Hodie Christus natus est.

There are many, many books that describe the Christmas story.  But no Christmas story holds a candle to the original masterpiece found in Luke’s gospel.  In 320 words, the evangelist Luke tells us the story that is ageless, that needs to be told again and again, and needs to be remembered, for it is the story of our salvation.

“Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.  While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son.  She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

We gather today to honor and worship the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying a manger, the one announced by the angel as the Savior, who is Christ and Lord.  We worship Him who gives meaning to our lives.  The power of God comes to us as a tiny infant.

The first Scripture reading from the prophet Isaiah proclaimed:  “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light:  upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shown.  You have brought abundant joy and great rejoicing.”

This is a wonderful, wonderful way of describing the Christmas mystery.  The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

We are indeed a people who wait in joyful hope not because the darkness is over, but because the Light is with us now, and the Light will overcome the darkness.

We are well aware of the darkness in which we live:

 The massacre that is taking place in Syria that has destroyed the once thriving city of Aleppo, the darkness of violence in which there are too many streets in our cities that are not a safe place to walk, the brokenness experienced in too many family lives, and who of us would not say that there is darkness in our spiritual journeys.

In our world there is both darkness and light.  We know that the darkness isn’t over.  But we gather as a people of hope and promise because the light of Christ overcomes the darkness of life.

God’s gift to us is the Christmas mystery  --   Hodie Christus natus est.  Today Christ is born. Hodie.  Today.  You see, for all its uniqueness, Bethlehem is not an isolated experience.  Christ is born in the stable of Bethlehem but Christ is also born in every child born of God’s love.

In each child I have the privilege of baptizing, Christ is born again.  

It is good for us to remember who planted the seeds of faith within us.  It is also good to remember who brings us and who to we bring to listen again to the Christmas story. 

Who first held you and shared with you the Christmas story and who holds you today with love, encouragement, and affirmation as you live now the wonder and the mystery of Christmas.

A story:  In World War II a soldier was on duty Christmas morning.  It had been his custom to go to Church every Christmas morning with his family, but now, in the service on the outlying districts of London, this was impossible.  So, with some of his soldier buddies, he walked down the road that led to the city as dawn was breaking.  Soon they came upon an old, gray, stone building over whose main door were carved the words, “Queen Ann’s Orphanage.”  So they decided to see what kind of celebration was taking place inside.  In response to the knock, a matron came and explained that the children were orphans whose parents had been killed in one of the many bombings that took place in London.  The soldiers went inside just as the children were stumbling out of bed.  There was no Christmas tree in the corner.  There were no presents.  The soldiers moved about the room wishing the children Merry Christmas and giving them whatever presents they had in their pockets.  The soldier noticed a child alone in the corner -- looked a lot like his nephew back home.  And you, little guy, what do you want for Christmas?  The lad simply replied:  Will you hold me?  The soldier, with tears in his eyes, picked up the little boy and held him in his arms very close.

The Christmas mystery continues when in our journey of faith we are held by people who love us and we, in turn, hold others in their faith journey.  In my 48 years as a priest, I am most often in the sanctuary presiding and preaching.  I have been richly blessed in my priesthood.  But I must confess that I was filled with joy yesterday when I was merely in the pews.  I felt held by our school children as they led an inspiring Christmas prayer service.   Is it not a most precious for you and for me when our children teach us the faith lessons that we have taught them with our deepest love and faith.  The students of St Joseph’s School touched my soul.

As was illustrated so beautifully by the soldier in World War II, we also need to share the Christmas mystery with the poor and the needy in our midst.  We can never be a gated community.  We are taught in the original Christmas story that the birth of the Savior was first announced to shepherds – folks who live on the margins of society.  These shepherds are God’s kind of people.  These shepherds are God’s beloved just as the children in that orphanage without a Christmas tree and without Christmas presents are God’s beloved.

We are to hold with great love our own children.  We also are to hold with great love all children.  They are God’s beloved.

Have a blessed Christmas.

Doing it "my Way" needs to give way to "doing it God's way."

It was back in 1969, when Frank Sinatra originally composed and sang the haunting lyrics to:  I DID IT MY WAY.  The song seems so powerful, so masculine, and so confident.  We looked to Frank as a person who knows how to live life.

Yet, the message I DID IT MY WAY is in contradiction to the message of today’s Gospel.  The Gospel gives the infancy account of the birth of Jesus according to the evangelist Matthew.  This account tells us about Joseph.  His profound dilemma was whether to do it my way or to do it God’s way.  Joseph is our model for us to realize that “doing it my way” needs to give way to “doing it God’s way.”

