Year II Monday of the First Week of Advent

Readings: Isaiah 4:2-6; Psalm 122:1-9; Matthew 8:5-11

Worthiness. It’s often an issue, even if sometimes a bit overwrought. Over time, even among Christians, the issue has shifted from the default of not being worthy to the presumption of worthiness. What is lost in this shift is a sense of sin’s gravity. Its effects on one’s relationship with God, who alone is holy.

The Roman centurion’s response to Jesus’ declaration that He would follow him home to cure his servant are words with which we are very familiar: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.”¹ We say these words at every Mass after being told to “Behold, the Lamb of God. Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.”

It’s easy for our Mass responses to become rote, uttered thoughtlessly and without passion. This must be resisted mightily. After all, I am not worthy.

Left to my own merits, no matter how much I strive, I will never be worthy. While this is simply a recognition of reality, it should pain me, nonetheless. I want to be worthy or should at least want to desire to be worthy.

One’s motivation for wanting to be worthy can be a mixed bag. On the debit side of the ledger, it’s often the case that someone doesn’t like needing help to be deemed worthy. It isn’t enough to want to be holy. One’s desire to be holy must be a holy desire, that is, rightly motivated. Part of this holy desire means recognizing that I need God, that I need grace given in and through Christ by the power of the Spirit.

Our first reading from the Isaiah (who we hear a lot from over Advent) is from first Isaiah. Therefore, it was written before Israel’s exile. This oracle speaks of those who remain in Jerusalem during exile. Remember, it was the elites who were led away into captivity. The hoi polloi, or, in Hebrew, the anawim- the little ones, those of no account, who remained. These, pronounces the prophet, “Will be called holy.”²

It is the poor and the weak who know they need assistance who remain in the holy city. These least among us ask for help, sometimes beg for it, like the blind beggar Jesus encountered in Jericho about whom we heard a few Mondays ago. God delights in these humble souls.

After acknowledging our unworthiness, we implore the Lord to “only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” As often as we earnestly ask, the Lord says the healing word. When one is aware of serious sin, Christ beckons him to the confessional to say the healing word.

Lord longs to say, “I absolve you of your sins.” Sometimes, we forget the extent to which Jesus turned things upside down. It isn’t humility to insist that your sins are greater than God’s mercy. On the contrary, it is damnable pride. After all, didn’t God give His only Son to extend divine mercy to you? As Saint Paul insisted, “you have been purchased at a price.”³

Confession is not where you go to admit defeat. It is where you go to claim the victory Christ won for you over sin and death! Don’t let pride, one of the devil’s best tools, keep you from claiming your victory. Christ’s Easter victory is your victory. Without Easter, Christmas doesn’t matter.

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1 Isaiah 4:3.^↩
2 Matthew 8:8.^↩
3 See 1 Corinthians 6:20.^↩

"How soon is now?"

Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122:1-9; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:37-44

For this First Sunday of Advent, our "epistle" reading is a longer section of the thirteenth chapter of Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans than the reading found in Morning Prayer for the Liturgy of the Hours. Despite being a relatively short liturgical season, Advent has two fairly distinct phases. For the first two weeks, Advent is a continuation of the end of the liturgical year. As such, it focuses on Christ's return at the end of time and preparing for His return.

Advent, therefore, begins penitentially. Oddly, there are those who deny that Advent has a penitential character at all. This is belied by the fact that the predominant liturgical color for this season is violet. Liturgically, violent indicates penance. Besides, for most Eastern Christians the pre-Christmas fast is as rigorous or nearly as rigorous as the Lenten fast. Sadly, Latin Christians have largely dispensed with pre-Christmas penitential practices.

As noted a few weeks ago, there is something seriously defective about a "Christianity" that has lost its eschatological edge. In fact, such a "Christianity" is a pseudo-Christianity. Far from honoring, Jesus Christ, rending being a Christian as nothing more than choosing one existential option among innumerable existential options is to ignore what He taught. Our Gospel for today is one such teaching. Christianity isn't just one more moral code or even a moral code at all.

Faced with these eschatological passages, we have a tendency to water them down. Otherwise, we might get a bit uncomfortable. This discomfort might cause someone to examine his life. And, who knows, perhaps even repent.

Fundamentally, the message for the First Sunday of Advent is that being a Christian means living intentionally. The intent in living this way isn't to live this way when that just means adhering to a set of rules and regulations in order to receive a reward. It means living this way in order to be changed from the inside out. It means metanoia. It means desiring to be conformed to the image of Christ, wanting to be holy as He is holy.

