The Babe of Bethlehem

Close your eyes for a moment. No sleeping! Keep your ears open, but close your eyes and clear your mind.

Imagine for a moment that we are not gathered here in this church. Rather we are outside in the cold night air, not in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in the 21st century, but in the hills of the Italian countryside in the 13th century. We are following a religious man, a preacher who wants us to see something special, and we are hiking behind him on a mountain trail, heading up into the hills. Our way is lit with torches and candles, and we are bundled up to stay warm as we walk. Finally, we arrive at our destination: a niche in the side of the cliff that forms a cave of sorts. There we see that our preacher has prepared straw, where a few farm animals lie and graze. A crib made out of rough wood sits in the middle. As we approach the spot, this preacher begins to sing a song, reciting a story, one that is set in a manger like the one we see before us. It is the story of a child’s birth, and as he speaks, we can see that he is overcome with emotion, almost at the point of tears, full of joy and peace. So tenderly does he describe the child that we notice how he does not even dare to say his name, but calls him only “il Bambino di Betlemme” – “the Babe of Bethlehem.” As he preaches about the birth of this child, some of us even think perhaps that we can see him, a heavenly figure, weak and small and yet radiating a heavenly light.

You can open your eyes. That, more or less, is the account of how Francis of Assisi created the first nativity scene in the mountain town of Greccio in December of 1223. What we are used to seeing, usually as figurines on our mantles or lawns, was originally a live action reenactment. Having journeyed to the Holy Land a few years before, St. Francis had visited the spot where Christ had been born. To give the people of Greccio a deeper understanding of the birth in Bethlehem, Francis re-created it, staging the manger scene, chanting the story of the birth from the Book of the Gospels, with such power and reverence and love that some saw the Christ Child there in their midst.

Stories and events have a way of coming alive when we enact them, when we experience them as they might have happened. St. Francis knew that to reenact the birth of Jesus for his flock in Greccio would be much more powerful than an exercise in mere imagination. But what, ultimately, was Francis wanting to demonstrate? Surely, the people that trekked up to the mountain cave knew what they were going to see; they knew what event they were going to commemorate. In much the same way, we have come here this evening aware of what this holiday celebrates. Why, then, have we come? Surely not to find out a what. We know that already – the birth of a child. Rather, we have come for the same reason that the people of Greccio followed Francis up into the hills on a cold winter night – to understand a why, to comprehend the meaning of the Christmas story in a new way. We know the details of the birth in Bethlehem. What we sometimes need is a reminder of its significance.

Nativity with the Torch (c. 1635), the Le Nain brothers

Each year, the Church approaches the story of Jesus’s nativity in four different ways, one for each of the four Masses that can be celebrated at Christmas. In the vigil Mass, we hear the Gospel story of the angel reassuring Joseph to not be afraid to take Mary into his home, for it is by the power of God that she will be the mother of Israel’s long-awaited Messiah. In the Mass During the Night, commonly celebrated at midnight, the Gospel speaks of the angels appearing to the shepherds in the fields, bearing the news of Jesus’s birth to them and proclaiming the glory of God. In the Mass at Dawn, the Gospel says that the shepherds, having received these tidings of great joy, resolve to make their way to Bethlehem to see the Christ Child for themselves. Finally, in the Mass during Christmas Day, we hear from the Gospel of John, a reading perhaps at once the strangest and also the most fitting for Christmas, the one that explains the true meaning of all of the others: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us.”

What Francis of Assisi tried to show in the hills above Greccio, what our readings seek to describe, what we have come to celebrate in the church this evening is that this birth in Bethlehem was of no ordinary child – rather, it was the breaking forth of the divine into the human, the dawning of the promised Son of God to his people. This humble birth – poor really, by any measure – is nothing less than the remaking of the world, the union of heaven and earth in this little child. In Jesus, God has taken to himself our reality and, in doing so, forever changed it. God has, in effect, married us – with all of our warts, in all of our sinfulness – to redeem our humanity and let it share in his divinity. He has done this, glory be to Him, through this little child. This Babe of Bethlehem is "God with us," God in the flesh, and the one through whom God will at last accomplish his purpose – none other than to go to the Cross, to put to death our sin and dysfunction once and for all, and forever reclaim us, raising us from “Forsaken” to “My Delight,” from “Desolate” to “Espoused”.

