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The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

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Genesis 3.9-15, 20; Psalm 97.1-4 (LXX); Ephesians 1.3-6, 11-12; Luke 1.26-38

O sing to the Lord a new song
for He has done marvelous things;
His right hand and His holy arm
have gotten Him victory.
The Lord has made known His victory.
He has revealed His vindication
in the sight of the nations.
He has remembered His steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the victory of our God. (Ps. 97.1-4)
Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord;
let it be to me according to your word.
(Lk. 1.38)
. . .
The victory of our God appears in a most surprising way: the Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, is born of the Virgin Mary.
It strikes me that there are only two things I can say about these readings, and this feast. The first is that she said ‘yes’ to God, and that ‘yes’ foreshadows the ‘yes’ 2 Corinthians describes. ‘All the promises of God find their Yes in Him’. The second is that, inspired by the example of Mary’s consent, I made her response to the angel Gabriel my morning prayer starting in June of 2009. My intention and hope was to grow in faithfulness and obedience to God, and I very often added a proviso to the prayer: ‘…as long as that doesn’t mean having another child’. Apparently God is not interested in provisos, and I am now pregnant with my fourth child.

Tuesday of the second week of Advent/St Ambrose of Milan

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Isaiah 40.1-11; Psalm 95.1-3, 10-13 (LXX); Matthew 18.12-14

Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins. (Is. 40.1-2)
Then shall all the trees of the wood
sing for joy… (Ps. 95. 12b)
So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. (Mt. 18.14)
. . .
Advent is a season wrapped in mystery: Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing. The pardon of the Lord comes in person, saying, ‘so it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish’. It is a joyful mystery for a groaning creation, anxiously awaiting the revelation of the children of God, and the wiping away of every tear.
It is a mystery, of course: we celebrate the coming kingdom, in painful awareness that it is as not-yet as it is already. Henri Nouwen offers this reflection on the Father whose will is that none of these little ones should perish:
The father of the prodigal son gives himself totally to the joy that his returning son brings him. I have to learn from that. I have to learn to ‘steal’ all the real joy there is to steal and lift it up for others to see. Yes, I know that not everybody has been converted yet, that there is not yet peace everywhere, that all pain has not yet been taken away, but still, I see people turning and returning home; I hear voices that pray; I notice moments of forgiveness, and I witness many signs of hope. I don’t have to wait until all is well, but I can celebrate every little hint of the Kingdom that is at hand.
This is a real discipline. (The Return of the Prodigal Son, p. 115)
So Advent is a joyous season, but it is also a penitential season. We remember in Advent that it is right always and everywhere to give thanks to God–even the trees remind us always to praise God. Sometimes praise is a discipline, giving thanks when the news is bad, or our friends betray us, or we are sorely disappointed.
And if we do not praise God, the whole of creation will glorify the Lord, so:
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
Let the sea roar, and all it comtains;
Let the field exult, and all that is in it.
Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy
Before the Lord, for He is coming…
He will judge the world in righteousness,
And the peoples in his faithfulness.

Monday of the second week of Advent/St Nicholas

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Isaiah 35.1-10; Psalm 84.9-14 (LXX); Luke 5.17-26

Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
‘Be strong, fear not!
Behold, your God will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
He will come and save you’. (Is. 35.3-4)
Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky. (Ps. 84.10-11)
‘Which is easier, to say “Your sins are forgiven you” or “rise and walk”? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’–he said to the man who had been paralyzed–‘I say to you, rise, take up your bed and go home’. And immediately he rose before them, and took up that on which he lay, and went home, glorifying God. (Luke 5.23-25)
. . .
If I could add a fourth reading, a New Testament reading, to these, it would be from Hebrews 12:
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. (vv. 11-13)
There is something in all of this about walking and righteousness, and peace and healing. The assumption is that our hands will be feeble and our knees weak, but that does not mean that we abandon the journey. Just the opposite: we continue the walking, making level (in the NASB translation) paths for our feet, so that the journey is one that heals rather than further disabling us.
I cannot help but connect the ‘recompense’ in Isaiah with the forgiveness and healing Jesus brings in Luke’s gospel. God will come, and will set things right. And this is what it will look like: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk. The forgiveness of God makes our way straight, makes the path for our feet level: we need not fear stumbling, not because we are strong (we’re feeble!) but because it is God’s mercy that cushions our fall, makes it possible for us to rise again, and walk.
In Jesus, faithfulness springs up from the earth: he is faithfulness, he is our peace, and in him God’s steadfast love and righteousness come together, and come to us. This is what it looks like when the Lord comes to make things right, when all creation is restored, when our God comes to save us. In Jesus, the beloved responds in perfect fidelity to the lover, and we get caught up in that; when righteousness and peace kiss each other, we are drawn into the love that is divine and eternal, and we find ourselves hidden, safe, in the faithfulness and righteousness of the Lord.
In Advent this is what we expect God to do. All that we hear about God coming to save us finds expression in the life and ministry, the death and resurrection, of Jesus. He is the One who sets things right, the One who is our peace, in whom all things hold together. And as we yearn for the salvation of our God, we pray with the saints throughout the ages: Come, Lord Jesus!

