Shortly after entering the seminary, I started to keep a list in my breviary (prayer book) which had names of people that I would pray for each day.  I remember telling my grandmother one day, in passing, that she was on the list, that I was praying for her each day.  Somewhat surprisingly, she brought that up on more than one occasion when I heard her talking with others.  I think she felt honored to be prayed for each day.  My grandmother did not really practice any form of faith, at least as long as I knew her.  I am not even sure that she was ever baptized.  At times, she was a little outspoken about her view of Christians, that they tended to be hypocrites, to which I responded one time to her: “There is always room for one more.”

I believe, however, that my daily prayers for her did have an impact.  As I was nearing the time for my diaconate ordination, my grandmother was not in very good health.  She expressed that she wanted to stay alive long enough to see me be ordained as a deacon, and thanks be to God, she was there.  Much to my delight she was also able to be there for my ordination to the priesthood, and it was clear that she was very proud of me.  Of course, my grandmother was always going to love me, but I think the prayers I offered for her each day had a way of softening her heart, such that she grew more and more open to Christianity.  My grandmother died shortly before I celebrated my first anniversary as a priest, and just one day before her and my grandfather would have celebrated their 66^th wedding anniversary.  I hold on to the hope that her openness to the faith in her final years would have put her in a much better position to make the decision to accept Jesus at that final moment of her life.

We all likely have people in our lives that are a little like my grandmother.  We have family members and friends who are far away from the practice of our Catholic faith in particular, or Christianity in general.  Some from our families may have been raised Catholic, even practiced for many years, only to have fallen away.  We can become discouraged about this, and it is indeed a point of great suffering for many, especially parents whose children have stopped practicing the Catholic faith in which they were raised.

We are always looking for the perfect plan that will bring these people back into the regular practice of the faith, but it is not so simple as following an equation that will yield the right answer every time.  We should be making efforts, to be sure.  But we must never forget that the first step, and accompanying every step, is prayer.  In the Book of Psalms we read: “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” (Ps 127:1)

Next weekend, we will have cards in the pews on which you will have the opportunity to write a name of somebody for whom you would like to commit to pray, asking the Lord to soften their hearts, that they might be open at some point to receive the invitation to accept the faith for the first time, or to return to the practice of the faith.  If you are comfortable, you can even tell that person that you are praying for them each day.  You do not need to tell them that you are praying that the Lord will get them back to church, just that you are praying for them.  We can never underestimate the power of our daily, fervent prayers for others.  Whether they be a blood relative or simply a brother or sister in Christ, this family that is the Body of Christ will always be strengthened through prayer for one another, and the Lord, who desires their presence with us far more than we do, will be doing His work of tilling the soil of their hearts, so that, in due time, the seed of invitation planted will yield fruit.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: December 29^th 

On the road up to Bethlehem walked a wizened man. He was leading a heifer and had a horn of oil slung over his shoulder. As he entered the little village in the shadow of the pagan city Jerusalem, he explained that he was there to offer sacrifice. Later that day when the consecrated oil ran down the ruddy hair of the shepherd-boy, it would become evident that he was actually there to consecrate a new king. Fast forward one decade, and then another, and David found himself on the run. Saul pursued this rival king relentlessly, seeing only threat in his charisma, faithfulness, and talented leadership. David finally found respite in one of the many caves where he would often stop and pray, and a promise from his God took shape in his heart:

“Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

God would find a way through. God would establish his throne. God would defeat the darkness and violence and establish a kingdom where He could dwell with His people. If only David would sit next to God, place himself in the shadow of the Lord’s throne. Fast forward one decade, and then another one, and the promise seemed fulfilled: David was king of all the tribes, lord in his new capital city Jerusalem, dancing before the Ark of God, preparing to build a Temple to the true God. David being a man of blood, that great project would be the task of his son and heir Solomon. And so God’s promise became a psalm, proclaimed and sung by all of Israel:

A Psalm of David
The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
 until I make your enemies your footstool.” [Psalm 110:1]

The Ancient Hebrew has more punch to it: “The Lord” stands in for the unpronounceable name of God, YHWH. “My lord” is just the Hebrew word “adonai”, a master, leader, commander, or king, in this case David. Fast forward one century, and then another, and Israel – their hopes of victory and peace dashed, the Temple torched and empty – was forced to chant this psalm in exile. Eventually they would return, and rebuild, but the wound would be reopened, not by Philistines, or Babylonians, but by the Greeks of Alexander. It seemed the opposite of the psalm had come to pass: God’s people trampled underfoot, and yet it does mean that God’s people and His inspired words to them only thus began to spread throughout Alexander’s empire. 

