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Here we are again at the beginning of another Advent. Now we begin a new Church year and a new cycle of readings from the Lectionary. It seems that the key word in any new year is “cycle” because we advance chronologically toward a new year; however, paradoxically, the Church’s time cannot be measured chronologically. Indeed, the liturgical season of Advent looks backward – in commemorating the birth of Christ; yet, at the same time, Advent points us to the future – not the beginning of 2024 but to the second Coming of Christ. In a certain way, then, we are suspended in time – remembering how God intervened in our salvation history through the sending of his only Son and anticipating this Son’s return in glory.

Private confession in the West became the only form of penance and no one questioned its validity until the time of the Reformation. According to Luther and Calvin, only Baptism and Eucharist were true Sacraments whose roots are in Scripture. Although Luther liked the dynamics of confession, because he felt that it might be good therapy for people to talk over their sins, he did not see this as a sacrament. Calvin did not like the notion of penance at all because it seemed to imply to him that one could attain justification by oneself. He feared that this bordered on semi-Pelagianism.  In the face of this crisis, the Council of Trent made it a point to define not only the Canon of Scripture but also the seven Sacraments as instituted by Christ.

In the Torah or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, “sin” is a failure to observe the commandments laid before the people at Mount Sinai. In the prophetic literature, sin is a violation of the covenant between God and his people. Hence, there is emphasis on collective culpability and social sin. In the wisdom literature of the Bible, sin is foolishness. Whereas holiness or righteousness is depicted as true wisdom, that is, a healthy respect or fear of the Lord.

In Mt. 11;28-30, the evangelist speaks to us about the “hesed” of God, that is, the “loving mercy” made incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. We pine for this loving mercy which we honor specifically on the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Passover, the Jewish feast commemorating that day when God delivered his Chosen People from Egyptian slavery, begins on Wednesday night. At the Seder, before anyone eats, someone at the table, usually a child, asks one of the elders, “why is this night different from all others?” This sparks a teaching on the origin of the ritual which, for some, is new, for others it’s a review. Once completed, everyone knows why they do what they do — and all give thanks to God for Israel, for being his Chosen People, for the gift of life.

The feast of the Immaculate Conception gives credibility to the mystery of the Incarnation, the doctrine which holds that in the fullness of time, the eternal Son of God became man. After all, it’s hard to believe that God shared in our humanity. How do we know that Jesus was not dropped out of heaven simply clothed as a man? Well, our doubt is resolved by the Immaculate Conception which speaks to us about a plan. If the Son of God was to become man, then he would have to share in our humanity in all ways but sin. He would have to be conceived in an immaculate woman — for God and sin do not mix. He would have to grow from embryo to fetus to infant in the womb of one who would be worthy of housing a divine person.

On November 13, we celebrated the feast of a woman who left a comfortable life in Lombardy, the most prosperous area of Italy, in order to help others on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I’m talking about Francis Xavier Cabrini, the youngest of 13 children in her family who became a religious sister and, in fact, founded an order of nuns known as the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Mother Cabrini, as she was known, weathered the rough waters of the North Atlantic to minister to the needs of migrants and immigrants in the United States and South America. Over the course of 28 years, she established almost 70 institutions — including many schools, hospitals and orphanages. She died in Chicago, a naturalized citizen of the United States in December 1917. Almost 30 years later, Mother Cabrini became the first naturalized citizen of the U.S. to be canonized a saint with a capital “S.”

Queen Esther would have made a fine religious sister! This heroine of the Hebrew people exemplifies what it means to be completely dependent upon God. She asks for courage, persuasive words in her mouth and the wherewithal to overpower Haman, the Agagite, vizier to King Xerxes of Persia, to whom Esther is bethrothed. Since Xerxes makes Esther his Queen, and her uncle, Mordecai, refused to offer homage to Haman, the latter sets out on a plot to obtain from the King a decree of extermination against all the Jews living in the Persian Empire.

No matter how many times I prepare for a funeral, the surviving family has much more interest in requesting a favorite song or hymn than they do in choosing the Scripture which will be read. Perhaps the first reading from the Book of Wisdom gives us some insight into this phenomenon when we hear how the “just sang the hymns of their ancestors.”

I’ll never forget my freshman year in college. I had just returned home after my final exams. Two days later, I got a call from the resident assistant of my dorm who informed me that my roommate took his own life. First of all, my roommate was the last person on the floor that I would have ever expected to end his own life. He was handsome. He was popular. He was athletic and intelligent. He had lots of friends and was even engaged. So, why would somebody with so much going for him decide to call it quits. And while 48 years have elapsed since my buddy committed suicide, it’s something that remains with me to this day. I share this vignette from my life because suicide is the third largest killer of young people in the United States.

