Immaculate Conception and 3rd Sunday of Advent Year A

               Homily for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary

SUNDAY HOMILIES FOR YEARS A, B, AND C

On December 8, 1854 Pius IX defined as an article of faith that "the Virgin Mary at the moment of conception was preserved from all defilement of original sin by a unique privilege of grace in view of the merits of Jesus Christ." In many ways this definition was a profound counter-cultural gesture because in 1854 original sin was not a particularly popular idea, at least not beyond the pale of Catholic faith. The idea that humanity had undergone some primeval catastrophe which left it out of touch with holiness and inclined toward self-destruction seemed contrary to everything that was going on in the world. In the mid-19th century the philosophers were talking about the total intelligibility of being and its irreversible progress toward total fulfillment. The revolutions of 1848 had been an indication to progressive thinkers that the common man - the shopkeeper, the artisan, the soldier - was now ready to take over control of his own destiny, was now capable of directing his world to peace and prosperity. Most of the revolutions had failed, to be sure, but everybody knew there would be others that would eventually bring human kind to utopia. In literature the romantics were proclaiming the natural goodness, strength, and creativity of all human energies. In five years Darwin would announce that survival was the reward for fitness. On the basis of that, people would soon convince themselves that all human effort was naturally and necessarily evolving toward the best of all possible worlds. In this context, the idea of an original sin seemed like an ugly relic of the middle ages. Yet it was precisely in this context that the Church taught that one and only one human person was sinless, that one and only one had been preserved from being born into catastrophe. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception was profoundly counter cultural in 1854 because it implied the doctrine of the universality of original sin.

In our time it's a little easier to believe in original sin. Despite unparalleled advances in knowledge and technology, humankind has made a mess of things. We don't know - or don't care to know - how to distribute the abundant food supplies of the world, with the result that many go hungry while others are glutted. We continuously struggle to keep deadly chemicals out of our water. Terrorism has become a way of life all over the world. War is endemic, and we count ourselves lucky if it is confined to far off places and not afflicting us here at home. Individuals find their lives to be without meaning. The most sacred ties between human beings, marriage and family, are looked upon as outdated by some and as the source of heartbreak and ruin for others. Priests abuse children. It's a lot easier today to believe in some fundamental human defect that undermines all our efforts. It's a lot easier to believe in original sin than it was in 1854.

But the same Immaculate Conception of Mary that served to underline the universality of sin in the past serves today to teach us about the universality of redemption. The same Christ whose love and obedience to the Father preserved Mary from sharing in the universal human disaster, this same Christ makes Himself available to the desperate world of 2002. The redemption that kept Mary sinless is still there to take away the sin and the failure and the aimlessness of every human being who is willing to accept it. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception implies the universality of original sin, but it also reflects the doctrine of the efficacy of Christ, of the universality of redemption. 

This shift of polarity in the existential meaning of the Immaculate Conception is reflected in the way we express our devotion to our Blessed Mother. In the past, people tended to look on Mary as the completely different one, the great exception, the utterly unique one, to the point that she seemed to have nothing in common with the rest of us. Vatican II turned this point of view around when it taught that Mary is the model of the Church, the Church of which we are a part. Scripture scholars tell us that the New Testament portrays Mary as the one who is totally committed to Christ, His first and most pre-eminent follower, but follower none the less. We, too, profess a commitment to Christ; we, too, claim to be His followers. Contemporary devotion to the Mother of God respects her uniqueness, but it stresses the realities that we share. The original sin from which Mary was preserved is the original sin from which we, too, have been freed. The grace of Christ that was hers is the same grace of Christ that is ours. Mary is significant for us because the central factors in her life are the central factors in our own.

The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary has served as a reminder of the need for redemption to a world that was smug and self-sufficient. The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary has also served as a sign of the accessibility of redemption to a world in despair. Perhaps the lesson is that, no matter in which direction we may be facing, we need Mary Immaculate in our lives in order to remember who Christ is and who we are ourselves.

