Holy Day Inspirations
Feast of the Assumption
** All Souls Day ** All Saints Day ** Feast of
Christ the King
Thanksgiving ** First
Sunday in Advent *** Feast of the Holy Family
ALL SOULS DAY
- NOVEMBER 2nd
On Behalf of those who have served our Country
Since 1919, the slogan of the American Legion every Memorial Day has been "Lest we
forget." The American people and the Congress of the United States have been
responsive to this slogan. Veterans' hospitals across the country generally give
them the best care available. Pensions are given to veterans and their survivors
long after their wars have ended. Still the American Legion reminds us, "Lest
we forget."V
All Souls Day is this kind of reminder to us about the faithful departed. They, too,
are heroes and heroines who have fought the good fight. They have died in grace, but
possibly have some sin-caused scars and wounds which must be healed before their admission
to the total joy and glory which Heaven affords. Their names are already written in
the Book of Life which Daniel refers to in our Old Testament Reading.V
The faithful departed who yearn for God's presence and company may include our own parents
or grandparents, our husbands or wives, our children or our sisters and brothers. Some of
them may be popes, bishops, priests or sisters who have served us in the Church.
They may be fellow parishioners and communicants. There are other departed souls who
may have nobody to pray for them, either because their descendants and friends lack faith,
are neglectful or perhaps, are themselves deceased. It is a privileged act of
charity to remember all these people and recommend them to the Lord in keeping with the
long tradition of our faith.V
Think about how beautifully the Church remembers them, and will remember us in the
liturgy! The Eucharistic Prayer at every celebration of Mass includes a
commemoration of the dead. So does the Liturgy of the Hours.V
The Sacramentary provides special prayers for them on the anniversaries of their
deaths. In these ways the Church is helping us to live up to the words of Jesus in
the magnificent sixth chapter of the Gospel of Saint John: "It is the will of
Him Who sent Me that I should lose nothing of what He has given Me; rather that I should
raise it up on the last day."V
You might say today is Memorial Day for the People of God. As Saint Paul told the
Roman Christians in today's Second Reading, "Through baptism into His death we were
buried with Him, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father, we too might live a new life."V
We who live this life observe All Souls Day today with faith, with hope and with love ---
"Lest we forget!".VVV
The Feast of the
Assumption
August 15th
Americans can be rude and partisan. We have even been called ugly by
foreigners. Throughout most of our history, however, we have had one redeeming
feature. We have usually offered deference and respect to the wife of our chief
executive. People often attack a president for his politics, his policies and even
his personality and/or character. But, by and large, Americans look upon his wife as
the First Lady of the land, it is true. It is an unofficial title. Still, it
gets some degree of chivalrous respect in the media and from the public.V
Christianity has its "First Lady" too. She has the title, not because of who her husband is, but because of whose daughter, whose mother she is. She is Mary, the chosen daughter of God the Father, the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ. She is on everyone's list of the saints of the Old and the New Testaments. In fact, she's right at the top. When the Second Vatican Council declared her to be "the Mother of the Church," it was the same as naming her the "First Lady of Christianity." Her death and her entry into Heaven, called her Assumption, is what we are celebrating today. V
You see, the Virgin Mother Mary had three great privileges in her lifetime 2000 years ago.V
This reality is illustrated by a practice common to a time when most people ploughed the fields and harvested the grain and knew that their lives through the winter depended on a good crop. The grain of the first wheat cut was ground at once and baked into a loaf offered in thanksgiving. It was called the "harvest loaf." It was a sign that God had blessed the people and that all would eat. Mary is our "harvest loaf," the sign that the food of life in God is being harvested for all. She is the myth, the symbol, the sign in Heaven. She is a woman who was poor, but became rich, a woman who suffered fear and sorrow who came to know joy and celebration, a woman who worked very hard and knew how to make a home. The final home she makes is the one promised to all by her son, the home in which our poverty will be turned to riches, our sorrow will be turned into joy and our labor will create a place of rest for all eternity. The first and the greatest, and the source of the other two, was her divine motherhood. Today's Gospel, taken from the opening chapter of Saint Luke, gives us the first testimony of it in the Sacred Scriptures. "Filled with the Holy Spirit," Elizabeth greeted Mary with the exclamation, "How does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" This greeting inspired a response by Mary, a hymn of thanks and praise we call the "Magnificat" which recognizes all the great things God had done and would continue to do for her. She predicted, not out of vanity, but in all humility: "All ages to come shall call be blessed." She was proclaiming the greatness of the Lord and the joy she found in God her Savior.V
