St. Thomas the Apostle Parish

Homily for December 23, 2019

The process of naming a child has been known to cause rifts in some families. Different people have different inclinations for naming their children but, in the end, the name of the child is the choice of the parents.

The relatives and neighbors of Zechariah and Elizabeth expected them to follow custom and to name their son Zechariah, after his father. But Zechariah and Elizabeth believed this was not the name God wanted for their child.

At this moment in history, convention and custom were put aside because God was doing something new. This child would be different from other children. Relatives and neighbors wondered, “What will this child turn out to be? 

John the Baptist’s privileged role was to prepare people for the coming of One greater than himself, One who would be called Emmanuel, God-is-with-us. The grace of God was working in a new way, making a new covenant with His people and with all of humanity. It is this wonderful gift that we celebrate at Christmas and it should never cease to fill us with joy and gratitude. +

Homily for December 22, 2019

In her book, My Grandfather’s Blessings, Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen tells how, on the Feast of Yom Kippur, the solemn Jewish day of Atonement, a rabbi preached a memorable sermon to his congregation on the theme of forgiveness and mercy.

Before he began, he walked out into the congregation, took his infant daughter from his wife and, carrying her in his arms, stepped up to the synagogue podium.  From her father’s arms, the little girl, all of a year old, smiled at the congregation.  Every heart melted.  The child turned towards her father and patted him on the cheek with her tiny hands.  As he began to speak, the little girl grabbed his nose and tugged.  Then she took his tie and put it in her mouth.  The entire congregation began to chuckle.  The rabbi rescued his tie and smiled at her; she put her tiny arms around his neck.  The rabbi tried to continue his sermon, but it was no use.  By now, the synagogue was filled with laughter.

The little girl had made the rabbi’s point.

He said, “Think about it.  Is there anything she can do that you could not forgive her for?”

As the members of the congregation nodded in recognition, the little girl reached up and grabbed his eyeglasses.  Retrieving his glasses and settling them on his nose, the rabbi hugged his little girl, laughing as well. 

Then the rabbi asked: “And when does that stop?  When does it get hard to forgive?  At three?  At seven?  At fourteen?  At thirty-five?  How old does someone have to be before you forget that everyone is a child of God?”

As the rabbi teaches a powerful lesson about forgiveness with the help of his infant daughter, God reveals in the Child of Bethlehem His Spirit of compassion and reconciliation.  In the birth of this Child, God touches human history and history is changed forever; in the birth of this Child, hope reigns, justice takes root, peace is possible. 

Everything and every one of us are re-created and transformed in the love of a God who humbles Himself to become a helpless baby; God becomes one of us so that, one day, we might become like Him.  May the blessings of this holy birth fill every season of our lives with hope in the mercy and justice of this Child. +

Homily for December 21, 2019

Twenty-three years ago, Liam Doyle came into the world with an incomplete heart – he was born without one of the four chambers needed for the muscle to pump blood through his little body. Twice before the age of two, little Liam underwent open-heart surgery to rebuild his heart. It was a terrifying ordeal for his parents, Brian and Mary. But Brian Doyle writes in his book, Leaping: Revelations and Epiphanies, that the family’s traumatic experience was also a rare occasion of grace.

He said that the first operation was terrifying, but it happened so fast and was so necessary and so soon after his birth that the family – tired and frightened – simply staggered from hour to hour.

By the time of the second operation, Liam was two years old and had developed quite a personality. This time, in even greater fear of losing Liam, Brian went into a deep and dark place of fear. However, his wife’s hand touched him like a hawk and ripped him away from that dark place. He said her touch was a moment of pure grace that truly saved his soul.

In today’s Gospel reading, we witness such a moment of grace within the family of Mary and Elizabeth: love that enabled one cousin to put aside her own plight to help the other cousin; compassion that allowed the older woman to offer comfort and joy to the younger woman in her anguish.

