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December 26, 2005
Feast of Mary the Mother of God - Naming the Future
Having never been married, I am basically uneducated in the responsibilities of early child care. I'm not complaining about that, of course, just making an observation. It has often occurred to me, however, that there must be a number of tasks that young married couples must attend to at the time of the birth of their first child: Learning about infant diets, sleep habits, what the sound of crying might mean, et cetera. After the first child, of course, all this becomes second nature.
The one responsibility every set of parents needs to think about, even before the birth of their child, is the name: How shall this child be named? I imagine there might occasionally be some controversy over that choice. It is no small matter, of course, because this name will stay with the child all the way into adulthood and beyond. So, it should be a thoughtful process.
The anomaly in all this is that the child him/herself has no part, no say, in this important lifetime selection. Indeed, the individual might well be disappointed and wished that he or she could have had their say, because they are the ones who have to "live with it."
I have often thought it might be best to give a child some sort of generic name at birth and then wait until the age of reason for a life-time name to be chosen. By that time, obviously, the generic name will have been entrenched in everyone's mind and changing it might cause some long-term problems. I'm happy that I have never had to deal with this dilemma, if it is such.
I have never read any extensive commentaries by eminent scripture scholars on the gospel of Luke concerning the naming of Jesus. The text simply says "he was named Jesus." There is not much more one can say about that. But the name Jesus or Yeshua was a rather common name in those days. There was nothing particularly unique about it. It was as common as John is today.
However, if you read that text a bit more carefully, you will notice that Joseph and Mary actually had nothing at all to do with the choice of the name. The angel Gabriel had already given him that name even before "he was conceived in the womb." We must assume, therefore, that there must have been something prophetic about that choice. Indeed, the name Yeshua (Joshua) is simply translated as "Yahweh is salvation." Indeed, today we often hear the phrase "Jesus saves," and Catholics believe that Jesus does save. Jesus is the source of our salvation. So, hindsight, the name was well chosen whether Mary and Joseph had any hand in its choice or not.
So, after that little diversion, let us now make the point that this feast today is not simply about naming Jesus. This is the feast of Mary the Mother of God. It is the oldest Marian feast in the Western Church. It was chosen as an article of faith at the Council of Ephesus in the year 431 and placed into the Roman liturgical calendar for January 1 sometime in the middle of the sixth century.
You might well ask then, why on January 1? Well, not simply because this is the first day of the new year but rather because we are in the Nativity cycle of the Roman calendar, the Christmas and Epiphany cycle. Hence, this feast fills out some of the history and implication of Jesus' birth. So, of all the Marian feasts, this is the oldest and the most meaningful for Christians. We honor Mary because she is the Mother of God, period.
Now, we must insist also that the naming ceremony is an important sub-plot on this feast of Mary. I'm sure you noticed in that beautiful selection from the Book of Numbers, the famous blessing that we use so often today: "The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! the Lord look kindly upon you and give you peace." l have given that blessing hundreds of times in my ministry as a priest. Let me insist, however, that it is not my blessing, or any priest's blessing. The blessing comes from the invocation of the name "Lord" or Yahweh. In other words, God or the name of God bestows the blessing. The priest just happens to be the instrument who calls down the blessing.
I would like to say then that there is something significant and important in this whole matter of bestowing God's blessing on one another. We all have that right the right and power by our baptism to bestow blessings: Husbands and wives can bless one another. Parents should surely bless their children as they retire at night. Parents should bless their children when they make their way to school in the morning or when they go on a trip. In other words, all God's good gifts come to us through human hands, whether through the priest or, more often, through our bestowal on one another.
Lastly, think about this: God does not so much give blessings. God is a blessing for us. God's very existence, God's name blesses us. Jesus too is God's blessing on us, Jesus our salvation. And finally think of this: As Christians, we ought to think of
ourselves as God's blessing on one another, not so much by saying some words, but rather by the very way we live, the example we give of a good Christian life. That in itself cannot help but be a blessing.
