What giftedness have I been given, and do I use my gifts for the building up of the Kingdom of God?

St. Paul writes in today’s Second Scripture reading:  “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;  there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.  To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.”

The many gifts that come from God’s Spirit are meant for the good of all.  What gifts has God given me?  This is the question we prayerfully reflect upon on stewardship commitment Sunday.  Am I using these gifts for the building of the parish community?  What gifts has God given me?

What gifts do we use for the building of the common good of this parish community  --  like the gift of praying, singing, teaching, caring, sharing, encouraging, supporting, motivating, writing, tithing, and social  justice commitment.

Concern for others is a most beautiful giftedness.

I share the gift of priesthood with this community as generously as I am able.  All the members of our staff share their giftedness.  But if we are only a staff-driven parish, then we are a deprived and limited parish community.  As the community of the baptized, we all have gifts to share. This is the meaning of the stewardship commitment we are asking for this weekend.

Naming our giftedness is sometimes difficult to get our head around.  “Father, I come here on Sunday.  Isn’t that enough?”  Actually, in the mind of Jesus, discipleship and stewardship is more than that.  We are to show our concern for others each and every day.

Now it is true each of us  all do individual acts of caring for others.  But the point is there is so much more potential when we are a team, when we are a community, when we are a Church acting in the name of Christ Jesus.  That’s when miracles happen.  When we share the love of Jesus with others through our love for others, this is the most basic miracle.

At the wedding feast of Cana, notice Mary’s complete trust in Jesus when she simply tells the stewards:  “Do whatever what he tells you.”  With that kind of trust and faith in Jesus, the water of our human giftedness becomes the wine of God’s presence on our lives.

There are a variety of gifts God has given this faith community.  May we welcome our diversity and see in our diversity the goodness and wisdom of God.

While we know that there is a variety of gifts and the one Spirit, we are often slow to act on it.  Until a generation ago, for example, it was often said that only priests and nuns had vocations.  Until just before 1970, everything at Mass, except for bringing the cruets to the altar, was done by the priest and all the people were just “hearing Mass.”  The gifts of the baptized were being ignored.

So this reading from St Paul prompts a series of questioning:  first, each of us must ask what gifts have I given to be put in the service of our faith community; second, as a community are we using all these gifts from the variety of all the members of the church for the building of this parish community; third, let me proactive in saying the hierarchy of the Church in its rules and regulations could be more welcoming of the giftedness of all the baptized.  Yes, this is true.  However, this does not let us off the hook in our commitment to stewardship, to name our giftedness and trusting in the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

It comes to the powerful  words of Mary spoken to us and the wine stewards:  “Do whatever He tells you.”  When we name our giftedness and become stakeholders in our parish community and trust in God’s presence among us, all things are possible with God.

What is the reason for the success of our neighbors at Browncroft Community Church?  The whole parish community is involved in proclaiming the Good News of the love of Jesus to others?  Parishioners are not passive; they are active proclaimers of the love of Jesus.  How much more so with the gifts of the sacraments that are part of our part of our spiritual DNA do we need to be motivated to embrace a life of stewardship?

I guarantee you, if all of us, work together as stewards in our parish community relying on the grace of God, miracles of God’s love will abound in our midst.

I wish to conclude by expressing my gratitude to you for coming together at the table of the Lord in the mystery of the Eucharist to give thanks to the Lord our God,  and I invite in the second collection to place your stewardship commitment card in the second collection card.  If you do have your stewardship commitment with you and you have not already returned it to us, please take a couple of moments now to fill out the card.  There are extra ones in the pews.  Again, please place in the second collection. Thank you so much.

As we reflect on our spiritual identity as the community of the baptized, we are called to be stewards of the mysteries of God.

When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan Riven by John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit descended upon him and a voice from heaven spoke, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  With his Baptism, Jesus’ own mission was now to start.  And so, Jesus began his public ministry.  A new people of God was about to be born.  By His words and by His actions, Jesus proclaimed the Good News of His teaching, His healing and his saving ministry.  The Kingdom of God was to be discovered in the mission and ministry of Jesus.