Fast forward one century, and another, and we find ourselves at another little cave near Bethlehem where an impoverished couple cares for their newborn son. Now it was not the Greeks, but the Romans, under whose heel the Hebrews suffered. We pause on the night when the troops of Herod ride out to seek the child’s life, and the angel of God directs Joseph to take his wife and son into exile in Egypt. In God’s providence, there is already a Jewish enclave outside of Cairo, from those previous exiles from centuries before. It was a long walk from Alexandria in whose great library the scriptures had been translated but it is close enough for them to hear in that synagogue the ancient promise: “The Lord said to my lord”, now rendered in Greek, with “Kyrios” speaking to “kyrios.”

If we fast forward a decade, and then another one, the carpenter, his wife, and their little boy had long returned to Nazareth. From there the carpenter’s son, as it was supposed, began to preach repentance, and forgiveness of sins, and that the scriptures – all of them! – were actually fulfilled in Him. All was fine as long as it was just the lame leaping and the blind seeing, but then Jesus strode up into God’s city Jerusalem and into God’s Holy Temple, and there he lays claim to one, final, extraordinary prophecy:

Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet””? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. [Matthew 22:41-46]

From here, the son of David would leave the city, would prophesy the coming destruction of the Temple (and everything else) because it had rejected the time of its visitation. He will then be anointed in Bethany, and Judas will begin scheming with the leaders in the Temple to betray Him. This claim, this argument, citing this prophecy directly precipitates Our Lord’s crucifixion. Why did Jesus do it? What was He claiming? 

The full story (and to finally encounter our martyr St. Dominic) we will have to wait until next week. For now, let it suffice to say that Jesus is claiming to not only be a son of David, a lord with a lower-case “l”, but the son of God, the Lord, with every letter capitalized.

– Fr. Dominic had way too much fun taking 12 or 14 words from the Roman Martyrology all the way to a two-part saga spiraling up to St. Dominic. Goes to show how long God has been writing this story that we’re all part of!

When I was writing my series in the bulletin on the Mass, one of the things I tried to encourage us to do is to reflect not just on the power of the Word of God in the readings at Mass, but also to consider the other prayers of the Mass as fruitful material for our mediation.  In that regard, I find the prayers that the Church offers to us during the Advent season to be particularly beautiful and worth our attention.  In the final days leading up to Christmas, the Church has us use a special Advent Preface, which takes place after the Offertory, and before entering the Eucharistic Prayer.  I would like to share a part of that prayer and offer a few thoughts, which I hope can be helpful to us in these final days before Christmas.  After the normal introduction found in every Preface, we hear the following:

For all the oracles of the prophets foretold him,
the Virgin Mother longed for him
with love beyond all telling,
John the Baptist sang of his coming
and proclaimed his presence when he came.

It is by his gift that already we rejoice
at the mystery of his Nativity,
so that he may find us watchful in prayer
and exultant in his praise.

As we read these words, perhaps we can do a sort of final examination of ourselves to see how prepared we are for Christmas, spiritually that is!  Can we say that, as we are in these final days, that our hearts are longing for Him “with love beyond all telling” as was the case with Mary?  Or, have we exhausted ourselves with Christmas preparations and parties that we are actually just looking forward to getting past Christmas?  Are our hearts longing more for the gifts we hope to receive than to receive Him, who is our greatest gift, in the Eucharist?

