31 December 2020 - preferring light to darkness

Today's Readings

(Audio)

He was in the world,

and the world came to be through him,

but the world did not know him.

He came to what was his own,

but his own people did not accept him.

The light of the world came into the world. The Word through whom all things were made became flesh and spoke to us. How could a light so bright be missed? How could words so beautiful and true be ignored?

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil (See John 3:19).

Light and words are things which reveal and make known by their very nature. It takes a certain intention on the part of those to whom they come to ignore or reject them. But perhaps we can understand this a bit. It could be as though we recently woke up, eyes still tired, and saw a family member about to flip the switch of some particularly bright lights, and we quickly closed our eyes before they could. It could be loud words about complicated subjects spoken too soon after we woke up. Perhaps we covered our head with a pillow to mute them for the time being. For the best of us, there is always a transition whereby we grow accustomed to the light. 

We do want to turn on the lights eventually, and to listen to whatever important things our family members have to say. Yet some resist the light and the Word in an ongoing and obstinate fashion. Perhaps their house is so dirty that they prefer to keep the lights dim. Perhaps their problems are so dire that they prefer to ignore them rather than to hear words about them. This is a hard position to leave, because it feels a little bit like peace, though it is faux peace. Leaving a house dirty until it results in sickness isn't true peace. Refusing to address important words until financiers come to foreclose on a house isn't freedom.

While light may seem first to be something very alien to us, when we grow used to it we discover that we were in fact always meant to live in the light, that it is only in the light that we can thrive.

What came to be through him was life,

and this life was the light of the human race;

The Word who is the light of the world came to us as a gift. This means that we no longer need to try to keep the lights on ourselves. We no longer need feel at a loss for the right words that will finally make sense of our lives and give us direction. Our own attempts at light are overcome by darkness. Our own attempts at lofty words quickly come to silence. But not so for him who is the light, him who is the Word of God.

the light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness has not overcome it.

In the light of him who is that light we do encounter the ugliness of what was hidden before. But this is encountered only so that we can move beyond it to new life. Welcoming the light allows the light to come in and change that on which it shines. Welcoming the Word allows the power of the Word to make us new creations. We become lights ourselves by virtue of his light. We ourselves are reordered by the Word to speak his words to others.

But to those who did accept him

he gave power to become children of God

The light may be difficult for unaccustomed eyes to behold. But God went to great lengths to make it as appealing as possible. Think of the star, the angels, the shepherds, the mother and father surrounding the infant in a manger. This is the light. Even though our own shortcomings are exposed around this manger we are still transfixed, enchanted, romanced, and cannot look away from the radiant beams from his holy face.

And the Word became flesh

and made his dwelling among us,

and we saw his glory

We need more conversion to the light, more fidelity to the Word. The grace of this season can be found in the beauty of that which we celebrate. In prayer let us join the Holy Family gathered around their son in Bethlehem. At this moment he has made himself evident as the desire of our hearts in a way that is hard to explain but impossible to deny. Come, let us adore!

If the babe in the manger seems too simplistic for a complicated world, that is an illusion. The world is complicated. The antichrists that oppose the truth are complicated. The reality is simple. The truth is that God's love for us is real and we are invited to share it. This is a truth we know, but of which we need to be reminded. It is a truth which can make us powerful if we remember to walk in it.

But you have the anointing that comes from the Holy One,

and you all have knowledge. 

It is the Word speaking and the light shining that makes us sons and daughters in the Son. Just as the Father anointed Jesus so too does he anoint us to go and proclaim what we have seen and heard.

Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;

let the sea and what fills it resound;

let the plains be joyful and all that is in them!

Passion - O Come All Ye Faithful

Michael Bublé - Silent Night

30 December 2020 - the power of truth

Today's Readings

(Audio)

I am writing to you, children,

because your sins have been forgiven for his name’s sake.

John wanted to remind his readers of what was true of them in Christ. He knew that the enemy would try to make them doubt what Christ had done for them. The seed of the truth of what Christ has done for us must be planted deeply or it will be stolen or choked off by weeds (see Matthew 13). We must not only receive his word but keep it if it is to be efficacious in our lives.

In John's letter we discover both a blueprint of the enemies attack strategy and rehearse our protection against that strategy. 

The enemy will try to convince us that we are not forgiven. It will not be some concrete grave matter consciously chosen about which he assaults us. It will rather be a vague sense of guilt, that there was something, we're not sure what, that we ought to have done. He'll want us to feel that for some reason, we're not sure why, we aren't right. 

The enemy will try to make us doubt that our relationship with God is real. He will try to convince us of this by any means he can. He will try to convince us by making us feel inferior to those atheists that seem to be pinnacles of worldly knowledge and success. He will try to make us doubt our own ability to know and hear from God. He will say of times when God was speaking to us that they were merely the naive results of overactive imaginations. 

When these strategies fail the Evil One will at least try to convince us that there is no hope for us. He will allow that perhaps we were forgiven, that we did meet God, as long as we don't come to believe that we can share God's victory over the evil one.

The main defense we have against the lies of the Evil One is the truth. This is why John wrote to remind his audience of things that they knew, to help them better understand the truth of things which were in fact the case for them, even if they only dimly understood it. These same things are true of us. We need to believe them and repeat them when the devil tries to make us doubt.

1: your sins have been forgiven for his name’s sake.

2: you know him who is from the beginning.

3: you have conquered the Evil One.

4: you know the Father.

