Merry Christmas everyone!

If you are visiting our parish and haven’t been here the last few weeks of Advent, we’ve been busy taking a little tour through the Mass in order to help us all get ready for Christmas…. in order (as we’ve been saying) to keep “MASS” in ChristMass.

So far, we’ve already talked about the Introductory Rites of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Word, the Offertory, the Eucharistic Prayer — and now at long last we come to the end of our tour…

Because while as we discussed last Sunday, the climax of the Mass is the Eucharistic Prayer — the source and summit of our worship IS the Sacrifice that Jesus offers up on our behalf to the Father — we also know that there’s one VERY important thing left for us to cover… 

Holy Communion.

St. John Vianney once said: “All the prayers of the Mass are a preparation for Communion.”

And it’s quite appropriate that we should discuss this part of the Mass on Christmas itself.

Because when it comes down to it: Communion is the goal — the fruit, so to speak — that God always had in mind. 

It’s the reason He sent Jesus into this world! It’s the reason the Son of God took on human flesh, dwelt in the Virgin’s womb, and was born for us on Christmas night!

“God became man that man might become God!” The Catechism says that EVERYONE is called to a perfect union… a perfect communion… with God.

This is not something just for the super intense canonized saints in their monasteries and convents! No…perfect COMMUNION with God is meant for everyone…ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE… 

It’s the entire meaning and purpose of our lives.

The old Baltimore Catechism encapsulated this idea in that classic question and answer:

Q. Why did God make you?

A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven.

St Augustine says it even better: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You” — that is to say: Until our heart abides in you — until it dwells in You… communes perfectly with You.

The bottom line is this: We are made for communion with God.

God is the only thing we run on. Nothing else will do. Go ahead and try putting Mountain Dew into your car’s gas tank. It WILL NOT work. Try putting anything else into your soul other than God Himself — it simply won’t work! …Not for long anyways!

And so — what did God decide to do?

He went and made it possible for us to receive what we need most: 

Himself. 

He invented the perfect way to get HIS divine life into us on a regular, weekly, maybe even daily basis:

“Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood — you have no life within you.” Jesus says — “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”

This is what Holy Communion is all about.

This is what our participation in the Mass is all about.

This is what Christmas — ChristMass — is all about.

The Union of God and man.

This little newborn baby, lying in a manger — is somehow both God and man at the same time. He Himself brings these two drastically different things together in perfect communion: Creator and creature. Divinity and humanity!!!

And so we rightly sing: “JOY TO THE WORLD… the Lord is come; Let Earth receive her King; Let ev’ry heart prepare him room.”

Yes! Let every heart PREPARE HIM ROOM! Let every heart RECEIVE her King!!!! We receive Him in this Most Holy Eucharist!!!! In Holy Communion!

So, with all that in mind, lets pick back up with our step-by-step tour of the Mass so we can go deeper into the mystery of Christmas.

Alright. 

We’ve just prayed the Doxology — we’ve offered up to God the PERFECT and ACCEPTABLE sacrifice of Jesus’ Body and Blood through the hands of the priest…We’ve sung the GREAT AMEN… And now, the congregation stands back up together and begins praying what might rightly be called the Church’s “family prayer.”

“At the Savior’s command and informed by divine teaching, we dare to say:”

And the family of God begins to pray together: 

“Our Father… who art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thy Name… Thy Kingdom come… Thy will be done…”

We are praying the prayer that Jesus Himself taught us! In a way, the Our Father contains all prayer. It’s the perfect model for how we ought to always approach God. We dare to call God our “Father,” because by our baptism we are adopted sons and daughters of God! We glorify and adore Him. We ask that His will — not ours — be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.” 

We ask Him to forgive us. We promise to forgive those who trespass against us… We ask for His protection from temptation and from all forms of evil.

And yes of course, we ask Him for what we need, and this is VERY relevant to our topic at hand. We pray:

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

Now of course, on one level, we’re asking God to provide for us, most obviously our physical nourishment. But the Greek here suggests something much much deeper as well. The word for “daily bread” could also be translated as “Give us this day our supersubstantial bread” — which refers to something “beyond our daily bread” — a bread that is much “more than ordinary.” 

…We are asking God for the Holy Eucharist! — For Holy Communion! For Perfect Union with Himself!

“For my Flesh is true food, and My Blood is true drink,” Jesus tells us!

Following the Our Father, the priest than introduces the Sign of Peace: “The peace of the Lord be with you always.”

And you offer that peace back to me — “And with your spirit.”

Then the priest says: “Let us offer each other the sign of peace.”

Where does peace come from? It comes from Jesus the Prince of Peace. It comes from the Cross. He “made Peace by the Blood of His Cross” the Scriptures tell us.

This was foretold to the shepherds on that first Christmas night, when the angelic host began to sing: 

“GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST! And on earth PEACE to people of goodwill.”

That peace that surpasses all understanding is poured out from THIS altar, and then it spreads into each one of our hearts… 

We share it with one another! We are about to come face to face with the Prince of Peace Himself! He’s going to enter in! So we offer peace to one another. We forgive one another…

“Hark! the herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King: peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!’”

Then all of a sudden, as we finish shaking hands with the people around us… a brand new song strikes up, the words are repeated in worship and adoration:

“Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world: Have mercy on us.”

“Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world: Have mercy on us.”

“Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world: Grant us peace.”

As this chant swirls through the church, the priest breaks the Host in half — A symbolic action showing us what Jesus has done for us. He was broken for us. Broken so that the whole world could have communion with God and finally be freed from sin. This is why he was born. He was born to lay down his life for us.

The priest then breaks off a teeny-tiny piece of the Host, and drops it into the main Chalice… a liturgical expression symbolizing the Resurrection of Our Lord — the REUNION of the Body and Blood that was separated in death, and now is united again in Resurrection.

And as the Lamb of God chant concludes, the whole church responds.

Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!

O night divine! O night when Christ was born!

Meanwhile the priest prays a silent prayer:

“May the receiving of your Body and Blood, Lord Jesus Christ, not bring me to judgment and condemnation, but through your loving mercy be for me protection in mind and body, and a healing remedy.”

The priest is humbly asking that he not eat and drink judgment upon himself — a reminder for us all not to lightly approach this Most Blessed Sacrament without first examining our own soul!

Then he genuflects slowly, and lifts up the broken Host and the Chalice together — the Lamb of God standing as though slain — and with all our eyes fixed upon Jesus, the priest then declares:

“Behold the Lamb of God. Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the Supper of the Lamb.” 

In this moment, we realize — that the Mass is a MARRIAGE supper… it’s a wedding banquet — a feast of love — it’s the union of heaven and earth…of God and man!

And we all reply with words that echo those of the Centurion, whose servant was once miraculously healed by Jesus:

“Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof. But only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.”

This is a beautiful and encouraging reminder that you don’t need to be perfect in order to receive Holy Communion… in order for Jesus to enter under the roof of your mouth! If that was the case, then nobody should ever come forward to receive! Because nobody is worthy of that kind of union with our Lord!

But what we do need is honesty. We do need to be humble. Jesus asks for a humble and contrite heart. We must repent of our serious sins, and we should confess them sacramentally before we receive communion. Why? Because we need to be able to really mean it when we say “Amen” to the Merciful Love of Our Lord in the Eucharist.

So after admitting our own unworthiness… the priest consumes Holy Communion first, saying “May the Body of Christ keep me safe for eternal life. May the Blood of Christ keep me safe for eternal life.”

This is the medicine of immortality! Jesus promises to keep us safe.

Then the priest distributes holy communion to everyone who is prepared and able to receive… all who humbly approach in reverent adoration.

We come to the manger… to this feeding trough for animals… and there we meet God. We receive this little newborn King from Bethlehem — which of course means House of Bread. We are put into communion with Him and one another. With ALL Christians around the world.

Pope Leo the Great once said that “the effect of our sharing in the body and blood of Christ is to change us into what we receive.”

We are changed and transformed into Jesus. Into the Body of Christ.

Jesus doesn’t just want to be part of your life. 

He wants to BE YOUR LIFE.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, when she described her first holy communion said that “it was a complete fusion” “We were no longer two…Jesus alone remained.” — She goes on to say that “all Heaven entered my soul when I received Jesus.”

That’s what Holy Communion is all about! —And it is the true MEANING of Christmas!

After receiving Our Lord, you return to your pew. And you kneel down, thank God for what just happened, and cherish this time with Jesus. As one writer put it: “We are never so close to Jesus as at the moment of sacramental Communion.”

Meanwhile the priest purifies the vessels. He makes sure that there are no particles, no drops of the Eucharist left on his fingers, on the paten, or in the chalice… And then we rest together.

There is silence. …We are enjoying this communion with the Lord, and with the entire Church spread throughout the world.

But the Mass is not quite over. 

We really shouldn’t leave before the final blessing! One time, when someone left right after receiving communion, St Philip Neri famously sent two little altar serves off, holding candles, to process on either side of him… a humorous way of drawing attention to Christ’s Real Presence now within this Living Tabernacle that you are…!

No, we sit tight, and savor this moment.

