If you look up the phrase “take for granted”, one definition from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is as follows: “to value (something or someone) too lightly : to fail to properly notice or appreciate (someone or something that should be valued).”  Pope Benedict warns that “we who have always lived with the Christian concept of God, and have grown accustomed to it, have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that ensues from a real encounter with this God.” (SS, 3)  We have a real encounter with God every time we come to Mass, as He speaks to us in His Word and we receive His very being in the Eucharist.  Perhaps because we encounter God so frequently, or because we do not always have a life-altering experience of His love for us with each encounter, we can take Him for granted.

In an attempt to invite us to rediscover the gift of this encounter, the Holy Father introduces us to a modern saint who had a real encounter with God for the first time, an encounter that would change her perspective on hope radically.  The saint is the African St. Josephine Bakhita.  At a relatively early age, she was kidnapped by slave-traders and treated very harshly, which resulted in her bearing 144 scars for the rest of her life.  She was eventually sold to an Italian merchant and she found herself living in a new country.  While in Italy, she began to hear about a new kind of Master.  Pope Benedict writes the following:

Up to that time she had known only masters who despised and maltreated her, or at best considered her a useful slave. Now, however, she heard that there is a “paron” above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person. She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her—that he actually loved her. She too was loved, and by none other than the supreme “Paron”, before whom all other masters are themselves no more than lowly servants. She was known and loved and she was awaited. What is more, this master had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her “at the Father’s right hand” (SS 3)

He then describes how this new awareness of a loving, personal God shifted her perspective on hope:

Now she had “hope”—no longer simply the modest hope of finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: “I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me—I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.” Through the knowledge of this hope she was “redeemed”, no longer a slave, but a free child of God. (SS 3)

She would go on to be baptized and confirmed, and eventually she became a consecrated religious sister.  She then committed herself to sharing the message of the “liberation she had received through her encounter with Jesus Christ”, to spread the message of hope to as many as possible.

The next time we are at Mass, perhaps we can call to mind how we have maybe taken for granted what a gift we have in being able to encounter our loving Master so frequently and so profoundly.  Let us pray that through that weekly (or even daily) encounter, we may come to be reminded of God’s unique and personal love for us, and how that love gives us a hope that the disappointments of this world cannot shake, but which can encourage us to keep moving forward until the fulfillment of our hope is realized.

Father Alford     

As he begins to unpack the biblical meaning of hope, Pope Benedict notes how the terms “faith” and “hope” seem to be somewhat interchangeable.  Though these are in fact two separate theological virtues, they do share much in common.  He cites St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians in saying that before they came to a life of faith in Christ, they were “without hope and without God in the world.” (Eph 2:12) Faith involves assenting to all that God has revealed as truth, and that opens the door for us to have hope in the promise that what He has revealed is that we are called to be with Him in Heaven, and that He will provide all of the graces necessary for us to get there.  Much more can be said to distinguish these two virtues, but I think this brief explanation will suffice to show how interrelated they are, while remaining distinct.

The line from paragraph 2 of Spe Salvi that I would like to focus on comes later in the paragraph after the Holy Father treats on faith and hope together.  He references a line from St. Paul’s words to the Church in Thessalonica: “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.” (1 Thes 4:13)  The pope then writes:

Here too we see as a distinguishing mark of Christians the fact that they have a future: it is not that they know the details of what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness. Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well…The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life. (SS, 2)

This is a great gift to be able to leave the future in the hands of God, trusting His fidelity, believing in His promises, so that we can attend to where He wants us here and now, and by our saying “yes” to Him each day, we know that the hope we have for the future will not disappoint (cf. Rom 5:5).  In that regard, I want to share a part of a meditation from St. John Henry Newman that I think expresses this interplay of faith and hope in a beautiful way:

Therefore I will trust Him.
Whatever, wherever I am,
I can never be thrown away.
If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him;
In perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him;
If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.
My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be
necessary causes of some great end,
which is quite beyond us.
He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life,
He may shorten it;
He knows what He is about.
He may take away my friends,
He may throw me among strangers,
He may make me feel desolate,
make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—
still He knows what He is about.…
Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to see—
I ask not to know—I ask simply to be used.

