News - December 2021 RSS Feed

On this last day of 2021, we reflect on the beginning of the Gospel of John, the Prologue which recounts that, before all creation, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Today we are celebrating the seventh day of the Octave of Christmas, in which we continue to contemplate the Incarnation, because to do so is to enter the very mystery of our salvation.

Dear Anna, You are an honored prophetess and holy model. Your lifestyle, so different from ours. It seems that your God journey turned quite radical after the death of your husband. With a heavy, grieving heart you entered the temple and found comfort there.

Sight. Our eyes can give us the gift of sight. Some of us have considerably better sight than others. Others have no sight at all. Glasses, contact lenses, or surgeries can help improve our vision, but it is ultimately out of our complete control. We cannot ask the impossible from our eyes. The eyes of our soul are different. We train them to notice God’s goodness in what surrounds us. Over time we develop a gift of sight that increasingly helps us to see God at work in our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters who surround us.

From the earliest moments of our life stretching to even when we were taking shape in our mother’s womb, we were already beginning to receive information through our senses, first through touch and then through the other senses as we begin to develop. The moment we are born into this world, most of us have access to our five senses and we come to know and understand this world that we live in. Our senses are such an integral part of who we are that without them, navigating the world around us becomes challenging. Hear these words from the letter of St. John:

With the song of the angels still echoing in our hearts, carols still being sung, and Christmas greetings still being exchanged, we’re brought up short with today’s gospel relaying the story of the massacre of the innocent children of Bethlehem, killed because a politician, King Herod, feared a young child would usurp his power. That young child survived because his parents paid attention to a dream and escaped to Egypt. Do you imagine that they heard “the sobbing and loud lamentation of Ramah, of Rachel weeping for her children” as they crossed the border into safety? As we listen to this story, we might shake our heads at the insanity of the massacre and wonder how could someone do such a thing as to kill young, innocent children?

Mary, Joseph and child Jesus had made the long journey with extended family and friends. On the first day heading back home to Nazareth the parents were suddenly aware that Jesus was not with them in the caravan. Imagine the terror that seized Mary and Joseph as they looked everywhere for their only child and at last the utter relief when they found him. Amid joyful embraces Jesus tells them, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Mary and Joseph may not have fully understood all that meant at the time, but they knew in their hearts that their child, Jesus, was more than special. He was to change the entire world for all time.

“The Word Become Flesh” Those who accept and believe in ‘the Word become flesh’ have the power to become children of God. Faith in this truth provides purity of lineage in Mary’s royal Son, born into the poverty of our humankind.

In today’s readings, the Lord is asking us “Should you build me a house to dwell in?” Often, when we are preparing something, whether it’s a dinner, a party, a family reunion, we worry about the smallest details and forget about the bigger picture. That is exactly what happened with King David.

I once heard the explanation of refining precious metal such as silver and gold. The refiner places the metal in the fire and watches it until he can see his own image in it, at this point the precious metal is purified.

In the first reading, Hannah--the mother of Samuel--through her prayers to God, offers, not only her service, praise, and reverence to the Lord but Samuel, her son, as well--which he is the manifestation of her due service to the Most High, her praise in praying for--and having--him, and her reverence toward the one who is the Lord of all. It’s important to recognize, however, that it all began with prayer. Thus, no prayer encapsulates the miracle of Being than today’s Gospel reading: the Magnificat. The Canticle of Mary. When the prayers we have been repeating for the past decade are finally answered, we can’t help ourselves--through the virtues and graces we hold dear--but exalt the Lord as Our Lady does and say in accompaniment: “Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.”

What are we to make of this mysterious message the Church opens for us in today’s readings, that the Lord longs for us? Centuries ago, St. Augustine wrote of the mystery of God’s coming to us in love:

Today we hear about a young teenage girl, betrothed to St. Joseph, who suddenly has her life turned upside down. Imagine being in her shoes! We read that at the greeting from the angel Gabriel, she was greatly “troubled by what was said.” What? I mean, there have been times when God was calling me to something higher and I was troubled by these callings, but that’s because I didn’t really want to go through the difficulty of developing some virtue or letting go of some attachment. How could Mary, conceived without Original Sin, respond like me, a sinner?