On this Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, we reflect on our baptism as well.  Yes, we too are God’s beloved sons and daughters.  In Baptism we are initiated into the life of Christ.   When I am privileged as a priest to say, ‘I baptize you in the name of the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’   the baptized infant or the baptized adult becomes God’s beloved son or daughter.  We are called to discipleship of the Lord Jesus.

As we reflect on our spiritual identity as the community of the baptized, we are Catholics; we are the disciples of the Lord Jesus; another way of describing our ourselves is  --  we are stewards.

We are called to a life of stewardship.  What is a steward?  In the Book of Genesis in the creation account, we are missioned by God to be co-stewards of all of God’s creation.  St Paul says we are stewards of the mysteries of God.

In our spirituality of stewardship, our basic truths are that all is a gift of God.  We are the recipients of God’s unending love.  Our best response to God’s love for us is gratitude.  We gather to give thanks to the Lord our God.  In baptism, we are called to share in the mission of Jesus; we are to witness to the love of Jesus in all we say and do.

You have received a stewardship commitment card in the mail, and we are asking you to place this stewardship commitment card in the collection next weekend -- Stewardship Commitment Sunday.

We break down our stewardship commitment into three components; stewardship of time, of talents, and of treasure.

Stewardship of Time:  This is the most important component of stewardship. Stewardship of time is our prayer life.  The fact that you are present for this celebration of the Eucharist indicates your commitment to value the Eucharist in your stewardship of time.  My challenge for myself and to you is to go beyond this one hour of the week.   How else during the course of the week do you commit yourself to prayer?  Do you as a family pray together?  Do you spend some time each day to give thanks to God for the blessings of your life?  What is your preferred form of prayer?

Many of us, myself included, let the busyness of life keep us from valuing more the stewardship of time spent in prayer.  We need to be very, very intentional about allowing even a few minutes each day to be still and to live in gratitude for the blessings of life.

Stewardship of Talent – What commitment, what priority do you place on sharing your talents with our parish community?  What responsibility do you feel in making this community a more vibrant  -- in a liturgical ministry or as a catechist?  There are so many ways to participate  --  liturgically, as a catechist,  in social outreach, in pastoral care, and in extending the welcome of the parish to one and all.

I celebrated the Eucharist this past Wednesday with the students and their families in our Wednesday evening faith formation.  We are grateful to the catechists who volunteer their time each week to teach and fashion our youth after the mind and heart of Jesus.  This is such a beautiful example of parishioners sharing their talents to help our youth.

Stewardship of Treasure -- As the pastor, there is no doubt that this parish isn’t just about dollars and cents.  I deeply believe stewardship of time and talent are more important.  On the other hand, the parish is dependent upon your financial generosity.  There is no doubt about that either.

A troubling issue for me quite frankly is that when we compare our Sunday collection year to date with last year’s, we are running $30,000 behind last year.  For us to keep the ministries and/or to expand the ministries in our parish life, we need to increase the tithing in the Sunday collection.   I personally make the pledge to increase my Sunday offering.   The way I contribute is automatic withdrawal from  my checking account.  Last Wednesday at our state of the parish dialogue, another parishioner has committed herself to increase her tithing to the parish.  My hope is we can create a momentum, among those who are able, to increase our tithing to the parish in the Sunday collection, with the automatic withdrawal a preferred method.  To whom much is given, much is expected.

It is so important as we talk about the stewardship of time, talent, and treasure that we see these as three components of our spiritual life.  Stewardship is how we share in the mission and ministry of Jesus.  The grace of our baptism is a lifelong grace.  We are the recipients of God’s unending love.  We gather to give thanks for the blessings of life.  In our stewardship commitment, we vow to make a difference.  We are to use our giftedness for the building of the kingdom of God in the here and now.

May God bless our stewardship commitment to our parish life, and may God bless our commitment to be stewards of all of God’s creation.

There is one God for everyone, and He is a God for all peoples.

“They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother.   They prostrated themselves and did him homage.  Then they opened their treasure and offered him the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

The Epiphany message is the universality of the Gospel message.  All are welcome at the Bethlehem crib including the migrants, the refugees from the East who came in search of the newborn king.

In the Epiphany account, the magi offered the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the Christ child.