Unlike God the Father, who is immutable, a glance at past and the present will show that our earthly fathers have not only changed, they’ve evolved!

If we recall the opening Gospel on Palm Sunday,  we remember how the crowds placed Jesus on the back of a donkey and placed a purple robe around our Lord and waved palms at him as he entered Jerusalem.  They, who did not fully understand Jesus, believed him to be the Messiah, long-promised by the Prophets.  However, the King, who they anticipated, would be a “Warrior-King” who would usher in a new age in which all Israel’s enemies would submit to the truth, abandon their false gods and worship the One, True, God whose Ark of the Covenant linked the Jewish people to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in a bond of love because Israel was his Chosen People.  As we know from salvation history, the Kingship which they believed Jesus would exercise could not be further from the images they conjured from the Scriptures.  To the contrary, their King would be condemned, flogged, crowned with thorns, nailed to a Cross and hung in public view for having been found guilty of blasphemy by the Jewish religious authority, and as a threat to civil peace by the Romans.

When we think about the events leading up to the Passion, one theme is constant: Jesus was continually knocked down.

Why is it that a medical transport helicopter carrying a newborn and two nurses enroute to Philadelphia Children’s Hospital crashed “safely” in Drexel Hill, Pa., in January with the pilot and passengers exiting the wreckage with non-life-threatening injuries; yet a fire in the Bronx, N.Y., started by a faulty space heater left 17 people dead, including eight children?

From 1980-1982, I was in graduate school at the University of New Mexico, pursuing a Master of Arts degree in French literature. When I tell you the reading list for the comps was long, I am simplifying the situation. In addition to what was required for each course, from Medieval through 20th century French works, there were novels, plays and poems that were required in preparation for the exams. These two years were exciting. I was teaching Intermediate French to undergraduates six hours per week, conversational French, an hour a week and religion at a nearby Catholic elementary school in the North Valley of Albuquerque. Given my course load, usually 12 graduate hours per semester, I often found myself reading two to three written works per week. I loved the feel of the books in my hands. I reveled in highlighting what I believed to be important. I enjoyed both the smell of the paper and turning of each page.  Yes, my book bills were high, however, how many priests have had the opportunity to spend two years reading the greatest works of French literature? I consider myself blessed.

Science has proven time and time again that the embryo she may wish to remove, is not her body but a subsistent body in itself, albeit dependent on the mother’s body for development and vitality.

The Exaltation of the Cross — a feast that speaks to us about someone who was also larger in death than he was in life: Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, there were those who thought Jesus was a renegade, a blasphemer, a trouble-maker; yet, the small pocket of those whom he healed, taught and touched has mushroomed over 2,000 years, claiming innumerable converts who have come to acknowledge this Jesus not only as an ethical model and a miracle-worker but as the anointed one, the Christ, the long-promised savior whose humanity sanctified ours and whose divinity made satisfaction or, better, atonement, for our sins!

“How many people like to play the Pick-6 Lottery?”  Most of us would love to win this; however, there is an internal struggle involved here between “do we buy a ticket, since we always lose,” or “do we take the chance again?” Most of us, who play, will gamble again because, to quote the Lottery Commission: “You have to be in it to win it.”

Two weeks ago in the Sunday Gospel, Jesus instructs the Apostles that if they are not welcomed wherever they go, they should “shake the dust from their sandals” and leave that place. The Lord’s instruction that the disciples should leave the place where they are not welcomed makes perfectly good sense and follows Jesus’ teaching that we have dignity and should never surrender that God-given trait, even if it seems the only way to win peace or harmony.

As we recall the opening Gospel on Palm Sunday, the crowds placed Jesus on the back of a donkey and placed a purple robe around our Lord and waved palms at him as he entered Jerusalem. They, who did not fully understand Jesus, believed him to be the Messiah, long-promised by the Prophets. However, the King, who they anticipated, would be a “Warrior-King” who would usher in a new age in which all Israel’s enemies would submit to the truth, abandon their false gods and worship the One, True, God whose Ark of the Covenant linked the Jewish people to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in a bond of love because Israel was his Chosen People. As we know from salvation history, the Kingship which they believed Jesus would exercise could not be further from the images they conjured from the Scriptures. To the contrary, their King would be condemned, flogged, crowned with thorns, nailed to a Cross and hung in public view for having been found guilty of blasphemy by the Jewish religious authority, and as a threat to civil peace by the Romans. So much for the earthly kingship of Jesus Christ.