December 2^nd. FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Gospel: Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

_________________________________________________________________________

The Gospel tells us to avoid gluttony and self-indulgence and to be vigilant for the coming of the Lord. We might think that these words are directed to a few people who become regularly intoxicated with alcohol, but Don Fabio says that the words are directed to each one of us personally. We are all “drunkards” in that we are all fixated with our physical wellbeing. Advent is not just about the coming of the Lord at the end of time. We must allow the Lord to erupt in our lives right now by renouncing this preoccupation with our own physical wellbeing and focussing instead on matters of the heart, the things in our lives that have real beauty.

Advent doesn’t just ask us to prepare for Lord at the end of time, it asks us to allow the Lord to erupt in our lives and our behaviour right now.

In this Gospel that marks the beginning of Advent, Luke repeats the same sentiments regarding the end of the world that we heard two weeks ago in the Gospel of Mark. Advent encourages us to raise our eyes and be vigilant for the coming of the Lord. Part of this Gospel is dedicated explicitly to telling us how to behave so that we are prepared for the coming of Jesus. Jesus comes at the end of time, but it is crucial that he also erupt in our lives and in our behaviour right now. We are told by the Lord to pay attention to ourselves so that our hearts are not coarsened with self-indulgence, drunkenness and the cares of life. Being attentive to ourselves entails taking responsibility for who and what we are. We must guard our senses so they do not darken the brightness of our hearts. True life is lived from the heart, and our hearts must be in tune with God so that God can speak to our hearts. The heart should not be viewed simply as the seat of the affections. The heart is the centre of the person himself. When we say that something is “the heart of the matter” we mean that it is the very essence of the thing. This Gospel tells us that we can damage our hearts through self-indulgence and drunkenness.

The Gospel tells us to avoid drunkenness. This doesn’t just refer to being intoxicated with alcohol, but refers to the addiction all of us have to our physical wellbeing

This particular translation of the text, perhaps, does not bring home clearly the point that anxiety for my own physical wellbeing is destructive to the wellbeing of my heart. Nowadays there is a huge emphasis in society on the care of one’s own wellbeing. We might think that the “self-indulgence” or “dissipation” spoken of in the text refers only to full-blown debauchery or drunkenness. But it does not. The word “dissipation” means to ruin one’s true wealth by spending oneself on superficial things. We might think that Jesus in the Gospel is referring to that small minority of people who get drunk and over-indulge themselves excessively. But we are all drunks in that we all preoccupied with our own pleasure and wellbeing. Gluttony is not simply the fault of one who eats too much. We all share in this vice insofar as we are excessively preoccupied or fussy about what we eat. It is manifested even by people who eat little but who are overly anxious about what they eat. Anyone who puts their physical wellbeing before the wellbeing of their heart shares this fault of self-indulgence. Our physical wellbeing in the end is of little consequence. It is simply not true that health is the primary thing in life. The first thing in life is salvation! The first thing in life is the heart. The first thing in life is to know how to love. What use is a perfect body if I do not know how to love, do not know how to behave with wisdom, do not know how to serve others? I am constantly drunk, over-indulged, with things that concern only me. My stomach is filled with many things that are good to know, music that is good to listen to, witty saying that sound good when I repeat them to others. But a world constructed with self-indulgent things collapses completely when it is challenged at all. When the moment of crisis comes, one no longer has a heart, one no longer has a sense of the true value of things. In this sense, for people whose hearts have been dulled by self-indulgence, the coming of the Lord seems like the sudden closing shut of a trap. People who believed that they were doing something wholesome, caring attentively for their own physical wellbeing, then discover that they were on the road to personal ruination.

Controlling one’s appetites and fixations is an essential element of the spiritual life

There is an absolutely essential value in the Christian life and it is called “fasting”. This does not refer only to fasting from a meal, but to the virtue of sobriety and clear-mindedness. In order to ensure that we don’t become preoccupied with self-indulgent things that have no value, we need regular recourse to a kind of fasting that involves the governance of our senses. We must work to ensure that we do not become slaves to our appetites, our minds, to what we see and what we hear. We must be in a position to decide what we consume and what we refrain from consuming, and in this way become masters of our own lives. True freedom involves the capacity to determine the course of our own lives. If I am not able to say “no” to myself, then I am not free but am a slave to my own appetites. Evil in our times devours people with the minimal promise of pleasure. We neglect the well-being of our hearts in order to pursue self-indulgent things that have are worthless. In the Old Testament there is the striking image of Esau, the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham, who swaps his privileged position of being heir to God’s promise for a plate of porridge. Esau fills his stomach with the porridge but loses his entire future. Jacob, by contrast, fasts for a day so that God’s promise will rest on him. As a result Jacob (or “Israel”) becomes the most named person in Scripture, while the name of Esau is largely forgotten.

