Laudet Dominum

My role in salvation is not to come up with my own original ideas, but to present to those I serve the Truth revealed by Christ 2000 years ago. Since the Church has the fullness of Truth revealed by Christ, anything I come up with that goes beyond that truth is my own invention and will go contrary to that Truth. Holding something which is contrary to the truth of Christ is heresy, and obstinately holding a heretical thought makes one a heretic.

Now, I am going to make this clear: this bumper sticker is presented tongue in cheek. It’s purposely overblown. No offense is intended. If you do find yourself being offended by it, perhaps you need to reevaluate something you hold contrary to the teachings of the Church. Anyways, here it is: Only Heretics have Original Thoughts bumper sticker.

Of course, it’s appropriate that we would start the Advent season with a pro-life vigil for the unborn. Before Our Lord’s birth over 2000 years ago, He grew and developed in Mary’s womb just as did each of us at the beginning of our lives. An ad campaign currently running in Great Britain shows an ultrasound image of a child with a halo over its head, with text that reads “He’s on His way: Christmas starts with Christ”.

As we begin this Advent season preparing for the celebration of Christ’s birth at Christmas, it’s important that we remember those children who are awaiting their own births. We also remember and pray for those children who are at risk of being aborted before they ever have the opportunity to celebrate their own births. Similarly, we include in our prayers those embryos that are killed in the name of advancing science through embryonic stem cell research, and remember embryos created for the purpose of In-Vitro Fertilization and later destroyed without being implanted.

All these, from the smallest embryo in the laboratory to the newly-born infant, are just as human and have just as much right to life as we do. Genetically, they are unique individuals and deserve our protection. In the eyes of God, they are made in His image and likeness, and have every right to receive the salvation promised by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sadly, we live in a world where the unborn is at risk. In much of the world, abortion is legal through all nine months of development. In some countries, abortion is used for the purposes of sex selection, where one sex is more desirable than others, or to eliminate those seen as flawed due to a physical or mental defect. Laboratories throughout the world dispose of “fertilized eggs”, meaning embryonic human life, when no longer needed for embryonic stem cell research or In-Vitro Fertilization. Human life is seen as disposable, and the unborn, developing form of human life is the most vulnerable to being disposed when inconvenient.

In response to the dangers to unborn human life, we gather in union with our Holy Father and Catholics throughout the world to pray and stand in solidarity with the unborn, developing humans throughout the world. We pray this evening that human life be defended and protected from the first moment of conception to the last breath of our natural lifespans.

Second question: since all of us will likely live out our whole lives before Jesus comes again, how would you behave if you knew the day and time of your death? Would you spend those last moments preparing for eternal life? Again, I think most people would, but not all.

We have entered into the season of Advent, a time which is commonly thought of as a period of preparation for the celebration of Our Lord’s birth on Christmas. Most of us use this season to decorate our houses, buy gifts, and make travel plans, but that’s not the only purpose of the Advent season. We also celebrate Advent every year as a time of preparation for Our Lord’s return at the end of the world. This season is a reminder for us, as Jesus Himself says in the Gospel today, to “stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.” (Mt 24:42)

I asked the two questions at the beginning because those are the questions we should be asking ourselves throughout the Advent season. We need to seriously contemplate whether our lives, as we live them now, are in accord with Our Lord’s commands for His disciples. If they’re not, this is as good a time as any to wake up our faith. As St. Paul puts it, “it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” (Rom 13:11) Remember, it is the hour now, not tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year.

Advent truly is a time for us to wake up, spiritually. It’s easy to allow our spiritual life to fall asleep by just doing the bare minimums. You could go to Mass every week, receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation once a year, and have a spiritual life that has gone to sleep from boredom and lack of use. Just as lack of physical or mental exertion can lead to physical boredom and drowsiness, a lack of spiritual exertion can lead to a drowsy spiritual life.

So, how do we wake up our spiritual lives? By exercising them! As the first reading from the Prophet Isaiah put it, “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.” (Is 2:3) We wake up our spiritual lives by actively engaging them, resolving to grow and stretch our faith.

Just as we make New Year’s resolutions, we can make New Liturgical Year’s resolutions. A great way to wake up a spiritual life is to find and practice one of the many private devotions available, such as the Rosary, the different litanies of prayer, or Divine Mercy Chaplet. If a whole Rosary seems a bit daunting, even just praying an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be several times a day can do wonders. We can resolve to learn more about our faith, seeking out books and materials, like the Lighthouse Catholic CDs, to raise us from the basic education many of us have in what it means to follow Christ. Of course, being attentive at Mass – participating fully through responses and listening attentively to prayers, readings, and homily – is the best way to an energized spiritual life.