This birth in Bethlehem is not merely a spectacle to behold or a theological reality to ponder. It’s also an invitation – to ponder whether we believe this reality, and if so, whether we have shaped our life around it. God wants us to adore his Son’s birth, not just with lip service, with a brief prayer or remembrance, or with our backsides in a pew for an hour on Christmas. He wants us to open our hearts in love and welcome – to let Christ be born within us in as true of a way as he was born in the manger. God almighty, who enters our human reality to shatter the darkness of death and sin and lift us into eternity, cannot by himself enter into our hearts; he can do that only if we permit him. The humble child born in the stable is an invitation to love, and to be loved, by the God made Man.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, “There are two births of Christ, one unto the world in Bethlehem, the other in the soul when it is spiritually reborn.” It is this inward coming that Jesus most fully desires. Indeed, it is the reason for his coming altogether. If all Christmas is for us is another event on the calendar, a holiday to be marked and then to move past, then we have missed entirely the meaning of this birth, this “Bambino di Betlemme”. He awaits us, even now, at the door of our hearts, asking if there is room enough for him to be born anew.

My friends, some time tonight or tomorrow, when you are with family and friends, pause for a few moments from the feasting and the gift-giving and the merrymaking. Close your eyes, and imagine once again. This time, journey not to Greccio, but to the real manger scene in Bethlehem. See there in a humble stable the Holy Family, and in the crib itself, the Christ Child himself. You have come to see him, but he has come for you – to die for you, willingly, joyfully, to raise your humanity to share in his divinity. As you approach, stoop down to him; drop to your knees. He looks at you, the Lord of heaven and earth made a humble Babe. Feel his peace; encounter the joy that only he can give, that he desires to give you all year round. It is a joy like a flame – one which cannot be snuffed out, but which shines brightly in the dark, radiating its warmth and light. The Babe of Bethlehem is born for you. All he desires from you is everything. And he gives Everything in return.

Learning to Receive

As you know, we are now just a short time from the start of Christmas. If you are anything like me, there’s still a few precious hours to think through what gifts you still need to find a way to shop for, buy, wrap, and deliver before the hour for unwrapping arrives. I like to give presents, but sometimes I don’t think I’m very good at it. Perhaps it is because I wait until the last minute! People say that, with gifts, “It’s the thought that counts!”, and I for one hope they are right.

In the first reading today, King David finds himself in a giving mood. Having conquered his enemies and established his throne in Jerusalem, he is moved by gratitude to do something for God. Since the time of Moses, the Jewish people had understood God’s presence to dwell with them through the Ark of the Covenant, housed within a special tent that was moveable. David desires to build for the Lord a fitting house, a temple, something that would stand permanently as a visible reminder of God’s place at the center of his kingdom.

As we hear, God has other plans. He appreciates David’s intention – “It’s the thought that counts!” – but God is more interested in giving gifts than in receiving them. While David wants to build him a house of wood and stone, God desires to give him a lasting gift, not a literal house, but a lineage and a kingship that will rule for all times. There are few things as important to a king as the stability of his succession, and God promises to secure David’s for all time.

This reading demonstrates for us an important lesson about our relationship with God. The Lord desires an intimate relationship with us, a true friendship, like he had with David. But we should not confuse our places; we are not equals – God remains God. Sometimes, we might think, “Well, if I do this good thing, then he will bless me” or “I will suffer this hardship, and then God will owe me.” But God is not interested in bargaining or cutting deals; all of his action toward us is one of blessing and benevolence. We don’t have to curry his favor, or earn his loyalty; God already desires to give us every good gift and blessing.

