universal not unitarian

I wonder if the new heresy will be a confusion of the idea of "catholic". Some people think that it means the church is open to all new movements, that we don't close ourselves off to things. Yet, throughout the history of the church, this is a common theme. From Basil and Tertulian battling early heresies to Gregory the Great's attempt to unite the church under himself, to St. Thomas Aquinas infamous "you have heard it said...but I say" style of Socratic method, the church has had to distance herself from incorrect ideas in order to cleave more closely to Christ.

The Unitarian community in this country will take anyone regardless of what they believe. We are universal, not because you can believe whatever you want or because the church should be open to everything but because we need to communicate Christ to all the world.

The pope on the family

The Pope's Holy Family Angelus address is great. You can find it here and my favorite quote is...

"For this, parents have the right and fundamental obligation to educate their children, in the faith and in the values that dignify human existence. It is worth it to work for the family and marriage because it is worth it to work for the human being, the most valuable being created by God.

I direct myself in a special way to the children, so that they love and pray for their parents and brothers and sisters; to the young people, so that stimulated by the love of their parents, they follow with generosity their own vocation to marriage, the priesthood or religious life; to the elderly and the sick, so that they find the help and understanding they need. And to you, beloved spouses, count on the grace of God always, so that your love will be always more and more fruitful and faithful."

The Nativity Story

I decided that, since today is the end of the Octave of Christmas, I would watch the movie with the above title and I have to admit it's not bad. I had a few problems with it but nothing huge. The filmakers had to fill in some of the details of Mary and Joseph's pre-scripture life and they did so the best they could. I even feel like they left open the possibility for Mary's perpetual virginity. I especially loved how they wove traditional Christmas carols into the score. Most of the time people probably didn't even know they were there. It's tough to blend Matthew and Luke's infancy narrative because there does appear to be contradictions. But, they did a good job of trying to present an understandable story with some drama.

The astrologer/wise men were really good. The growth in the relationship between Mary and Joseph was strong, although I would have preferred an older Joseph. And I still think that Joseph had children by a previous marriage but I will only know that for sure when we meet in heaven. I just think it's really interesting to see how Protestants view Mary because the movie is basically all about her and Joseph. What a perfect way to finish off the octave and celebrate the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

Mary, Mother of God and mother of the church

I love preaching about Mary mother of the church on this day that we devote to Mary's oldest title: theotokos in Greek, Mater Dei in Latin, Mother of God in English. I know it's still being worked out theologically but I always like to think that Mary's yes is our yes, her willingness to give birth to the Son of God is the first of us to say yes to God. She may not have given birth to all of us but she gave birth to our faith to the extent that she gave birth to Christ. And, even though she is just like a good Jewish mother who always wants to put her son before herself, this does not diminish her important contribution.

...and a happy new year

What a wild week the octave of Christmas is. We just get done with Christmas and quickly move on to the Sunday between and then we conclude with Mary, Mother of God/New Years. I get a few days off after all that gets done and before my students come back. I don't know why it surprises me each year but I'm already ready for the students to come back. It's just too quiet. I even spent time rearranging the student lounge because I was bored. I have work to do it's just hard to get motivated when no one's around. I NEED to get it done, however, so that I can spend time with the students when they get back or at least not be too behind the eight ball.

Here's wishing you all a happy New Year. Make a resolution but not too many, one accomplishable goal. I'm going to try to volunteer at an animal shelter.

How the family makes us holy

When we think of family in today’s society, what are some images that come to mind? If you are of a certain generation, you might think of Archie, Edith, Gloria, and Meathead from the television show “All in the Family”. Archie is the typical 1950’s urban racist with his diminutive wife, Edith, and daughter, Gloria, who dared to marry the open-minded, anti-authoritarian Michael, nicknamed “meathead” by his father-in-law, Archie because of his left-wing political stances. This image seems to permeate the meaning of 1950’s America and is used, by some, to show the weakness of the nuclear family in a time in which the nuclear family was supposed to be at it’s strongest. Today, if you look at the media’s portrayal of family life, you can see that this portrayal perdures. Many television shows portray an overbearing father who pushes his wife around making ridiculous decisions for his entire family that seem to only benefit himself.

