THE SUNDAY COLLECTS: THE SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Almighty and merciful God,
may no earthly undertaking hinder those
who set out in haste to meet your Son,
but may our learning of heavenly wisdom
gain us admittance to his company.

The Second Sunday of Advent is one big ethical imperative and all three years of the Lectionary for Mass, along with all the prayers for this Sunday, echo the words of John the Baptist:  Prepare the way!  Make Straight the Path!

The words of the Baptist have meaning not just for those who awaited the coming of Jesus the Messiah.  They also have meaning for us who await his coming in glory at the end of time.  We too must be watchful and alert, as the Lord reminds us in the Gospel today.  The last thing we want to do is to be found sleeping when he returns in glory!  So now is the acceptable time to prepare for his coming and to watch!

Today’s collect has been part of the Advent Liturgy since the ninth century Gelasian Sacramentary, and some would trace it to as early as the parish Churches of Rome two hundred years earlier.

Even way back then, they heard the call of Advent to prepare their hearts by purifying them of distractions.  And how many distractions we know in the weeks before Christmas!  That’s why we brg the Lord to let neither Christmas cards, nor Christmas gifts, nor lists, nor parties, nor worries over in-laws hinder us from the real work at hand: setting forth in haste to meet his Only-Begotten Son who is coming!

The prayer asks that God free us of every earthly distraction and just keep our eyes fixed on Christ who is coming.  It reminds me of the old Gospel spiritual sung during the days of the civil rights movement.  You’ve seen the old pictures of marchers struggling for equal rights for all persons regardless of the color of their skin.  As they marched across the Edmund Pettus bridge in Montgomery, the crowds howled at them and the dogs strained at their leashes, fangs bared.  I often wondered how they had the courage to go on.  But like the old spiritual says, they kept their eyes on the prize:

Paul and Silas, bound in jail

Had no money for to go their bail

Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

Paul and Silas began to shout

Doors popped open, and they walked out

Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

Got my hand on the freedom plow

Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now

Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on!

They kept their eyes on the prize: on Jesus, who came to set all men free!  On Jesus.  Nothing else could deter Saint Paul, Saint Silas or the freedom marchers from getting to see thier Lord.

And the same thing should be true of us in these weeks leading up to Christmas.  We can let nothing distract us, nothing hold us back from running out to welcome Jesus into our hearts.  For, as the prayer reminds us, our our ultimate goal is clear: through heavenly wisdom to be admitted to the company of the Saints in heaven.

From whence does this heavenly wisdom come?  From Christ, who is the Word made flesh, the truth, the Wisdom of God.  When we know him, when we love him, when we become like him, we will be worthy to be counted in the company of the first-born of many brothers.

Almighty and merciful God,
may no earthly undertaking hinder those
who set out in haste to meet your Son,
but may our learning of heavenly wisdom
gain us admittance to his company.

Stay Awake!

First Sunday of Advent

Homily

So this Father leaves home on a business trip, and puts his kids in charge.

And some of them, not expecting him to be back right away, break into the liquor cabinet, take his car for a spin, max out his credit cards, and just generally have a good old time for themselves.  Then, when they get tired of all that, they fall asleep on the couch with the TV blaring.

Meanwhile, some of them, expecting his imminent return, decide to mow the lawn, pick up their rooms, trim the hedges, rake the leaves, wash the car, and rack up any number of good deeds.  They are wide awake, looking down the road for the first sign of his returning car.  Ready to run out to greet him, their arms brimming with good deeds.

And what will happen to the kids on the couch?  And what will happen to the one who can’t wait for their Father to come home?  That’s the story of Advent.

The Lord Jesus, born in a crib and crucified on a cross for our salvation, has ascended to his Father in heaven and left us in charge.  And we, like the kids in the story, have two choices.

Seeking Self

We can say to ourselves, “Oh, he’s not coming back right away!  And I’m not going to die for a long, long time, maybe even never!”  So,let’s  eat, drink and be merry!  Make as much money as we can, become the biggest and most successful and most powerful on the block!  Grab for all the gusto we can stuff into our oversized egos, for he who dies with the most toys wins!

