We All Live in Ordinary Everyday Nazareth

 

Deacon Dave · We All Live in Ordinary Nazareth

Homily for Holy Family Sunday, Dec. 31, 2023. Gospel of St. Luke 2:22-40. Theme: We All Live in Ordinary Everyday Nazareth 

 Even though it’s still Christmas-time many of the sights and sounds of the season are starting to slowly disappear. Things are gradually returning to the normal and the ordinary again. And today’s Gospel is very much like that. It starts out sounding a lot like Christmas with Simeon and Anna rejoicing over the Newborn Messiah while His parents stood by in amazement. It must have reminded them of the shepherds of Bethlehem when they came to the stable and told them about angels singing the praises of their Son. 

 But the Gospel’s closing verses move us away from the extraordinary events surrounding Jesus’ birth. They bring us back to the normal and the ordinary as they tell us of the Holy Family returning to their hometown of Nazareth. Their life in that little village was so very different from all the supernatural phenomena they had been experiencing in Bethlehem and Jerusalem since Jesus’ birth. In Nazareth there are no heavenly angels singing glory to God in the highest! And there are no temple-prophets praising the Messiah-King. Nazareth was not like that at all. Nazareth is a place where the Holy Family lived by faith and not by miracles. It was an ordinary everyday kind of place where they lived an ordinary everyday kind of life. 

 The Gospels don’t say much about the life of Jesus in Nazareth. All we have are a few verses telling us that He was obedient to His parents as He grew in age, wisdom and grace. We are told that there was nothing extraordinary in what He said or did that made Him stand out from among the other residents of Nazareth, nor even among His own relatives. The Scriptures do inform us that though He was God, Jesus didn’t cling to His divinity nor exploit it as a kind of perk in becoming human. He left all that behind and had to develop as we all do in mind, body and soul. Amazingly, this means that God Who is Love now had to learn what it means to love and what it feels like to be loved as a human being. Imagine that! 

 Jesus grew up as a rural backwoods boy, experiencing the ups and down of daily life in the boondocks of Galilee. He was socially counted among the poor, because in ancient Israel there was no middle class. Only those in power had it all. Everyone else, including the Holy Family, simply struggled to make ends meet. And so to do Hs part, Christ became a craftsman, a laborer, following in the family business. He earned his living by the sweat of his brow and the work of his hands. He had to pay taxes to the emperor, deal with bills and difficult customers, and meet with the men of the village to arrange for protection and store up provisions. As a devout Israelite, Jesus observed the rituals and festivals of Judaism, went to synagogue every Sabbath, and prayed the Psalms with Joseph and Mary every night at home. He had fun celebrating weddings and births and He mourned as we all do in times of suffering and death. In other words, He was exactly like us in every way and in all things, except for sin. 

 But is that how we usually think of Jesus? Or do we focus more exclusively on His miracles and majesty? Both are important, of course, but too often I think we just kind of overlook the fact that for 30 of his 33 years as a man, God chose to live the ordinary kind of life that we all live. Now it’s important to remember that God the Son freely chose the condition and status of His earthly life. And since both the Scriptures and the Church teach us that everything He did was for our instruction and salvation, we need to stop and ask ourselves: what is He saying to us in the fact that 90% of His life was lived in obscurity, in spending His days doing the usual and the ordinary? He just has to be saying something to us in all this because God didn’t come to earth simply to waste time! So, what message does Nazareth hold out to us? 

 I think the message of Nazareth is that we need to stop looking for God and holiness only in the extraordinary and the miraculous. God is present and active in every single aspect of life no matter how insignificant or trivial it may seem. Jesus blessed and sanctified the ordinary and the humdrum simply by participating in it. He knew that this is how most of us live and so He wanted to show us and teach us that loving and serving God can be accomplished even in those everyday things that we don’t think are all that special. And He invites us to also bless and sanctify our daily duties by carrying them out in a spirit of solidarity with Him and His everyday life at Nazareth. 

 We can do this every morning by simply making a conscious decision to embrace our day and everything we will experience in it in union with Him. It’s really that simple. We can make this decision with words or simply by the intention of our minds and hearts. And when we do so, then everything that makes up our day – all of our prayers, works, joys and sufferings – everything, can become a part of His own offering of His life and work in Nazareth to the glory of God the Father. This spirituality of the daily offering enables us to give deeper meaning to all that we do and enables us to become partners with our Savior in consecrating the world to God. It actually has the capacity and potential to make us into saints. 

 So, yes, the extraordinary events surrounding the Nativity of the Lord were truly spectacular and awesome and I look forward to celebrating Christmas every year! But honestly, Nazareth stands out to me so much more than Bethlehem, because it’s where the Gift of God’s only Son is unwrapped, so to speak, revealing for us what it meant, what it looked like, for God to become a man. Nazareth is where I see Jesus most fully and most humbly and most amazingly living out His Christmas name of Emmanuel, which means God-with-us, God-as-one-of us.

Rejoicing as We Bless the Bambinelli, Cause of Our Joy!

 

Deacon Dave · Rejoicing as We Bless the Bambinelli, Cause of Our Joy!

