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Sunday, December 1, 2024

A Homily – The First Sunday of Advent (Year C)

First Reading - Jeremiah 33:14-16 ©

Responsorial Psalm - Psalm 24(25):4-5,8-9,10,14 ©

Second Reading - 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2 ©

Gospel Acclamation – Psalm 84:8

The Gospel According to Luke 21:25-28,34-36 ©

 

NJB

 

Listen!

 The Church is steeped in the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew people.

 Jesus was a prophet, not a fortune teller or a seer; he was critical of the power structures that governed the people in his day. He spoke directly to the people in his time, as a witness to their suffering and the injustice they experienced at the hands of the wealthy and the powerful, in response to which he called for love and mercy.

 Remember.

 God, the creator of the universe, God does not intervene in the affairs of human beings. God does not establish royal houses or tear them down. God does not do these things, because God has created us and the entire universe free from divine coercion.

 God’s only intention is to teach us the way of justice and lead us to it in humility, by calling us to love and mercy.

 God does not choose between contending tribes or nations, God does not designate winners and losers. God has no favorites; God has no enemies.

 If you follow the way you will discover peace, even in the midst of calamity; if you follow the way you will learn to be generous in times of abundance and scarcity both.

 Consider the wisdom of the psalmist; lift-up your spirit, give your life to God, seek mercy and distribute it. Grow in the spirit of forgiveness…not merely to those who have done you wrong; move yourself to forgive God also, God who made you a creature who can experience pain and brought you into being in an unjust world.

 Do not expect God to take sides with you in any conflict; that is vanity. God loves all of God’s children fully and equally; the divine does not discriminate between one child and another.

 If you ask God to punish the faithless, the promise breakers, you must know that you are asking God to punish you yourself; we are all faithless, we are all promise breakers.

 When you pray, pray for wisdom and guidance, pray in a way that acknowledges God’s desires that you be well. If you pray for God to do anything for you, you are praying in vain. God will not intervene in your life, either to your benefit or your detriment, to reward or punish you.

 Be mindful of God’s mercy as it applies to you and to everyone; God allowed for your existence even knowing all your crimes; since the beginning of time God knew them, God has not forgotten them…and loves you anyway.

 All the ways of God are kindness and mercy, follow the divine example as we see it reflected in the person of Jesus. Love one another and all humanity; be a vehicle for love as God desires it. Love one another even as God loves you.

 Know this.

 God’s purpose in creating us with the knowledge of right and wrong fixed in our hearts and minds, the divine purpose in creating us as beings us with conscience, for creating us in the divine image is so that we may learn to love, excepting both the joy and the grief that flows from it...into it, encompassing it.

 To be a follower of Christ…to be a Christian, is not about what you believe, it is not about what images or ideas you have in your mind or about who or what God is…or is not. To be a follower of Christ…to be a Christian has nothing to do with the structure of sacred rituals or what songs you sing, creeds you consent or rituals you have enacted. To be a follower of Christ…to be a Christian has only to do with the quality of life you lead.

 It is God’s desire that we lead a moral life, a just life, a life characterized by good works, by charity, compassion and humility, a life of love in service to our sisters and brothers. We find our well-being in this and thus we are saved.

 Remember this on the first Sunday of Advent, and carry it with you throughout the year. God is the creator of the entire universe, all lands belong to God; all seas, all planets, all stars, all galaxies; everything and everyone living exists within God who sustains us all.

 Remember.

 God did not end the captivity of Jacob, the Hebrews did, with Moses and Joshua leading them through the desert (if you believe it).

 This is not hubris; it is greater hubris to think that God loves a special people, a people chosen above all others, than to think that the Israelites escaped bondage under their own power.

 Reflect on this; think deeply on it as we consider the Gospel reading for the day, and the trouble that always accompanies our interpretation of prophecy.

 The authors of Luke report that they have given us the words of Jesus, though they never met him; instead they presented this myth and placed lies in the mouth of their teacher.

 Jesus never spoke about the end of the world, he knew nothing about it; rather, he was concerned overwhelmingly with the injustice and suffering he witnessed to in his own time.

 Jesus did not seek to motivate us through fear, he was a beacon of love.

 If the moon were to slip in its orbit either falling toward us or away from us, that would be a sign of the end of the world (but only the world as we know it).

 Tens of billions of years from now, when the sun has spent the last of its nuclear fuel; the end of the world will begin…not one moment sooner.

 Know this.

 The stars are in fact so distant from us, that what happens with them has next-to-nothing to do with what happens here, and long before our sun burns itself out, our galaxy will collide with another, that collision will radically change life on this planet (billions of years from now), when human beings won’t even be recognizable as the beings we are.

