2014 was an interesting year for the Church of Christ.
In 2014, both Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II were added to
the list of canonized saints, and after the confirmation of a medically
unexplainable miracle attributed to his intercession, Pope Paul VI was
beatified as well.
In 2014, Pope Francis declared a “Year of Consecrated Life”, that
we may all come to a deeper appreciation for the ways consecrated monks and
nuns exemplify Gospel values, and a deeper commitment in our own lives to
seeking Gospel perfection.
While bishops and lay people were meeting in Rome for the
Extraordinary Synod on the Family, Pope Francis in a stroke of diplomatic
genius was meeting with representatives from the US and Cuba helping to end a
decades-old standoff.
In 2014, The Diocese of Cleveland, the 20th largest
diocese in the United States comprising around 750,000 Catholics continues to
be the largest Catholic diocesan system of social services, not only in the
country, but in the world, through family and community services, services for
persons with disabilities, services for the working poor, unemployed, homeless,
refugees, elderly, chronically ill, those with mental health problems and
addictions.
In 2014, not counting the 700,000 infants baptized, about 100,000
adults entered the Catholic Church just in the United States. In fact, there are 15 million more Catholics
in 2014 than the previous year.
However, this year also had its tragedies. Hundreds of thousands of Christians in the
middle East were displaced because of persecution, violence and conflict. 2014 saw more global persecution of
Christians than any other year in recent history. School girls were kidnapped by slave traders in
Nigeria, Meriam Ibrahim was beheaded in Sudan for converting from Islam; hundreds of Christian girls were kidnapped in
Pakistan, thousands of Christians were displaced in Central African Republic.
Yet, in these places, faith still perdures. One Iraqi Christian
forced to leave her home said, “I had to leave everything I owned behind. We
have nothing to our name and will probably never be able to return to our home.
But we are encouraged, because we know that Christians around the world have
not forgotten about us."
On this first day of the Year of Our Lord 2015, while much of the
world is sleeping off hangovers, the Church gathers in the communion of Faith
to celebrate this Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God—to learn from the
school of Mary. For she always presents
us with a pattern of living for the days ahead. When we look to her example and
entrust ourselves to her intercession, the future is always bright.
Today, I would like to focus on
three words from the beautiful passage from the Gospel of Luke, three words
which give us three lessons about the spiritual life.
The first word is “haste”. After they receive the message from the angel
about, the Shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph. This echoes an earlier passage, after Mary
hears from the angel that Elizabeth was with-child, Mary goes in haste to help
her. Here is an important lesson from
the school of Mary. Once God’s will for
you becomes clear, once the opportunity for doing God’s will presents itself,
do it in haste.
One of the tragedies in the
spiritual life is when we let the opportunity pass us by, out of fear, or
laziness, not wanting to upset our comfort.
So we doddle. We know we should
pray, but we make excuses, we know we should visit a lonely neighbor, but we
set it aside for later, we know we should get more involved in some sort of
volunteer service, but we ignore the inspiration, and then forget about
it.
God gives us many opportunities in this life to
know, love, and serve Him. This year,
let us be more attentive and quicker to act on those opportunities to work for
peace in our families, to reconcile, to help; let us be quicker to pray,
quicker to hold our tongues in times of impatience.
The second word from the gospel
today is “astonished”. After they had
visited the newborn Christ-child, they went about and made known the message,
and All were “astonished” at what the shepherds told them. Perhaps you were astonished at some of the
facts I presented at the beginning of my homily. God working through people like Pope Francis
and ordinary Catholics in the Diocese of Cleveland—astonished that, even in
these modern times, Christians are being persecuted and put to death for their
faith. Astonished that evil still has
the run of things.
It was astonishing to many that God
intervened in the lives of the poor shepherds, and this poor couple from this
tiny town called Nazareth visiting the tinier town of Bethlehem. It’s
astonishing that God does intervene in history, even now. God does work in
people’s lives to bring them out of the darkness of sin. God continues to bring people to Christian
faith, and to give them strength in times of trial.
God breaks into history and into
ordinary human lives in an astonishing way in Jesus Christ. We have a God of surprises, of astonishment,
be open this year to new experiences of doing God’s will and knowing God’s love
for you. This year, pray that you may be
astonished by God, to be more attentive to the ways he is acting in history,
how he wants to act in your life in ways that you may or may not expect.
The third word is “treasured”. Mary kept all these things; she treasured
these things, reflecting on them in her heart.
If it is true what Socrates said, that the unexamined life is not worth
living, Mary shows us the key to a happy, worthwhile life. She reflected about the announcement from the
angel, she contemplated the God-man in her own womb, she treasured the strange
visitors who came bringing gifts and glad tidings to her new born son; she
turned these holy events over in her mind and heart, she looked at their
causes, their implications, pondered them, treasured them, gave God thanks for
them.
Sometimes the dryness or boredom or
unhappiness we experience in life is from a failure to treasure, to reflect, to
ponder, and to give thanks. Perhaps 2014
for you was a dry year, an empty year, a sorrowful year. I encourage you to take another look. Look at the good people who have touched your
lives, the ways that God has stretched you to become the person he made you to
be.
Perhaps, on reflection, there is a
nagging feeling that maybe you should be more involved in service, in prayer,
in reaching out to others. Perhaps, upon
reflection, there were mistakes made this year.
Treasure the ability to learn from those mistakes, and try again, with
God’s help.
Let this New Year be a new start
once again, of being open to doing God’s will in haste, of being astonished at
his activity in our lives, and treasuring our opportunity to work for the glory
of God and salvation of souls.
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