5: you are strong and the word of God remains in you,

We can rephrase these into affirmations that we can keep at hand as weapons against the enemy.

1: I am forgiven and I am right with God.

2. I do know and hear from God.

3. I have victory in my life. The devil can't stop me from enjoying all that God has for me.

4. I have an intimate and personal relationship with God. 

5. I can do whatever God calls me to do. I love and keep his word.

The devil is nervous for us to even read those words. His only power over us comes when we choose to believe lies instead of revelation. It doesn't seem like it would be very easy to tempt us to believe his lies, lies which make us feel so much worse than God's truth. But if we love the world and the things of the world more than God we will not love these truths enough for them to be transformative in us. If they get lost in a sea of worldly words they can be drown out entirely.

Do not love the world or the things of the world. 

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

Our lives must not be at odds with the truth of God's word. Everything we do does not need to be explicitly religious. But nothing we do should be at odds with God's word. At no point should it feel awkward for us to pause and affirm who God is and who we are in him. This is how we can be in the world but not of it.

Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. 

But whoever does the will of God remains forever.

The prophets are good examples for us of how to bring the words of revelation into the circumstances of life. Anna had not only understood and appreciated Jesus when he came to her, she used her words to give thanks and to speak the truth about him to anyone who would listen.

And coming forward at that very time,

she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child

to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.

In some ways we Christians still act as though we're awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem. We imagine that we are waiting on some future victory, forgetting that we are already more than conquerors in Christ (see Romans 8:37). We forget that our faith itself is already "the victory that has overcome the world" (see First John 5:4). So let us remind ourselves and each other: we are more than conquerors! We can do all things in Christ! (see Philippians 4:13)

Say among the nations: The LORD is king.

He has made the world firm, not to be moved;

he governs the peoples with equity. 

Rend Collective - More Than Conquerors

29 December 2020 - the way we may be sure

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The way we may be sure that we know Jesus 

is to keep his commandments. 

John was not saying that everything was ultimately reducible to moral compliance. He was not suggesting that what mattered was to work at at following the rules, and that we could count this, somehow, as a relationship. Instead, he meant that our ability to keep the commandments is a function of how close we are to Jesus. We can be sure that, if we are keeping his commandments, it is only by his grace at work in us.

Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments

is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

There is no real faith which does not work in love. Faith always brings obedience with it. How could we claim to believe Jesus and ignore the things he tells us? Faith without works is not only dead but hypocritical.

Beloved, I am writing no new commandment to you

but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. 

The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 

What of us when we fail to live up to the high standards of the Gospel? What of us when the truth we know and claim to believe makes us hypocrites? When this happens, because it will most certainly happen, let us return to what we had from the beginning, the word that we heard.

What we need is for our relationship with Jesus to be so real that it transforms us. We need the content of our faith to be more than mere data, more than mere abstraction, so that by it our minds can truly be renewed and we can be transformed (see Romans 12:2).

But whoever keeps his word,

the love of God is truly perfected in him. 

We are called to hear his word and to keep it. We are called to be doers of the word and not hearers only (see James 1:22). But Jesus himself is the Word, and our response is never anything other than a response to him. The words telling us to love of brothers and sisters are old in one sense. But when Jesus speaks them they are new, because in response to him we can actually keep them.

And yet I do write a new commandment to you,

which holds true in him and among you,

for the darkness is passing away,

and the true light is already shining. 

Moral and ethical data cannot renew our minds no matter how much we rehearse them. If we go that route we will find ourselves only increasing frustrated. Only Jesus is able to give the grace to live out what he commands. And so we keep his word. It never becomes just a generic word that we keep. It is always his word. And we do not just receive it once. But we keep it. We bring it before our minds again and again, speak it when we are tempted to doubt or despair.

It looks like this:

Lord, in you we are not in darkness. Lord, in you we can and do love our brothers and sisters.

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit

that he should not see death

before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. 

When we keep the word we can have a faith like that of Simeon, who was able to remain righteous and devout even while he waited, even before he could see the results, before the fruit of his desire could be realized. He was in the right place at the right time because it was not merely law that he followed but the Holy Spirit.

We find ourselves at a place much like Simeon while he was waiting. We have the words of Jesus given to us by the Spirit pointing toward fulfillment, toward salvation prepared in the sight of every people, toward the light which while finally and completely reveal Jesus to the nations. John wants us to ask ourselves and be sure, 'Do we know him?' Even now, while we wait, even before we see the fulfillment, 'Do we know him?' We do if we keep and cling to his word. If we allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit into the temple, as Simeon did, we too will not merely claim to know him but will actually recognize him when he comes to us.

“Lord, now let your servant go in peace;

your word has been fulfilled:

my own eyes have seen the salvation

which you prepared in the sight of every people,

a light to reveal you to the nations

and the glory of your people Israel.”

Simeon's piety may have looked like mere legalism to an outsider who didn't see his heart. He may have seemed aloof or distracted from things that others considered more real or pressin to so-called realists. Legalists probably wouldn't have been satisfied either, thinking of all of the better possible uses of his time. But Simeon's was a faith that kept the word, that clung to it so much that he recognized that word when it became flesh and was brought to him by Mary and Joseph. It was no new commandment, but in the flesh of that babe it was very new indeed. This newness is our hope as well.

Sing to the LORD a new song;

sing to the LORD, all you lands.

Sing to the LORD; bless his name. 