As we pray over the gift-giving of the magi, we ask ourselves what gifts have we to offer to God, the giver of all good gifts?  God has given us all we are and all we have. 

Perhaps our greatest gift is the gift that the Holy Family gave to the magi – the gift of welcome, the gift of their love. 

What about us?  If the newcomers that we are to welcome come from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico and Honduras … dromedaries from Russia and Sudan, will we extend our welcome with open arms?  What about Muslims and Jews, immigrants and refugees, the poverty-stricken and the unemployed, the sick, the hungry and the homeless?   Will we offer the same welcome that each receives from God?  Will we reach out in love? 

The best gift we can give back to the Lord is the gift of self.  Can we give the gift of our self to the God who is present in the migrants, the sick, the hungry, and the homeless?

This kind of welcome to one and all is the Epiphany challenge and the grace we seek.

Last month, on Dec 8, 2015, Pope Francis declared the beginning of a Holy Year of Mercy, at which time he opened a Holy Door, a Door of Mercy, which will remain open for the duration of the year.  Those who pass through that door will experience the love of God, who consoles, pardons, and instills hope.  The Holy Father expressed his intent that church doors be similarly opened throughout the world so that all of humankind, without exception, may know what he has called the “visceral” love and mercy of God.

In this jubilee year of mercy, may the doors of the Church of the Holy Spirit be wide open to all who seek to discover the Lord in 2016.  May our hearts welcome all those who need to experience the love of God.  As at the Bethlehem crib, all are welcome – refugees, the magi, and the shepherds.  So too, may we extend a jubilee of welcome and mercy to one and all.

Perhaps darkness has returned to us as we discuss our fear of immigrants and refugees.  We live in fear of the threat of terrorism, do we not?  May we continue to believe that there is one God for everyone, and He is a God for all peoples.  Instead of being enveloped in criticism and fear, we need to do our best to accept all people as they are, to love them, and to help them, to care for them, and thus show that we are really Christian by our love.

The magi came to Jerusalem and asked:  “Where is the newborn king of the Jews?”  May the question of the magi be our question as well:  “Where are we to find Jesus who has come to save us?  Are we to find him in a stable?  Do we experience the presence of the Savior in our celebration of the Eucharist?  In the stillness and quiet of Eucharistic Adoration, do we encounter Jesus?  Are we to find the Word of God in the human words that we speak?    Are we to find the Son of God in one another --  in the least of these his brothers and sisters and to declare his glory shining there?

The Bethlehem crib helps to be aware of where we are to find Jesus in our lives.  God does not manifest his presence in the power of this world but speaks to us in the humbleness of his love.  The crib points to God’s desire to be discovered in self-abasement, in downward mobility rather than upward mobility.  His glory is revealed in the manger of Bethlehem crib, on the cross of Calvary, in each of our suffering brothers and sisters.

The wise men are models of conversion in they believed in the goodness of God rather than the power of this world.  They followed a star in search of the Christ child.  Where do we find the star in our life that leads to the Christ child.  Our stars may not be found in the sky in the dark of night.  Perhaps your star is a person who reveals the face of God to you.  Who is the person for you who leads you to God.  Treasure this person as a most beautiful star in your life.

May our faith community be a star that leads us to encounter Christ.  May our prayer and may the ministries of our parish life lead us to journey in faith to the Bethlehem crib.

It is also true that we discover the star of Bethlehem in the dark of night.  Amid the struggles and challenges and the darknesses of our lives, know that there is a star that leads us to God.  May we have the spiritual sightedness to discover the light of Christ.

God is made manifest in the Epiphany feast.  There is no darkness in life in which God is not present.  There is no one who is not welcome at the Bethlehem crib.

My simple resolution for New Years is to be open to God's plan for me in 2016.

The life of Jesus begins with Mary at the Bethlehem crib.  Therefore it is most appropriate we begin the New Year with Mary on this her feast day of Mary the Mother of God.

Perhaps this year following the example of Mary, instead of filling your plate with your plans, your resolutions for the New Year, simply try to be open for what God has planned for you in 2016.

Live this year with open hands and a trusting heart. As with Mary, say YES to God’s plan for you this year.  You may not hear the voice of the angel Gabriel as Mary did, but when you make room for God in your life, you will discern God’s call.  Yes, we may be surprised at what will happen.  It may not be what you expect.  There may be interruptions to our plans.  But know this, God won’t leave us alone.