Then the priest says “Let us pray.” The congregation stands together. We pray the prayer after communion. And then comes the final blessing. The priest blesses all gathered in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

And then: “Go forth! The Mass is ended!” — in Latin — “Ite missa est” 

Which can be translated: “GO she is sent! …sent on MISSION!”

Who is “She?” Who are we talking about?

The Church! 

You and me! 

The BODY OF CHRIST… She is now FILLED WITH THE EUCHARIST… the BODY OF CHRIST.

We are IN COMMUNION with Jesus, and so the Church says to all of us: “Go! You are SENT… The Church is being sent! ITE MISSA EST.

Go and do what?

Go and bring JOY TO THE WORLD of course!… Bring Jesus to everyone else! Because the Lord is come; Let Earth receive her King; Let ev’ry heart prepare him room, And heav’n and nature sing!

And that, my friends, concludes our tour of the mass. …So Merry ChristMass everyone. May this celebration of our communion in Christ transform us here, and then transform the whole world. May we allow all who meet us to encounter the love of Jesus, our newborn King.

We are now in our 4th week of our tour through the Mass — we’ve been busy keeping Mass in ChristMass — and today, on this final Sunday of the Advent Season, we have come to the very heart of the liturgy:

The Eucharistic Sacrifice. The consecration of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. This is the Source and Summit…

In our first reading this weekend from the prophet Isaiah, we heard the Lord encourage King Ahaz to “ask for a sign from the LORD, your God; let it be deep as the netherworld, or high as the sky!”

But Ahaz unfortunately answered, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!” 

Well, we are about to do what Ahaz refused to do.

We are going to ask for a sign from God that is far deeper than the netherworld and infinitely higher than the sky…

…We will dare to ask that bread and wine be changed into God.

And so we pick up where we left off last week in our exploration of the Liturgy. We’ve already received and prepared the gifts. The altar is all set. The priest has washed his hands…

And now the congregation stands together as the priest invites them: “Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.”

— “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of His name, for our good and the good of all His holy Church.” 

Let’s pay close attention to a couple of details about this exchange.

First, the priest says “my sacrifice AND yours.”

It’s absolutely crucial for all of us to realize that the priest isn’t just doing something magical by himself up here… as if he’s on some sort of stage and you’re watching a kind of show happen…

No, you are intimately involved in this sacrifice as well. In a profound way, we are ALL priests together. YOU are priests by your baptism… I am a priest both by my baptism AND through my ordination. 

Baptismal priesthood and Ministerial priesthood are different of course… they obviously have unique, distinct roles within the Church, but they both have their origin in the One Priesthood of Jesus Christ.

So the priest is now calling upon YOUR baptismal priesthood to be activated and engaged. The sacrifice will be offered “at my hands for the praise and glory of God’s name and for the good of the whole Church” …but I’m doing this ON BEHALF of you and WITH you… The ordained priest’s role is to unite ALL OF YOU with this one sacrifice of the Mass — He’s dragging ALL of humanity up to this altar with him!

The second important observation about this exchange is this: The priest prays that this sacrifice might be “acceptable.”

Now, here’s the thing: The only way this offering will ever be acceptable is if JESUS himself is the one who offers it. The Cross is the only acceptable sacrifice there is. Jesus dying out of love for us in obedience to the Father’s will is the ONLY act of truly perfect worship.

So if our sacrifice is going to be worthy and acceptable, it needs to somehow become HIS sacrifice… We have to worship God through Jesus, with Jesus, and in Jesus!

What’s mind-blowing is that by virtue of his ordination, the ministerial priest now gets to do just that for YOU. He stands in the place of Christ, on behalf of the entire congregation, and he gets to offer this PERFECT and ACCEPTABLE sacrifice “in persona Christi,” which means “in the person of Christ.” 

One way to try and understand it is that the priest lends his humanity to Jesus for Him to use as He will…

Very good. 

Next comes the prayer over the offerings, and then the dialogue kicks off:

“The Lord be with you!”

—And with your spirit

“Lift up your hearts!”

— “We lift them up to the Lord!”

“Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.”

—It is right and just.

Let us offer the EUCHARIST… our “THANKSGIVING” to God — Lets thank Him no matter what else is going on…

And you say: “It is right and just” which is to say: Yes, that’s exactly what God deserves. It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation ALWAYS and EVERYWHERE to give Him thanks…”

Then comes a prayer we call the “Preface.” 

The preface changes Sunday to Sunday, but it always reflects the feast or season we’re celebrating, reminding us of the awesome things God has done in the past. The prayer builds and builds and builds, eventually calling on all the angels and archangels, Thrones and Dominions and all the hosts and Powers of Heaven to join in, until it reaches a kind of crescendo in what we call the “Sanctus.”

This is that chant we all sing together — “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest.”

This is the song that all those angels and archangels, thrones and dominions are singing CONSTANTLY in the presence of God — so as we sing the Sanctus, we should be reminded that…

…believe it or not: We are now in Heaven.

Or…perhaps a better way of putting it is: Heaven and Earth are being united… wedded together… in the Mass. The liturgy is actually a participation in… a foretaste of the Heavenly worship that is going on CONSTANTLY, ALL DAY EVERY DAY… for ALL eternity…

And by God’s gift — we are now being caught up in the midst of that! 

“Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus” — If only we could see all the angels and archangels worshipping God with us at this moment. Our little church would be even MORE crowded! We’re all crying out “HOLY HOLY HOLY” before the throne of the Thrice Holy, Most Blessed Trinity together with ALL the hosts of heaven…

…All your patron saints are here with us too. All of your relatives, loved ones, friends and ancestors who have gone before us and have already been received into the glory of Heaven — The entire communion of Saints is here united with us as we lift our hearts to God!

As soon as we finish the Sanctus, you fall on your knees, because this is the posture most appropriate when we’re in the presence of the Living God.

Once everyone is kneeling together, a deep silence fills the church… and the priest solemnly launches into the Eucharistic Prayer. He is the only one standing now — Why? — Because you’ve pushed the priest forward as your representative — he is standing up there on your behalf before God. 

Here I’d like to make a point about the posture and overall directionality of the Eucharistic Sacrifice.

Most of us are probably used to seeing the priest on the other side of the altar, facing the people while praying the Eucharistic prayer. But did you know that there is an older, even more ancient way of doing it that I believe communicates what we’re doing in a really powerful way?

I’m talking about praying the Mass “Ad Orientam.” 

The word literally means “toward the East” — a reference to the ancient practice of the Church to celebrate the Eucharist facing the sun as it rose in the eastern skies — a powerful symbol of the Resurrection of Christ at first light on Easter morning. 

Celebrating Mass “ad orientam” is when the priest faces, not the congregation — but God the Father. The priest isn’t putting his “back to the people” — as if he was trying to be rude or exclusionary…

No! — the priest is leading the entire Church in facing God together. He is like the captain of a great boat up there at the helm… and we are all going in the same direction with him.

And this makes a LOT of sense if you think about it. When you are on an airplane, you definitely DON’T want the pilot to be facing the passengers. No! — You want that pilot to be in the cockpit, looking forward, making sure the flight is smooth and safe for everyone!

That’s why, while there’s nothing wrong with saying the Mass “versus populum”— which means “towards the people” — there is something beautiful and richly symbolic about entering into the Mass “ad orientam.” 

Personally, whenever I pray “ad orientam,” I feel less like I’m up on a stage, performing for you — or worse, as if I’m speaking to YOU and not to God. The Mass isn’t about us talking to each other — it’s about the ENTIRE Church together turning toward God and worshipping Him! Offering the sacrifice to HIM…

But I digress. 

Because we’ve now arrived at the holiest, most beautiful part of the entire Mass… The source and summit itself… 

The consecration of the bread and wine.

First comes what’s called the epliclesis. The “epliclesis” is when the priest extends his hands over the bread and wine, and calls down the Holy Spirit. A bell is rung once to announce this outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

“Therefore, O Lord, we humbly implore you: by the same Spirit graciously make holy these gifts we have brought to you for consecration, that they may become the Body and Blood of your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose command we celebrate these mysteries.”

It’s only through the DIVINE POWER of the Holy Spirit that bread and wine can ever become Jesus for us. The Spirit Himself comes and OVERSHADOWS these gifts — just as the Holy Spirit once overshadowed the Blessed Virgin Mary when God took on human flesh inside her womb! 

This is what the Angel announced to St Joseph in our gospel this weekend: 

“Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.”

It is through the Holy Spirit that this regular bread and ordinary wine will become God-in-the-flesh!

Then come the “words of institution.”

This is the moment when the priest is most obviously acting “in person Christi” — in the person of Christ — because he is enacting the same exact events of the Last Supper, and he is speaking the same sacred words of Jesus — He makes them his own!

The priest takes the bread in his hands, and bends down low at the altar…

Monsignor Knox says that the priest “bends down” because “he has reached the very door of the heavenly temple, and takes one look through the keyhole. And he says ‘Ssssh! I’ve seen it! The glory of God, that fills earth and Heaven, shining in front of me. There, do you see it? Take off your shoes, all of you, and lets go in very quietly, on tip-toe.”

Then Christ’s words fall from the priest’s own lips…

“Take this, all of you, and eat of it. For this is My Body, which will be given up for you.”