"Maranatha" in the medieval Southwick Codex

In turn, desiring to be conformed to the image of Christ means recognizing that you cannot accomplish this transformation on your own. Without grace, you cannot be like Christ. Human beings were created in the image and likeness of God. While God's image, the imago Dei, is ineradicable, likeness to God is lost through sin and can only be restored by grace.

We are creatures who inhabit time. Time will end. Therefore, each day salvation draws nearer- whether that be the eschaton or your own death. This year is the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene-Constaninopolitan Creed. In that Creed, which we recite virtually every Sunday (we can use the Apostles Creed, but that in no way diminishes my point), we profess that Jesus Christ "will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead." This is a dogma of Christian faith. Therefore, it is de fide. Without it, one's faith becomes belief in something else.

It has been more than 2,000 years since the Lord's first advent. In human terms, this is a very long time. It is postulated that Israel's exodus from Egypt took place around 1446 BC. If one backs up from the exodus to Israel's "going down to Egypt," you get pretty close to 2,000 years. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not predicting that Jesus is coming soon. Yet, He might. Nobody can possibly know. The signs the Lord invokes, I believe, are deliberately ambiguous.

Rather, my point is that most of history is an advent, a time of waiting on God. Many have concluded that waiting on God is like waiting for Godot, that is, waiting for someone who never turns up. But that isn't true. Christ has turned up.

Through the Holy Spirit, who is Christ's resurrection presence, He remains present, especially and profoundly in and through His Body, the Church. This is why the response to the Intercessions for Evening Prayer for the First Sunday of Advent is Come and stay with us, Lord.Hence, we live between the already and the not yet. This is a place of tension.

Today, as we enter (another) Advent, we are urged to live this tension. We are exhorted not let either or both sides go slack. We are encouraged not give up our joyful waiting for the coming of our Lord. This is why we pray- מרנאתא - Transliterated, this is Maranatha!

Maranatha is an Aramaic word. Hence, it belongs to what was Jesus' native language. Found in 1 Corinthians 16:22 and alluded to in Revelation 22:20, Maranatha is translated in various ways: "Our Lord, come!" but it could also be credibly translated "Our Lord has come." Fittingly, there is no need to resolve this ambiguity, this tension, just as there is no need to resolve the tension of the already and the not-yet. Between these two is now.

Wake up! Stay awake! Be salt. Don't lose your savor. Await Christ with joyful expectation, which means seeking to make God's kingdom present here and now.

"I'm listening to the music with no fear"

Ah, Friday after Thanksgiving! I often post something on Thanksgiving. But this year, we did something we've been discussing for probably fifteen years: going out-of-town for this holiday. And so, we're in Hurricane, Utah, which is the extreme southwest corner of the Beehive State.

All of our children, minus one, are here as are my wife's Mom, brother and his daughter. It's been a nice break and a good time. A good way to realize how busy you are is to get away and take a break.

I love Thanksgiving. It's becoming my favorite holiday. It's easy to grouse about the origins of this national holiday. In reality, isn't it nice to set aside a day to give thanks? However you observed that day, I hope you took time, as Pope Leo suggested, to thank someone. It's probably something we should all try to do everyday- say "Thank you" whenever we feel gratitude.

As Brother David Steindl-Rast noted his wonderful book on gratitude: "Look closely and will find that people are happy because they are grateful. The opposite of gratefulness is just taking everything for granted." Or, even worse, focusing on that bad things, which, as human beings, we are predisposed to do.

Me at the end of today's trail in Kolob Canyon

I readily admit that gratitude doesn't come easily to me. This despite the fact there are a lot of people for whom I should be deeply grateful. Also, a lot in my life over 60 years now for which I should be far more grateful. It's much easier to focus what I will just call other stuff.

A big focus of mine right now is living with less fear. I am not gripped by fear, but I tend to worry too much. Even if you live to 100, life is too short to worry a lot. There is always something to worry about, for sure. Some things are worth worrying about. Most things are not, especially when you realize most of what you worry about is nonsense.

I had a great time driving down with my two middle sons. We listened to so much music. Some of it new to me. "Punkrocker" by the Teddybears, featuring Iggy Pop, is one such song. It is our traditio:

Happy "good thieves"

Jesus Christ isn't just king of the world, He is king of the universe, of the cosmos. As no less a brilliant mind than Einstein observed, we do, in fact, live in a cosmos. Cosmos is the counter to chaos. Hence, the Lord's insistence to Pilate that His kingdom is not of this world can mean more than one thing.