Mary's other two privileges were her Immaculate Conception, which paved the way for her divine motherhood, and her Assumption, the reward which followed her divine motherhood and the privilege we celebrate in a special way today. The Assumption of the First Lady of Christianity means that she was taken, body and soul, into Heaven after her earthly passing. There is no record of this in the written Scriptures it is true, because it is secondary in the history of our salvation. But, it has been a part of the unwritten Tradition of faith and was in writing by the end of the second century of Christianity. It was defined forever as a teaching of our faith by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950. This teaching gives clear insight into the heart and mind of Christ. To honor His mother and to have her by His side, He anticipated in her case what will happen to all of us at the end of time.VVV
All Saints' Day
November 1st
All Saints' Day was fast approaching. One mother reported her
little girl had to choose a costume as the saint she would represent in her Catholic
School's Feast Day Pageant. They read some Lives of the Saints together and came
across Saint Catherine of Siena. Her life story included accounts of severe
penances, fasting, sleeping on a hard board and even self-flagellation. After an
appropriate moment of silence in consideration of such a life, a decision floated lightly,
but firmly, out of the little girl's mouth: "I wanna be Saint Louise!"V
This is the day to remember all the saints -- and to remember that they all were
different, that they came to holiness in their own way. Today we celebrate those who
joyfully live in God's kingdom, where every day is a feast day. And we do not speak only
of the canonized saints. For any family members, friends or others we knew or heart
of on this earth who lived so as now to be in heaven with God -- this is their day!
If we are in the state of grace, this is our day, too. So, Happy Feast Day!V
We might ask, "Why should we honor the men and women who now rejoice in
eternity with God? They have it made. They certainly don't need our acclaim.
Their lives on earth were made complete with the fulfillment of their journey to
the place of perfection known as Heaven.V
The truth is this: it is we who need this feast day! We need to look to those
men and women who have received the crown of eternal life, because many of them were just
ordinary Jacks and Jills who lived ordinary lives, just like ours. V
They did not all perform miracles nor were they asked to give their mortal lives in
martyrdom, and, probably, neither shall we. But they all were in some way tested,
and so shall we be. All of us, like they, will have to undergo the trials of
everyday life and remain faithful to God in the process.V
This day recognizes that the saints lived their lives fully, and yet managed to place God first
despite all the other worries they faced. They were not perfect, and neither
are we. So, this day gives us the hope that we, too, can be admitted to the place
where our Christian heroes rejoice with our God and theirs.V
Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount about those who will enter into their heavenly
reward. His teachings do not require super-human characteristics. What they
require is that we are willing to risk living by Christian principles, that we are willing
to live up to being called Christians.V
Someone has put it this say: if we were to be hauled into court and accused of being
a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict us? The Saints whom we
remember today had enough evidence. Just what "evidence" are we talking
about? A willingness to work for peace in our homes, our neighborhoods, our world.
That is evidence. Forgiveness towards those who have wronged us. That is
evidence. Setting an example of what Christ means to us in our workplace or in our
areas of recreation. That is evidence. These are the types of things that will
build a case sure to prove that we are truly Christians. In reality, these things
form the highest honor we can pay to God, provide the basis for our entry as saints into
eternal life and give rise to Jesus' declaration in today's Gospel: "Be glad
and rejoice, for your reward in heaven is great!"VVV
Feast of Christ the
King
Most of the solemnities and feasts of our Church are focused on biblical events.
In contrast, today's "Feast of Christ the King" is focused on an idea.
