ADVENT Mid-Week III: Homily

“THE APOSTLE PREACHES THE MYSTERY”

1^st Corinthians 4. 1-5

Advent Midweek Vespers III: 19 December Anno Domini 2013

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

Grace Mercy and Peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord + Jesus Christ.

   Paul writes to a very difficult congregation—the Christian parish at Corinth. These new Christians were surrounded by wealth, entertainment, sports, food & drink, cults, pagans, antagonistic Jews, and a Militaristic preoccupation with State. And what does Paul do? He doesn’t start a rival political party or movement (the Olive Party or Myrrh Movement); he doesn’t start his own talk-show (the Faith Forum with Rabbi Saul-bo); and he certainly doesn’t start, lead, put at the center, crux, and heart, a “list of do’s and don’ts.”  Paul talks Incarnation. Paul talks flesh and blood. Paul talks—Gospels—Jesus. This is because Paul is THE Prophet of Christ’s Advent: Past, Present and Parousia.

   “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.” Therein you find Paul’s mandate and “marching orders.” What the Christ did for His “12” on Easter Eve and Quasimodogeniti Eve, He did to Paul as well in Damascus, in the house of Judas on Straight Street. The Lord Christ breathed on Saul as He had breathed on denying Peter, wrath-filled James, jealous Philip, doubting Thomas and the rest. Jesus used another of His instruments, the truly “forgotten disciple” and anonymous pastor, St. Ananias “the brave.” In a vision Jesus told Ananias to go to the house of one named Judas and meet the Christian-killer Saul of Tarsus for “he is a chosen vessel unto Me to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the Children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake.” [Acts 9. 15-16] Ananias was a faithful minister and steward of The Word and did what he was elected, called, and graced to do—he went into the ‘lions-den’ and: “putting his hands [the Hands of Jesus] on him said [the Breath of Jesus], Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.” [vv. 17-18]

  The killer became the pardoned. The adversary became the ally. The disbelieving Jew became the believing brother and vessel of the God/Man! “Let a man, (Jews, Gentiles, kings, all creatures,) account of us...(us now including Saint Paul,) as of the ministers of Christ…” Ministers: is the English of uperetes (hupayratus)…helper; one in service to another. Paul would usually refer to himself thereafter as diakonos—deacon. And when Paul said he was a servant of Christ Jesus, he meant slave. For now His Master, His Messiah was not his own twisted Pharisaical imaginations and self-works, but the Living and Resurrected God/Man in the Flesh and Blood! Now the mysteries were the same revealed Words of Hebrew Scriptures which Paul had thought he knew so well. Now, Paul is known by Jesus, loved by Jesus, and is appointed a “steward[s] of the mysteries of God.” Paul received meat and was strengthened. Soon he would receive more of what all the Lord’s Baptized need, the “Meat of the Word” which always follows the “Milk” of the Word. Soon he would receive and distribute the Very Word made Flesh in the Sacramental Body and Blood of His Incarnate Redeemer.  Paul would be taken not only into the Arabian desert but also into the Third Heaven—the throne-room of the Ascended Christ sitting on the Right Hand of Majesty—to be filled with the Three-in-One, in the Person and Face of the Incarnate Man of Bethlehem and Galilee. Paul was called and ordained to be a “steward[s] of the mysteries of God”—a house servant/slave of the mysterions of God. Mysterion is also translated as Sacramentum, or Sacrament[s].

   As Adventide draws to a close, as the great Feast of The Nativity is close—The Lord “stands at the door,” we celebrate the remembrance of the Bethlehem stable and manger—the Fruit of the Annunciation and Incarnation of God by the Holy Spirit of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As Adventide 2013 moves to the Eucharistic Feast of the Christ-Mass 2013, we celebrate the Advent King’s Imminent Return in Glory to take us home…but we also have our Home, temporarily HERE at His stable, manger, crèche, altar, Table of Communion! All of this December preparation is not about snow, presents for our loved ones, legends of Saint Nicholas, evergreens, lights, and eggnog. Our lives are in, with and under the Incarnated Jesus PRESENT: Immanuel!

   Paul, like Mary of Bethany, knew the one thing needful: “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” [1 Cor. 1. 22-23]

   But Christ is not a slogan, program, systematic text book, or distant memory. Jesus is not a way of life, He IS LIFE. Jesus is not a body of knowledge, He IS KNOWLEDGE.  Jesus is not “out there,” He IS INCARNATE for you!

