our profoundest hope.  What happens when you die?

In the first Scripture reading from the Book of Maccabees:  “It happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king to force them to eat pork in violation of God’s law.  One of the brothers, speaking for the others, said:  “What do you expect to achieve by questioning us?  We are ready to die rather than transgress the law of our ancestors.”

The brothers and their mother had drawn a line in the sand.   Their trust and faith in God was that important to them.  Their trust in a resurrection faith was non-negotiable.  It was to die for.

The Scriptures today invite to reflect on the lives of people who place God first in their lives.

This weekend we are not only moving toward the end of the liturgical year, we are called to pray about and ask for the wisdom of God as we prepare to vote this Tuesday for our nation’s leaders.  We ask the questions:  how does our faith influence our political life; how do we act on the conviction that we desire to place God first in our lives; how best do we hold sacred our deepest values on the dignity of all human life; and how best are we as a nation to preserve the beautiful and sacred values that we most treasures as Americans?   Abortion is the termination of human life.  This is a most important political question.  I would have you expand on Abortion – the ending of human life – to see Abortion in terms of War, Poverty, Euthanasia, and the Death Penalty.  These too are situations that terminate human life.  Even more than party loyalties, may we vote this Tuesday for the candidates who best reflect our core human and spiritual values.  May we hold in prayer the voters of this nation and the leaders we elect.

Additionally, this is our annual Stewardship Commitment Sunday.  There is a second collection today in which we are asking you to place your stewardship commitment card indicating your stewardship to time, talent, and treasure.  If, by the slightest chance, you did not bring your stewardship commitment card this morning, all is not lost.  There are extra cards in the pews, and we ask that you take a couple of moments before the collection to put your name on one of the cards and fill it out and place in the second collection.

I invite you to think about your commitment to stewardship and filling out a commitment card in the context of placing God first in your life.  The choices we make reflect our level of commitment.  It may seem that prayer, service, and finances, that is, a stewardship of time, talent, and treasure is a demanding commitment.  Know that the Scriptures place our stewardship commitment in the context of our ultimate stewardship – to give our whole life back to God.  As proclaimed in the first Scripture reading from the Book of Maccabees, the stewardship of the brothers and their mother was not just 10%; it is about giving our whole life back to God.  We belong to God.  How much of ourselves can we afford to give? 

The Gospel answer to that question is clear and unmistakable.  As long as our loving continues to give to us, we are never to stop giving in the service of one another.

If we our honest in embracing a commitment to a spirituality to stewardship, we as a parish have room for improvement.  Last year we had less than a 100 families hold themselves accountable to a stewardship commitment.   As of this date, we have only 186 families who have contributed to the Diocesan Catholic Ministries Appeal.  Yes, there is room for improvement.

Thanks be to God.  I am an eternal optimist.  But Jesus is clear on the message that the way we place God first in our lives is the love we have for one another.  Jesus said:  “All shall that you are my disciples by the love you have for one another.”  We ask for your support so that together as the Faith Community of the Church of the Holy Spirit, we reflect a spirituality of stewardship in which we affirm that God is first in our lives; that we gather at this mystery of the Eucharist to give thanks to the Lord our God; and that we go forth from this Church in peace to glorify God by living a life of stewardship in our love and service of one another.

The Sundays of November bring us to the conclusion of the Church Year and the conclusion of the year of mercy.  Today’s readings also call to our minds the conclusion of our own years on earth.  The mystery of life and death, like holy twins, reside within each one of us.  Both of these holy twins have voices for those who have ears willing to listen.  Death speaks of the urgency of growing one’s soul larger and larger by acts of love.

The spirituality of stewardship enables us to live with grateful and generous hearts that call us to share our blessings with one another.

Have a blessed day.