The city was quite still yesterday, as if yet wordless in wonder at the Word made flesh. How delicious to drive about in quiet streets after the maddening frenzy of pre-Christmas traffic. I stopped into St. Ignatius church and found myself in a wonderland forest of sparkling trees and lofty crimson poinsettias. In the wee hours of Christmas morning, after everyone had gone home from Midnight Mass, I gazed up at my own parish’s sanctuary, its high altar candles still winking amidst leafy red blooms. “How good it is to be here,” I sighed. “It is the gate of heaven, and heaven itself.”
 
The three feasts of the Christmas Octave extend this glory, each in a different manner. St. Stephen yesterday, St. John today, and the Holy Innocents tomorrow are all martyrs in the original sense; that is, they are witnesses. St. Stephen chose to die for the Name; St. John witnessed to his Master, Lord, and Beloved by writing his Gospel and Apocalypse from exile, and the Holy Children of Bethlehem endured their passion 33 years before Christ’s in mute testimony to the Truth. “Christ was born for this” as the song goes, born to die with these witnesses so they could save their own souls and give hope to others.
 
Each feast offers manifold treasures to the discerning heart, but I noticed something in St. Stephen’s collect that bears publishing. In the opening prayer of St. Stephen’s Mass we hear these words, which are not entirely translated into English: Da nobis, quesumus Domine, imitare quod colimus: ut discamus et inimicos diligere; quia ejus natalitia celebramus, qui novit etiam pro persecutoribus exorare Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum….
 
“Grant to us, O Lord we beg, to imitate that which we reverence….” Here we knelt, all facing the shining Christmas altar, reverencing with quiet joy the birth of our Savior. But we reverenced something else as well—His first martyr, Stephen. This man died in witness to the birth we celebrate. The prayer continues: “…that we may learn to love our enemies.” Stephen died forgiving his enemies, just like his Master and Lord. And by the way, for some reason that crucial line is left out of the reading in the new Mass. The older text concludes with Stephen “falling asleep in the Lord,” meaning he dies from stoning, but with these words on his lips: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” I can’t imagine why the new Mass reading ends before this line, because it holds the key to understanding Stephen’s martyrdom. He died not only in witness to Jesus but in witness to love for one’s enemies, as did his Master (“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”).
 
The prayer continues. “because we celebrate his birth (“natalitia”), who learned to love those who persecuted him in praying for them to our Lord Jesus Christ.” When I looked over that prayer quickly before Mass, I thought the “natalitia” referred to Jesus—obviously we are celebrating Jesus’ birth. And it does refer to Jesus’ birth, indirectly, but directly it refers to Stephen’s birth, his birth into heaven. We celebrate Jesus’ birth this week, and in so doing celebrate the birth into eternal joy of all His witnesses. “Grant us, O Lord, to imitate what we celebrate” in St. Stephen’s Day, which is that we can learn to love those who hate us by praying to Jesus for them. Stephen did it, and we can do it.
 
There are a certain number of people who would consider themselves enemies to me, and I’ve wondered how to love them properly. No matter how hard we try to live in peace with all men, some people will inevitably not like us, and some even despise us. What do you say, how do you work with people who seem to hate you? Here surely is the answer: to pray to Jesus that I learn to forgive any and all wrongs, and to love those who persecute me. This is St. Stephen’s wisdom for all of us in this Season of Giving. We can love those who hate us, by the grace of the newborn Child, and this is the supreme Christian witness.

The Angelus

Today’s collect (opening Mass prayer) is also used as the conclusion of the Angelus: “Pour forth, we beseech thee O Lord, thy grace into our hearts….” Devotional prayers come from the Mass and return us to it. Have you noticed that those who pray devotions like the rosary and the chaplet of Divine Mercy regularly, regularly go to Mass, while those who give up on novenas and litanies and daily prayers like the angelus eventually give up on the Mass. It’s vastly important for us Catholics to “take the Mass home” by praying these daily devotional prayers. One of my favorites is the Angelus, prayed three times a day, morning, noon, and night. You will hear the bells of our church, and many other churches, ringing the three sets of chimes at 6am, noon, and 6pm, calling all good people to pause and remember God’s blessings. The Mass for the fourth Sunday of Advent provides us the Angelus prayer, portraying an arch, so to speak, from the first Coming to the Second Coming of Christ. Let’s look a bit more closely at the Angelus prayer:

Notice the prayer begins at the dawn of our salvation, the Annunciation, the first mystery of the entire rosary. Our Lady receives the angel into her room and says a perfect yes to God’s will. “Let it be done to me according to your will.” That total surrender marks the very moment of the Incarnation, when God steps into time by stepping into his mother’s body. But it would also bring both her and the child to the Cross, and through the Cross to the resurrection. In today’s Mass and in the angelus every day, we pray that “we … may by His Passion and Cross be brought to glory.” So the prayer takes us from the Annunciation to Mary and Incarnation of Christ through his Passion and Cross to the glory of His Resurrection. We travel through Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost, the entire liturgical year, three times a day, in this one prayer. Finally, we travel not only as spectators, but actors, because the prayer is about us: “may we … be brought to the resurrection.” We say yes with Mary, we are born of her with Christ, we suffer and die with him on Calvary, we are raised with him on the last day.