    Baptism is a Sacrament.  Absolution is a Sacrament. Marriage has Sacramental characteristics and the Symbols do not wish to quibble over semantics. The Eucharist is considered not only the pre-eminent Sacrament but the Very New Testament itself—Himself. But all of these are predicated upon; depend upon Christ Incarnated the TRUE AND ULTIMATE Sacrament, Sacramentum, and Mysterion.  Paul the Advent Apostle of Hebrew and Greek, of Jew and Gentile, of Old Covenant and New Testament speaks into your ears: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations.”  That mystery is, which Paul and all his successors over the centuries have stewarded and guarded so that they might give Him to you freely by Grace to your Faith, the Body and Blood; the Word, of Jesus Christ.

   Jesus’ obedience to the Decalogue which you break is your obedience. You joyfully can now fight the fight of love, duty and compliance because your Advent King fights for you and intercedes for your daily sins. Jesus’ Paschal Mystery atoning for your guilt and rightful punishment on Calvary is your liberation and complete verdict—not guilty—Alive in His Resurrection and Eternal reign—His physical, bodily, Incarnated reign.

   “Moreover it is required in stewards, (and in disciples), that a man be found faithful.” You are faithful because Jesus is faithful. You have faith because Jesus is faith in Flesh. Happy Advent to Saint Paul.  Happy Advent my fellow martyrs.

In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost

Steeleye Span - Gaudete (1972) - CHRYSALIS

GAUDETE: Homily

“Gaudete, Gaudete”

Saint Matthew 11. 2-10

Gaudete: 15 December Anno Domini 2013

                                                           Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

    “Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus Ex Maria virgine, gaudete!” The Third Sunday of Adventide is named Gaudete Sunday because the Introit has Philippians 4.4 as its antiphon: “Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, Rejoice!”

   How fitting that one of the most recognized, used, and beloved of all icons (even amongst us Evangelical-Catholics of the West) is the triptych of Christ enthroned on a center panel, flanked on the right by the Blessed Virgin and on the left by Saint John Baptizer.

   John is the last of the Old Testament Prophets. Saint Mary is the type of the New Testament Church.  Both are on the Lord’s flanks looking at and toward Salvation in the flesh—the Advent of release and Peace. “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world” booms John. “Whatever He saith unto you, do it” intones Our Mother. For as the Archangel said, so it is: “Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee.” The greatest of women and the greatest of men are both pointing to and bowing to the God/Man who has loosed them from prison and regarded the low estate of a handmaiden. Jesus made the one strong to withstand the shaking of the winds of trials and physical depredations. The Lord fed the Baptizer with faith by Grace that this man accepted locusts and wild honey as suitable sustenance—for He had Christ to eat as His true Bread of Life. The Lord so clothed him with absolving love, and peace of conscience, that he was content with camel hair garments and a leather girdle. Jesus chose John and made him not just the last of the Prophets but the Elias to come…the very “messenger before Thy face.”

   Jesus, God of God, made the other His mother, God’s Mother; crowning her with the eternal title “Blessed Virgin” for she is as Gabriel gospels “blessed…among women.” Indeed, Saint Mary herself filled with the Holy Ghost sings “Megalunei” as Saint Luke records…”Magnificat” as Saint Jerome translates, and, as you sang Thursday past “My soul doth magnify the Lord” in the Church’s greatest canticle of praise.

   A pregnant teen-aged mother not sure whether her heretofore fiancé is going to marry her or “put her away” has the presence of Christ sustain and bring hope and perseverance. She who was gossiped against and ridiculed in her home-town as mother of an illegitimate child, had the reality of the Lord’s imminence and love to give her comfort and balm. And, the other one rotting away in a vermin infested cesspool of a prison, knowing that Herod’s blade is fast approaching, had the works of Christ confirming the revelations of God the Holy Spirit.  These works of the Savior brought John courage and inner joy even in his upcoming martyrdom.

   So, all the questions about whether John lost faith while in prison; did he doubt; was this an existential moment of despair or fatalistic resignation, are wrong at best and diabolic at worst. John, like our Blessed Mother Mary, was a sinful human in thought, word, and deed. Of course John’s faith was not perfect. Like you, his prayer life was not perfect nor was His Scripture study all that God demands in keeping the First Table. But to pull down the Baptizer to some lower level in a misguided and twisted egalitarian/American scrum of democratization is un-Christian. There are all the Saints to be sure, the “Communion of Saints.” And then, there are the titans of the faith, the Martyrs of the Merciful One, Saint Stephen, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Polycarp, and others. There are the indispensible pillars of reflected light: the Evangelists, Saint Moses, Elias, and of course Saint Mary herself. And there is John as Christ describes him in Matthew 11: “verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.” [Mt. 11.11a]

   No, John knew Who Jesus was…Scripture is irrefutable on this.

