There is a culture among the poorest of the poor, something I came to know almost thirty years ago working with homeless youth in Times Square, NY. There is a care and concern that many street people show for one another.

So often we think of them as “other”. “They’re not like us,” so many think with a terrible condescension.

In truth, they are the human face of Jesus, who tells us in Matthew 25 that our eternal destiny is tied to our response to the poorest and least among us.

This Sunday is Gaudete Sunday in Advent, the day we rejoice that our penitential season is half over. We do not look toward the Nativity yet, as the Church still focuses on the second coming of Jesus to judge the living and the dead. As we rejoice, we do well to contemplate the following short film, and the life-changing perspective it offers.

I’ve never seen anything like it in beauty. O Henry would have been proud.

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H/T Patrick Madrid and Deacon Greg Kandra

From today’s Liturgy of the Hours, Office of Readings

St Ambrose’s commentary on St Luke’s Gospel

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The angel Gabriel had announced the news of something that was as yet hidden and so, to buttress the Virgin Mary’s faith by means of a real example, he told her also that an old and sterile woman had conceived, showing that everything that God willed was possible to God.

When Mary heard this she did not disbelieve the prophecy, she was not uncertain of the message, she did not doubt the example: but happy because of the promise that had been given, eager to fulfil her duty as a cousin, hurried by her joy, she went up into the hill country.

Where could she hurry to except to the hills, filled with God as she was? The grace of the Holy Spirit does not admit of delays. And Mary’s arrival and the presence of her Son quickly show their effects: As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting her child leapt in her womb and she was filled with the Holy Spirit.

See the careful distinction in the choice of words. Elizabeth was the first to hear the voice but her son John was the first to feel the effects of grace. She heard as one hears in the natural course of things; he leapt because of the mystery that was there. She sensed the coming of Mary, he the coming of the Lord — the woman knew the woman, the child knew the child. The women speak of grace while inside them grace works on their babies. And by a double miracle the women prophesy under the inspiration of their unborn children.

The infant leapt and the mother was filled with the Spirit. The mother was not filled before her son: her son was filled with the Holy Spirit and in turn filled his mother. John leapt and so did Mary’s spirit. John leapt and filled Elizabeth with the Spirit; but we know that Mary was not filled but her spirit rejoiced. For the Incomprehensible was working incomprehensibly within his mother. Elizabeth had been filled with the Spirit after she conceived, but Mary before, at the moment the angel had come. “Blessed are you,” said Elizabeth, “who believed”.

You too, my people, are blessed, you who have heard and who believe. Every soul that believes — that soul both conceives and gives birth to the Word of God and recognises his works.

Let the soul of Mary be in each one of you, to proclaim the greatness of the Lord. Let the spirit of Mary be in each one of you, to rejoice in God. According to the flesh only one woman can be the mother of Christ but in the world of faith Christ is the fruit of all of us. For every soul can receive the Word of God if only it is pure and preserves itself in chastity and modesty.

The soul that has been able to reach this state proclaims the greatness of the Lord just as Mary did and rejoices in God its saviour just like her.

The Lord’s greatness is proclaimed, as you have read elsewhere, where it says Join me in magnifying the Lord. This does not mean that anything can be added to the Lord’s greatness by human words, but that he is magnified in us. Christ is the image of God and so any good or religious act that a soul performs magnifies that image of God in that soul, the God in whose likeness the soul itself was made. And thus the soul itself has some share in his greatness and is ennobled.

When we light the Advent Wreath, we do so in a darkened house. It is the one time of year when I claim the privilege of saying the prayer as the children light the candles. As the weeks pass, as we approach the coming of The Light of the World, the table is bathed in increasing light, and we discuss Who that Light is.

Tonight’s lesson: Why Jesus is Called the Light of the World.

In the darkened house, I asked what would happen if the children were to get up and run around in the dark.

“We’d trip and fall.” “We’d get hurt,” were the responses from the 7, 10, and 11 year old prophets.

Then we lit the candles. Four candles make a beautiful dining room and living room dinner experience.

I explained that the light drove away the darkness and illuminated the hazards of which they spoke when immersed in pitch black. I also asked what else the light revealed.

“How to get around safely.” “Where the food is.” “Where the medicine is.” “Where the bathroom is,” chimed in the little one. (Critical as they all just had stomach viruses).

I praised their responses. The Holy Spirit Spoke through them and made the lesson a breeze. The light reveals to them safe passage, life-giving sustenance, healing herbs and medicines, and yes, the path to relief.

So it is with Jesus. God come down to earth to illuminate our path, to give us Himself as our sustenance, our healer. He taught us how we are to use this life and all He has given us here to learn Love. He expects us to be generous with all we have, to empty ourselves.