He then slowly lifts up the Host — he elevates the Sacred Victim for all to see, yes, but he is really lifting Jesus up to the Father as if to say: “Take Him… Receive Him. We give you Your Beloved Son…Jesus belongs to You, Father, and we now belong to Jesus. Please receive us WITH HIM!!!”

The bells are run 3 times to emphasize how intensely holy this moment is… if anyone happens to be dozing off, they are called back: “Look! It’s HIM… He’s HERE now… We can literally SEE HIM!”

St John Vianney once said that “the Eucharist is the love of Christ made visible.”

When the Host is elevated, the love of Christ is ABLE TO BE SEEN… it’s RIGHT THERE! 

As Jesus once said: “When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.” — Well there he is! — lifted up high, drawing the whole world to Himself like a divine magnet!

After he gently sets the Host down again on the paten, the priest then genuflects to the Presence of Our Lord now on the altar.

He then takes the cup. And again, the priest bends low, and speaks into the chalice… as the Spirit once hovered over the waters in the beginning of creation, the Spirit now breaths onto the surface of the wine:

“Take this, all of you, and drink from it. For this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the New and Eternal Covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.”

He then slowly elevates the chalice and the bells are rung again. He is lifting up the Precious Blood that has been shed for many — which is to say: For ALL who are willing to accept Jesus and follow Him. It’s the same Blood that dripped down the wood of the Cross. The same Blood that has forgiven every sin that ever has or ever will ever be committed!

The priest genuflects again in humble worship. The Eucharistic prayer goes on. Until finally, we come to the conclusion of the Eucharistic Prayer, which is called the Doxology.

And the priest lifts up the Host and the Chalice together, chanting: 

“Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, for ever and ever.”

What are we doing? — We are lifting up the PERFECT and COMPLETED sacrifice to the Father… It is finished! Into your hands we commend our spirits! We offer everything through Jesus, with Jesus, and in Jesus!!! All glory and honor is yours forever and ever!!!

And the people respond with the GREAT Amen. 

It ought to truly be GREAT… it ought to be powerful… it ought to shake the whole church with holy joy!!!!

Because what we’ve just participated in — what Christ has just accomplished for us — is THE most important thing that could ever take place. It’s what reorders our chaos, heals our relationship with God, and makes the whole world new again.

But this is where I must leave you for now…

Next week, we all know… is Christmas.

ChristMass itself.

We don’t have to wait much longer now…

We will conclude our tour of the liturgy then.

We continue our homily series “Keeping Mass in ChristMass” on this Third Sunday of Advent — otherwise known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete means “rejoice” — And we are REJOICING because Christmas is almost here. It’s not quite upon us, but it’s so close… the purple is even beginning to mix with the white of Christmas, and we get this beautiful ROSE…

Meanwhile, in our little tour of the Mass — we are also getting VERY close to the climax of the liturgy — the consecration of the Most Holy Eucharist and our intimate communion with Jesus. 

But we’re not quite there yet…

Last weekend, we ended with a description of the homily — that its goal is to help explain the readings we heard in the Liturgy of the Word, and then to stir up a hunger for what comes next in the liturgy… it ought to stir up expectation for the miracle we are all about to witness and participate in.

But lets not rush ahead just yet! “Be patient, brothers and sisters,” our second reading from the Letter of James said, “until the coming of the Lord.”

Immediately following the Homily, something else comes first. We stand back up together and we do what? 

We profess our faith: We proclaim the Creed!

I really love this placement… because it’s almost as if… just in case the priest or deacon preached some kind of heresy — the Church now forces us all to profess what we actually really do believe! 

It’s genius! — The Creed covers a multitude of bad homilies.

The Creed is the core of what we believe, and we are PROUD to profess it. 

We don’t mumble the Creed. We don’t mindlessly recite it.

We PROFESS it.

We remember that countless saints and martyrs have DIED because they believed and professed these words rather than deny them. 

And now we join their ranks! We too should be willing to die for this Creed. It’s our battle cry as Christians!

After the Creed, we then have the Prayers of the Faithful or “General Intercessions” — This is a chance for us to tell God exactly what we need. 

The Lord WANTS us to ask for what we need. And so, we pray that the blind see, that the mute speak, that the deaf hear, that the dead are raised, that the poor have the good news preached to them… We pray for the entire Church. We pray for Pope Leo. For all bishops and priests. For families. We pray for our political leaders — even the ones we disagree with. We pray for the sick and the suffering. And we pray for the dead, that they may rest in peace. 

We trust that our prayers are POWERFUL… Jesus told us: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”

So, we offer our prayers in confidence, knowing and trusting that the Lord WILL answer them according to His perfect will.

After we’ve offered our petitions, we are seated once again, and then… a notable shift occurs… 

We have come to the part of the mass which we call the “Offertory.”

The Offertory is a real point of transition — We are whisked quickly from the Liturgy of the Word and now embark on the second pat of the Mass: The Liturgy of the Eucharist!

That word transition is key. There’s a shift — a hand-off as it were — from the Scriptures to the Sacrifice. From Word to Sacrament. The Liturgy of the Word was only the precursor, if you will.

In this sense, it’s good that we got to hear from St. John the Baptist again in our gospel this weekend. He is, after all, Christ’s precursor. He is “the one about whom it is written: 

Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way before you. 

John the Baptist is the man who hands off the Old Testament to the New… He is the point of transition. He’s the last of the Old Covenant prophets and is himself a kind of bridge into the New Covenant in Jesus. When he finally sees Christ revealed, he makes it very clear: “He must increase, I must decrease.”

But as we heard, John was in prison at this point in the story — he had been locked up for daring to speak the truth about the invalid, sinful union that King Herod had entered into with his brother’s wife — and while he was there in prison, he began to wonder:

Is Jesus really the One? Is this who we’ve been waiting for all this time?

John the Baptist represents the entire Old Testament tradition in this good, honest question. — Up to this moment, all the patriarchs, the kings, and the prophets had hinted at and foretold a Messiah who would one day finally arrive to set the People free from the hands of all who hated them. 

But here John was — locked up in jail! He wasn’t free! And so he naturally begins to ask: “Is Jesus really the long-awaited Messiah? Is this the one who will deliver the Chosen people of God? Or do we keep waiting?”

Jesus steps in to answer John’s question: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” 

In other words Jesus is saying: “Yes… Absolutely yes.”

“I am the One who you have been looking for all this time.”

And I think something like this happens in the Offertory of every Mass.

We just heard the promises that the Holy Scriptures contain. We heard the prophecies and the stories that all point directly to Jesus.

Now comes that crucial moment of transition in the Liturgy —

From Word to Sacrament. From just hearing about the promises… to experiencing their fulfillment in real time. From learning about the teachings… to encountering the Teacher Himself come in the flesh. From listening to what God has done in the past… to seeing with our own two eyes what He is doing right in front of us.

So that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the prayers and rites surrounding the Offertory.

After the people sit down following the Prayers of the Faithful, a flurry of movement takes place. The priest goes up to the altar and sets the missal. The paten and chalice are brought forward and unveiled. The corporal (that square white linen on which the consecration will actually take place) is opened and laid out flat on the altar. 

What are we doing?

We are “preparing the way” for the arrival of Jesus! The drama of the Mass shifts focus, and now we are setting things up — making sure everything is ready for the Bridegroom when He comes at last.

Meanwhile, the basket is being passed around in the pews, and a collection for the needs of the Church is taken up. We must not underestimate this action. The collection may seem to some like an irrelevant, worldly intrusion into our prayer and worship — but it’s actually a practical, tangible sign of our sacrifice to God. 

ALL of us need to do our part in supporting the Church’s mission — because we are not mere consumers or spectators…

No! We have skin in the game…

This mission is our mission, too…

And so we are to give generously of our financial resources, according to our individual means — and we really should give until it hurts a little bit! — We are enabling the Church to carry out the work of the Gospel. Without this support, there’s no building, no electricity, no running water, and therefore… no ministry.

Once that collection has been taken up, then the presentation of the gifts occurs.

Members from the congregation process forward with the collection, as well as gifts of Bread and Wine that are to be used in the Eucharistic Sacrifice.

This, too, is not a time for us to zone out and wait until its over and done with. No, this is an invitation to unite YOUR offering with Jesus’ offering on the Cross. You can imagine placing YOUR intentions into that ciborium (that gold container holding the bread). You can picture dropping your difficulties, your sorrows, your suffering into that cruet of wine. What you’re doing is piling all of your needs… your sins… your ENTIRE lives — into the gifts that we will present to the Lord.

God wants ALL of you — the whole of you — not just part of you! As St Therese once famously said: “You cannot be half a saint. You must be a whole saint or no saint at all.”

So we give God EVERYTHING… we OFFER UP our entire lives to him…and ask that He then transform us by His grace.

St Paul in his letter to the Romans says it this way: “I urge you therefore, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.” We offer a LIVING sacrifice  of ourselves — together with Jesus — in every single Mass!

And now, at long last — these gifts finally come to the altar!

This is an incredible moment! From ALL ETERNITY, God had designated this bit of bread and this portion of wine to become something astonishing: The Body and Blood of His Son given for us!