The Annunciation (c. 1452), attributed to Petrus Christus

Of course, that doesn’t mean that we will always perfectly understand his will. In the Gospel for this Fourth Sunday of Advent, the angel Gabriel tells Mary that she will give birth to a Son, and that he will receive the throne of his ancestor David and his kingdom will have no end. Mary doesn’t understand the full meaning of these words; if she understands them even partially, she is even more unsure how she, as a virgin, could be the one chosen by God to bring forth a Savior. And yet underneath her questions, Mary has a deep and implicit faith in the Lord’s goodness, in his faithfulness, in their intimate relationship as God and human being, and so she responds affirmatively, trustingly, with a “Yes” that makes up in love what it lacks in understanding.

Mary’s “Fiat” is the greatest act of her life, the fundamental reason why we as Catholics accord her such honor and veneration. We understand that without her “Yes”, Christ would not have been born for us, and the promise of God to David would not have been fulfilled. David’s royal line crumbles after a few centuries, due to the sinfulness of his descendants and the people of Israel as a whole. And yet God does not abandon his people, and he does not forget his promise; instead, he fulfills it in a way more wonderful than David or anyone else could ever imagine. David had desired the presence of God to dwell among his people, and as we see in the Annunciation, that has also been God’s desire all along – not in some perishable building of wood or stone, but in a person, in the permanent union of God and man in Christ. As St. Paul remarks to the Romans, this is the “mystery kept secret for long ages,” but now manifested and made known to all nations – that God has fulfilled his promise to David, and fulfilled indeed every desire and yearning of the human heart, in the Incarnation of his Word, the sending of his Son Jesus, through whom God’s love and favor rests upon his people. Through him, we have been made a royal people, not by blood but by baptism. Every believer shares in the kingship of Christ, and through him, the royal lineage of the Church extends through every age and to every place.

Very close now to the start of Christmas, our final Advent preparation should be a reflection upon this reality: that the coming of Christ is a greater gift than any mankind could have asked for or dreamed of. We need not doubt God’s benevolence, his providence, his desire to reach through time and history to change us and our reality – his Son’s presence among us is proof of that. We don’t have to curry favor with the Lord or seek to give him gifts in order to earn his love; he has already given it and gives it anew through the grace of Christ. That is the true blessing of Christmas.

What God does ask is that we be faithful and joyful in receiving what he does desire to give us. It’s doubtful that we will always understand his every design; at times, we may even struggle to comprehend why his will permits some challenge. But we need never doubt God’s goodness and his fidelity, because in Christ he has revealed the fullness of every blessing. Remember Mary – and respond with similar trust and generosity. Whatever the Lord wishes to do in your life, don’t seek to dictate terms, but open yourself to what God wishes to give.

My friends, even if you have waited until the last minute, make these last few hours of Advent count in your preparation for the coming feasts. Christmas is the remembrance above all else that the Lord is the best Gift-giver of all, for he has given us the gift of himself in his Son. He desires each of us to receive him anew with generosity of spirit and firmness of faith. With this gift, it’s not just the thought that counts, but also the response – a “Yes” that he wishes to hear from our lips, as he heard from Mary’s. Like her, may we remember that God has proven his faithfulness and love from all generations, and with grateful hearts, may we receive all that the Lord wishes to give.

Mistaken Identities

Mattia Preti, Saint John the Baptist Preaching (c. 1665)

Allow me to briefly summarize three stories, vastly different but sharing one thing in common. Separated by a shipwreck, two twins unknowingly arrive in the same place, one is mistaken for the other, and hilarity ensues. A secret criminal organization confuses a regular guy for a secret government agent, and his life turns upside down. A beggar boy and a royal prince who look strikingly similar switch places out of curiosity, but afterward find it much more difficult to switch back. Whether it’s Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, or Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, some of our most enduring classic tales are based around cases of mistaken identity. Sometimes funny, sometimes scary, things can quickly get out of sorts when someone thinks you are someone you’re not.

In the Gospel today, we hear that John the Baptist is confronted by representatives from the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. They have come to ask him directly who he is. As we heard last week, John lived in the desert, preaching repentance and baptizing those who were sorry for their sins and wanted to reconcile with God. Clearly, many had begun to wonder just what this man was about – whether he was the Messiah they had been waiting for, the Prophet whom some believed would come before the end times, or someone else. And so they ask him, “Who are you? What do you have to say for yourself?”