Popular imagination has added an interesting slant to the story of the woman taken in adultery. You know the story: The Pharisees bring the woman before Jesus for judgment and Jesus says, "Let the person who is without sin cast the first stone." They fell silent, and then, all of a sudden a stone came flying from the crowd. Jesus looks up, surprised and amused, and then says, "Hold it, mother? I am trying to make a point, here." This joke likens the sinlessness of Mary to the sinlessness of good women and men we have known. For we have known many good men and women who think that their holiness of life is their personal achievement. As a result they develop a certain holier-than-thou attitude toward others who have not attained their level of holiness. They become intolerant, angry and judgmental toward those they regard as sinners. People like that would not hesitate to throw the first stone at a sinner caught red-handed, like the woman in our story.

That is why the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which we celebrate today, becomes a very important one. It reminds us that Mary's sinlessness is not something that Mary achieved by her own power. It is a gift of God, given to her right from the very moment of her conception. It is in the genes, as they say. In the same vein, those of us who happen to be holy, who sin less than the average sinner, should regard our holiness as basically a gift of God and not an achievement. Our attitude should then be characterised by two basic attitudes, thankfulness to God, and humility before those who are naturally and spiritually less gifted than we are.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary was defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854. It affirms the belief that the Blessed Virgin Mary was free from sin right from the very beginning of her life. That means that by the grace of God, she was shielded from original sin which all humankind inherit at the very moment they begin to live, i.e. at the moment they are conceived in their mother's womb. That means that Mary was not burdened with a defective human nature with which you and I come into the world. She came into the world with a perfect human nature like that of Eve and Adam before they sinned and fell from grace. God gave her this perfect human nature not as a reward for anything she did, not on account of any merit on her part, but in view of the singular role she was to play in life, namely, that of being the mother of God's Son. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception tells us something about who Mary is. But maybe it tells us more about who God is and who we are in light of God's providential love.

Belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary is belief in a provident God, i.e., a God who provides for the future, who prepares His children for their assigned task in life even before they are born, a God who foresees and equips us with all the natural and supernatural qualities we need to play our assigned role in the drama of human salvation. God anoints them already in the womb those men and women whom He created to be His prophets. As He told Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5). God does not just throw us into this world wide wilderness and then leave us to fight it out among ourselves. The theory of evolution with its doctrine of the survival of the fittest may describe human nature in its fallen state, in the state of original sin, it does not describe life for the people of God redeemed by grace from the unbridled effects of the Fall.

As we rejoice with Mary, God's most favoured one ("full of grace") on the feast of her conception, let us thank God for His love and mercy which embraces us right from the moment of our own conception. As Scripture says, "For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" (1Corinthians 4:7). Everything is gift, everything good in us is God's grace. For we all, children of God, are also favoured ones and heirs of God's grace. Yet Mary remains the most favoured one, the mother of all favoured ones, the one that enjoys the fullness of grace.

By Bishop Kasomo Daniel

The Bishop of The Society of St. Peter and Paul (SSPP)

Homily for 3rd Sunday of Advent

Have you ever seen someone take offense at the Lord? I have. A certain lady who spent her time working for the Lord — visiting the sick and the bedridden, helping the elderly and the handicapped — was diagnosed of a knee problem needing surgery. The surgery was not a success and so left her in constant pain and unable to walk. It seemed the Lord had ignored the prayers of this woman and her friends for a successful surgery. This was a woman who considered herself a personal friend of Jesus. And was she disappointed? Her otherwise cheerful disposition turned into sadness and gloom. One day she pulled herself together and shared with her confessor what was going on in her soul. The confessor suggested that she go into prayer and ask her friend Jesus why he has treated her this way. And she did. The following day the priest met her and saw peace written all over her face in spite of her pain. “Do you know what he said to me?” she began. “As I was looking at the crucified Jesus and telling him about my bad knee, he said to me, ‘Mine is worse.’”

“And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." (Matt 11:6)

Does John the Baptist in today’s gospel find himself in a similar situation? John has spent all his life in the Judean desert in anticipation of the Messiah who was to come. He has prepared the way for the Messiah by calling the people to a baptism of repentance. Now he is languishing in prison because he denounced the sins of Herod Antipas. In the meantime Jesus begins his public work as the Messiah. He doesn’t go to visit John in prison or send him a word of encouragement. John hears that he is performing miracles. Why doesn’t he use his miraculous powers to set John free and vindicate him? Doesn’t prophecy say that one of the signs of the Messiah is that he will set prisoners free? Naturally John would expect to be one of the first beneficiaries. After all, it was he who baptized Jesus in the first place. Some reciprocal benevolence would certainly be in order. So John sends messengers to Jesus to remind him. Jesus’ message back to John was, “Yes I am indeed the Messiah. But please do not take offence at me if all your expectations are not met.” Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.