You won’t need to make new plans for your family life, your work life, or your neighborhood life.  All that is necessary is to follow the example of Mary: 

The evangelist tells in today’s Gospel:  “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 astonished by what had been told them by the shepherds.  And Mary kept all these things, pondering on them in her heart.”

My goal, my prayer for this New Year is to simply follow the example of Mary:  “She kept all these things, pondering on them in her heart.”  My simple plan is to take a few minutes each evening -- It could be any time of the day – and simple be aware of my day, what has happened, who I have encountered, and most importantly to be grateful for how God has been present in my life this day. 

This simple act of awareness, of reflection, of pondering, naming the feelings of the day is Mary’s pattern of prayer.  This also is recommended by St Ignatius in his SPIRITUAL EXERCISES.  It is called the awareness examen.  A simple example:  What beautiful thing did you see or experience today?  It came from God of course.  Why not say thank you.

For me, I visited today my brother-in-law today as he is a patient in Unity hospital.  To pray with him and his two beautiful daughters and to share with him the Sacrament of the Sick was truly a God moment for me today.  God was present to all of us.

Mary’s prayer was to ponder in her heart all that was happening to her.  To ponder means more than thinking, planning, organizing, worrying, doing, procrastinating, scurrying, etc.  To ponder means that we pray with a faith-filled heart over the joys and the struggles and challenges of the day.  It means to meditate, quiet down and know that we live surrounded by God’s unending love.  We give thanks for the blessings of the day.

  

May we pray as Mary prayed.  May we pray each and every day – and not just to ask God for a favor.  Seek to make your life a conversation with God.  Listen and ponder in your heart what God has to say to you.  God is speaking to you in all that is happening in your life – in both life’s joys and in life’s sufferings.  They are all part of the conversation God is having with you.  God desires for you to ponder these things in your heart and to say YES to the plan of God in your life.

What is life going to be like for yourself and for myself in 2016?  We may end up like our parish patron St Joseph in situations that are not of our own doing.  Joseph’s flight into Egypt from Bethlehem was unexpected and meant leaving behind the comfortable and the familiar and opening himself to new possibilities.  Like Joseph, we need to trust that God goes with us and our future is full of hope.

Along with the prayer of Mary of pondering in our hearts the events of our lives, I also commend to you the beautiful practice of asking for a blessing.  Before going on a trip or in dealing with illness in life, I am often asked to give a blessing for a person.  This blessing places our lives in the hands of our loving God with much trust and much gratitude. 

May the blessing that the Lord said to Moses be the blessing the Lord speaks to each of us:

The Lord bless and keep you.

The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace.

May your lives be blessed in all of 2016.

The power of God comes to us in a tiny infant.

In one simple unassuming sentence, the Christmas mystery is revealed.  From the evangelist Luke:  “While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son.”  The power of God comes to us in a tiny infant.  God is with us in the Bethlehem infant born to Mary and Joseph.

The mystery of Christmas happens for us  when we connect the story of our lives with the story of Christmas.  The Christmas message is the story of God’s unconditional love for us.  As his disciples we are to fill this world with many other stories that mirror and give witness to God’s love for us.  That is the meaning and wonder of the Incarnation.

A couple of stories that speak the message of Christmas:

In Africa, a tale is told of a boy called Amazu, who was always very inquisitive. One day he asked, "What language does God speak?" But no one could answer him.  He traveled all over his country questioning everyone but could not get a satisfactory answer. Eventually he set out for distant lands on his quest. For a long time he had no success.

At length, he came one night to a village called Bethlehem, and as there was no room in the local inn, he went outside the village in search of shelter for the night. At last he came to a cave and found that a couple and a child also occupied it. He was about to turn away when the young mother spoke, "Welcome Amazu, we've been waiting for you."

The boy, amazed that the woman knew his name, was even more amazed when she went on to say, "For a long time you have been searching the world over to find out what language God speaks. Well, now your journey is over. Tonight you can see with your own eyes the language God speaks. He speaks the language of love."