Saturday of the first week of Advent/St John Damascene

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Isaiah 30. 19-21, 23-26; Psalm 146.1-6 (LXX); Matthew 9.35-10.1, 5a, 6-8

Yea, O people in Zion who dwell at Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you. And though the Lord will give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher, and your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it’, when you turn to the right or turn to the left…
Moreover, the light of the moon will be as bright as the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, when the Lord binds up the hurt of his people and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow. (Is. 30.19-21, 26)
He heals the brokenhearted,
and binds up their wounds. (Ps. 146.3)
And Jesus…had compassion… (Mt. 9.35-36)
. . .
The temptation for me is to read these texts as the consolation for having eaten the bread of adversity and drunk from the well of affliction, and to look for the compassion of the Lord, the healing of my wounds.
But it isn’t an either/or, is it? It is a both/and. Adversity and affliction do not simply precede the appearance of the Teacher, but go with us on the way. The healing comes in the movement forward, both in Isaiah and in Matthew’s gospel. The way to see the Teacher, and to hear his voice, it seems, is to be on the way, walking. Not only that, but Jesus’ compassion to the crowds in Matthew’s gospel results not only in his teaching and healing, but also in sending: ‘You received without pay, give without pay’.
I don’t trust God. Not if trusting God implies a belief that I will be spared grief, or protected from either the annoying or the tragic. I don’t trust God to make me a better person. I do believe, on my better days, that I will be saved, ultimately, and that I will experience joy along the way. But I have no illusions about the country through which that way lies: sometimes it is difficult, steep terrain, hedged with thorns and lying in shadows.
I know, though, that I am not the first to walk this road, nor am I walking it alone. The saints have gone before, following in the footsteps of Jesus. And if I am to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living–where they dwell in everlasting light–this is the only way forward, and that by grace alone.

St Francis Xavier

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Isaiah 29:17-24; Psalm 26:1,4,13-14 (LXX); Matthew 9:27-31


The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?

One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after;
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire in his temple.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living!
Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
yea, wait for the Lord.

. . .

This seems to be exactly what I cannot do this Advent: ‘be strong, and let your heart take courage…wait for the Lord’. I hate waiting–if something needs doing, I want to do it; if it needs fixing, I want to fix it. And if it involves suffering, whether my own or that of someone I love, I want to do something about it.

Advent is a challenging season. It means waiting in joyful expectation, waiting in hope, waiting with the faith of the two blind men who believe Jesus is able and willing to heal them. And he does. I suppose I tend to be impatient and skeptical this time of year, and this year particularly so: the chances and changes of the year have worn me down, and I wonder whether anything can restore my hope and expectation. Reflecting on the amazing life and ministry of St Francis Xavier stirs my soul; the saints never fail to inspire me.

Unlike St Francis, though, I am not strong, or courageous; I am blind, and need healing as much as the two men who met Jesus on his way. I know that he is coming, I know that he can restore my vision and my hope. But will he? I believe, Lord; help my unbelief!


Thursday of the first week in Advent

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Isaiah 26.1-6; Psalm 118.1, 8-9, 19-21, 25-27 (117 LXX); Matthew 7.21, 24-27

Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord is the everlasting rock. (Is 26.4)
Give thanks the the Lord, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in man. (Ps 118.1, 8)
…everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on rock. Rains came down, floods rose, gales blew and hurled themselves against that house, and it did not fall; it was founded on rock. (Mt 7.24-25)
. . .
Some days it is difficult to see any connection between the readings, and some days I fail entirely. Today is not one of those days. Just the opposite: the theme of God’s steadfast love and absolute and complete reliability jumps off the page.
As I write this, the snow blows past my window. Outside, all the evidence is that winter has come, and Christmas is just around the corner. Inside–not inside the house (my children are, of course, thinking of nothing else), but in my mind and heart–it is more like Narnia under the spell of the White Witch: always winter and never Christmas.
I am tempted to say that I am challenged by these readings, challenged to believe that God is a God who keeps promises, and to look ahead to Christmas in the sure knowledge that Christ has come and Christ will come again. But that’s not what faith is, is it? Faith in the coming of the Lord isn’t like trying to overcome fear of the dark, or pushing yourself to reach the top of the hill you’re climbing. the prayer of faith is always, ‘I believe; help my unbelief’.
What do I want for Christmas? my seven-year-old asks, writing all our letters to Santa for us. I want to receive again the gift of faith, and to trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord is the everlasting rock.