 As has already been stated, God does not interfere or intervene in our lives and our choices. As such the only futures we can predict are those that flow naturally from their antecedents that are discernable right now. For instance, we can predict climate change because it is happening, and the antecedents for it were laid down decades ago; we cannot stop it. We can predict the continuation of wars, of terrorism, of economic injustice, because they are present realities and matters of statistical certitude. We can predict the continuation of social injustice, not because God has decreed that these things will continue or come to pass, but only because we have not yet made the determination to change them ourselves…to change ourselves and take up the way.

 First Reading - Jeremiah 33:14-16 ©

I Will Make a Virtuous Branch Grow for David

See, the days are coming – it is the Lord who speaks – when I am going to fulfil the promise I made to the House of Israel and the House of Judah:

‘In those days and at that time, I will make a virtuous Branch grow for David, who shall practise honesty and integrity in the land.

In those days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell in confidence.

And this is the name the city will be called:

The-Lord-our-integrity.’

 

Responsorial Psalm - Psalm 24(25):4-5,8-9,10,14 ©

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

Lord, make me know your ways.

  Lord, teach me your paths.

Make me walk in your truth, and teach me:

  for you are God my saviour.

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

The Lord is good and upright.

  He shows the path to those who stray,

He guides the humble in the right path,

  He teaches his way to the poor.

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

His ways are faithfulness and love

  for those who keep his covenant and law.

The Lord’s friendship is for those who revere him;

  to them he reveals his covenant.

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

 

Second Reading - 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2 ©

May You be Blameless When our Lord Jesus Christ Comes Again

May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race as much as we love you. And may he so confirm your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless in the sight of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus Christ comes with all his saints.

  Finally, brothers, we urge you and appeal to you in the Lord Jesus to make more and more progress in the kind of life that you are meant to live: the life that God wants, as you learnt from us, and as you are already living it. You have not forgotten the instructions we gave you on the authority of the Lord Jesus.

 

Gospel Acclamation - Psalm 84:8

Alleluia, alleluia!

Let us see, O Lord, your mercy and give us your saving help.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Luke 21:25-28,34-36 ©

That Day Will be Sprung on you Suddenly, Like a Trap

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars; on earth nations in agony, bewildered by the clamour of the ocean and its waves; men dying of fear as they await what menaces the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand.

‘Watch yourselves, or your hearts will be coarsened with debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of life, and that day will be sprung on you suddenly, like a trap. For it will come down on every living man on the face of the earth. Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to stand with confidence before the Son of Man.’

 

A Homily – The First Sunday of Advent (Year C)



Sunday, November 24, 2024

A Homily – The Thirty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B), The Solemnity of Christ the King

First Reading – Daniel 7:13-14

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 92(93):1-2,5

Second Reading – Apocalypse 1:5-8

Gospel Acclamation – Mark 11:10

The Gospel According to John 18:33-37

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 The writers of the book of Daniel are more interested in pomp and circumstance, in titles and royal courts than they are in the true work of the living and loving God, the creator of the universe.

 Remember.

 God is not a king, and Jesus was not a prince. God is a servant, as was the Christ. Therefor, do not seek glory, but rather seek to do good by your neighbor, your family, the stranger…even your adversary.

 Do not look for the God at the head of an army; the divine is not a general. Jesus does not come in a war-chariot, or with any of our other engines of war. Rather look for God in the marginalized, the hungry and the poor.

 If you wish to speak of the rule of God, understand that the divine reigns over the world as a gardener over a garden, or as the shepherdess governs her flock.

 If you desire to see the glory of God look into the sky; you will see the divine splendor in the glory of the stars, in the light of a trillon trillon galaxies that reaches us where we are.

 Be mindful.

 God dwells in everyone; look for the divine in humility, in the outcast, in the widow and the orphan. God is in the heart of the alien in our midst.

 When you honor them, you honor your creator, sustainer and savior.

 It is true that no human being has witnessed a power like that which was present at the beginning of time, God’s infinite power established the firmament; a creation of light form light, the immanent from the transcendent, the creature from the creator, the God in our heart from the God on high.

 Listen to the voice of God, it is within you and all around you. See the face of God in your neighbor…whoever they are.

 Know this.

 Jesus is not priest but a prophet; in his life he was a teacher, a healer and a friend to those in need; he took it upon himself to lay down his life so that we might see the way.

 Remember.

 God is not a king, and the Church, following in the way cannot be imagined as the extension of a royal dynasty.

 Now consider the Gospel reading today:

 It was an unfortunate moment in the development of our faith that the gospel writers felt compelled to use the narrative of Jesus’ arrest to present him as a king.