St. John Henry Newman, Meditation (March 7, 1848)

Father Alford     

Feast Day: January 26^th 

337 A.D., about two decades after Constantine had allowed Christians to practice their faith throughout the Roman Empire, and a bit more than a decade after the First Council of Nicaea had articulated our belief in the Son’s consubstantiality with the Father (and the corresponding Nicaean creed), that great and complicated emperor, baptized at the very end of his life, died. The giant empire, united under him after so many centuries of being split between various emperors, rent by civil wars, and wracked by persecutions, had before it the possibility of unifying under the banner of Christ. Sadly, the coming decades would be more difficult than might have been hoped.

By 340, two of Constantine’s sons were at war with each other with Constantine II killed as he attempted to wrest Rome from Constans. Constans himself would be assassinated a decade later by the usurper Magnentius, leaving the third son, Constantius II, to wage his own civil war against that upstart, eventually gaining the entire empire for himself. He, as history had it, was Christian, but an Arian, and so it is he who exiles Athanasius for his staunch defense of Orthodox, Nicaean, Christianity, and around 355 demands Pope Liberius to appear before him and agree to a semi-arian statement (and a repudiation of his friendship with Athanasius). Theodoret records this epic conversation, the emperor of the world confronting the successor of Peter.

The Emperor: “One question only requires to be made. I wish you to enter into communion with the churches, and to send you back to Rome. Consent therefore to peace, and sign your assent, and then you shall return to Rome.”

Liberius: “I have already taken leave of the brethren who are in that city. The decrees of the Church are of greater importance than a residence in Rome.”

The Emperor: “You have three days to consider whether you will sign the document and return to Rome; if not, you must choose the place of your banishment.”

Liberius: “Neither three days nor three months can change my sentiments. Send me wherever you please.”

As history would have it, even this dramatic show down, and heroic position of Pope Liberius is clouded by the uncertainties of the following years. Constantius exiled the pope and set up his own puppet anti-pope, Felix II, but later he allowed Liberius to return – some say because the pope had finally capitulated to some of his demands – trying to have co-popes with Liberus and Felix both leading the Church… In any case, by 361, things managed to get decisively worse when Julian became the new emperor. He was the one who attempted to un-baptize himself by plunging himself in a vat of bull’s blood, and he did resume animal sacrifices, revived some of the persecutions of earlier centuries, and (begrudgingly recognizing something that Christians had done quite well) commands the pagan priests to increase their acts of charity. It is worth remembering his words here!:

“These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agapē, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes. Whilst the pagan priests neglect the poor, the hated Galileans devote themselves to works of charity; and by a display of false compassion have established and given effect to their pernicious errors. See their love-feasts and their tables spread for the indigent. Such practice is common among them, and causes a contempt for our gods.” – Julian, Letter to Arsacius, High Priest of Galatia (Letter 22)

But the turmoil outside of the Church was sadly just as evident within its walls (quite literally).  In 366, Damasus I and Ursinus were both elected Pope by their respective cohorts of priests and people in Rome (rifts that trace back to the conflict between Felix I and Liberius, and between the Arian and Nicaean disagreements). The gangs around them took up weapons and attacked each other, at one point 137 people were killed inside of the newly built Basilica of Sicininus (now St. Mary Major). Our records of all these events are hopelessly muddled and biased by the acrimony on each side. Those that leaned Arian, of course, side with Ursinus and defame Damasus, and vice versa. That said, the horrible scene stays before our eyes of hatred and bloodshed filling a place dedicated to the worship of Christ. Here is what one young man, baptized by Pope Liberius, and then a protégé of Pope Damasus, writes to his friend

“I was at that time in Rome, and I saw the bloodshed and the disturbance; the factions of Ursinus and Damasus were divided by mutual strife, and the churches were polluted with blood.” – St. Jerome, Letter to Heliodorus (Letter 15):

– Fr. Dominic will bring us back to St. Jerome next week. Crazy twist: the unification of the Christian world, and the conversion of the pagan world, would happen in large part because of Jerome’s efforts. And his life’s work depended on the humility and sanctity of one amazing woman, St. Paula, who we will finally encounter next week!  

