Category Archives: Advent reflection

Advent Evening Prayer – A Homiletic Reflection December 22, 2009

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Luke 1:46-56 The Magnificat

We had our last night of Advent Evening Prayer tonight.  It has been so lovely- very prayerful and contemplative, very intimate. We had more people in the chapel than I thought given that Christmas is 3 days away and it is so cold outside.

I was happy to see so many of my friends as I felt very nervous. A lot of my St. Edward’s friends were there and one of my friends from where I work attended too. So did my boss – that really touched me beyond words. He had a crazy and busy day – a priest 3 days away from Christmas does not really have time to go to another church, 20 minutes away, to hear his secretary peach. But there he was, God bless him.

My friend Chris gratefully agreed to proclaim the reading I had chosen, which was the Gospel from today (see link below photo), Luke 1:46-56, the Magnificat.  So without further adieu, here is my sermon. These are my notes, I really did not read them word for word.  Also – the bolding helped me to not read but to simply glance and pull out what I needed to pull out!

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“How good of you, God” the journal entry began, “to make truth a relationship instead of an idea. Now there is room between you and me for growth, for conversation, for exception, for the infinite understandings created by intimacy, for the possibility to give back and to give something to You—as if I could give anything back to You.” (From a journal of priest and author Richard Rohr.)

As many of you know, I spend a lot of time at Catholic blogs and other online faith forums. One of the arguments that you frequently encounter in these places, launched in the comment sections of the blogs, is about who is following the rules or not, who is in or out, who is a good Catholic or a bad Catholic. It is a little crazy and actually upsetting. Hey – I’m not saying that rules are bad – we need rules. I am saying that without relationship, rules alone are just rules.

That is why the words I opened with, taken from Rohr’s journal, which remind us of something we often need reminding of… that the truth is relational and not simply an abstract idea or a set of rules alone. This – along with the Incarnation itself, are the ultimate game changers of Christianity. It is groundbreaking, nontraditional and filled with risk.

This notion of truth as a relationship is found in the words of The Magnificat from Luke’s Gospel that we just heard. The Magnificat is all about relationship – about what God has done for Mary, and subsequently has done for all of us and how Mary responds, how we are all invited to respond. Along with that, remember that Mary doesn’t just go spouting these words off into nowhere or writing them in a journal… They are relational – spoken directly to her cousin, and based on Elizabeth reaction to Mary’s pregnant presence. Pay attention because these words are essential – they are groundbreaking, nontraditional and filled with risk.

Of course the very notion of the Incarnation, the reality of the birth of Christ is – groundbreaking, nontraditional and filled with risk. And how very sad that in many ways we do everything humanly possible to make it anything but.

When God is a rule and not a relationship, when God is out there or up there or over there – and not in here, it is pretty easy to end up with a less-than-perfect situation. Then it becomes a relationship made of fear and exchange, a relationship that is transactional but not transforming, a relationship of paranoia, not metanoia. It creates a kind of distance between God and us – and that distance does not nurture or feed the intimacy required of our dealings with God and with how we are all asked to bring forth and give birth to the Word.

Of course, the intimate relationships we constantly seek and yet assiduously avoid, are often groundbreaking, nontraditional and filled with risk. So why should our dealings with God be any different?

I used to know a priest who frequently referred to “vending machine God.” We as humans tend to like that kind of God because the rules are pretty straightforward.

Seemingly all you have to do is have plenty of quarters and the desire to stand in front of the machine inserting them on a regular basis. The risk is low, the reward seems clear and in the end, it seems we can control our fate. After all, we can always get another roll of quarters.

But there we are – back at the Magnificat. It unfolds as a key element of the incarnation – relationship. This renders vending machine God as useless. God doesn’t want our quarters. God wants us – God actually wants relationship with us. Mary truly got that and this is how she continued the yes that began with the Annunciation:

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
For he has looked upon his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.

Mary of the Magnificat does not cower and shake. She is not like some obsequious little lady dressed in blue, saying, “aw shucks you shouldn’t have and I’m not worthy.” No Mary stands in relationship with God in a way that one of the nuns of my childhood might have termed bold.

Real relationship and intimacy require boldness – boldness is just what is needed for things that are groundbreaking, nontraditional and filled with risk. Great risk offers great reward, but it is scary. No wonder that there is a well-worn path leading away from risk and straight to the vending machine.

God however, calls each one of us to this very sort of boldness, a boldness that is not arrogant, but is rather cooperation with grace. God initiates and we are invited to respond by participating and responding as the people that God has loved into being.

God has fallen in love with us and invites us to fall in love with God, over and over again. It makes me want to swoon… and to run. Talk about groundbreaking, nontraditional and filled with risk… Can’t we just have the vending machine God please?