Bambinelli Explanation & Blessing, Gaudete Sunday 11AM Mass, Dec 17, 2023

 At this time we’re going to have the Bambinelli Blessing of your Christ Child figurines, but first a few words to put this ritual into context. You know, at Christmas-time we’ve sort of been programmed by our culture to expect joy in unrealistic ways such as can be found on greeting cards or in Hallmark movies. These storybook scenarios project a Christmas of perfect presents, that are all perfectly wrapped and artfully placed underneath the perfectly decorated Christmas tree. Then everyone gathers as a perfect family, to eat a perfectly cooked meal, while enjoying perfect conversation shared by all in perfect harmony. But the problem is that kind of joy simply doesn’t exist. It’s a joy based totally on fiction. 

 However, there is a joy that can be ours no matter what we are going through in life as today’s Scriptures illustrate for us. For example, when Isaiah spoke his upbeat prophecy the people of Israel were being crushed by an oppressive government and threatened with economic disaster. And when St. Paul was writing about rejoicing, he was on the run for his life having narrowly escaped an angry mob that was bent on killing him. And when the Blessed Mother was singing out her joyful praise to God that we repeated in our responsorial this morning, she was facing the heart-wrenching task of informing her fiance and her parents that she was pregnant, which would also bring social shunning in her village once the gossip spread. 

 And so we bless the Bambinelli on Gaudete Sunday precisely because that Child in a manger brings us a joy that is fact and not fiction. The Baby is the manger is tangible proof of God’s love for us and so we can rejoice even though we may not feel like it and even if life around us doesn’t encourage it. We can rejoice because that Baby in a manger is Emmanuel, which means God-is-with-us, God-has-become-one-of-us and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can take that joy away from us.! This is the authentic holiday cheer of Christmas that we all need and are eager to possess. This is why we rejoice and bless Him on Gaudete Sunday. And now that we understand why, let’s bless the Bambinelli. Please hold up your Christ Child figurines while I give the blessing. 

BAMBINELLI BLESSING 

 God our Father, You loved the world so much that You sent Your only Son as Savior to call each one of us back to You. We ask You to bless + and sanctify these images of the Christ Child that they might become for us a sign of His Presence and a Cause of Joy in our homes. 

 May the sight of this Holy Child in the manger, wherever it may be placed, open the hearts of those who look upon Him to believe in the great love You have shown for by sending Jesus as Emmanuel, God-with-us. Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.

Caution: Spiritual Roadwork Ahead!

 

Deacon Dave · Caution: Spiritual Roadwork Ahead!

Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent. Gospel: Mark 1:1-8. Theme: Caution: Spiritual Roadwork Ahead! 

 The sights and sounds of Christmas are all around us these days. And a plethora of holiday characters, both fact and fiction, can be found decorating our homes and stores, or featured in holiday movies as well as being displayed in the front yards in our neighborhoods. Among all these figures we will surely find Mary and Joseph, of course, along with the whole retinue of stable animals, shepherds and kings. But there are many other characters as well, completely foreign to the original Nativity Story that have made their way into our holiday hearts and minds: Santa and his elves, Rudolph and his reindeer gang, Frosty, Grinch and even old Mr. Scrooge. 

 But amidst all this Christmas crowding there’s one figure who, though vital, is completely missing. You won't find this person in the holiday section of any store nor featured in a Nativity scene. There are no inflatable likenesses of him for your lawn and he is utterly absent from every single holiday greeting card. Yet he is crucial to helping us experience the whole reason for the season. The great missing person of Christmas is St. John the Baptist! 

 For millennia, the Church has placed John the Baptist front and center in our liturgy during Advent because he embodies its very spirit. He is the carrier of the Christmas message that the Messiah comes to transform our lives and restore our lost spiritual fortunes. Both the Old Testament reading from Isaiah and the Gospel from St. Mark in today’s Mass emphasize that he is the one whose voice cries out in the wilderness to us saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!” 

 But these directives will make no sense to us unless we step back in time to learn how people of those days prepared for the arrival of nobility. When news of an upcoming imperial visit came to a village certain indispensable steps of cultural protocol had to be followed. And so the entire village, from the youngest able-bodied person to the oldest, got busy with literally filling in low spots in the road and leveling off uneven terrain. In this way they could show their respect for the royal entourage and give it a proper welcome. And this is the way our Christian tradition interprets Isaiah’s prophecy and John's Christmas message. In other words, if there was a construction warning sign flashing purple and pink lights to announce Advent it would read: “Caution – Spiritual Roadwork Ahead!” We are to get busy and give it all we got in making smooth and straight the Lord’s pathway into our hearts and clearing away the garbage that has accumulated in the wasteland of our lives, Then when the King arrives He will bless those who prepared so diligently. 

 St. Mark’s Gospel opens by recalling the prophecy from Isaiah and then showing us that it’s being fulfilled in the person and ministry of St. John the Baptist. He is the voice of one crying out in the desert calling us to make a way for the Lord into our hearts by straightening out the inconsistencies and crookedness in our lives. In other words, he is challenging us to repent, which means to have a change of heart, a change of mind, a change of attitude and set our sights on the Lord’s Kingdom. He is calling us to recognize that we need to allow God to be actively present in our lives, He promises that Jesus the Messiah will make our personal transformation possible through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit Whom He pours into us. 