   “Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples.” Full stop! John had seen Jesus at the Jordan. John had seen the descent of the Paraclete. John had heard the voice of the Father. These three auditory and visual manifestations had confirmed all that the Spirit had already revealed to John. John had both read the Old Testament prophecies but also had special revelation.  But then, John went his way and the Christ went his way. John was soon arrested and placed deep into darkness. John did not witness the healing miracles that the Lord had worked thus far.

   When John, as the Evangelist Matthew records for us, finally heard of Jesus’ great signs, he was overjoyed in this confirmation. He knew it would be what his own “hangers-on,” his own last few followers, needed to see and to hear in person. So, John sends the final two of his students to become disciples of the only true Teacher of Truth: The Truth.

   This Gospel text is not about John and not about Mary and not about the two disciples. This event is about the Word that is confirmed by THE WORD. Scripture, the Old Testament, is confirmed in the Flesh and Blood and Voice of the Nazarene: “The bind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” 

   You were blind in your damning sin. You were living in a darkness far blacker and filled with more despair than John’s prison cell. Jesus spit and made new restorative and regenerative clay, not of the earth, but of His Flesh and Blood, and placed it on your eyes to open you to His Light. You were lame. You were bent over and crippled not with polio or arthritis or some exotic palsy, but with an Old Adam curvature of self—causing you to grown twisted and malevolently in on your own foul heart. Jesus touched you with the hem of His garment, placed His own robe upon you and straightened you and lifted you up off your pallet; He dipped you in the New + Pool of Siloam and His waters energized your mended body and bones.  You were leprous but Jesus washed off your lesions, pustules and scars with the salve of His precious cleansing Blood. You were deaf but the Lord’s fingers, His punctured palm-tips placed His Word of Peace and Forgiveness into your ears—and thus into your hearts. You were dead and filled with the venom of enmity and hatred towards God. But Christ resurrected you from the + Font wherein He buried you with Him into His death and raised you again in His Easter Resurrection. You live; you are forgiven; you are at Table with your Master, your Meal, and your merciful Messiah!

   My fellow poor, my fellow prison mates, my fellow brothers and sisters of our Mother, Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus Ex Maria virgine, gaudete!  Deus homo factus est!

   John is freed from his prison given back his head—Christ the Head—and seated with the Virgin, the Sabaoth, the Saints, and shortly all of you.

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

ADVENT Mid-week II: Homily

“SAUL SPEAKS THE SAVIOR”

Romans 15. 4-13

Advent Midweek Vespers II: 12 December Anno Domini 2013

Father J. Watson SSP

Grace, Mercy and Peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus + Christ

   Saint Augustine, an influence of Luther, wrote: “The New Testament was in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New Revealed.” Augustine could say this because he knew Saint Paul, he knew the Good News of the Advent Savior!

   Paul was no pie-eyed, gauzy mystic but a hard as tacks practical manly-man missionary. He didn’t look to Delphic oracles, animal entrails, or Philippian silver idols. Paul had met the God/Man, the Living Glorified Christ on the Road to Damascus. Paul had heart the vocal chords (still Incarnated) of Christ speak to him and then teach him for three years in the Arabian Desert—his own 40 year wilderness seminary. But likewise, Paul was no secular scoffer. Paul believed in the transcendent Trinity and in the Imminent but Invisible Word of God. Paul confessed what the Spirit, what Christ had given Him to confess—the Word of God: the Hebrew Scriptures!

   Not only did Paul know the Bible better than even the other Apostles, but Paul had met Peter, James and some of the others in Jerusalem. Paul had heard John’s story which mirrored everything he had already been granted by special revelation from Jesus. Paul knew John’s testimony was Christ’s testament: “search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of Me.” [Jn. 5.39]  Paul tells you that it’s all true: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” [Heb. 13.8]

   So, Paul’s epistle to the Christians at Rome was no mere “howdy-do; I’m Paul, and here is my program.”  Instead Paul preaches boldly: “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning.” The Apostle is Gospelling the Old Testament as containing the Living Jesus! The Old Testament, also referred to as the “oracles.” (Acts, Romans, Hebrews, 1^st Peter) are the Spirit’s words of Jesus from Genesis 1.1 to Malachi 4.6.  The “learning” that Paul, the Holy Spirit, constrains on all of you, no less than the Romans, is not noetic—head knowledge of facts, dates, and arcane trivia, but normative gut-level faith and trust!