The woman in the cave spoke the language of love to Amazu in calling him by name.  Amazu knew in his heart he was loved by a person he had never met before.

This I know God is present among when we speak the language of love to each other.  I have reached that age in life when the gift I most appreciate is a smile that speaks the language of love.

When Jesus became an adult and on the night before he died, he said:  “By this all shall know that you are my disciples, the love you have for one another.

May the language of love be in your heart, in your family, in our parish life, in our work place, in our political discourse, in our attitude with Muslims and with all people who believe and act differently than we do.  Jesus came to fill this world with His love and we are to be the witnesses of the Gospel of Jesus.

Another story:

Long ago, there ruled in Persia a wise and good king who loved his people. He wanted to know how they lived, and he wanted particularly to know about their hardships. Often dressed in the clothes of a worker or a beggar, he visited the homes of the poor. No one whom he visited ever thought he might be their ruler.

Once he visited a very poor man who lived in a cellar. He ate the coarse food the poor man ate, and he spoke cheerful, kind words to him. Then he left.

Later when he visited the poor man again, he disclosed his identity saying, "I am your king!" Then the king thought the man would surely ask for some gift or favor, but he did not.

Instead, he said, "You left your palace and your glory to visit me in this dark, dreary place. You ate the course food I ate. You brought gladness to my heart! To others you have given your rich gifts. To me you have given yourself!"

This is the true meaning of Christmas.  As is said in the creed we profess together:  "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man."

With much joy and with great anticipation, the Christmas season is the season of gift giving --  most, most especially the gifts we give our children.  May our family Christmas tree be surrounded by the gifts we wish to share.  But at the end of the day,  what we know in our hearts, far greater than any gift we can give our children is the gift they give us  -- the gift of themselves, the gift of their love.  Our children bring out the magic of Christmas.  They speak to us of the presence of Jesus in our lives.

Christmas are my favorite liturgies.  As the pastor, I have the great privilege of presiding at our 2:00 and 4:00 Christmas children’s liturgies and the solemnity of our midnight liturgy.  At the risk of being schizophrenic, the presence of Jesus is revealed fully both in the blessed chaos of our children and in the solemnity of the midnight liturgy.   God is present in the youthful enthusiasm of our children and in the more solemn reverence of our other liturgies.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that our children are the bearers of the mystery of Christmas to us, that is say, they are the bearers of the presence of Jesus to us even though the gift of silence is not part of the liturgy.  However, there is equal experience of the presence of Jesus among us in the  gift of silence, the gift of singing the Christmas mystery, the gift of reverence that is part of our other liturgies..

To celebrate Christmas with our children and to celebrate Christmas with those of us who know the Christmas story is ageless and needs to be told and retold with solemnity and reverence is the best of both worlds.  From the darkened hills of Judea in the dark of night long ago to this liturgy celebrated, Jesus is present in our midst when we speak the language of love to each other, when we share the gift of self, and when we gather around the Table of the Lord in awe and mystery to give thanks to the Lord our God.

I hope your Advent preparation includes Visitation moments when you simply share and laugh and pray with those you deeply love.

Christmas is on the horizon, and today’s Scriptures may be lost amid the merriment as well as the Christmas pageants and the busyness of the season.

The prophet Micah in the first Scripture reading speaks of a coming ruler who will restore peace to the world.  Emerging from unlikely Bethlehem, this leader will walk in the ways of peace and bring true security to the people. Can the prophetic dream of Micah calm our spirits and mobilize us to move from fearful reaction to hopeful action in facing the moral and political dilemmas of our time?   We have been dominated by fear and the terrorists’ threats in San Bernardino, California and in Paris and the Los Angeles school system.  As we watch the presidential debates in the significant questions about our security as nation, we wonder whether guns and our military might can save us, whether banning Syrian immigrants can save us, or closing the door to Muslim immigrants can save us?  Without waging into political debates, this I deeply believe:  only a heart open to God and our brothers and sisters can bring healing to us and our world.  May we pray for the coming of the Prince of Peace into our hearts and into our world.

In some ways, we have been in darkness of fear too long.  Fear has ruled us and we are in need of light to find our way.  Let the light of your countenance shine upon us, God, so that we might find peace and hope in the future.