 Jesus did not seek kingship; kingdoms are human constructions. Kings invariably place their people in bondage, treat human beings as assets and spend their lives as if they were worthless things. It is not a different type of kingdom that Jesus wanted to inaugurate, but a world without kings.

 The analogy we ought to look to, if we are to create a new Church that is in keeping with the way, has nothing to do with royalty and power, with dominion and thrones, but with the nurture of life, growing, caring and loving.

 That language we use that presents God, and by extension Jesus as king, has dogged us all-the-way-down through the last twenty centuries and thwarted the mission of Jesus. This language gave rise to empires and principalities, kingdoms and caliphates, that even today use our sacred texts and traditions to prop up feed their greed, to prop of their vanity, and justify their callous disregard for the human beings whom God would rather we serve.

 

First Reading – Daniel 7:13-14

I Saw, Coming on the Clouds of Heaven, One Like a Son of Man

I gazed into the visions of the night.

And I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man.

He came to the one of great age and was led into his presence.

On him was conferred sovereignty, glory and kingship, and men of all peoples, nations and languages became his servants.

His sovereignty is an eternal sovereignty which shall never pass away, nor will his empire ever be destroyed.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 92(93):1-2,5

The Magnificence of the Creator

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

The Lord reigns! He is robed in splendour,

  clothed in glory and wrapped round in might.

He set the earth on its foundations:

  it will not be shaken.

Your throne is secure from the beginning;

  from the beginning of time, Lord, you are.

The rivers have raised, O Lord,

  the rivers have raised their voices.

  The rivers have raised their clamour.

Over the voices of many waters,

  over the powerful swell of the sea,

  you are the Lord, powerful on high.

All your promises are to be trusted:

  and holy is your habitation,

  O Lord, to the end of time.

The Lord is Wonderful on High

Amen.

Alleluia. Alleluia.

 

Second Reading – Apocalypse 1:5-8

Jesus Christ Has Made Us a Line of Kings and Priests

Grace and peace to you from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the First-Born from the dead, the Ruler of the kings of the earth. He loves us and has washed away our sins with his blood, and made us a line of kings, priests to serve his God and Father; to him, then, be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen. It is he who is coming on the clouds; everyone will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the races of the earth will mourn over him. This is the truth. Amen. ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ says the Lord God, who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Mark 11:10

Alleluia, alleluia!

Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord!

Blessings on the coming kingdom of our father David!

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to John 18:33-37

Yes, I Am a King

‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Pilate asked. Jesus replied, ‘Do you ask this of your own accord, or have others spoken to you about me?’ Pilate answered, ‘Am I a Jew? It is your own people and the chief priests who have handed you over to me: what have you done?’ Jesus replied, ‘Mine is not a kingdom of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, my men would have fought to prevent my being surrendered to the Jews. But my kingdom is not of this kind.’ ‘So you are a king then?’ said Pilate. ‘It is you who say it’ answered Jesus. ‘Yes, I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.’

 

A Homily – The Thirty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

The Solemnity of Christ the King



Sunday, November 17, 2024

A Homily – The Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

First Reading – Daniel 12:1-3

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 15(16):5,8-11

Second Reading – Hebrews 10:11-14,18

Gospel Acclamation – Matthew 24:42, 44

Alternative Acclamation – Luke 21:36

The Gospel According to Mark 13:24-32

 

(NJB) 

Listen!

God, the creator of the universe, God made creation and everyone in it free to make choices of their own.

Nothing is determined.

The entirety of creation exists in God, the whole of time and space are encompassed by the godhead, all our individual choices come into being through the power God has given us to determine our future for ourselves.

This radical state of freedom exists by the will of God, and our faith teaches us that despite the vicissitudes of evil we experience in the flesh, God will bring it all to the good in the end.

As a loving parent God is merciful, caring and forgiving; trust that God is humble in the administration of justice because God knows what we endure.

Be mindful.

All of God’s children share the same destiny and no-one is excluded from the divine family.

If you trust in God; your confidence in that trust will be its own reward.

God is good, and it is true to say that everything good flows from the divine, as all goodness belongs to God and everything is subject to…transformed by it in the end.

Look for the good of God in all creation, in everything that unfolds within the scope of your life.

Know this.

There are no alien gods.

The true God is the divine source of all being, The true God dwells within everyone and everything. We all worship the divine in our own way, even when we are worshipping next to someone at the same altar, according to the same rituals, using the same rites, articulating the same creeds and dogmas; we do this under auspices of our own misconceptions of the true God.

Be mindful.