The Scriptures tell us that Joseph was a righteous man.  That meant he was “law-abiding.”  Tell me what the rules are, and I will be a faithful rule keeper.  The laws in Joseph’s time were very strict.  If you found out that the woman you were engaged to was pregnant and you were not the other party to the pregnancy, you were to cancel the engagement, and the woman might be stoned to death.  Did I mention that the laws in Joseph’s time were quite strict!

With a compassionate heart, Joseph was unwilling to expose Mary to shame, and so he wanted to divorce her quietly.

It was then that the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said:  “Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.  For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.”

“When Joseph awoke from the dream, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him to do.”

In a word, Joseph did it God’s ways.

It is worth reflecting on the discernment-conversion process that took place in Joseph and then to wonder how and if we are to model this discernment in our own lives at times.

For Joseph, “the black and white” decision making was clear.  The rules clearly said to divorce Mary over this pregnancy issue.  Through the guidance of the angel of the Lord, Joseph moved beyond the letter of the law and embraced the spirit of love and followed the mystery of God’s law in his life.  Following the mystery of God’s call in  his life meant not being too tied down to the letter of the law, but rather to be open to the mystery of God’s call leading us to live by the higher law of love and being open to the spirit of God leading us in unexpected ways.

Like Joseph, we need to be open to the mystery of life, however life challenges us and calls.  True religion is open to mystery.  We need a Church lit with the light of God, as Joseph was.  His burden was lifted when he was open to God, to take Mary home as his wife, no matter what others might think.

In the life of the Church, there will always be very strict rule keepers ready to be severe and judgmental about all the folks not keeping the rules.  Their worry, at times very fairly considered, is that we will fall into a slippery slope that if you don’t keep some rules, then this means there only be chaos in the life of the Church.

I was talking to a parishioner recently even concerned about Pope Francis.  In her opinion, the Vicar of Christ seems to be a little lax on enforcing some of the rules of the Church.  After Pope Francis was elected to the papacy in 2013, during his first Holy Week as pope, he went to a prison for young people for the annual liturgy of the washing of the feet.  He raised a few eyebrows and opened the eyes of even some clergy, when he not only washed the feet of Catholics, he also washed the feet of Muslims and women in the ritual.  Previously this washing of the feet was reserved to Catholic men.

Pope Francis has captured the imagination of the world and breathed new life into the Church as he has extended the compassionate love of Jesus to one and all.  For Pope Francis, more than keeping rules, we are to be faithful to the commandment of love that Jesus has given us.

Going back to the Gospel, the angel of the Lord led Joseph to be open to God’s plan for his life.

How does that play out in our lives?  When does "doing it my way” need to give way to “doing it God’s way,” even when this requires us to trust in God’s grace for us?

Have you ever broken the letter of the law in order to follow a higher law?  How do you share your unconditional love for your children and the merciful love of Jesus for your children even when they are not keeping the rules you would like them to keep?  Are all of your children and grandchildren and extended family members going to Church Sunday after Sunday after Sunday? 

What would be an example of letting go of my way in order to be open to God’s plan for us?  This was the life and commitment of Joseph in today’s Gospel?  I know for myself as a priest becoming the pastor of Holy Spirit parish is being open to God’s plan as expressed through appointment I received from Bishop Matano?   When did or do have you have deal will illness in your life or someone you love, when you have to deal with death in the life of someone you love, how is it for you when you need to let go of your children in their growth and development process, and what happens for you when someone you love betrays your trust?

What I do know for myself and for you is that God has a plan for us.  The problem is that sometimes God’s plan doesn’t look like a gift we like to receive.  It requires far more trust to accept what God gives that what Santa gives.   May we pray for the openness to listen with a trusting heart and then to live out God’s plan for us.  Doing it “my way” needs to give way to “doing it God’s way."

Have a blessed day.

In our parish life, do people experience healing, joy, hope, and is the Good News of the love of Jesus preached to one and all?

You will recall from last Sunday’s Gospel that John the Baptist was a paragon of austerity.  He wore clothing of camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist.  His food was locusts and wild honey.  His message was:  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

 Nobody questioned John’s integrity but few wanted to live exactly as he did.  His lifestyle of fast and abstinence was harsh, reflecting his concept of God.  Jesus, on the other hand, was criticized for eating and drinking, for mixing with all manner of folk.  That mirrored his experience of God.  Little wonder that John’s primary sacrament was a baptism of repentance while Jesus was a communion feast.