On December 29 at the 10:00 am Mass, Bishop Paprocki celebrated the opening of the 2025 Jubilee Year for our diocese as we unite with Catholics throughout the world during this special year.  The theme for this year comes from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “Hope does not disappoint.” (Rom. 5:5).  Our Holy Father, Pope Franics, writes the following about this Jubilee Year:

The coming Jubilee will thus be a Holy Year marked by the hope that does not fade, our hope in God. May it help us to recover the confident trust that we require, in the Church and in society, in our interpersonal relationships, in international relations, and in our task of promoting the dignity of all persons and respect for God’s gift of creation. May the witness of believers be for our world a leaven of authentic hope, a harbinger of new heavens and a new earth (cf. 2 Pet 3:13), where men and women will dwell in justice and harmony, in joyful expectation of the fulfilment of the Lord’s promises. (Bull of Indiction, no. 25)

As I was concelebrating the Mass that morning, listening to Bishop Paprocki’s homily and considering this topic of hope, I had a nudge from the Holy Spirit about an idea for my bulletin articles for this coming year.  The thought came to my mind to walk through Pope Benedict XVI’s Encyclical on Christian Hope, Spe Salvi.  After Mass, when I looked at the document, I saw that it was 50 paragraphs, which is perfect for doing one paragraph a week for the year!  I have long loved the writings of Pope Benedict, both before his becoming pope, and after.  Among my favorite of his writings is this document, so I am personally very excited to journey through his brilliant treatment on this topic.  It is my hope (no pun intended) that our reflections on this theme will be a very fruitful experience for all who read these articles, as I am sure it will be fruitful for me as I write them.

I do not intend to quote the entire paragraph each week, just the main points, but I encourage you to access the document to read the entire text, one week at a time.  If you search for “Spe Salvi Pope Benedict” on Google, the official Vatican translation should be one of the first results.

The first paragraph is rather short, but it sets the stage well for the document.  The Holy Father begins by quoting St. Paul’s words from his Letter to the Romans as he writes: “’SPE SALVI facti sumus’—in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom 8:24)” (SS 1)  He then goes on to write that this virtue of hope helps us in facing our present circumstances:

Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey. (SS 1)

Notice how he uses the word “if” a few times in proposing this theme of hope.  This will be one of his main goals, to convince us that hope does indeed lead us to a goal, one that is certain, and one that is worth continuing the journey toward.  If you permit me to take St. Paul’s words slightly out of context, our hope in his providing a clear answer to that question will not be met with disappointment (Rom 5:5), but rather, it will only serve to strengthen our hope in what the Lord has “prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9) in the Kingdom.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: January 12^th 

The year was 1652. On a little island up the St. Lawrence River from Quebec, a small settlement of French colonists was living up to the phrase that the bigger city had named them: “une folle enterprise” [a foolish enterprise]. The little village however called itself “Ville-Marie”, City of Mary, and had been founded to bring the Gospel to the local tribes of the area. From the beginning, those organizing the enterprise had seen it as God’s work and had endured years of work acquiring the land, money, and provisions necessary to establish the colony. They went for no earthly profit, but to build a hospital and school to care for the indigenous population. Delayed by storms, and arriving too late to begin in the fall of 1641, the three ships worth of men, and four intrepid women, finally arrived at the island on May 17^th, 1642, building an altar and offering Mass as their first act in their new home.

Ten years later, after relentless attacks from the local Iroquois tribes the population of Ville-Marie was down to 50, with only 17 capable of bearing arms. The leader of the colony, Paul de Chomedey, a man known both for his leadership and his piety, decided to return to France and try to find men willing to come and work (and defend) the little town. If he could not find 100 or more, he told Jeanne Mance (another leader of the enterprise, a woman who was particularly dedicated to the mission’s hospital having received her calling to that charitable work while on pilgrimage in 1640) they would have to abandon the town. It was a long few years before he returned, with 95 recruits, including the extraordinary young woman, Marguerite Bourgeoys.

She was 33 years old and had long delighted in serving the poor in the city of Troyes, France. Marguerite had been a member of the sodality affiliated with the monastery of sisters in that town since she had turned 15, a group of lay women who would teach and take care of the poor girls who could not afford to board in the monastery school. One day in 1652, the resilient, weather-battered de Chomedey came to visit his sister, one of the canonesses in that monastery. Perhaps it was just a visit, perhaps he was begging her prayers for the colony, but either way it was she who pointed her brother to speak with the magnanimous Marguerite. And, in February of 1653, she accepted the daunting task to leave everything behind and lead the establishment of a congregation of women who could teach in that battered far-off village on the St. Lawrence named after Our Lady. 

