4th Sunday of Advent, December 18th, 2011

2 Samuel 7:1-5,8b-12,14a,16; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-28

David. Paul. Mary.

Each of those names elicits awe and respect in us. Comparing ourselves to them makes us feel humble.

However, that feeling should not make us feel that we are less important than them in the eyes of God. Hopefully, whenever we try to compare ourselves to them feeling of gratitude and much better understanding of ourselves and of our potential fills our hearts. For David, Paul and Mary stand for us as convincing examples that we, too, can be participants in God’s plan for the world.

David, Paul and Mary were not much different from us. Just each one of them simply rose to the occasion when God requested of them to put their trust in Him and to follow His will.

Each one of us is capable to do exactly the same.

          David came from a family of shepherds, the family of Jesse. He was the youngest among many brothers – so young that when the prophet Samuel came, seeking God’s chosen from among the Jesse’s sons, David was too young to be invited to the meeting. He was left tending sheep and had to be sent for as an afterthought.

          Paul was a student of the Law from a well-to-do family who learned to be a tent maker is order to support himself while studying. Like many college students of our day, the more learning opened his mind, the more he was filled with zeal for getting into the world to change it. However; it took him some time and many terrible mistakes before he got it right how to do it.

          When we meet Mary in today’s gospel, she is a young girl of age 13 or 14. The age of today’s eighth-grader or a high school freshman. Mary lives very ordinary life and according to her culture’s customs she is engaged to a man chosen by her family.

          These are individuals, not much different from us, whose beginnings are echoed in our own beginnings and lives. From their families, families like our own family, they inherited a gift of faith. They tried to live their lives using that gift wisely. Than one day they were asked by God in much more explicit way to totally put their trust in Him and to follow His will. Probably at the time David, Paul and Mary did not fully realize of the importance of the decisions they were making and how much that would change their lives. But because they accepted God’s invitation, everything else what followed afterwards changed them and the world for ever.

          Perhaps sometimes we feel that what we do does not make a huge difference in God’s plan for the world. That our lives are not so important to anyone or even to God. We just try to live from day to day taking care of our children, sometimes of our parents, going to work and trying to catch up on our sleep.

However, the lives of David, Paul and Mary offer us quite different perspective. God counted on them to participate in His plan to save the world and offered them an opportunity to do so. God also counts on us to participate in His plan for the world and offers us an opportunity to do so.

          Perhaps a question which each one of us needs to ask ourselves in this Advent season is:

What is the opportunity which God offers us? Which God offers me?

2nd Sunday of Advent, December 4, 2012

Isaiah 40:1-5,9-11; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

         

          Today’s gospel reading contains the first eight verses of the gospel according to St. Mark. Unlike the gospel according to St. John, this gospel does not treat us to an elaborate and theologically rich prologue. And unlike the gospels according to Matthew and Luke, it is stone silent about the birth and infancy of Jesus.

          Instead, it starts abruptly at the banks of the Jordan River, near the edge of the desert. A preacher named John dwells there. Gathered around him, awaiting his baptism, is a crowd of pilgrims from all over Palestine. From John's gospel we know that Peter is a part of that crowd, along with some fellow fishermen from Galilee. Present also, although Mark does not tell us yet, is a carpenter from Nazareth named Jesus.

          John offers to everyone a baptism, which is not just a ceremonial bath. John calls it a baptism of repentance. The baptism that demands more than just regret for the past sins. It demands from those experiencing it a stern effort not to repeat their past sins again. This baptism is a public statement of an internal change which has already occurred in those receiving it.

What John looks for in those who seek his baptism are signs of such conversion, a genuine resolve to change. That means abandoning long festering pagan attitudes, launching an all-out assault on old habits of selfishness, sensuality, pride, and greed. John calls his listeners to an internal change for only this might prepare the way of the Lord. Only this might prepare John’s listeners for the Messiah they have been waiting for, and for His gospel. John's baptism is only confirmation of that readiness.

This second Sunday of Advent presents us with this fundamental question: Are we ready to accept the Messiah John is talking about and this Messiah' gospel?

          The first sentence of Saint Mark gospel, as we have heard it today,  simply says: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God." Joseph Ratzinger, known to many of us now as pope Benedict XVI shares with us in his book , Jesus of Nazareth, that Mark deliberately designates Jesus' message with the Greek term evangelion, which is translated for us into English as the terms gospel or good news.