John is very frank with them. While the people who had come out to see him in the desert and perhaps even the Jewish authorities thought that this one at last was the Christ that they had been expecting, John tells them they are mistaken. They’ve got the wrong guy; he’s not their man. Perhaps if we were crafting the Gospel story, this case of mistaken identity might have lingered a bit longer, to play up the suspense. But our Gospel writer, St. John the Evangelist, is interested in the story’s spiritual rather than literary value. John the Baptist, he makes clear, is under no illusions about who he is. He has been sent by God not to direct attention to himself, but to prepare the way for someone far greater.

On this Third Sunday of the Advent season, we recall just who that is – the one that the Baptist prepared for, the one that we await. Our expectation for him is so great that we even allow ourselves to begin even now to rejoice, to anticipate his coming with gladness and gratitude. The presence of John the Baptist is a signal that the Lord’s salvation is at hand. He is the Herald that announces the coming of the King, the King not yet here but coming very soon.

John the Baptist kept his eyes on the one who is really important, and we have to do the same. Like the people in the desert, and the Jewish authorities from Jerusalem, we too can fall victim at times to mistaking identity – not of John the Baptist, that is, but our own. While we should be rejoicing at the coming of our King, often we can become too weighed down by the chronicles of our own lives that we forget the overall plot. We can mistake our own story – with its ups and downs, joys and sorrows – as the primary narrative that should shape our reality, when really, it isn't.

Don’t we all have the tendency at times, perhaps especially at this time of year, to focus exclusively on what we are doing, on what is happening to us, and in doing so, to miss how God is at work around us? There is a kind of spiritual solipsism whereby we can become too wrapped up in what we are about that we miss entirely what God might be wanting us to reveal. The key to true happiness is understanding that we exist not as the primary actor of our own stories, but as characters caught up in a wonderful tale of God’s love for the world, and he is at the center of it. John the Baptist understood this – he played the part he had to play, and he played it well, but he didn’t mistake his role for something greater than what it was.

Let me share with you a bit of spiritual wisdom that I learned from a spiritual director in seminary, now gone to his eternal reward: live your life as if God is the protagonist, rather than yourself. It may sound counterintuitive – that you are not the center of the story. But believe it or not, you’ll be far happier if you live that way than otherwise. If you think to yourself, “What is the Lord doing today? Where is the Lord moving? How is the Lord speaking and acting?”, you will find that without the pressure of being at the center of everything, you have more the space to move and breathe and and look around you, and see what God is doing. Just look at John the Baptist. This man sent by God, as the Gospel tells us, whom Jesus describes in another place as the greatest born of a woman – what does he do? He acknowledges his lowliness: “I am not worthy to untie his sandal,” and steps aside for Jesus: “He must increase, and I must decrease.”

A lot of this, of course, is much easier said than done. Perhaps you’re thinking, “Father, if only you knew what I’m facing right now, how much my friend or relative is hurting, how lonely and anxious I feel; how can I possibly rejoice?” I hear you. Rejoicing, and being told to rejoice, doesn’t make all of our problems go away. But when we are struggling, it’s all the more important to lay hold of those truths that truly matter. Like a loving Mother, the Church consoles us by saying if we only knew how much those things, great though they may seem, pale in comparison to the love that God has for us, and the peace that Jesus can bring, we could not help but rejoice. St. Faustina Kowalska, the Polish nun who lived a century ago and who herself knew much suffering, once said, “If the suffering soul only knew how much it is loved by God, it would die of joy and excess of happiness!”

My friends, the stories of our lives are all vastly different, but they share one thing in common. At their heart, our lives have all been defined by one tale – classic, timeless even – summarized in this way: a Savior has been born for us, our King has come, and each day he wishes to fill us anew with his peace and joy. Don’t mistake your present concerns, great as they may be, with your true identity: a child of God, beloved by him, redeemed in Christ. No matter what trial you may face or darkness you may encounter, the love of God for you in Christ cannot be taken away. Make that reality your guiding narrative, as John the Baptist did. Put the Lord and what he has done at the center of your story, and you will find the right way to approach each moment, each challenge, each development in your own character arc.