St. Joseph

While Luke’s description of Jesus’ birth (which we will hear in two years) relates the Incarnation through Mary’s eyes, Matthew’s gospel (lectionary Year A) shows us the Incarnation through the eyes of St. Joseph. Isaiah had prophesied 500 years previously that “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and call him Emmanuel.” The same angel (Gabriel) that spoke to Mary speaks also to Joseph: “Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife … that the prophecy might be fulfilled ‘the virgin shall conceive…’ When Joseph awoke,
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.” Not only Mary, who was immaculate, but Joseph too, who like us labored under original sin, can trust the angel enough to do what God asks. “Pour forth, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy grace into our hearts,” that we may stay very close to Jesus, like his holy mother, so as to see the glory of his (and our own) resurrection.

Facing East

​Finally, a word about how we pray at Mass. As you know, all of us pray to God facing the altar and tabernacle—facing his symbolic and real presence in this church. This is called “facing East” or ad orientem. Everyone faces God’s  presence, that is, except your priest. In the current practice, when I pray to God I turn my back on the tabernacle, high altar, and crucifix. This parish is a big bus driving to heaven, and the driver of your bus, so to speak, faces his passengers while he steers us through the Eucharistic prayer. Many church leaders suggest we return to the traditional practice of facing east when we pray—all of us, priests and people together. When Mary and Joseph received the angel’s message, they faced him, and when they said yes to God, they looked to him to save them from death. Beginning this Ash Wednesday, I hope to try ad orientem worship for a few months at our parish. It will help our faith, I think, to look directly at Him in whom we put our trust.

We have entered the second stage of Advent, turning our thoughts from the glorious and certain second coming of Christ to His dear first coming at Bethlehem. We can now properly put up our Christmas decorations, write Christmas cards, and go Christmas shopping. The marvelous O-Antiphons begin tonight at vespers, and many priests’ pious Filipino parishioners will drag them out of bed to celebrate “Simbang Gabi” early dawn Masses for the next nine days.
 
To properly mark this liturgical transition, I went with friends to Handel’s Messiah last night at Symphony Hall. The oratorio never fails to inspire even the most jaded heart because it sings the Word of God with such graceful beauty. The good Lutheran G.F. Handel has long won the world over through his winning choruses and arias. But what is it about the sacred score that so lightens our spirits? Few leave a Verdi opera or a Rolling Stones concert with that special smile and spring in our step that Handel’s Messiah gives to us.
 
Messiah gives us this lightness of spirit, I think, because it restores the world to its proper order—it portrays man in the image of God, rather than gods in the image of men. The chorus was not singing about itself last night when it rang out “Lord of Lords and King of Kings.” The soprano declared (with inspiring power and beauty) that she would live forever, but not through her own power: “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” she sang, “and though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” What a relief to hear music that focuses about someone other than ourselves! We are accustomed to self-absorbed art and entertainment, but Messiah offers something much more liberating. Sacred music, like other art forms, celebrates humanity, but humanity as God’s creation. Man is fascinating and beautiful not in himself, but precisely in relationship with others, and fundamentally with the Other, as the beloved of God. Without a reference beyond himself, the human person is incomprehensible. It would be as if astronomers would try to understand planet earth apart from the surrounding universe, as if earth were the center of reality. There is a center, but we are not it. There is a God, and we are not He.
 
So Messiah turns the focus of the art and entertainment from man to God. As others have more eloquently pointed out, worship should do the same. Our Sunday Mass should focus on God and not ourselves, which is why a congregation that faces itself is doomed to boredom. Beginning this Ash Wednesday, I hope to try ad orientem worship for a few months at my parish. There are parts in the Mass where the priest speaks to the people (readings, homily, blessings, etc), and there are parts where he speaks to God (collects, Eucharistic Prayer, Kyrie and Gloria, etc). Some may find it odd, but actually all I’m asking is to be able to face God when I pray to God (symbolically by looking towards the altar and crucifix, literally by looking towards the tabernacle).
 
Everyone else in the church gets to do it! Why can’t I? 