On this Sunday the church invites us to reflect on the nature of the family through the lens of the Holy Family. This Sunday is situated in the midst of the octave of Christmas, an eight-day celebration that begins at Christmas and ends with the celebration of Mary, the Mother of God on January first. This octave is partially a reminder that Christmas can’t be a one-shot deal. Christmas is too important to last one day. I’m always thankful that we do this after, not before December 25th. It’s as though our church is saying that while the commercial version of Christmas begins after Thanksgiving and ends on Christmas day, we wait until the fervor of consumerism has died away in order to spend eight days reflecting on the spiritual meaning of Christmas. The octave also allows us to reflect on different aspects of that fateful night when God became one-with-us in order to save us. Today, we discover that Christ came as part of a family in order to give us an example of a Holy Family. I found it fascinating that the first two readings focus on the entire family but the gospel shifts to offer some time to reflect on the one person that can get short shrift during the Christmas season, Joseph. But there is something that connects all three readings and it is, I believe, the reason the church has us reflect on these three passages in particular. Each, in its own unique way, portrays an essential obligation of marriage.

The first reading from Sirach clearly paints for us the image of a family that is open to life. Parents are to be honored by children and a parent is to live honorably. It is through these familial relations, according to that first reading, that one atones for sins, has prayers heard, is blessed with children, and has a long life. Despite attempts to redefine the idea of family in our modern world, we must safeguard this image both because it mirrors the image of the Holy Family and because it is the best environment to raise children.

The second reading is another one of Paul’s attempts to help us understand love. The laundry list of proper dispositions, including “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another…” only makes sense when cloaked with love. Otherwise, any of them could result in abuse, discouragement, or a one-sided relationship. Certainly, Paul’s closing statement, “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord” has been abused in the past and deserves the constant paring of “Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them.” Humility, love, and subordination are all related in this statement. Paul is also telling husbands to be subordinate to their wives by telling them to love their wives.

Love and openness to children are the first two pieces to this puzzle but it concludes in the gospel with the commitment that is necessary for a family to succeed. Joseph has no reason to stay with Mary and Jesus when the angel appears. This isn’t his son biologically. This very well could be the second or third wife that Joseph has had in his life. Yet, Joseph doesn’t run away when life becomes difficult. He steps up and does what God wants him to do in order to keep his family together. This is the truly radical notion of family that we have to put forth. Far too many men believe that, when family seems to take away their masculinity or rob them of their ability to be in charge, then they can either react with force toward their wives or find a way to escape. The Christian message through Joseph is that the image of Archie Bunker, Homer Simpson, and Peter Griffin is insufficient to the type of holy family each of us should strive to have. We must build our families on commitment, on love, and on a willingness to share in the divine creativity that first brought us into this world and then brought about our salvation through Christ.

Merry Christmas

Each year, for the last ten years, Christmas has been changing. My nieces and nephews are getting older and so my siblings don't come home on Christmas day. They come home earlier or after. That means that Christmas is very quiet around the Miller home. We open a few gifts that we save until that day and then we eat a big lunch and then we just sit around and rest during the afternoon. Today we had steak fixed on a charcoal grill. It probably seems unusual but the weather was outstanding here in Iowa. The temperature was above freezing so we could scrape off some of the ice that had been sitting there since early December. It was nice to have bright sunshine on the day we celebrate the birth of the Son.

Actually, that's the amazing thing about Advent. On the weekends, we consistently had bad weather of snow and ice and made the longing for the coming of Christ very palpable. Unfortunately it continues to snow every weekend during the Christmas season which I was hoping would change but you can't change the weather.

Here's hoping you all had a very merry Christmas with family and friends and celebrated the love of God made visible.

A Test of Faith? So close to Christmas?

On Friday, I was supposed to drive to Nevada around 8:30, load the St. Thomas Christmas tree in the back of my truck, take it back to St. Thomas by 9:00 in order to meet several members of the Knights of Columbus who were supposed to help set up the tree before the decorators arrived. That was what was supposed to happen. Instead, I got a call at 9:10 asking if I had already picked up the tree. I immediately did a quick inhale, spoke a few choice words, and walked down to church in order to explain that I had, in fact, not picked up the tree yet because I had forgotten. After my profoundest apologies, three of us jumped into my truck and headed to Nevada, hoping to be just a half hour or so later than expected. We found the right address and eventually found a way into the house from a neighbor and found ourselves staring at a 20 foot long Christmas tree. We looked at it and then looked at my 8 foot long truck bed and realized something simply wasn’t going to work. After several different possible scenarios, we decided to call around to borrow a trailer from a St. Thomas Parishioner. Finally, at 11:30, just two and a half hours later than expected, the 20 foot tall St. Thomas Tree arrived at the entrance. It took a half-hour to set up and has been termed the Santa Tree by some because the top leans toward the wall, making it appear like a jolly old fat man. In the intervening two and a half hours, I made phone calls trying to find the right house, trying to find someone to unlock the door, trying to find someone to move the tree for us, and trying to find extra people to help set up this mammoth tree; and I had to get a substitute for noon mass and reschedule an afternoon meeting in Cedar Rapids. And, as Friday was a very foggy, dark, and dreary day, I kept thinking that I wouldn’t nearly this miffed if we could just see the sun!