Christ's kingdom is out of this world as well as in this world. He is King of everything that is, was, or ever will be. For a Christian, this is axiomatic. It is an atomic statement, an ontological fact, just as the Church, as our reading from Colossians indicates, is an ontological entity, not a voluntary association of the like-minded.

The sarcastic sign Pilate had hung on the Lord's Cross was true as far as it went: Jesus is "The king of the Jews." But He is also king of the Gentiles, even of Caesar. Pope Pius XII wrote about Catholics having a supranationality. In the end, every knee shall bend and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

In his Apostolic Letter, In Unitate Fidei, promulgated today, given in advance of his Apostolic Journey to Turkey to observe the 1,700th anniversary of Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, Pope Leo XIV noted

The profession of faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord and God is the center of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. This is the heart of our Christian life. For this reason, we commit to follow Jesus as our master, companion, brother and friend. But the Nicene Creed asks for more: it reminds us not to forget that Jesus Christ is the Lord (Kyrios), the Son of the living God who “for our salvation came down from heaven” and died “for our sake” on the cross, opening the way to new life for us through his resurrection and ascension (sec. 11)

Christ is not a king like other kings. He is not a demanding, selfish, cruel tyrant, paranoid about rivals and eager to assert His authority by using corecive means. He isn't drunk with power or domineering. While being perfectly just, He is merciful, selfless, and kind. When He mounted the cross, He mounted His throne.

As the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer for today's observance puts it, Christ offered Himself "on the altar of the Cross" to present to the Father

an eternal and universal kingdom,
a kingdom of truth and life,
a kingdom of holiness and grace,
a kingdom of justice, peace, and love

Nothing really gets at the "theology" of observances such as today's like the Preface, which serves as a shining example of liturgy as prima theologia- first theology.

With one notable exception, it is only thieves who dwell in Christ's kingdom. Even this exception, Mary, the Mother of God, confesses herself a "lowly servant." So, the question is not whether or not you're a "thief." I am and you are. Rather, the question is, do you know you're a thief? Then the question becomes, are you a good thief or a bad one?

In his last will and testament, discovered after his martyrdom, Christian de Chergé, abbot of Our Lady of Atlas abbey in Tibhirine, Algeria, addressing his killer, wrote this: "I commend you to the God in whose face I see yours. And may we find each other, happy 'good thieves' in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both."

"To show you that I've thought about you and missed you"

A couple of posts back, 2025 became the most prolific year on Καθολικός διάκονος since 2016. I don't mind sharing that I am proud of that fact. This is a labor of love and vehicle for growth.

More than being something I love and that helps me grow, this blog is a way to share to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I try to do that in a credible way. At root, my blog was born as and hopefully remains an evangelical effort.

As my blog epigram puts it: "This is a public cyberspace in which I seek to foster Christian discipleship in the late modern milieu in the diakonia of koinonia and in the recognition that "the Eucharist is the only place of resistance to annihilation of the human subject."

I am glad that the Church prohibits the use of electronic devices for her liturgies. The use of the ritual books matters. Liturgy is analog and corporeal. In a word, incarnational.

One of the ways I try to share the Gospel is by a deep engagement with "secular" culture: books, movies, music, etc. There were ways that I came to faith and these also sustain my faith. One of the beautiful things about being Catholic and catholic is not to have to make some nutty hard-and-fast distinction between the sacred and the profane. Christ collapsed that.

Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Wednesday I read on article over on First Things by Stephen Adubato: "Rosalía’s Restless Heart." Let e clear, I claim no familiarity whatsoever with Rosalía's music. This article was my first exposure to her music.

Like me, Adubato is apparently a beneficiary of the work and charism of Monsignor Luigi Giussani. Giussani's "method," such as it is, lends itself nicely to attending to life, to looking at reality according to all the factors that make it up. This is indicated by Adubato's citation of Don Gius at the beginning and end of his article, citations that discuss music and celebate vocations.

I was very struck by a quote from the article- a citation from an interview with Rosalía:

The more we are in the era of dopamine,” she says, “the more I want the opposite. . . . There has to be something that pulls us . . . to be focused for an hour where you’re just there. I know it’s a lot to ask . . . but that’s what I’m craving

I think more and more people are craving something very like this as well. Just as Elijah did not find God in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, God is not likely to be found in the dopamine hit to which so many of us have become addicted (see 1 Kings 19:11-13). Really, anything that adheres to the law of diminishing returns can't be God.