If you think about it, this bread and wine have already undergone a kind of “suffering” — a “passion” — in order to become what they are now…

The wheat was crushed and then baked in white-hot furnace… the grapes were smashed, they bled out, and were fermented until they reached full maturity…

As Monsignor Knox writes, we should “get excited about the unconsecrated bread and wine” because “this piece of bread, which might equally have been made into a sandwich… is going to be the Victim that will bring us all to everlasting life.”

And so the priest receives these good gifts from the people, and then turns around and marches back up into the sanctuary. You can imagine all of your intentions, piled into that bread and wine, being carried with him up to the altar, the Mountain of Calvary.

The priest then lifts up what’s called “the paten” which is that small, flat circular golden plate which has the Host on it. The word “Host” comes from the Latin ‘Hostia’ which means ‘Victim.’ The priest lifts up that unconsecrated host to God, and prays silently:

“Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life.”

Setting down the paten, he turns to the chalice. And you’ve probably noticed that he pours wine into the chalice first, and then a tiny little droplet of water. As he does so, the priest prays: “By the mystery of this water in wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” 

As Monsignor Knox explains: “What we’re really praying is something along these lines: ‘Make us one and the same thing with Jesus Christ, our identity merged and lost in his, just as the identity of that spot of water is merged and lost in the wine that covers the bottom of the chalice.’”

Another great hero of our faith, St Athanasius, once put it this way: “God became man, that man might become God.” This bread and wine are about to become God… Well then… why not us? 

Therefore we pray: “May we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

Then the priest lifts up the chalice and thanks God once again:

“Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the wine we offer you: fruit of the vine and work of human hands, it will become our spiritual drink.”

Really these words are rooted in an ancient, traditional Jewish meal blessing — a barakah prayer — which the father of a family would normally lead, saying: “Blessed are you, Lord, our God, king of the universe, who has brought forth bread from heaven.”

Then the priest bows low to the altar and prays silently: “With humble spirit and contrite heart may we be accepted by you, O Lord, and may our sacrifice in your sight this day be pleasing to you, Lord God.”

This is a very solemn moment. The tension and drama is building. We are getting closer and closer to the Heart of the Mass…

The priest then washes his hands, praying silently: “Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin” — a humble reminder of baptism, where all our sins are washed away by the Blood of the Lamb, but also an act done in holy fear of the Lord, knowing that if he dares to stand “in persona Christi” at the altar, and lift up the Body and Blood of the Lord, then he must pray for clean hands and a pure heart.

But that is where we will need to stop today. We are now VERY VERY close to Christmas… Next week, we will continue on with the tour of the Mass with the Eucharistic Prayer itself — the Climax… the Center of the Sacred Liturgy.

Last week we began our Advent homily series on “Keeping Mass in ChristMass” — And if you missed that first homily, basically what we’re doing is taking a tour of the Sacred Liturgy and exploring why we do what we do and why we pray what we pray in the Mass. 

For the first Sunday in Advent, we discussed how necessary our preparation is if we want to fully enter into and appreciate the Mass. We discussed the entrance procession, the introductory rites, the penitential act, and then we finished with the Collect Prayer.

Today, we will spend some time exploring the “Liturgy of the Word.”

The Mass, we all probably know, is broken up into two basic parts — the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The ancient Church fathers frequently spoke about these as being “two tables” from which we are nourished — the Table of the Holy Scriptures… the written, spoken Word… and the Table of the Eucharistic Sacrifice… the Word made flesh.

The Second Vatican Council teaches that the Church “has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord.”

That’s really quite striking isn’t it? While Catholics do NOT ascribe to the protestant doctrine of “Sola Scriptura” — which says that the only source of authority comes from the Bible alone — we DO however venerate and hold sacred each and every syllable, every letter of the Scriptures… as if it were particles of the Holy Eucharist itself!!!

Why?

Because we worship the Word. (Not the Bible… but the Word!)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.”

Now, before going any further, a brief word about that little word “Word.”

In Greek, the word for word is “Logos.”

So, John’s prologue is saying: ‘In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.”

The Greek word “Logos” basically means “Order and Intelligibility.” It’s where we get the word “Logic” from. Therefore, the Word — who ultimately became flesh in Jesus Christ — is the source of all “logic” and “order” in the world. …Math, physics, chemistry, biology — all of that stuff is “intelligible” and “coherent” to us, because we have an intelligible God who has placed some of that intelligibility into what He has made.

We were made in the image and likeness of God, which means we have a bit of that intelligibility built into us as well!

The bad news is, however… when we sinned, we actually introduced something irrational and illogical into God’s logical order. We introduced chaos into the logos of the Lord’s creation…

And now — (as we are probably well aware) — we’re sort of out of wack, aren’t we? We tend to do illogical, sinful things that hurt ourselves and people around us. We know we shouldn’t, and yet we still do…. over and over again, expecting different results!… That’s the definition of insanity! Of irrationality, isn’t it?

So what’s the solution?

I propose to you — that the solution is the Sacred Liturgy!

The liturgy is where we encounter the Word — the Logos — Himself. The liturgy is where this Word actually “re-orders” the chaos of our lives! The Mass is where He brings us back into alignment with His original logic and puts us back into communion with Himself!!!

So in a profound way — in this first part of the Mass — the Liturgy of the Word — God is speaking order back into our chaos. He is teaching us right from wrong. Good from evil. Virtue from vice. Truth from falsehood.

As our Second Reading said today: “Whatever was written previously was written for our instruction, that by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

So whenever we sit down to hear the Sacred Scriptures PROCLAIMED to us at Mass… we are supposed to listen to them prayerfully… with holy attention. — Why? 

Because God is about to speak to us! 

He is about to remind us of what is True. He is reordering us!!!! Bringing logos — logic — from out of our chaos!

St. Paul says that “all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” 

That word “inspired” literally can be translated as “God-breathed.” So, God breathed His Truth, His Teaching, His Life into the books of the Bible. The Scriptures are “living and effective, sharper than any double-edged sword!” They are His LIVING Word!

I’ve heard it said that we don’t read the Bible… the Bible reads us!

So… if anybody says to me: “Father, I’ve never heard God’s voice before…” I would simply ask them: “But, you’ve been to Mass right?”

If so, then you’ve definitely heard God’s Voice!

He spoke to you through the lector delivering the Scriptures to us. That was God speaking to you… to all of us!

The Scriptures are the Father’s love letter to us!

They are a “lamp unto our feet” showing us the way forward…

They are a delicious feast of TRUTH and GOODNESS!

As the prophet Jeremiah once wrote: “When I found your words, I devoured them. Your words were my joy, the happiness of my heart.”

That’s the invitation for us as we hear the readings at Mass…

We are listening for the Voice of the God who loves us!

And really, it’s just amazing how often the readings of the day directly relate to whatever we might be going through. The Holy Spirit always has perfect timing in lining up the exact readings we need to hear at just the right moment…

There’s the famous story, for instance, of St. Anthony of the Desert.

As the story goes, Anthony entered into the church during Mass, just as the Gospel was being proclaimed. That day’s reading happened to be the story of the Rich Young Man, where Jesus says: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven”

As soon as he heard those words — St. Anthony KNEW in his gut that God was speaking to HIM directly. And so he did just that. He went and sold everything he owned, became a desert hermit, and went on to become the “Father of Western Monasticism.”

That was not a coincidence!

That was Providence!

Today’s mass readings are yet another example: 

In our second reading today from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, we heard that line — “Whatever was written previously was written for our instruction, that… by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

When I decided to kick off this homily series on the parts of the Mass, I didn’t know this was going to be our second reading this weekend…

That was just a providential thing that happened! And it’s awesome. And guess what? It happens all the time…

If only we had ears to hear! 

But of course, the most important reading we hear at Mass every Sunday,— is the Gospel proclamation.

We remain seated for the First and Second Readings, as well as the Psalm… and this is a posture of being taught. Of receiving. Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to Him… but at this point in the Mass, we come to the heart of the Liturgy of the Word — the Gospel.

And what do we do?

We stand!

Why?

Because while all the books of the bible are equally inspired by the Holy Spirit — the Gospel is the lens through which we read everything else. The Gospels are most important! They are the KEY…because they reveal Jesus to us. 

So we stand in honor of the Good News, and lift up the Book of the Gospels containing the story of Jesus’ Life and Teachings! We cover this book with gold plating to show our reverence and awe. We lift it high and process to the ambo with incense while the whole church sings “Alleluia” — an ancient, almost untranslatable Hebrew word for praise, and worship, and exaltation…

Before proclaiming the gospel, the priest bows low to the altar and prays silently: “Cleanse my heart and my lips, almighty God, that I may worthily proclaim your holy Gospel.”

Then the proclamation itself begins: “The Lord be with you”

—And with your spirit.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to….blank.

And we all reply: “Glory to You, O Lord.” We cross ourselves on our foreheads, on our lips, and on our hearts… basically saying “May the Gospel we are about to hear always be in our minds, on our lips, and in our hearts.”