Then we discussed their acts of charity, of compassion over the past year, how they have repeatedly emptied their banks of their own accord in response to tragedy and suffering in our community and on the news. I told them that their example is like a light burning brightly, like the blazing wreath before them. They are following the example of Jesus, and are illuminating the path for others in life, sustaining others with their selflessness, and that their example is a healing balm in a weary world.

The girls get it better than Joseph, but he follows their lead and while he doesn’t always grasp the suffering of others, it strikes him powerfully when it makes it past the autism.

By dinner’s end, they all understood the metaphor of Light. Better than that is how they are light.

These little ones are holy, truly holy. So is their mother, my bride. They are God’s greatest gift to me. In them I see that Emmanuel has come, and ransomed captive Israel.

His light shines in their lives, and through their gentle presence touches all who know them.

When I pray the chant O Come, O Come, Emmanuel… it is with the daily realization that He has: That He has fulfilled His every promise, that He has poured out His Holy Spirit in my life, that He has ransomed me from the captivity of my own failings and constantly has made all things new.

And for all of that, the best is yet to come.

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times did’st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

“Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence is an ancient chant of Eucharistic devotion based on the verses taken from Habakkuk 2:20

taken from one of the books of the 12 minor prophets of Bible. The original was composed in Greek as a Cherubic Hymn for the Offertory of the Divine Liturgy of St James in the fourth Century AD, with local Churches adopting arrangements in Syriac. In modern times, the Ralph Vaughan Williams arrangement of a translation from the Greek by Gerard Moultrie to the tune of Picardy, a French medieval folk melody, popularized the hymn among Christian congregations that worship liturgically.”

Enjoy, and God’s Blessings this last week of Advent.

It is a pleasure to share with you this homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, by Deacon Greg Kandra of the Brooklyn Diocese. Deacon Kandra has a superb blog, The Deacon’s Bench, over at Patheos. Do visit him there often, and thank you Deacon Kandra for this penetrating homily.

The Anxiety of Joseph
by Deacon Greg Kandra

In the late 19th century, one of the most sought-after realist portrait painters was a Frenchman by the name of James Tissot. He made his reputation painting society women and the wealthy in and around Paris. But at one point in his life, while doing research for a painting, he stepped into a church. While there, he had a profound religious experience. He left a changed man, and devoted the rest of his life to spiritual and religious themes – including hundreds of paintings depicting scenes from the bible, most famously, the life of Christ. The Brooklyn Museum has many of these sketches and watercolors, and they had an exhibit last year. They are beautiful, and moving.

They are also deeply human — none more so than a work that has direct bearing on this Sundays gospel. It is a surprising portrait of St. Joseph.

Joseph is shown at his carpenter’s table, with tools scattered around him. His shop is small, cramped, planks and pieces of wood everywhere, shavings piled up on the floor. The windows look out onto the bustling streets of Nazareth, where townspeople are going about their business. But in the middle of all that stands Joseph, bent over his table, his bearded chin in his hand, deep in thought.

The painting’s title says it all: “The Anxiety of Joseph.”

We rarely think of him that way. But Tissot, as he often does, penetrated to the heart of his subject.

Maybe Tissot was showing Joseph the morning before he has the dream we just heard in Matthew’s gospel. Or maybe it is the morning after – and he is coming to terms with what the angel has said, and what he must do. Maybe it was even later, and this new father is concerned with the worries that every father has.

But what we see in Tissot’s picture – and what is hinted at in this gospel today – is a man more like us than we realize.

We tend to think of Joseph the way we see him in the manger scene outside our church, or on the cards we send, or the pageants that are staged. He is strong, stoic, patient – “righteous,” as Matthew describes him.

But Tissot understood that the man betrothed to Mary was a man of worries, and apprehension, and even fear. This morning, I’d like to suggest that Joseph is also a man who speaks to our own time.

He is a man for our age – an Age of Anxiety.

He must have known economic uncertainty – wondering how he would support and sustain his family, running his own small business. He had to pay taxes – to “render unto Caeser.” Like many people today, shortly after his son was born, Joseph and his family became refugees, immigrants in a foreign land – the land that had held his people as slaves. Joseph also lived with the threat of terror – a ruthless king bent on murdering children.

On a more personal level, Joseph knew the anxiety of any man about to become a father. He must have asked himself: am I ready for this? Am I good enough, strong enough, wise enough? And then, confronting the very real possibility of scandal, Joseph must have had more than a few sleepless nights. How, he must have wondered, could he protect and spare the woman he loved?

And — like Mary, the woman he loved — he also must have thought at some point: this is not what I had planned. Everything is suddenly different.

How many of us have said that about our own lives? How many of us have had to face, like Joseph, a confusing world with uncertainty, and doubt, and anxiety and fear?

