Embracing the Empty

4th Sunday of Advent (C)

Readings: Micah 5:1-4; Psalm 79(80):2-3,15-16,18-19; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45

Picture: cc Fred Jala

My dear friends, do you remember that often-told story about the teacup that’s too full? A learned scholar visits a spiritual guru to learn the secret of enlightenment. The guru greets his guest by quietly pouring him a cup of tea. And he keeps on pouring, even after the cup is full. Seeing the precious tea spill out all over the table, and onto the floor, the guest protests. To which the guru responds by saying that he can’t teach the scholar anything, because his cup is too full.

A cup can be filled only if it is empty or receptive enough. This holds true not just for a guru’s tea, but also the grace of God. Perhaps this is why, in each of our readings today, it is the lowly and humble who are blessed, instead of the high and mighty. In the first reading, God promises to send the people a great king, who will finally bring peace to the land. But this precious gift is to be poured out on the tiny town of Bethlehem, the home of the least of the clans of Judah. Why? Perhaps it’s because only this lowly place is humble or empty enough to receive the grace of God.

In the gospel, God’s power is poured into the wombs of two unlikely women. For one, it’s already too late for childbearing. For the other, it’s just too soon. But it is precisely in their weakness that God’s Spirit finds suitable resting places. Mary conceives the Messiah, and Elizabeth his Herald. And when these two lowly yet blessed women come together, like the clinking of champagne glasses, their encounter becomes an occasion for great rejoicing.

The second reading reminds us of the receptivity of Christ himself. Not only did he accept the bitter tea of his Father’s will, he received also the proper cup with which to carry it out. That same body, which Christ obediently offers on the cruel Wood of the Cross, he first humbly receives in the blessed womb of his mother. You who wanted no sacrifice or oblation, prepared a body for me… All of which makes it abundantly clear that salvation cannot be acquired through any purely human effort, however brave or heroic. It can only be humbly received as a merciful gift from God.

Perhaps this is why, on this final Sunday in Advent, we pray the way we did at the beginning of Mass. Do you remember what we said? Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord, your grace into our hearts… We ask God to pour out the tea of God’s grace into the cups of our hearts. And to benefit from this prayer, we also need hearts that are empty enough to accept all that God wants to pour into them. We need to enter and embrace those areas in our lives, where we feel most vulnerable or lost, even helpless and out-of-control. Those places we prefer to avoid, or to fill up with our daily busyness and boastfulness. For it’s often into these hollowed-out crevices that God’s life-giving Spirit is poured.

Sisters and brothers, much like the scholar’s encounter with the guru, the season of Advent is meant to be for us a pilgrimage into greater receptivity. What must we do to allow the Lord to empty our teacups today?

Beyond the Forces that Separate

2nd Sunday of Advent (C)

Readings: Baruch 5:1-9; Psalm 125(126); Philippians 1:4-6,8-11; Luke 3:1-6

Picture: Wikimedia Commons

My dear friends, do you know what a reunion feels like? I don’t mean the annual gatherings that happen, for example, at Thanksgiving, or on Lunar New Year’s Eve. What I have in mind is more like what the world witnessed back in 2018, when several dozen South Korean families were allowed to meet their North Korean relatives, whom they had not seen for sixty to seventy years. Even on a video screen, I found the scenes truly heartbreaking. Images of people – bound by the closest ties of blood, yet cruelly separated by forces beyond their control – now finally allowed to meet again face to face. Can you imagine what it feels like to be one of those people?

It’s helpful to try, because we find something similar in the scriptures today. The first reading promises a joyful reunion for the city of Jerusalem, which is portrayed as a grieving mother. Although her children have been painfully torn from her side by forces beyond her control, she is told to rejoice now, because God will guide them safely home. This promised reunion is more than just a physical return. For Jerusalem is not just any ordinary city. She is the holy land, where God’s Temple is built. She is the sacred place, where heaven comes in contact with earth. To return and live in Jerusalem is to reunite with God, to live in God’s ways, to put on the cloak of integrity that God provides for God’s people.

A joyous reunion between Creator and creation is also what is foretold in the gospel. Although powerful political and even religious forces continue to hold sway in the world, often working to separate heaven from earth, God promises to bring about a new reunion. This time, instead of people returning to a particular place, God comes to them through a chosen person, Jesus the Christ, at once both fully human and fully divine. To believe and to follow him is to put on the cloak of integrity that God provides for all nations to wear.