Saint Meinrad Schola - Lauds Hymn: Antiphon 1 & Psalm 93

Dan Schutte - Sing a New Song

28 December 2020 - to such as these

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.

The world still searches for Christ to destroy him. Though of course no one believes himself to be hunting for an individual or threatening anyone with death, nevertheless, the world feels threatened by Jesus just as did Herod. Herod was greatly troubled when the magi told him that they had come to do homage to the newborn king of the Jews. He was insecure because he felt that his own authority was threatened. This isn't surprising from a king who killed who own sons on the suspicion of treason. The world is comfortable with Christianity and with Christians only insofar as it can control them. When they become a threat to its agenda they too become targets of persecution and martyrdom. But since the world's perspective is one that countenances sin and flees from self-sacrifice, the way of the cross is always provocative when it is genuine. Even we Christians are tempted to silence the voices in and around us that call us to a deeper surrender to Jesus. We say are tempted to believe that Jesus would never call us to vacate the throne at the center of our lives. How, we ask, could he know better than ourselves what is for our greatest good?

Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night

and departed for Egypt.

If Jesus seems distant from us, perhaps it is actually because we have not welcomed him, meeting him instead with demands of silence, with veiled threats if he makes demands that would constrain our autonomy. Yet Jesus does not go to Egypt in order to abandon his people. He goes because he is a new Moses who will survive attempts to kill him, to persecute him, who will execute judgment on the idolatry of Egypt, and who will lead us through the desert, teaching us the new law of grace, to the definitive promised land.

Who is actually qualified to accept and follow Jesus? Who can surrender completely their freedom, without complaint, knowing that in doing so the hope of something so much greater than this life can be found?

He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity

two years old and under,

in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi.

Before the children murdered by Herod could do anything to earn God's favor they were already given the grace and glory of being his first martyrs, of being witnesses, not defeated, but victorious by the power of the King for whom they died.

In this death of the children the precious death of all Christ’s martyrs is figured; that they were infants signifies, that by the merit of humility alone can we come to the glory of martyrdom

- St. Bede.

On the one extreme we have Herod. On the other, the Holy Innocents. These, finally, are the two archetypal options from which we may choose. Will we attempt to preserve our earthly kingdom at all costs? Or will we entrust ourselves, completely and entirely, by heart, mind, and strength, to the Lord, trusting in him for the victory?

It was night when Jesus departed from Egypt. But in him the day would return, because he was the eternal day, and the true light of the world. He was the one who would shine on the people who lived in darkness and the shadow of death. He was the dawn from on high that would break once more on Israel. The Holy Innocents celebrated his return from the vantage of their home in heavenly glory. They did not begrudge or second guess their own role as witnesses. They did not entertain wistful what-ifs about how their lives might have turned out. Even today they pray for us that, as Christ comes to bring us light, we will welcome him.

God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” 

while we continue to walk in darkness,

we lie and do not act in truth.

But if we walk in the light as he is in the light,

then we have fellowship with one another,

and the Blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin.

dc Talk - In The Light

TobyMac ft. Hollyn - Light Shine Bright

27 December 2020 - holy families

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord, 

What made the Holy Family holy? Or put another way, how did they live and express the gift of God's grace that enabled them to be holy? They responded to God with the obedience of faith. It was a faith which did not allow them to be content to simply try to live their own plans in a way that conformed to God's standards. Instead, they put God's plans first. They strove always to do what God desired in the way he desired.

I want what you want,

I want it because you want it,

I want it as you want it,

I want it when you want it.

- from a prayer of  St. Josemaría Escrivá

Joseph and Mary and Jesus lived together in such a way that they never put that which seemed easier before that which God desired. Whether this was Joseph following the promptings of the angel in his dreams, or Mary asking her son for a favor before his hour had come, or Jesus leaving his parents to be in his Father's house, they always put the will of God first. They seemed to have an understanding about this. When something was done which might make one of them feel slighted, as though another was not being considerate of them, as long as the reason for this was a God reason they were able to not only accept it but embrace it. They were a family where mission was first, and the plan for the mission was revealed by faith. We can get another picture of this sort of family by looking at that of Abraham, which was already a prophetic sign of the Holy Family who would be the true heirs of the promise made to him.

By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac, 

and he who had received the promises was ready to offer

his only son,

of whom it was said,

“Through Isaac descendants shall bear your name.”

He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead,

and he received Isaac back as a symbol.

It is with faith as a basis that a family can truly be all that God intends it to be. Authority of parents, reverence of children, and mutual forgiveness and understanding, can only be worked out harmoniously, when we "put on love, that is the bond of perfection." But it is not love in the generic sense, it is the love of God revealed in Christ and expressed by our loving response to him. When we have this love as our music we are able to dance with one another. Authority does not become oppressive. Reverence does not become burdensome. When we step away from the mission into self-will we quickly find ourselves stepping on one another's toes.

There is no holy family which does not have Christ at it's center. But far from meaning that only Joseph and Mary are qualified to have such a family, all are invited to welcome Christ into the very center of their family lives. We do this when we let "the word of Christ dwell" in us.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, 

as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, 

singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs 

with gratitude in your hearts to God.

Zechariah demonstrates how receiving Christ is meant to be the fulfillment of every human life, or how, as Saint John Paul the Great said, "Jesus Christ is the answer to the question posed by every human life" (from a homily). 

“Now, Master, you may let your servant go

in peace, according to your word,

This privilege was not unique to Zechariah. Jesus is the answer we all seek, the one in whom alone we can go in peace.

