Today, in Mercy, Isaiah continues to describe the perfection of redeemed Creation.
Matthew’s accompanying Gospel shows us Jesus making this perfection apparent through the miracle of the loaves and fishes.
Many of us long for the coming of this future kingdom. But, through the grace of the Resurrection, this redeemed and perfect kingdom is already available to us who choose to believe in and foster it.
If we really live as redeemed people, the miracle happens around us! Our graces are multiplied, just like the seven loaves and few fish.
Today, in Mercy,majestic Isaiah bursts out, full-throated, in proclamation!
Messianic Psalm 72 picks up his jubilant strain.
Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.
And in our Gospel, Jesus affirms that the childlike will share the jubilation.
What a joy to hear these hope-filled readings once again!
We look forward with avid anticipation tothe redemption of all Creation in Christ.We long for the One born in the Spirit of the Lord who will lead us with wisdom and understanding.
As Handel intones in today’s musical selection, “The government shall be upon his shoulders …” – that realm of peace, love, mutual respect and appreciation that will allow even the rival animals to lie down beside one another in security.
Today, let us pray with Jesus as he speaks with his Father in our Gospel: “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…”
… and I ask you to bless our world with a foretaste of the peace you have promised. Let us see one another as sister and brother, not as enemy, foreigner, or rival. Let us put away the words of alienation, stereotyping and hatred. Let us all become your children once again.
Music:For Unto Us A Child Is Word – Handel’s Messiah
Today, in Mercy, we pray with the hope of Isaiah for a world without war. We pray for a human family whose only weapons are compassion, justice, and a sacred responsibility for one another and our Common Home. It will take great courage to build such a world, but the power of Christ is available to us. Advent is a time to reach for that power through prayer and action for global social justice.
Today, in Mercy, we begin our journey through Advent.We will be accompanied by the great prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures.We will walk with the saints and sinners of the Gospel. We will be comforted by God’s promises.
We will be in the company of all the Church here on earth and in heaven, as we wait once again for the astounding miracle of Christ’s birth.
Every year we make the journey – some of us for scores of times, some of us just beginning.And every year, we open and stretch our hearts to hope that God will once again transform the world with Grace.
Jeremiah, in today’s first reading, shared such a hope:
The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah.
In those days, in that time, I will raise up for David a just shoot ; he shall do what is right and just in the land.
In those days Judah shall be safe and Jerusalem shall dwell secure; this is what they shall call her: “The LORD our justice.”
Change but a few “geographies” in the passage, and we are speaking of our own time. May we who have been blessed with the promise of Christ once again claim it during this Advent.May we engage the grace being offered so that our world – and our own hearts – grow in justice, security and peace.
Music:: Comfort Ye My People from Handel’s Messiah – The English Concert, directed by Trevor Pinnock. Soloist: Kurt Streit
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the Feast of St. Andrew, the brother of Peter, also a fisherman, a beloved Apostle and friend of Jesus.
Our Gospel tells the story of Andrew’s call.
Another favorite passage about Andrew is when he points out to Jesus that, in the hungry crowd, there is a young boy with five loaves and two fish.
How simple and complete was Andrew’s faith! Those seven little items must have seemed so minute among 5000. Can you picture Andrew looking into Jesus’s eyes as if to say, “I know it’s not much but you can do anything!” Maybe it was that one devoted look which prompted Jesus to perform this amazing miracle!
We trust that our deep devotion and faith can move God’s heart too. On this feast of St. Andrew, many people begin a prayer which carries them through to Christmas. Praying it, we ask for particular favors from God.
I love this prayer because it was taught to me by my mother, a woman blessed with simple faith like Andrew’s. As I recite it, I ask to be gifted with the same kind of faith.
( Another reason I love it is this: how often in life do you get a chance to say a word like “vouchsafe“! )
St. Andrew Christmas Novena Hail and blessed be the hour and moment
in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary,
at midnight, in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold.
In that hour vouchsafe, I beseech Thee, O my God,
to hear my prayer and grant my desires
through the merits of Our Savior Jesus Christ,
and of His blessed Mother. Amen.
There is a very hurting world that needs healing. Let’s fold our Advent prayers around its many wounds.
Music:Hear my prayer, O Lord is an eight-part choral anthem by the English composer Henry Purcell (1659–1695). The anthem is a setting of the first verse of Psalm 102 in the version of the Book of Common Prayer. Purcell composed it c. 1682 at the beginning of his tenure as Organist and Master of the Choristers for Westminster Abbey.
Today in Mercy, our readings from Revelation and Luke are truly terrible, in the full meaning of that word: extremely distressing, causing terror. They’re intended to be.
They describe and warn against times of destruction. Revelation describes the fall of Babylon. The Gospel relates the destruction of Jerusalem.
But neither reading is history. They are not offered so that we get the facts, the way a newspaper or encyclopedia reports a story.
These readings are given to us, and to the audiences they were originally written for, so that we might understand clearly this important reality: we live in two worlds, the material and the spiritual.
These worlds are intended by God to be united in one Creation, joined at the wedding feast of the Lamb. But we humans fail. We exalt and distort the power of the material world to the destruction of the spiritual. We split what God intended to be whole.
In other words, we build both global and personal kingdoms and governments that have no heart, have no soul.
If you think these readings describe only past civilizations, then look to the Mexican-US border. Look at the starving people of Yemen. Look at the devastation of the rainforest. Look at our drug-infested, gun-enthralled culture.
Jesus knew that his followers would battle these forces forever. He tells us that, in the midst of these destructive signs, we should
“ … stand erect and raise your heads
because your redemption is at hand.”
Jesus’s followers must stand as a sign of another way. We must raise our heads to say “No” to the heartless moral choices of our time. We cannot allow ourselves to be swept up in a culture of lies, political expediency, material greed, and dehumanization of whole peoples. We must break through the cabled propaganda we are fed to find God’s Word to us.
Our readings today ask us to take a good look at ourselves. How complicit are we in our own destruction by our failure to choose, speak, and act for Gospel justice in our world?
Today, in Mercy,our Responsorial Verse captures the essence of all the readings:
It’s one of those scripture passages that makes one want to say, “Oh, really? Is that all?”
Because, you know, it’s a pretty tall order to remain faithful until death. Sometimes it’s a real pinch to remain faithful for a week!
Remember that exercise bike you bought in January 1999? Yeah, that one with your yoga pants, umbrella, and assorted gift bags hanging on it.
Or what about that South Beach diet book you’re using to prop open the closet door? How did all that faithfulness work out?
So, given our very human condition, what is the “faithfulness” these readings enjoin?
I believe it is not a faithfulness that never fails. Rather, it tries. When it does fail, it believes in and seeks forgiveness. It trusts, even in its weakness. It is grateful, abiding, and loving. It is not afraid to begin again and again, because our faithfulness depends on God’s mercy not our strength.
When we were young nuns making our final vows, this phrase was part of our commitment:
“… and to persevere, until death …”
One of our wise leaders, Mother Bernard, told us, “Don’t pray for final perseverance. Pray to be worthy of it.”
I think we become worthy of it by that trusting faithfulness which turns again and again into Mercy’s waiting, understanding arms. It is a faithfulness that fully believes these words from the Book of Lamentations:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
God’s mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
so great is your faithfulness.
Lavish Mercy 