          "Term evangelion, Ratzinger says, was a part of the Roman emperors' vocabulary in Jesus' times, as they understood themselves as lords, saviors, and redeemers of the world. The messages issued by the emperor were called in Latin evangelium, regardless of whether or not their content was particularly cheerful and pleasant. The idea was that what comes from the emperor is a saving message, that it is not just a piece of news, but a change of the world for the better. (Ratzinger, Joseph (2007-05-15). Jesus of Nazareth (pp. 46-47). Image. Kindle Edition

          When the Evangelists adopt this word, and it thereby becomes the generic name for their writings, what they mean to tell us is this: What the emperors, who pretend to be gods, illegitimately claim, really occurs here—a message endowed with plenary authority, a message that is not just talk, but reality. In the vocabulary of contemporary linguistic theory, Ratzinger stresses, we would say that the evangelium, the Gospel, is not just informative speech, but performative speech—not just the imparting of information, but action, efficacious power that enters into the world to save and transform.

          Mark speaks of the “Gospel of God,” the point being that it is not the emperors who can save the world, but God. And it is here that God’s word, which is at once word and deed, appears; it is here that what the emperors merely assert, but cannot actually perform, truly takes place. For here it is the real Lord of the world—the living God—who goes into action (I would add in the incarnation of Jesus). The core content of the Gospel (of Christ) is this: The Kingdom of God is at hand. A milestone is set up in the flow of time; something new takes place. And an answer to this gift is demanded of man (us): conversion and faith."

Once again, this second Sunday of Advent presents us with this fundamental question: Are we ready to accept the Messiah John is talking about and this Messiah' gospel?

Or have we come short in our preparations by still listening to evangelion of our contemporary emperors who can't save the world, just to name a few: such as consumerism, materialism, science, sensuality, selfishness, pride, or greed?

Are there any signs in our words and behavior that would indicate our genuine conversion and faith, our readiness to be a part of God's kingdom Jesus is bringing about?

1st Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2011

Isa 63:16b-17,19b;64:2-7; 1 Cor 1:3-9; Mark 13:33-37

         

          We cannot live without hope. We are blessed with the ability to think about the future and to shape our actions in the way which might effect it. So essential it this to our life, that we cannot live without something to live for, without something to look forward to.  To be without hope, to have nothing to live for, is to surrender to death in despair. This is one of the reasons why we find all sorts of things to live for. We hope:

·        for some measure of success and security;

·        for the realization of some more or less modest ambition of ours;

·        that our children might be saved from our mistakes and sufferings and find a better life than we have known.

          In general, we might hope for a better world. Perhaps it is the reason why we have become so interested in politics, medicine or technology, or why we have chosen a profession we are in.

          Different form of hope have given us and the past generations dignify and purpose to our lives. Life does not make much sense without hope.

          The season of Advent, which we begin in our church today,  invites us to renew our hope. Particularly our hope in a coming of Christ into this world and into our own lives.

          Christ already came once, as a human being, when he was born in Bethlehem more than 2000 years ago. Then he offered hope and promise of a different life. Those who were willing to listen to him and followed his path found fulfillment of that hope and promise.

          Now, during each season of Advent we are invited, to follow his path so the same hope and promise of a different life might be ours. Christ will definitely come again at the end of the times, or even sooner at the end of our own lives.

          The readings of the Advent season  invite us to be ready for the time when he will come. There is no time to be wasted estimating when this might happen. There is no time to do nothing, or to do things which God does not ask of us. We are not to mind business of others, or to gossip about them, or to judge them and their ways of life.

          The only question which each one of us will be asked by Christ when we will see him again is:

Have you done what I asked of you?

          What answer would you have given him right now?

33d Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 13, 2011

Proverbs 31:10-13,19-20,30-31; 1 Thes 5:1-6; Matthew 25:14-30

 

            Our view of reality conditions us quite a bit. It influences our words and actions, our dealings with others and the circumstances of our lives. We are typically in much better place, so to speak, when our perceptions and reality which we face match each other as close as possible. Let just think about today's Parable of the Talents.

            The master entrusts each of his three servants with a large amount of money. The scripture scholars have calculated that one talent was equal to about 75 pounds of silver, about fifteen years of wages of a day laborer of Jesus times.

            We find out that upon the master's return, the first two have worked the capital and doubled it. The third one seemed to act with proper caution not to lose what was entrusted to him and was able to return it whole to the master.  When challenged as to why he has did not  increased the money entrusted to him, we are surprised and confused to  hear, at least I was,  that the third servant perceived the master as a harsh and unjust man who inspired only fear and caution. Then on the one hand, we see again the master being  generous giving more money to the first servant, but on the other hand,  being cruel and not only taking away money from the third servant but punishing him.

            So what kind of master do we deal with? Generous or tightfisted? Just or unjust?

            Perhaps  "being good and fearful", whatever way it has been defined for us,  like the third servant seemed to be to some of us,  is not enough.  Perhaps mere theological correctness, passive waiting, or strict obedience to clear instructions even if those instructions come from the Vatican, bishop or your pastor, is not good enough.

            What is required of is initiative and risk?

            I believe that God through the Parable of the Talents invites us to ask ourselves some very important questions,  such as:

·        How do I use my time?

·        What do I do with my talents?

·        What is my perception of my Master, God, and His expectations of me?