And what will it be like for such people when their master returns?

They will be like the rich man who ignored the beggar Lazarus....consigned to far off Hades in anguish and torment forever, “where the worm knowns no death and the fire never goes out!” (Mark 9:46)

They will be like the damned at the last judgement, asking “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison,  and not take care of you?  And he will reply: “what you did not do for them, you did not do for me...Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

In other words, we can choose to burn in hell.

Seeking Holiness

Or, we can say to ourselves, recalling the word of Jesus in today’s Gospel, “We don’t know when the time will come...any moment now, he could “rend the heavens and come down.”  (To that point, by the way, twenty five people died in Dicoese of Worcester this week.  And most were 93, 86, 94, or the like.  But then there was the man is Ashburnham who was 31, or Kenny who was 65, or Charles who just tunred 57, and Peter at 55, or Rebecca at 48....or you....or me....we know not the day nor the hour. )

And with that in mind, we recall that the last thing he said before he ascended to the Father was “Go out to all the world and spread the good news....love one another as I have loved you...whatever you do for the least!”  

So, from the time we get up and the time we go to bed, we can expect the master’s return and want more than anything for him to, in the words of Isaiah the Prophet, “meet us doing right.”  With the urgency of an expectant people, we can seek only to love, to pray, to empty ourselves of selfishness and sin, ever-anxious to run out to meet him when he returns, ever-anxious to tell him about all the good things we’ve done in his name!

And what will it be like for such people when their master returns?

Such people will not dread the Lord’s return to judge the living and the dead.  They will look forward to it!  They will, as Saint Cyril once preached, “wait in hope of his second coming....[knowing that they will] repeat at his last coming [what was proclaimed at his first]: Running out with the angels to meet the Master [they] shall cry out in adoration, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord'.”

Story

I think the first time I understood this essential optimism of the children of God, was in second grade.  It was the day on which I got the only gold star on a paper that I ever received.  I think I felt prouder that day than I have at any graduation or the reception of any reward or honor since.

I ran home to show my mother, who kissed me and put the blue lined yellow paper with the gold star on the refrigerator.  But I ripped it down and ran out to the couch and knelt there with my nose against the window as I waited fro my Father to return from work.  I watched and watched for him for what seemed like seventeen years!  Then finally, I saw his old red truck coming down the dirt road and I heard the sound of it coming up the gravel driveway.

I ran out that screen door like a shot and, smiling from ear to ear, I waved my gold-starred paper before him to show him how wonderful his son really was!  And you know what, he laughed and smiled and swooped me up into his arms and told me I was just as wonderful as I thought I was.  And we went in and had a wonderful supper.

That’s why we celebrate the season of Advent, declaring to a world filled with such darkness and gloom and selfishness confidence of the children of God in our ability to perform righteous deeds and in the love of our merciful Savior.  So when he comes, my dearly beloved bothers and sisters, you need not hide under the couch in fear that he will find out about this or that!  No. When you hear that last trumpet, gather up all your righteous deeds and run out to meet him!  “so that, gathered at his right hand, [you] may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom.”

WBUR Interview on the new Roman Missal

Bob Oakes of WBUR, the National Public Radio station at Boston University, recently interviewed Monsignor Moroney on the new translation of the Roman Missal.  To hear the interview, please click here.

THE SUNDAY COLLECTS: FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Next Sunday, we will pray the following freshly translated Collect, or opening prayer, at Mass:

Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, 

the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ 

with righteous deeds at his coming,
so that, gathered at his right hand,

they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom. 

This first Collect of Advent is at least 1100 years old and is first used as an Advent post communion prayer in the old Gelasian Sacramentary. The prayer is in two acts, each inspired by Jesus’ words in Matthew 25.

Ten Virgins Went Out To Meet the Bridegroom

Act one is the ten wise and foolish virgins, who “took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.” (Matthew 25:1.)  This story was so popular in the early days of the Church that it was painted on the walls of a Baptistry in a remote Roman outpost in Syria in the late second and early third century.  We see the virgins with their lamps lit (they were the ones who brought the extra flasks of oil) going out to meet the bridegroom.