In the second Scripture reading from the book of Hebrews, the coming of Christ changes everything.  The sacred writer proclaims that we need God’s presence in our midst.  Plain and simple, we are saved by grace, not by human achievement.

The Gospel is our family story – the story of our salvation.  It is a tale of the early days of our own religious clan.  We can claim Elizabeth and Mary as our ancestors in our faith history.  As both were pregnant through the grace of God, they came together as friends, as cousins, as soul mates.   We see Elizabeth’s great act of faith in the words she spoke to Mary:  “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

Today’s readings invite us to treasure fond memories of these two women who are our ancestors in faith, these two whose faith freed them enough to believe in what reason told them could never happen.  These two knew they were only women.  Not only that, but Elizabeth was too old and Mary too inexperienced; there could be no rational expectation that God’s promises would be fulfilled through them.  But that impossibility, their utter incapacity, was precisely their advantage.  Because they knew they could not accomplish it by themselves, they did not limit God to their abilities or expectations.  They were empty enough to become full of grace.  

Today, as we prepare to celebrate the feast of the Nativity, we are invited to contemplate the example of Mary and Elizabeth.  They offer us a model of friendship rooted in shared faith, a faith so deep that it risks everything and can even rejoice in the adventure of an unknown future.

What about our family stories that are rooted in friendship and in shared faith?   May we treasure our family history and our family stories and increase our awareness of the spiritual dimension of these stories.  I very treasure my relationship with my two sisters, Anne and Jean, and my brother John.  In my family, as I willing to bet in your families, my siblings and nephews and nieces have different ways of living out their faith.  I don’t pretend to say we all are pray in the same way.  But I do know we love each other and treasure the times we are together.

Most recently, 55 of us were together on Thanksgiving Day at my brother John’s home.  We have celebrated marriages, baptisms, first communions, deaths of my parents and older brother and sister, and the priesthood ordination of my nephew Jason at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome by St. John Paul II.  There have been many, many treasured and special events in our family history.

But when I reflect on the Gospel visitation of Mary and Elizabeth in trust and gratitude, I don’t think of a most significant family event – a milestone event; rather I think of a very personal intimacy between two good friends who were sharing their love and faith with each other.  I know for myself it is such a gift when my sister and I share the Eucharist and then share a cup of coffee at Starbucks.  It is a very ordinary coming together of siblings – no big deal; but in another sense, what is more important in life than the gratitude and trust and love that my sister and I share with each other.  At the end of the day, this is what is lifegiving for me and for my sister as well.

I hope your Advent preparation includes Visitation moments when you simply share and laugh and pray with those you deeply love.  In that context, God is present and we will be led to pray as Mary did:  “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

Mary and Elizabeth are helping us to enter the Christmas mystery of God’s unending love for us.  God chooses to come to us in the context of family, as a tiny child.  May you value your family life and discover how Jesus seeks to be born again in family life – in your family life.

The Scriptures tell us that in the dawn of our salvation, the Savior was born in the humble insignificant town of Bethlehem; his mother was a young humble woman from Nazareth.  She chose to visit her elderly cousin Elizabeth.  In their sharing and trust in each other, we come to pray a beautiful story of our spiritual family history.

May you reflect in this Advent-Christmas season on your personal family story  --- the spiritual dimension of your family history.  God chooses to come among in humble places and among humble people.  May you recognize the birth of Jesus in the ordinary, humble dimensions of your family life.  Maybe the youngest of your family is the birthing place of the Savior once more.

We are a Church that accepts everyone and refuses no one.

This past Tuesday, Pope Francis opened the Holy Door at St. Peter’s to begin the Jubilee of Mercy.  Francis said this Holy Year will focus on the topic of mercy.  He says he wants this church of 1.2 billion members to more merciful and less rigid toward sinners.  The Jubilee would be an occasion for all members – and for the church itself – to rediscover the need to be forgiving and generous.  The church is the home that accepts everyone and refuses no one – the greater the sin, the greater the love that the church should toward those who repent.