A few years of work and they had built a permanent Church – oddly forgotten during those first difficult years – and a few more years and they had their first permanent school operating – albeit in a vacant stone stable (not unfitting given where her Lord had been born). Marguerite made trips back to France, recruiting more women for the work of educating the poor and indigent population around Ville-Marie, and often bringing back “filles du roi” [king’s daughters] as well, impoverished or orphaned girls from France sent over to the colonies by the Crown. They too were loved and protected by the little community of women headed by Marguerite. Each day the women would pray and eat together, a religious community sustain them amidst the hardships of the work and hold them all to the tremendous vision of teaching held out to them by Marguerite: 

Teaching is the work most suited to draw down the graces of God if it is done with purity of intention, without distinction between the poor and the rich, between relatives and friends and strangers, between the pretty and the ugly, the gentle and the grumblers, looking upon them all as drops of Our Lord’s blood

Again and again, church leaders enjoined the community to become cloistered – the almost universal way of life of female congregations at that time – but by 1669, Marguerite’s indefatigable efforts obtained permission from the Apostolic Vicar of New France to continue their active efforts. In 1670 they received a further approval from King Louis XIV. She would establish additional schools over the coming decades, some for different occupations, some in mission villages among the Native communities in the area. By 1692, she was asked to bring her sisters to the city of Quebec and establish there another school for poor girls. Finally, in 1698 the congregation was canonically established, setting a precedent for all active women’s communities today!

Marguerite was widely considered a saint upon her death in 1700, not only from her tremendous missionary work, but also her final years of intense prayer including offering her life so that a younger sister who had fallen ill could be cured. 

– Fr. Dominic will leave you with a final quotation from this saint: “It seems to me that we are charcoal ready to be kindled and that Holy Communion is entirely suited to set us on fire. But when this charcoal is kindled only on the surface, as soon as it is set aside, it is extinguished. On the contrary, that which is fired all the way to the centre is not extinguished, but is consumed.” What group around you needs the Love of Christ? Is the Holy Communion you have been given today the fire meant to carry you into that mission?

A few months ago, I wrote about our entering into the third year of our National Eucharistic Revival, a year focused on mission.  We have reflected on our diocesan / parish mission statement as articulated in our 2017 Fourth Diocesan Synod, and the four pillars of discipleship and stewardship: hospitality, prayer, formation, and service.

As we begin this new calendar year and prepare to shift back into Ordinary Time for a couple of months before Lent, I would like to draw our attention to an initiative that the National Eucharistic Revival team is promoting called Walk with One.

The premise of the initiative is rather simple.  It recognizes that the spreading of the Good News, which we call evangelization, typically takes place in one-on-one encounters, encounters that can happen anywhere or at any time.  While we should always be prepared to give a witness to our faith (cf. 1 Peter 3:15), we can also be intentional in our efforts to share the Gospel message.  This is what the Walk with One initiative invites us to do, to identify just one person with whom we desire to walk toward a deeper relationship with Jesus and His Church.

In last week’s bulletin article, I shared the story of praying for my grandmother, and how this weekend, we would be inviting you to consider the name of somebody whom the Lord has put on your heart to accompany.  I realize this might initially sound intimidating, but at this point, all we are asking for is prayer.  Most of us are not comfortable inviting somebody to come back to Mass or confession, so this time of prayer has two aims.  Obviously, we are praying for the Lord to prepare the hearts of those with whom we desire to journey.  But we are also praying for ourselves, that we might have the courage and the conviction to approach them and offer a more explicit invitation to them at some point in the future.  That invitation may not be just to come to Mass.  It might be inviting them to go to confession with you.  It might be more basic, like inviting them to join you for coffee or a meal so that they can share their story.  The how is not so important at this point, but our focus is on the who.