What is going on here? Wrong expectations. Popular theology in biblical times held that prosperity was a sign that God was with someone and adversity a sign that God was not with them. The author of Job questioned this theology by telling the story of Job who was a man of God and yet met with adversity. But that theology has survived and is still with us today in spite of the teachings and personal example of Jesus.

In Jesus we see that the sure signs of God’s presence are not primarily material but spiritual. It is true that in the ministry of Jesus “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised” (Matt 11:5), yet these miracles can be seen as “signs” of an inner spiritual blessing. What does it profit a person ultimately to receive the use of physical eyes and feet if they continue to be spiritually blind and lame? No. The vital signs of God’s presence are spiritual — spiritual enlightenment (blind see, deaf hear) and empowerment (lame walk, dead raised). Of course these have inevitable salutary effects on the physical order, but these are secondary.

Once there was a blind man who became a preacher. He drew crowds to his preaching because, even though he was still physically blind, he would often begin his preaching by declaring, “I was blind but now I see.”

In advent we are like John waiting for the coming of the Lord. What are our expectations? Today’s gospel reminds us that we need to entertain expectations that are in accordance with the Lord’s priorities. Without discounting the physical and the material we are reminded that the primary domain of God’s saving work among us is the spiritual. Ultimately this has saving effects on the material and social order, but God’s salvation is primarily spiritual.

An Igbo proverb says, “Starvation does not kill when one has hope to eat sooner or later.” The early Christians were a suffering people. On account of their belief in Christ, their own people, the Jews, disowned them. Because they would not worship the Roman deities, the Roman authorities accused them of heresy and treason and hunted them down, dead or alive. For the early Christians life was insecure and bereft of joy. And because they knew they were innocent, they longed for justice and vindication. Naturally, some of them would bow to social pressure and renounce the faith to save their neck. In today’s second reading, James urges them to be patient and courageous in the face of danger and suffering. The reason he gives them is: the coming of the Lord is near.

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. (James 5:7-8)

James points to nature to illustrate his point that patience is necessary. The farmer suffers in sowing the seed. The same farmer will rejoice in harvesting the crop. Between these two moments, however, there is a long period of waiting. In ancient times, the period between sowing and harvesting is also a time of famine, since food was in short supply. Yet the farmer happily suffers this famine in the hope that harvest time will soon be there and food will be plentiful again.

Now, what does it mean to be patient? To be patient is to understand that my present suffering is meaningful and necessary. It is as meaningful and necessary as the suffering of the farmer waiting for the harvest. The justification for the suffering is in the good-times that will come in the future. The glory of the Lord does not come to us on credit, have it now and pay later. It comes to us prepaid. We pay for it in advance. Now is the time to pay for it, and our present suffering is the currency. People who do not understand this go about asking themselves, “Why Me? What have I done to deserve this?” Worse still they blame someone else for their suffering. James warns his fellow Christians to avoid the blame-game, to avoid trading complaints against one another as if their present suffering was something unnecessary. Believers who indulge in the blame-game betray their lack of faith in divine providence, and so make themselves liable to judgment.

Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! (James 5:9)

James reminds such grumpy Christians that the Lord is very near, “the Judge is standing at the doors.” It is the Lord who will judge everyone, the sincere believer as well as the insincere, and give to everyone what they truly deserve. He reminds those Christians who grumble against one another as being the cause of their suffering to focus on the glory of the Lord which is coming and not on their worldly comfort and social status which is disappearing.

Is the message of James relevant to our church today? Very much so. More than ever, we have many Christians who are grumbling against one another and blaming them for the ills that have befallen the church. Conservatives blame liberals and liberals blame conservatives, heterosexuals blame homosexuals and homosexuals blame heterosexuals, traditionalists blame charismatics and charismatics blame traditionalists, feminists blame patriarchals and patriarchals blame feminists. Advent is a time to remind ourselves that the Judge is very near, at the very doors. He it is who will judge and give to everyone what they deserve. As servants of the Lord we have a natural tendency to separate the weeds from the wheat. But we must endeavour to heed the explicit injunction of the Master: “Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” (Matthew 13:30). Let both of them grow together! Shall we?

