I Sunday of Advent

HOPE CHANGES EVERYTHING

Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:37-44

Readings for the I Sunday of Advent

A school tutored its students, while they were in hospital, to stay abreast with their academics. Once, it sent a tutor to teach a boy nouns and adverbs, which his class was studying. The boy had been seriously injured in an accident.

When the tutor reached his room, she was unnerved by his state, and stammered: “Your school sent me to teach you nouns and adverbs.” The next day, a nurse asked her: “What did you do to that boy?” The teacher thought she had done something wrong and began to apologize. The nurse said: “No, no! Since yesterday, his attitude has changed; he’s fighting back, responding to treatment. It’s as though he’s decided to live.”

Later the boy explained that he had given up hope until the tutor arrived. Everything changed when he realized that “they wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy!”

Hope changes everything!

Isaiah (first reading) writes during a period of wars and intrigue, alienation and division. In this time of discouragement, his is a message of hope: our faithful God is with us and is bringing us together. He predicts a time of unity and peace symbolized by people transforming “swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks” (changing weapons of war into tools for growth).

This is the message we need today!

No matter where we live, there is uncertainty, violence, upheaval. We need to hope… and make it change everything. In Paul’s words to the Romans, we need to throw off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; we need to live upright lives.

The gospel, too, is a hopeful reassurance that the Lord will come. We need to stay awake and be prepared.

God doesn’t send his Son into a “dying” world!

During this Advent season, will I hope and make it change everything? Will I allow light into places of darkness? Will I work for reconciliation and unity in my family/ community/ society? What swords do I need to beat into ploughshares and what spears into pruning hooks?

Jesus Christ the Universal King

THE POWER TO FORGIVE AND TRANSFORM

2 Samuel 5:1-3; Colossians 1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43

Readings for the Solemnity of Christ the King

In the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Archbishop of Paris preached: 

Some years ago, three young tourists—rude and cynical—came into this cathedral. Two dared the third to make up a confession. The young man went and arrogantly made his confession. The confessor told him: “For your penance, stand before the crucifix, look into the face of the crucified Christ and say: ‘All this you did for me, and I don’t give a damn!’” The young man went out and bragged that he had completed the dare; but the other two insisted he finish the dare by doing the penance. So he re-entered the cathedral, stood before the crucifix, looked up into the face of Christ and began: “All this you did for me and I… I… I don’t… I don’t give…” he couldn’t continue. 

At this point, the archbishop leaned over the pulpit and said: “That young man stands before you to preach today.”

This is the power of our King has: the power to forgive and transform through love and the cross.

On the cross, stripped of everything—clothes, strength, dignity—Jesus retains his power

- to forgive: he forgives his persecutors, the executioners, and the repentant thief; 

- to change hearts: he transforms the thief, the centurion, and the people.

Paul’s hymn to the Colossians (second reading) emphasizes that in Jesus we have the forgiveness of sins; through him, all things are reconciled.

In a world which gives importance to territory, power, wealth, rhetoric, and show… Jesus is a king

  whose kingdom has no boundaries and goes beyond nationality; 

  whose citizens are the poor, the lost, the marginalized;

  whose crown is compassion 

  whose throne is the crib and the cross; 

  whose authority is that of humble and loving service; 

  whose law is love;

  whose life and death was among sinners.

Is Jesus my king? If so… Do I imitate him and his way of love and mercy, humility and service? Do I allow him to transform me with the power of his love and his cross?

XXXIII Sunday of the Year

LIVE FULLY… NOW

Malachi 3:19-20a; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12; Luke 21:5-19

Readings for the XXXIII Sunday of the Year

A warrior was struck by a poisonous arrow. His companions wanted to remove the arrow. But he would not allow them until he had answers to his questions: the characteristics of the shooter and his origins; the wood of the arrow; the bird from which the feathers came; the type of bow; the material of the bowstring. His companions cried out in frustration: “For heaven’s sake! Stop speculating and pull out the arrow!”

In this Sunday’s gospel, there is the speculative warrior in the people: they live in a present which is tense, and they want to know when the end will happen and what signs will indicate the end.

Jesus lists three phenomena which people might assume are indicators of the end: persecution, the appearance of false messiahs, disasters. But he indicates that it is pointless to speculate when and how the end will happen; it will happen “whenever”.

What is more important is our response when these things happen! 

We need not be afraid because the Lord will be with us; we ought not to be attached to transient structures. We need to live fully with and for God always, to lead lives of perseverance. Then, it will be future perfect! “There will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays” (first reading). In the second reading, St Paul gives us another response: hard work. Some people in the church at Thessalonica were unwilling to work and were becoming a burden to others. Paul presents himself as a model and advises all to work hard and quietly!

Am I going to allow the speculative warrior in me to “wonder” about the future and the end of the world or will I “pull out the arrow” by working hard and living a full life?

Let us not re-live the past; not pre-live the future; let us live fully now. As Joan Borysenko writes: “The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live!”

XXXII Sunday of the Year

LIFE IN A WHOLE NEW WORLD

2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38

Readings for the XXXII Sunday of the Year

In the film Aladdin, Aladdin sings to and with Princess Jasmine the song: “A Whole New World”. The last verse of the song is:

A whole new world; that’s where we’ll be

A thrilling chase, a wondrous place for you and me!

These words sum up the thrust of the readings of today.

In the gospel, the Sadducees—who do not believe in the resurrection of the dead—reduce this belief to absurdity by using a far-fetched example of seven brothers, who are married successively to the same woman and die before having children. They ask: “At the resurrection which of the brothers will be the wife’s husband?”

Jesus indicates that their question betrays their limited perspective. He draws a sharp distinction between this world and the “coming age”. The latter is not an extension of this world; it is a whole new world, in which a human being is a child of God and not a piece of property. 

In this life, marriage and procreation are needed for the continuation of humanity. In the “age to come” people will neither die nor be born; there is no need for marriage and procreation. 

We enter new relationships with God, we will be his children; and with people in relationships that transcend blood and marriage.

We will have a new way of being like angels! We will live forever in the fullness of our person.

The reason/basis for our hope in this new world is God!

The first reading is a narrative of seven brothers and their mother who are killed for their faith in the God of life. They believe that he will raise them to a higher life because they have lived faithfully on earth. 

The way to prepare ourselves for this new world is living on this earth without making ideas, things, persons, and relationships into gods. We need to nurture our rootedness in God and to live faithfully by his values and ideals.

A little girl and her father were walking on a clear, starry night. She turned to him and asked: “If the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, what will the right side be like?” 

When it comes to answering that question, we’ll just have to leave it up to God! We’ll do our part of living right on the wrong side of heaven!