At the conclusion, the priest says: “The Gospel of the Lord” and we all say: “Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ” — and then he kisses the book of the Gospel…

As he does so, he again prays silently: “Through the words of the Gospel, may our sins be wiped away.” — another testament to the life-transforming power of Christ’s words: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

Then… we again take our seats.

But the priest stays up at the ambo, and he does his best to explain what we just heard. That’s what the word “homily” literally means — “explanation.”

Because even though God really is speaking to us through the readings of the day — a lot of the time, they’re not very clear to us.

So we need interpretation and application. A good homily is supposed to explain and apply the meaning of the Mass Readings to our daily life here and now.  — It’s not supposed to be a presentation of the priest’s personal theology or politics. It’s not a chance for the priest to hog the spotlight and get attention. The homily is supposed to be an explication grounded in the Church’s clear and solid teachings.

It’s also meant to be a call — an exhortation to respond to what we just heard. We shouldn’t let the Word of God go in one ear and out the other!!!

No… we’re invited to respond — we’re invited to repent and then change our lives based on what was proclaimed!

This is what John the Baptist is doing in our Gospel this weekend, right?

He “appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!’”

That’s the basic function of the homily — the priest or deacon is preaching repentance! They’re saying: “Hey, the Kingdom of heaven is at hand! We need to reorient our lives based on the things we just heard in those readings!”

The homily is like the “voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”

It’s supposed to be challenging… just like John the Baptist challenges the Pharisees who came to listen to him. He exhorts them not just to listen and hear the word… but also to “produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.” He warns them very sternly: “Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

If a homily ever offends you, first ask: “Am I offended… by the Truth?”

Because preaching is meant to convict us. Call us up higher. Remind us who God really is, and what His plans and promises are…Give us the hard truths that are not always easy to swallow.

But really — I think the main goal of every homily is this:

It’s meant to stir up our hunger for what is coming next! — Unlike the church-services of some of our Protestant brothers and sisters — the preaching… the homily… is not the main event. It’s not the reason we came to church. The Eucharist is.

Catholic preaching should always point beyond itself — just like John the Baptist points beyond himself and beyond his preaching! He says: “The one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

And so, the homily should basically say explicitly or implicitly: “What’s about to come next is so much better. So much more amazing. Talk is cheap. Words are empty. But JESUS THE WORD MADE FLESH is coming. His REAL PRESENCE in the Eucharist is on the way, and none of us are worthy to carry his sandals.”

And that’s where I’ll leave you today.

What’s about to come next is so much better than anything I or any other preacher — Bishop Barron, Fr Mike Schmitz, Archbishop Fulton Sheen — it’s better than any of them could ever put into inspiring words.

“The one who is coming after me is mightier than I.”

The season of Advent is now upon us! And as I prayed about what sort of homily series I should give this year, the thought occurred to me that what we always need more of, but never seem to have the time for — is more teaching about the Mass itself!

So, that’s what we’re going to do. For the next 4 Sundays of Advent, we’ll be taking a tour through the various parts of the Mass — the “Mass in Slow-Motion” as Msgr. Ronald Knox once put it. We’ll dig into why we do what we do, why we say what we say… and hopefully we will all come out the other side able to participate even more fully in the Liturgy together.

Advent is the perfect time of year to do this actually, because what is the season of Advent preparing us for?

CHRISTMAS!

That’s right!

And the word “Christmas” literally means: “Christ’s Mass.”

So what better time of year to talk about the Mass than ChristMass?!?!

Christians complain all the time about how the world tries to take Christ out of Christmas… Well, this homily series is all about keeping MASS in Christmas.

Every single mass, if you think about it, is like a little Christmas. If what we celebrate in the Mass is the arrival — the Advent — of the presence of Jesus Christ — that God Himself really comes to us at every Mass and SPEAKS to us in the Scriptures in the Liturgy of the Word, and then MAKES HIMSELF TRULY PRESENT on THIS altar in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, then yeah…

Every Mass really is like a little celebration of Christmas!

So, without further ado, let’s go ahead and dive into our four-part “Tour of the Mass!”

For this First Sunday of Advent, I’d like to discuss from the outset how we ought to prepare for mass. We’ll then finish today’s meditation by zooming in on the entrance and introductory rites of the liturgy to see how they also prepare us in a deep way for the arrival of Jesus.

First, our preparation before Mass.

We each need to come to mass… well-prepared.

Jesus says in our gospel today: “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

Advent is all about preparation — a preparation for the arrival of the Son of Man at Christmas. But we also need to prepare ourselves to receive Jesus at every single Mass.

And this preparation needs to begin… at home!

Before ever leaving the house for church!!!! 

How do we do that? Well, here are some ideas:

• You can read the mass readings so you’re more familiar with them
• You can go to confession if you need to before receiving Communion
• We can avoid distractions as much as possible so our minds are not cluttered and divided when we arrive at church
• We can wear our Sunday-best out of respect for the Lord and a witness to others.
• We arrive on time, we kneel down and pray before mass in silence instead of chit-chatting and catching up with people sitting next to us…
• We come up with a specific intention we’d like to pray for at this mass…
• We keep the “one hour” fast — because as Canon law say: “Whoever is to receive the blessed Eucharist is to abstain for at least one hour before Holy Communion from all food and drink, with the sole exception of water and medicine.”

These are all ways we can prepare to receive our Lord… We make room for Him.

Next — it’s time for the procession. Now, we might think of the procession as exclusively the Cross and candles and altar servers and lector and finally…the priest beginning at the back of the church in the narthex…

But really, the procession (in a certain sense) begins as soon as YOU start coming to church on Sunday!

When you’re loading the car up with kids.

When you’re driving to mass.

As you park your car.

When you enter into the church and cross yourself with holy water.

When you genuflect to the Tabernacle before taking your seat.

Long before the little bell rings and the music starts — all of these actions are part of the procession — the Body of Christ moving towards the celebration of the Eucharist and coming together one by one to this place.

Our first reading from the prophet Isaiah used that gorgeous image of “all nations” streaming toward the “mountain of the Lord’s house.”

“In days to come, the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it; many peoples shall come and say: ‘Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.’” 

This streaming toward the Lord’s mountain is an excellent image of the procession. You are streaming toward the mountain of the Lord and gathering here in this holy place of worship, taking your places in the pews with anticipation of what… (or rather WHO)… is coming. 

“Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord,” our psalm said today… “To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD. According to the decree for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.”

That’s why we come here at all! To give thanks to God! To offer Eucharist…

Then comes the official procession. The incense is lit. The bell rings. The congregation stands up. The entrance antiphon is sung. And then the processional cross begins to lurch down the aisle, flanked by candles. 

Other servers and lectors come next.

And finally…at the end of the procession…comes the priest.

It’s necessary to point out that with any procession, the “most important person” actually always comes last — so we can say that the procession reaches its climax when the priest finally enters in…

But we’re not welcoming “Fr Anthony” or any other particular priest for that matter…No…I’m actually nothing. I’m not important at all…

We are standing and welcoming the entrance of Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest Himself!

It’s all about JESUS. It’s JESUS who is streaming towards the Mountain of the Lord. It’s JESUS who is arriving and entering into the Sanctuary on our behalf. It’s JESUS who is about to offer once again the PERFECT, ONCE-FOR-ALL Sacrifice of His Life. The beautiful vestments the priest wears are not meant to draw attention to the man under the vestments, but rather to hide him… to help us see JESUS approaching the altar instead.

As Monsignor Charles Pope puts it: “The congregation is welcoming Jesus who has taught that when two or three gather in his name that he is there in the midst of them. The priest represents Jesus and acts in the person of Christ. Therefore […] Jesus Christ is walking our aisle and we welcome him with a hymn of praise!”

He’s carrying us with him into the sanctuary — “Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain, to the house of the God”

What is this “LORD’s mountain” anyways?

It’s the ALTAR!

We stream towards… the altar!

We stream towards this rock, this mountain — we climb up the mountain, climb up the stairs into this sanctuary — and we say: 

“Let us climb the Lord’s Mountain… to the house of the God of Jacob that He may instruct us in His ways, and we may walk in His paths.”

What’s the first thing the priest does when he arrives into the sanctuary after genuflecting to Christ’s Presence in the Tabernacle?

He kisses the altar!

He kisses this place of sacrifice — Where our salvation happens!  At a symbolic level, the altar represents Christ Himself. Jesus is at the same time Priest, Victim, and the Altar of Sacrifice. So the priest, when he kisses the altar — is really kissing Jesus. 

We then might incense the altar… processing around it. Showing it due reverence. The music swells…

All of this is a symbolic, ritualistic way of building up our holy expectation, our wonder, and our awe: The Mass has begun. Jesus has arrived within the sanctuary. All heaven and earth are full of his glory. This is the advent of Immanuel Himself: 

God-is-with-us.

Then the priest solemnly begins… in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Our prayer is always made from WITHIN THE TRINITY. It’s our deepest identity now.

We are the community of baptized believers — baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit! We’ve been given a share — a participation — in the Trinitarian Divine Life!

“The LORD be with you.”

“And with your spirit.”

What does that exchange mean?

Well, it’s not just a simple greeting — it’s not just me saying “Good morning” Or “Hey, how y’all doing.”