But who departs from this world in peace, but he who is persuaded that God was Christ reconciling the world to Himself, (2 Cor. 5.) who has nothing hostile to God, having derived to himself all peace by good works in himself?

- Origen

Let us welcome Jesus into our families today. We will not find doing so to be a burden, as though we would be weighed down by new if perhaps better rules. Rather when he is at the center of our families we will discover that he who makes all things new will make our families new as well.

The old man received the infant Christ, to convey thereby that this world, now worn out as it were with old age, should return to the childlike innocence of the Christian life.

- Saint Bede

Third Day - Jesus Light of the World

Sarah McLachlan - Silent Night

 

26 December 2020 - it will not be you who speaks

Today's Readings

(Audio)

they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he spoke.

Stephen was given at that moment what he was to say. It was not him speaking, but the Spirit of his Father speaking through him. The actual content of Stephen's discourse, which was omitted from today's reading from Acts, was long and dense, and doubtlessly drew upon his own knowledge and understanding. Yet we should still understand this discourse to have been guided by the Spirit.

When they hand you over,

do not worry about how you are to speak

or what you are to say.

You will be given at that moment what you are to say.

The Spirit guided Stephen to speak of the common ground he had with his persecutors. He tried to show that God had always desired to reveal himself and be present to his people, with the implication that Jesus himself was in fact the fullness of this revelation and presence. 

So far so good. It makes sense to us that the Spirit would speak gently about common ground and build from there. But the Spirit also guided Stephen to call his accusers a stiff-necked people whose fathers persecuted the prophets and who themselves betrayed and murdered the Righteous One. 

Wait. Is this aggressive shift in tone and message really what the Spirit would really call Stephen to speak? To add more fuel to our doubt, it didn't seem to work. Their hearts only seemed more hardened by it, and in response they doubled down on their attack on Stephen.

When they heard this, they were infuriated,

and they ground their teeth at him.

Stephen was not beginning in the Spirit and ending in the flesh as we might be tempted to think. The Spirit called him to speak not only the easy words that would result in agreement by all who heard, but also the difficult words, words which could only be accepted if his hearers would open their hearts to the voice speaking, not harden them, and repent. But without those hard words they would not have had the option to repent. They would have still been trapped in their sins. 

Should it matter to our interpretation that Stephen's discourse didn't seem to have any effect on those who heard them, that it in fact seemed to further harden their hearts? We should realize that all we know for sure is that it didn't have the effect of conversion immediately. We don't know how it impacted his accusers from there. God does sometimes harden hearts (or allow them to become hardened) precisely so they can more completely experience their depravity without him, the utter need we all have for him, which nothing else can fill. 

For a case in point, let us look at Saul who was a witness of this stoning. How directly did this experience allow him to understand later when Jesus explained, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (see Acts 9:5). Was Saul's heart hardened for a moment by the hearing of difficult words? Probably. But could God have still used that hardening for the greater good of making him his chosen instrument to bear witness to all nations, and to prepare him to suffer much for God (see Acts 9:15-9:16)? Of course.

There are several takeaways for us from the martyrdom of Stephen. One is seeing how the guidance of the Holy Spirit can work with what we know, with the study we've done, but often calls us to use it in ways that we would not expect. We see that we might be called to speak hard words that do not seem to produce good results immediately, and may in fact do the opposite. But we also see that God can work all of this for the good of those who love him (see Romans 8:28).

We see in Stephen that even speaking hard words doesn't need to make us bitter or cynical people. When we are guided by the Holy Spirit we remain kind and Christlike. Stephen prayed for the forgiveness for his killers and handed his spirit over to Jesus, just as Jesus forgave us and handed his Spirit over to the Father.

As they were stoning Stephen, he called out

“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

If we will let ourselves be guided by the Spirit our faces, like Stephen's will be like those of angels, even when the things we say our difficult. Our whole lives will give proof to the sincerity and even the supernatural origin of the words we speak.

Let your face shine upon your servant;

save me in your kindness.

Audrey Assad - Even Unto Death

25 December 2020 - the Word became flesh

Today's Readings (Mass During the Day)

(Audio)

And the Word became flesh

and made his dwelling among us,

and we saw his glory,

the glory as of the Father’s only Son,

full of grace and truth.

What does it mean that the Word became flesh? What is the truth that underlies this great feast of Christmas that we celebrate today? 

In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

The Word existed before all things. He was uncreated. He was truly God, and yet somehow also with God as part of the Trinity. Only through him was the all that we now experience, the entire universe, including ourselves, created. Though he was utterly transcendent of creation he took on flesh and made his dwelling among us. His heavenly origins proved that Jesus was not merely a good teacher among good teachers. He was not simply a creature like us but more elevated or powerful as Arius once tried to insist. He was true God. 

John testified to him and cried out, saying,

“This was he of whom I said,

‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me

because he existed before me.’”

Though the Word was true God from before all creation he become true man in the fullness of time. He was not like pagan Gods who were said to sometimes visit humans disguised as humans themselves. This, in any case, was less of a stretch for them, who were not particularly transcendent of the created world. They were more like greater creations than God in the sense that Israel understood. The Word was beyond time, beyond images, beyond imagining. Yet the way he took humanity to himself was greater and more real than a simple disguise or appearance, as the Docetists argued. After all, he did not simply appear on earth with a puff of smoke as a fully grown adult. Rather, he was born of a virgin. He did this because he wanted to be Emmanuel, God with us.