Our challenge for Advent is best summarized by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans: “Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. […] Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.” (Rom 13:12, 14) We need to throw off those practices in our lives which put our spiritual lives to sleep, and prepare for Our Lord’s return by putting on those practices which can wake them up. So, the challenge for us this Advent season is simple: Wake up!

Knowing this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’ve been watching the TV series “V”, based on the 1983 TV series, about a race of malevolent aliens known as Visitors and humanity’s struggles against them. What is a surprise about this series is one of the characters: Fr. Jack Landry. V has probably the only major, regularly occurring character on TV today that is a Catholic priest shown in a good light.

Sure, priests show up on Law and Order and other shows, but rarely are they presented positively. Most of the time, they are either bad characters or more than willing to betray the priesthood. For example: unlike the priest in Hitchcock’s I Confess, I know of at least one episode of Law and Order where the priest breaks the seal of the confessional to save his own skin.

Fr. Landry on V is different. He doesn’t question his faith, but rather whether his faith leads him to fight the Visitors. As the New York Post puts it, Fr. Landry is a “heroic priest”, seeing his fight against the Visitors as part of his priestly service to the people he has been called to serve. The NY Post article has a great synopsis of the character and the actor, Joel Gretsch, behind the character, and is worth reading.

This is not to say that Fr. Landry’s task is easy. A couple episodes have included his struggle over whether or not any loss of human life is acceptable. There is a developing attraction between Fr. Landry and a female character, which is a risk for any priest, but so far it’s been completely hands off. His pastor has been fooled by the lies the Visitors have been broadcasting and is supportive of them, leading to some friction between the two priests, a very real aspect of priestly life.

While those of us who are priests aren’t called to fight against alien visitors bent on conquering our world, we are fighting against “powers and principalities” according to St. Paul. We are in a conflict against sin, evil, and the Devil. At stake is not only the lives of humans, but our eternal souls. In response, priests should be heroic: heroic in their prayers, heroic in their words, heroic in their actions.

Priests have gotten a bad name due to the sins of a few of our brothers, and with good reason: it should have never been allowed to become such a serious problem. But it happened, and we can’t change the past. We can only shape the future. As priests, we need to be as heroic in our ministries as the fictional character Fr. Jack Landry is in his.

To see how far He allowed Himself to be humiliated, look at St. Paul’s words of praise in his letter to the Colossians and compare them with the heckling Our Lord received while He hung on the Cross from the Jewish leaders, Roman soldiers and one of the criminals. St. Paul writes, “For 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.” (Col 1:16) Compare this with the leaders of the people, who said, “He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God,” (Lk 23:35) or the Roman soldiers who said, “If you are King of the Jews, save yourself.” (Lk 23:37)

These leaders mock the person who is responsible for their very existence. The authority they exercise which led to Jesus’ death came from Him. Jesus is higher than any created thing on Earth, in the Heavens, or anywhere else in creation. Despite His position, the Son of God and Word of God humbled Himself to become human, then even more humbly accepted the most humiliating form of death by being crucified. By giving His life, he opened the way of salvation to each of us.

This great sacrifice by Our Lord is not something we should take lightly, yet we often do. We might call Jesus “Lord”, a proper title for a king, but we don’t allow that kingship to rule our lives. How often are we more concerned about earthly rulers and politics over our Heavenly ruler? Do we take our allegiance to Our Lord for granted, or ignore it completely? Do we allow earthly values and ideals to rule or lives, or do we allow Our Lord to rule our lives?

We do have an allegiance to Jesus that we should not take lightly. When we were baptized, we entered into service of Christ the King to follow Him as He commands. St. Paul tells us, “He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col 1:13-14) Most United States citizens take their allegiance to our country very seriously, many serving in the military to aid in defense of the nation, some even giving their lives as part of that defense. Are we willing to take our allegiance to Christ as seriously as our allegiance to the earthly government of the United States?

This solemnity of Christ the King should be a reminder for us that our allegiance to Christ must be higher than our allegiance to any earthly power, as Christ is the King above all kings and ruler over all rulers. He is the Heavenly King who fulfills the earthly kingship of King David. Just as King David was king over the earthly nation of Israel, Our Lord is King over the new Israel, established through His blood on the Cross.

We who have been baptized into Christ are part of that new Israel. Just as the Israelite people accepted King David as their king, may we who are members of the new Israel daily accept and give our allegiance to Our King, Jesus Christ the Lord.

God’s Word is always sweet, but it seems sour at times because of our pride. Instead of a willingness to follow God’s will without reservation, we stubbornly hold on to our prideful wills. Just like milk souring when mixed with lemon juice, God’s will seems sour when mixed with our own. So the next time God’s Word seems sour, you’re probably allowing your pride to sour it.