As I sat down to prepare this homily, I couldn’t help but think that this is a very appropriate experience to help us understand these readings, in particular the first and third. I mean, on the one hand there doesn’t appear to be a lot of connection between them. In the first reading, King Ahaz is ordered by God to ask God for something. His kingdom is about to be attacked by another kingdom, his people don’t trust him, and things are generally not going well for him. All he has to do is ask for one of these things to be alleviated. But pride gets in the way. He refuses to ask for any of it. Instead, he pretends to not want to tempt God by asking him for something. In truth, he simply lets his ego get in the way. Joseph, on the other hand, seems overly obedient. It doesn’t take an angelic or prophetic visit in order for Joseph to do what God wants. All it takes is for God to appear in a dream. Like the Joseph of old who interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh, this Joseph knows when God is talking to him and he responds by taking care of business. It is, therefore, clear that Ahaz and Joseph are two very different men with but one point of connection: They are two men who are, in some way, given a test of faith.

In just a day or two, we will, as a church, be singing those great Christmas songs that we have sung so many times. And, if you’re like me, you may have difficulty sympathizing with songs of “heavenly peace” and statements of “silent night.” We seem to hear messages that would indicate that life should be a lot simpler this time of year. How do we do all the work that goes into making Christmas special and still “let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven, and heaven and nature sing?” Maybe we need to look to an even more profound type of peace than we are used to, a peace that demands a response on our part, a peace that fights against the lethargy and sloth usually associated with the term and demands that we open our hearts to be the vessels through which Christ is present. St. Teresa of Avila said it best, “Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”

So, as we continue to prepare for the coming of Christ, our quest does not rest in the comfort of silent contemplation. We will find heavenly peace only when we are being God’s hands, feet, and heart for this world that longs to see the Son.

Explaining mystery with even more confusing mystery

I've been following some of the furor surrounding the movie The Golden Compass in order to understand it a little bit better. As usual, I refuse to give people that blatantly attack the Catholic Church and/or God money in order to see their movie or read their books. I know that means I have to rely on others to comment but, as a priest, I don't have enough time in a day to read what deserves to get read like encyclicals and good periodicals and such.

But, if what I'm reading is true, here's the premise of the Golden Compass. God is not the creator but was, instead, created from chaos. If my memory of ancient philosophy holds true, this is Heraclitus who believed all matter was fire and, thus, change. When other things were created, according to the Golden compass, God claimed to be their creator.

Now, this is interesting for two reasons: absence of proof and solving a problem by creating a larger problem. By absence of proof I mean that the person writing this isn't claiming to have a vision by a god/angel telling him or her what is happening. It's just a fairy tale to make children atheist, according to the author (or so I've heard). And, what about this makes any sense at all? So, the problem of a creator God is taken care of but the larger problem of human origins still need to be solved. It fails to answer the most basic question that haunts all atheists: why is there something rather than nothing. Why does the creating ooze exist? Accident? Coincidence? What role does God play if not creator? Bully? Management?

A good story leaves the listener/reader wanting further clarification. But it can't make a person just say, "Yeah, that could never happen." But it sounds to me like that's what I would do if I were to read these books. Thank goodness I still need to find time to read other books including this one before I even ponder reading the Golden Compass.

More communal penance...

I enjoy celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation with people. I really do. I admit that I get tired of these elaborate communal penance celebrations for just two or three people but I always walk away feeling like I have helped people be put right with God. It's always an amazing feeling to stand in the place of Christ, to be his voice, and tell people that their sins are forgiven in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. It's so tremendous! I often think of that simile that Jesus tells in which the man with a beam in his eye is exhorted to avoid judging the person with the splinter in his own. I sin. I have sinned. And I will sin (regretfully). I am not sitting in judgment. I am praising the God who forgives my sins just like they forgive the sins of the person coming to me seeking forgiveness and I praise the God who uses me to let these tax collectors and prostitutes know that they have been forgiven.