In 1925, Pope Pius XI added this feast to the Church Calendar to celebrate the rule
of Christ which goes beyond national boundaries, which, therefore, makes war a sacrilege
against Christ's body. This is a powerful image! Today, as at its beginning,
war and terrorism torment many areas of the world. Today, we would
do well to pray for the victims of war and acts of terror as never before.V
Since 1925, when the Feast of Christ the King was established, kings have largely
fallen out of style. World War II toppled most of the great dynasties. In the
few kingdoms that remained the royal families were mere figureheads. So what is the
significance of the Feast of Christ the King today? It is to remind us that the
kingship and sovereignty of Jesus Christ have strong roots in the Scriptures. He is
the Emmanuel (God-with-us) King predicted by Isaish, the prophet, as coming from the
long line of King David, as the Christmas Gospel tells us. The Epiphany and the
Ascension of our Lord both suggest the royal kingship of Jesus. And if we examine
the Gospel of Saint John carefully, then Good Friday is our kingship feast par excellence.V
Back in 1925, Pope Pius XI said his object was to reassert the authority of our
Lord to rule over all nations and to bring people back to Christ so as to establish, in
his own words, "the peace of Christ in the reign of Christ." Clearly, he
indicated that the kingship of Christ was a different kind of kingship than the world was
used to.V
Today's First Reading gives us a hint. This Old Testament lesson from
Ezekiel paints a picture of a king as a shepherd in the ancient world, including Israel.
The prophet says that the Lord God will personally take over the duties as the
shepherd of his people: "I myself will look after and tend my sheep...The lost
I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I
will heal..." This is a different kind of king, for sure, a king who serves his
people instead of the other way around.V
Jesus' kingship is different, also, in that He does not reign OVER His people so
much as He reigns AMONG them. This is the obvious message of the beautiful and
powerful parable in today's Gospel.V
All those people who had served the homeless and the sick, the naked and
imprisoned are looked upon as doing it for Him. They are surprised as he rewards
them, saying, "When did we see you hungry or thirsty, naked or homeless, as a
stranger or in prison?" Only at the end, as "He will sit upon His glorious
throne," will He reveal His identity as the King they served.V
The lesson for us is that we, too, must serve this king through our service to
others. In just a few words, Mother Teresa put today's Gospel in the proper light by
saying: "At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we
have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We
will be judged by: I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was naked and you
clothed me. I was homeless and you took me in. Hungry not only for bread, but
hungry for love; naked not only for clothing, but naked of human dignity and respect;
homeless not only for want of a room of brick, but homeless because of rejection."V
The Feast of Christ the King is placed at the end of the Church's year to offer us
a clear statement of our belief that Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and
the end of time, that all things flow to and from Him, that His kingdom is everlasting.
We must express our belief in the type of Gospel service we have heart Mother
Teresa describe. To get a jump start on our commitment to a life of service laid out
before us by our Shepherd King, may I suggest two extremely immediate and practical things
to you today. First, do your best to make a more generous contribution than in the
past to your favorite charity. (Today's collection is for the Campaign for Human
Development, a self-help program aimed at empowering people to eliminate poverty, hunger,
homelessness and imprisonment.) And second, try to support the efforts of the St.
Vincent de Paul Society throughout the year. (The SVDP Society helps those right here in
the parish in the time of need through Thanksgiving Food Baskets, Christmas Baskets, Coat
Drives, Summer Fan Drives, food pantry and much more.)V
Remember it is a King in disguise whom we serve, a King who said He came "not
to be served but to serve," a King who rules AMONG us rather than OVER us.
By the grace of God we are His eyes, His ears, His hands and His heart. We
serve Him through the least of His brothers and sisters and thereby help to establish, in
the words of Pope Pius XI, "the peace of Christ in the reign of Christ."VVV
Thanksgiving
Most of us know that a violin made years ago by a man named Stradivarius is worth hundreds
of thousands of dollars. Years ago, one such violin was owned by the University of
California at Los Angeles, UCLA. It had been placed in the care of a professor who
taught there who, one day, reported the priceless instrument was missing.
Authorities were very suspicious that the musician had stolen the violin, either for his
personal pleasure or to make himself rich. His story, however, was that he had put
the violin on top of his Volkswagen, when he stopped to buy some groceries on his way home
from a concert. Then, the absent-minded professor got into his car and drove off,
simply forgetting about the Stradivarius. Decades later, in 1985, the absent-minded
professor's story was confirmed when the instrument showed up in a music shop to be tuned.