                The Son of Man is coming. We have a future and a destiny that awaits us, and it is time for us to begin governing our lives. Sooner or later, all approaches to the spiritual life must tackle the issue of bringing order into one’s existence. We must be sober, capable of making decisions that go against the satisfaction of our own needs. We must attain the freedom to determine the direction of our own lives. I must be able to decide when something begins and when it finishes, and not be a slave to the thing, carried along by it, powerless to say no to the unfolding of circumstances that are dictated by others.

During Advent we must wake up, renouncing the self-indulgent things that lead nowhere, and being ever-attentive to the things in our lives that have real beauty

The Gospel ends by telling us to be vigilant at all times, so that we will have the strength to survive what is going to happen, and we can stand with confidence before the Son of God. The choice is ours. Will we be found asleep, indulging ourselves, so that when the Son of Man comes it will be a  traumatic awakening for us? For each of us there is a doorway in our lives that leads to dissipation. It is important to be aware of these areas in our lives where we are inclined to indulge ourselves, becoming anxious for our own wellbeing and profit, losing sight of the real sense of things. Marriages, friendships, workplaces, parenthood are all ruined when one becomes preoccupied with selfish things that are of no consequence, becoming slaves to our own fixations and losing our freedom to do the right thing. The expression “Wake up!” is the perfect motto to accompany each of us on the journey of Advent. It tells us that we exist in an arena in which we must be constantly attentive to what is going on around us. Like a shepherd who is watchful for the wellbeing of his sheep, all of us must be constantly vigilant, ever-attentive to cultivating and promoting the true beauty in our lives.

NOVEMBER 25^th. FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

Gospel: John 18:33-37

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

____________________________________________________________________________________

In his interchange with Pilate, Jesus speaks about the nature of his Kingdom. We are all surrounded by various structures of power and influence. These “kingdoms” promise much, but are transitory, and always disappoint us in the end. Unlike the kingdoms of this world, the Kingdom of Jesus is not to be defended with aggression, force or intolerance. It is to be defended by listening to the voice of Jesus and putting his truth into practice in our daily lives. A married couple defends the Kingdom by listening to Jesus’ voice and following him in the living out of their matrimony. The truth inherent in the Kingdom of Jesus becomes self-evident once it is put into practice.

Pilate begins the interrogation with a surprising question

As the liturgical year draws to a close, let us bow before the only true King! In this passage, Pilate represents the Roman Empire and he is interrogating Christ. The interrogation begins, strangely, with the question, “Are you the King of the Jews?” What is striking about this question is that in the Gospel of John prior to this event no-one had ever used the term “King” in reference to Jesus. Pilate was a man who would have direct personal experience with the temporal powers of this world. He had come from Rome, and we can only imagine the power struggles he would have had to engage in to reach the prestigious position he now held. It is interesting that his first question to Jesus regards his kingship. Jesus notes the strangeness of the question and replies, “Are you asking this of your own accord, or have others spoken to you about me?” Jesus’ question puts Pilate in difficulty and the Roman procurator replies defensively, “Am I a Jew? It is your own people and the chief priests who have handed you over to me! What have you done?” The roles have been reversed and it is Jesus who is examining the heart of Pilate. Jesus, being Jesus, does not look at people in a distracted way but looks at them to the depths of their being. He is looking at Pilate now and knows that the Jewish leaders had only described him as being a trouble-maker, not a king. During his interrogation before the Jewish leaders, Jesus had refused to speak openly. Here before Pilate he reveals exactly who he is. “My Kingdom is not of this world,” he says, “If it were, my servants would have fought to prevent me from being arrested.” The Kingdom that Jesus is referring to is of a completely different type to the kingdoms that prevail on the earth.

Jesus’ Kingdom is not to be defended with violence, intolerance or aggression

It is not a kingdom that is to be defended with violence. At the beginning of the Passion, Peter takes out his sword and tries to defend Jesus by force. In doing so, Peter ceases to be a true disciple of Jesus, and, in fact, a short time later he will assert three times that he is not a follower of Jesus. In taking out his sword, Peter shows that he has completely misunderstood the nature of the man that he purports to defend. The servants of Jesus do not use force. Soon, the true disciples of Jesus will appear at the foot of the Cross, the Virgin Mary and the beloved disciple, John. Jesus entrusts one to the other. This communion of giving is the real Kingdom that Jesus has come to establish. The true servants of the Kingdom are not interested in power but in entering into the life of Jesus.