Ukranian Rite and Maronite Rite Catholics

This past week, I had the joy of taking a group of students to Minneapolis to experience two eastern right Catholic liturgies. For more information on what that means, go here.

Both were incredibly beautiful. The first one was a Ukranian Catholic Church and the second a Maronite catholic church. The first was almost entirely in English with a few songs at the end in Ukranian. The second was in English, Arabic, and Aramaic. The chant at the second was just beautiful and reminded me of my time in Israel. The kids seemed very impressed and wanted to bring several things back.

"Wisdom! Let us be attentive"

censors with bells on them

"Depart catechumens! Catechumens depart! Depart catechumens...."

A new scripture website

I was reading on Catholic News Service about this new catholic scripture website. I'm not sold on it but you may find it helpful.

http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerus/index_eng.html

great podcast

I was listening to the busted halo podcast (found here) episode number 33 and I think you should all check it out. It was interesting, especially the part about the Easter vigil. I hope I can remember it when we get closer to Easter.

Opening Acts

I was recently down in Des Moines (,Iowa) at a comedy club and things worked out exactly as they should have. They had an opening act that made us all laugh and then had a disappointing second act. But the main comedian was hilarious. It worked a lot better than Marshalltown High School football games where the team was awful but the marching band was awesome.

This time of year makes us aware of some opening acts. There's Mary in the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadeloupe. The Immaculate Conception reminds us that Mary, in order to be a vessel for the savior of the world, must have been uniquely gifted with freedom from original sin. With the celebration of Our Lady of Guadeloupe, the church remembers Mary's appearance to Juan Diego which had such a profound effect on the Mexican people. Mary's message to build a church in Guadeloupe, Mexico bridged the divide between church and society.

Today's opening act is John the Baptist. We hear a snippet from this fiery prophet who preached repentance and being prepared. He engendered a great deal of faith from the Jewish people of Jesus time and built up quite a base.

Yet, both of these opening acts have one thing in common: both understood that they were preparing the way for someone greater, a son and a cousin. The mark of a good prophet, after all, is to point to something larger than yourself, to God, and help people to prepare for it. This is, in many ways, what the first reading was all about. While the first part of that reading emphasized that the bad will be punished, the second parted seemed to indicate a return to primordial Eden.

"the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the young lion shall browse together,"

And, despite the fact that this is a beautiful scene of cooperation, there's a part of me that wonders if this was code for different tribes. Like, if today, we said,

the bear will be a guest of the viking
and the hawkeye shall lie down with the gopher
the cyclone and the sooner shall browse together.

Perhaps the prophet was saying that tribes that normally don't get along will be able to. One thing that Christians have seen in this is that a little child that will guide them. As Christians, we believe that even Isaiah pointed us to the Christ child.

During this time of opening acts for him, dont' get lost. They're just here to remind us how they prepared for him. We prepare for him by going to reconciliation and by repairing relationships with family and friends that have been lost throughout this year. We also need to find time amidst the chaos of this time of year to make straight our path in prayer, to not let the opening acts of this season of gift giving and Christmas parities distract us from what really matters, the coming of Christ

A few thoghts about being spiritual but not religious

I heard on the Busted Halo Podcast #30 a few people help me to understand with greater clarity the distinction people make between being spiritual and being religious. I have always thought someone who was religious was committed to belief in God while someone who was spiritual was rather uncommitted. In fact, I thought someone who was "spiritual" rather than "religious" was one step away from being "agnostic" because, if you don't practice something and keep thinking about it, you will abandon what you have already learned.

But, according to the people they interviewed, being spiritual is more about making your own path to God while being religious is more communal but also more possible to be corrupted. They cited all kinds of rules that get in the way of their spirituality as an example of religion being corrupted. And, while this is very possibly true, I would think there is just as much corruption in personal spirituality as there is with communal. Perhaps one could argue that personal spirituality has less potential for large acts of aggression as a more communal, religious attitude.

The easy response that I have is that this presumes both are dependant on human creation of the religion and don't take into account the presence of God. I mean, if faith is faithful than it demands that God be more than a passive agent. God is the author of faith, after all. If God plays anything more than a passive role in faith, then it should involve more than just the two of us. Healthy relationships are ones that involve more than just two people. The relationships that scare the heck out of me for marriage prep are when a couple think that they'll get married and won't need others to be part of their relationship. That basically means that everyone else becomes either an obstacle or a compartmentalized component of life, both attitudes which are problematic.