Gaudete: joy

Today, the Third Sunday of Advent, is “Gaudete Sunday,” so named from the first word of the entrance verse for the Mass: Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete “Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say it, Rejoice!... the Lord is near” (Phil 4:4). The priest and the altar clad themselves in rose colored vestments to express the Church’s joyful expectation of the Lord’s imminent arrival. We anticipate the Lord not with fear and trembling but with resolute joy, a joy born of our unfaltering faith in God’s providence. The Prophet Isaiah in our first reading confirms our hope: “The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom. They will bloom with abundant flowers … they will meet with joy and gladness, sorrow and mourning will flee.” As bad as it seems at times here below, we believe that sorrow and mourning will flee before his face.
 
I was inspired by the steadfast joy of a homeless woman with her child last week. They were praying in our church, before the Blessed Sacrament, radiating gladness. In all the city no one will give them a permanent home, but here, she said, in this church, before Jesus, I have a home. I can see from this altar my true homeland, beyond this vale of tears, a place God has prepared for me and my child. It is my task to persevere in joy here on earth, serving him and serving his servants, until it is his good pleasure to take me home. Consider that we celebrated Our Lady of Guadalupe today, and how our Lady too was with child and homeless: no one had a place for her. But she did not give into impatience, negativity. So she brought to the indigenous people of the Americas in 1531, a reason for hope, a reason to live. Joy comes to the hearts of those who welcome Our Lady with simple trust, as did Juan Diego. “Am I not here who am your mother?” she said to him, and he bowed in simple trust to her maternal heart.

Patience

Why do we become gloomy, why do we become negative during our long earthly pilgrimage toward heaven? Is it not because we become impatient? Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.… Do not complain, brothers and sisters, about one another.” To become impatient with God, to become negative about each other, is the devil’s work. In the darkest of times, there is always light.
 
This Present Darkness
​
Next week will see the darkest day of the year, just before the Winter Solstice. There is no longer and colder night than December 21st. Christmas brightens the long winter of our earthly exile. In this month of December the Church celebrates feasts of light. Last week we celebrated the Immaculate Conception, the “white dawn announcing the Son’s rising.” Tuesday we celebrate St. Lucy, a child martyr of the 3rd century whose name means light (Lucy from “lux”), and whose radiant joy overcame the hatred of her executioners. In two weeks we celebrate the greatest of all Festivals of Light, the star of Bethlehem, the radiance of angels over nighttime flocks, the Solemnity of Christmas. “O that birth forever blessed,” writes Aurelius Prudentius in his 4th C hymn. “When the Virgin, full of grace, Overshadowed by the Spirit, Bore the Savior of our Race.”
 
Let the light of Christ shine in our homes and workplaces. Do not let the devil blow out our radiant joy. Keep very close to our Lady, despising the shame which the world casts upon those who hold to a simple faith. Are Christians simple? Yes, we are, because life is simple. God is good, and it seems that, at least at Christmas, everyone believes again in the simple goodness of all that God has created and redeemed through his Divine Son.

Heralds of the Dawn

I assume you all know that the “Immaculate Conception” (which we celebrate on Thursday) refers not to Jesus but to his holy mother. But why do we celebrate the beginning of Mary’s life in her mother’s womb just before we celebrate the birth of her son at Christmas? Because her conception announces his conception, just as John the Baptist’s mission today announces Christ’s messianic mission. Mary is the “white dawn” announcing the rising of the Son of God, the first streaks of light after a very dark night. In Isaiah Chapter 11, our first reading, the prophet brings us the glad tidings of the imminent sunrise in the Eastern sky: “from Jesse’s roots (which were thought to be dead) a bud shall blossom.” From the East will come this Messiah, this anointed one, this king who will delight in God’s ways.
 
Advent is our annual preparation for this king. He enters San Francisco in every Mass in every Catholic church. Star of the Sea is his dwelling, and this sanctuary his throne. Christ wants every Catholic parish to communicate His sacred light and warmth to a dark and cold city. St. Paul calls us “stewards of the mysteries of God.” Especially in penitential seasons like Advent and Lent, we have to ask ourselves how faithful we are to that task. Are we even aware of our mission? Do people see light and joy emanating from our parish? We aspire to be a “stewardship parish,” meaning a community that consciously and intentionally gives what they have received in the Mass.

The First Two Pillars of Stewardship

​A stewardship parish is built on four pillars: Hospitality, Prayer, Education, and Service. Hospitality: we first make our parish a welcoming home for all who come. Prayer: Once we are at home in the Church we feel the desire to pray. Education: When we pray more deeply we want to learn more about the One we are coming to love. Service: Knowledge of God leads us to see Him in those around us, especially in the neediest, and we naturally want to serve them.
The readings today illustrate the first two pillars of stewardship. First, Hospitality. “Welcome one another,” writes St. Paul to the Romans, “as Christ welcomed you.” We want to be a Catholic family where people feel welcomed and loved just for coming. That’s hard to do in a city. But we’ve made good progress, and we must keep going. “May the God of endurance and encouragement,” Paul continues, “grant you to think in harmony with one another … that with one accord you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” To glorify God together we need to know each other—a welcoming parish requires more than sitting alone at Mass once a week. This is as simple as coming to a bible study, a barbecue, a film night, RCIA, feeding the poor together, etc.
 
