Daily Virtue

On Dec. 12, the Church celebrates the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Across the Americas, millions mark the day with pilgrimages, especially to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, with songs and festivities at their local parishes, and, of course, with Mass. The Guadalupe event represented a new beginning for the Mexican people. There was an immediate explosion of faith as the news of the apparition was spread by the people themselves and nine million were brought to the Church within six years of the event. While volumes have been written on the richness of the symbolism of Guadalupe, it is sufficient to say that the power of the image rested in its ability to communicate to all the different populations in Mexico from within their own values and ideals. The image of Guadalupe, according to author Virgilio Elizondo in his La Morenita: Evangelizer of the Americas, is what was born in the new “American” synthesis resulting from the racial, social, ethnic, religious, political, artistic, and economic confrontation between Spain and Mexico that began in 1519. She was the foundation upon which the pride of the grandeza Mexicana would grow. She was the basis for the spiritual emancipation of the Mexican nation that would give rise to their political independence from Spain. She has come to stand for the unity and reconciliation, the personal and collective emancipation, and the liberation of Mexico. Furthermore, her importance has continued to grow beyond the borders of Mexico. For example, more than 20 popes have officially honored Our Lady of Guadalupe. In 1945, Pope Pius XII declared her “Queen of Mexico and Empress of the Americas.” In 1999, St. Pope John Paul II declared December 12 a Liturgical Holy Day for the whole continent and entrusted the cause of life to her loving protection. She is also the “Patroness of the Americas” and the “Patroness of the Philippines.” The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that appeared on St. Juan Diego’s tilma, or simple cloak, should have deteriorated within 20 years. More than 480 years later, the image shows no sign of decay!

It is hard to bear God—but it is even harder not to bear God. The pain one brings upon oneself by living outside of evident reality is a greater and longer-lasting pain than the brief pain of facing it head on. Enlightened people invariably describe the spiritual experience of God as resting, peace, delight, and even ecstasy. If our religion has no deep joy and no inherent contentment about it, then it is not the real thing. If our religion is primarily fear of self, the world, and God; if it is primarily focused on meeting religious duties and obligations, then it is indeed a hard yoke and heavy burden. I’d go so far as to say that it’s hardly worthwhile. I think the promise from Jesus that his burden is easy and light seeks to reassure us that rigid and humorless religion is not his way and certainly not the only way. It is God within us that loves God, so seek joy in God and peace within; seek to rest in the good, the true, and the beautiful. It is the only resting place that also allows us to bear the darkness. Hard and soft, difficult and easy, pain and ecstasy do not eliminate one another, but actually allow each other. They bow back and forth like dancers, although it is harder to bow to pain and to failure. If you look deeply inside every success, there are already seeds and signs of limits; if you look inside every failure, there are also seeds and signs of opportunity. Who among us has not been able to eventually recognize the silver lining in the darkest of life’s clouds? You would think the universal pattern of death and life, the lesson of the Gospel and Jesus’ life would be utterly clear to me by now, yet I still fight and repress my would-be resurrections, even if just in my own mind. For some reason, we give and get our energy from dark clouds much more than silver linings. True joy is harder to access and even harder to hold onto than anger or fear. When I walk my dog Opie and look at the beautiful cottonwood trees in my yard, God helps me experience rest and peace. If our soul is at rest in the comforting sweetness and softness of God, we can bear the hardness of life and see through failure. That’s why people in love—and often people at the end of life—have such an excess of energy for others. If our truth does not set us free, it is not truth at all. If God cannot be rested in, God must not be much of a God. If God is not joy, then what has created the sunrise and sunset? – Fr. Richard Rohr

Pope Francis notes that in the Gospel reading, “we see the shepherd that loses one of 99 sheep. While he could rejoice that he still has 98 sheep, he goes out to search, and when he finds that one, he celebrates and is joyful. The joy of searching for faraway brothers and sisters is born in the same manner. This is the joy of the Church. It is precisely in this way that the Church becomes a mother and becomes fruitful. When the Church doesn’t do this, she stands still inside; she is closed within herself, even though she might be well organized. In this manner, she becomes discouraged, anxious, and sad about the Church, a Church that is more spinster than Mother, and this Church isn’t useful. Such a Church is no more than a museum. When the comfort of the Lord arrives, it disturbs us. It’s He, not we, who commands. God’s generosity cannot be transcended. You have sinned 100 times, partake 200 times of joy: this is how God’s mercy is when He comes to comfort. We try to back away: “It’s too much, Lord!” We often “hire out” small consolations, which are useless. They may help, but they aren’t useful. What is useful to us is only what comes from the Lord, with his forgiveness and our humility. When the heart humbles itself, that comfort comes, and this joy and peace can carry us forth.” The Gospel reading is so dear to Pope Francis that his pectoral cross illustrates the Good Shepherd. Comforting those lost to the Church has been one of the hallmarks of his papacy. Again and again, he tells us that we must go beyond the walls of the Church to go out into the world where people are lost in their despair and distrust. We need to meet people where they are and bring them the message of Jesus and the joy of the Gospel without insisting that they have to be perfect before they can be loved.