Religion should be a more open experience in common with God. It means that God is not simply a passive component to my life nor a compartmentalized component that has nothing to do with the rest of my life. God is not your imaginary friend. Religion gives us the space to bring the integral relationship we should have with into conversation with the rest of our relationships.

The feeding of the 5000 and the Exodus

I have a feeling I'm the not the first to notice this and that I'm stealing this from someone but here goes....

Today's readings reminded me of the story of the giving of the manna in Exodus 16. And here's why...

2 Here in the desert the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.
3 The Israelites said to them, "Would that we had died at the LORD'S hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!"
It took the Israelites grumbling for God to give them bread. In the gospel, Jesus anticipates their need and freely gives them bread.
4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will now rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion; thus will I test them, to see whether they follow my instructions or not.
So, this is a test: Will they take more than they need because they don't trust that God will supply the amount that they need tomorrow. Or will they follow God's word.
5 On the sixth day, however, when they prepare what they bring in, let it be twice as much as they gather on the other days."
In the Gospel, God gives them SEVEN basket's full extra. Here, they are only given one extra portion on the sixth day to prevent work on the sabbath. In Christian typology, Easter (of which the Eucharist is always our connection) is seen as the eighth day, the day of recreation. I think this is pointing to this. God only gave his people extra on the sabbath. But, on the eighth day, the Lord supplies overflowing amounts.
6 So Moses and Aaron told all the Israelites, "At evening you will know that it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt;
7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD, as he heeds your grumbling against him. But what are we that you should grumble against us?
8 When the LORD gives you flesh to eat in the evening," continued Moses, "and in the morning your fill of bread, as he heeds the grumbling you utter against him, what then are we? Your grumbling is not against us, but against the LORD."
They will know that it was the Lord when he gives them his flesh to eat. This is why, as Catholics, we maintain the eucharist as our focal point of worship, because God gives us HIS FLESH and, through that, we know that he has given it to us.

On that day it will be said:
“Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us!
This is the LORD for whom we looked;
let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!”
For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain.

Spe Salvi

The Pope has written a new encyclical with the above title on the topic of Christian hope. I sat down and started to read it and made it a while but, much like many of this present Pope's other writings, I find myself pausing often to think about what he is saying fairly often. Here's just one example from paragraph 4...

"We have raised the question: can our encounter with the God who in Christ has shown us his face and opened his heart be for us too not just “informative” but “performative”—that is to say, can it change our lives, so that we know we are redeemed through the hope that it expresses? Before attempting to answer the question, let us return once more to the early Church. It is not difficult to realize that the experience of the African slave-girl Bakhita was also the experience of many in the period of nascent Christianity who were beaten and condemned to slavery. Christianity did not bring a message of social revolution like that of the ill-fated Spartacus, whose struggle led to so much bloodshed. Jesus was not Spartacus, he was not engaged in a fight for political liberation like Barabbas or BarKochba. Jesus, who himself died on the Cross, brought something totally different: an encounter with the Lord of all lords, an encounter with the living God and thus an encounter with a hope stronger than the sufferings of slavery, a hope which therefore transformed life and the world from within."

There are so many things that the Holy Father is saying in this paragraph. The first deals with salvation. As Catholics we don't really have certainty of personal salvation like the evangelicals claim to have. We have "hope" for salvation. The Pope is setting up this encyclical to address what that means.

Also, by using the phrase "political liberation" and not citing the (principally) South American "Liberation Theology" movement, he seems to be addressing the kind of false hope that they put forth. Instead of citing Oscar Romero or one of the Jesuit martyrs, Pope Benedict points to an African slave who was freed by her Christian owners and went on to be a very effective witness to Christian liberation sans Marxism. The reference to Bar Kochba reinforces this. Bar Kochba led the second Jewish revolt by which they were thrown out of the entire country of Israel and their hopes for a renewed Temple were dashed for good. He thought he could, militarilly and politically, bring about a change in status. But he could not. The Pope is asking us to consider that Christ came to liberate us through a holy encounter.

Homily podcast

We've decided to make our homilies available via podcast. So, if you're tired of reading them, you can hear them now here.