Second, Prayer. John the Baptist spent 30 years in prayer (in the desert) before he presumed to announce the good news of Christ’s arrival. No one can talk about Jesus to others unless he has first talked to Jesus himself in a deep interior life. A stewardship parish is a prayerful community where folks plan their time with the Lord every week. What is your plan of prayer? Your plan for Mass, frequent confession, family rosary, Eucharistic adoration, bible time? Again, our parish has made good progress—we are now ready to add another 24-hours of adoration—but we have a further to go before we can consider ourselves an intentionally prayerful community.
 
Finally, consider this when it comes to prayer: The Messiah came from the East, and he will come again from the East. For the first 15 centuries, Catholic churches were “oriented,” that is, built facing the orient, facing east, not only geographically but architecturally designed so that everyone faced the altar, crucifix, and tabernacle. The entire community scans the horizon at Mass, expecting to see Christ’s advent, like a sailor in the topmast vigilant for the first glimpse of land. Everyone in this church today prays facing altar and tabernacle—everyone, that is, but me. Only the priest turns his back on the crucifix and the tabernacle when he prays to God, and this is a little odd. Many consider that when the priest turned to face the people in the early 70s (an innovation that you will not find in any Vatican II document), our prayer became somewhat “disoriented.” Is your priest praying to God or praying to the congregation? Do you want your priest to face God when he intercedes for your needs, or to face you? Would you want a bus driver to face the passengers while he drives or face the road ahead? All of us—and I mean all of us including the priest—must keep our eyes on the road that leads to heaven when we pray the Mass. Some Church leaders have recommended priests begin facing with the first Masses of Advent, but we will begin this on Ash Wednesday. Your priests will begin facing “east” (towards the altar and tabernacle) only during the parts of the Mass when he addressed God (the Eucharist Prayer for example) during Lent and Eastertide; he will face the people when he addresses the people. By Pentecost we will talk about it as a community and decide whether to make this a permanent practice.
 
But even if we decide not to have the priests face the altar when praying to God, we should all try to purify our prayer. Let’s try to face “east” with our hearts, when we pray. With Our Lady, we want to fix our hearts on Jesus, not praying thoughtlessly or quickly or distractedly, but with eyes, hearts, and minds attentive for the Coming of Jesus Christ.

​The first day of December paints the Advent season in our minds and points us dramatically towards Christmas. I write on a day off with priest friends at Lake Tahoe. A day of skiing awaits us. I write gazing from our cabin window over snow-covered pines and whiteclad peaks. Mountains and trees, which live so much longer than most of us, speak to me (as I approach my 55th birthday on Sunday) of the brevity of human life. Advent is the season of joyous expectation, but recall that which we await: we await our death, the end of all things, that is, Christ's Second Coming.
Advent is the most joyous time of expectation, but it follows seamlessly the month of the dead, November. We exchange black chasubles for purple, and they are not that far apart. It is usually still November when Advent arrives, and the Advent wreathe shares room in the sanctuary with the All Souls envelopes. Candles burn before both, but Advent's joy is not compromised by November's sobriety; rather, November finds its full meaning in Advent's promise. Death is transformed by Christ's coming.
Jesus is coming for every man, and for most of us that coming will be on the day of our death. Advent points us toward the Second Coming, that is, toward the day we will die, and a fine thing it is. As Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins reflects in today's Magnificat meditation, "God has given us more warnings of death: age is a warning, sickness is a warning, and the deaths of others that go before us are a great warning." A "warning," yes, and a promise. A warning not to let the kingdom of this world attach us to itself, and a promise that another, a perfect Kingdom is coming. That Kingdom's name is Heaven.
The month of November saw quite a few interesting funerals at my parish. Yesterday, the last day of the month of the dead, I stood before an open grave, pronouncing the last few words of Christian blessing as they lowered a woman into the ground. It began to rain, then rain harder, and those of us without umbrellas began to panic as the cold water invaded the insides of our tightly-wapped coats. The honest-faced gravediggers didn't pay any attention to the rain, but my cassock, surplice, and fine black stole began to sag. A kind man came up behind me with large golf umbrella. "Here, father, come out of the rain," and we huddled together against the elements.
God will shelter us from the elemental forces of a cold universe. Of course we will have to feel, for a brief moment, the icy pain of death, but soon enough he will come for us. He has gone through death for us, and has come back from death to take us with him. The mountains testify to this; the trees bear witness to God's good order in the universe. And most of all, we witness to the hope that is latent in every created being, that we are not made to no purpose. We know from whence we came, and know where we are going.