Often confused with the Birth of Jesus, the “Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary” is about how Mary was conceived. Church teaching is that Mary was conceived through normal marital sexual relations between Anne, her mother, and Joachim, her father, but was born without “Original Sin,” unlike the rest of us. St. Augustine described the birth of Mary as an event of cosmic and historical significance, an appropriate prelude to the birth of Christ: “She is the flower of the field from whom bloomed the precious lily of the valley…through her birth, the nature inherited from our first parents is changed.” Fr. Richard Rohr offers this reflection on this solemnity. “Today’s often misunderstood feast of the Immaculate Conception is saying that God totally gave even Mary’s dignity from the first moment of her conception, and all she could do was thank God for it. It was nothing she merited. She is a metaphor and archetype for every human life.” Fr. Ron Rolheiser, a priest in the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and President of the Oblate School of Theology, offers these thoughts on this solemnity. “We’re finding it more difficult to dwell in a universe inhabited by unseen presences: the presence of God, saints, one another. Today’s world is reduced to what is physical, what can be measured, seen, touched, tasted, smelled. We’re mystically tone-deaf; all the goods are in the shop window. All I can say about the Immaculate Conception is that if God is the ultimate creator of the physical Universe and is capable of everything, then it’s perfectly reasonable for God to allow an immaculate conception for the mother of the Son of God. I can live with the mystery, even if I still have questions about the infallibility side of it all. But if the Church’s dogma were revoked, it wouldn’t matter to me because if sinners can become saints, then the power of God can work in anyone at any time.”  

The Holy Father, Pope Francis, wrote that today, people need to witness God’s mercy and tenderness, which spurs the resigned, enlivens the distant-hearted, and ignites the fire of hope. He ignites the fire of hope! We don’t. So many situations require our comforting witness. To be joyful, comforting people. I’m thinking of those who are burdened by suffering, injustice, and tyranny, of those who are slaves to money, power, success, and worldliness. Poor dears! They have fabricated consolation, not the true comfort of the Lord! We are all called to comfort our brothers and sisters, to testify that God alone can eliminate the causes of existential and spiritual tragedies. He can do it! He is powerful! Isaiah’s message, which resounds on this second Sunday of Advent, is a salve on our wounds and an impetus to prepare with commitment to the way of the Lord. Indeed, today, the prophet speaks to the heart to tell us that God condones our sins and comforts us. If we entrust ourselves to him with a humble and penitent heart, He will tear down the walls of evil; He will fill in the holes of our omissions, will smooth over the bumps of arrogance and vanity, and will open the way of an encounter with Him. It is curious, but we are often afraid of consolation, of being comforted. Or rather, we feel more secure in sorrow and desolation. Do you know why? Because in sorrow, we feel almost like the protagonist. However, in consolation, the Holy Spirit is the protagonist! It is He who consoles us, and it is He who gives us the courage to go out of ourselves. It is He who opens the door to the source of every true comfort, that is, the Father. And this is conversion.

What an amazing thought:  even Jesus had to evangelize!   Why didn’t he supernaturally infuse the knowledge of God into everyone’s mind?   As divine Creator, he easily could have compelled people to believe.   They would have known instantaneously that he was God and that he could redeem them from their sins. But it wasn’t Jesus’ goal simply to pass out information.   And it wasn’t his goal to overwhelm his people with works of power.  He wanted a relationship with them.   He wanted them to love him for who he was and not for what he said or for what he could give them.  That’s why he chose ordinary human ways to reach out to them.  As Matthew tells us, Jesus visited “all the towns and villages.”   He walked the dusty roads.  He went into the synagogues, one at a time.   He talked to the villagers and got to know their stories.  And he healed them. That’s a great example to follow.   We might think we need a complex plan to bring the good news to our friends or family members or even strangers.  Or we might wish God would infuse them with knowledge of the gospel.   But Jesus shows us the right place to start: through relationships. How?   Make yourself present to people, as Jesus did.   Listen to them.   Show them some kindness.   So many people just want to be heard; they just want someone to treat them with a little kindness.   As you start doing that, you will see trusting relationships beginning to form. It’s in the context of a relationship that you are able to speak honestly about who God is in your life.   It’s when a friend asks, “Why do you even go to church?” that you can share how the Eucharist gives you strength.   It’s when he comments on the Bible you keep in your car that you can talk about how you hear God speaking to you through Scripture. Relationships.   That’s where it all starts.   But it doesn’t end there.   With every friendship you make and every encounter you have, you can be sowing seeds that lead someone closer to the Lord. – Fr. Maurice Nutt