Expectant waiting

When you are waiting in a line, are you the type of person who sits and hopes that everyone else will somehow be moved out of the way and you’ll get through or someone who hopes that somehow a new line will open up that is exclusive to you; The Father Dennis line at the gas station. You might know what I mean if you tried to go to a grocery store on Friday. That was the day that everybody in town realized that the storm was coming and that it was time to store up food in case we are stuck in our houses until mid May. So, you may have found yourself four or five people deep at the front of the store with an apple and a can of beans waiting while the person ahead of you has an overflowing cart unloaded on the conveyer belt and the poor cashier, who is doing her best to get people through as quickly as possible, has to find out if that was a braeburn apple or a red delicious.

I think this is kind of similar to the dilemma in the readings today. We hear the first reading about God establishing the Temple Mount as the highest mountain. And, since all gods lived on mountains, the one true God is establishing his as the most important of them all. Then all people will know who the real God is and stop worshipping false gods like Baal and Zeus and Ai. Of course, as Christians, we see in this an image of what heaven will be like. We take comfort in the idea of a time of unparalleled peace; swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks, nuclear weapons into space ships. Ironically, this is often what atheists will most fault us for. They say this “pie-in-the-sky” theology amounts to escapism, the notion that we will eventually conquer the forces of oppression but only when we are in heaven. They criticize us and say that we have no stake in the present world because we are constantly obscuring the view of the future.

This, it seems to me, is countered in some measure by the first part of the gospel when Jesus seems to say, not that we need to wait for a more peaceful, hopeful heavenly future but that we need to wait when God will wipe away all the evil from this world. In the days of Noah, people were living their sinful lives, doing what normal people do, and then they found out that God was coming to remove them from the equation, if you will. This is the way it will be when Jesus comes again. People who think they are prospering and living lives without acknowledging God will simply be removed from the equation. That’s what’s truly regrettable about those “Left Behind” books. They’ve completely missed the point of this passage. Jesus isn’t saying that the ones that are taken are taken to heaven. In fact, in context, they are going to be just like the unfortunate people during the time of Noah. They’ll be the ones taken to that place of torment whose name we don’t mention in pleasant company. So, an uncritical reading of Jesus message could be that we need to “be ready” or get prepared for h-e-double right angles. This, of course, leads people to a different type of criticism. Namely, people say that this leads more to a dread of condemnation than to actual faith. And, certainly Jesus doesn’t want to see forced conversion out of fear of punishment. The God who is love would never want someone to be forced to believe simply because they don’t want to be tortured. That’s the way a terrorist organization operates not a God who has given us the free will to choose him.

So, where are we? We don’t want to be pie-in-the-sky Christian simpletons and we don’t want to be hunkered down in fear either. How are we to be prepared? I would suggest that, far too often, people fail to appreciate that the preparation itself is the point. We aren’t simply working toward heaven. We are experiencing God in the here and now, albeit in an incomplete way. The master of the house is exhorted to be prepared, to stay awake and be prepared to keep the thieves out of his house. It seems to me that one of the ways that we do this is to prepare ourselves during this season of Advent. To paraphrase Paul in the second reading: Let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies, drunkenness and other abusive excesses, not in promiscuity, lust and other sexual abuses, not in rivalry, jealousy and other abuses of relationship.

Being a Christian is not simply standing in line waiting for some better life ahead. Nor is it a life of trying to find the path of least resistance in order to avoid the pains of hell. There, I said it. Being a Christian means being prepared all the time. The preparation itself has meaning. “So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

A direction for bible study?

Each semester, a group of between 10 and 25 students study one of the books of the bible for six or eight sessions, depending on whether the group wants to turn into a group what is intended to be personal study. Last semester we did the book of Tobit and, since I couldn't find a series that would cover this topic, I ended up doing the research all myself. And, while that was good for me intellectually, it did take a lot more time than I really had to devote to such a project.

So, this spring, I was going to put together another Bible study on the topic of one of the deuterocanonical books of the bible (those Old Testament books particular to Catholic and most Orthodox Bibles); either 1 or 2 Maccabees or Judith. But, then I had another idea.

You may remember, faithful readers, that I was very excited about Pope Benedict's book "Jesus of Nazareth." And, while I found it fascinating, I was also sad that I wasn't sure how I could utilize it for my ministry, other than using his insights in preaching. And then I got this idea. I could put together a Bible Study using the passages the Pope does but then use Pope Benedict's commentary to help guide the Bible study. I'm writing to the publishers to hear what they say. Hopefully they'll let me use passages for free...or at least for a decreased cost. Let's hope this happens.