“What He was, He remained, and what He was not, He assumed.”

- Leo the Great

The Word became flesh because he was the true light, and desired that his light would enlighten us all. He came so that, by this light, we could choose to accept him or to reject him. By accepting him we could enter into his own relationship with the Father. It was by the incarnation that human nature was given the capacity to share in this relationship.

But to those who did accept him

he gave power to become children of God

The Word became flesh to show forth the glory of the Father, and to make him known. A profound hint was found in the fact that he was called the Word. He was the Word from all eternity. But in the incarnation he addressed himself specifically to us, as one of our own, to speak to us, and to reveal the Father's heart to us. He stooped down to speak our language, to make himself understandable, and thereby reveal himself, his Father, and his Spirit, to us.

In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways

to our ancestors through the prophets;

in these last days, he has spoken to us through the Son

Because the Son was the Word he was the culmination and climax of revelation. Having finally spoken his Word, God left nothing unsaid, and so we await no further revelation. 

"Therefore if someone were now to ask questions of God or seek any vision or revelation, he would not only be acting foolishly but would be committing an offense against God – for he should set his eyes altogether upon Christ and seek nothing beyond Christ."

- Saint John of the Cross

This doesn't mean that there aren't private revelations such as Marian apparitions. But such revelations only point back to and help us to understand the one Word spoken in Christ. They do not bring us any new theological content. Even those approved apparitions such as Fatima and Lourdes could nevertheless not be binding on the conscience of believers because the Word was already fully spoken.

who is the refulgence of his glory,

the very imprint of his being,

and who sustains all things by his mighty word.

The Word that sustains all things desires to make himself known to us. And who are we that this should be so? How marvelous! How fearful! On this Christmas day let us strive to give him attention that is undivided, even if we can only do so briefly.

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven (see Hebrews 12:25).

Hopefully as we come to a greater understand of who the Word is and what was his purpose in coming to us we are moved to wonder that we ourselves are called to share him with others. May we ourselves be moved to speak of "the saving power of God" (as the psalmist wrote prophetically, since the name Jesus means "God saves") whom we ourselves have come to know.

How beautiful upon the mountains

are the feet of him who brings glad tidings,

announcing peace, bearing good news,

announcing salvation, and saying to Zion,

“Your God is King!”

Third Day - O Come All Ye Faithful

For King & Country - Angels We Have Heard on High

Songs In His Presence - Glory Cry the Angel Choirs

24 December 2020 - the dawn from on high

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Zechariah's tongue had been set loose by his word of faith, agreeing with the angel, giving his son the name John. After this he did not simply go back to normal. His silence silenced his doubts and taught him the importance of speaking words of faith. His words would no longer be filled with himself, but would instead be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Zechariah his father, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied

From one trapped in the mindset of the flesh who could not see how a child could be born to those who are old, Zechariah was transformed by faith into one who would let the Holy Spirit show great things beyond even that miraculous birth.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;

for he has come to his people and set them free.

He has raised up for us a mighty Savior,

born of the house of his servant David.

Zechariah had spent a life of fidelity serving the Lord. But that life did not give him the resources to reason out the Lord's plan for him or for the world. It was not on that basis that he could welcome the gift of a son or the gift of a savior whom that son would make known. Those things went beyond what he understood or could understand, which was why he doubted, why he was silenced, so that his doubts could give way to faith.

When King David was settled in his palace,

and the LORD had given him rest from his enemies on every side,

he said to Nathan the prophet,

“Here I am living in a house of cedar,

while the ark of God dwells in a tent!” 

David too lived a life that was marked almost entirely by fidelity to the Lord. He was a man after the Lord's own heart (see First Samuel 13:14 and Acts 13:22). David had the impulse that the Lord's dwelling among his people should be glorious, not a mere tent. Yet his desire to make this happen, while not entirely wrong, was still too limited for what the Lord planned. Even David's mind, certainly not without faith, could not imagine what the Lord had prepared for those who love him (see First Corinthians 2:9).

What can we learn from Zechariah and from David? We can realize that the Lord's plan is not finally something we can figure out. It doesn't come down to something we can build. Even his past victories in history and in our lives are too limited of a paradigm for us to predict what he might choose to do next. Far from making us afraid, this should excite us. We should be like children waiting to see what unknown delights await us under the Christmas tree. We should look back at how God always exceeds the expectations of those who love him and realize that nothing will be impossible for him (see Luke 1:37).

Even the victories of the Lord in our lives are only shadows of the glory he wants to reveal. It is not a son we can bring to birth, nor a temple we can build. But he himself can build it and we are the living stones he uses (See First Peter 2:5). That he will do so is his promise.

The LORD also reveals to you

that he will establish a house for you. 

And when your time comes and you rest with your ancestors,

I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins,

and I will make his Kingdom firm.

What might the Lord want to bring to birth through us? How does he desire to build us into temples of his praise?

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? (see First Corinthians 3:16).

This temple, where the Lord is worshipped in Spirit and truth, was not something that David could build or even imagine. But it was built by the Lord at the incarnation of Jesus. As we welcome the birth of Jesus we are called to see how that birth not only changed everything but continues to change it. The birth of Jesus is not merely a past reality that made all things new for a moment, after which they again quickly aged, and are now nearly dead. The birth of Jesus is still the way in which God gives us those gifts which are too amazing to ask or even imagine (see Ephesians 3:20), by which he continues to make all things new (see Revelation 21:5).