   This “learning” is catechesis to form your body, both physical and spiritual to the shape of Jesus and His cross. Paul knows that you, like him, our chief of sinners. Paul knows that your old Adam daily produces actions and words, and desires, which are not befitting a follower of Jesus. Paul, the Holy Spirit, would have you see this shameful sinful situation! Do the words that come out of your lips bespeak the lips that have been touched by God’s Body and Blood to give you breath and sustenance and joy? Do the works of your hands icon the blessing that the pierced Hands of your Redeemer worked for you? Does your heart, your reins, grown with desires to help, to forgive, to bear your brothers burdens, as your Lord’s Heart bled Water + and Blood just for you? This is how you are supposed to live and hence Paul writes much of admonition, exhortation, and encouragement to “BE! Be what you are!”

   Because of your epic failures Paul also gives the Hope that is only in Jesus… “That we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”  If you are more miserable than you want to be I would only likewise exhort you: read the Scriptures! Are you reading the Apostles, the Holy Spirit’s, words to the Romans, the Galatians, and the Ephesians regularly, daily? Why not? Do you do what he told the Berean Christians to do—to search the Old Testament? Why not? Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. If Esaias could be fed a living coal from the altar by the tongs of a Seraph, than you can, should, and must, pick up the living coal of Christ’s Word and eat! By being “in Scripture” (whether Exodus, Jeremiah, or…Job) you are in the Lord’s riven side and He is in you in all ways possible and seemingly impossible. For even the Blessed Virgin was told that “with God all things are possible!”

   What produces the patience that Paul prays you have and which the Lord gives? Christ is patience personified—in the flesh—as the Lamb that opened not its mouth as it was being led to slaughter; Who cursed not back when He was being cursed but forgave His enemies and murderers (i.e. all of you).

   Patience is made durable and most beneficial by suffering. The longsuffering Christians undergo in their Advent journey to the Creche, to the true Altar of Bethlehem’s manger, produces Saints and little “lights of the world” that eat, drink, speak, and share Jesus with all the company of the redeemed. Jesus Himself remains perfectly patient and longsuffering until His final Advent. He is not fast to return, nor is He slow to return. Jesus wants all men to repent and believe and He will return when His message, the Holy Ghost’s, through Paul has been preached.

   Your suffering, your patience, these gifts of God, make you hope and trust in Jesus and Jesus alone!

   “That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is true homologia that is Paul’s evangel. There is only One Word, One grouping of words from One Word. This is why the ancient “kiss of peace” meant so much to the early church—lips to lips mouth to mouth, brother to brother, meant that there was only One Truth, One Peace, One Baptism, One Lord and One Church—One Jesus Christ! In the one liturgy, Gottesdienst (God’s Service), there is but one Creed and one Confession of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And you do most glorify God in the Mass wherein He feeds you and you reflect praise and thanksgiving.

   “Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.” Faith, true faith and not empty parroting, produces works. Christians receive one another and do for one another with hospitality, bridled tongues, sacrifice, and care. Jesus says Paul wants you to practice what you preach. This is what Advent Christians do because they know the Master is returning very soon; maybe tonight; maybe before the sermon is over.

  So that the Gentile Romans would understand that the God of the Hebrew Dessert and the Jerusalem high ground was the same Living Jesus of the Forum, Agora and Hill of Mars (Areopagus) he quotes the Old Testament four times wherein the inclusion of all ethne, pagans, barbarian, Greeks, Romans and Americans is made abundantly clear—four times for the four-fold Gospel! These four weeks of Advent bespeak the arrival of the Jesus that wants and has you!

   Yes the Christ was first the Messiah to the Jews, the Suffering Servant of Esaias’ Gospel. But in His Bethlehem Advent, His Calvary Advent, and His final Advent (from Pentecost to Sunday Communion to final trumpet blast) He is The Light to lighten the Gentiles! He is the Glory of His New Israel!

   “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” AMEN.

THREE MONKS -- Progressive Magdeburg

Populus Zion: HOMILY

“SIGNS, SIGNS, EVERYWHERE THE SIGNS”

Saint Luke 21. 25-36

Populus Zion: 8 December Anno Domini 2013

Father Jay Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

   If our Lord’s dire and stark astronomical predictions were but ONLY portents of the Eschaton, the end of all things, it would all still be true, but a bit hollow. For you disciples know that He will come again as a thief in the night—like a tornado that is suddenly upon your house in the middle of a 3am dark night—no sight—no warning—just NOW!  As the lightning flashes from east to west in a “snap” (or crackle) so too will the Trump sound and Christ will be in the sky with His Legions of Sabaoth!  And yet, The Lord wants His brethren to be on guard, alert, and anticipating His imminent return with loyal sobriety and repentant faithfulness. Repent and believe!

