The Lost Election

I am suspecting that the reason why I have lost every recent papal election may well have to do with the days that are upon us now.

And just in case you have not noticed, as of yet I have not won a papal election. While I might still claim to being "too young," that excuse is loosing its grip.

Time to face the real reason.

I suspect that there are some cardinals out there who know!

They have discovered what one of my first official acts just might be.

And they are afraid of the repercussions and as a result, I have continued to get overlooked in the balloting for pope!

So, I just might as well go public with what I would have done had I actually gotten elected. (Oh, and BTW, someday some future office holder just may do what I am suggesting.)

It has to do with our calendar.

It needs a change! A major one!

Soon now in churches all across the globe, Catholic and other Christian denominations, the People of God will once again have to put up with presiders cheerfully announcing, "Happy New Year!"

And then, as happens year in and year out, they will explain that the calendar does still have another month to the present year. However, we are talking Church Year and the new Church year begins on the First Sunday of Advent.

And so, "Happy New Year!"

As Pope I would declare that our Church Year will no longer begin on the First Sunday of Advent. Instead, let's pick a far more suitable and meaningful time.

How about Ash Wednesday?

Would it not make more sense spiritually to begin a New Year with a season of repentance and renewal, a dedicated time for strengthening our efforts to do better and be better?

But . . . but . . .  but! I can hear it now.

But  The Story begins with Advent!

We cannot do what you suggest. It would destroy The Story!

And, true! The Story does begin with Advent. If we are about the telling and retelling of The Story, well then, Advent takes us back in our memory to those days and years and even centuries of waiting. And then Christmas comes and the waiting is fulfilled and the Promise is kept and then the rest of  The Story unfolds - Magi and Baptism and teachings and healings and Jerusalem and Calvary and so on and so on.

Yes, the year should begin with Advent if we are all and only about a telling and retelling of The Story.

If the whole purpose of our seasons and our feasts is merely a sort of nostalgic remembering of events from some distant yesterday, then the starting point, logically, would be Advent.

But I say and I emphasize that little word - IF.

It is, most certainly, important that we remember our past. However, when it comes to religious remembering, to the remembering that we seek to embodying our feasts and seasons, that remembering must serve a purpose far greater than the telling and retelling of stories from our past. Our remembering is and should be for the sake of forming our present and guiding us into our future.

The Hebrews of old remembered each Passover the events of their past, the memories of the Exodus Events not just for the sake of telling historic tales but for the sake of opening themselves here and now to the working of God right now in their present moments and also to dispose themselves to a longing for the day when God's Will would reach fulfillment. "Next year, in Jerusalem."

Advent, while it can serve to properly dispose us to a coming feast, should be far more important.

It should serve to heighten our awareness of the fact that the Lord who once came to dwell among us, still is present to us here and now. Advent should  awaken anew our sense of care of all who enable and invite us to love and serve Him in very real, concrete, here and now ways - in our service to the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, the stranger, the sick, the refugee, the marginalized and so on. "Whatsoever you do for the least of my brethren, that you do unto me!"

Add to that Advent should stir up within us the awareness that we are moving day by day, hour by hour toward that day when we will see Him face to face. He will come again and we will see His face and hear His voice!

It certainly seems to me that having Advent at the closing of our Church Year would serve to focus ur attention more sharply on a Day yet to come and on the day that is right here under our eyes.

However, it can certainly be easier and more comfy to focus on a Once-upon-a-time story from some long ago yesterday, especially one that involves a little Baby. Living in the past can be way more comforting than facing the present and embracing that uncatchable tomorrow.

But we should not be about comfort. We, followers of the Gospel, should be about being challenged to live the Gospel right now.

And that can be painful.

Singing "Silent Night" is way easier than living "Wake, Awake, the Night is Dying!"

But think about it.

Advent focuses us on how things will end. Christmas focuses us on what is right here before us, the opportunities here and now.

And then we start anew with ashes marking our foreheads and calling us to get busy doing better.

Nice!

But ain't gonna happen.

I can't get elected!

And I am getting too old!

“Getting vaccinated is a simple yet profound way to care for one another, especially the most vulnerable,”  - Pope Francis 

The End of the World

And here it comes!

The Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary  Time

AKA a Sunday after Pentecost in certain Christian Traditions

But, however you may call it, here comes the final "Green Sunday" of the current liturgical year.

And this, in almost every mainstream Christian tradition is the weekend when we hear those wondrous words. You know the ones. They are all about such neat happenings like stars falling from the sky and sun and moon no longer giving their light and famines and earthquakes and all sorts of other exciting happenings.

And when these words are finished being set out before us, this year from the Gospel of Mark next year we will get to enjoy Luke and last year we embraced Matthew's version, well, when these words are set out before us, we will conclude with the declaration, ""The Gospel of the Lord."

And we will respond with our "Thanks be to God!"

Gospel, by the way, means Good News!

So, stars falling, sun dimming, earthquakes rumbling and famines famishing - all Good News!

Well, chances are that in many (most) churches throughout the United States, we will simply give that response and close our books and maybe even our minds.

We certainly do not have to worry about stuff like that, do we?

After all, that is about the End of the World and who knows when that will come and it hasn't come in all these years, so why worry now? Just listen, and then respond with our words of gratitude.

Unless . . . 

What if these words of Jesus are echoing often repeated biblical words - words about not just a time when all will end but times when the world as we know it will end?

What if Jesus, like prophets of old, was telling us that we should expect that there will be times when the world as we know it will come to an end? It would in fact seem to be truly Good News if we were being told in advance that such times of endings will come and they will have the potential for being times of blessing. They will challenge us and invite us to reexamine what has been and they will give us the opportunity to make new and different and better.

What if these words were telling us to expect  a time such as we have been having since March, 2020,  a time that, while seeming to ease presently, has actually brought about an ending of the world as we once knew it?

Consider all that we have been living through in recent months. We have literally seen the world shut down. The Mighty United States was brought low, not just in that far away place of Afghanistan but right here in our own land with businesses shut, education virtual and emergency rooms overcrowded and thousands of lives ended.

Together with that we have been experiencing our view of history and of all humankind questioned and challenged by the resurfacing of an awareness of the -isms that haunt us and even still shape so many of us and our customs and institutions. We have been brought face to face with the need for some radical change.

To all of this we have seen flood-causing rains tearing through the streets of our cities and the basements of our homes, ravaging flames eradicating whole neighborhoods. Choose to ignore or choose to face, nature itself is raging against us.

The litany goes on.

And truly these are days when the sun and moon have been darkened and the stars have been falling from the sky.

But when Jesus and the prophets before Him spoke of those days of world-ending events, they spoke to a people of faith, a people who believed in God who truly is ever in command. Jesus spoke to a people who knew from experience the wonder and depth of God's love for them, a love that would not let go of them but rather a love that would guide them through those dark, ending times into a new and better time.

To fully embrace these words and to fully enter into this most turbulent and cathartic time of our today, we need to be that people of faith, that people who can listen to the Voice of the Lord, read the signs of this time and embrace the call to do better, to be better.

Of course it is always possible to ignore the possibility of God at work. It is possible to refuse any Divine invitation. We can choose to simply go back to the "good old days."

Or we can choose to grow and in that growing to commit ourselves to building better and being better.

After all, Jesus has called us to be citizens, not of any kingdom of this world but rather of the Kingdom of God.

And we are not there yet!

“Getting vaccinated is a simple yet profound way to care for one another, especially the most vulnerable,”  - Pope Francis