Your house and your Kingdom shall endure forever before me;

your throne shall stand firm forever.

The Holy Spirit wants to fill us and make us sing, as surely as he did for Zechariah. Let us sing of his goodness forever. 

Matt Maher - Canticle of Zechariah

23 December 2020 - o emmanuel

Today's Readings

(Audio)

When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child,

they were going to call him Zechariah after his father

The name Zechariah means "God remembers", and indeed in the canticle he would soon sing Zechariah thanked God for remembering his holy covenant. The child to be born was very much born because God did in fact remember his promise to Zechariah, and was truly mindful of all the promises of his covenant. In that sense Zechariah might have seemed like a good name to use again. 

but his mother said in reply,

“No. He will be called John.”

The people preferred a name with which they were familiar, the meaning of which they understood. Perhaps they by it they intended to honor the fact that God would continue to be faithful before as he had been in the past. He would continue to remember. But the name conveyed by the angel Gabriel indicated that God was going to be limited by anything he had previously done. He was doing something new and wonderful, indicated by the name John, which means "the grace of God".

Zechariah was able to believe the message of the angel instead of simply acting based on habit, tradition, or precedent. He was able to speak his agreement with the new thing God was doing, and in so doing his own voice was freed.

Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,

and he spoke blessing God.

The message of Zechariah's faith is a message for all of us. We believe that God remembers, and that he continues to be faithful to his promises. But we have a more difficult time when what he wants to bring to birth is a new grace for which we have no precedent, for which no past experience has prepared us. We need to learn to agree with God when he desires to bring new graces into the world because this is meant to be a normal part of our walk of faith. Walking in faith means being ready to trust God for the new and, to us, yet unknown things he is doing in the world. God is not limited by what he remembers doing so far in our lives. We should not let ourselves be limited by those memories either.

When we do agree with God, when we speak words of faith, we do not lose ourselves in the unknown. Paradoxically, we become more fully ourselves the more we walk in faith, because when we do we are becoming more fully what God desires us to be.

Lo, I am sending my messenger

to prepare the way before me;

And suddenly there will come to the temple

the LORD whom you seek,

And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (see John 1:17). This is the grace to which John's entire life was a pointer. It was grace for which the world hungered, for which it in fact still hungers. We ourselves have not yet had our fill of the desire that is within all of us for that grace. But by faith we can help one another to see it. We can help one another to prepare for it. We can in fact have our hearts made ready to welcome our King this Christmas.

Lo, I will send you

Elijah, the prophet,

Before the day of the LORD comes,

the great and terrible day,

To turn the hearts of the fathers to their children,

and the hearts of the children to their fathers

John's very name was already accomplishing this turning of hearts to one another before he was even born. Speaking the word of God's grace can accomplish it for us and in our own time as well.

Lift up your heads and see; your redemption is near at hand.

Matt Maher - O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Saint Meinrad Schola - O Emmanuel

22 December 2020 - o king of all nations

Today's Readings

(Audio)

My soul magnifies the Lord,

"For the Virgin, with lofty thoughts and deep penetration, contemplates the boundless mystery, the further she advances, magnifying God." 

- St. Basil

But we too can magnify the Lord. How can this be? How can we magnify the one who "could neither receive increase or decrease"? Origen answers his own question:

"each one of us forming his soul after the image of Christ, makes it great or little, base or noble, after the likeness of the original; so when I have made my soul great in thought, word, and deed, the image of God is made great, and the Lord Himself, whose image it is, is magnified in my soul."

- Origen

How did Mary magnify the Lord? We know that Mary treasured the words and deeds of God in her heart (see Luke 2:19).  And so she magnified him by her thoughts wherein she treasured what God had done, by her word, whereby she praised God and spoke her fiat accepting his will, and by her deeds, with which she lived a life of fidelity to his will. We too are made in the image of God. We too are meant to magnify him with all that we are. Let us repent of the times we have not treasured God's actions in our lives, of the times our words have not been used to speak in faith, or have given voice to doubt, and of the deeds by which we have followed something less than God's will for us. 

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

Like Mary, our spirit can only rejoice when we first magnify the Lord by our faith. We are called to have "the spirit of Mary so that [we] may rejoice in the Lord" according to Saint Ambrose.

"But the soul first magnifies the Lord, that it may afterwards rejoice in God; for unless we have first believed, we can not rejoice."

- Origen

Mary's faith is not something which she achieves for herself and for which she is rewarded. It is a grace with which she was filled at her conception and with which she continued to cooperate throughout her life, which is why Gabriel called her by the title "full of grace". Even her cooperation was not something she could have achieved on her own. Only covered and overshadowed by the Holy Spirit could she hope to walk in the plan of God for her life. Because of this Mary was able to rejoice like no one else, and in doing so showed us the joy that available to us all.

The first-fruit of the Spirit is peace and joy. Because then the holy Virgin had drunk in all the graces of the Spirit, she rightly adds, And my spirit hath leaped for joy.

- St. Basil.

for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.

God regards and looks with favor on humility wherever he finds it. Humility is nothing other than the condition of a heart that is ready to welcome him, that is not too filled with other things for him to find room. Only Mary embodied this lowliness perfectly and could thereby welcome not just the presence of God, but his incarnation.