V
The present owner said that he had bought the violin from someone who found it lying
beside an on-ramp to a Southern California freeway. Now you and I might think that
if a person had a Stradivarius in his or her care, he or she would guard it carefully day
and night, never let it out of their sight and certainly never let it out of their sight
and certainly never stick it on top of a Volkswagen in the parking lot of a grocery store.V
But, we all get busy. And we all get sloppy about caring even about priceless gifts.
Sometimes it is just carelessness, not evil or greed, that causes us to lose the
proper outlook on our lives and our treasures.V
That is one reason why we have Thanksgiving Day. It is our nation's gift to us
reminding us that we should be thankful for the great gifts that each and every one of us
have received. All too often we forget about them and take them for granted.V
The author, G.K. Chesterton puts his own twist on this last expression. In his
Life of Saint Francis he says that the proper attitude of gratitude is "to take
everything for granted." Yes, on the surface that may actually sound like ingratitude
-- and it is if it means ignoring our dependence on God for everything we have and
are and if it means neglecting our need to pray for our needs.V
But Chesterton explains that Saint Francis of Assisi "stood on his head and
saw everything hanging from heaven." Saint Francis joyfully
acknowledged that everything is a gift granted by God, unearned and unmerited.
This great saint tells us, then, that we need to be grateful for
EVERYTHING!V
This state of heart and mind brought a great sense of joy to Saint Francis.
And it can bring a great sense of joy to us. That is why our First Reading
from the Book of Sirach tells us if we "..bless the God of all, who has done wondrous
things on earth..," He will grant us joy of heart and abiding peace. His
goodness toward us will last as long as the heavens above. It is why Saint Paul in
our Second Reading stated he continually thanked God for the favor bestowed on us in
Christ Jesus. It is why we are really mystified, along with Jesus, that only one of
the ten lepers made whole returned to give thanks to God.V
Having a day set aside and called "Thanksgiving Day" is a concrete
reminder that we are dependent on God and that we need to be grateful for all the
blessings we have received. "Why me?" is a question we often ask
ourselves out of unthinking self-pity. Thanksgiving Day reminds us that we should
ask ourselves this question every morning in a true spirit of prayer out of a profound
spirit of gratitude for the gift of another day, a day full of graces, the gifts and the
opportunities given to us by an all-loving god, gifts meant to be shared with all those
around us. At this most special Mass of thanksgiving, may God bless us with the
marvelous gifts of awareness and gratitude for all that He has granted to us.VVV
First Sunday of Advent
The Advent Readings, which open the doors of our hearts to a new Church Year, project a
wide variety of themes and motifs. Expectation of the various "comings" of
Christ dominate the proceedings. First, there is the coming in history, His birth,
the celebration of which caps our four weeks of preparation. Next, there is his
coming at the end of history, which is highlighted by the liturgical readings which
conclude the Church Year and make the transition into Advent. Finally, there is His
continual coming by faith and action into the everyday lives of believers. V
The Readings for this First Sunday of Advent summon Christians to wait in faithful hope,
and to be vigilant and alert, for God may touch their lives in surpassing and surprising
ways. this is brought home in our First Reading from the third part of the prophecy
of Isaiah, covering Chapters 55 through 66. It is a collage of texts capturing the
yearnings of the Old Testament People of God as they return from exile in Babylon and
begin the task of rebuilding, not only their homeland, but their very experience of God.
They are caught in an in-between-time, the time of return and the time of
restoration of worship in a rebuilt temple.V
The bitter experience of exile has deepened their sense of God's kingship of the world and
their dependence on Him, a sense taking them beyond ethnic and national identity.
The prophet describes this new sensitivity in the words: "You, Lord, are our
father...our redeemer, You are named forever.. Would you might meet us doing right (read
'justice').".V
Today's Gospel is taken from Chapter 13, the end of Saint Mark's take on the so-called
"End Times." This conclusion features a short parable which is bracketed
by three commands to Jesus' followers to be on the "watch". The Lord
wants us to realize fully that we do not know the proper "time" for God to
intervene.V
Time out! For a lesson in Greek and in time. The Greek word used in this
Gospel is kairos. It means a time in which an event happens or a development
occurs. Kairos is distinct from another word for time, chronos,
which refers to time measured by a calendar or clock, our most common understanding.