As we begin this time of prayer for these individuals, let me caution against a mindset that we can sometimes fall into.  We can be tempted to see others as “projects” to work on.  Once we get them back to Mass, then our work will have been done.  No, we want to see these individuals as people, companions on our journey of faith.  We need to love them and be genuinely interested in them.  Even if the person does not immediately accept our explicit invitation, we will not cease to be involved in their lives.  We want to love them where we find them, hoping that the Lord will move them to a different place, using us as His instruments in bringing about that progress.  Regardless of the outcome we hope for, when we sincerely seek to accompany a brother or sister in the Lord, witnessing to our love of the faith, God is glorified, and nothing will have been wasted.  God is far more patient and committed to this than we are, and that can be extremely comforting.

As soon as the Lord places an individual on your heart to walk with, first of all from a distance, begin to pray for them each and every day.  It could be as simple as adding a fourth Hail Mary to the three Hail Mary’s I’ve encouraged us to say each day for our parish, the clergy of the parish, and ourselves.  We might consider spending time in Eucharistic Adoration, offering that time up for them.  We might look for a novena to pray for them.  It does not need to be complicated, just that we do something each day.  Let us also make sure to thank God every day for the good He has planned for us and for them through this commitment to prayer, and whatever concrete actions the Lord may invite us to take in the future.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: December 29^th 

What is Jesus doing when He claims to have fulfilled Psalm 110 in Himself? St. Peter interprets it for us in his first sermon on Pentecost (and thereby underlines how critical it was to Jesus’ mission and identity). Hang on as we get a full taste of his understanding, and passion, having just received the Holy Spirit!: 

Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”’

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. [Acts 2:29-38]

Jesus, Peter tells us, by claiming psalm 110 for his own, is claiming two extraordinary things: that He is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed heir and son of David – yes, a lord, a rival to the Roman rulers – but also that He is son and equal of YHWH, God incarnate – yes, the Lord, not just a rival of the high priestly class, but the only one who fully interprets (and actually inspired) the scriptures. Rightly so then, when Jesus claims to fulfil this passage, both Pilate and Caiaphas know He is throwing the gauntlet before them. 

And Jesus is not only claiming those extraordinary identities by citing this passage, but is turning the whole thing on its head at the same time! It had always been read as a promise that one day a new David would successfully conquer all of Israel’s enemies. What if instead it was always a promise of a King and Kingdom that instead embraces Israel’s enemies? What if the carpenter’s son was in fact the true High Priest? What if the Roman occupation was not contrary to God’s Kingdom but the way in which God’s Kingdom will be carried to the world? What if death itself were the means to Eternal Life, and the descendent of David were in fact His Creator? What if this son of David were the Lord that David served?

And so we take another leap forward, one century, and another, and another. A cantankerous Church Father, the great scholar Jerome, found his way to another quiet cave near the village of Bethlehem and began to translate the Old and New Testaments into Latin. He came to the critical passage of Psalm 110, verse 1 and replaces the Hebrew “adonai” and Greek “kyrios” with the Latin word “Dominus.” And so, “The Lord says to my lord” becomes the splendid Latin line, “Dixit Dominus Domino meo.” Such were the words cited by Ambrose or Augustine in their preaching and teaching on the radical transformation of death that comes with Jesus’ Resurrection (Ambrose’s Exameron) and His equality with the Eternal Father (Augustine’s Tractate 99).

But first, just a few decades before all three of those great Fathers of the Church, we have a saint who depicts even more clearly the fulfillment and authentic Christian interpretation of this age-old prophecy. We are far from Bethlehem, beyond even Cairo, probably near modern Tunisia or Libya and we are watching eight men, Christians, refuse to uphold Diocletian’s divinity and offer incense in his honor. They are part of the Roman empire and Roman culture; their names obviously Latin: Dominic, Victor, Primian, Lybosus, Saturninus, Crescentius, Secundus and Honoratus, but they will not budge to their emperor’s demand. 

Their Lord, not Caesar, has conquered death and sanctified death. Their Lord, not Caesar, has both divinity, and authority. Their Lord, not Caesar, reigns eternally and death cannot cut them off from Him. And the first was named “Dominic”, the first St. Dominic in the history of the Church, and we know nothing about him except His name, “Dominicus”, “of the Lord.” Yet with that name, he carries in himself a radical claim: that The Lord and his lord are the same person, the God-man Jesus Christ.

– Fr. Dominic is just glad to have been introduced to another name-sake and intercessor this week. (AND, another feast day that ought to be adequately celebrated!)

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