O true lowliness, which hath borne God to men, hath given life to mortals, made new heavens and a pure earth, opened the gates of Paradise, and set free the souls of men. The lowliness of Mary was made the heavenly ladder, by which God descended upon earth.

- St. Augustine

When we cooperate with the Spirit to be humble we ourselves are transformed into heavenly ladders by which the presence of God descends to earth. How costly, then, is pride, which is too full of itself to grant him the free access he desires.

In the rest of her Magnificat we see Mary looking at her situation with the eyes of faith. She realized that miraculous things had taken place even though they had been completely hidden from the proud, the mighty, and the rich. She was able to see in her own circumstances, which were by no means easy, the fullness of the fulfillment of the promises of God.

for he remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children for ever.

Mary did not try to make God's plans for her conform to any plans which she herself may have had (which she indeed must have at least considered before his will was made known). She was able to see that her deepest fulfillment could only by found on offering every gift she had received back to the one who had given it, just as Hannah offered the one desire of her own heart back to the Lord.

I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request. 

Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD;

as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.

Hannah and Mary both show us how to magnify the Lord. Doing so is a work of the Holy Spirit. The fruit of it is the perfect joy Jesus promised us all.

I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete (see John 15:11)

John Michael Talbot - Holy is His Name

Saint Meinrad Schola - O Rex gentium

21 December 2020 - o radiant sun

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Christmas is not meant to be only a past event, experienced from a distance. The coming of Jesus into the world is meant to be a reality that marks our lives continually, for he never ceases to draw near to those who are open to his coming.

Christmas is meant to be a time of special grace to experience the coming of our Lord to each one of us. It is meant to be the anchor that helps us remember how to welcome him whenever he chooses to come to us throughout the coming year. And yet, with the busyness inherent in the holiday season, with all of the external trappings, the planning, the schedules, and everything else, not to mention the challenges of a particularly difficult year, it can be hard to be present enough to the grace of Christmas to receive it. 

Elizabeth was legitimately busy. No one could fault her for being pregnant with a miraculous child. But her circumstances left unchallenged might have kept her from receiving the joy of Christmas that Jesus did in fact intend for her to have. Fortunately, Mary went to help her.

Mary set out in those days

and traveled to the hill country in haste

to a town of Judah,

where she entered the house of Zechariah

and greeted Elizabeth. 

Mary brought the joy of Christmas near to Zechariah and Elizabeth, people who were intended to receive it, but who were definitely too busy with their own situations to even notice that anything unusual had happened. 

Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,

cried out in a loud voice and said,

“Most blessed are you among women,

and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 

And how does this happen to me,

that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Mary brings Jesus to us as well, just as she did for Elizabeth. No wonder, then, that we take up the cry of Elizabeth and say "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." So if we seem too busy with something which the Lord is bringing to birth in us, too busy with the fruit we feel called to bear for others in this season, the Lord doesn't want us to miss the grace and blessings he intends for each of us individually. The secret to receiving these blessings is inviting Mary into our lives and our busyness to help us. She is new the New Ark of the Covenant who brings with her the presence of her son. And in doing so she brings Christmas near to us.

It is as though the presence of Mary itself was the physical embodiment of the words of Zephaniah:

Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged!

The LORD, your God, is in your midst,

a mighty savior;

Bearing fruit for God as Elizabeth does, the compassion that Mary shows, these are important aspects of the holiday season and they ought not be neglected. But they are meant to be the backdrop to something happening at a deeper level within us all, where the presence of Jesus comes to us and we in turn bring that presence to others. The best way to experience this is to first invite Mary to visit us and to bring Christmas near. It was in no particular external activity, not primarily in what she or Mary did, that Elizabeth found joy. It was being near to Mary that allowed Elizabeth to experience the presence of her son. So we can rest easy when we don't know how to pray, or precisely how to best live our relationship with our mother. It is enough to be near to her.

Mary already understood that God was doing something new and wonderful in the son to whom she would give birth. The world had been in a spiritual winter for longer than anyone could remember. But she sensed spring about to break forth.

For see, the winter is past,

the rains are over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth,

the time of pruning the vines has come,

and the song of the dove is heard in our land.

To us it may still very much appear to be winter in every sense, physically and spiritually, especially in this challenging year. But Mary is the one who not only perceives the hope on the horizon but is able to share it with others, helping them to invite it and welcome it as she does. This is the attitude of being ready for Christmas, and it is a gift that God wants to give each of us through Mary.

Let me see you,

let me hear your voice, 

For your voice is sweet,

and you are lovely.

Relient K - In Like A Lion (Always Winter)

Saint Meinrad Schola - O Oriens

Songs in His Presence - The House of God

20 December 2020 - o key of david

Today's Readings

(Audio)

‘Thus says the LORD:

Should you build me a house to dwell in?’

David wasn't wrong in his desire for the Lord to have something greater than a tent for his dwelling place. The greatness of the Lord deserved the very best that David could offer. Further, it was true that the Lord's presence did dwell in that tent in a special way where he could be found nowhere else on earth. And yet, the temptation would be to then see the Lord as one who could be contained within time and space, to see him as less because of the shape of that dwelling, and to then think that there was something David could offer to the Lord as a favor.

I have been with you wherever you went,

and I have destroyed all your enemies before you.

And I will make you famous like the great ones of the earth.

I will fix a place for my people Israel;

I will plant them so that they may dwell in their place

without further disturbance.