   Yes there will be, there were, and there ARE, “signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars.” Christ is not really giving His flock Jack Horkheimer Star-Gazing instructions nor is He counseling astrology. This is more parable-like and figurative language pointing to His own intervention in history and the salvation activity He has worked for all of His people: both Jew and Gentile.

   At the time of the Exodus, the pre-eminent Salvation act in the Old Testament, the plague of darkness which struck Egypt blotted out the sun, moon and stars while the camp of the Hebrew children (with Moses in the midst as Prophet, Priest and King type) had light. The same Lord, the pre-incarnate “Angel of the Lord” Who led and followed the Hebrews out of bondage across their Baptism in God’s cloud at the Red Sea, worked as a protective re-reguard confusing the pursuing Egyptians with darkness and blindness.

   And no one can gainsay the travails in the sun, moon and stars at the utter destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in the year 597 B.C.  The Lord’s Temple and Holy of Holies—the Sun to His people, was blotted out in the darkness of heathen uncleanness. The 400 years from Malachi until the Advent of Saint John Baptizer was a darkness when all the stars (the prophesying evangelists, or the evangelizing prophets) were clouded over in silence.

   Your Lord’s Words apply to His reappearing at the Second and Final Advent…but, by then, you should all be looking at His glorified and beatific Face and not at fading meteorological and socio-political detritus.

   But what of the THEN, Christ’s own day and the immediate days following His Paschal Mystery and vicarious Atonement? But what of the Now, what of the now of the New Testament Church’s life IN CHRIST? 

   At this very moment, 2013, don’t the nations still rage against the Christ and His Church…even as they did during the persecutions of Stephen, James the Elder, the Roman martyr’s, and all of the others in the catacombs and Forum? The sea of unbelief and the waves roaring against the Truth and the Particularity of the Truth remain unabated and unbridled. The Gospel is hated by Satan and his spawn of pagans wherever and whenever it is preached and presented.

    There was great fear when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, and later when the Barbarian hordes over-ran Rome in the 5^th century. There is fear in your hearts right now for your families and your friends; for you communities and your nation; for your way of life and your Church.

   But where were the powers of heaven seemingly shaken, where was the sun temporarily darkened, and where did even the hearts of the Blessed Virgin and the Apostolic Band seem forever shaken and failed?  At the Cross of your Lord, at Calvary, where He suffered, bled, and died for your sins, for not just your fearful and weak heart but for your perverted and shriveled sinful heart! When Jesus hung His sacred head, now wounded, the signs of all the Law, Prophets, and Psalms were fulfilled—the sun was blackened, the moon—the perfect reflection of the sun was blood red, splattered from His hands, feet, and pierced side, and the stars, the future Evangelists, were cowering, hiding, or absent from the firmament of faith. Yes the powers of heaven, in the earthly life of the God/Man, were shaken. Jesus died and was buried. God died for man.

   But Easter follows Good Friday. The Resurrection follows the Crucifixion. And following your Baptisms is still the life-under-the-cross. Those at the foot of the Crucifix only later fully understood, what you understand now, that in the Face of the Suffering Servant, in the Body given and the Blood shed, was God’s great power and glory. Like the grain of wheat, or corn, or even fig, must first die and fall to, and into, the ground to grow up and burst forth alive again from the earth, so too the Son of Man hung suspended on Calvary to prepare for both His Ascension to Power, and His imminent arrival in Majesty. The unbelieving Jews, and all unbelievers ever since, demanded a sign. The Lord told them and all others that the only sign would be the sign of Jonas: The God/Man in the belly of death three days. The Apostle preaches the only sign that matters—the sign of The Cross; the Crucifix. As the Sun performed a miracle in Joshua’s battle against the Philistines, so too the true Joshua—the true Son, performed your redemption in the battle against Satan, sin, and death. You have this eternally living sign in the sign of the + font, the sign of + absolution, and the sign of the supper which is no mere normal meal, but a sacramental communion with the Signee Himself!

