Tuesday is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a holy day of obligation. It also is the beginning of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, declared by Pope Francis. Next Sunday at the 11 a.m. Mass we along with cathedrals around the world will open our Door of Mercy, a point of pilgrimage. In the prayer the Holy Father composed for the Jubilee Year he declares his hopes: “Lord Jesus Christ, you have taught us to be merciful like the heavenly Father . . . Send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing so that the Jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord, and your Church with renewed enthusiasm may bring the good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed, and restore sight to the blind . . .” I look forward to sharing this time of grace with you over the next year.
Happy St. Nicholas Day. We know little about St Nicholas except that he was a bishop in the early days of the Church. His legendary charitable care for others has morphed into Santa Claus with the emphasis not so much of gift giving out of charity but out of pressure and of gift getting. Giving and receiving gifts out of love is a wonderful human gesture; giving out of guilt or getting out of entitlement is not. To know the difference we need to be grounded in Christian values.
St. Paul in the 2nd reading prayed that the love of the Christians in Philippi: “may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception to discern what is of value, so that they would be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.” That should be our prayer as well. When our conscience is clear and our conduct blameless we will be prepared for the coming of the Lord. But to lead such lives we must first discern what is of real value to us. Our relationship with Christ reflected in our love of all gifted by God with life ought to be of highest value. That’s tough in our culture that emphasizes me first and with our human nature that is fragile to temptations. It also is tough when we experience the horrors that terrorism and violence bring. We pray in a special way for those victims in California and other locations who personally experience such horror. We pray also for law enforcement, military and first responders who put their lives on the line that we might live in freedom with security.
John the Baptist issued the clarion call to prepare the way of the Lord. That means remove all those obstacles, all those things that stand in the way of the Lord becoming our Lord and Savior. John called for us to do so by preparing our hearts and our lives through repentance and forgiveness. The season of Advent is an opportunity to reflect on what stands in our way and what is really important to us. To welcome the Lord in our hearts and lives, we need to level the mountains, those things that limit us, seem beyond our ability to climb and cope and therefore discourage us. We also need to fill in the valleys, those things that weigh us down and keep us from moving forward on our journey toward greater holiness.
Is there a mountain you face that needs to be leveled or a valley to be filled? It may be a mountain of resentment, of envy, of a grudge held, or anger at a slight and not being able to forgive and let go. There may be valleys of guilt for mistakes made, sins committed that cannot be undone or forgotten, dreams that did not come true that weigh us down. Carried day to day, year to year, they can be like a cancer on our souls that eat away at our joy for life and hope for tomorrow and prevent our openness to the Lord who offers peace and joy, who is our hope. Take these to confession, the sacrament of mercy, and be set free. Christ’s love and mercy is available to all with sincere hearts.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a sad day that began for America World War II in which millions died, a war that changed the world and changed us as a people. I recall a moving moment when a woman showed me a picture of the memorial that was built over the site of the sunken ship Arizona, and told me her brother-in-law went down with the ship. This is a picture of his grave, she said softly.
All these years later the fuel tank of the Arizona still leaks bubbles of oil that rise to the surface and create little puddles of pollution, a remembrance of the violence of war, yet with the colors of a rainbow mixed in. We can discover rainbows, blessings from God, even in the horrible events of life when they are approached in faith. God does not cause, but he does I believe use the tough moments of life to reach out to us, to invite us to welcome him. He offers us a rainbow of perspective and of hope after each storm, if we listen to and for him. Holy Mass, the very presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist can be life giving in the midst of our crosses.
Every summer a wealthy family would vacation in Europe while leaving their daughter home with a nanny. One year the nanny quit just before the vacation. The parents were upset that their vacation might be jeopardized, but a few days before the trip they found a replacement. When their 11 year old daughter noticed her mother wrapping up the family silverware, she asked why because that had never been done before. Her mother explained that she could not trust the new nanny with the family valuables. The remark hurt the little girl in her heart. Was she not a family valuable of more worth than silverware? That thought stuck with her as she grew and became a mother herself. It could have become a mountain of resentment or a valley of rejection. Instead, she committed herself to be sure that her children would know how valuable they really are to her and to God.
This is my prayer St. Paul wrote: that your love increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception to discern what is of value. In the midst of the Christmas rush and pressure, when this season of Advent is over and Christmas comes, what will we have revealed as having real value to us? The legendary love of St. Nicholas points the way.