In that spirit, we have begun the liturgy of the third Sunday of Advent – Gaudete Sunday – by blessing the holy door – sancta porta – of our church.  This door between the church and our Blessed Sacrament chapel celebrates for our parish community God’s limitless mercy.   This door that connects our Eucharistic altar table with the Blessed Sacrament chapel is indeed a holy door.  May all who pass through this door celebrate God’s merciful love for us.  May we who pass through this door be confirmed in our vision of church that accepts everyone and refuses no one.

In the gospel of this third Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist is asked by the people what they should do to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.  John’s response starts out with what we have come to call the corporal works of mercy.  “Let the person with two coats give to the person who has none.  The person who has food should do the same.”  In other words, show mercy to those in need – without conditions.

Still others asked John what they should do to prepare for the Messiah.  John’s response was that they should not take advantage of others; treat others honestly and with respect; be satisfied with what they are given. Mercy is a component of these behaviors, for in them we treat others equally and without judgment.

This Advent is the perfect time for us to establish during this jubilee year of mercy our parish holy door of mercy.    As we pray in our Blessed Sacrament chapel and in our church, may we with grateful and joy-filled hearts celebrate the presence of Jesus among us.

As we gather this Wednesday evening for our Advent penance service with individual confession, may the door leading into the confession be also a holy door for us celebrating God’s limitless love for us.

In the first Scripture from the prophet Zephaniah, we are told that sin occurs when we search for happiness apart from God, when are too caught in the busyness, the commercialism, the fleeting pleasures of life.  The prophet reminds us that the Lord, your God, is in our midst.  The Lord wishes to rejoice with you and renew you in his love.

We confess the times we have searched for happiness apart from God.  Sometimes we search for happiness in our wealth, in our successes, in our desire to control people and manage what happens in life, in our pride, in our sexuality and so on and so on.

  

May the apostle Paul be an example for us.  The apostle Paul in the second Scripture tells the Philippians and all of us:  “Rejoice in the Lord always, I shall say it again: rejoice!”  Now mind you Paul is writing from his prison cell.  Paul was not rejoicing in the things of this world; rather Paul was rejoicing because God was with him in his prison cell as he wrote to the Philippian church.

The apostle Paul, even from a prison cell, knew that joy was the basic mood of a Christian.  This is the theme of Gaudete Sunday.  However, at times one gets the impression that it is not the experience of many Christians, who somehow have come to believe that religion is a serious business, that one is not living a good Christian life unless it is full of sacrifices, that a Christian means giving up many of the pleasures that are available to non-Christians.  They seem to think that being a Christian means living a half-life as the price for a better to come.

There is a saying:  “A sad saint is a sad kind of saint.”  A sad Christian is a contradiction in terms.  That is not to say that there is not sadness in any Christian life – as in any normal person’s life – times of pain, of sickness, of failure, of great loss.  Grieving and letting go is an important part of life but these experiences do not ultimately define as the disciples of Jesus.  Even in the midst of tears, the works of Jesus to us are:  “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Have faith in God and also in me.”

Every experience, if we can only realize it, is touched by God and has its meaning.  Once that meaning is found and accepted, inner joy and peace can return.  The great truth of our life is we have everything we need here and now to be happy.  Amen.  The problem is that we identify our happiness with people or things we don’t have and often can’t have.    Many of us people who are poor, people who don’t the things of life we take for granted, and yet they are filled with joy.  There joy comes from within.  It is the joy that is a gift of God to one and all.

May John the Baptist be an Advent guide for us.  Our aim, our mission is to lead people to the feet of Jesus that they may know him personally as Saviour, Lord, brother and Friend?  Our role is, like John the Baptist, to step aside once the introductions are over and leave Jesus to do his work.

At the same time, Jesus does need our cooperation.  Jesus works through every parent and every teacher and every parishioner who has a call to form people.  Saturday morning, we celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation with 139 of our younger parishioners.  To prepare these beautiful young people, we need the commitment of their parents, the parish catechists and staff,  the priests, and the example of the whole community.  Our commitment as a parish is to bring people to know and experience Jesus.  That is the pattern and meaning of evangelization, of bringing the Gospel to others.

In this Advent season, as we joyfully prepare for the coming of Christ, may we lead others to Jesus.  This is our mission as Catholics – to experience Jesus in our hearts and to share the love of Jesus with others.