There is such beauty and richness in the readings chosen for Advent.  The theme of Advent is twofold: God is coming to save us, so, therefore, we must prepare ourselves for the arrival by repenting and turning ourselves around. I want to suggest today that this can be seen as a past and future event, and that our Advent is both a nostalgic event and one which looks forward to a future glory.

Isaiah is particularly moving and beautiful in the imagery that he uses to portray the coming of our God. Even though we in Virginia do not live in a parched or desert-like land, but because it is winter here and the trees are bare, we can still identify with the beautiful images of hope and looking forward to the renewal of nature. And that spring-like renewal of nature is a metaphor for the spring-like arrival of our God, where darkness is turned to light, where parchness turns to splendor, where weakness becomes strength.  There will be no more sorrow or mourning because our God is coming to take all that away.

In particular we have the images of healing that God will come to bring – the blind can see, the deaf can hear, the lame can walk and the dumb can speak. The Paradise that we lost can be opened to us again.

In Matthew’s Gospel we have Jesus telling us that he IS the prophecy and has fulfilled it. When John’s disciples come to ask if Jesus is the one that the Baptist has been proclaiming as coming, Jesus’ answer is a direct reiteration of Isaiah’s signs of the Messiah – Jesus says “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.” Jesus is already doing these things.  He is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy and of John’s prophecy. We also get an early  glimpse in Matthew’s Gospel of what will be a dominant theme of Jesus’ teaching: the kingdom of heaven. And we are told that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater even than John the Baptist, a man who in the earthly kingdom, Jesus says, is the greatest man ever born. This kingdom of heaven which Jesus will preach to us again and again is not like earthly kingdoms, and the values and ranks are very different than we are used to.

Notice also that there is a strong social message, that Jesus’ interests are in the poor, the sick, the marginal in society. The psalm today picks up on this social theme that God secures justice for the people in our society who are treated unjustly, either through law or through misfortune. The Lord loves the just, protects strangers, sustains orphans and widows, secures justice for the oppressed. The Gospel message is a social message and we cannot see religion as just a personal relationship with God.  The more I read the Gospels, the more convinced I am that social action must emanate from our knowing Jesus.

The reading from St. James today is not about the coming of Jesus the first time, but is referring to his coming the second time. And this is where we are now.  The 1st Reading and the Gospel deal with history in that we are brought back to the moments when Jesus first came in fulfillment of the prophets. But we are just looking back. This event has already happened.  Jesus has already been here. He has already saved us, and we are just remembering in preparation for the great Remembrance of Christmas and the Incarnation.  But where we are now, is in the waiting period, which is proving to be a whole lot longer than Paul or James had ever thought. James says to be patient, and we have been patient for 2000 years. And, we will continue to be patient.  What we need to remember that will sustain us is that Christ has saved us and has established the kingdom of heaven, and that we can experience some of that kingdom when we do things that mirror the kingdom – when we do things that make for social justice, and help those who are in need. Also, James says that we should not concern ourselves so much with one another, but we should examine our own priorities and interests.  We should take John as an example as we wait, John who was an example of hardship and patience. That is what Advent is really about then.  It is looking at our own priorities, it is deciding what we should do while we wait, it is about turning ourselves around and examining the path that we have been on. When we do that, we can celebrate the first coming, at Christmas, with the knowledge that the second coming will bring all things to fruition and the kingdom of heaven will be the only reality.  Like the farmer who has planted his grain and waits for the spring rains, we continue to wait for the Lord to bring to fruition all the good things we have done.

This week, be in the Advent spirit and turn around and examine your life, and see what rough spots there are that can be straightened, what things that can be done to bring about the kingdom of heaven on earth, and really prepare yourself to remember the wonderful event of God’s coming as a human person to show us the way.  Then our Christmas can be a day of double joy – both remembering what God has done for us to save us, and looking forward to the wonderful new world of the kingdom of heaven when he comes again.

By Rt.Rev.Prof. Kasomo Daniel

The Bishop of The Society of St. Peter and Paul (SSPP)