Several hundred years later, the Church adopts today’s prayer which asks the Father to give us to resolve to run fourth (occurentes) to meet the Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus, when he returns to his Bride, the Church at the end of time to judge the living and the dead.

But as the foolish virgins learned the hard way, we should not go out to meet him empty handed. We have our lamps, first lit in our hearts when at Baptism when we were told to “keep the flame of faith alive” in our hearts so that “when the Lord comes, we may go out to meet him with all the saints in the heavenly kingdom.”

But what oil shall we use to keep this flame burning until the bridegroom returns to lead us home?  Today’s prayer tells us.  Our oil are the “righteous deeds” (iustis operibus) of our lives.  All the virtuous acts you have done, all the sacrifices you have offered, all the prayers you have prayed, all the sacraments you have celebrated, all the crosses you have carried should be gathered up in your arms that you might run out to meet the Lord with the confidence of the children of God, your arms brimming with righteous deeds!

The Sheep and the Goats

The second part of the prayer is also inspired by the words of the Lord in Matthew 25, the story of what will happen at the end of the world.  Recall how at the end of the world the Lord will return in glory upon a cloud, accompanied by his angels, and the dead will rise.  We will stand before the Lord and be separated based on the way we have lived our lives, separated as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  The sheep will be gathered at his right hand and the goats at his left.

“Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’” (Mt 25: 34)

This is what the Collect today is longing for when it asks that we be “gathered at his right hand, [that we] may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom.”

Story

What helped me the most to understand this ancient prayer was recalling an experience I had when I was in second grade.  It was the day on which I got the only gold star on a paper that I ever received.  I think I felt prouder that day than I have at any graduation or the reception of any reward or honor since.

I ran home to show my mother, who kissed me and put the blue lined yellow paper with the gold star on the refrigerator.  But I ripped it down and ran out to the couch and knelt there with my nose against the window as I waited fro my Father to return from work.  I watched and watched for him for what seemed like seventeen years!  Then finally, I saw his old red truck coming down the dirt road and I heard the sound of it coming up the gravel driveway.

I ran out that screen door like a shot and, smiling from ear to ear, I waved my gold-starred paper before him to show him how wonderful his son really was!  And you know what, he laughed and smiled and swooped me up into his arms and told me I was just as wonderful as I thought I was.  And we went in and had a wonderful supper.

That’s what the prayer’s about: about a world that needs to be confident in its righteous deeds and in the love of a merciful Savior.  And when he comes, they need not hide under the couch in fear that he will find out about this or that!  No.  They could gather up all their righteous deeds and run out to meet him!

Or, as the Church has been praying for most of her life and she prays today:

Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, 

the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ 

with righteous deeds at his coming,
so that, gathered at his right hand,

they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom.

This reflection is part of a yearlong series of reflections on The Sunday Collects appearing on CatholicTV.  

The New and Eternal Word now available on DVD!

In the original, 12-part CatholicTV Network series, The New and Eternal Word, Monsignor James P. Moroney explores how the Church celebrates the Holy Mass in our day. In particular, he examines how a new Missale Romanum and a new English translation of these prayers can draw us more deeply into the words and rites of the Mass.

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Roman Missal at Saint John's Seminary

I was honored to share my reflections on the new Roman Missal with the faculty and seminarians of Saint John’s Seminary.  If you would like to download my slides, please click one of the following links: 

Ars Celebrandi   

Translation    

Rhetorical Forms

Make sure to check out the resources in the column to the right of this posting as well!

Profound Preaching at the Liturgical Institute

I was privileged to offer some reflections at the Liturgical Institute in Chicago last week.  I offered a series of four talks as a part of the Profound Preaching series.  Please click the following links to download Quicktime videos of the slides from this series:

Ars Celebrandi and the Homily   

Hermeneutics and the Homily   

Preaching the New Roman Missal   

Preaching Advent: A Case Study