Wednesday of the first week of Advent

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Isaiah 25.6-10; Psalm 23 (22 LXX); Matthew 15.29-37

‘On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast…It will be said on that day, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation”‘.
There were two things that marked the nearness of Christmas for me as a child. The first was the arrival of my grandmother, my father’s mother. The day I came home from school and saw my grandparents’ car was almost as good as Christmas morning. The other was, of course, the food. I don’t know whether we had a rule that egg nog was not to be consumed before the first Sunday of Advent, but a hot cupful, sprinkled with nutmeg, could never be enjoyed so thoroughly without a Christmas tree to admire.
I have often wondered about the way we celebrate Christmas: what does all this food have to do with the reason for our celebration? But somehow, looking at these texts together, it makes sense. The abundance and richness of the feast we share at Christmas should remind us of the feast for which we hope in Advent.
Isaiah describes in some detail the feast that the Lord will prepare, and the psalmist repeats the theme of its abundance–in the face of the evidence. God will provide, and God will save, however unlikely it may seem at the time. And then there’s Jesus, confronted with a hungry crowd and very little food: satisfaction seems unlikely indeed. Yet all ‘ate, and were satisfied’.
Not only that, though. The description of the feast, and the miracle of the loaves and fishes reminds me that God is both able and willing to save, even when salvation seems impossible. Looking at my own life, past and present, I see what seem to be insurmountable obstacles not to success or happiness, but to hope. Too often, I find myself standing in the crowd, feeling hungry, or walking in the shadows, feeling afraid. I forget the invitation to the Lord’s table, I forget that I taste the feast Isaiah describes, every time I receive the Lord’s body and blood.
I hope that this year, when I delight in chestnut stuffing and Christmas cake, I will remember the Lord who came, and gave himself to save us, and believe more deeply that he will come again in glory.

St Andrew, Apostle

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Romans 10.9-18; Psalm 19.8-11 (18 LXX); Matthew 4.18-22

I admit that the first thing that struck me about the Mass readings was that the selection from Psalm 19 doesn’t include the verse Paul quotes in the passage from Romans 10. I puzzled over it a bit, especially because the readings attest beautifully (if you read the whole Psalm) to the inclusiveness of the good news Jesus brings: the word goes out to all the earth, and all those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. (I never did come to any conclusion about why those particular verses from the psalm are included in today’s reading.)

I wonder whether there isn’t something about the nets Peter and Andrew left behind that attests to the unimaginable breadth and depth of God’s loving will, God’s intention to save us. Usually, when I think about this story, I focus on the shift from catching fish to catching people. But looking at it in the context of the psalm and the reading from Romans, I find my attention drawn to the tools of the trade. In their new occupation, Andrew and Peter have to learn to cast a different kind of net, the gospel message Paul describes in Romans 10. And that net reaches to the ends of the earth.
But that’s not the only thing about the gospel reading that changes for me as I look at it from a different angle: reading it on St Andrew’s day reminds me how prone I am to seeing the task of being a ‘fisher of people’ as a task for St Peter and St Paul. Theirs is the place in the spotlight, theirs the gifts of preaching and leading others to faith in Christ. Teaching in a theological college, I find myself surrounded by those possessed of just such gifts, and many who are in the process of developing them–and I am quite happy to stay behind the lectern. In Matthew’s gospel, though, Jesus isn’t just talking to Peter. He’s talking to Andrew as well. It isn’t just the good news of salvation that reaches the ends of the earth: the call to be disciples after the example of Jesus’ first disciples is for all Christians.
And why not? After all, the shepherds themselves teach us that the news of Jesus’ coming is not to be kept quiet: ‘they made known’ what they had heard. I tend to think of discipleship primarily as following, but I wonder if maybe, just maybe, I might be missing a crucial element, if I fail to point to the master, and invite others to come and see.

Monday of the first week of Advent

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The words the centurion says to Jesus are perhaps too familiar. ‘I am not worthy to receive you’, he says, and we repeat them in the Mass. I tend to think of these words as a statement about me, when in the context of the gospel, they form part of a declaration of faith in Jesus. The centurion’s unworthiness is not the point. His belief that Jesus can and will heal his servant is the astounding thing about him.

And yet the words perhaps ought to sound different in Advent. In the early church, one of the questions that skeptics asked about Christianity was whether it was fitting for God to become human. The transcendent God, so the objection ran, would not (should not) have become so intimately involved in the messy, material world of human bodies and emotions. To be born, to experience human need, to die–all these were thought somehow beneath God. But theologians in the first centuries of Christianity were emphatic: that is exactly what God did, without sacrificing transcendence or dignity. On the contrary, by taking flesh and dwelling among us the Word made possible our participation in the divine life. Our worthiness or unworthiness is not the point: in Advent we look forward to receiving Christ, knowing that as we receive Christ, God receives us.

Advent

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‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord’, Isaiah invites us. But I, at least, am weary. The year has worn me down, and the thought of a journey, especially an uphill climb, seems daunting. Projects and plans for the year remain unfinished, and time seems to be running out. I carry burdens collected in seasons past, now become a heavy load.

How can I possibly ‘go up to the mountain of the Lord’? The exhortation of St Paul and the message–‘watch!’–of the Gospel fail to move me.
But two things I remember. The first is that Isaiah’s message doesn’t end here. Inside my engagement ring is inscribed my husband’s favorite verse: Isaiah 40.31. If Advent is a time of watching, it is also a time of waiting, waiting on the Lord. Fortunately the strength for this journey is not my strength. The second is that going up to the mountain of the Lord means returning joyfully, with the people of God. Advent is not a solo expedition; I neither watch nor wait alone. The invitation Isaiah issues is an invitation to join the community and to expect to receive the strength I need for the journey.