4th Sunday of Advent - A Homily from Fr. Dom

James Caldwell (00:00.262)
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Fr. Dom (00:22.09)
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Good morning. So I need you to pray for me. Coming off the heels of a nasty cough. Not a flu or anything, just.

Nasty cough. So if at some point I leave the altar and I go and disappear in the sacristy behind us and you hear someone coughing out a lung, it's me, I'm not dying, I will return. Just bear with me. I guarantee it's gonna happen during a consecration. I guarantee it. So just pray for me that it does not happen. Well, it is good that we are here as we celebrate the fourth Sunday of Advent. I'd like you to finish a statement for me.

They will know we are Christians by our love. How come it doesn't say power, control, money, or anything else? They will know we are Christians by our love. Who is they?

It's the world in which we find ourselves, everyone around us. Logically, if we love correctly, then they will know we are Christians. Well, what is a Christian? A Christian is a little Christos, a little Christ, a person of the way. If we go all the way back to the beginning, that's what we were called.

So if we love the way Christ loves, then the world will see that we are Christ, for Jesus is God and God is love. God is love. God's love is fully on display for us as we inch ever closer to the great celebration of the Nativity.

James Caldwell (02:25.59)
which for maybe some of us will celebrate here in the next six or seven hours. But there's still time to prepare. That love is on full display if we look at our first reading today. David has conquered all his enemies and he sits secure in his palace.

James Caldwell (02:51.266)
then he says, I dwell in a house of cedar, my cedar, gold, everything I need. And yet the Lord is in a tent. I shall build a house for the Lord. Well, God visits the great prophet, David's great prophet, and says, don't let David build a house for me.

For do you think I am part of this world, part of this earth, as if I, the one true God, the creator of time and space, eternity, everything, need to live in a house? No. Tell David that from his lineage, from his line, from his kingship and his priestship, for he is a priest as well as a king, I shall bring forth the true kingdom.

then I will build a house for you. And the enemies will have no power over it. And it will reign supreme, and it will reign secure, and it will reign forever. We all know, almost 3,000 years later, from when that was said, that's Jesus the Christ.

and the establishment of opening the doors of heaven, the true kingdom, which hopefully we are destined for one day. That is the house, that is the kingdom, that is what we're preparing for. That is God's love for us. And he's calling us to dwell in that love.

And in our Gospel today, we have the Annunciation, one of my most favorite and most powerful pieces of Scripture. I could talk for hours on the Annunciation. We could contemplate and meditate for years, forever, on the Annunciation. For the fulfillment of all prophecy is coming.

James Caldwell (04:55.134)
in a little baby in Mary's womb. God takes flesh definitively. The incarnation happens definitively when Mary says yes, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, she conceives in her womb. That's when God takes flesh. It's not his birth. We celebrate that, of course, with great joy.

but coupled with our first reading and our gospel today, we see God's great love on display for us, for you, for me.

James Caldwell (05:31.382)
They will know we are Christians by our love.

Throughout this season of Advent, we've celebrated in succession, according to the candles on the Advent wreath, hope, peace, joy, and today is love. They will know we are Christians by our love. Well, what is love?

1 Corinthians 13, four through eight, love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Someone who is in love seeks the truth.

For the type of love that Christ is calling us to be as Christians is one of not simple feeling or emotion or sentimentality, nor is the love that we're called to be as Christians one of being tolerant of everyone and being nice.

Though we're called to be kind. Just, we just gotta be careful with being nice and being kind. Usually when people say nice, they mean kind, or kind, they mean nice. I understand that. But the etymology of the words are very different. Nice comes from the same Latin root, were, which means to be ignorant or to not know, or in the French, to be stupid. But kindness is a virtue. We have to work at that. And we get that from the power of the Holy Spirit, most definitively in the graces of the sacraments.

James Caldwell (07:13.634)
Let's dive deeper into scripture again, John 15, nine through 14. As the Father loves me, so I also love you, remain in my love. How do we remain in his love? Ah, here it is. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments, and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

This is my commandment, love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this than to lay down one's life for one's friends. If you are my friends, if you do, you are my friends if you do what I command you to do. So we see that love is following the law of God.

James Caldwell (08:06.614)
John, 1 John chapter 2.

Jesus is the expiation of our sins, not for our sins only, but for those of the whole world. The way we may be sure that we know Him is to keep His commandments. Whoever says, I know Him, but does not keep His commandments is a liar.

And the truth is not in him. Remember, truth and love go hand in hand. But whoever keeps his word, whoever keeps his truth, the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him. Whoever claims to abide in him ought to live and love as he lived and loved. Well, as we travel.

through scripture, we can dive into the saints and see how they live their lives in love. Here are a few quotes. This one is from St. Teresa of Calcutta. She says, spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

James Caldwell (09:18.838)
St. Augustine says, God loves each of us as if they were only one of us. St. Thomas Aquinas says, to love God is something greater than to know Him.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, love is shown more in deeds than in words.

James Caldwell (09:48.922)
Returning to scripture, 1st John 4-8, whoever is without love does not know God. For God is love.

We hear love all over the place. And it's said many, many times in scripture.

And the word love that scripture uses from the Greek, as we've heard it before, agape. Agape is sacrificial love. How do we love? Selflessness. Always anticipating the move of the other, not ourselves. For it makes no sense to live life for ourself. You want a depressing, dark, lonely life.

Live life for yourself. You want a full, peaceful life, joyful life. Live your life for the other. Every day, focus on the other. And it's the person who's closest to you. Your spouse, your children, your friends, your teachers, people at work. Every single person you run into, a stranger, even in the supermarket, like make eye contact. It's okay to look at a stranger and it's okay to smile at a stranger.

It's okay to hold a door open for a stranger.

James Caldwell (11:13.846)
Be joyful, agape, love, sacrifice. How do we sacrifice? The church talks about the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. These are very, very important.

Know these works of charity and embrace them and try to use them every day. The corporal works of mercy are what? To feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to give shelter to travelers, to visit the sick, to visit the imprisoned, and to bury the dead or to pray for the dead. The spiritual works of mercy are these. To instruct the ignorant, to counsel the doubtful.

Here's a tough one, to admonish the sinner, to bear patiently those who wrong us, to forgive offenses, to comfort the afflicted, to pray for the living and the dead, most especially the holy souls of purgatory.

James Caldwell (12:17.11)
What does the catechism say about love? Well, it says much, and there's too much there to talk about here, but here's a short paragraph. The catechism of the Catholic Church states, God's very being is love. By sending his only Son and Spirit of love and fullness of time, God has revealed an innermost secret. God is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And here it is.

And God has destined us, you, me, every single human being, to share in that exchange of love. Yes, they will know we are Christians by our love, won't they? Give ourselves to the Lord every day completely.

This whole Advent, it's been about prayer. We've been talking about prayer. And I'd like to end the homily with a paragraph from the Catechism that you've heard me say before here throughout Advent, and it's in the bulletin as well for this Christmas. This is one of the most powerful pieces of instruction of prayer that I've come across in a long time. In order to know God, we have to pray.

If we don't pray, we'll never know God and we'll never know how to love and we'll never have peace and we'll never have joy. We have to pray. Oh, if you knew the gift of God, the wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water. There Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink.

Jesus thirsts. His asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for Him. They will know we are Christians by our love.

James Caldwell (14:30.766)
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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