From My Noggin'

Preaching - Sunday - Evening Prayer II - December 8^th

It takes a special kind of preacher to be able to say the kinds of things St. Paul says and get away with it.  Perhaps it was his fierce loyalty to Christ or his unwavering love of the Church, but he had a way of getting to the heart of the matter as he does in tonight’s two verses plucked from his letter to the Romans.  He says a lot in a little.  He says it clearly…even bluntly – yet without harshness.

“It is now the hour for you to wake from sleep, for our salvation is closer than when we first accepted the faith.”

He is not talking here about waking up from literal sleep, of course, but instead the spiritual sleep of malaise and discontent that can lull us into a sullenness that is unbecoming of the Christian – especially, he adds, when you consider the time for our salvation (ie. his return) is near at hand; certainly closer now than when we first believed.  Paul’s voice resounds like a clear bell “it is now the hour for you to wake from sleep”.  He is speaking to his audience, the Church of Rome nearly two thousand years ago, yet he is also speaking with us – here and now – challenging us to shake off the cobwebs of our indifference and yawning sobriety and to ‘come alive’ once again – opening ourselves to the fire that can come only from the hearth of Christ, drawing life from having set deep roots in the stream of the sacrament of salvation – His Church.  Let us not overlook how Paul links salvation with the acceptance of the faith “for our salvation is closer than when we first accepted the faith”…the Church is the one who holds the faith – not any one believer.  The Church, under the authority of Christ transmitted down throughout the lineage of the Church’s apostles and Popes, bishops and finally to the people of God down through the ages, aided as (she-the Church) is by the witness of the lives of the saints, men and women who allowed Christ’s glory to shine amidst the grime and darkness of this mortal life – a life fraught with difficulties and pain, shouldering burdens of disease, distrust and discontent…yet overcoming these trials through the precious gift of ‘the faith’, especially as witnessed to by the Church’s sacrament of love, the most holy sacrifice of the Mass where Body and Blood are given and received – to serve a greater end: new life!

Paul infers that he may have caught his audience napping – not only the Church of Rome but us too.  And we must admit to an unhealthy somnolence!  One wonders is it not through our own somnolence, our own silence that our society calls death a choice and unchaste love ‘fulfillment’ or an exercise in diversity.  Is it not our own family members who have been evangelized by worldly thought patterns  - and we who have been asleep in the light?  Yes, and more, we may be feeling unwilling to change – to awake from our slumber.  Yet salvation, and the truth, remain.  Perhaps we could allow our hearts to come alive through St. Paul’s associate, the Holy Spirit, this Advent.  Perhaps a modern translation Paul might arrest us by saying, stop it with the sleep apnea, wake up.  But in order to wake up we need rest?  Have you thought of this.  In order to wake from sleep it is first necessary to have gotten sufficient rest.  And this is what Advent affords us…rest.  A time of recollected listening so that we might ‘hear’ His voice anew.  His voice in our hearts.  His voice calling us to depart from the ways of darkness and self-gratification and turning around and heading into the light.  A turning from our old and stubborn ways that are life-sapping and turning our hand to a new way of being, not with pollyannish frivolity – nor beating ourselves over the head with our own foolish shortsightedness – but awaking to His word in our hearts.  A word that seeks to heal and purify the putrid, to cleanse the decay, to renew the shambles and to do so with the healing power of Christ. 

I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since “no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord”.  The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms. Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace”. How good it feels to come back to him whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. Christ, who told us to forgive one another “seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22) has given us his example: he has forgiven us seventy times seven. Time and time again he bears us on his shoulders. No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us by this boundless and unfailing love. With a tenderness which nev-er disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and to start anew. Let us not flee from the resurrection of Jesus, let us never give up, come what will. May nothing inspire more than his life, which impels us onwards!  (Pope Francis’ Apostolic Constitution Evangelii Gaudium, art. 3)

Indeed, onward Christian soldier, Christian brother, Christian sister, Mother, Father, child of God – let us remember (je me souvenir) “the day draws near.”  This is not bad news, or sad news, but the best news.  The difficulties of this day are drawing ever closer to their close, to their end, we shall not suffer interminably, if we hold on to our faith – the faith – the source of our hope and identity as believers.  Yet we should not underestimate the faith and strength needed to persevere…so let us not go back to the darkness “but put on the armor of light.”  To be fitted with armor one must go to the armory.  In our Catholic tradition we identify the armory as the Scriptures, prayer, adoration, emulation of the saints, conversion from sin, devotion to the Sacred Heart, to Mary and the saints, to the Eucharist, to family prayer, to prayer among married couples, to understanding the ways the devil and his minions use to get at us – and to get away from them!  And the bearing of our crosses, to lift high the cross in exultation, even as its weight threatens to break our spirit and suffocate our breath forever.  Yet this cannot occur, so long as we keep ourselves grounded in the truth, and arrayed in the armor of light.  Let us be truth-tellers and cross dwellers – willing to bear one another’s burdens, and placing all our broken pride at the foot of his cross and taking one halting step after another, to follow Him always and to all places.  Amen.