   Today, 8 December Anno Domini 2013, you see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Whether in actual cloud of salutary incense, or spiritual cloud of Eucharistic prayers ascending, the Christ comes in Words of absolution and in His precious Body and Blood. Lift up your heads, tilt back your chins, and open your mouths, for the Lord of Glory, FORGIVENESS and PEACE, enters. Your Redemption draweth nigh and is placed on your tongues.

In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost

ADVENT Mid-Week I: Homily

“PAUL PROCLAIMS THE PRINCE OF PEACE’S ADVENT”

Romans 13. 11-14

Advent Midweek Vespers I: 5 December Anno Domini 2013

Father Watson SSP

Grace Mercy and Peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus + Christ

   You had no trouble waking up (way) too early on Christmas day back when you were a child craving mammon; and that’s really what it was.  Pray for forgiveness to all our parents who had us more jazzed for the North-pole fat man with our loot than for the Incarnated Second Person of the Blessed Trinity coming into our world to save us from the sin of greed, concupiscence, avarice, and covetousness!  You have no trouble, now, waking up early and alert to make it to the airport for your vacation, or to get on “the road” for your fishing, hunting, or “game-day” adventure.

   But…that’s why Advent, that’s why God had to take into His Divinity man’s humanity—to cleanse, purify, deify it by first forgiving it; then being perfect in/with it, and then by dying with it (His sinless, immaculate, innocence) loaded up with all your dark deeds and darker thoughts. It’s why the blessed Apostle St. Paul tells you “now it is high time to awake out of sleep.” Advent is the time for this exhortation to repent.  Drown your “old-Adam” and confess your sins.  Pray the Holy Spirit gives you your Advent King through His Word and through His Meal so that you are alert and anxious to hasten His final Advent—“for now is our salvation nearer than when + we believed.”

   Thus the greatest Apostle and Missionary of all, Saint Saul of Tarsus believed, and thus he taught and confessed to you, and for you, that you might repent and believe. The “night is far spent, the day is at hand.”  The Old Covenant has been obeyed, kept and subsumed—consummated in Jesus’ perfect obedient life. The Hebrew Old Testament is far spent and its purchase is Immanuel.  The day is at hand, the New Testament has been ushered in and dawn breaks as you prepare to celebrate with Paul the first Advent of God in the Flesh! 

   Saint Paul had plenty of “works of darkness” to cast off; for he had persecuted Jesus.  Christ is one with His Church, as a Groom to a Bride, and thus when Paul assisted in the murder of Saint Stephen; he was a direct accomplice with the killers of Christ Himself.  Paul, as a great Pharisee scholar, rigorist Benjamite, and facile historian, “knew” all the Hebrew sacred writings—he just didn’t really know what they meant, Who they were really written by, and to Whom they were all pointing.  Until…until the Advent of Christ smack-dab into Paul’s hard-hearted face (blinding it temporarily) on the Damascus Road awakened him out of rioting against the Saints, devilish drunkenness and strife and envying, and chambering (i.e. whoring) with falsehood. The Word made Flesh came to Paul to open His eyes to the words of Scripture and to the Incarnated Advent of God as man and for men!

   Paul is the Prophet of your Savior’s Advent: past, present, and to come! He hears Jesus speaking and he echoes the Words of peace to you: “You are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone.” [Eph. 2.20]  Your pains and your crumblings are not going to bring you down into darkness for you are built on Jesus Body and Blood. Paul came to know that the Old Testament, when the Psalmist wrote “Thy [W]ord is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” [Ps119.105] was speaking of Jesus the Light and Logos of the world.  So fitting it is that the Gospel for Christmas Day is John 1: “…the Light of men…the Light shineth in darkness…the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” [Jn. 1. 4b, 5a, 9]  Paul would have liked that pericopal choice by the Church!  The Advent of the Incarnated One makes all things fresh and new…even as He begins to heal you for your journey with Him.

   Paul testifies your faith: “God, Who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the Fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, Whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by Whom also He made the worlds.” [Hebrews 1.1-2]

    Advent is not about snow or snowmen. Advent is about celebrating the coming of the One Who would bleed His red Blood and give up His sinless Body not as a chrismon on an artificial tree but at The Paschal Lamb on the Tree of the Crucifix. This season which comes every year in dark and depressing December is not about St. Nick, frosted cookies, evergreens or giving presents to your loved ones. It is about knowing (believing by the gift of Immanuel through the Holy Spirit working in Word and Sacramental Word) that “Now is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is your salvation.” Now, yes, tonight, but even more so this coming Mass on Sunday. There you will “put…on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh,” for He is your Flesh and Blood; your Peace, Absolution, and Advent Home.

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost