Friday Coffin Break #6 Starve the Viper, Grow the Fruit

Happy First Friday of Advent! Welcome to this weekend’s Little Triduum and the opportunity to contemplate whether we would rather be timidly zig-zagging through a viper-infested, rock-strewn desert, or straightforwardly strolling a lush, fruit-laden, orchard.

Let us consider Sunday’s upcoming readings in the Light of the Grave:

This Sunday's Gospel is Matthew 3: 1-12 (from the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said:

            “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

            Prepare the way of the Lord,

            Make his paths straight.”

Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sad’ducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “you brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit that befits repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Jarred by the stern words of Saint John the Baptist, we must ponder the possibility that we not only have the power to transform that danger-filled desert into a teeming garden but we are, essentially, going to be an eternal component of one or the other. Each moment of our lives we are either mostly viper or mostly fruit tree.

Do people seek us out as a source for nourishment and greater life, or avoid us in fear of little injections of poison?

There are better days and worse days. Today can be a better day; a day of sacrifice and good work, a repentant self-pruning of sorts to make way for the healthy new growth from which might hang life-giving nourishment for the people God brings to our orchard – the people and the encounters which become more and more vivid as earthly life dims and Eternity comes increasingly into focus.

“May the God of endurance and encouragement
grant you to think in harmony with one another,
in keeping with Christ Jesus”

Blessed Second Sunday of Advent, Everybody!

Friday Coffin Break #5 From a Tryptophaned Thanksgiving to Vigilant Living

I was halfway through a slice of pie and a cup of coffee this morning when the calendar began to take hold. Well, I knew it was Friday, but I did not think of it as FRIDAY; as in the beginning of a Little Triduum, intentionally organized around a penitential period meant to create a hunger for the culminating Sunday Feast of Our Lord’s Resurrection. Kind of fitting, in a none-too-personally-impressive sort of way, given that this Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent.

So, if at first you don’t succeed and all that, let us consider the upcoming readings in the Light of The Grave:

This Sunday's Gospel is Matthew  24: 37-44 (from the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)

As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man.

Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and not let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

I call these weekly reflections “coffin breaks” not only as a play on words, but that they might be a prompt to dam the downpour of disordered desires that drown our attention as days stream into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years, until we are harshly confronted with the fact that this life is not the life we were created for.  How perfect then, from a spiritual standpoint, that Black Friday precedes the First Sunday of Advent – the losing world makes a final all-out assault on our attention as our victorious Lord commences his eternal return.

“Let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day.”

Blessed advent of Advent, everybody!

Friday Coffin Break #4 Save You, Save Me

As we begin this week's Little Triduum, culminating Sunday in the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, I offer this brief reflection from the coffin shop to ponder, and prepare for, Sunday's Gospel in the light of the grave.

We should also keep in mind that next week brings Thanksgiving, the wonderful, earthly, celebration of gratitude for all that we have been given, designated to take place every year on a Thursday, just as Our Lord instituted the ultimate, Heavenly, Thanksgiving Feast on a Thursday, one day before he gave his life for our redemption.

This Sunday's Gospel is Luke 23: 35-43 (from the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)

And the people stood by, watching; but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others, let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him vinegar, and saying "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews."

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." And he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingly power." And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

"He saved others, let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!"

"If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!"

"Are you not the Christ, save yourself and us!"

No, Jesus Christ is not merely the King of the Jews, he is the King of the Universe, and as such self-serving, earthly, power is beneath him. Immediately before this passage Jesus says, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." He has interceded for the very people who go on deriding him, not realizing that the bonds of sin, out of which they are acting, are concurrently being destroyed — as they have been for us and always will be, if only we cooperate in the sacrificial freedom that God has lavished on us.

Habituated as we tend to be to the sinful ties that bind, the only path to claiming our full liberty, and securing the communion we so hunger for, is following the King's example and laying down our lives for others. Contemplating the fact that this life will eventually be demanded of us anyway, let us not waste this opportunity, in thanksgiving, to freely give it away!