Any representation of God is a manifestation of idolatry, whether our facsimiles are made of metal or stone, carved from wood, or composed of words, whether they are painted on canvass, or drawn among the stars. Even our best ideas and closest approximations are projections of the human mind, deviating from the supernal by orders of magnitude in each step between conception and application.

Remember.

God calls all of Gods children to God’s self, no one is left out.

 Know this.

 Jesus was not put to death as an offering for sin, this was not God’s purpose. God has nothing to do with the cult of animal sacrifice; the divine does not trade in blood magic or covet the smell of burning fat.

 It should be understood that in the earliest times, the offerings that were made at the temple, or prior to the temple at the altar in the wilderness, the priest’s portion was taken and distributed to the poorest of the poor. Such customs belonged to the social welfare system of the tribes.

 As corruption set in, overtime the priestly class used those offerings to enrich themselves, the poor were not allowed to approach the temple, on the grounds that they were ritually impure, and a priest would not go near them out of fear of contamination. The temple no longer distributed alms, and the people experienced the tithe to the temple as a tax which they could scarcely afford.

 When the church took the place of the temple, the cult of animal sacrifice was supposed to end, and the gifts of the church were meant to be free to any and all who chose to take up the way.

 Know this.

The future history of the world has not been written.

 Any supposition about our future here on earth is at best informed by real data and statistical analysis, and at worst merely a guess. We can know but little about the days and nights to come.

 There are thousands of ways in which the plans we have laid or the hopes which we cherish can come undone: lightning strikes, tornadoes twist, meteors fall, volcano explode.

 A person in the fullness of life may trip and fall, hit their head and die, leaving everything behind them…one stroke and we are dead, dead but not gone.

 We continue.

 God has promised to bring an end to suffering, injustice, hunger, illness. It is the proper content of Christian faith to believe in God’s promise, but the promises are not of this world.

 Having never been there I cannot speak of it. No one living has...anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something.

 We have been called to the belief in a loving God, to hope in the words of the prophets, to trust in the Gospel, to act as if the vision we have been promised will actually come to pass.

 We have been called to live our present lives as if the reality of those promises had taken shape in the present.

 This is the way.

 If we are just and loving, if we care for one another, we do not have to wait to enter the garden, it will be present among us. If we trust in the reality of the things we hope for, we are empowered to live our lives as if it were true.

 In so doing, God, who is always with us, becomes present to us like a burning bush or a column of fire, that we may approach without fear.

 Consider the gospel reading for today, it instructs us as to limits of human agency.

 Pay attention to the Gospel, and be mindful of the limits that attend all human agency…it is instructive.

 The authors of the Gospel had come to the end of their ability to narrate the life and mission of Jesus, at which point they allowed their own imagination, their own fears, their own misguided notions of what the mission of Jesus was, to enter the Church, usurping truth and wisdom.

 Jesus becomes transformed, no longer the humble teacher and preacher that he was in life, he becomes a figure like a monarch or a general descending from heaven in power and glory. Jesus would have been the first to tell them that power and glory are no substitute justice with mercy and peace through love.

 The same thing is true for individuals, for nations and all societies; we endure conflict and sue for peace, hope is born from despair, confusion is resolved by understanding. When we are farthest away from the light we are able to see it in greater focus, like the distant star narrowed to a point, it is able to guide us and draw us to itself...allow yourself to be drawn in by the light.

 Remember.

 Jesus did not return, he did not come back in the lifetime of the Gospel writers. They said he would but he didn’t, proving both themselves and their own teachers wrong about a pretty important article of their system of beliefs. As a result they allowed their hopes and fears to co-mingle and take shape as a series of lies which they introduced into the narrative of Jesus’ life, and Christians have been stuck with the task of interpreting these lies ever since…much to its detriment and the denigration of the way.

 

First Reading – Daniel 12:1-3

Some Will Wake to Everlasting Life, Some to Shame and Disgrace

‘At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who mounts guard over your people. There is going to be a time of great distress, unparalleled since nations first came into existence. When that time comes, your own people will be spared, all those whose names are found written in the Book. Of those who lie sleeping in the dust of the earth many will awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace. The learned will shine as brightly as the vault of heaven, and those who have instructed many in virtue, as bright as stars for all eternity.’

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 15(16):5,8-11

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

The Lord, my inheritance

Preserve me, Lord,

  I put my hope in you.

I have said to the Lord

  “You are my Lord,

  in you alone is all my good.”

As for the holy and noble men of the land,

  in them is all my delight.

But for those who run to alien gods,

  their sorrows are many.

I will not share in their libations of blood.

  I will not speak their names.

You, Lord, are my inheritance and my cup.