How many of us have felt like the man in that Tissot drawing, frozen in place, while the world moves on around us, and we stand there and worry and wonder: what do I do? How will I get through this?

But into all that, in Joseph’s complicated life, comes a voice in a dream.

“Do not be afraid. God is with us.”

And his world – and ours – is changed.

In the middle of “the anxiety of Joseph” comes blessed reassurance – and a reminder that God’s will sees beyond our fears, beyond our limitations.

When our lives can seem a nightmare, we cannot forget to dream.

When every demon seems to be making our lives hell, we cannot forget to listen for angels.

When our world has been turned upside down, we cannot forget to trust that God will make it right.

Again and again, the words come to us from the gospels, in times of confusion and doubt and anxiety.

“Do not be afraid.”

That is the message to Joseph, to Mary, to the shepherds, to the apostles – and to us.

And in these last days of Advent, that is the great message the gospels leave us with as we light the last candle and sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” The light is brighter. God’s presence is closer.

If you have any doubts about that, just think of Joseph, the great silent partner of the Holy Family, the man who doesn’t utter a word in the gospels – but whose ability to trust, and to dream, and to listen speaks volumes.

In the end, the words of the angel echo down to us as the great defining message of Advent hope — banishing all fear, easing all anxiety.

“Do not be afraid. God is with us.”

Gaudete! Why the rose candle and vestments? Read it here!

Today we take a break in the penitential season and rejoice at the Lord’s nearness (Gaudete!). But the special Sunday’s of Lent and Advent point also to a deeper truth, the one spoken by the Psalmist in Psalm 145.

18 The LORD is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cry and saves them.

It is truly a day of rejoicing. Today marks the completion of Coming Home’s first year. It’s been quite a year. When I began on December 13 last year, I posted a few thoughts, turned to Regina and said that it was like yelling out of the spaceship window into the vacuum of space, that there was no one there to hear it.

But Jill Stanek gave Coming Home a huge Christmas present on Christmas Eve with a beautiful introduction on her blog, and so the afterburners were lit by one of the most generous and faith-filled women I have ever known.

God directs the show, and as I was soon to learn, this blog has been much more an experience of my listening than speaking. It has become a crossroads where I have met so very many in the Pro-life Movement, people who have taught me a great deal. The size, complexity and sophistication of the pro-life movement is mind-boggling, an infrastructure that has developed considerably within the past decade, and which is poised to make considerable inroads in this decade.

We are growing in size and influence. 60% of Gen Xers and Mlllennials identify as pro-life. Half of the 400,000 marchers in DC this year were under the age of 30. Gaudete!

The sonogram technology has ripped the mask off of the lie that the fetus is nothing more than a blob of tissue, and an ever-increasing majority of the 2300+ crisis pregnancy centers are equipped with this technology. 90% of women who see the sonograms keep their babies. Gaudete!

Scientists and physicians in increasing numbers are stepping forward to bear witness to the evidence in our journals of abortion’s horrendous side-effects in obstetrics, gynecology, oncology, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, demography, etc. An editor from a major publishing house approached me recently about writing a book.

When a major publisher thinks there are good books to be written, that means they believe that there is an excellent market for the book. That alone is a fantastic sign. Gaudete!

We’re winning. Gaudete!

Ten years from now the pro-life movement will have made even greater strides. Gaudete!

For all that I’ve learned this year, I’m still in my apprenticeship and only now feel that I have some solid footing. This next year should be pretty productive with lots of new projects in the hopper. Gaudete!

The Lord truly is close to all who call on Him in truth. He has blessed us abundantly, and the more we work to establish His justice for the weakest among us, the more He blesses us with success, with more happy warriors.

My deepest thanks and gratitude to all who have mentored me, encouraged me, commented and opened my eyes to the beauty of this greatest of all movements!

Coming Home has been a beautiful experience. What a beautiful family.

Gaudete!

Last week Fr. Steven Clark, Pastor of Saint Francis of Assisi in Mount Kisco, opened his Parish to Dr. Scott Hahn of Franciscan University and hosted an Advent Day of Recollection. Dr. Hahn discussed signs, such as the “signs and wonders” performed by Jesus. Hahn shared with us that the signs are not ends unto themselves, but point the way to an ultimate destination, a higher good.

Miracles are supposed to point the way toward faith.

As I sat and contemplated Hahn’s words, I thought that faith is itself not so much a destination, but another sign. This is why the Church talks of being “marked with the sign of Faith”. Our faith is itself a sign that points the way to Heaven on Earth—a trusting relationship with the Father.

“Be still, and know that I am God”
~Psalm 46:10

There is so much in that one simple command. Be still. So many of us, myself included, are given to a certain strain of Pelagianism, the basic belief/attitude that we must do it all ourselves. The lack of understanding in our hearts that salvation is God’s work, not ours.