But we also believe that this reunion has already been brought about. For Jesus has already been born for us, has already lived, and died, and been raised for us. Which is why, in the second reading, although he writes from prison, Paul can still claim to pray with joy. For though powerful forces separate him from his readers, Paul knows that he remains united to them in the love of Christ, and in their shared work of spreading the Good News of reunion with God.

Even so, this same reunion is not yet complete. Neither within, among nor around us. We still await a Second Coming. Which is why we need Advent. Not just to prepare us to receive and live this Good News more fully, but also to move us to share it with others more courageously. For our world remains divided by powerful forces. Not only biological viruses like the omicron variant, but also spiritual afflictions, like selfishness, greed, ignorance, deceitfulness and despair.

Sisters and brothers, like the people of Korea, our world continues to yearn for reunion. What must we do to better prepare ourselves to receive the One who comes to unite heaven and earth this Advent?

With Blinders Removed

1st Sunday of Advent (C)

Readings: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 24(25):4-5,8-9,10,14; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28,34-36

Pictures: cc City of St Louis Missouri

My dear friends, do you know what blinkers or blinders are? They are sometimes put around a horse’s eyes, so that it can see only what is directly ahead. This prevents the horse from getting distracted or startled by its surroundings. Which may be a good thing, except that it narrows the view of the horse.

I don’t know if you’ll agree with me, but I think we often look at Christmas, as though we too were wearing blinders. Commercially, Christmas is presented as a season for giving and merry-making. Which makes it a precious time for buying and selling. That’s only to be expected. But I suspect that even those of us, who may be more religious, will be surprised, if we were told that Christmas is more than just a celebration of the birth of Christ two thousand years ago.

Which is one good reason why we need Advent, and especially this first Sunday of Advent. As you may have noticed, in our readings today, there is no mention of a baby in a manger. Indeed, our attention is directed, at least initially, less to the past, than to the future. The gospel begins with a rather disturbing, and even scary, description of the end times. Jesus says that people on earth will be dying of fear as they await what menaces the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken… How do you feel when you hear these words?

I confess that I’m tempted simply to ignore them. To skip ahead to the less troubling parts of the gospel. Which is, of course, just another way of putting on blinders, isn’t it? And I know why I do this. It’s the same reason horses do it. To avoid being scared and distracted. Distracted from what exactly? From the routine busyness and stress of daily living.

And yet, in the gospel, Jesus offers a different antidote to fear. Instead of covering our eyes, he strengthens our hearts, and guides our steps. He strengthens our hearts by telling us that, if we truly follow him, then the end times are not to be feared, but welcomed: When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand. And he guides our steps, by warning us that the routine busyness of daily living can itself be a distraction: Watch yourselves, or your hearts will be coarsened with debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of life…

In effect, Jesus is reminding us that the promise made in the first reading has already been fulfilled in him. That we, the body-of-Christ on earth, we too bear the name the-Lord-our-integrity. For Jesus has already shown us how to face the end without fear. By living the kind of life we are meant to live: the life that God wants. By continually asking God to increase our love, making us love one another and the whole human race.

Sisters and brothers, we don’t really have to wait till the end times to see scary signs. We can already see them now: the growing climate crisis, multiplying COVID-19 variants, desperate migrants drowning in the sea… Still, Christ is with us already. What must we do to let God remove our blinders, and better prepare for the Lord’s coming again today?

A-R-T

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Readings: Daniel 12:1-3; Psalm 15(16):5,8-11; Hebrews 10:11-14,18; Mark 13:24-32

Picture: cc Jernej Furman

My dear friends, have you taken an A-R-T yet? What did it feel like? What result did you get? As you know, A-R-T stands for antigen rapid test, which is a quick way to detect a possible COVID-19 infection. Similarly, our Mass readings also provide us with a kind of A-R-T, a convenient test to indicate whether or not we have a certain kind of infection.

As you’ve probably already noticed, the first reading and the gospel share certain characteristics. They are both examples of apocalyptic literature. This type of writing is addressed to a particular kind of audience, to people suffering persecution, people at the bottom of the prevailing societal order. Scholars tell us that the first reading was originally intended for Jews who had been conquered by the Greeks, and the gospel for those being oppressed by Roman rule.

