December 24: 4th Sunday of Advent: Season B

Paul T. Keil, 23 - 24 December 2023

4 ^th Sunday of Advent: Season B

Peace be with you and welcome to our celebration of the Mass for the 4 ^th Sunday of Advent and look at this – all four candles on our Advent Wreath are now burning brightly!!! And we all know what that means. Christmas is tomorrow (Monday). And for those of you with young children at home, I’m sure the excitement is ready to blow the roof off.

Before I talk about any of today’s readings however, I’d like to talk briefly about one of our old Church Fathers and a Doctor of the Church. St Irenaeus was born sometime between 120 and 140AD, probably in Smyrna, which is present day Izmir, Turkey, to Greek parents. In his youth he was taught by the Bishop of Smyrna, St Polycarp. He died a martyr, probably in Lyon, France around 200AD. So, you may be sitting there right now asking, “OK Deacon, why is any of this important today?” Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, our Catholic Church is the only worldwide religion that can relate this fact about one of her historical figures. In one of his books, St Irenaeus wrote, “I was taught by Polycarp, Polycarp was taught by John the Apostle, and John was taught by Jesus Christ.” Secondly, St Irenaeus was instrumental in fighting and defeating a powerful heresy attacking the early Church. And, my friends, had that battle been lost, we would not be worshiping here today, nor would any other Christian denomination for that matter.

OK, more about Irenaeus in a minute, but now let’s talk about the Gospel reading we just heard. Sisters and brothers, there are several reasons why this particular reading today from Luke’s Gospel, is one of my very favorites. One of those reasons specifically is why every single Christian, who embraces the Bible as the inspired Word of God, given to us for our salvation, should have this reading highlighted, underlined, or in some way marked in their own personal Bibles. Not only do we hear it read on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, but we also hear it read on the Feast of the Annunciation. OK, now that may be generating a few more mumbled “so what” out there. Well, you see friends, even though we’ll joyously celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ Monday (tomorrow), our ancient Christian Tradition teaches the actual Incarnation, the enfleshment of God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, occurred at the Annunciation. As far back as the Second Century, our old friend St Irenaeus and many, many other early Church Fathers wrote that Mary, as a second Eve repaired the disobedience of the first, when she humbly said; “May it be done to me according to your word.” Because at that very instant, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Savior of the World was conceived in her womb! That’s why our Church gives us a wonderful Liturgical Calendar celebrating the Annunciation on March 25 ^th , exactly nine months before Christmas. That’s when the Word became flesh.

Now you know, I don’t normally read long quotes during my homilies, but I cannot possibly express this miraculous event with the same eloquence the great St Irenaeus did over 1800 years ago. Before I read his words however, let me emphasize this, when he lived – there was no Bible. There were many epistles, letters, and gospels floating around, but there was no agreed upon, Divinely inspired book, called Bible. Here are Irenaeus’ words from about 190AD concerning the Annunciation; “Never was there a more entire or humiliating defeat than that which this day befell Satan. The frail creature, over whom he had so easily triumphed at the beginning of the world, now rises, and crushes his proud head. Eve conquers in Mary. God would not choose man for the instrument of His vengeance; the humiliation of Satan would not have been great enough; and therefore, she – who was the first prey of hell, the first victim of the tempter, is selected to give battle to the enemy. The result of so glorious a triumph is that Mary is to be superior not only to the rebel angels, but to the whole human race, yea, to all the angels of heaven. Seated on her exalted throne, she, the Mother of God, is to be the Queen of all creation. Satan, in the depths of the abyss, will eternally bewail his having dared to direct his first attack against the woman, for God has now so gloriously avenged her; and in heaven, the very Cherubim and Seraphim reverently look up to Mary, and deem themselves honored when she smiles upon them, or employs them in the execution of any of her wishes, for she is the Mother of their God.” Wow! Thank you, St Irenaeus. If that doesn’t make you want to run home and mark this Annunciation sequence in your Bibles, I’m not sure I can say anything else that would.

Now, you might ask why one of our earliest Church Fathers, from the Second Century, would write with such obvious passion about the physical Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ and his very human mother, Mary? You see, Irenaeus was one of the most vehement opponents of the very powerful and popular Gnostic Heresy that was threatening the early Church for several hundred years. The Gnostics held that everything physical in the world was inherently evil and that Jesus Christ himself, only “appeared” to be physically present during his short time on earth. They said, Jesus was actually a spiritual being only. Consequently, there was no way a physical human woman could possibly be called “Theotokos”, the God bearer, the Mother of God.

