Homilies of Father Earl Meyer: Year C

By Father Earl Meyer

Homilies of Father Earl R. Meyer, O.F.M. Cap., a priest of the Capuchin Franciscan Province of Mid-America, provide a down-to-earth view of divine teachings. This volume's homilies correspond with the Year C liturgy. Father Earl studied at St. Fidelis College in Herman, Pennsylvania, and at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He taught at Thomas More Prep in Hays, Kansas, and was the pastor of various parishes in Kansas and Missouri. He currently resides at St. Fidelis Friary in Victoria, Kansas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781682224007

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Acknowledgments

First Sunday of Advent

The Three Unexpected Comings of Christ

Once upon a time three monks were relaxing at a fishing pond.

One of them asked,

What would you do if you knew that the world would end today?

The youngest monk said,

I would hurry to confession.

The second monk said, I would go to chapel and pray.

The third old monk said,

I would just keep on fishing.

The Advent gospel warns us to be prepared for the coming of the Lord.

"Be vigilant at all times.

Pray that you have the strength to stand before the Son of Man."

Advent vigilance requires first that we know what we are waiting for.

Unfortunately, the meaning of Advent eludes many.

Most Christians get Lent right.

They also get Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost right.

But Advent, Advent is elusive.

Some see in the purple of Advent a mini-Lent, a penitential season.

Advent is not a time of penance. It is a time of joyful expectation.

Another mistake, promoted by consumerism,

is that Advent is a prolonged Christmas Eve.

Our secular Advent is now in the midst of a month long Christmas Eve,

a pre-emptive celebration of Christmas Day.

And when Christmas Day finally comes, the secular world is weary of Christmas.

Advent is watching and waiting for the coming of the Lord.

You knew that.

Here is the surprise.

During Advent the church awaits not only the coming of Christ at Christmas,

but also His coming at the end of time,

and his coming each day in disguise.

Advent reflects on all three appearances of the Lord:

His first coming at Bethlehem centuries ago;

His Second Coming at the end of time;

and between those two, his coming into our lives, daily, in

disguise.

We begin Advent with a focus on the second coming of Christ at the end of time.

This is integral to our faith.

At the most solemn moment of every Mass we pray,

"Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again."

The second coming of Christ at the end of time will be the fulfillment of salvation.

To understand Advent one must realize that

the final coming of Christ at the end of time

is the fulfillment of his first coming at Bethlehem.

Only then will the promise be complete.

Advent awaits December 25, and beyond.

We await the Second Coming of Christ and the eternal meaning of Christmas.

Otherwise, Christmas is over and done with on December 26.

Between his first coming at Bethlehem

and his Second Coming at the end of time,

Christ comes into our lives each day unexpectedly, in disguise.

These are the joyful surprises of this holiday season.

In Advent Christ comes to us in the innocence of a child,

in the kindness of a stranger, in the hope of a beggar.

The gospel says, Be vigilant at all times.

Be vigilant for all three:

His coming anew this Christmas,

his coming at the end of time,

and his coming each day in disguise.

But how to be vigilant?

The gospel first suggests how NOT to wait.

"Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy

from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of life,

and that day catch you by surprise, like at trap."

Our Catholic tradition suggests that we wait as Mary waited.

The Advent standard is Mary, the expectant mother.

She was obedient to the word of God.

She heard the word of God and did it.

She thought of others. She visited her cousin Elizabeth.

In all of this she did not advance her own agenda.

She was open to what God would do in her life.

Yes, you need to prepare for Christmas.

But you are not going to make Christmas,

Christmas is going to come to you.

Wait expectantly for what God will do in your life.

The old monk was correct.

A fisherman waits patiently for a catch.

Just keep on fishing.

Second Sunday of Advent

Historical Setting

The most important day of the year for a child is not Christmas,

or Easter, or the first day of school.

The most important day of the year for children is their birthday.

It is their own day of the year.

Children know precisely the calendar date of their birth.

That is not true in all cultures.

Our missionaries to Papua New Guinea found that the natives there

kept records by major events rather than calendar dates.

A native will say that he was born the year after the great flood,

or when his grandfather was chief of the tribe, or before the volcano erupted.

Such was the custom in gospel times.

Today’s gospel begins:

"In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar

when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,

and Herod the tetrarch of Galilee…"

This gospel litany of rulers reveals

the historical setting of the coming of Christ,

the significance of his coming, and the surprise of his coming.

The first reason for this list of names

is to verify that the coming of Christ was a true historical event.

Christ came among real people, in real places.

The first Christmas was not a fable or a myth.

Unlike most world religions, Christianity is an historical religion.

It is firmly rooted in historically verifiable events in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

Without minimizing the divinity of Christ,

we need to appreciate that He lived among ordinary people, as one of them.

A further message of these historical names is the surprise.

The people mentioned were the political and religious leaders of their age.

Yet they missed the Messiah.

These leaders were blind to the most important event of their time.

There is a certain irony here.

These prominent men, who failed to recognize that Christ was the Messiah,

would have been forgotten to history without Him.

It was the One whom they ignored, who gave them their place in history.