"Maranatha"

All of us at times have asked the question: “Where was God?” We see some terrible story on the news or we experience some tragedy in our own lives, and we just think “God, why were you not there? Why did you not act?” In a world where we see much darkness and evil, the seeming absence of God’s presence can sometimes be difficult to bear. For some people, this can even be the reason to doubt or deny a belief in God – they struggle with understanding how a good and merciful God could allow evil and not act. Why would God seem to be silent, why does he appear to be idle when clearly so much is wrong with the world?

These feelings are nothing new. People of faith throughout history have felt the same. We see an example in our first reading. The people of Israel in the first reading are in exile in Babylon, a thousand miles from their homeland of Canaan. The favored people of God had been overrun by a pagan king, deported from their homeland, and now dwelled as prisoners in a foreign land. It would have seemed impossible for them to return, and at this point, many abandoned hope. They thought, “God, why did you not act? Why have you abandoned us?”

To these cries of anguish, the prophet Isaiah tells the people to take comfort. He prophesies that not only will God end their exile, but that he himself will lead them back to their homeland himself and he himself will care for them like a shepherd cares for the flock. While these words may have been dismissed by many as foolish, the Jewish people did return to their homeland and renewed there their covenant with God.

Sidney Nolan, Desert Storm (c. 1955)

The season of Advent at its heart is one of waiting, even one of longing – eagerly, anxiously desiring the Lord to set aright the evils of the world. It is also though a season of remembrance, of recognizing that God has acted already. Throughout the history of Israel, God intervenes to rescue his people – from enslavement in Egypt, from destruction at the hands of the Assyrians, from exile in Babylon. Most importantly, in this season we recall how God acted definitively by sending us a Savior, Jesus.

This year, we have the happy occurrence of this Second Sunday of Advent falling right between the two Marian feasts of Advent: the Immaculate Conception of Mary last Friday and the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe this coming Tuesday. With Mary’s Immaculate Conception, we celebrate that God breaks through our dysfunction in ways that perhaps are unseen by us but nonetheless are real – that is, that even as we cry out for salvation, he has already been at work in secret. Mary was conceived without sin because God knew she would be the mother of our Redeemer, and so his action to preserve her sin was answering our need in ways that we did not even yet know. In the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we recognize how the God of majesty and power comes in humble, lowly ways. The God of eternity and of infinite power is born to a young girl in a quiet and far-off place. Yet, this unassuming virgin is herself mighty in power because of the child she bears, and powerful also for us who are her spiritual children. As she said to Juan Diego in her apparition, we should let nothing disturb or frighten us, because in her we have a loving mother who will care for us just as she cared for her Son, the God-Man.

So we may indeed wonder, “Why does God linger in resolving the injustices of the world? Why does he not act?” But St. Peter speaks clearly in our second reading – God has acted, by giving his Son Jesus, to save us from our sins. It is because he desires the salvation of all of us – because he does not wish to lose even a single one of us to eternal separation – that he waits. It's not delay, really, but patience, and he is patient because we are hesitant, untrusting, uncommitted.

And yet, one day God will act, his Son will return, and then all wrongs will be righted, every hill made low, every valley filled, and all will see the glory of the Lord. The early Christians had a word that was especially fitting for this Advent season: “Maranatha.” The word is an Aramaic formula that means the coming of the Lord and it can be translated in two ways. The more common translation is a command: “Come, O Lord!” It is an expression of our longing, our desire for the Lord Jesus to come and render justice for the evils we see around us. But it can also be translated, “The Lord has come.” And this perhaps is the deeper, important meaning for us – that even as we yearn for God to fix what must be fixed, to rescue us from our plight, to save us from all that ails us, we remember that he has come, and that he has done these things for us as a comfort to never doubt or be afraid.