All of us, even Pilate, have an inner longing for the eternal Kingdom

While Jesus is saying these things, Pilate remarks, “So you are a King then.” Jesus replies, “It is you who say it.” This reply of Jesus is not just a figure of speech. Jesus is affirming that Pilate has realized that he is indeed a king. A number of times during the Passion, Pilate recognizes the true nature of Jesus. In the end he even does so in a written inscription hung on the Cross that asserts that this man is “King of the Jews”. How has Pilate managed to understand something of the nature of Jesus? Jesus goes on, “I am a King and I have come to bear testimony to the truth. He who is of the truth, listens to my voice.” The one who is listening to his voice at this moment is Pilate. Pilate has simply enquired as to the royal status of Jesus, has listened to Jesus’ reply, and has now recognized that he is indeed a king. Every man has an inner longing for a Kingdom that is not of this world, even a cynical man like Pilate, who has probably jostled his way to temporal power and cares little about the plight of those under his power.

What is the “truth” that Jesus makes a central aspect of his Kingdom? It is not an abstract thing but is manifested by living a life in conformity to Christ

All of us have had experience of various powers and kingdoms, and all of them have disappointed us. Only Christ brings the true Kingdom that does not delude or disappoint us. We must open ourselves to him and allow his voice to enter into us. That voice prompts us to ask, “What is it that matters in life? Where is the true Kingdom that deserves to be defended?” We must defend that which is authentic, that which is true, not that which is transitory. We are all caught up in the transitory kingdoms of this world, but we are called to live in the truth. It is important that this “truth” that Jesus speaks of is not understood in an abstract way. The truth of matrimony, for example, is that which is not transitory and which truly counts. When two spouses are united in Christ, God reproduces his very image in them. The God who is communion itself enables the couple to be fertile and establish a family. This is what truly counts in marriage, but how many other things interfere to obscure the nature of the union! This is the Kingdom that must be defended, and it defended by listening to Jesus’ voice and following him.

It is not necessary to be aggressive or forceful in defending the faith. We must just live it, and then its truth become evident by itself.

It is not necessary to be anxious in the defence of the faith. Jesus is the truth, and the truth is able to stand by itself without defence. We often witness antagonism and aggression within the Church that is incompatible with the Kingdom of Christ. We see people trying to impose their views on others in a forcible or intolerant way. But trying to change people’s hearts by force is fallacious from the beginning. What must be done instead is to listen to Jesus’ voice, a voice that penetrates the Roman Procurator and is capable of eliciting a response. Jesus is the truth. Everything else is transitory and will pass away. Jesus says to Marta that one thing only is necessary. To be in the Kingdom means to adhere to that one thing. The kingdoms of this world fight, kill and hate each other for things that do not matter at all. Their very violence stems from their fear of losing the things that they cling to. The goods of the Kingdom of Jesus, by contrast, cannot be taken away from us and we have no need of violence to defend them. That the Lord might grant us, at the end of the liturgical year, to become true subjects of this King! 

NOVEMBER 18^th. THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Gospel: Mark 13:24-32

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

____________________________________________________________________________________

The Gospel speaks about the end of the world and seems catastrophic and negative in tone. As always, Don Fabio insists that I apply this Gospel to my life right now in this moment. Every day we are confronted with disappointments, little upheavals and small crises. These are signs that the points of reference that I base my existence on are illusory and are passing away. We must learn to read the signs of the times and see that the Lord is at the door, wishing to enter and become the only reference point of my existence. At various times in our lives, the Lord has already spoken to my heart. We must cherish these “words” and make them become the basis of an encounter with the Lord that stands firm in the face of any tribulation

The Gospel speaks about the upheaval of the end times, but it also speaks about an upheaval that must occur in my life today

This Sunday’s Gospel invites us to think about the end times. It is an apocalyptic text and describes the end of the world in catastrophic terms. On a superficial reading, the passage fills us with apprehension and negative feelings. Jesus speaks of a great tribulation, at the end of which Jerusalem and the rest of the world will be destroyed. These words do refer to the end times, but they also have great relevance for our daily lives right now. The moment has arrived, right now, when we must pass to a new quality of encounter with the Lord, when he must come powerfully into our lives. His Advent is already upon us, and we will celebrate this in the liturgical calendar shortly. The coming of the Lord is not a negative thing, but something positive, highly significant, wonderful. How does the Lord come? The coming of the Lord always has certain typical characteristics, the same characteristics in our daily existence today as it will have when he comes at the end of the world.