Pilate, Herod, and Caiaphas were major players in their own time,

but in the annals history they are minor characters in the life of Christ.

These leaders were schooled in the Scriptures.

They knew of the promise of a Messiah.

Yet they missed Him

They missed Him because they thought they knew

just how the Messiah should come.

But he came in a way they did not expect.

He caught them by surprise.

And they missed him.

There is a message in that for our modern Advent.

He will come to us in this season in the same way:

through real people, in daily events, and in ways we do not expect.

If you think you know how and when He is coming this Christmas,

you will probably miss Him.

Christ comes in simple and subtle ways.

Probably not in your gifts or greetings or gatherings,

but more likely in the needy and the neglected, the lost and the lonely.

He may come in comfort and consolation.

He may also come in sorrow and suffering.

Only hearts that are open to whatever way he might come

will know Him when He comes.

This is not to dismiss your favorite holiday customs.

Christmas cards and Christmas carols can lift our spirits.

They can open our hearts that we might better discern the Lord when he comes.

Our warm and wonderful holiday customs are NOT the coming of the Lord,

but they can dispose us to recognize Him and receive Him when He comes.

These can fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah:

Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.

In this sixth year of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI,

when Barack Obama is president our the United States

while Joseph Nauman is archbishop of Kansas City

the Word of God will come among us again.

"Every valley shall be filled

And every mountain made low,

And all shall see the salvation of God."

Immaculate Conception

Mary the New Eve

An old joke has resurfaced regarding today’s feast, the Immaculate Conception.

When the Pharisees wanted to stone the adulterous woman, Christ challenged the crowd,

Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.

Out of the crowd came a large rock,

And Christ said, Mother, I didn’t mean you.

Catholic tradition has always honored Mary as the sinless one.

The poet Wordsworth wrote of Mary, Our tainted nature’s solitary boast.

We celebrate on this feast of the Immaculate Conception, that Mary was free from all sin, including original sin, from the first moment of her existence in her mother’s womb. Mary, the sinless one, was conceived immaculate.

But to suggest that Mary was the only one who was ever free from sin,

is not entirely correct.

Eve was also born without sin.

Adam and Eve were created in a state of innocence, untouched by sin.

When tempted they did sin, but their original state was an innocence free of sin.

Mary by contrast remained sinless throughout her life.

Our tradition therefore describes Mary as the new Eve.

The Eve who retained her sinless union with God unblemished.

The contrast of Eve and Mary

can be helpful in understanding Mary’s role in our salvation. Mary is the new Eve.

Eve is described in Genesis as Adam’s helpmate, and the mother of all the living.

Mary is the handmaid of the Lord, and the mother of the church.

The disobedience of Eve, at the suggestion of the serpent,

is in contrast with the obedience of Mary, at the announcement of the angel.

Theologians see a parallel in God’s plan for our salvation

where evil is undone by counterparts of the fallen ones.

Christ is the new Adam. Mary is the new Eve.

The wood of the cross replaces the tree of the Garden of Eden, and Mary counteracts the fall of Eve.

The symbols of our defeat become the symbols of our victory.

In Latin Eve is EVA. The greeting of the angel to Mary was AVE.

EVA is changed into AVE.

Eve is reversed by Mary

St. Irenaeus wrote: the knot that Eve’s disobedience had tied was untied by Mary’s obedience;

What Eve had bound by her unbelief, Mary loosened by her faith.

The first message of this Eve-Mary contrast is salvation in Christ.

When Eve was deceived, she and Adam brought us sin, the cause of death;

When Mary assented to the angel

she gave birth to Christ our way to life, life eternal.

The Eve-Mary parallel also pertains to our personal spiritual journey.

We are the natural children of Eve, and Mary is our spiritual mother.

There is something of Eve and something of Mary in each of us.

Our Christian calling is to overcome the weakness we inherit as children of Eve

by modeling our life on Mary our mother.

Mary’s obedience, which reversed the disobedience of Eve, inspires us to overcome our resistance to the word of God. Mary’s faith, which erased the doubt of Eve,

challenges us to a deeper faith.

The feast of the Immaculate Conception is a celebration of hope.

Hope that the natural Eve in us

will be transformed by the spirit of Mary.

In the words of the opening prayer of today’s Mass,

"Heavenly Father,

as you kept the Virgin Mary sinless

from the first moment of her conception,

help us by her prayers

to live in your presence without sin. Amen."

Third Sunday of Advent

Bethlehem not Bedlam

I taught school for many years, so this sermon has a homework assignment.

When you get home, look up the word BEDLAM in your dictionary.

Bedlam: B - E - D - L - A - M

It is defined as a place or state of confusion. You knew that.

Now look at the derivation of the word.

The word comes from a mental hospital in London, St. Mary of Bethlehem.

It was once a respected infirmary affectionately called, Bethlehem,

a haven of peace for the troubled.

However, after years of neglect

the facility deteriorated into a shameful warehousing of the mentally ill.

It was then referred to, in the garbled pronunciation of the inmates, as Bedlam.

Bethlehem had become Bedlam.

For many people today Bethlehem has become Bedlam.

Christmas has become confusion.

What should be a time of