Elizabeth mirrors family at its best. As husbands and wives, as mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers, God has given us one another to create a safe welcoming place called family. And for some, family is found outside these relationships. It is in these relationships – all called family – that we experience the saving grace of God. +

Homily for December 20, 2019

In a concentration camp during World War II, a Nazi guard was taunting his Jewish prisoner, who had been given the filthiest job in the camp: cleaning the toilets. Towering over the poor man, the guard looked down on him and sneered, “Where is your God now?”

The prisoner replied, “Right here with me; in the muck.”

That is the mystery of the Incarnation: God enters human history and embraces the human condition in all its messiness, in all its confusion, in all its anxiety, and in all its anguish.

God is Emmanuel – “God-is-with-us.” God does not give advice safely from the sidelines but is there with us in the “muck” of life. God does not take our suffering away but bears it with us and strengthens us to bear it. He does not remove the “muck” but lifts us out of it. God shows us how to transform the darkness into light, despair into hope, and death into life. +

Homily for December 19, 2019

In George Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan, a young farm girl wears down the Dauphin, France’s ruler in exile, with her claims that the voices from heaven have sent her to restore the young ruler to the throne of France. At one point, the exasperated Dauphin cries, “Oh, your voices, your voices! Why don’t the voices come to me? I am king, not you!”

Joan replies, “They do come to you, but you do not hear them. You have not sat in the evening listening to them. When the Angelus [bell] rings you cross yourself and [you are] done with it; but if you prayed from your heart and listened to the trilling of the bells in the air after they stopped ringing, you would hear the voices as well as I do.”

In many of the Gospel readings of Advent, the “voice” of God speaks to individuals – through the appearance of angels or in dreams. Today we hear the story of Zechariah’s vision, his hearing the “voice” of God as he went about his duties as a priest in the temple. But the poor man was overwhelmed: All too aware of his own weaknesses and doubts and the reality of his age and position, he could not grasp the “good news” that God was calling him to embrace. But in God’s good time, Zechariah came to understand and accept the wonderful possibilities God laid before him and his beloved Elizabeth.

The voice of God speaks to each one of us, as well. What is required of us, as the young Joan understood, is an open heart to listen and to imagine the possibilities for God’s light to illuminate our lives and transform our spirits.+

Homily for December 18, 2019

The Gospel of Matthew, unlike the other Gospels, does not tell the story of the Annunciation to Mary. However, it does describe an angel’s message to Joseph.

In Luke’s Gospel, the angel says to Mary, “Do not be afraid.” In Matthew’s, an angel says the same thing to Joseph, “Do not be afraid.”

God was doing something new and unusual in the life of Mary and Joseph, something vital for the life of the human race. The conception of Jesus was a miracle of God’s grace that, understandably, raised questions in the hearts of those most directly affected, Mary and Joseph. They both needed reassurance to handle the challenge they faced.

In times of transition, change, and challenge, we all need this same reassurance: “Do not be afraid.” May we put our trust in God’s presence, in Emmanuel — God is with us — just as Mary and Joseph did and, by doing so, may we be willing participants in God’s plan for us. +

Homily for December 17, 2019

Even though Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ birth, it took about 300 years before His birth was formally celebrated by the Church.

Christmas and Advent are the newest additions to our liturgical calendar. While the early Church celebrated the LORD’s Resurrection from its very beginnings, the first reference to a celebration of the LORD’s birth is dated between the years 274 and 336. The Romans observed an annual festival called Sol Invictus – the “Birthday of the Invincible Sun,” celebrated on what was then the shortest day of the year, December 25^th. It was the first day of the new sun – from then on, daylight would extend longer and longer.

As Christianity grew throughout the Roman world, the Church adopted the Birthday of the Invincible Sun to celebrate the dawning of the Son of God. Over the next centuries, the liturgical season of Advent developed as a time of prayer and preparation for Christmas.

In today’s Gospel, Matthew compiles a genealogy of Jesus’ ancestors. Both Matthew’s account of Jesus’ ancestry and the early Church’s adoption of the date of the pagan festival of the sun celebrate our belief that Jesus is the fulfillment of a world that God envisioned from the first moment of creation, a world created in the justice and peace of its Creator. Jesus dawns upon our world as a “new” sun to illuminate it once again in the peace and justice of God. +

Homily for December 16, 2019

The question posed to Jesus by the chief priests and the elders in today’s Gospel passage comes shortly after He expelled the merchants and money changers from the Temple in Jerusalem. They wanted to know by whose authority He could do such things. They themselves asserted authority over the Temple, and they had not given Jesus permission to do what He did.