So, back to the question of naming our children. My personal feeling is that all of us should have a saint's name, someone who has a history of holiness and good deeds, someone whose history we could look up and try to imitate. In that case, a name would surely serve as a blessing for us for the rest of our lives.
The scriptures: Numbers 6:22-27, Galatians 4:4-7, Luke 2: 16-21
Posted by Julie Galligan at 03:12 PM.
December 20, 2005
Feast of the Nativity of the Lord - The Beginning of Something Big
I'm sure there is no doubt in anyone's mind that we would all like to be remembered for something during our life. How sad it would be if we were to come into this world and pass from it and no one were ever to take notice. Granted, few of us will be known and remembered for doing spectacular things. Nonetheless, the fact that we were here on this earth, the fact that we will leave some mark upon the human condition in the world should be noteworthy, at least to someone.
I have always thought that our birthdays, the birthday of any human person, is probably the most important date in our lives. Obviously, there are other moments in our life that are equally important as well, but all these have to start somewhere, at some point in time. The day of our birth is obviously that moment.
Do you suppose that is why people generally celebrate birthdays with such joy and good humor? This was the beginning of something big, great plans, great hopes, even some disappointments, but it all started somewhere, at the point when we first appeared on the planet; that's the moment the human clock started ticking. So, one would think that this moment should be remembered and celebrated year after year until the moment we once again pass from this earth to the Father.
It has often occurred to me to wonder what Joseph and Mary must have been thinking about when Jesus was born. If he was, indeed, their first-born son as the gospels insist, it must have been a rather momentous occasion in their lives. I'm sure they probably asked themselves on a number of occasions, "what do you suppose this Son of our's will turn out to be? Will he ever be remembered for anything significant? Can we look at him and say, "we're proud of this Son of our's, he's destined for great things."
It turns out, of course, that in the lives of each of us, we may have disappointed our parents: After all, we can't all be doctors, dentists, lawyers or politicians. Nonetheless, we ail have found a place in life which probably satisfied us and we need not look back in disappointment.
My hunch is that Jesus' mother and father probably had some second thoughts about the direction which his life took. The gospels actually tell us that at least his
mother could not understand why he wanted to go out on his own to preach God's messianic kingdom. They thought he had lost his mind and wanted to take him home so he wouldn't be attacked by the "crazies" out there in the world. Nonetheless, Jesus kept to his vision, the call of his Father, until it took him to the hill called Calvary where it all ended too early and too sadly.
But it all did begin at some point, at the moment of his birth, even though neither he nor his parents had any idea of where this life's vision would end.
Of all the feasts of Christianity, Christmas surely seems to be the one that is most universally celebrated, even by folks who probably have little idea of why they are celebrating this day. I'm sure that the folks at all the Christmas "office parties" are thinking about other things when they break out the bottles and pass around the fancy hors d'oeuvres.
Nonetheless, whether people in the world at large have any idea of the theological significance of this great feast or not, they know instinctively, I think, that this feast has some connection with Jesus' birth. Otherwise, why all the Christmas cards, the decoration of trees, the buying and sharing of gifts and all the rest. I'm sure most people are not concerned about the gross national product at Christmas. There is a sacred meaning in it for most people whether they have ever read the Nativity story in Luke's gospel or not.
This may sound somewhat flippant to say on Christmas, but in the Christian liturgical calendar the Nativity is not the most important feast of the year. That honor goes to the Solemnity of Easter and also to Pentecost, the birthday of the church. But from the earliest days of our Church, the Nativity has held a place of honor. even though we do not know the actual date. For the early Church of Rome, it was simply a date picked to conflict with the secular Roman feast of the unconquered sun, the equinox. In other words, for the Christians, the birth of Jesus, the birth of the Son of God, light of the world, replaced the secular celebration of the sun.