“Be still.” We work so hard at our life’s work, at our faith, in our ministries and families. It is easy to become overwhelmed, and when it happens I find that I am succumbing to my Pelagian demons, that I’ve missed the sign of Faith.

“Know that I am God.” We can’t come to know without the signs, especially Faith. We can’t see the signs if we’re spinning in circles.

Be still.

It starts there. Stillness. Solitude and quietude.

He’ll do the rest, but the relationship requires us to sit still, to be open to His presence, to the work of His Holy Spirit in our lives. Being a father has taught this to me. The children get frustrated when they can’t do it all by themselves, when they can’t demonstrate that they are the masters of their universe. In their frustration, they turn to Regina and me. The first order is to get them to…

…Be Still.

Then, we bring them into our orbit, our sphere of influence. We teach them and in the process, the bonds of love and fidelity are strengthened. We move from mere providers of sustenance to integral component of their development as persons in every area of their lives. The more they open themselves to our help, to our guidance, to our shouldering their burdens, the more they seek recourse to us as a part of their lives. They know that we are mom and dad, with all that “mom and dad” imply.

And that’s all that the Father asks. Be still and let us see His handiwork in our lives. “My yoke is easy, my burden is light”.

It’s been an Advent unlike any other for me. Tumultuous would be an understatement. He wants us to scramble, to do all that we can, to work as feverishly as we can in stopping this atrocity from happening. But then, He wants us to slow down, to be still and know that He is God.

I’ve spent so much of my life being a wretched Pelagian, not fully grasping faith and the need to be still.

” And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ‘” ~Matthew 18:3

My children are teaching me by example every day, and for the first time in 50 years, I think I’m starting to get it.

It’s 2:30 A.M. and sleep isn’t coming anytime soon. It’s usually God’s way of saying that He’d like to have a chat. I’ve grown to crave solitude, to sit in silent stillness and wait on the Lord, to be still and know that He is God.

It’s been a rough week with the NY City Council. Developments don’t look good regarding passage of the bill that will restrict CPC’s, and unlike any time before, I’m feeling the weight of the implications.

EMC has saved some 3,000 babies this year. If this bill passes and becomes law, will there be far fewer at this time next year? Have we missed doing something? Have we missed some strategic move that escapes our notice? What haven’t I read, or written? The questions tumble over one another in a ceaseless onslaught.

It’s tough to see the weight on Chris Slattery, to hear it from other CPC directors. It’s the simple, brutal calculus of war. Victory for the other side means more casualties on ours, yet my study of the history of war reveals that the worst happens right before the end. That’s when the carnage tends to be greatest.

Paradoxically, we are winning this war. 60% of Millenials and Gen Xers in a January Marist poll this year identify as pro-life. Hence, the increased efforts to shut down CPC’s, the increased bloodshed. The greatest weapon is the 4D sonogram and embryoscopy. The images scream the truth. This one 3 minute video says more than all the velvet-tongued professors of science combined:

http://truthbooth.org/viewvideo.asp

With all of that said, it’s just time for peacefulness, for waiting on the Lord, for praying for those who oppose us-who are in the grip of evil, for asking forgiveness for sometimes despising them when I should be praying for their deliverance. It’s a time to just give it all to the Father…

and wait…

Today’s Gospel:

Matthew 3:1-12

In due course John the Baptist appeared; he preached in the wilderness of Judaea and this was his message: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’ This was the man the prophet Isaiah spoke of when he said:

A voice cries in the wilderness:
Prepare a way for the Lord,
make his paths straight.

This man John wore a garment made of camel-hair with a leather belt round his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him, and as they were baptised by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, ‘Brood of vipers, who warned you to fly from the retribution that is coming? But if you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruit, and do not presume to tell yourselves, “We have Abraham for our father,” because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones. Even now the axe is laid to the roots of the trees, so that any tree which fails to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire. I baptise you in water for repentance, but the one who follows me is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to carry his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand; he will clear his threshing-floor and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.’

Fire. It is an inescapable reality for humanity. We can either embrace the Baptism of Fire from the Lord, or burn with the fire of loneliness, isolation, and despair for all of eternity. One way or the other, it seems, we will burn within. The Baptism of Fire is the purging within of all that is dross. The fire is the fire of love of God. Our love drives us to purify ourselves by cooperating with grace. We cannot do it alone, as salvation is the work of God, not man. That’s why John speaks of the baptisms of water, Holy Spirit, and fire. They are all the work of God in our lives, requiring us to open ourselves to learning authentic love.

John also speaks of Jesus separating the wheat from the chaff: the life-containing kernel that is at once food and source of new life from the indigestible and useless outer shell and husk. The ancient techniques of winnowing wheat from chaff are still used today. Toss the wheat in he air and allow the breeze to blow away the useless and papery chaff, as the dense kernels drop straight down. What an apt analogy.