The sun and the moon are our great points of reference for telling the time. At the end of the world, they will pass away. Every time we encounter difficulty and disappointment, the points of reference in our lives are shaken. This is a sign that the Lord is near

When the Lord comes, the sun will be darkened and the moon will lose its brightness. What do the sun and moon represent? At the time of creation, the Lord created the sun to rule over the day and the moon to regulate the night. The movement of the sun and the moon are the basis for marking time in human terms. In olden times people could tell the time of day by looking at the sun, and the time of the year by looking at the moon and stars. The failure of the sun and the moon refers to a time in our lives when the old reference points do not function any longer. In the Gospel this failure happens after the period of tribulation. And that is exactly how it is in our daily lives. In times of tribulation we cease to find security in the usual reference points and we start to look elsewhere for meaning. Tribulations can be blessed moments that can help us to found our lives on true points of reference instead of illusory ones.

When everything else has collapsed, we begin to see that it is only our relationship with Jesus that has eternal value

The Gospel refers to the things of this world that shall pass away. The first things that the Lord created, the sun and the moon, will come to an end. When all of these things pass, what remains? The word of Christ remains. When we start to base our existence on a genuine relationship with Christ, then all other things start to fade away in relevance. What is the “word” of Jesus? A word is not something that exists by itself. It is something that is proclaimed and received. When Jesus says that everything will pass away and only his word will remain, he intends to say that the only thing that has eternal value is our relationship with him. The word of God spoken in our hearts is more important than the sun and the moon, more important than our busy fretfulness in this world, more important than the projects and schemes that we become totally embroiled in. We do not appreciate how temporary and trivial these things are. It requires tribulation and disaster to give us a true perspective on these matters.

Jesus challenges us to look at the signs of the time and recognize from these signs that He is near.

Jesus takes the example of the fig tree as a way of reading the signs of the times. We are able to see from its leaves when summer is near. In the same way, when we see that our usual reference points don’t function anymore, then we know that the Lord is near. When we are confronted daily by disappointments, the collapse of things that seemed secure, by the small and great agonies of this world, then we should appreciate that the Son of Man is coming. What is it to be confronted by tribulation, to come face to face with something that turns our lives upside down? As long as we remain bogged down in a sensual, carnal way of looking at things, then we see only the superficial aspect of things. The challenge is to lift our gaze above the wreckage of the crisis that is confronting us and see that someone is standing at the door waiting to come in, someone who comes closer to us by means of tribulations such as these. When the fragile framework of my existence is shaken, then I must look to the One who is above all of these things, the only One who remains standing when everything else collapses, the only One who can speak to my heart in a truly meaningful way.

The Lord has spoken to our hearts at various times during our lives. We must cherish these things, making them the point of reference that will enable us to endure any tribulation

The words of Jesus stand the test of time when everything else fails. This Gospel challenges us to keep the word of the Lord in our hearts at all times. We must listen and hold strongly to these eternal words, remembering all of the times that the Lord has spoken to us in an intimate way. There have been moments in all of our lives when the Lord has passed close to us and touched our very souls, placing something important within us. We must do like the Blessed Virgin, who stored these things in her heart and recalled them, enabling her to stand firmly at the foot of the Cross. In the same way, the Lord has spoken an eternal word to each one of us. This word is stronger than any tribulation and will never pass away.

NOVEMBER 11^th. THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Gospel: Mark 12:38-44

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

______________________________________________________________________________

The Gospel presents us with two types of person: the Scribe who lives for the admiration of others; and the widow who has no public image to uphold, and lives by giving all she has to the Lord. Don Fabio tells us that we are all similar to the Scribe in that we base the meaning of our lives on the esteem of others, on shallow appearances instead of on who we really are. We “marry” ourselves to the world, sacrificing the things that genuinely matter on the altar of our image in eyes of others. But this futile commitment to the idols of this world will leave us “widowed”, because such things are of no value in the long run. We must strive to take on the attitude of the widow, who realizes full well that the things of this world leave us alone, empty and disinherited. All of us, at the end of the day, are as impoverished and miserable as this widow, but she alone is aware of that fact. She gives both of her coins to the Lord, not giving just one and holding the other back for herself. If we wish to have an authentic relationship with the Lord, then we must do likewise, offering ourselves completely, not half-heartedly giving a little and retaining an attachment to worldly sources of security.

The Gospel compares two types of person: one who lives for vanity, and one who lives by giving. Which one are you?