Como escribió el obispo dominico de la diócesis española de Sant Feliu de Llobregat sobre Rosalía después de escuchar Lux: «No consigo entenderte, pero me gustaría hacerlo.» As the Dominican bishop of the Spanish Diocese of Sant Feliu de Llobregar wrote about Rosalía after listening to her album Lux: "I don't understand you, but I'd like to."

Now I am listening to Lux. Hence, our traditio is a track from her album- "Dio es un stalker." Even for an English speaker that should be easy to translate. A bit different than "the hound of heaven," ¿verdad? The title of this post is my translation of lyrics from this song.

Hoy se conmemora la presentación de Nuestra Señora. Es una conmemoración muy especial para todos en la iglesia.

Memorial of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary

Readings: 1 Mac 1:10-15.41-43.54-57.62-63; Ps 119:53.134.150.153.158; Luke 18:35-43

Today the Church remembers Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. Had yesterday not been Sunday, it would’ve been the Memorial Saint Margaret of Scotland. The Church’s liturgical calendar contains many observances to remember holy women who lived in the Middles Ages, which spanned the millennium from the fifth through the fifteenth centuries. What is remarkable is the reason these holy women are remembered.

They are remembered and celebrated, almost without exception, for their charitable works on behalf of the poor. Born a princess, Elizabeth of Hungary was the daughter of the king of Hungary. At 14, she married the soon-to-be Landgrave of Thuringia, Louis IV. After six years of what by all accounts was a happy marriage that produced three children, Louis died while enroute to join the Sixth Crusade.

Widowed at 20, Elizabeth was given back her substantial dowry. She used this to build a hospital in Marburg, Germany. In this hospital she served the sick herself.

Elizabeth became an early member of Third Order Franciscans. She is the patroness of Third Order of Franciscans. In her widowhood she took vows of obedience, celibacy, and poverty with her confessor Konrad von Marburg. Like Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Elizabeth died at age 24.

Jesus Christ is a healer of body and soul. Hence, caring for the sick is an important aspect of the Church’s pastoral ministry- one of the corporal works of mercy. In today’s Gospel, the Lord heals a blind beggar as He comes into Jericho to make His way up the mountain to Jerusalem. What is easy to miss is that while the man physically cannot see, he is not spiritually blind.

His spiritual sight is evidenced by the way he hails Jesus. Upon hearing that “Jesus of Nazareth” is passing by, the blind beggar cries out: “Son of David, have pity on me!"¹ This is a Messianic greeting, one Jesus didn’t often, if ever hear, during His Galilean ministry or as He made His way to Jerusalem. This blind man can see who He is- Son of David, the Messiah, the Mashiach, God’s Anointed One.

Saint Elizabeth of Hungary feeding the poor

This is confirmed when Jesus tells him, after receiving the blind man’s plea to see, “Have sight: your faith has saved you.”² This is move like the one Jesus made when the four men lowered their paralyzed friend through the roof of the house where Jesus was performing healings. Upon seeing this man, the Lord tells him his sins are forgiven.

These words cause consternation among some of those in the house I imagine to be lurking in the shadows. Then Jesus says, in order to prove He has the power to forgive sins, “I say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home,” which the man promptly did.³ Jesus gave the man his sight almost as if to say, "This is to show you (and the others) that I am the One you say I am."

In short, the blind beggar sees with an acuity nobody else seems to possess. This is why his humble plea for sight is given. But gaining or regaining his sight doesn’t save him. Through the eyes of faith, this man was able to see who Jesus is. This is the faith that saves. It is a gift from God.

The saints are those who, like the blind beggar, see who Jesus is and live accordingly, which is to live reality. Living this way pretty much without exception looks odd to others. For example, like Margaret of Scotland and Elizabeth of Hungary, not giving up wealth, power, and prestige by abandoning it but putting these in the service of the poor and disenfranchised.

To the world, living this way looks like squandering. But in reality, it shows that they understand this simple sum: Jesus+nothing=everything.

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1 Luke 18:37-38.^↩
2 Luke 18:42.^↩
3 See Luke 5:17-26; Mark 2:1-12.^↩

Year C Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Malachi 3:19-20a; Psalm 98:5-9; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12; Luke 21:5-19

When it’s all said and done what remains? What is left when everything is reduced to rubble? What can you take with you when you die? Why does it matter?

