Wednesday, December 14, 2011

12/18/2011 – Homily - 4th Sunday of Advent - Cycle B – Luke 1:26-38


         The book I am holding up, The Quest for the Living God, by Sister Elizabeth Johnson of the Sisters of St Joseph, may look innocent enough.  It was published in 2007, but didn’t get a lot of attention until March of this year, when the bishops here in the US issued a statement on this book, saying that they had grave concerns about its theology, cautioning against its use in Catholic educational institutions in our country.  However, Sister Elizabeth Johnson responded to the bishops by saying that her book was not meant to an academic document, or an official statement of Catholic doctrine, but rather a look at how people in our modern world today experience God in their lives.  And we do experience God very differently, depending upon our personalities, our interests, our culture, and the way we live our lives.  One of the chapters in this book talks about the God of fiesta, how the Hispanic community experiences God in their lives.  Boy, can I relate to that.  As you all know, when we celebrated Our Lady of Guadalupe with our Hispanic community here in Yazoo City, we had mass at 11 pm, and I did not get to bed until 3 in the morning after the joyful, energetic fiesta we had after mass.  The Hispanic community would not have dreamed of celebrating the feast day of Our Lady with food and merriment.  That is how they see God interacting with their lives. 
         We are coming to an end to our Advent journey on this 4th Sunday of Advent.  Next weekend we will have our Christmas eve and Christmas day masses.  Hopefully, all of us have listened to the messages we’ve received in our readings during this Advent season to be alert and to stay awake, not only in anticipation of Christ’s birth into our world as a little baby in the manger in Bethlehem, but also as we await Christ’s second coming.  And we have heard John the Baptist these past couple of weeks tell us to make straight a path for the Lord in our lives;  we have heard John give testimony about the light of Christ that will shine in the midst of the darkness of our world. 
         Today, we hear about the Virgin Mary’s experience of God in her life, as the Angel Gabriel comes to her in the Annunciation, telling her that she will bear a child who will be the Son of God, the Son of the Most High.  Yet, Mary relates this news to the reality of her life.  How can this be, she wonders?  How can this young teenager, who has followed all the rules, who is getting ready to marry Joseph, be pregnant if she has been true and faithful and still a virgin?  She is troubled at first at the words that she hears.  She does not understand how this can be happening. I am sure she is wondering what impact this will have on her life, on her future.
         Mary responds to the experience of God in her life, to the reality that faces her.  Mary ultimately accepts God’s will in her life,  she responds to his message with faith and with grace.  Yet, so many of us in the modern world wonder where God is in the midst of everything that is going on in our lives.  Not only in the midst of our own daily reality, of all the struggles and personal demons we must each confront, but also in the midst of the chaos, violence, and turbulence of the world around us.  Last summer, I had an email forwarded to me from a young man who lives in the Fonderan neighborhood of Jackson, an area where a lot of young people hang out.  This young man wrote:  “I just don’t understand…the more I search, the less I find.  I don’t understand how people can believe in whatever they believe in and be confident (that) what they believe is the truth….I can’t accept anything without knowing for sure it’s true.”  This young man goes on to say that he just doesn’t understand what we mean by the term “faith.”  He sees faith as a cop-out from having to provide legitimate proof.  With our modern technology and reliance on science and reason, so many people in our world today want an answer that explains everything.  They cannot accept something if its not explained 100% by reason or science.  They want to see and touch; they want the facts; they want to be able to rationally explain something in order to believe it and accept it. 
But for us as Catholics, we can have faith, we can believe, because we do experience God in our lives.  And those experiences can be subtle and sublime, but they are very, very real.  Maybe we don’t have an angel coming to us like the Virgin Mary had the Angel Gabriel, but I but that at certain times in our lives we’ve all had human angels come to us with a kind word or a helping hand.  God isn’t a concept that is nebulous and way out there, up in the heavens.  God isn’t just a bunch of rules, or commandments, or Church doctrine that is summarized in a document coming out of Rome.  God is real, and he comes to us in those everyday experiences we have in life.
         Elizabeth Johnson responded to the criticism she received regarding her book, saying that it gives her the opportunity to delve more deeply into the way we are all is trying to better understand the mystery that is God.  If we had all the answers, there wouldn’t be anything more written about God or about our faith.  We would just take the works written by our Church Fathers, such as St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, and there wouldn’t be any further discussion or research.  But, our faith seeks understanding in the way we experience God in our lives, in the ways we try to live out our faith.  We have faith, but we search and ponder and react to God in the midst of our reality.
         Mary said yes to the will of God in her life.  That “yes” was not the end of the story, but rather a new beginning.  In a week, Jesus will be born into our world.  Our Advent period of preparation will end.  However, our experience of God in our lives will continue.  

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