All Dominican friars before they are professed or ordained (in fact all men and women in religious orders and congregations) spend their first year in the Order as novices. This novitiate year is dedicated to living Dominican life in a focused way. The men learn our way of life through communal and personal prayer, time in study and contemplation, community life at meals and time together, ministry, and classes in Dominican history, spirituality, the vows, and other topics. Whatever the novice was doing before he entered, whether he was a college student or was working full time, he now follows a different schedule. He learns obedience and becomes obedient to God’s call in his life.

The angel of God came to Joseph in a dream, as he did with so many great figures in the Old Testament – Adam, Abraham, Israel. As with each of them, Joseph is given a task: he is to take Mary into his home. The rest of the command given to him seems far more mundane than bringing about the rise of a nation of Chosen People. The angel simply tells him that Mary will bear a son, and Joseph is to name him Jesus. How simple a command, but how enormous the significance! Joseph was charged in a special way was to proclaim the name of Jesus – in fact, this is the only thing Scriptures tell us Joseph spoke. In doing so, he announces the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah, who promised the coming of the savior.

Today’s readings can teach us many lessons. One is that Jesus was born of a human family and culture filled with saints and sinners and less than ideal relationships. These saints and sinners are not separate people. We are all a mixture of both. Yet it is in this human messiness and imperfection that God’s saving work is carried out. This is important to remember as our families and communities spend extra time together during the Christmas Season and we strive to love in a way that will allow justice and peace to flourish.

In January of 2020, we first read the news about a mysterious virus that had made its way to our shores, first in the northeast and then spreading quickly throughout the land. At this time COVID 19 has taken the lives of almost three quarters of a million people in this country alone. If the first wave was not bad enough, its variants Delta and Omicron have now made their appearance.

Are You the One? Here’s a trick question -- Did Jesus answer John’s question? The Answer - No and Yes. No, Jesus did not say He was “the One to come”. No, He did not tell them to “look for another”.

St. John of the Cross lived in sixteenth century Spain. Buoyed by New World gold, the nation reached its zenith in power and prestige. St. John questioned the affluence, at least as much as it meant a relaxation in religious life. Along with St. Teresa of Avila, John set about reforming the Carmelite Order. Poverty characterized the reform’s exterior discipline. More critically, the reformers concentrated on prayer and contemplation.

I witnessed two missionary sisters from New Orleans joyously serving in a Mexican American parish way across Phoenix from my primarily Anglo Catholic high school. I didn’t realize they were Dominicans. I simply knew I was enraptured. Thanks to my experience in their catechetical program every Sunday morning, I entered the novitiate of the Eucharistic Missionaries of St. Dominic. Sr. Fara Impastato, among the first women in the US to earn a doctorate in theology in the 1950s, blended Thomistic theology, Vatican II breakthroughs, and the arts, in our formation program. Though I was terribly homesick, I stayed because I wanted to know God, and not just about God, as Sr. Fara and the other sisters did. In 2009 my congregation joined with six others to form the Dominican Sisters of Peace. I now live and minister with an even greater frame of reference because our sisters were raised in many states, as well as in Nigeria, Mexico, Vietnam, Peru, China, Ireland, and Hungary.

Today is popularly known as “Gaudete Sunday,” or the “Sunday of Rejoicing.” Today the words of the Prophet Zephaniah - “Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!” - remind us that our Advent waiting, and expectation are almost at an end. Throughout Advent, the readings and the Church’s liturgy have been forming our hearts and minds to watch, wait, and cultivate inner alertness. Of course, experience tells us that waiting can be difficult, and the interior alertness to which the Gospel calls us often exceeds the limits of our wounded and unsteady hearts. Knowing this firsthand, the last thing we may want to do is to yell “Rejoice!”