Consider how St. John the Baptist sang of His coming.  Have we planned for which Christmas Mass that are going to attend, and are we resolved to rejoice at the birth of our Savior, singing of His coming through our full, conscious, and active participation in the liturgy?  It always saddens me a little bit when I see the many dreary faces at Mass, as though coming to Mass is somehow an imposition and a burden, something to just get out of the way.  Our hearts should be flooded with joy, and it should be seen in the eagerness with which we participate in Mass.  

Finally, can it be said of us that we have taken time this Advent to be “watchful in prayer”?  Or, have we let ourselves be consumed with so many other things?  If we have not been as watchful as we would like, we might think that we have missed the chance to prepare our hearts to welcome Christ fully at Christmas.  But the good news is that it is not too late!  Even if we start now, intentionally dedicating 15-30 minutes to silent prayer, free of distractions, we will be doing ourselves a great service.  We can ask Mary to help us to long for Her Son with that love beyond all telling.  We can ask St. John the Baptist to intercede for us, that we might have the joy he had at the coming of the Messiah.  

Time is running out, the Lord is coming soon!  May these final hours be a time during which we set aside some time for silence so that, when Christmas finally comes, the Lord will find us “watchful in prayer” and ready to celebrate with joy the memorial of His birth.

Father Alford     

Most days of the year have several, if not dozens, of saints who are all remembered on that day. The Church has a long history, and a long memory, and has treasured the saints since the beginning, so there are good odds that we have amazing stories of heroism and holiness to portray the Gospel for us each and every day.

December 22^nd is no different, though we do not have many saints, and we do not have many details about them. Here’s what the martyrology recounts:

• At Rome, between the two bay trees on the Lavican road, the birthday of thirty holy martyrs, who were all on one day crowned with martyrdom, in the persecution of Diocletian.
• In the same city, St. Flavian, ex-prefect, who, under Julian the Apostate, was condemned to be branded for Christ, and banished to Aquae Taurinae, where he gave up his soul to God in prayer.
• At Ostia, the holy martyrs Demetrius, Honoratus and Florus.
• At Alexandria, the holy martyr Ischyrion. Because he despised all the cruelties they made him suffer to force him to sacrifice to idols, they transpierced his bowels with a sharp-pointed stake, and thus put him to death.
• In Egypt, the Saint Chaeremon, bishop of Nilopolis, and many other martyrs. Some of them fled whilst the persecution of Decius was raging, and wandering in different directions through deserts, were killed by wild beasts; others perished by famine, cold and sickness; others again were murdered by barbarians and robbers, and thus all were crowned with a glorious martyrdom.
• At Nicomedia, St. Zeno, soldier, who derided Diocletian for sacrificing to Ceres, wherefore he had his jawbones fractured, his teeth plucked out and his head struck off. 

These are the sufferings borne by our predecessors in the faith. We know little more than where, and how, they were killed for the sake of Christ. But perhaps this puts our own lives in context. Two thousand years from now, God willing, people will be praying for our intercession on the day of our death. Our graves may have long since been forgotten, the ups and downs and victories and defeats of our lives will have vanished into history, but maybe billions of Christians will look up which of their predecessors in the faith died on that day, and your name or mine will be before them. Maybe they’ll just know the place, and century, and that you or I lived and died for Christ. Does anything else matter?

Secondly, I’d like to briefly connect this to these final days of Advent. On the last week before Christmas, the Church centers her Evening Prayer upon a set of antiphons drawn from all throughout the Old Testament, how Christ fulfills all the hopes and hungers of the world. On December 22^nd that antiphon goes like this: “O King of the Gentiles, and the Desired of all nations; the Cornerstone who makest both one: Come and save man, whom Thou formedst from the dust of the earth.” If our world is divided, it is only because of sin, and only needs Christ to heal and make-whole. And the saints are a witness to us not only of persevering with Christ in the face of absolute violence and division, but also of the unity that He does bring. Look back at their names, and the cities where they died, these are individuals from all over the world, and from every possible level of society. Such is Christ’s Body in all ages, and such is the promise He offers us, and our world, as well.

– Fr. Dominic got off easy this week! The Church had already compiled the list, and essential details, for him. BUT, this gives more time for the Christmas article, so – trusting on the Holy Spirit there as well – get ready for something splendid.