Sacred Heart Parish

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SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

  1. Cardinal John Henry Newman, a revered 19th Century scholar and churchman in Great Britain, once composed a brief, unsophisticated act of faith which somebody set to music; it is found among the hymns in the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours. “Firmly I believe and truly”, Newman writes, “God is Three and God is One.” This is the foundational truth of our Catholic faith, the necessary mystery of our Three-Personed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Newman then moves on to the absolutely free mystery of the Incarnation. (What is meant by free mystery? God’s Triune existence ever was and ever will be; there did not have to be the free mystery of the first Christmas.) Newman then writes – “And I next acknowledged duly mankind taken by the Son.” In other words, as St. Augustine expresses it, “He who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our short day of time”. This then leads Newman into the mystery of the Redemption – “And I trust and hope most fully in that Mankind crucified, and I love supremely, solely, the Christ who for my sins has died.” To quote our responsorial psalm – “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.” But why does Newman believe these truths? He tells us in stanza three: “And I hold in veneration for the love of Christ alone, Holy Church as His creation and her teachings as His own.” We have, then, the great truths of the Trinity, Incarnation, Redemption and the Holy Spirit. At the Advent-Christmas Liturgies, the Incarnation comes center-stage.

  2. The English word “incarnation” means “becoming flesh”, “taking on our humanity”. And so we read in John’s Gospel – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Christ Jesus, the very Son of God from all eternity, equal in divinity to the Father and Holy Spirit, at a particular moment in human history took on our humanity without ceasing to be his divine self and became like us in all things except sin. As we reflect on this mystery of faith and seek to grow in understanding, we praise God for his love and goodness as we ask the question – Why the Incarnation? Why did God the Son take on our humanity and enter truly into our human history? The Advent-Christmas Liturgies answer this question in different ways. They speak to us about a wondrous exchange between God and ourselves. For example, listen to the following antiphon – “What wondrous exchange: our Creator, taking on body and soul, in his kindness has been born from the Virgin Mary, and coming forth as Man, He has made us sharers in his divinity.” You and I, of course, do not cease to be our human selves, but now we share in God’s life through the grace and virtues of faith, hope and love.

  3. Thomas Aquinas gives us a 3-fold response to our question – Why the Incarnation? The Lord Jesus came among us to free us from our sins. The Lord Jesus came among us to bear witness to the truth. The Lord Jesus comes among us to show us the way to the Father. In our Opening Prayer today, we have asked for the grace to open our hearts in welcome and to remove from those hearts whatever hinders us from receiving Christ with joy. If we do not experience ourselves as sinners, we will never come to understand the meaning of Christmas. Just think about the various titles we give to the Lord Jesus. We call him Savior; but why call him Savior if we are not lost without him? We call him Redeemer; but why call him Redeemer if he did not come to free us from the power of sin and death? If we do not grasp the truth that we are lost apart from Christ, why would we ever bother with the Liturgy?

  4. Christ came into the world to bear witness to the truth. St. Augustine writes in his Confessions that he had lost all faith and was in deep despair of ever finding the truth. He examined all the philosophers and God enabled him to realize that philosophers, good and beautiful as they are, were really those who could see where to go without knowing the way of truth which is Christ. Has not God given us two wings, faith and reason, that we may rise to the contemplation of the truth? God places in our hearts a desire to know the truth, that is, to know and love God who is truth and is love, and by knowing and loving God we will come to know the truth about ourselves.

  5. The Lord Jesus came among us to show us the way that will lead us to the Father. As St. Paul reminds us – Through Christ Jesus we have access in the Holy Spirit to God the Father. As we ask all the big questions about our faith – Why did God create the world in the first place? Why did God the Father send his Son into our history? Why did the Lord Jesus have to suffer death on the cross? There is but one answer to these questions. It’s all a question of God’s love. God cannot act out of self-interest. To love means to give; to love means to will the good of the one who is loved. This is why John the Evangelist tells us – We ought to love God because God first loved us.

  6. Once again a new liturgical season has begun. Once again we are privileged to reflect on the Lord Jesus in his mysteries, in all that he has done and in all that he continues to do for us and for our salvation. We say of the Lord Jesus – Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man. As such, he is our mediator. In fact, he is our perfect mediator. As perfectly divine, he is on God’s side of things. As perfectly human, he is on our side. As our mediator, he makes us one with the Father. As the Father’s mediator, he makes the Father one with us. As we reflect on Christ as our mediator, we think of him as truly man, truly the God-Man, and truly God. Augustine’s words can be of great help to us – “He who is God was made man, in taking that which he was not but without losing that which he was. Thus God became Man! Herein you have what is needful to your weakness. And herein you have also what is needful to your holiness of life. May Christ raise you by his ‘Being’ as man; may Christ guide you by his ‘Being’ as the God-Man; may Christ bring you to his ‘Being’ as God!”