The Gospel passage for this Sunday comes at the end of the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of Mark. The thirteenth Chapter contains Jesus’ final discourse before the Passion, a discourse that focuses on the end times and the destruction of the Temple. So the Gospel this Sunday represents one of the final things that Jesus has to say in the Gospel of Mark, and it is intended to relate something of the highest importance. The passage presents us with two different types of person. On the one hand are the Scribes, who like to parade themselves publicly and take the places of honour in the Synagogue and at banquets. On the other hand, we have the image of a poor widow who throws all she has into the temple treasury. What is the contrast between these two types of person? Each one has their own priority in life, and this priority is manifested through their actions. The Scribe loves to dress in a certain way in order to show who he is, and this leads to him being greeted in the market-place and given the seats of honour in the synagogue and at banquets. The Scribe’s priority is to be seen and be admired by others. He lacks a solid foundation for his identity, and bases his own worth on vanity. He lives to be admired. If others fail to notice him or esteem him, then he feels that he is nothing. The day that his role and his public standing are taken away from him, he becomes worthless in his own eyes.

The Scribe is not a distant figure. He is each one of us.

What is our priority in life? Do we believe that this Scribe is a distant figure from us, and that we live according to different principles altogether? If we look closely at ourselves, we will see the Scribe in each one of us! Who among us does not love to be the centre of attention, to be given honour and praise by others? The fact is that we all yearn to be admired and recognized. We despise it when we are overlooked or neglected. But a life that is lived with the priority of being appreciated and recognized is a life of a very inferior sort. Such an approach to life sacrifices things that are genuinely valuable on the altar of public image. In our society today, we see the attitude of the Scribe in the general yearning for superficial beauty. People are unhappy with the way they look. They feel unacceptable to some extent in the eyes of others. Modern life is lived at the level of appearances. It has ceased to matter what we really are; what matters is how we appear. Life lived thus is full of self-deception and illusory ideals. We must regain possession of our lives and give it to the only One who knows how to restore it to us redeemed.

We are all the widow insofar as each of us only has two coins to offer to the Lord

At this point, another image is presented to us by the Gospel. This woman stands at the lowest level of human society because, not only is she a widow, she is also poor. The laws of the time ensured that only men could inherit, which meant that any widow who did not have resources of her own was forced to become a beggar. This lady has descended to the bottom rung of the social ladder, and being in such a state, she has become aware of what really matters in life. She has just two coins left. What is she to do with these two coins? If all of us look inside ourselves, we will find that we each have only two coins. Beneath the mask that we present to the public, what we have inside is indeed miserable. As soon as our health is affected, we find out very quickly the limits of our own strength and independence. But we continue to base our security, our notions of self-worth, on the illusory “goods” of this world. We think that with a healthy bank account and the positive esteem of others, we have a secure and meaningful life. But what do we have really? These “goods” can be lost in an instant. The fact is that each of us has only two coins and we are all widows in this sense, but we don’t realize it. This world has married us and abandoned us. We are all widows of the idols that we have committed ourselves to, and that have given us nothing. We have invested ourselves in projects, schemes, false images of ourselves, but all these come to nothing. In the end we are left with the two coins that make up what we really have inside of ourselves. Let us give these two coins to the Lord!

Why does the widow have an authentic relationship with God? Because she gives both coins, and does not keep one for herself.

This lady, in giving away all that she has, has found that which alone has value, the one inheritance that cannot be taken from her – an authentic relationship with God. When does one have a genuine relationship with God? When one invests oneself completely in that relationship. When, having just two coins, one does not give only one to the lord and keep the other for oneself. If one has only two coins, it seems logical to give just one away and keep the other. But the widow gives both to the Lord. Even if the “coins” we have seem worthless, the issue is not the quantity of that which we give, but the quality. The widow in her offering gives everything. Oh that in this week we might take the opportunity of investing ourselves completely in the Lord! He who has lived this “death to oneself” that come with entrusting oneself to God, lives the great life of the security of the love of God. When we give the little that we have, we come into the possession of incredible riches. That the Lord might grant each one of us at least one opportunity this week for shifting our centre of gravity a little away from ourselves and towards him!

This week, let us seek the small daily occasions to give our lives completely to the Lord

What stops us from giving ourselves completely to the Lord? What do we fear losing? So many people are frantically attached to the lives that they are currently leading, but what is there in these lives that is worthy of such attachment? It is only in God that life becomes truly beautiful. We can cling on to the things of this world, cling on tenaciously, but in the end we will lose them; that much is guaranteed. It is only in God that our lives find fulfilment. We were made to be completed by God and to find ourselves in the wonderful, beautiful, plan that he has for each of us. It is in the giving of ourselves that we finally come to the possession of ourselves. That the Lord might give us the occasion this week to give our lives over to him, holding nothing back for ourselves.