And so it has been ever since: We remember Jesus birth, not simply as the birth of a human person, but the birth of the one who became known by all as the Light of the World.
So, even though Easter and Pentecost are important feasts for our Church, the only reason we can celebrate these great days is because, as the Hebrew scriptures in the book of the prophet Isaiah proclaim, "A child is born to us, a son is given to us. they name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Prince of Peace. Had it not been for Jesus birth in the flesh, there would be no reason to celebrate any of the other feasts in our Catholic calendar.
It would seem to me then that all of us here on this night (day) are here because in some mysterious way we know that something sacred happened in our world on the day that child we name Jesus came to birth. So we celebrate it in all sorts of ways, some secular, some sacred: We write greeting cards, decorate trees with lights, visit friends, celebrate good meals, give gifts to one another. And we come here to celebrate the Eucharist together and to remember why all this is important to us.
What we are doing here at this very moment invites us to turn our minds back to the day when it all started, when a young mother gave birth to a Son, whom the Church later called Son of God, Image of the Eternal Father
So, whatever you may do on this night and this day, however you choose to celebrate this feast according to your habits and culture, it is a good and worthy thing you do. If it is important to each of us to be remembered for something on our birthday, so all the more, it is worth celebrating the birthday of Jesus. That day was the beginning of something big, something the world is still celebrating to this very day because it is such a great mystery. I'm sure Joseph and Mary, from their place in heaven, are happy too that we still remember their Son's birth each year. At Christmas each of us can become little children again, each of us can give gifts because Jesus Christ is the greatest gift our world has ever received.
Posted by Julie Galligan at 12:27 PM.
December 13, 2005
Fourth Sunday of Advent - House Hunting
I am sure most of you who have owned a home for a few years will tell me that your house (home) is the most important thing that you own. The people down in New Orleans have been saying that over and over since Hurricane Katrina. In the floods they lost not only their building but everything in it, along with all the memories. We keep a lot of things in our homes that are precious to us. If we lose the building, we lose practically everything.
Homes or houses, as we all know, also house our own histories. I'm sure you have memories of the house in which you grew up. I would think that this house probably formed your psyche, how you look at life even today. It wasn't just the house, of course, but every event that ever happened there, good and bad. Houses form our very character.
Some years ago I had the occasion to go back home: Well, almost home because the home where I grew up is not there any more. But it was important to me just to go back to the land where it once stood. I spent the better part of a day there just wandering around, letting memories flood back into my mind. I could even remember how certain events, some good and some not so good, have given me a sense of myself to this very day. Perhaps it was just as good that the house did not exist any more because it would probably have been in serious disrepair.
So, my point in all this is that the place where we were born, the place where our young consciences were formed are important to us. Unless we have roots to go back to, we will forever be wanderers on this earth, lost without foundations.
Well, my friends we come at last to the Fourth Sunday of Advent, and, as you might imagine, the scriptures will be nudging us closer to the feast of the Nativity which is only a week away.
But surprisingly, the scriptures for today are mostly about houses, houses for God, if you will, because the feast of the Incarnation is fundamentally about the fact that God has come, and will come eternally, to make his home with us.
Let us talk a little about houses, the houses we call temples, churches, chapels synagogues, mosques. Fundamentally, they are rather odd structures, not architecturally or structurally but odd in purpose. The question is this: Why should God
need a house anyway. You probably noticed that theme so clearly in the first reading from the Second Book of Samuel. There is a little political conversation going on between King David and the prophet Nathan. David is checking in with Nathan, his political and religious adviser, to see if it would be ok with God to build a temple in Jerusalem. At first Nathan says, "Sure, go ahead." But then, after consulting with God, Nathan decides that this would not be such a good idea because it was obvious to him that David did not want to build a temple to God, but rather to build a public edifice to honor himself and make himself look good and powerful with all the other kings of the Middle East who also had temples.