So, whether you come to one of the Christmas vigil Masses, the Christmas Day Mass, or watch the Mass streamed through your computer from home, remember, the real miracle we’re celebrating started nine months before Jesus’ actual birthday. And now, let me make a little suggestion, as one of your final reflections of the year, as Advent draws to a close. You might consider rereading this Gospel sequence we just heard today and reflect on the miracle taking place nine months before Christmas. A miracle brought about by the Holy Spirit with Mary’s freely given words of surrender to God’s will; “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

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Paul T. Keil, 18-19 July 2026 16 th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Season A Peace be with you and welcome to our celebration of the Mass for the 16 th Sunday in Ordinary Time. OK, some of you may remember I’ve said before, in Matthew’s Gospel, Chapters 5, 6, and 7 comprise the whole Sermon on the Mount, but did you know Chapter 13, where we are today, is often called the Sermon of the Parables. In this single chapter Matthew strings together seven separate parables from Jesus. Today we just heard numbers two, three, and four. Last weekend we heard the first one with the Parable of the Sower and what happens to the seeds scattered in different places. Next weekend you’ll hear the final three parables from Chapter 13 so, be sure to come back. So, what is Jesus saying in these readings. Last week we heard the parable about seeds as an allegory for Jesus’s words falling on a path and being eaten by birds, falling on rocky ground and withering with no roots, falling into thorns and being choked by life’s anxieties, and falling on fertile soil to bear fruit. Today we have Jesus giving us another parable about planting seeds and again, just like last week, Jesus’ disciples ask him to explain the parable. And since He stops to explain both parables about planting, he just might be trying to emphasize something important here for his disciples, and for us. One thing is clear in these parables however, God’s Kingdom will always coexist in this physical world with forces opposing it, like the wheat and the weeds growing together. Now many religious people struggle with this condition. Some see it as predestination. A weed in the wheat field or a seed in the rocks must represent people predestined to go to hell. That’s what it literally says, right? Still others ask in frustration; this is God we’re talking about, why does God’s Kingdom have to struggle with opposing forces at all? Why doesn’t God just get rid of the evil? Well, our old friend, St Thomas Aquinas wrote quite a bit about good and evil coexisting in our fallen world. He said sometimes the two are so tightly interwoven that you couldn’t have certain types of good without certain types of evil. For example, he said simply, “there would be no virtue of the martyr without the cruelty of the tyrant.” Friends, God delights in our freedom, our intelligence, and our cooperation when we freely make the decision to accept God’s love. Without free will we cannot choose to love. Jesus’ explanation of the wheat and weed parable certainly helps when he says; “The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels” and in the next verse he says; “The Son of Man will send his angels.” There is a very important take-away here every single Christian should remember. Eternal judgment belongs to God alone, not to anyone else – period. This is a consistent message Jesus gives us in all four Gospels but unfortunately, there are those who sometimes forget this simple divine fact about humanity’s relationship with the unlimited creator of the universe. We may perceive an individual as being bad or even intrinsically evil but judgment for their immortal souls belongs exclusively to God. I always like an old adage that goes like this, “if I ever get to heaven, I may be surprised by who I see there, and they may be even more surprised to see me.” I’ll admit, over the years for a long time, as I’ve meditated on this parable about weeds and wheat or last week’s parable about seeds, especially the ones falling into thorns choked by worldly anxiety, there was something always bothering me. You see, if we’re not careful both parables can make life, heaven, and hell sound kind of random or worse yet, they can make God’s love sound like it is exclusively reserved for preselected people. I know now however, there is nothing further from the truth. If you’ve lived life for a while and think back to times when you were say maybe,,, struggling in school, or first dating, or trying to make ends meet while raising a family, or competing for promotions at work, or trying to buy that first house, you realize there may have been times when your life wasn’t very spiritually fruitful. In fact, I now realize there were times in my own past when thoughts of God, salvation, or prayer were nowhere in my daily routine. I even wonder; was there a period in my life when I was one of those weeds or a seed in the thorns? Thankfully, with reflection on the whole of Scripture, guidance from the Church, and maybe some help from the Holy Spirit I realize now these parables are not “either / or” propositions. God doesn’t intentionally create some people as weeds and some people as wheat nor does God throw souls into the wind to randomly fall in the thorns, or on stony ground, or in fertile soil. If you’re not careful, you can come to those conclusions, however. You can read the Bible too narrowly and pick out verses here and there that help support your personal image of what you want God to be. Those tend to be the same people who like to do God’s judgment work for him. Here’s the thing; some of us here today may have actually spent some time as those ugly weeds but at some point, with God’s help, we decided to change and now we’re wheat growing in that good old fertile soil. My sisters and brothers, sin must never be viewed as a permanent state. Like we heard from the Book of Wisdom today, “you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.” This is the greatest gift of our Christian faith; God loves us all so much, even great sinners, God is always ready to forgive. So, here’s a challenge and homework for us all today. Most of us know people out there from all age groups, but especially some of our youth, who may be temporarily living life like the weeds in our parable today or maybe tangled in those thorns of life’s tribulations. First and foremost, we must be confident, sin is not a permanent state of life, second, we don’t judge, third, pray for them no matter how nasty they may seem. And finally, if we’re really, really brave, we offer them a hand to pull them up and out of the weeds, rocks, or thorns into God’s fertile soil.