The chaff of humanity are driven by their passions and narcissistic impulses as chaff in the wind. They never learn love, which is sacrificial and other-oriented. And that brings me to what has always intuitively rubbed me raw about radical feminism.

It is all about the self. I recall the 70′s and 80′s when I read Brown, Gilligan, de Beauvoir, Friedan, and the rest of the gang. It always impressed me as a profoundly sad and loveless existece. They were right to decry the denigration hurled at them, and the flippant suggestion that they be good little home makers. However, their response was murderous rage, and 53 million babies in this country have been slain in the name of women’s rights, of economic advancement and educational advancement of women. It’s been all “rights” and no “responsibilities”.

It’s been the fire of vengeance, and it must be brought to an end.

Looking beyond our shores, the only rights that I have ever seen the radical feminists arguing for are the rights of third world women to slaughter their babies in the womb. U.S. aid is consistently tied to demands for “comprehensive” birth control in these nations. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I’ve never seen the radical feminists go after the Isamic leaders who keep women down with Sharia law.

I’ve never seen them lead the charge against the tin horn dictators who gorge themselves on US aid, and preside over the servile treatment of women.

I’ve never seen the UN and the feminists attempt to tie financial aid to the development of education for women and the creation of more just working conditions for women.

Just abortion and birth control.

Nihilism: nonexistence and slaughter.

The ice-cold absence of love. The hatred of nurture.

If we are to prepare the way of the Lord, we must begin by looking within, first. Then we must do what love demands, we must speak out for the poor and the least. We must champion those who have no champion, lest love collapse on itself into selfishness and narcissism. Today’s Gospel makes it clear.

We are all going to burn with one of two fires; love or despair. While we live, the choice remains ours.

I love the prayer immediately following the Our Father during Mass, when the Priest says:

Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

In the pro-life work that we all do, we feel the constant anxiety, we see the evil all about us, we lose our peace of mind, and maybe forget that the fight is the Lord’s. But how can we not feel the exhaustion that comes with battle? We find friends in whom we confide our doubts, share our fears.

These are healthy and normal. They show that we care.

We care about the slaughter of innocents.

We care about the mothers and fathers.

We care about the corruption of medicine, nursing, and the political process.

We care about our nation.

We care about our communities riven by the strife that accompanies abortion.

We care. Deeply. Passionately. And sometimes it can become distracting.

Through it all the Church prays that beautiful prayer tens of thousands of times a day, all over the world, in every tongue. It’s medicine for our souls, “Deliver us Lord from EVERY evil, and grant us PEACE in our day” That peace isn’t the absence of conflict, but the ability to manage it and triumph over it. God’s peace, Shalom–peace in the midst of chaos.

“Keep us free from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ”. With Shalom, we need not fear, and in this fist part of the season of Advent, we turn our hearts and minds, not to Christmas, but to that day when, “every tear will be wiped away.”

It’s a good time for us to look toward the promise and its fulfillment, to take time and sit in silent stillness with Jesus, to ask Him to nourish our souls not just with wishful thinking, but with “Joyful Hope.”

Jeremy Camp captures the Joyful Hope in his beautiful song with lyrics and video below.

Happy Advent!

There Will Be A Day (Lyrics)

There will be a day, He’ll wipe away the stains, He’ll wipe away the tears, He’ll wipe away the tears…..there will be a day.

Deacon Greg Kandra is ordained and ministers in the Diocese of Brooklyn. He writes a fantastic blog, The Deacon’s Bench, at Beliefnet. His Homily for today, the First Sunday of Advent, is a stunner. It is reprinted here with Deacon Kandra’s permission.
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Homily for November 28, 2010: 1st Sunday of Advent

Anyone looking for interesting holiday recipes may have stumbled on a new word that has entered the American lexicon: “Cherpumple.” It’s a desert, created last year by Los Angeles writer Charles Phoenix – a diet-destroying, gut-busting feat of cooking that seems guaranteed to induce sugar shock.

It’s three different pies, stacked one on top of the other, and baked into one gargantuan “monster pie” with three layers – cherry, pumpkin, and apple, hence the name “cherpumple.” The recipe has swept the internet and has become a sensation on YouTube.

I showed a picture of a “cherpumple” to my wife and she agreed with me: it’s absolutely disgusting.

Some things just aren’t meant to be mashed together like that.

Deacon Greg Kandra

But I have to wonder if we haven’t done something similar with Advent and Christmas. For all intents and purposes, we have managed to create one massive season – “Chradvent” – that conflates two distinct seasons into one. And it’s starting earlier and earlier.