My friends, our fundamental belief as Christians is that God does not ignore us; he is not absent. He has not only acted in human history, he has become one of us in the Incarnation. This is not just a private religious opinion that we hold, but a firm belief that underlies everything that we understand about the world. We may go through difficulties and wonder why the Lord seems to delay; but we must not doubt or be afraid, because God has acted and is acting in and through his Son Jesus. Like the early Christians, let us say “Maranatha” – “The Lord has come. Come, O Lord!” – and be steadfast in making straight the path for when he does.

Mary, God's Mansion

No one likes to live in a shabby house. We may not all live in mansions, but we like for our abodes to be clean, respectable, and a place that is both inviting for guests and also comfortable for ourselves. A house is in some way a reflection of who we are, and so we want it to reflect the best version of ourselves.

Today we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the woman whom God created to be the mother of his Divine Son Jesus. Mary, as the woman who bore Jesus inside her womb, is sometimes called the Ark of the New Covenant, because her body was the abode of Jesus. If a house is a reflection of who we wish to be, we can say that Mary is the perfect reflection of what God designed a human being to be. In order to give us the gift of his Son, both human and divine, God first had to create for him a fitting dwell place, a vessel which would bring him into the world, and Mary is that vessel.

The Immaculate Conception of Mary is the first action that God took in human history to introduce our Savior Jesus into the world. Following the Fall of Adam and Eve, which we heard about in our first reading, our human nature was tarnished, like a house that has fallen into disrepair. In Mary, God restores the house of our human nature, preparing for himself a fitting dwelling for the Incarnation of the Son and also prefiguring in her the healing mercy that Christ’s sacrifice extends to all of us.

La Inmaculada Concepcion (La Colosal) (c. 1652), Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Mary’s entire identity is rooted in the role that God had for her to be the mother of the Christ, to speak those words, “Thy will be done,” that she said to the angel Gabriel. And so for this reason, because she submitted herself so fully to the will of God, she is the pinnacle of our human race. As we admire our Blessed Mother, we should remember a great truth of the Christian life: that God is the author of every good gift, every grace. The salvation that he wrought for us in Jesus began before the empty tomb, before the birth in the stable at Bethlehem, before even the appearance of an angel to a young girl in Nazareth. It began first at the depth of Mary’s being, when God foresaw what her Son Jesus would do, and gave her the grace of sharing in that salvation at her own conception.

Perhaps we might think today: in what ways has God been at work in my life in ways that I do not appreciate, or been drawing me to himself in some way that stretches back far before I had realized? And for what might God be preparing me? What does he intend for my life? We might reflect upon the answers to these questions in these Advent days, pondering them as Mary pondered in her heart what God had done for. For all of us, the simple answer is “grace” – God’s free gift of himself that we can share in even now.

Friends, as we prepare to welcome our Savior at Christmas, let’s pause first to praise him this day for the beautiful vessel he created in the person of Mary, whose body was a mansion for the Incarnate Word, and whose soul said "Yes" to God's plan of our salvation. This day, we remember that without her, we would not have our Savior. Like she, may we give thanks for the good things that God has done for us, and rejoice in the grace that he invites to respond to, as she did, with “Thy will be done.”

Irreproachable

It’s a part of human nature that we want the approval of others. When others think highly of us, it affirms us; when they think less highly, or even poorly, it can upset us.

We see this perhaps most clearly in the case of children. This past week I had the chance to catch up on the phone a bit with a childhood friend whom I have not seen for a while. She’s in the middle of raising her three children, and is experiencing all of the joys and the challenges that that brings. One of the things she’s learning is how much her children depend upon her for affirmation and validation, in good moments and in bad. At one moment her kids want to show off to her – “Mommy, look at me! Mommy, watch this!” – and her attention fills them with pride and satisfaction. But when she disapproves when they are misbehaving, they sulk and pout and maybe even shed a few tears because Mommy is upset with them.

