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?

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 30, 2011

Mal 1:14-2:2; 1 Thes 2:7-9,13; Matt 23:1-12

Each one of us appreciates and seeks, what is authentic. This is why:

·       in Washington D.C. tourists hope to see the original United States Declaration of Independence,

·        In Cooperstown, N.Y., in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum  people do everything but genuflect at Babe Ruth’s bat that boomed out his 60th  homer of 1927.

Our search for what is authentic affects us greatly and sometimes changes a course of our own lives, or even history in a dramatic way. In his autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi tells how in his student days in South Africa he became deeply interested in the Bible, especially the Sermon on the Mount. He became convinced that Christianity was the answer to the caste system that had plagued India for centuries, and so he seriously considered becoming a Christian.

          One day he went to a church to attend Mass and get instructions. But as he was entering the church he was stopped and gently told that if he desired to attend mass he was more than welcomed to do so but, in a church reserved for black people.

          Gandhi left and never returned.

In today's first reading Malachi speaks in the name of God criticizing the priests for not following God's voice and God's way, and gravely misleading people. They are not only phony but also crooked. They are suppose to lead their people but they only take advantage of them.

In the gospel we find Jesus warning his followers against being phony and unreliable in the matters of religion and life in general. Jesus gives examples of a behavior of the Pharisees and the Scribes of his day that need to be avoided by his followers. The Pharisees and the Scribes, not the priests, are leaders of the people in Jesus' time.

The Scribes are a professional class with formal training, somewhat like lawyers in our own society. They are schooled in the tradition and its application to current issues.

Pharisees are a group within Judaism defined by strictly religious rules, composed mostly of laypersons without formal theological training. In Jesus' day, they were one of the several parties indented on preserving the Jewish law, tradition and way of life from the pervasive influence of Hellenism and the Roman Empire. Some scribes were also Pharisees, but few Pharisees were scribes.

While the Pharisees and the Scribes expound on the teachings of Moses, at the same time many of them did not live those teachings. Many of them walked a phony path by exalting themselves instead of God, and by putting heavy burdens of obligations on the shoulders of others. I would say they knew how to work the system to their advantage. They knew how to talk the talk.

Jesus’ words from today’s gospel are as valid for us, as they were for his followers two thousand years ago. We need to be authentic in what we believe and practice. Those of us who are formally trained in the matters of  religion, faith and tradition of our church, and  those of us who are not. Those of us who aspire to be the Scribes and those who aspire to be the Pharisees. Otherwise the essence of Jesus message is deluded. We will see less and less people trying to follow him and his teachings. Perhaps this is the New Evangelization that is so desperately needed in our times. The New Evangelization done by us, by the people, who should not only talk the talk, but walk the talk.

What would Jesus think of the contemporary titles and places of honor that have found a foothold in our liturgies and communities. Do the vestments, thrones, miters and crosiers, rings and all sorts of "holy bling" reflect the simplicity of life and integrity of heart that Jesus showed while he walked among us? How do we reconcile the palaces of the church with the squalor and poverty of the people we are intended to serve?

Just before the distribution of the Holy Communion, the priest makes an announcement, and then he joins everyone in the response, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed." The New Liturgical text will require of us to say: "Lord, I am not worthy, that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed."

As we will be saying those words starting November 27th, quoting the words of the centurion from Matthew 8:8 and Luke 7:6, will we be truly expressing our sinfulness and our knowledge that we are not worthy to have Jesus enter the places where we live or perhaps even the places where we worship?

Are we going to do something about that so we might be authentic?

Perhaps one of the reasons why so many people are leaving the churches is not that they are ignorant, selfish or want to live lax moral lives, but because the church, all of us, hierarchy and laypeople, are very confused about what it means to be the disciple of Christ or even worst because we live lives of duplicity?

Perhaps Jesus himself has left some of our places of worship a long time ago.