With the elapse of many centuries, even a couple of millennia, the eschatological or “apocalyptic” dimension of Christianity grows more attenuated. Much of the urgency expressed in Paul’s letters is tamped down. Given our increasingly empirical and existential attitudes, even when it comes to our faith, we may be in danger of losing this vital dimension of Christianity entirely.

Today is the penultimate Sunday of the liturgical year, which culminates with the great Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Add to that the fact that November is the month during which we remember as well as pray and sacrifice for our beloved dead, you get the feeling that it’s the end of the world.

This is precisely the feeling these observances are meant to evoke. Perhaps it’s better to say that what we look forward to during the final weeks of each year is the end of time. Time is up either when you die or when Christ returns. This realization should cause each of us to consider what really matters and to pattern our lives accordingly.

One spiritual discipline it’s important not to overlook is the practice of memento mori- “remember death.” Far from being a futile exercise in morbidity, memento mori helps one live sub specie aeternitatis- “under the aspect of eternity.” At the beginning of the first week of his Spiritual Exercises, Saint Ignatius of Loyola set forth their “Principle and Foundation.” The first sentence states: “Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.”¹

This echoes one of the first questions asked in the Baltimore Catechism. The response to the question Why did God make you? is God made me to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.² Saint Ignatius goes on to insist, “It is necessary to keep as aim the end for which I am created.”³

In other words, everything should be done with the end for which I am made and redeemed firmly in mind. This is what it means to live under the aspect of eternity. Made in the image of God, each and every human person has a transcendent, that is, a spiritual dimension.

Despite various fanciful theories, at least the way we experience it, time only flows in one direction. This observation is what led the pre -Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus to note, “No one ever steps in the same river twice.”⁴ Or, as the Steve Miller band sang: “Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future.”⁵

None of us knows how much time we have left. Being a Christian, therefore, requires that I live not so much with a sense of urgency as with sense of purpose. Even so, scripture urges us to “consider the patience of our Lord as salvation.”⁶

Living purposefully requires an intention. The intention that shapes Christian life is realizing the end for which God created, redeemed, and for which He now seeks to sanctify you.

During the first two weeks of Advent, the Church remains focused on Christ’s return at the end of time. The aim is not fear but genuine conversion. Another word for this is repentance, which is usually reduced to being sorry for one’s sins.

But acknowledging and being contrite for your sins is only the beginning of repentance. It’s the mere recognition that you need to change and the stark realization of specifically how you must change to be transformed into the image of Christ.

Christ has no accidental disciples. Following Christ is an intentional choice that leads the one who makes it to live purposefully. What is the intention that constitutes this way of life? To abide by Christ’s teachings.

“This is the way we may know we are union with [the Lord],” scripture teaches, that we strive “to live just as he lived.”⁷ Is it possible to live this way? Yes, but not because it’s something you can achieve on your own. Living this way is not an achievement that earns you a reward. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works so no one can boast.”⁸

In addition to making memento mori more than some goth-inspired fetish, hope is what enables, invites, entices you to live this way. Optimism is not synonymous with hope. The beginning of the fifth chapter of Romans gives us the topology of hope:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access [by faith] to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God⁹

Without Christ, there is no hope in death.

Because we boast in the hope of the glory of God, which is Jesus Christ raised from the dead, the apostle continues,

…we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us¹⁰

Did you get that? Hope does not disappoint because God has poured His love into the heart of believers. Let’s ask again, When it’s all said and done what remains? What is left when everything is reduced to rubble? What can you take with you when you die? Let’s let Saint Paul respond:

So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love¹¹

But the last of the questions with which we started remains unanswered: Why does it matter? Modified slightly, What difference does it make? Well, for the person who has experienced the outpouring of God’s love, the difference is out of this world. Christ invites you to experience this for yourself.

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1 Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Spiritual Exercises, First Week “Principle and Foundation.”^↩
2 Baltimore Catechism. Catechism 1, Lesson First: One the End of Man, Q6.^↩
3 Spiritual Exercises, The First Way, To Make a Sound and Good Election.^↩
4 Plato. Cratylus, 402a.^↩
5 Steve Miller Band. “Fly Like an Eagle.”^↩
6 2 Peter 3:15.^↩
7 See 1 John 2:5-6.^↩
8 Ephesians 2:8-9.^↩
9 Romans 5:1-2.^↩
10 See Romans 5:3-8.^↩
11 1 Corinthians 13:13.^↩