December 4, 2011
Homily: Second Sunday of Advent
"A holy 'fear of the Lord'"
Most Rev. James D. Conley, S.T.L., Auxiliary Bishop of Denver, delivered the following homily for the First Sunday of Advent at Mother of God Catholic Church in Denver, Colorado.
Because Christmas falls on a Sunday this year, we have the privilege of celebrating four full weeks of Advent, an occurrence that happens only once every seven years. We all know how very quickly the season of Advent passes, so having these few extra days to prepare for Christmas is a great blessing.
But times’ winged chariot marches on and waits for no one. Will we be better prepared for the coming of the Lord on Christmas and in our own spiritual lives with the extra time? This is the reason for the urgency in today’s readings for this 2nd Sunday of Advent.
For to the Lord: “one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day” Saint Peter reminds us in today’s second reading.
And while the Lord is, indeed, patient with us, “not wishing any should perish,” the day of the Lord will come, my brothers and sisters, like a thief in the night – “and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be found out.”
My friends, these are frightening words! But “fear of the Lord” is not necessarily a bad thing! All that is hidden, all secrets, all that lies deep in our hearts will be laid bare, exposed and revealed in the end. In the words of Saint Peter, so that we might even now become the sort of persons we ought to be, “conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God… eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.”
Sometimes it takes fear to motivate us! Amen?
Today we hear that mysterious and fearful voice crying out in the desert, the voice that Isaiah spoke of in our first reading: “I am sending my messenger ahead of you… prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!”
That mysterious and fearful voice was prophetically fulfilled in the person of Saint John the Baptist who “appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Saint Mark tells us that he was “clothed in camel’s hair with a belt around his waist. He fed on locusts and wild honey.” Now there is one frightful character! How would you like to meet John the Baptist face to face! What would you say to him?
And the question for us today is this: are we ready? Are we ready to meet the Lord if he called us today! That is the question of today’s Mass!
In this Advent, our holy Mother Church is inviting us to renew our Eucharistic faith, which is the heart and soul of our Catholic personality and spirituality. As you know, last Sunday we started using the new edition of the Roman Missal and the new translation of our Mass prayers. So far, I think it has gone over well. I celebrated the 6:30pm Mass at the Cathedral last Sunday and when I greeted people at the door, there were a lot of positive comments. I saw and heard some of you, here at Mother of God, who were interviewed on channel 31 and your comments were good. Change is hard; we all know that. A gentleman came up to me at the Cathedral and said, “Bishop, I like the new words. I had a couple of ‘check swings,’ but I think I am going to get it down eventually.”
This new translation marks an important moment in the life of the Church — and it should be an important moment in our own faith lives, a moment of grace and a moment of conversion; a gift to our generation.
It is a time for us to once more restore a sense of reverence in our worship and in our lives, and to rediscover the transcendence of the divine and eternal liturgy.
Blessed John Henry Newman believed that reverence is an essential quality of true Christian faith, because reverence is rooted in the recognition of God’s true and living presence — which, he said, should inspire in us a spirit of awe and a spirit of holy fear and love.
Newman once wrote:
In heaven, love will absorb fear; but in this world, fear and love must go together. No one can love God aright without fearing him; though many fear him, and yet do not love him. …. We cannot understand Christ’s mercies till we understand his power, his glory, his unspeakable holiness, and our demerits; that is, until we first fear him.i
We are not comfortable anymore in our Church with the language of “fear” in relation to God. That’s too bad. Because as Newman would remind us, again and again the Scriptures teach us, a holy fear of the Lord is one of the gifts of the Spirit, and the beginning of wisdom and holiness. I really think those who heard John the Baptist preach were instilled with a holy fear of the Lord, a holy fear that moved their hearts to change and repentance.
To fear the Lord and to love him means simply being honest— about who God is, and who we are by comparison. Think about the awesomeness of these sacred mysteries we celebrate, think about what is really going in this celebration of the Holy Eucharist. It should make us tremble at our presumption, at our unworthiness. It should make us love — and live — with grateful hearts.
Newman put it this way:
The Mass is not a mere form of words — it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom Angels bow and devils tremble.ii
What an amazing privilege it is to be allowed to enter God’s House and the City of the Living God, to be able to worship in the company of his holy Angels!
Our new English translation restores this sense of reverence, awe and fear, just at the moment before we receive Holy Communion by recalling the faith of the humble Centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”
So as we continue in our celebration of these sacred mysteries — this greatest of actions that we can ever make on earth, this evocation of the Eternal, this communion with his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity — let us thank the Almighty God for the gift of his Son and the gift of our Catholic faith. And let us pray for the grace to renew our sense of holy fear and love, our sense of reverence, our sense that we are always living in the light of God’s presence and love.
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” We may need to change a few things in our lives. But to live here below is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.
The coming of Christ into our lives this Advent and Christmas should be a game-changer in our lives. The Incarnation, must become the pattern of our lives. Our life in Christ is one ongoing daily conversion, a lifelong pilgrimage to holiness. To live here below is to change but to be always changing with an eye toward perfection in Christ Jesus. To be perfect, to be the men and women that God intended by sending his only Son to save us, is the goal of our lives. It is the work of our lives. May it be so!
Footnotes:
i. Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 1, serm. 23 (“Christian Reverence”).
ii. Loss and Gain, Chap. 20, 327.
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