The Lord reminded David that his power was by no means circumscribed by the ark or the tent that surrounded it. There was no aspect of the world to which his power did not extend. He was present in the tent in a special way because he chose to be, not because he was confined, or because anything about it was a benefit to him. This would also be true of the temple that would in fact eventually be built by Solomon. It was a gift from the Lord to those who worshipped him in order that they themselves might enter more deeply into his presence.

The LORD also reveals to you

that he will establish a house for you.

David wanted to do something for God but instead was compelled to realize that there was nothing that even he, great king though he was, could offer. His very authority and power by which he might do anything was already a gift. It was something which could only perdure by the Lord's will.

It was nevertheless a holy desire, an inspired one, which made David wish that the Lord would dwell among his people. It was not something that he could bring about. Nor was the eventual fulfillment of it something which he could have even comprehended. But the Lord really did respond to that desire in a way that was more than David could have asked for or imagined. It was no mere tent in which the Lord would dwell in response to that promise. And yet, when we read that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the word dwelt did in fact mean "to pitch a tent". The Word who became flesh and dwelt among us was the true heir of David sprung from his loins, whose kingdom would be made firm, whose house and kingdom would endure forever, whose throne would stand firm, just as David was promised.

“Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,

and you shall name him Jesus.

He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,

and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,

and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,

and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

So much time passed between David and the Son who would finally fulfill the promise to him. But with Mary there was finally one who did not secretly carry the belief that she could offer something to God nor ever hope to contain him. She was the first one, the only one to be small enough, that one so great could enter. This was because Mary herself was, in a sense, a tent prepared by God and not by man for the Lord to come and dwell within. God bypassed human arrogance and pride but still allowed the ark of the new covenant to be from our race, "our tainted nature's solitary boast" (The Virgin by William Wordsworth). She was able to be that precisely because she did not and could not imagine ever boasting of anything in herself.

The Holy Spirit will come upon you,

and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Therefore the child to be born

will be called holy, the Son of God.

We can learn to imitate Mary so that the Word may be born in our own hearts, more and more. We can approach her in her smallness and her humility, trusting in the God for whom nothing will be impossible. We can learn to give the complete yes which can only come from that place of trust.

Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.

May it be done to me according to your word.”

With this yes as our beginning we can learn the true meaning of the obedience of faith of which Paul speaks.

Vineyard Music - Resting Place

19 December 2020 - o root of jesse

Today's Readings

(Audio)

But now you will be speechless and unable to talk

until the day these things take place,

because you did not believe my words,

which will be fulfilled at their proper time.

Though Elizabeth and Zechariah were both righteous in the eyes of God, observing all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly, they still found themselves constrained by law. The law could not remedy the barrenness of Elizabeth. It was insufficient to explain the message of the angel to Zechariah in a way that would allow him to embrace it. Even though the Old Testament was replete with examples of God giving the gift of a child to woman who were old and barren, it wasn't enough for Zechariah to understand when he found himself in a parallel circumstance. He might have remembered Abraham and Sarah, the prototypical example, or Manoah, his wife, and their son Samuel, of whom we read today.

But he said to me,

‘You will be with child and will bear a son. 

So take neither wine nor strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. 

For the boy shall be consecrated to God from the womb,

until the day of his death.’”

The law left these examples as historical anecdotes. Zechariah needed more than that. He needed faith to realize that these things were meant to be precedents for what God could choose to do in his own life and that of his wife.

Do not be afraid, Zechariah,

because your prayer has been heard. 

Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son,

and you shall name him John. 

In spite of the fact that Zechariah had been praying for a son he did not really believe it could come about. He was unable to read the law with eyes of faith. The result of the lack of faith was the silencing of the prophetic voice. The prophetic voice that could speak not only of things past, but of things present and things to come could not overcome a lack of faith.

But now you will be speechless and unable to talk

It is hard to find fault with Zechariah. He was acting in a human way, basing future expectations on past results. Women past a certain age may have conceived in the old stories but he did not exactly see this happening around him all the time in his own day. He needed the gift of faith in order to welcome the message of the angel. To receive it his own doubting voice had to first be silenced. Even the best voices of the Old Testament, the law and the prophets, could not speak the new word of faith to which Zechariah was called. He could not draw on the names that were normal for his family. Instead, the gift of the angel to him was a new name for a new hope: John. Even after he had received this word it still had to germinate in the silence of his heart before it could bear fruit.

He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb,

and he will turn many of the children of Israel

to the Lord their God. 

Without the Holy Spirit we can't perceive what God is doing here and now. To be open to the Holy Spirit we must stop speaking words of doubt and start speaking words of faith in agreement with God's own word. This isn't something that we can simply will or a problem to be solved with our intellect. It is a gift.

“So has the Lord done for me at a time when he has seen fit

to take away my disgrace before others.”

May the Lord convict us to stop giving voice to doubt. May he himself give us the words of faith with which to replace it. May our mouths instead be filled with his praise, and sing of his glory, he who has been our hope and our trust from our youth.

Rightly also, from that moment was his tongue loosed, for that which unbelief had bound, faith set free. Let us then also believe, in order that our tongue, which has been bound by the chains of unbelief, may be loosed by the voice of reason. Let us write mysteries by the Spirit if we wish to speak. Let us write the forerunner of Christ, not on tables of stone, but on the fleshly tablets of the heart. For he who names John, prophesies Christ.

- Saint Ambrose

MercyMe - Word of God Speak

Vineyard - Bring Your Kingdom

Sonicflood - In The Secret