Hundreds of radio stations started playing Christmas music the day after Halloween – many of them all Christmas, all the time, 24/7. The week before Thanksgiving, I was amazed to walk by an apartment on 108th Street and see the lobby fully decorated, complete with a fully lit Christmas tree and wrapped gifts. Last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I went down to Sergei’s Barber Shop on Ascan Street for a haircut and saw workers unloading Christmas trees to sell. How anyone could expect a Christmas tree to live a month or more is a mystery to me. But people do it. I saw cars going down Queens Boulevard with trees strapped to the roof. Even before Thanksgiving, it seems, we’ve started to celebrate “Chradvent.”

Before everyone hops on that “Chradvent” bandwagon, I’d just like to take a moment to celebrate this season that so many have forgotten about – the season of Advent. We need to remember the reason for this season, and to hold on to Advent just a little while before surrendering to the craziness of “Chradvent.”

The readings today alert us to something great about to begin. The language is emphatic. Night is ending. Dawn is at hand. “Stay awake.” Put on “the armor of light.” And “let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.” There is a sense of anticipation – the kind we celebrate at every Eucharist, when we pray that we “wait in joyful hope for the coming of our savior, Jesus Christ.” Advent is that waiting, that moment of joyful hope, lived out across four weeks.

Cherpumple

We symbolize that, and ritualize it, with the Advent wreath. But we don’t light all four candles at once. We go one at a time, so the light gathers and grows. If you have an Advent calendar, you don’t fold open every window at once, but you go one small window at a time. Later in the season, we will sing the haunting refrain, “O come, O come, Emanuel, and ransom captive Israel…” We are captives awaiting freedom, prisoners held in dungeons of despair. But light is coming. Freedom is coming.

Jesus is coming.

But until he comes, we wait, and watch, and wonder, and pray.

We shouldn’t rush it. Advent is the time for taking stock, and making plans – a season of great expectations. Dorothy Day, in fact, compared it to a woman expecting a child. “She lives in such a garment of silence,” Day wrote, “as though she were listening to hear the stir of life within her.”

That brings me to question all of us should ask during these coming weeks:

Are we listening?

Are we paying attention?

Are we looking to what will be – or are we already there?

If we jump right into the holiday season, we forget to wait, and watch, and wonder, and pray. We neglect the “joyful hope” that is so much a part of this beautiful season. When Christmas arrives, it will seem almost anti-climactic: one more day in a long litany of jingling bells and canned carols.

This year resist the urge. Wait a while to get the tree and hang the wreath. Turn down the Christmas music. It’s okay: it will be there in the middle of December, just as it was in the middle of November.

Instead, use these weeks to pull back, to retreat from the ho-ho-ho and fa-la-la-la-la. Find time to look within — to pray more deeply, and converse more intimately with the One who is coming. Ask Him: How can I prepare for you? What can I do to welcome you into my life?

If all of us do that, we may be surprised at the answer.

And we’ll actually be able to HEAR the answer if we give ourselves over to the “garment of silence” that Dorothy Day wrote about.

“Cherpumple” is over the top, and unhealthy. And so, I think, is “Chradvent.” So pull the two seasons apart, and live each of them as fully as possible.

Let’s look forward to a merry Christmas.

But let’s also use this opportunity, as well, to enjoy a blessed and holy Advent.

Philip Johnson

May I respectfully and humbly ask that we all join in prayer for this special seminarian, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy.

From the Diocese of Raleigh:

The Most Reverend Michael F. Burbidge, Bishop of Raleigh, has requested in a letter that all the Priests, Religious and lay faithful in the Diocese of Raleigh participate in a novena to the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the Diocese, on behalf of Philip Johnson, one of our Diocesan seminarians. The novena will begin on Monday, November 29, and culminate on Wednesday, December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Mr. Johnson, who is currently pursuing his vocation to the Priesthood at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, has been receiving chemotherapy treatments for a brain tumor, which has continued to progress despite these treatments. He expressed “deep gratitude to the priests, religious, and laity of our Diocese for their prayerful support during this difficult time in my life.

“While my treatments can often be physically and emotionally draining,” he said, “it brings me great strength to know that so many prayers are being offered to Almighty God on my behalf. Please be assured of my prayers for our entire Diocese, especially for those who currently suffer in any way, that we may all unite our sufferings to those of Our Lord on the Cross.”

Links to both the Bishop’s letter and the Novena Prayer in English and Spanish are provided below so that you may forward this request to others who you may wish to invite to pray for a needed cure for Philip. A link to an earlier story on Mr. Johnson provides additional information. Click here.

From the Gospel of John, Chapter 17:14-23 (New Jerusalem Translation)

“I passed your word on to them, and the world hated them, because they belong to the world no more than I belong to the world. I am not asking you to remove them from the world, but to protect them from the Evil One. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself so that they too may be consecrated in truth. I pray not only for these but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me. May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me. I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, may they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognise that it was you who sent me and that you have loved them as you have loved me.”