To such people, the apocalyptic message is simple. Yes, you are suffering now, but do not to be afraid, because the current world order will not last forever. A time is coming, a time of great distress, when everything will be disrupted, turned upside down, when even those who are powerful now will be made powerless. After which, God’s previously hidden presence will be made manifest. And those who had remained faithful to God will be gathered and rewarded. While those who had been unfaithful will be punished.

How do you think you would feel, if you heard this message? Well it depends, right? If I were suffering for being faithful to God in a hostile world, then I might feel encouraged and hopeful, I might find the strength I need to persevere. But if I were unfaithful, if I had somehow allowed myself to become a friend of the world, then I’d likely feel anxious and afraid, or I might perhaps try to ignore the message. Whatever it is, my reaction serves as an indicator of a possible infection. It tells me whether I have been contaminated by the world.

My dear friends, I think this is also what our readings can do for us today. They serve as an A-R-T. Not an antigen rapid test, but an apocalyptic reading test. My reaction to them may indicate how faithful I am to God, whether I am truly striving for that eternal perfection won by the single sacrifice of Christ, or whether I have been infected by the world.

And in case this test, this A-R-T, isn’t reliable enough, I can supplement it with a P-R-T, a pandemic reaction test. I may examine my reaction to the distress and disruption caused by the pandemic. Am I, like most others, looking forward only to things going back to the way they were before? Is my idea of the new normal just another version of the comfortable past? Or am I also yearning for a radically different future, where the poor will be better provided for, the environment better cared for, where God’s kingdom will more fully come, God’s will be more truly done, on earth as it is in heaven?

Sisters and brothers, if we were to honestly submit ourselves to a spiritual A-R-T today, what will it feel like? What result will we get? How might we draw ever closer to Christ, today?

Checking Our Cheese...

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Readings: 1 Kings 17:10-16; Psalm 145 (146): 7-10; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44

Picture: cc Marco Verch Professional Photographer

My dear friends, do you know when cheese is not really cheese? I must confess that I was very surprised, when I was told the answer not long ago. Apparently, a popular brand of individually packed cheese slices actually contains so little cheese, that it has to be called a cheese product. Which just goes to show how important it is for us not to simply take things at face value. Just because something is described as cheese, doesn’t mean it actually contains real cheese. Better to take a closer look, to find out more… Otherwise we may end up eating something far less nutritious than advertised.

I mention this because food is also a central feature of our readings today. We see this most clearly in the first reading. In a time of famine – a dire shortage of food – caused by drought, the prophet Elijah begs a poor Sidonian widow to feed him. And she willingly shares with him the little food she has. But why, we may ask, does the prophet beg from such a poor person? And why is this particular widow so generous?

The reading begins at verse 10. We find the answers to our questions in verses 8 and 9. There we are told that it was the Lord, who instructed Elijah to seek out the widow, and that it was also the Lord, who commanded her to feed him. All of which indicates that both Elijah and the widow did not simply share the same food for their stomachs. They also shared the same nourishment for their souls. By acting as they did, they were both obeying, feeding on, the word of the Lord.

In the gospel too, we find a poor widow, who generously donates to the Temple all she had to live on. The gospel doesn’t tell us why she does this. But we may assume a similar motive to those of Elijah and the first widow. Like them, she probably thinks she is obeying God, that she is feeding on the word of the Lord. But notice what Jesus says at the beginning of the reading. He tells his disciples to beware of the scribes, to guard against the very people responsible for the financial system the widow is obeying. Why? It’s because of the food they eat… They swallow the property of widows, while making a show of lengthy prayers… Instead of feeding on the word of God, these religious leaders feast on the livelihoods of the poor, whom they fool into thinking they are obeying God. Which is not so different from selling cheese that’s not real cheese, right?

Unfortunately, such things still happen today. The recent case of that poor woman, who became very sick after buying and ingesting the drug Ivermectin, as protection against Covid-19, is just one, more obvious, example. She did this on the advice of Catholic friends, who led her to believe it was what God wanted. Thankfully, by generously sacrificing himself once and for all, Christ has established this eucharistic table, from which we are fed, and at which we are given what we need to judge the true nutritional value of every other food.

Sisters and brothers, what must we do to be more vigilant, and to help one another to carefully check our cheese today?