No… It’s actually a declaration:

The Lord IS WITH YOU… right now! He’s here with us!!!! He has arrived!

And your reply is just as important and mysterious:

“And with your spirit.”

As Abbot Jeremy Driscoll says: “The people are addressing the ‘spirit’ of the priest. They are saying in effect ‘Be the priest for us now,’ aware that there is only one priest, Christ Himself.”

The priest then immediately leads everyone through the Penitential Act:

“Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.”

There’s that Advent theme of preparation again! “You must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

How do we prepare ourselves to encounter the Living God?

By quickly acknowledging that we are not worthy to be here at all. We tell God honestly where we have fallen short. We confess our sins. We humbly admit, as St Paul said in our second reading today that “it is the hour now for us to awake from sleep.” That the day is at hand — the Mass has begun! — So, we tell God pointblank that we want to “throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light!”

“I confess to almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters… that I have GREATLY sinned.” This prayer is called the “confiteor” which is just Latin for “I confess.”

What we are doing? We are taking full responsibility for our sins: “Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”

Dr. Edward Sri teaches that “we strike our breasts when we say the words ‘through my fault’ [because] the action of striking the breast is an ancient biblical expression of deep sorrow and contrition. It is what the multitudes at the Cross did after Jesus died. They left Calvary in mourning, ‘beating their breasts.’”

After the confiteor, the priest prays: “May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.”

And the people all respond — AMEN!

Then come those ancient Greek words: Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison! Lord have mercy… Christ have mercy! 

These words are basically saying: “Lord, soothe me, comfort me, take away my pain, show me your steadfast love” How beautiful! — God wants to comfort us and heal us… He doesn’t want to be harsh with us…This gives us boldness and confidence to continue worshipping!!!

Ordinarily, the Gloria would follow — but we omit that song during the Advent season. We hold it back until we come at last to that glorious night when we recall how the host of angels at the birth of Jesus appeared to those shepherds, singing: “GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO!”

But for now, we keep our lips tight shut. We move right along. And the Priest, with hands joined, says (or sings): Let us pray. 

What follows is called the “Collect” prayer. 

It’s a chance for ALL the prayers of the people to be collected… gathered up together and united into one… And so, we pray in silence with the Priest for a moment. And then with hands extended — opened up wide to present ALL of our prayers up to God — the priest says the Collect prayer, at the end of which the people acclaim: Amen.

This concludes the introductory rites… We take our seats as a sign that we’re now prepared and ready to hear the Voice of God speak to us in the Liturgy of the Word. 

And with that, we conclude our reflection for now as well. We’ll continue next Sunday on our journey towards Christmas… our journey deeper and deeper into Christ’s Mass.

So I went to confession recently.

(Yes — Priests go to confession.)

I get that question a lot actually. And the answer is OF COURSE we do.

At any rate, I was there waiting my turn, and a thought occurred to me:

I thought to myself: “Man, it’s really easy to sin…it’s really easy to mess up and say and do and think stuff you know you shouldn’t…. but it’s also just as easy, if not EASIER…. to receive the Lord’s forgiveness.”

And I’m not talking about a begrudging forgiveness.

Or some kind of temporary, fragile sort of forgiveness with a reluctant cold shoulder.

No, I’m talking about a full… complete… total… joyful… forgiveness.

The kind of forgiveness we see in action in our Gospel passage today.

Jesus is hanging on the Cross between two robbers.

Two sinners.

One is very busy mocking him — “Are you not the Christ? Then save yourself and us!”

His words echo the challenge and temptation of Satan in the desert: “If you REALLY ARE the Son of God, then why don’t you just go ahead and turn those stones into loaves of bread!??!? Why don’t you jump from the top of the temple and show yourself to be divine!?!? Just go ahead and prove yourself! Earn your identity! Perform for us!!!!”

But Jesus refuses. He is so confident in his identity as the Beloved Son that he knows he doesn’t have to answer Satan or this robber dying on a cross alongside him. He doesn’t need to earn or prove his worth.

Then the other robber pipes in… the “good thief” as we call him… He interrupts his friend’s harsh words and defends Jesus:

“Have you no fear of God? We have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.”

Then he says those famous and beautiful words: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

How does Jesus, the King of the entire Universe reply?

Does he say: “Hmmmmm lemme think about it.”

Does he say: “Maybe…but let’s check your past first and see if you’ve actually earned it.”

Does he say: “Actually, you went past your sin quota and now it’s not possible anymore.”

No.

He simply says: “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Here’s the truth guys: 

We have a King who is VERY EAGER to forgive. 

It’s not something we need to wonder about… it’s not something we should ever doubt.

You could never sin so badly that the King wouldn’t want you to come back.

There’s absolutely no limit to the number of times you can confess the same sin to Him.

Jesus’ love and forgiveness is not like a credit card — you literally CANNOT max out his mercy.

Jesus Christ the King of the Universe JUST wants us to confidently turn to him, and say: “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

This is what we do whenever we go to Confession.

We are actually entering into the throne room of a perfectly good… perfectly loving King who is eager to forgive.

The priest you meet there is not perfectly good, nor is he perfectly loving, and he might not even be super eager to be there… 

But Jesus is.

And we go there because of that confidence we have in the Lord, not the confidence we have in any priest. — (I have no confidence in myself or in any priest for that matter…)

But I am confident in Jesus the King.

I’m confident in his ROYAL AUTHORITY to forgive me, and make Paradise possible for me as well.

Now there’s that word “authority.” — Perhaps it makes us a little uncomfortable. Maybe we start thinking about all the ways authority has been abused in the past — The way some people in authority have bossed people around, taken advantage of them, or crushed their freedom.

But the authority of King Jesus is altogether different. 

His kingly authority restores peace, order, justice, and wholeness. His authority is gorgeous, gentle, and all-powerful.

In fact, lets break that little word “authority” down to understand more fully what it actually means. “Authority” comes from a latin root that literally means “originator.” As in — the source. The one who is doing the writing. Literally — the “author” has the true “authority” to determine how the story is going to go.

That’s Jesus.

The AUTHOR of Providence. The AUTHOR of Time and Space.

He is the AUTHOR of all creation!

As St. Paul put it in our second reading today from his letter to the Colossians:

“In him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

The Gospel of John puts the same idea into very similar words: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” 

And so… it is right that Christ has been given all AUTHORITY.

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel.

Authority to heal.

Authority to preach.

Authority to command.

And most relevant to the topic at hand:

Authority to forgive sins.

Over and over in the gospels, Jesus says to the people he encounters… the people he heals: “Go, your sins are forgiven.”

This causes great scandal among the scribes and the Pharisees. They  protest saying: “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who but God alone can forgive sins?”

But Jesus, because He really is God. Because He really is King of the Universe… absolutely has that authority.

But here’s where things get interesting.

Because Jesus doesn’t hog this authority to himself!

He has shared it with His Church.

After the Resurrection, Jesus appears to his apostles in the Upper Room, and He breathes on them, saying: “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

What he is doing here is quite clear:

He’s giving his apostles authority… to forgive sins in his name. To apply HIS mercy to us!

Do you see what an immense gift this is?

So yea, it’s really easy to sin. But it’s somehow even easier to be forgiven — This doesn’t give us permission to sin. It actually should make us stop in our tracks and realize just how good our God really is.

Jesus Christ the King of the Universe already did everything necessary to save us. He already poured out his blood. He already died on the Cross. He already rose from the grave. And He has given His Church — through the hands of priests and bishops — the ability and authority to forgive sins.

So why hold back from Him?

Why the hesitation?

We don’t have a scary, mean king with a fickle heart.

No! — We have a merciful king with a Sacred, pierced, burning heart. We have a king that we can confidently approach, knowing that he is EAGER to forgive us all our sins.

We can say with that good thief on the Cross: “Jesus, please remember us when You come into Your Kingdom.”

Last weekend in my homily, I spoke about the importance of beautiful Church buildings as visible, external expressions of the internal beauty of the Body of Christ… how even the architectural grandeur of our basilicas and cathedrals is actually persuasive and tangible evidence for the Truth of the Catholic Faith…

And now in this Sunday’s gospel, we get sort of a reality check…

“While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said ‘All that you see here — the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.’”

What a mood shift! The people were all busy saying: “Look how beautiful this Temple is! They’re oo-ing and aww-ing at the jewels and gold and furnishings — Look how glorious and strong and big this all is! Nothing can stop us! Nothing can ever beat us! We’re the Chosen People of God!

And Jesus says: “Yeah. But one day: This is all going to be destroyed.”

Now on one level, Jesus is referring to and prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD… when the Roman armies would lay siege to the Holy City for 4 months and ultimately reduce Jerusalem to rubble, including the Temple itself…  

Everything would happen exactly as Jesus predicted…

But we also know, that Scripture never operates only on one single level. There are layers of meaning stacked on top of one another… And so from that perspective, we can also say that “Jerusalem” is to be understood as a kind of microcosm of the entire world. Jesus’ words, therefore, are ALSO a prophecy about the end of the ENTIRE world… and even more shockingly… the Church on earth.

This is probably a big reality check for us.