Theologian Karl Rahner proclaims that it is through the forward-looking dimension
of kairos that we gain our spiritual freedom. He says, "For that
future presents itself as salvation now, precisely if it is accepted as God's action,
incalculable in its when and how, because determined by God alone." In other
words, we are saved as we watch for the coming of the kingdom of God in His time, not
ours. It is why Pope John Paul II declared: "Heaven is not an abstraction
of a physical place among the clouds, but a living and personal relationship with the Holy
Trinity [in the here and now]."V
These Readings provide multiple challenges to Christians today, especially during
the often hectic weeks before Christmas, -- during which waiting suggests endless
traffic jams or long lines while shopping for that special gift, -- and watching
is scarcely the alertness that Saint Mark calls for. More often, we are staring at a
cavalcade of Christmas television specials or released-for-the-holidays movies or a
seemingly never-ending stream of sporting events. Biblical "watching"
consists of hope-filled waiting and faithful attentiveness to the time -- kairos
-- of God's entrance into our respective histories as individuals and as a society.
It is for us, as for the Church in Saint Mark's day, enduring hope and fidelity to the
tasks of our lives in the face of God's seeming absence, which is really just His
momentary invisibility.V
Perhaps we should all take a tip from Lucia Herndon. In her column in this
morning's Philadelphia Inquirer she contrasts the calming sense of the season of Advent
with the frenzy of the Christmas rush by employing a good understanding of kairos
as opposed to chronos. She concludes: "Today, I
will begin observing Advent: I will wait, instead of rush; watch, instead of talk;
hope instead of demand. I expect to have found anew the wonder and the joy of the
holiday." And, we might add, of the various "comings" of Christ.VVV
The Feast
of the Holy Family
by Robert M. Kenney, Pastoral Deacon
It is the feast of the Holy Family though, and as we know, family-life does not
slow down much for pondering.V
Our first reading is a wonderful poem from the Hebrew scriptures praising the role
of mothers and fathers. "Mankind stores up riches who reveres their mother, whoever
reveres their father will live a long life." The poem also is an instruction
concerning the manner of relating with parents by their children. Paul gives us a
more particular description of just how families are to reveal God's love towards each
other. After the excitement and encounters yesterday's celebration, perhaps its
message and details would seem only a pious hope.V
I am smiling as I think this! I am imagining my own father standing in our
living room amidst the chaos of eight young catholic kids having a pagan-like celebration
of comparing, conflicting and greed. My father reads, over the dim of Irish-Catholic
family battle, "Put on, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one
another...." I doubt we would have heard him until he would have
threatened us with words about not getting any supper.V
The Gospel is meant to show the fidelity of the Holy Family to the law and the
customs of their Jewish faith. The family of Israel is the family of God and birth
into that family was a blessed sign from God. We see the Child Jesus, welcomed into
that larger family by Simeon.V
The journey of Jesus has begun.V
The Holy Family had its upsets, interruptions and strange happenings. Mary and Joseph had to move, had to find their lost child, had to let the child grow and then watch Him leave home. Life was not perfect for them either. From beginning to end the human conditions treated them in the usual ways. What was perfect was their trust in the God of the law. What was perfect was the way they walked into mystery with their questions and their dreams. The original Holy Family began in the poverty of a stable with the mess and muck of the earth. What is holy then? V
Family life is a celebration of constant conversion of all its members. Holiness has to do with being so human that each of us knows our need for forgiveness and for forgiving. Being in a holy family means being on a journey from ignorance through unawareness, through confrontation, with loving-encouragement, into the acceptance of our need for further awareness. Husbands and wives are bound together to confront themselves, accept themselves by relating with each other. If there are children, as with Mary and Joseph, they will force the process of self-confrontation, self-acceptance and eventually gratitude. May said, "let it be done." She had to live those words all her life. So does each member of any family who let God's grace form its ways.V
My father and mother were forced to face themselves by their inability to make us angels. Their holiness was that they kept loving each other as they encountered their own humanness and that of their children. Were we a holy family, yes, even though my little sister was trying to hide broccoli in her glass of milk and my father refused to put on his shoes when unexpected company arrived.V
My sisters and brothers in Christ, my wish today is that the Holy Family will be always with all of you as an example of all the goodness that there is in our families.VVV