So, through Nathan, God says: "Look, for years I have not needed a house. I have been on the road, living in tents with my people ever since they came out of Egypt. Why do you now want to build me a temple?"
The point that God, through Nathan, wanted to make was that God truly lives among his people. That, in fact, is what the liturgy teaches us even today. God is with his people in the Eucharist, in the word proclaimed, in the minister of the Eucharist, but also in the hearts and minds of the people who have come to worship together.
The gospel backs the point of the first reading about God being eternally present with his people. Mary receives a message telling her that she will become the mother of God's Son, that God Himself, through the power of the Holy Spirit, will make his home with her and with all of us for all eternity.
When you think about all this, it is really pretty astonishing. God decides to make his home in the human body of a virgin so that he can be with the rest of humankind forever.
You might say, what is so significant about that? Well, what is important is that if God has taken up his home in the womb of the Virgin Mary, this makes each of our bodies, each of us personally a temple, a home for the Holy Spirit. That's a pretty astonishing realization if you think about it a little. It should make us think of our bodies in a whole different way, a sacred dwelling of God's Spirit.
I can remember some years ago, after celebrating the childrens' evening Mass of Christmas, standing near the Nativity scene, the crib, talking with folks. A little girl came up with her parents, and as she looked at the child Jesus in the crib and she asked her mother: "Where does Jesus live for the rest of the year?" That may sound like a naive question, but it is also a question with some very profound implications which only children could ask. If we don't know where Jesus Christ lives for the rest of the year, then Christmas ultimately does not make much sense.
The only answer I could have given to that little girl's question would have been something like this: "Well, true, Jesus is not in the crib for the whole year, but if you look around in church, you will see some people who come every Sunday to remember Jesus. That's the way Jesus chooses to stay with us all year long."
So, ultimately, I would have to say that God does not need a crib or a manger or a church, but God surely does need all of us. It will probably take a lifetime for us to get used to that mystery, but it's true nonetheless. Perhaps that's why it's all contained in the liturgy for the Fourth and last Sunday of Advent. We just need a little forewarning of the importance of the great feast we will celebrate next Sunday. It's almost too great a mystery to understand it completely just on Christmas.
So, when you go back to your homes today, whether they are large or small, whether they are a house or an apartment, think of them as the place where you bring Jesus every time you walk in the door. In that case, we would surely have to say that we have taken up residence with God or that God has taken up residence with us. Either way, that's really not such a bad option when you think about it.
The Scriptures: 2 Samuel 7: 1-5, 8b-12, 14a,16, Romans, 16:25-27, Luke 1:26-38
Posted by Julie Galligan at 09:57 AM.
December 05, 2005
Third Sunday of Advent - Everybody Waits, Including God
Most of us, at least those of us who are adults, probably feel that we pretty much have control over our lives. We have a mind, we have will power, we make decisions for or against things that pop up in our lives. That probably makes most of us feel pretty good. I guess, for the most part, most of us do have some control over our lives, or at least we would like to believe that we do.
But just think for a minute, about all the people who have control or at least some jurisdiction over you and your life. If you are a teenager, it's your parents. If you are a young adult in college, it's the professors. If you work for a living, as most of us do, you probably have a boss or at least an office manager who gives you orders or directions. Even those of us who are older often need someone to take care of us. Remember what Jesus said once to Peter. "Peter, when you were young, you used to go wherever you pleased and do what you liked. When you get old, someone else bind you and tell you where to go." (partly my own words!).
Then, of course, there are all the situations in the world we can't control and so we wait: Young couples can't wait for their first child. A mother waits patiently for nine months while the baby grows in her womb. Young people can't wait until they "grow up" and can leave home. Workers wait for a raise or a better job. Then, of course, there are always those annoying moments in daily life when we have nothing else to do except wait: The supermarket line, the light at the corner, the line at the bank, the appointment who is late.
At any rate, all of us are bound into systems of control: The police can tell us what to do, the courts can do the same. Even my bishop can tell me what to do, although he seldom does actually give me "orders." Even the church or the pope can tell us what to do and what not to do.
In short, if we are citizens and Christians, there will always be someone who will give us directions and even orders. It's the price we pay of being a citizen of this world. Perhaps it's even the price we pay for being human. We pay a price for growing up in life. It obviously doesn't happen all at once. Perhaps that is why we often find ourselves impatient with the pace of life. Nothing ever seems to happen quickly enough. Even this computer I am pounding away at never reacts as quickly as I would like it. So, I wait, and wait.
It occurred to me once that waiting is actually part of world history. The world itself and life in the world moves at it’s own pace and usually not quickly enough for us. Everything in the universe has been evolving slowly since the beginnings of creation and continues to do from moment to moment. But in the meantime the world waits for our work to fill it up, to fulfill it with goodness.
I've often even wondered if God waits? I suppose you'd have to say that God has no other choice than to wait for each of us to "get our act together." Perhaps we could say that God has been waiting for all eternity for the world or the universe to become what God has planned for it. It's a great mystery. We'll never understand it.
I think it would also be true to say that Jesus had to wait around a lot . He, obviously, had to wait around for his apostles to catch up with his ideas about the kingdom. He was always asking them whether they still didn't understand. We also know from Jesus' own words that he knew his own suffering and death were imminent, but could not do anything about that. So, he waited for the end to come.
Finally, I suppose we would have to say that Christ continues to wait for us, for his Church to become the Church which he hoped and planned it should become.
The Church, of course, is us. The Church only becomes what we make it become. So, Christ waits.
All these thoughts come to mind as I reflected on the scriptures for the Third Sunday of Advent. As Christians, we celebrate one season in the liturgical year which anticipates not Jesus' birth, because that has already happened long ago, but rather Christ's birth, the birth of the risen, resurrected Christ in the world every day. The word Advent itself means "a coming" or "a waiting for a coming."
So, what news do those two readings, one from Isaiah the prophet and the other from John the Baptist have for us in Advent? The message I read there is that time is short, time is always short and that life in this world is not a matter of simply waiting around for God to do things for us. Both Isaiah and John the Baptist tell us that while time is passing, while we are waiting, there are things to do. The world is waiting for us to "get our act together" and make God's kingdom come here and now. Isaiah said that the task for his time and for all time was to care for the poor, to heal the brokenhearted to give hope to prisoners and captives. In other words to proclaim that there is hope in this world if we can find it in ourselves to care for those who are unable to care for themselves.
John the Baptist says basically the same thing, in fact, he actually quotes lsaiah:"I am a voice crying out in the desert. Straighten out the Lord's highway. In other words, John the Baptist is telling us that our task in this world, while we are waiting, is to discern God's will, not simply in our own regard, but how we fit into the lives others, how we try to bring about peace and justice, compassion and care for people who depend on us for those virtues.
The point of all these words from Isaiah and John the Baptist is that the world we live in is still incomplete, it is always incomplete, always waiting for someone to make life more bearable, more just, more peaceful, more human.
All this does not simply happen in Advent season of course. Advent season is simply a short period in the liturgical year when we are reminded that time is always short and there is still lots to do to make the world a place where everyone is respected and treasured.
Finally, waiting may seem like a big fat boring time for many of us, something we can't do much about. But I always think of waiting like a room in a house that is completely empty, ready for us to fill it with furniture for life. So, the question comes to this: What are we doing while waiting, how are we filling up the spaces of our day with good works? If we can say that we have an answer to that, then there will never be another boring day. Every day we will be able to get up and say: "Well, Lord, what do you have in mind for me today?" And if we are willing to shut up and be quiet for a couple minutes God will have an answer. I'd be willing to bet on it.
The scriptures Isaiah 6: 1-2a, 10-11, 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24, John 1 : 6-8, 19-28
Posted by Julie Galligan at 03:39 PM.