Last week in the New York City Council, we were directed to an overflow room, not terribly large, and had the hearing’s proceedings piped in. There we were, the leaders of the pro-life movement and the abortionists and their deathscorts, literally sitting next to and across from one another, waiting to testify for and against the pending legislation intended to gut the effectiveness of crisis pregnancy and pregnancy resource centers in New York City. There are over 2,300 such centers nationwide, and the pro-aborts sat commenting on how they intend to take this legislation nationwide.

Many sat and taunted the pro-lifers, hoping to elicit some reaction that would redound to our detriment. Nobody took the bait. However, the evil, the malevolance was so palpable that one could have cut it with a knife. That’s a remarkable statement coming from me, as my spirituality is of the very quiet and reflective sort. I’m a Charismatic Renewal washout from the ’70′s. It never took with me. Only a few times have I ever sensed evil, true evil. I was never wrong.

There was a great temptation to hate these people who were fighting to shut us down and claim those babies for themselves. But as the hours rolled by, all I could do was return in my mind to this beautiful prayer of Jesus to the Father in John’s Gospel. It was the leading of the Holy Spirit.

These people next to me were not Satan, nor were they his angels. They are humans. Horribly lost, swimming in misery, raging against the sacred. They are not the Evil One. They are our brothers and sisters who are in the Evil One’s grip. Jesus’ prayer to the Father offers us a direction:

“I pray not only for these{Apostles, Disciples} but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me.”

As does this verse, which ought to be on the coat of arms of every scientist:

“Consecrate them in the truth”

Indeed, the truth of the scientific data has been badly mauled, especially the abortion/breast cancer link. Fellow scientists have turned to deception, rather than the truth. This was prominent in the Council hearings, as we were accused of “misleading women” with information that has been “roundly rejected by the scientific community”. Brinton, Beral, Rosenberg and Palmer knew what they were doing when they held their sham workshop in 2003. They represent a minority opinion in the research community dealing with abortion and breast cancer.

And that returns me to the purpose of this blog: Consecrating them in the truth. The truth of science is synonymous with the truth of God, as science is the human endeavor of discovering the truth of God’s creation (Nature). Significant illness has derailed my ABC project, but as I return to health, that will be back up and running this week. Also, sometime in mid-winter, Coming Home will begin a systematic exploration of the scientific literature dealing with the psychological/psychiatric post-abortive sequelae. We shall also further explore the roots of the eugenics movement with readings from the main eugenists of the Twentieth Century.

As we proceed, it’s good that the Church gives us this season of Advent, a time of introspection and penance. It is the best medicine for those who are tempted to hate the opposition. This Advent, John 17:14-23 will be the central theme of my meditations, as well as a reminder of this blog’s organizing principle. It is well that we focus on our own sins for a time while we go about our life’s work of addressing the monstrosities of others. It won’t keep me from being the irascible Brooklyn native that I am, but it keeps me praying for those whom we are mandated to consecrate to the truth.

Dr. Hahn is Professor of Theology at Franciscan University, Steubenville Ohio.

The day is being held at Saint Francis of Assisi Church, Mount Kisco, New York. The cost is only $25, which includes catered lunch being provided by the parish. Dr. Hahn will be available for 90 minutes during lunch to speak with attendees, sign books, etc. I would encourage anyone interested to mail in their registration to the address below ASAP.

Yours truly will be on hand as conference co-convener and MC for the day. Join us, and bring a friend or two.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Saint Francis of Assisi Church
2 Green Street
Mount Kisco, NY 10549-2306

9:00 am Registration
9:45 am Father Steven Clark
10:00 am Introduction & Welcome of Dr. Hahn, Dr. Hahn 1st Talk
11:30 am – 1pm Lunch
1 pm Dr. Hahn, 2nd talk
2 pm Break
2:30 pm Dr. Hahn, 3rd talk
3:30 pm Q & A, and Wrap-up

Admission $25.00 (nonrefundable)

Registration:

Send Checks or Money Orders only (no cash, please) payable to
Saint Francis of Assisi Church
2 Green Street, Mount Kisco, NY 10549-2306
914-666-5986

email: hahnsanfrankisco@earthlink.net

Please include your name, address and phone number with your registration.

I only started reading blogs last January when I stumbled out of my cave and discovered the twenty-first century. I happened on Beliefnet.com, which led me to Jill Stanek, who along with Bethany and Carla are responsible for this blog coming to life. On Beliefnet, I became a fan of Rod Dreher who writes “Crunchy Con”, which is actually shutting down this weekend and reopening as “Rod Dreher” on Beliefnet.