 Both Isaiah and St. Mark are asking if we are willing to do the site preparation and accomplish some serious personal construction for this to really happen. Do we have a blueprint, a plan in mind as to how we will proceed? Are we aware of the spiritual tools of prayerfulness and mercy that we will need to repair the broken bridges in our lives so as to reconnect with others and with God? They are asking us to make room, in the midst of our very crowded Christmas season, for St. John the Baptist as our Advent Voice of Preparation. He’s calling us to get ready for much more than just another festive holiday. He’s reminding us that it’s never too late to change so as to experience God’s love, grace and power which will lead us to a new way of thinking, a new way of looking at life, and a new way of living that will be so much better than how we have lived up till now.

Christ Comes in History, Mystery & Majesty!

 

Deacon Dave · Christ Comes in History, Mystery & Majesty!

Homily for the First Sunday of Advent, Dec. 3, 2023. Gospel of St. Mark 13:33-37. Theme: Christ Comes in History, Mystery & Majesty! 

 Well, here we are at Advent once again, ushering in the holiday season that is always so special in just about everyone’s heart. The word Advent is derived from Latin and means “coming” or “arrival”, reminding us that we are in a season of preparation, a time of awaiting the return of the Lord of the house, as Jesus calls Himself in today's Gospel. He used the people’s familiarity with the vital role of a gatekeeper to get across the importance of attention and expectation, two important qualities for our own Advent waiting. Our Lord often referred to familiar stories and experiences as illustrations of his teaching and we can do the same thing by using stories we are familiar with to better understand His message. 

 For example, to me one of the most cherished stories that powerfully brings the spirit of Advent to me is A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. I am sure you are all familiar with this holiday tale of how on bleak and cold Christmas eve, the greedy miser Scrooge is converted into a generous Christian man by means of the three visitations he has from the Ghosts of Christmas-Past, Christmas-Present and Christmas-to-Come. Well, you know, it wasn’t by accident that Dickens thought up this plot. He lived at a time when Christianity still permeated culture and we can see in his classic story a strong hint of the triple traditional meaning of Advent as a season that refers to the past, the present and the future. 

 It’s in Advent-Past where we all tend to spend so much of our time and energy during this season. It’s what all of our holiday shopping, decorating and cooking revolves around! It’s when Jesus came to us in history, giving up his divine power in becoming a vulnerable baby born in Bethlehem to a poor working class family. He did this in order to truly be our Savior by sharing in and sanctifying every aspect of our lives and even to the point of suffering and dying as we all must do. But Jesus doesn’t want us to spend Advent just remembering what He did for us, as marvelous as it was. He wants to be born into our hearts and come to live in us today. He wants us to move on out of the past and spend more of our time in Advent-Present. 

 Advent-Present, is the miracle of Jesus coming to us here and now in mystery. He comes to us as the Bread of Life, really present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. He becomes personally present to us in the assembly of His Body the Church. And He continues to be mystically present for us in the persons of the needy poor. Jesus Himself told us about these realities of His Presence. He clearly taught that the Eucharist was His living flesh and blood by which He would live in us and we in Him. He declared that “where 2 or 3 are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them.” Finally, Jesus identified Himself intimately with those who are in need in any way when He said, “whatsoever you do to them, you do to Me.” 

 And so we see clearly that if we want to encounter Jesus truly and personally present in our lives here and now, we must turn to the Eucharist, to Christian community, and to the relief of those who suffer. These three things are precisely why worship, festive gatherings, and increased charitable actions have long been part of our Christmas customs. And so, it should be obvious that living Advent-Present is the most important meaning of the season because it’s the only one that is truly in our hands. Advent-Past is history. Advent-Future is yet to come But Advent-Present is ours to live here and now. 

 Finally, we have Advent-Future, Advent-to-Come. This was the most effective part for old Mr. Scrooge’s conversion and perhaps it can be the most effective for us as well. You’ll recall that in the novel Mr. Scrooge is led by the Ghost of Christmas-to-Come to the site of his future grave. In a similar way, Advent-to-Come makes us face the fact that life is both short and temporary; that our time on planet Earth will end. However, our personal existence will continue because we all survive our physical deaths. What will become of us when we meet Christ in His majesty? Where will we go to spend our eternity? The choice is ours to make here and now while we still have life and breath on planet Earth. How we live Advent-Present says a lot about what will become of us in Advent-to-Come. 

 So this year let's try to live Advent to its fullest, Past, Present and To-Come. Let’s keep in mind the history, the mystery and the majesty of Christ to help us observe Advent to the best of our ability. And let’s pray that Christmas Day will find us as changed and transformed as was old Mr. Scrooge, when he woke up on that decisive morning after the triple visitations, and suddenly found new gratitude and such joy in his new way of thinking, his new way of looking at life and his new way of living!