I don’t know about you, but that might be more simple. I could bow out and walk away, claiming that I didn’t have quarters or that I didn’t want what was in the machine. Or – if I changed my mind, I could prepare for vending machine duty and start pumping the quarters into the slot.

To love and be loved, to stand in the greatness of what God has created in me, to accept the seed of the Word within and bring it to life, as Mary did, as we are invited to do… It is groundbreaking, nontraditional and filled with risk; it just might be too much.

If we do respond, we find ourselves on much more challenging terrain than we possibly imagined. That is when we have to remember Mary’s words and know that we are called to proclaim the same greatness of God… every day.

“How good of you, God” the journal entry began, “to make truth a relationship instead of an idea,” said Richard Rohr.

Can we remember that 3 days from now, when we celebrate the birth of that Truth as Jesus Christ?

Gaudate Sunday – Advent Reflection and a Poem by John O’Donohue

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Advent Reflection – Gaudete Sunday, The Third Sunday of Advent
Zephaniah 3:14-18  Psalm-Isaiah 12:2-6   Philippians 4:4-7  Luke 3:10-18 

It is Gaudete Sunday – a marker on the Advent path that calls us to really acknowledge joy.  In our culture, the broader call of these weeks is to prepare for Christmas… by spinning ourselves dizzy with cooking, baking, shopping, socializing and more. However, the undercurrent of Advent is to prepare for the birth of Christ by focusing on the silent, patient, hopeful waiting of this season.

This year I have tried to practice a more quiet Advent, as I like to think I always want to, but rarely achieve. This Advent has me busy but I have cut back on my computer time, which has created some of the needed space.

It is very easy to make any religious practice into little more than a somber dirge, one that is not that hopeful really and certainly not joyful. I recall the bumper stickers that would announced “Jesus is coming… and he is ticked off.” (Ticked often was represented by any number of epithets.

I bring this up because Advent is as much about the return of Christ as it is the birth of Christ. And we love, as a culture, to think of God and the Jesus of the Second Coming as the heavenly disciplinarians.

In our first reading we are clearly invited to shout for joy and to exult because the Lord has removed all judgment against us. That does not sound like a ticked off God to me, but maybe I’m missing something?

Then we are told not to be discouraged – this is clear, do not be discouraged! We should not be discouraged because God is in our midst.  In. Our. Midst.

God is coming, God is already here. No wonder we don’t want to understand this and we confuse ourselves with simplistic and non-productive thoughts.

The Psalm, from Isaiah further reminds us that we should not be afraid. When I think of my own fears, it is work to not be afraid. Yet this casting off of fear is the way to go… Isn’t it? Why is it so hard then? We should not be surprised that most of us so-called Christians reject the call of the Lord.

Read the Pauline epistle and once again – joy, have no anxiety, God is near. And we are reminded by Paul of the “peace that surpasses understanding.”

Why is this so hard to integrate into my life? I ask this question as I make my way, trying to muster some joy and gratitude, some hope and some recognition of the God that is already in our midst, forgiving, loving, reconciling.

Great – if that is the case I have to then give up my sinful ways. My sinful ways? Petty, self-centered fears and anxieties, divisions in relationship that mean I have to acknowledge that I might be wrong, small-minded and short-sighted thinking that drives me to close off and not open up. Who wants to let go of that?

Wishing for a better day is a lot easier than actually accepting a better day that is already here. Wishing means I don’t have to let go of anything. Accepting means I have to let go of everything. Everything.

I leave you with this poem which was on the front cover of my parish bulletin for this weekend. It is from John O’Donohue, who died too young last January. His words live on and call us to the Advent path of hope and joy.

For a New Beginning


In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.


For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.


It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.


Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.


Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.


Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.


~ John O’Donohue ~

Advent Evening Prayer – December 1, 2009

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At my worship parish we are starting Evening Prayer during Advent, on Tuesday nights.

Like anything new, we thought we would get a few hearty souls out to join us in prayer. Things start slowly and that is not a bad thing. Plus it is call to stillness, which what Advent might be about, but as we know, is not always the case.

Imagine then our surprise at having about 50 people present for prayer.

The music was lovely – piano and two cantors. We are blessed with a really great music ministry at our parish. We were in our daily mass chapel – our church is known for its power of community but not for aesthetic. However, people with art and environment skills can and do help. My friend Chris set up the altar table with blue velvet cloth and votives along with a bowl that would soon be filling the air with incense. (You can see that above, sadly lacking the feel of the lights being down and the incense wafting up.)

Our pastor invited me to offer a reflection and I did so; it was based on Isaiah 11:1-10 and which I present to you here today. It was a gift to be present and part of this prayer service, which was intimate and rich. (Note – it does help to read the verses at the link if you don’t know Isaiah.)

