A fitting celebration of Christmas demands preparation. It demands an effort to ponder the depth of the beauty and mystery of God’s love and truth poured out in this seismic event that took place in the fullness of time in the tiny town of Bethlehem. For this, we need a period of spiritual preparation. Hence, the church provides us with the four weeks of Advent.
This second week of Advent draws up before our eyes the vision of John the Baptist, mighty in word and deed, the great Forerunner of the Messiah. Mark’s Gospel paints for us an evocative picture of this desert-dwelling man, dressed in camel hair, living on locusts and honey, and proclaiming repentance. What do these details tell us about John the Baptist, and why is he so important for us, even today?
As we begin the season of Advent and a new liturgical year, our Gospel reading for this week is the traditional exhortation — keep watch. We begin each Advent remembering Christ will come again, yet we do not know specifically when Our Lord will return at the end of all things. Still, Jesus reminds us that we are like servants and door guards who know that the return is imminent. Thus, we ought to be ready at a moment’s notice to receive our master with all preparations and honor.
A peculiar feature of the early Israelite people, from the time of Moses to the time of the Judges, was that they had no earthly king. They had various kinds of leaders — priests, prophets, judges — who served as mediators through whom God led. But they had no king, because the Lord himself was the king of his people. It was for God and God alone to rule.
In 1849, at the age of 7, after making his first holy Communion, St. Dominic Savio wrote a series of resolutions in his personal notebook. He declared the following: “I will go to confession often, and to holy Communion as often as my confessor allows, I will keep Sundays particularly holy, my friends will be Jesus and Mary, and I will choose death rather than sin.”
All Saints’ Day is a great day for remembering who we are and who we’re meant to be.
A Pharisee asks Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” This question may not seem that difficult. What exactly is at stake?
St. Paul begins his letter to the Thessalonian community praising God and promising prayers for the Christians in that famous city: “We give thanks to God always for all of you, remembering you in our prayers, unceasingly, calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
One of the fastest ways to cut to the heart of Christ’s parables and understand what he intends, even through layers of symbolism, is to find the part of the parable that raises questions. This principle works well in the case of the parable of the wedding feast. Several strange details key us in to the fact that this is no ordinary wedding, and no ordinary set of invitations.
The parable Jesus tells in our Gospel today perfectly encapsulates the phrase: “Don’t shoot the messenger.” Jesus is palpably frustrated with the lack of faith and comprehension shown by the chief priests and elders. How could the chief priests reject God himself when he’s right in front of their noses? As a result, he tells the story of the vineyard owner who is wronged by his tenant farmers: First they steal his produce, then they hurt his servants and messengers, and finally even put his son to death. It’s a story of unbelievable proportions, or so it seems. At the end, Jesus puts the question to his hearers: What would you do if you were the vineyard owner? Their answer is simple: Put those wicked men to death.