So, in today’s Gospel, John, from prison, sent his disciples to ask Jesus:   “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?”    John might have added:  “Because you certainly don’t look like the one I was expecting!”

 Jesus said to them in reply, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.’”

This brings us to Jesus who went in a different direction from John – a direction based on his unique relationship with the God he called Abba, Father.  Instead of emphasizing the wrath of God and the punishment soon to come, Jesus saw everything in the context of God’s great, infinite mercy.

In fact, Jesus introduced a whole new language about God.  He agreed with John that the people needed conversion.  But what he wanted people to see first was not the wrath of God so much as his incredible compassion for all.

Jesus emphasized that God comes to us primarily as a savior, a liberator.  He replaced the Baptist’s austere life in the desert with a lifestyle centered on meals open to everyone, meals in which he could invite people to celebrate this new possibility of total trust in a Father God.

And then Jesus began doing something that John never did.  He healed people whom no one else could heal; he soothed the pain of the “least of these” who lived on the margins of society; he blessed and embraced women and children.  Everyone was invited to the feast of mercy. 

That’s the background to this powerful story we hear in today’s Gospel.  John and his followers are beginning to wonder about Jesus.  What is he doing?  John the Baptist is in a dark place and asks a heavy question:  “Are you the one to come or should we look for another?”

Jesus’s response to all of this is very simple:  “Go and tell John what you hear and see.”

Fast forward to 2013 to the papacy of Pope Francis.  During the first Holy Week after he was elected, Pope Francis raised a few eyebrows and opened many eyes.  On that Holy Thursday he visited a prison for young people where he celebrated the annual washing of the feet.  Not only did he wash the feet of Catholics, he included Muslims and women in the ritual.  This was a big surprise for many Catholics, especially some clergy.  For centuries, the Holy Thursday washing of the feet had been reserved exclusively to Catholic men.

During this past Jubilee Year of Mercy, the pope initiated a custom of going out from the Vatican one Friday a month to perform some work of mercy.   In August the Holy Father went to a home for women recovering from prostitution, many of whom had been victims of trafficking.  If someone were to ask Pope Francis:  “Are you the Holy Father who was chosen for the Church or should we look for another?” 

As did Jesus, Pope Francis could respond: “Go and tell what you see and hear.”

I wonder as new people move into the town of Penfield and as they go Church-shopping for the right fit for their family, how do we respond as people ask whether we, the Church of St Joseph’s, are authentic disciples of Jesus or should we look for another parish?  This is the question of John the Baptist:  “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?”

In our parish life, do people experience healing, liberation, hope, and is the Good News of the love of Jesus preached to one and all?

As we know, the words and actions of Pope Francis have captured the imagination of the world and breathed new life into the Church. 

So too for us the Church of St. Joseph’s, instead of seeming to impose new obligations, may we be a people who wish to share our joy and the joy of the Gospel, who point to a horizon of beauty and hope in people’s lives and invite others to the Eucharistic table of the Lord.  In the words of Pope Francis:  “The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.

As we celebrate the Sacrament of Penance this Tuesday, may we experience in this sacrament an encounter with the healing Lord; may we experience the merciful love of Jesus.

My favorite Advent hymn is:  “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”  Have you ever noticed the paradox that is found in this very familiar hymn?   “Emmanuel” means “God is with us.”  And yet we pray “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”  Advent joy is like this beautiful Advent hymn.  The joy is already given to us, but we long for a joy that is not here yet.

Emmanuel – God is with us.  Yet we are still burdened by the demons of war, of greed, of selfishness, and of deceit.  And so we pray for a fuller coming of God’s presence among us.  “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”

We pray today that the blind regain their sight and the poor have the Good News preached to them.   May we the Church of St Joseph’s continue the mission of Jesus.  May we celebrate that God is with us  -- Emmanuel.  May we also pray:  “O Come,  O Come Emmanuel.”  We long for a fuller experience of the presence of God among us.

Advent is our wake-up call to return home to God and to listen again to God's dream for us.

We light the second candle of the Advent season today.  The countdown to Christmas is moving on.  The media, and especially advertisements, remind us constantly that the time is drawing short.  Of course, the reminder is too often in terms of how many shopping days till Christmas.