O come Lord Jesus, but let us slowly be in the Advent, in stillness and peace, with a sense of anticipation that is both delicious and difficult at once.

Here is a written version of my notes; I did not read it word for word. The emphasis were added so that certain words would catch my eye and they did.  I will add – as many of you know – I was really struggling with what to say and then on Monday night I was at my theology class and someone gave a presentation about Dulles. I recalled that conversion story and the call of grace in a bud along the Charles River and that was it; I began to compose in earnest with less than 24 hours to go. There truly no accounting for grace, thanks be to God!

Do you ever think about what Advent is inviting you to? Clearly it is not the container Christmas shopping, but it might be easy enough to think that. We know the real invitation is to prepare for the birth of Christ, but even beyond that… Advent is an invitation; it is the invitation to see, to hear and to recognize what already IS. Advent and its invitation should provide us with to enter fully into the both the challenge and comfort of God.

I was reminded of the power of this kind of invitation when I happened to recall the conversion of +Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, who died almost a year ago, leaving an enormous Catholic legacy behind.

In 1939 Dulles was a Protestant-turned-agnostic undergrad at Harvard. In his memoir “A Testimonial to Grace” he wrote:

I was irresistibly prompted to go out into the open air … The slush of melting snow formed a deep mud along the banks of the River Charles, which I followed down toward Boston … As I wandered aimlessly, something impelled me to look contemplatively at a young tree. On its frail, supple branches were young buds … While my eye rested on them, the thought came to me suddenly, with all the strength and novelty of a revelation, that these little buds in their innocence and meekness followed a rule, a law of which I as yet knew nothing … That night, for the first time in years, I prayed.

Tonight we pray with the words of the prophet Isaiah who calls us to the invitation of Advent with the rich imagery of a “shoot sprouting from the stump of Jesse, the bud blossoming from his root. “

This impulse to life – the sprout, the shoot, the bud – they ground us in the Incarnation. We are human and of this earth, God is coming to us, made known in flesh. God is not up there or out there, God is here, God is everywhere, very much of flesh and this earth included.

This flesh-God called Jesus is an invitation – he is both a comfort and a challenge.

Isaiah reminds us as we move more deeply into the reading that the Lord does not judge by “hearsay or appearances.” This admonition calls us to the wisdom of knowing that what we might initially see or hear may not be what we think it is – things are not always what they seem. We must be still, silent, waiting – open wide and deep.

This is further invitation – to greater comfort and to more challenge.

The poor, we are told, will be “judged with justice” and “the ruthless will be struck.” The social justice-y among us may feel smug and want to say, “told ya so!” But not so fast! We are all the poor, we are all the ruthless – how will we be judged? We will be “judged with justice”, to be sure, just maybe not as we imagine justice to be.

This should not scare us, it should comfort us… but it should challenge us. And invite us deeply into the Advent season.

Isaiah speaks to us of the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the calf and the lion, the cow and the bear, the baby and the cobra. These are images of and invitations to comfort and challenge, side by side.

God jolts us into awareness and awe by twinning the untwinnable and pairing the unthinkable using the prophet’s words. And isn’t that the call of the prophet? To bring us to places we might otherwise avoid? I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of time avoiding the uncomfortable and I really don’t want to confront that nasty wolf who waits by the door of my own heart! Door? The wolf that is in my heart! Can it be in peace with my lamb? The lamb who is gentle but fearful? It is risky to find out.

Which brings us back to our “shoot out of the stump of Jesse”, the bud – pregnant with anticipation and filled with possibility. The very possibility in a tight bud that called out to Isaiah, to Avery Dulles and that calls to you and me.

In the call is the sound of readiness and the readiness is amplified during Advent, especially if we can be patient and quiet enough to hear its steady and persistent call, a call that is meant to comfort us and to challenge us.

Perhaps in Dulles’ case and in our own lives, the comfort comes in the recognition of the sound and then the challenge that follows when we acknowledge what we heard or saw and we must begin the journey ourselves.

This journey into Advent is one in which we are called to the enfleshment of spirit and the inspiriting of flesh. Both are a challenge, when we would rather be really in our body and its pleasures and away from God or with God and not in our body which can seem alien evil.

We must choose both – flesh and spirit. Which is once more comfort and challenge paired up for us to surrender to.

So as we see the bud, we come closer – we lean in to hear the sound of readiness, we must invite our own inner wolf and lamb to be present to one another. Then and only then might we proceed on this path with all the other inner wolves, lambs, cows and bears and more.

The bud shall pop, the child shall be born – “a child to guide us” as Isaiah tells us, with all the unlikely partners huddled together, listening to the prophet as he informs us that:

On that day,
The root of Jesse,
set up as a signal for the nations,

The signal is here. Will we be ready?