This same dynamic plays out in our relationship with God, and we see it clearly in our first reading. Speaking on behalf of the people of Israel, the prophet Isaiah cries out to God for forgiveness. Israel has been wayward and unfaithful, and now recognizing that fact, they feel how distant they have become from God. Like a child trying to placate an upset parent, they are displeased because he is displeased, and sorrowful now at their misdeeds, the people of Israel desire to return to his good graces.

The basic problem of the Old Testament is that this same reality plays out over and over again. The people of Israel sins, God forgives, but Israel sins again. Each time they repent, Israel opens its eyes to how foolish they had been – to how they had been tempted from their worship of God by the allurements of this world and the anxieties of daily life – and how, as a result, they have driven off far from the Lord’s path. Thus, they cry out, as we heard in the words of today’s psalm: “Make us turn to you, Lord; let us see your face and be saved.” But despite their sincerity in the moment, the pattern plays out again. After some time, the people turn back to their sinfulness. They just don’t learn, like a misbehaving child that wants what it wants and doesn’t think of the consequences.

As we begin the season of Advent, we hear this passage for a reason. The Church suggests that we perhaps might be in the same situation. Turning the page on a new calendar year in the Church, we begin by taking stock of our spiritual houses, and doing so, we find that we are wanting, and we ask the Lord for forgiveness. It may seem that we hear a lot about the theme of conversion at Mass. Our readings often touch upon it, and I admit that I tend to preach on it often, because it is critical aspect to the Christian rhythm of life. There is something about repentance that, while difficult, allows for newness and permits the clearing of the air. When we come to Mass each week, what is the first thing we do? We admit we have sinned – “I confess to almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters that I have greatly sinned….” By recognizing our past faults, by owning up to them consciously, we take ownership of them, rather than allow them to own us.

One of the reasons we must continually search our hearts is that it is part of what Jesus charged us to do. As we heard in the Gospel, he calls his disciples to be watchful and alert, and not to be caught off guard by his return. This new season of Advent is not only a time to prepare for our celebration of the first coming of Jesus, as a newborn child at Christmas. It is also a time to remind ourselves and to prepare ourselves for the Second Coming of Jesus, when he will return in glory to judge heaven and earth, and us along with it. Repentance is part of staying alert, making sure that we are every day gauging how faithfully we are walking the path of discipleship.

Enrique Simonet, Flevit Super Illam (1892)

While we recognize that we are like Israel, wayward and in need of God’s mercy, we also start off Advent by claiming an identity that the people of the Old Testament did not have – God’s adopted sons and daughters. St. Paul encourages the Christian community at Corinth with words that he might well have addressed to us: we have been “enriched in every way, with all discourse and all knowledge” such that we “are not lacking in any spiritual gift”.

We are not children who don’t know how to please our heavenly Father; rather we have the grace of adoption through Jesus which allows us to understand the will of God and to be faithful to it in a way that the Israelites could not. Whenever we are in doubt, we can look to Jesus and see in him not only an example to follow but an identity to put upon, becoming each day more and more like Christ. God invites each of us this Advent to grow more fully into our identity as his sons and daughters; there are countless ways to do so. Maybe by getting to Mass just 10 minutes earlier each week, to prepare myself, to become ready with prayer and reflection to praise my God. Maybe by setting my alarm clock 15 minutes earlier in the morning to spend a little time in private prayer or reflecting upon the readings of that day’s Mass. Maybe by thinking about that one person in my life whom I am ignoring, or taking for granted, or finding to be exasperating, and to do something kind and charitable for them. What one small thing or two is God asking of you to conform yourself more fully to his Son?

Friends, as we begin Advent, we remind ourselves to keep vigilant for the Lord’s coming. The best way to do so is with eyes fixed upon him. Like a child that knows its parent is watching, we seek to please our heavenly Father by being found "irreproachable," in the words of Paul, without blame or sin. St. Augustine said that if we love our sins more than Jesus his return will make us afraid; but if we love Christ more than we love our sins, we will rejoice at his coming. Let’s not be sidetracked by spiritual drowsiness or childish selfishness, but instead keep our eyes upon the Lord, delighting in his love, remembering how he delights in us. May Jesus find us ever watchful, in this season and beyond, ready for his coming.