  You control my destiny,

the lot marked out for me is of the best,

  my inheritance is all I could ask for.

I will bless the Lord who gave me understanding;

  even in the night my heart will teach me wisdom.

I will hold the Lord for ever in my sight:

  with him at my side I can never be shaken.

Thus it is that my heart rejoices,

  heart and soul together;

  while my body rests in calm hope.

You will not leave my soul in the underworld.

  You will not let your chosen one see decay.

You will show me the paths of life,

  the fullness of joy before your face,

  and delights at your right hand until the end of time.

Amen.

O Lord, you will show me the fullness of joy in your presence. Alleluia.

Alleluia. Alleluia.

 

Second Reading – Hebrews 10:11-14,18

When All Sins Have Been Forgiven, there Can Be No More Sin-Offerings

All the priests stand at their duties every day, offering over and over again the same sacrifices which are quite incapable of taking sins away. He, on the other hand, has offered one single sacrifice for sins, and then taken his place forever, at the right hand of God, where he is now waiting until his enemies are made into a footstool for him. By virtue of that one single offering, he has achieved the eternal perfection of all whom he is sanctifying. When all sins have been forgiven, there can be no more sin offerings.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Matthew 24:42, 44

Alleluia, alleluia!

Stay awake and stand ready, because you do not know the hour when the Son of Man is coming.

Alleluia!

 

Alternative Acclamation – Luke 21:36

Alleluia, alleluia!

Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to stand with confidence before the Son of Man.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Mark 13:24-32

The Stars Will Fall from Heaven and the Powers in the Heavens Will Be Shaken

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘In those days, after the time of distress, the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will come falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory; then too he will send the angels to gather his chosen from the four winds, from the ends of the world to the ends of heaven.

  ‘Take the fig tree as a parable: as soon as its twigs grow supple and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. So with you when you see these things happening: know that he is near, at the very gates. I tell you solemnly, before this generation has passed away all these things will have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

  ‘But as for that day or hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son; no one but the Father.’

 

A Homily – The Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)



Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Stan Lee – Mythologist, Bard and Hero

 Let’s talk about Stan Lee; I cannot measure the debt I owe this man, or express how sharply I feel its significance, and though I never met him in life, I hope to see him on the misty shores of the blessed isles, beyond the western shore, on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, or walking in Elysium, a hero among heroes in the emerald heavens beyond.

 Long live The Man! Stan Lee! Huzzah!

 Stan Lee saturated my imagination, imprinting it with cheap-ink on cheap paper, nuance-free, in a three-color-process.

 In those pages he taught that with great power comes great responsibility. He taught that it is always okay to punch a Nazi…he taught us that it is the duty of free people everywhere to fight against tyranny, and that it is the responsibility of America and Americans in particular to stand up against the divisive powers of Hate and Nationalism, of Jingoism and Fascism wherever they fester.

 Stan Lee introduced everyone who read his comics to the classical worlds of Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, he introduced us to Jung, Einstein and Heisenberg. He showed us that the fight for civil rights includes the rights of all people, and that the good guys are on the side of tolerance, justice and love. He called on us to look out for our friends, to try to understand what they are going through when they are struggling, and to include in our group people who are different from us: including the quiet, the shy and the meek…and all of those who are otherwise marginalized.

 He taught us that there is a power hidden in everyone, waiting to be expressed, and that our powers sour among the alienated but flowers among friends.

 Stan Lee schooled us; he showed us that even mutants should be loved and respected, and protected in a world full of people who hate and fear them, from those who would persecute them without regard for their humanity. He encouraged us to identify with them, to see within ourselves the outcast, the disenfranchised…as an outsider. He insisted that we have an obligation to secure their rights, and that this is the surest way to safe-guard our own.

 We are to do so by any means necessary.

 Stan Lee opened my eyes to the cosmos; through his imagination I took flight.

 I went surfing with the Alien, we journeyed to the heart of a singularity, traversing dimensions of thought beyond time…he taught me to pursue the meaning of life, grasp the nature of reality, and discover its purpose…or assign one to myself.

 In the final analysis Stan Lee taught me the cold truth: there is no solution to the existential dilemma, that the galaxy and the universe itself is a cold place, indifferent to our drives and desires, but that human beings have a choice, and that the courageous choose to serve the good.

 He teaches in the tradition of the great masters, that we do not have to follow our appetites or be consumed by them…he taught us that the greatest thing we can aspire to is to love, and to be loved in turn. He taught us that friendship matters more than power, more than beauty, more than anything.

 Stan Lee, was the bard of our day, overflowing with the gift to inspire; it was his own super-power.

             To him I say:

 Excelsior!