On Rod’s site a commenter by the name of Erin Manning has also guest posted for Rod. Erin is as unapologetically Catholic as I am (refreshing), and ardently pro-life. I’ve linked her blog And Sometimes Tea in the blogroll. She, along with the others there, whom I’ll be referencing as well in the coming days, is a must read.

In the process of getting my blog up and running, I missed this gem that Erin guest-posted on Rod’s site on December 27. It’s extremely sobering food for thought when we get caught up in the War on Christmas vitriol later this year. I plan to forward this to all of my friends.

Here’s Erin:

Merry Christmas! Rod is graciously allowing me to join him and co-blog this week. This will be my last chance to put my opinions on this side of the comment boxes, so I’m grateful for the opportunity–as I have been for every time that Rod has let me participate here.

I don’t know how many of you had a chance to see this piece by Terry Mattingly of the Get Religion blog on Hank Stuever’s book, Tinsel, which Rod reviewed a while ago here. When I read Rod’s review, I wanted to read the book, and Terry’s piece on it has increased that desire–it sounds like a fascinating look at the paradox that is the modern American Christmas as experienced by the three Frisco, Texas families whom Steuver followed closely.

The Get Religion blog post highlights something I’ve been thinking about, not only about Christmas, but about the struggle to live as a serious Christian in modern America. Terry Mattingly writes:

“Stuever and I talked for more than two hours and it seemed like 20 minutes. I am, of course, a prodigal Texan who gets sweaty palms in shopping malls and, frankly, Stuever was much more patient and kind than I would have been trying to write about the material that he covered. He takes the people totally serious, even while lacing his work with large does of sarcasm and even cynicism when he deals with the culture in which they live.

“I would have jumped straight to anger, which would have sent me to my priest for confession over and over and over.”

We Christians are often–and I include myself in this, most definitely–suckers for the “us against them” narratives that are told in our culture. From our focus on stories of atheist Christmas displays to others featuring artful outrage over some (admittedly tasteless) ornaments on a tree at the White House to still other War on Christmas themes that crop up in the news at this time of year, we tend to fall for the idea that the greatest threat to Christian life is something outside of us, some threat that will make it much, much harder than it is now for us to live openly as Christians in America.

To be fair, there are aspects of modern American life that conflict with a serious pursuit of Christianity. Not all perceived threats to religious liberty are the products of fevered imaginations and conspiracy theories; it’s important to pay attention to the prevailing cultural winds. Large, heavily centralized governments are often not friends of Christianity, or of any other serious faith which sometimes puts citizens at odds with the values and principles of the State.

But as a book like Tinsel, or even our own experiences of Christmas in America, can remind us, the strongest enemies to a serious attempt to live as a follower of Christ are not the ones on the outside. They are the enemies within–they are the faces that look back at us from the mirror, as we put on our Christmas finery with little thought to the lives of the wretchedly poor people who probably made our festive clothing for pennies an hour half a world away. They are the weary sins that plague us, the hardness of our hearts, our ability to sing words of joyful good news while focusing all our mental energies on criticism of the decor chosen to adorn the sanctuary; they are the paradox of Christmas that has nothing to do with what other people are doing, and everything to do with our own thoughts and deeds.

What kind of War on Christmas is being fought, when within a family a pitched battle may rage over the burning question: white lights on the tree, or colored ones? What kind of War on Christmas is being fought when we find ourselves in debt, yet again, because we succumbed to the siren-song of materialism, and bought and paid for a false vision of piles of gifts under the Christmas tree? What kind of War on Christmas is being fought when people gather with relatives to coo and simper at each other, all the while looking forward to the delicious pleasure of rhetorically shredding each other on the way home? What kind of War on Christmas is being fought, whose generals are pride, envy, avarice, anger, lust, gluttony, and sloth?

That War on Christmas has been fought since the first Christmas, since the Light shone into the uncomprehending darkness, since Herod commanded the Magi to return to him with news of the Child, all the while plotting to kill Him. The darkness that lies buried in the hearts of men rises up each time our fallen natures get the better of us–which they do, when we are more furious over some perceived slight to Christianity miles away from us than over the injustice of hopeless poverty in our own town; which they do, each time we become so buried in the bustle and glitter each December that we forget to lay it all aside and ponder, for a handful of moments, the gift of the Incarnation, the astounding and astonishing reality that to save us from our sorry selves God Himself became Man, and dwelt among us.

And that, alas, is a War on Christmas that cannot be brushed aside as “us against them,” as something some wicked someone out there is doing to the shiningly innocent group of faithful Christians among whom we, perhaps presumptuously, count ourselves. That shining innocence is like the glitter of artificial lights on intrinsically dull tinsel, and we are too often the authors of our own wickedness to spend such an inordinate amount of time zeroing in with a microscope on the specks in the eyes of those who have not yet been granted a gift of faith.