The Monastic Preacher

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Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States

The Roman Catholic Monastery of the Holy Cross was founded in 1989 and became a Benedictine house of the Subiaco Congregation in 2000. We follow a traditional contemplative life, chanting Psalms seven times a day and singing Gregorian chant at the Eucharist. We do this in a distinctive way by living our monastic life on the South Side of Chicago. Prior Peter, the author of this blog, was appointed Prior in August of 2004.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

New Homily Posting: 1st Sunday in Advent

Peace to you in Christ!
You can read the homily for today here.
Don't forget to visit the Website of the Monastery of the Holy Cross.

"When Christ became incarnate and was made man, he recapitulated in himself the long history of mankind and procured for us a 'short cut' to salvation, so that what we had lost in Adam, that is, being in the image and likeness of God, we might recover in Christ Jesus. For this reason Christ experienced all the stages of life, thereby giving communion with God to all men."
--St. Irenaeus

First Sunday of Advent: Fr. Peter

First Sunday of Advent (2005: Year B)

For as long as I can remember, people have been concerned that Christmas preparations are coming earlier and earlier every year. Given the indignation of those who complain about this, one might expect that Christmas decorations by now would be going up in August, so the fact that most people wait until at least October is evidence that the change has been gradual.
Christmas preparations begin so early because the end of Christmas also comes prematurely. One does not have to wander far on foot to see a good number of Christmas trees strewn about the allies on December 26. Christmas ends on December 25 because the purpose for many people for Christmas is the exchange of gifts and parties that go on during Advent. There is no afterglow to the celebration that for Christians is really about great beginnings. To use the phrase ‘the end of Christmas’ in a slightly different way, we can say that the end or goal of Christmas in the secular world is the good feelings that come from gifts and family. The cynic is me says that this odd phenomenon is driven by retailers who recognize that they can’t peddle Christmas items once the gift-giving is over and so need to move on to the next season as quickly as possible. And so earlier and earlier every year we are treated to preparations for Valentine’s Day! Another part of me wonders what all these people do to help out those who can’t give gifts or who have no family.
“God will keep you firm to the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Saint Paul teaches us this morning. How we view the end of something determines how we prepare for it. I alluded a moment ago to the fact that the word ‘end’ has two different but complementary meanings. The end of a thing means that it either passes out of existence or is changed in some fundamental way, but it also means that the thing in question has reached its purpose or goal.
The Church has been asking us for the past month or so to meditate on the end times, the end of the world. For many people, and probably with some justification, the notion that the world will end is a frightening one. They take it to mean that the world will cease to exist and all of the things that are beautiful about the world will be no more. I find that very few people call to mind the fact that the many evil things about the world will be no more, but more on that in a moment. What if the end of the world at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ means not the destruction of things so much as their proper goal and fulfillment. After all, what is the end of the world if we take ‘end’ to mean ‘purpose’? Why is the world here anyway and since we didn’t put it here, why do we fret about how it will be used by God when its purpose has been fulfilled?
How we view the end of a thing determines how we wait for this end and how we treat the object. If we dread the end of the world, we will cling to this world and all that it includes, good and bad. In fact, we probably won’t watch and wait at all. Rather, we will try in various ways to stave off the end, either through distraction or through trying to bring about some other end.
Israel found out the hard way how difficult it is to wait for God’s end. In this morning’s first reading, Israel has been brought utterly low, a people without a king, still recovering in fits and starts from a long exile in Babylon. She had tried to solve her own problems previously, by making deals with the superpowers of Babylon and Egypt but it had cost her in the end, when out of fear of both, the king was caught double-dealing with Babylon. In those days, Isaiah and other prophets had counseled the people and the king simply to wait. Wait and watch for God’s deliverance. Do not try to bring it about on your own. Why not? Because the enemy is not really Egypt or Babylon or the Soviet Union or terrorism. The enemy finally is more subtle and is craftier than we are and that enemy, the enemy whom Christ comes to defeat, is sin. And that enemy is within me and it is within you. All of our busy-ness distracts us from this reality.
For those who have put up a fight against sin, however, these will know firsthand that we need deliverance and that we cannot accomplish it ourselves. Blessed are those who mourn and blessed are the poor. Those who are not in love with this world will come to see this reality, will come, like Israel, to put all of their hopes on God and not on any worldly power. These will seek God’s ways, so that on that day when He does come, those who seek Him will be found doing right and not sleeping the sleep of those who are at home here in this world, with all that is in it good and bad.
I asked earlier what we do for those who are poor and those who are lonely. One criticism that can be leveled against those who hope in god is that they might become lazy and indifferent, overconfident in our salvation and unconcerned with those who suffer. But let us ask ourselves how much power we have finally to end someone else’s suffering when most of us cannot do much about our own suffering. Do we strive to help the poor out of respect for Jesus Christ who appears in them and who favors them in a special way? Or do we try to help to assuage our own sense of guilt, and deaden our own suffering? What better can we do for the poor and suffering than to become poor with them, poor toward this world, completely reliant on the promises of God? For God will come and bring about the justice due, that justice that we are powerless to construct.
Let us this Advent then, take up the watch for God’s coming. Let us not be distracted by things of the world, but turn our thoughts daily, hourly, moment by moment to His promises for those who forsake their lives in this world. O God, that you would find us doing right when You come and not asleep! May we be found eager and not fearful at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!