Because when we see the massive basilicas and huge, vast structures of the Church… when we see the luxury and the beauty of the papacy, and the glory of the sacred liturgy and all the amazing artwork and institutions we have as Catholics — we might start to get the impression that the goal of Christianity is to sort of take over the whole world.

That because Jesus is in fact Lord, Christians are supposed to just keep on winning and winning and winning, until we somehow manage to stitch together a Giant Catholic Disneyland where there’s no more immorality, no more corruption, no more suffering, and no more worry. Everyone will be at peace. Nobody will cause any trouble. No more heresy or error or persecution or financial instability anywhere at all… It’ll all be PERFECT…

But Jesus gives us a very, very different picture doesn’t he?

According to the Lord, who can never be wrong about anything — the End will actually be fraught with wars, earthquakes, famines, plagues, and mighty signs in the sky. There will be religious deceptions…. Persecutions… rejection even from our closest family and friends! “They will put some of you to death” Jesus says. “You will be hated by all because of my name,” He says.

Our Lord lays all of this out very bluntly and very matter-of-factly. It’s incredibly intense language. “Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven” as the prophet Malachi put it in our first reading.

Dr. Ralph Martin says it this way, “The picture Scripture gives us of the ‘end times’ is not of the world becoming progressively more ‘advanced’ in what matters, but becoming increasingly more depraved, believing lies that lead to destruction.”

And mysteriously… even the Church isn’t totally exempt from this trend.

In one famous Marian apparition in the Japanese city of Akita, approved by the local bishop in consultation with Rome, our Blessed Mother Mary gave this stark message of warning of what lies ahead:

“The work of the devil will infiltrate into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres… churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.”

This may sound shocking, but it isn’t anything new! 

Sacred Scripture itself speaks of this through the writings of St. Paul and the Book of Revelation, along with countless saints, prophets and mystics throughout history — They all agree that there will be rather dramatic tribulations ahead for the Faithful, including some sort of large-scale “apostasy” even within the Church — a widespread turning away from the one true faith — before the final End comes.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it into these words:

“Before Christ’s second coming, the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.” 

“The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.”

That part about some kind of grand “religious deception” happening before the end is extremely important for us to take note of! 

In our gospel today, when everyone starts asking Jesus WHEN exactly the end will come, we hear him— in classic fashion — not answer their question at all. Instead he exhorts them:

“See that you not be deceived!”

Make sure that you aren’t caught off guard!

Stay true to the Faith you know!

Don’t be shaken!

Don’t turn off the straight and narrow!

Because apparently… it will be very tempting to do so!

Now, I don’t share any of this to scare you. And I certainly don’t share any of this to make some sort of apocalyptic prediction as to when any of this might happen. 

I share these things for this reason, and this reason only:

To strengthen you.

To give you an opportunity to prepare in hope.

So that if we do see these things begin to happen that we won’t lose our faith.

That’s my job as a priest — to give you the hard truths, as Jesus did, so you won’t be caught unawares!

‘All that you see here — the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.’”

But don’t be afraid.

Because God wins.

Jesus said it himself: “Not a hair on your head will be destroyed.”

We are safe. God loves us. He protects us. And we can trust Him.

But… now the question becomes:

What do we do RIGHT NOW, knowing the difficult things that will happen before the end… whenever that may be? 

That’s the question St. Paul addresses in our second reading today!

The people in Thessalonica literally thought Jesus would be coming back at any second. And because of this imminent expectation of the Second Coming happening at any moment, some of the people around town had come up with the great idea… that they didn’t need to work anymore. 

…That they could just blow off all their responsibilities, quit their jobs, mooch off their neighbors, and just wait for Jesus to come and get ‘em.

I mean it was the end of the world… so why bother? Nothing mattered anymore! Show was over. …Check please!

Now this might sound crazy to us, but it literally just happened a couple of months ago.

I’m not sure where the rumor originally started, but a “prediction” gained traction on social media and YouTube that the “Rapture” was going to happen on September 23rd, 2025.

Now, first and foremost just to be absolutely clear: 

The Rapture is not real.

It is not Biblical.

It is not Catholic theology or tradition.

It is, in fact, a relatively recent, 19th Century Protestant innovation.

But even so… a ton of people got it into their heads that all the faithful and good Christians would suddenly disappear and be sucked right up into Heaven on September 23rd, leaving all the nasty sinners (not to mention those weird Roman Catholics) behind here on earth.

Some took it so seriously… that they did some rather dumb things!

Some people quit their jobs.

Some sold their houses… what for, I’m not sure. I have to assume you don’t need money post-Rapture…

Some recorded themselves smashing their laptops, iPads, and iPhones to smithereens…

All sorts of insane things…

But then, you know what happened?

…The sun rose again the morning of September 24th, 2025…

And suffice to say, nobody had gotten sucked up into Heaven.

This is exactly what St. Paul was writing against in this letter!

We heard him strongly warn the Thessalonians: “He who does not work should not eat!”

In other words, the answer to the question: “What should we be doing to prepare for the End of the World?”

It’s quite simple:

We take care of our responsibilities.

We don’t slack off and live in an imaginary future or do rash, dumb things based on our personal predictions.

No… We live in the here and now! 

We stay faithful right now!

We become excellent at our professions right now! We learn virtue, self-control, maturity and holiness… now. We serve the people around us… now… We grow closer to God right now.

We don’t know when Jesus is coming back.

…But I bet we know exactly what we need to take care of TODAY.

So that’s my challenge for you guys this week:

It’s very complex: 

Go home, and do whatever needs to be done.

Pray.

Do your chores.

Do your homework.

Study.

Exercise.

Go to work.

Cook dinner.

Take out the trash.

Be a well-rounded, virtuous human being.

And then whenever the End does in fact come… whether it’s our own personal end of life, or the End of History itself… we will be ready.

Interesting liturgical feast days keep on falling on Sundays for us — and this week, we get to celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.

The Lateran Basilica, sometimes just referred to as St. John Lateran, is one of the 4 major basilicas of Rome and is actually the oldest public church in the Eternal City, being founded and dedicated wayyyy back in the year 324.

Fun fact — there is no person by the name of St. John Lateran. 

“Lateran” refers to a Roman family who once had a palace on the same plot of land where the present day church stands —  and “St John” actually refers to two saints by that name — St. John the Baptist AND St. John the Evangelist.

To make things even more fascinating about this ancient church, The Lateran Basilica is actually the Pope’s Cathedral… not St Peter’s Basilica, which is where Pope Leo lives — it is St. John Lateran where the actual “seat” — the “cathedra” of the Diocese of Rome can be found. 

That makes this church really the CENTER of all Christendom… THE most important church building in the entire world.

But despite all these very interesting and very fascinating trivia facts — you might still be wondering why we would have a feast day dedicated to a physical building …even one as important as St. John Lateran?

Isn’t the Church more than architecture? More than brick and mortar? More than old pretty buildings?

Well of course it is!

As St. Paul says so beautifully in our second reading: “Brothers and sisters: You are God’s building.”  … “YOU are the temple of God” … “the Spirit of God dwells in YOU!”

YOU are the Church, WE are the Church… together! This is a deep mystical, interior, spiritual truth…

Regardless of what kind of building we find ourselves in… WE ARE THE CHURCH — whether we celebrate the mass in a gorgeous cathedral… or in someone’s dingy house… in a hospital room… or on top of a mountain… on the back of a jeep in the middle of a war zone… or down in the catacombs, hiding from persecution.

So in a sense, it doesn’t matter what sort of physical building we have — Because at its heart, the Church is the living, breathing Body of Christ…. The Community of Baptized Believers — One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic — boldly advancing the Kingdom of Heaven, inviting people to receive the gift of salvation one soul at a time. Like that image of the Heavenly Temple in our first reading from Ezekiel — the Church, the PEOPLE of God — brings living giving waters wherever we go… salty water turns fresh, and the desert becomes a lush forest!

But having said all that, we also need to understand that any true, living body has to have a physical presence…it has to have a tangible, concrete location, a visible appearance. 

And the same is true for Jesus’ Church.

One of my favorite descriptions of the Church is that it is the Incarnation of Jesus… extended through space and time. 

The Incarnation is a tactile, physical reality. The Word really did become flesh and dwell among us! So it makes perfect sense why Jesus’ Church would also be intensely physical… with all the smells and bells, symbols, and art, vestments, marble, gold, silver and wood. The Seven Sacraments that Jesus instituted each use tangible, visible stuff — water, oil, bread, wine — in order to get God’s invisible grace into us.

And so this is why in Catholic theology, we have another principle at work: That interior realities… should always be expressed through… reflected in….the external. That which is invisible… should always be communicated through and brought into alignment with that which is visible.

This is why it is so important for the Church to value and preserve beautiful, physical church buildings — the external beauty and grandeur of these places communicates the interior, invisible beauty, the wholeness, the robust completeness of our faith in the Lord.

Truth… is beautiful. So why wouldn’t we want to make our churches, the places where we encounter Truth…encounter Jesus Christ, who is the Truth… beautiful? Why wouldn’t we want to make our liturgies — our expression of worship… as beautiful and rich as possible?