Today’s Scripture readings give us a different point of view.  John the Baptist is clear and direct:  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.”  There is passion in the words of John the Baptism;  not the passion about the number of shopping days left but a passion about us preparing for the coming of the Lord into our hearts and our world.  The passion of John was a call to repentance.

In today’s Gospel, we are to enroll in the school of John the Baptist, hear his message and put it into action.  John the Baptist is our model for advent preparation preaching a baptism of repentance.  John  the Baptist appeared in the wilderness to give us a wake-up call.

The Advent question I have for myself and for all of us is do we have the passion of John the Baptist in recognizing our need for repentance and conversion in our lives?  What are the habits, the addictions, the sinfulness that we need to confess?  Humbly may we seek the grace of God to help us leave behind all that keeps us from putting Christ at the center of our lives.  All of us, including and especially myself, need to seek the conversion of our lives whereby God is our true North Star in all we say and do.

This past Tuesday we had a wonderful and enthusiastic Town Hall meeting in which we expressing our hopes of inviting more people to join our parish community, to make us even more vibrant that it already are.  We suggested some possible actions steps:  do a mailing, announcements during Mass, even going door to door.

More than strategy steps, we need the passion, the authenticity, the commitment of John the Baptist to help point us to the Lord at the center of all we say and do in our parish community.  May we pray in this Advent season to take on the passion and the need for repentance that so characterized the mission and preaching of John.

We need to more aware of the wilderness that is in our lives and in our world.  Perhaps we need to re-think our values totally.  We need to repent of all that keeps us from placing at the center of our lives and in this Advent season we need to find our way back to God. 

The repentance we seek is a fundamental change of heart which results in leaving sin behind and embracing God’s freely shared life and love.  The prophet Isaiah promises that the Savior will usher in a new era of relationships.  Then the wolf shall be the guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together…There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain.  Woody Allen’s comment to this was:  The lamb and the wolf shall lie down together – but the lamb won’t get any sleep.’’

Advent has more to offer us, however, than that.  Advent has a Savior for us.  Beyond our own efforts to recognize sin and failure in our lives, beyond our confessions and admissions that lead us to repent, Advent presents us with what we truly need – a Savior.  For if we’re honest with ourselves we will admit that we cannot deal with sin, repentance, and conversion all on our own.  We can’t manage our lives all by ourselves.

I invite you to consider the first three steps of the famous Twelve Steps in Alcoholic Anonymous.   Of the twelve, the first three are the most vital and critical.  They deal with what John the Baptist is talking about in the call to repentance.  So, substituting the word sin for the word alcohol the steps are:

1 – We  admitted we were powerless over sin – that our lives had become unmanageable.  As Pope Francis himself acknowledges very freely, we confess that we are all sinners.  We need more than what our will power provides us.  The truth of our lives is that we are not lone rangers.  Left to ourselves, we become entangled in demons that keep us from placing Christ at the center of our lives.

2 – Came to believe in a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.  That power is the merciful love of Jesus of which we are the generous recipients.  May we all value the grace offered to us in the sacrament of reconciliation.  May this Advent be all about our journey back to God.

3 – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.   God’s grace is freely offered to each and every one of us, but we need to make the decision to yes to the plan for our lives.  We have the wonderful example of Mary who we celebrate in a special way on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception this Thursday.  Mary said:  “I am the servant of the Lord.  Be it done to me according to your Word.”

Mary is our example of John the Baptist’s call of repentance.  When Mary said yes to the plan of God for her life, she made the decision to live out God’s plan for her life, rather than providing for her security and comfort. 

Each year the church marks the season of Advent as a time to nourish hope in God’s kingdom.  During these four weeks, we open the Word of God to hear anew God’s dream.  Advent is a wonderful time of hope and trusting in God’s promise that a Savior will be born to us who is Christ the Lord.   But for us to make room in our hearts for the Savior, we must heed the call to repentance from John the Baptist.

What spiritual discipline of prayer and service to others is going to characterize your Advent days?

In our Catholic liturgical tradition, we are richly blessed in our sacramental life.  God still illumines our eyes through the light of baptism.  God still opens our ears through His Word.  God frees from what holds us bound in reconciliation.  God feeds us at the table of the Eucharist.  In these ways and many others, we come to experience something of God’s vision for us, and we are empowered to take that vision into the world through acts of justice and mercy.

Advent, like discipleship, calls us to firmer conversion and deeper commitment, it calls us also, and in equal measure, to Christ-like compassion even as we extend God’s mercy to all long after the Jubilee Year of Mercy is done.

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.