Second Sunday of Advent: A Homily with Fr. Dom

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. The Lord be with you and with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark Glory to the Lord. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you. He will prepare your way, a voice of one crying out in the desert Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him and the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. John was clothed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He fed on locusts a wild honey, and this is what he proclaimed One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit, the Gospel of the Lord. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as your Father and as your Shepherd, I am always praying for everyone here and as we enter into Advent, the Holy Spirit has placed on my heart a very specific prayer for all of you, and it's a prayer that you desire and hunger and thirst to enter into a deeper relationship with Jesus through prayer. And I've met with Deacon Jim and Father Danny before Advent began. We talked about the power of prayer and decided that throughout this Advent season, this journey, as we journey with you, to talk about the power of prayer, prayer is absolutely essential in our lives, not just as Christians, but every single human being is designed and hardwired for prayer. All of us, every human, is created in the image and likeness of God, and our communication, our communion with our Heavenly Father, who creates us, is prayer. That's the foundation. That's where we begin, for the Creator is always calling the creature and every single one of us here can feel that in some way, shape or form. Several masters have always called this throughout the ages the existential angst within our hearts, and some of us don't know that the power of prayer is what satisfies the existential angst Most powerfully the beatific vision with our heavenly Father, when we're in heaven, seeing God face to face for eternity. But here on earth, we have a deep desire within us and it's being called by God, drawn out by God to God, and some of us sometimes try to fill it with things that will never satisfy it. So prayer is essential, or without prayer we will never know God. As we journey through the advent season, the first candle that we lit was about hope. The second one, today, is about peace. Last weekend I talked about prayer and I pulled from the deep riches of the Catechism of the Catholic Church about prayer, and I'd like to end the homily again by doing that. But we can have so much hope and prayer, can't we? How are you praying this advent season? As I pray into this advent season and as I pray for you, I feel once again the Holy Spirit telling me something. Do you know what it is? Slow down, slow down. I know this time can be very busy. We have to understand that Saint Invaluizel is way into that busyness and pull us away from God. And I know there's things that have to get done. I understand that. But we have to carve out time for prayer and the church pushed before us during this advent season a time to do that my homily. Last weekend I talked about fasting and prayer. For a long time ago, advent used to be 40 days of prayer and fasting, just like Lent. But for some reason, a number of years ago, the church decided not to do that anymore because they thought it was too strict. Fast and pray there's all different kinds of ways of praying, isn't there? There's prayers of thanksgiving. There's prayers of joy. There's prayer, even through our suffering. There's prayer. There's binding prayers, deliverance prayers, minor exorcism prayers. There's prayers of pouring yourself all through the gospel by using lexiodivina and calling God into your heart as you go through that. There's mental prayer. Look to the saints to find out how to pray. Well, father, I don't know how to pray. Bring that to God. That's a prayer in itself. We're all hardwired to pray and when we allow God to enter into our hearts, our prayer will explode. And I pray in hope that through this advent season that you will begin to thirst for prayer. I think the most important time to pray is in the morning and in the evening, for the rest of the day is busy, especially in my life. Some of the kids in school think that a priest just sits in the rectory until Sunday and comes rolling down the hill to mass. Oh no, I bet you, I'm probably putting 80, 90, 100 hours a week of work in and I carve out time for prayer, and if I can, you can too. Morning and evening is the best time to pray. Use those as bookends to your day, especially with your spouse. You're in bed In the morning, pray. When you wake up, pray together and Father, as I always like, challenging you, you'll be there. And then the evening, pray. Children do the same thing. Evening pray. Morning pray. Parents, show your children how to pray, lead them in prayer, and then the next step would be to pray a family rosary. There's all different kinds of ways of praying and just remember, you are hardwired to pray. Speaking of prayer, we're confronted with a very powerful and a very old prayer from a very powerful prophet, isaiah, and in our first reading today, we find Isaiah praying a specific prayer at a specific time, for the Israelites truly are in darkness. They are in captivity. Our first reading puts us in the Babylonian captivity. Jerusalem has been destroyed, the temple has been destroyed. The Jews have seemed to lost all hope. They are slaves. They are brought into a foreign land. No longer do they have their temple, which is the center of their very existence, and some of them may think that God has been taken away from them. But our first reading from Isaiah reminds the people at that time, through a great prayer, that the Lord is with us, in fact in a very powerful way, for in their time they are enslaved, they are in darkness, they are in worry, maybe loss of hope. But Isaiah, in our first reading, assures them that a Savior will come, and I'd like to read that first reading again with you today, especially in our day and age when we have the fullness of the Holy Trinity disposed upon us, we have Christ's church, we are in the final age. Through the graces of the sacraments, we are waiting for the second coming. But back in Isaiah's time they didn't have any of that. So they're calling forth a Redeemer, a Liberator, a Messiah, a Savior, and when we read Old Testament, we have to look through it with the lens of Jesus Christ. So let's do that in our first reading today, for all of us are still waiting for redemption and salvation, aren't we? This is not our home, we're passing through, and as beautiful as this world is, with the many beautiful creation that God puts before us, we can see God and all those things, we still have to remind ourselves that we are the church militant and that heaven is our home. And we too are waiting. Isaiah says comfort. Give comfort to my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated. They've been in captivity for almost 50 years now, and they fell into captivity because they began to worship pagan gods and God allowed the Babylonian Empire to come in and take them captive. And they've been loyal to God to the best of their ability for 50 years. And Isaiah is proclaiming to the people we have done our time, we have repented. Indeed, she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins. A voice cries out in the desert prepare the way of the Lord. The Jews truly are in a desert, in Babylon, captivity. They are waiting for the Lord. In the midst of all this, isaiah says to his people make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low, the rugged land shall be made plain, the rough country a broad valley. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. Yes, the glory of the Lord will be revealed. We're celebrating that, aren't we? The incarnation and the birth of Jesus and all the people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. When Jesus comes, he will speak the truth. They're waiting to be delivered from Babylon, captivity. But as we read this today, we know that we can fill in all these empty blanks in this first reading. With Jesus, go up to a high mountain. What is the high mountain? Go to Zion, the herald of glad tidings. The mountain is this. In every church, the sanctuary is elevated. It is the high mountain and from here we get to receive the Eucharist the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ. We truly celebrate at the high mountain that Isaiah is talking about. Cry out at the top of your voice Jerusalem, herald of good news. As we enter into a liturgy today and many ways throughout this next hour, we are together. We get to raise our voices to God, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ and his salvation from the cross. Fear not, and cry out and say to the cities of Judah here is your God. He is here with us today, right here, right now, and he wants to be Lord of your hearts to deliver you from captivity. Here comes, with power, the Lord, god who rules by a strong arm. What is his strong arm? It is Jesus Christ, who ascends and sits at the right hand of the Father. Here is his reward, with him, his recompense. Before him, like a shepherd, he feeds his flock. Jesus truly feeds us in the graces of the sacraments. In his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom and leading the ewes with care. As we enter into our second reading from our first Pope, pope Saint Peter, he says this. He says to us be patient. We are wishing that none of us should perish, but that all of us should come to repentance. When we bring God into our hearts, sometimes he reveals to us those places of sin, doesn't he so? Our first Pope Peter, he is talking about that beautiful sacrament of reconciliation, and churches all over the world have opened up their confessionals. Even more so here at OLC, we have tacked on an extra half hour to our confession times. Our Advent is a great time to go to confession. Jesus in our Gospel today even begins to quote Isaiah, our first reading. We heard Prepare the way. The Lord makes straight his paths. He says John the Baptist appeared in the desert, just like the Babylonian captivity, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of our sins. Jesus is reminding us of the beautiful gift that he gives us through the power of our baptism, for in baptism we receive the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. In prayer, we unleash the power of these virtues in us, in our soul and in our hearts. Let us give thanks for the beautiful gift of baptism, for Jesus truly baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and, as I said, as we enter deeply into prayer this Advent season, there's much power and beauty that we can gain from this, deepening our relationship with Jesus. And so I would just like to touch on the Catechism and what it brings forth for us today about prayer. Prayer in the Christian life is the great mystery, the mystery of the faith. The Church professes the mystery in the Apostles Creed and celebrates it in the sacramental liturgy so that the life, the faithful, may be conformed to Christ and the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God, the Father. This mystery then requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it and they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer. What is prayer? St Trezzel of Lusiu says this quite powerfully and simply. She says for me, prayer is a surge of the heart. It is a simple look turned toward heaven. It is a cry of recognition and a love embracing both trial and joy. St John Damascene says this prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God. But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will or out of the depths of a humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself will be exalted. Humility is the foundation of prayer. Only when we humbly acknowledge that quote we do not know how to pray as we ought, says Saint Augustine Are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer? Saint Augustine says this quite simply a prayer. In prayer, man is a beggar before God. 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. You would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Paradoxically, our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God. They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that cannot hold any water. He's talking about those who do not pray. Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God. Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often the heart. More than a thousand times, according to scripture, it is the heart that prays. For our heart is far from God the words of prayer. If our hearts are far from God, the words of prayer are in vain. The heart is the dwelling place where the great I am is where the great I am lives. According to the Semitic or biblical expression, the heart is the place to which I withdraw. The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of a reason and of others. Only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is a place of decision deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is a place of encounter because as image of God, we live in relation. It is the place of covenant. Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man. In Jesus Christ, it is the action of God and of man springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, holy, directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man. And finally, in the new covenant, prayer is a living relationship of the children of God with their Father, who is good beyond all measure, with his Son Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Spirit. The grace of the kingdom is the union of the entire Holy and Royal Trinity with the whole human spirit. Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice holy God and in communion with him. This communion of life is always possible because through baptism we have already been united with Christ. Prayer is Christian insofar as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the whole church, which is his body. Its dimensions are those of Christ's love, and may God continue to bless us through this Advent season and create in us a thirst for prayer In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.