Our readings today speak of blindness. From Isaiah, we read that “out of the gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.” Matthew’s Gospel echoes a similar theme as Jesus asks two blind men who seek sight, “Do you believe that I can do this?” In affirmation, he then tells them, “Let it be done for you according to your faith.” Fr. Ron Rolheiser speaks to the two meanings of blindness, which we can view most clearly when Jesus heals people.  “He’s giving them more than just physical sight; he’s opening their eyes so that they can see more deeply. Seeing, truly seeing, implies more than having eyes that are physically healthy and open. We all see the outer surface of things, but what’s beneath isn’t as automatically seen. G.K. Chesterton notes that ‘familiarity is the greatest of all illusions and that the secret to life is to learn to look at things familiar until they look unfamiliar again.’ We open our eyes to depth when we open ourselves to wonder.” Fr. Henri Nouwen writes that the power of wonderment is exampled in the eyes of a child. “The minds of children marvel at all they see. It’s a mind not filled with worries for tomorrow but alert and awake in the present moment. It’s a mind opened for grace.” That is what true spiritual sight is about. Bishop Robert Barron echoes the need for openness to God’s grace working in our lives. “If you have not surrendered to the grace of God, you are blind. How wonderful it is, then, that these men in the Gospel can cry out to Jesus in their need . . . You can have all the wealth, pleasure, honor, and power you want. You can have all the worldly goods you could desire. But if you don’t see spiritually, it will do you no good; it will probably destroy you.”

As we cry out, “Come, Lord Jesus, Come,” the opening verse from the Gospel of Matthew should hopefully affirm our daily effort to put Christ’s teaching into practice, especially in times of personal difficulties or in times like today with the upheavals we are witnessing in Church. How do we stay firm in the faith in these challenging times? Fr. Richard Rohr looks at how we embrace the kingdom of God. “I suspect what Jesus means by “Lord, Lord” is how we try to make the kingdom of God into our own ideal of that kingdom. If we make heaven into the kingdom, we miss most of its transformative message. We are not waiting for the coming of the ideal church or any perfect world here and now . . . the kingdom is more than all of these. It is always here and not here. It is always now and not yet . . . The kingdom of God supersedes and far surpasses all kingdoms of self and society or personal reward.” Bishop Robert Barron asks what our foundation is built upon. “On what precisely is the whole of your life built? Your heart or soul is the center of you, the place where you are most authentically and deeply yourself. That is your point of contact with God. There, you will find the energy that undergirds and informs all the other areas of your life: physical, psychological, emotional, relational, and spiritual. As such, it is the most important and most elusive dimension of who you are.”

These words from Isaiah bring us into the language of the feast, a celebration that the Lord has prepared for his people. This is also a prefigurement of the eucharistic banquet that was instituted by Jesus. His meal is divine nourishment as he provides his own Body and Blood to strengthen our soul. Saint Pope John Paul II said, “To share in the Lord’s Supper is to anticipate the heavenly feast of the marriage of the Lamb. Celebrating this memorial of Christ, risen and ascended into heaven, the Christian community waits in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” It is our pledge of future glory.

The Second Coming of Christ that history waits for is not the same as the baby Jesus or even the historical Jesus. The historical Jesus was one man, and Christ is not his last name. Fr. Richard Rohr writes that Christ includes the whole sweep of creation and history joined with him—and you, too. We very rightly believe in “Jesus Christ,” and both words are essential. The celebration of Christmas is not a sentimental waiting for a baby to be born, but much more an asking for history to be born! We do the Gospel no favor when we make Jesus, the Eternal Christ, into a perpetual baby, a baby able to ask little or no adult response from us. God clearly wants friends, partners, and images if we are to believe the biblical texts. He wants adult religion and a mature, free response from us. God loves us as adult partners, with mutual give and take, and you eventually become the God that you love. I understand where such devotions to the Infant child Jesus come from, but these do not come close to the power of the biblical proclamation that invites us into adult cooperation, free participation, and the love of free and mature persons in God. The Christ we are asking for and waiting for includes your own full birth and the further birth of history and creation. Now you can say, “Come, Christ Jesus,” with a whole new understanding and a deliberate passion!