I was watching a YouTube video recently titled “How Did The World Get So Ugly?” And the basic premise of the video was that if you really want to know something about any given culture… you have to look at what they have made.

Beautiful, healthy cultures…. make beautiful things.

Unhealthy cultures…cultures obsessed with money, power, utility, and convenience… make ugly things.

This is exactly what JRR Tolkien says in his classic book, The Hobbit, when he says that “Orcs made no beautiful things.” 

Orcs, of course, are very ugly. They are monstrous, fallen creatures! The interior ugliness of their souls… is expressed in the ugly things they make. They can only make twisted instruments of torture and war! Useful, efficient… but definitely not beautiful.

The Church, on the other hand… is objectively beautiful. The Church is the Mystical Bride of Christ. The Church is the Sacrament of Salvation. The Gospel is inherently attractive… so it’s only natural that we would want to make churches as glorious and beautiful as St. John Lateran!

But with this comes a serious challenge of course:

If we’re going to make beautiful places of worship — beautiful cathedrals, beautiful liturgies, beautiful vestments that express the integral beauty of the Catholic Faith — then our personal INTERIOR LIVES need to become beautiful as well!

We cannot fool ourselves by just keeping the OUTSIDE of the cup clean, while the inside is full of plunder and self-indulgence!

That’s what Jesus was confronting in our Gospel today, right?

He enters the Temple — this beautiful place of worship. Where His people could encounter His Presence… and what does he see?

Ugliness.

Interior ugliness.

The ugliness of greed. Of commercialism. Of idolatry.

Religious entrepeneurs had turned the Temple into a place of booming business… they were actively taking advantage of the thousands of pilgrims looking to buy animals for sacrifice and twisting this holiest place into a self-serving system of profit.

And what does Jesus do?

He drives them all out! He flips tables! He cries out: “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

Stop making my Father’s house so UGLY…!!!! It’s meant to be BEAUTIFUL inside and out!

This is a serious challenge for each one of us!

If we are truly the Temple of the Living God… if our hearts were made for the Lord Himself to come and dwell within… then we need to ask ourselves:

Have we prepared a suitable place for him? Are our souls beautiful? Have we repented of all our sins? Have we confessed them sacramentally?

If Jesus suddenly arrived at your temple today, what would he do?

Would he have to flip some tables?

Or would he go in and pray?

Conversion is usually pretty painful. It’s a process of Jesus flipping tables in our hearts. It’s a purification…a CLEANSING… BUT… it is also a beautification. God loves us so much that He wants to make each of our hearts into a gloriously beautiful basilica! A masterpiece of His grace!

This reminds me of one of my favorite passages from CS Lewis’ book Mere Christianity, which I think articulates these ideas quite well… 

He says this:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

And so now we come to it:

We don’t have to imagine Jesus suddenly coming to our Temple.

He’s about to do exactly that in this Holy Eucharist.

He will arrive at the door of YOUR temple… you will open up your mouth, and he will enter in…

And so we humbly ask God to make our temples beautiful — to cleanse whatever it is that still needs to be cleansed, to drive out whatever needs to be driven out… and so prepare us to properly receive Him… the Lord of Lords, and King of Kings.

Today we have the extremely unusual opportunity to celebrate All Souls Day on a Sunday.

All Souls Day is ordinarily not a Holy Day of Obligation, so for some people gathered today — this may very well be the FIRST All Souls Day mass you’ve ever attended.

So in case you are not sure what this is all about, All Souls Day is the day when we pray for ALL the souls that are still in Purgatory. 

Of course we believe as Catholics that any soul being purified in purgatory is actually already ON THE WAY to Heaven… 

They died in a state of grace, yes, but they died with various attachments to sin and other stains of this world still on their souls… So while they are guaranteed to be saved EVENTUALLY, there remains a process of purification and preparation to be undergone.

Countless saints and doctors of the Church assure us that this purification is a very very painful process. We refer to those souls in Purgatory as the “Church Suffering” for a reason!!! — The fiery trial of purgatory is NOT at all enjoyable… even with that glorious guarantee of ultimately entering into Heaven one day. St Francis de Sales says that if they were given a choice between returning to this world or remaining in that fire, they would prefer to stay there! 

… but still, souls in purgatory DEFINITELY want to get it all over with!

That’s where All Souls Day comes in.

Because this is the day when we, in our charity as the Church Militant, get to help speed up that purification process… We offer the Holy Eucharist with the express intention to alleviate their experience, and to usher them more quickly through the gates of Heaven that await them.

Think about that! — At this mass today, and at every mass celebrated throughout the world — untold numbers of souls will be helped into Heaven through YOUR prayers today!!!!

That is awesome.

It happens at every Mass, of course, which is why it’s so important for us to have a Catholic funeral for our relatives, and then continue to have various masses offered for them… but All Souls Day is a special day when we particularly remember ALL the dead.

Most especially… all of the forgotten souls.

It’s not a very comfortable thought at all, but the reality is we will each die one day. And while some men and women of history are sort of remembered… maybe for something they wrote, or accomplished, or invented…they might have statues of themselves somewhere, or if you’re REALLY lucky… a national holiday or something named after you.

But the VAST MAJORITY of us…… are simply….. forgotten.

Our loved ones will remember us for a while, sure. Especially our closest family and friends… but then, eventually, they will die too. Until everyone who ever knew us, loved us, or ever even heard about us also has gone to their graves.

Think of your great great great great grandfather.

Do you even know his name?

I know I don’t.

…That will be you and me one day.

It’s not a morbid thought.

It’s just reality.

As these black vestments invite us to… we must each wrestle with our own mortality… We need to face the reality of the brevity of this life and our own guaranteed end. “Memento Mori” (Remember Death) — as the old Latin phrase goes…

BUT…and here’s the good news… God never forgets us.

And that is why He has given His Church this beautiful memorial of All Souls — to make sure that the Body of Christ intercedes for and lifts up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for ALL those people for whom nobody prays for anymore, nobody remembers anymore… nobody except the Lord Himself!

There’s that beautiful line in Eucharistic Prayer I, which I will pray today that says:

“Remember also, Lord, your servants who have gone before us with the sign of faith, and rest in the sleep of peace” — and, if you recall, we then take a brief pause of silence… a pause to remember all our family members, all our friends, our benefactors, our teachers, our priests ANYONE we know who has died.

But it’s also a pause to remember the forgotten souls.

The ones still waiting in purgatory, with nobody left to pray for them…

That is so beautiful and so comforting, isn’t it?

God remembers every single human life. 

He also remembers every single death. 

He remembers the way each person died, whether they died yesterday or 3,000 years ago. He remembers if they died with fear, or with peace… with faith, or with doubts. He remembers what precise state of soul they were in at the moment it was separated from the body. He remembers whether or not they would have wanted a priest by their side for Last Rites. He remembers their most hidden thoughts, He remembers their most dreaded secret sins, their most silent, desperate prayers of repentance.

We can be sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt that nobody — absolutely NOBODY — ever dies alone or unseen.

God is always with them. 

Closer to them than they are to themselves.

God remembers every death. He remembers every life.

And, if I may pivot a little bit, to address another, but related topic — This is why the Catholic Church is so absolutely clear on its teachings with regard to the protection of the sanctity of every human life! This is why the Church has to stand up against the Culture of Death in every single instance.

Last week I tackled the thorny and complicated topic of immigration.

Well, this Sunday, as we remember ALL the souls of the dead — I want to address briefly another critical topic: 

Abortion.

Abortion is never justifiable. It is never the answer. It is never humane. It is never health care.

It is always and everywhere an unimaginable tragedy.

And yet — God does remember EVEN NOW every single human life that has ever been ended by abortion. 

He remembers absolutely every baby whose life was cut short by somebody else’s tragic decision. He knows them each by name. He remembers each scared mother… every terrified father who felt like this was the only option they had. God remembers the pressures they experienced. The lies they were told. The false compassion shown to them that led up to their decision to terminate the life of their child.

He remembers everything.

Every hair is counted. known. loved.

Every cell is numbered.

This is how loved we are… This is how precious every life actually is to God.  …He remembers EVEN NOW…

As your pastor, I do want to make sure that everyone is aware of an upcoming proposed amendment to the Virginia State Constitution. It will be voted on sometime next year, as I understand it, so the legislators we elect this Tuesday, November 4th, will decide whether the proposed amendment is advanced or stopped.

Here is a statement taken from the Virginia Catholic Conference on what is actually at stake with this amendment:

“The proposed amendment would enshrine virtually unlimited abortion at ANY stage of pregnancy as a ‘fundamental right’ in Virginia’s constitution. It would not include any age restrictions, does not include any safety standards, jeopardizes Virginia’s parental consent law, jeopardizes Virginia’s conscience protections for healthcare providers (Catholic hospitals), and expands Virginia’s already permissive abortion laws.”

Suffice to say, this is a fundamentally important issue for Catholics. It should be a fundamentally important issue for all human beings with good will, regardless of their religion or belief systems.

Life and death are in the hands of God… and nobody else. 

So in this Eucharist, we entrust this whole thing to God. We pray for an end to the Culture of Death. And we pray for the salvation of All Souls.