As we just heard, Jesus did not give an answer to the question about His authority, but the observant reader of the Gospel knows the source of His authority. From before His birth, Jesus was called Emmanuel, meaning “God-with-us.”

Because Jesus is “God-with-us,” He has the authority to say how God’s Temple should be used. He knew that it was not being used nor operated with due faith, reverence, and respect 

As we draw closer to the commemoration and celebration of the birth of our Emmanuel, He shows us how to honor God appropriately and helps us by pouring the Holy Spirit into our hearts. May our hearts be truly open to the grace of the Holy Spirit always present and always active in our lives. +

Homily for December 15, 2019

When I was a kid at summer camp, moonless nights would be so dark because we were far from the lights of the city. On such nights, it seemed as if we could see every star in the universe. On a few occasions, when there were meteor showers, some of us would lie outside on the soccer field in our sleeping bags and watch the “falling stars.” One night, we counted more than a hundred of them.

When we would lie there looking straight up at the expanse of space, it seemed as though there was no such thing as time itself, only the stars darting about a motionless world. Time was irrelevant.

Many of us long for the experience when time is irrelevant but, it seems to be a very difficult thing to find. One thing that I’m pretty attached to is my calendar. It is synchronized to my computer, iPad, and iPhone, so I always have it nearby and it really is helpful with keeping me aware of what I’m supposed to be doing on any given day. However, I sometimes feel like a prisoner of time.

Our Season of Advent can be much like this dichotomy of time. Advent — a time of patient waiting, preparation, and joyful anticipation —often degenerates into a hectic round of making lists, pushing our way through stores, as well as gatherings of family and friends and coworkers.

James, in our second reading, says: “Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the LORD.” James tells us to be like the farmer who plants seeds and, seeing no results for months, still patiently waits for the fruit of his labor.

The value of patience, the true understanding of what time needs to be in our lives, is a part of our Advent reflection. We believe that the eternal, all-loving God has made us, man and woman, to be born and to grow, to live and to love and, to serve Him and one another, to age and to die and to be raised to eternal life with Him. God is both our origin and our destination.

Time is not a curse or a trap; time is a divine gift! Time is where God’s plan unfolds.

We can take time to focus on the LORD. Jesus said the first great commandment is to love your God. There is no way to build a relationship of love with someone without spending time with them. God takes no lunch breaks; God always “is” for us. These minutes that we spend here in church are not enough.  We need to schedule prayer time in our calendar — if that’s what it takes — but we must take time to be aware of God’s presence.

We can take time to focus on the needs of those around us. Jesus said the second great commandment is the love of neighbor. The sign of the presence of God, as Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel today, is that healing and love and care of those in need is happening. Whenever we take time for others, to listen to them, to help them, to love them, to forgive them, to heal them, to touch them…whenever we do these things, we are using time as our divine gift.

If we take time, our souls will, as Isaiah describes the parched land, exult and rejoice and bloom… and we will see the glory of the LORD. +

Homily for December 14, 2019

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus identified John the Baptist with the prophet Elijah, whose return was anticipated just before the emergence of the long-awaited Savior. Jesus said of John the Baptist, that “they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased.”

John’s fate would soon become the fate of Jesus Himself. As Jesus said, “So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands.” Both John and Jesus proclaimed the ideals of God’s kingdom and both of them suffered greatly for doing so. Even as we draw nearer to celebrating the birth of Jesus, we are being reminded of the Cross that awaited this Child.

At Christmas, we celebrate the Good News that God so loved the world that He gave us His only Son. Today’s Gospel passage reminds us that God’s giving was a giving-unto-death, a giving that cost no less than everything.

At this time of the year, we pray for this same generosity, so that we may give to others what God has given to us. +