4th Sunday of Advent 2007

[Fr.Paul Weinberger]

Homily by:
Father Paul Weinberger
Saint William the Confessor Catholic Church
Greenville, Texas
4th Sunday of Advent
December 23, 2007

The Lord spoke to Ahaz saying, “Ask for a sign from the Lord your God, let it be deep as the netherworld or high as the sky. But Ahaz answered, “I will not ask; I will not tempt the Lord.” Then Isaiah said, “Listen O House of David, is it not enough for you to weary men, must you also weary my God? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you this sign; the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall name Him Emanuel.”

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit

Amen

The figure of Ahaz is presented to us in the First reading and by extension, in the Gospel. Ahaz was an ancestor of Jesus and centuries before Jesus’ birth, Ahaz was King of Israel. Here he appears so meek and humble and yet he was a notorious ancestor of Jesus. As a Jew, he knew that he was not to worship strange Gods and yet, at least two of his own sons as infants were sacrificed to pagan gods. The Prophet Isaiah tells Ahaz to ask for a sign from the Lord, his God. God is extending his grace to Ahaz even in his wretchedness. In a sense we have a contrast here. Isaiah is a character much like John the Baptist and Ahaz is a wretch and yet, God is extending His grace even to Ahaz through Isaiah.

The reason God came into the world 2000 years ago as a little child is because I am so virtuous; you are so virtuous and good. Don’t be ridiculous. We understand how wrong that is. Despite the way we do not follow God on a regular basis, He came into our world to save us from sin and death. He didn’t come because of something virtuous we had done but rather, just the opposite. There was the sin of our first parents then subsequently after that we had no problem figuring out how to continue in our personal sins. Ahaz is a particularly wretched example of this and God is reaching out to him, not so that Ahaz can be confirmed in his wretchedness and stay there, but rather that he will repent and follow God.

Years ago, back in the 1800s, St. Therese’ and her family used to read from this work by Dom Gueranger. It is a fifteen volume series called “The Liturgical Year”, and there is something for everyday of the year in this work. That is why there are so many volumes. They would read from this every night and learn about the changing face of the calendar as it changed from Advent to Christmas and from Lent to Easter through the different saints of the calendar. Then again this is not very popular today; it was popular back when people used to talk to each other. Now people observe tremendous silence in front of the holy of holies, the large television that is displayed almost in a devotional way in every place where people come together…except the one you are sitting in now. It is interesting; people sit around the television in rapt silence, shushing someone who might be trying to speak.

During the week there is a sign that graces the vestibule that says,

“Welcome, Peace Be With You. Conversation with God, please step inside; conversation with others, please step outside.”

It is interesting that when people come to Church all of a sudden they are free and liberated from that place, which no one dare speak in the presence of the holy of holies…the TV. They feel that now they can speak freely to one another. It is so enjoyable to sit near them when they are having these long conversations in Church. If you look around you there is no television; that is why they feel so free.

St. Therese and her family would concentrate on the liturgical Year, the way the Church prepares us for the great Feast Days to come and with only hours left before Christmas, let us look at the entry for December 17th, just a few days ago. Dome Gueranger is writing about the census that was ordered by Caesar Augustus that got the entire world moving. It is only a paragraph but it is very helpful. He is speaking of God as “O Wisdom”, because that is the antiphon for evening prayer and how it begins.

”O Uncreated Wisdom, Who are so soon to make Yourself visible to Your creatures, truly You dispose all things; it is by Your permission that the Emperor Augustus issues a decree ordering the enrollment of the whole world. Each citizen of the vast empire is to have his name enrolled in the city of his birth. This prince (Caesar Augustus) has no other object in this order, which sets the world in motion, but his own ambition. Men go to and fro by the millions and an unbroken procession traverses the immense Roman world. Men think they are doing the bidding of man and yet it is God, whom they are obeying. This worldwide agitation has really but one object; it is to bring to Bethlehem a man and woman, who live at Nazareth in Galilee, in order that this woman, who is unknown to the world but dear to Heaven, and who is at the close of the ninth month since she conceived her Child, and give birth to this Child in Bethlehem.”

Then below he mentions,

“You have chosen Bethlehem for Your birthplace because Bethlehem signifies the “House of Bread”.

Bethlehem means “House of Bread”, and of course we see here in front of the Altar how fitting the House of Bread is depicted below the Altar (in the manger scene) at which the Bread of Angels will descend momentarily during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, when the power of the Holy Spirit will change the bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ.

Apparently it was the Emperor that got all of this put in motion, but Dom Gueranger said that it was God, Who can even work through such an order given by Caesar Augustus. As they say, appearances are deceiving, and yet we put such stock in appearances; we put such stock in our ability to judge appearances, which is called our “feelings”.

Appearances are deceptive and you only have to look at what has been done in the last fifteen or twenty years. In a notorious fashion politicians have taken and twisted what you see here in front of you for their own political gain. (The Manger) They call this Holy Family a “homeless” family. Do these people not have a Bible?

When Joseph awoke he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took his wife into his HOME.

If you wished to escape the cold of North Texas and drove down to Corpus Christi or Padre Island for a few days, while you were down there enjoying the warmth, when you returned you would not be homeless because you would return to your HOME, exactly as St. Joseph and Our Lady did when required by the Emperor to go to the place of birth. Again, appearances are deceptive and people take great advantage of that fact. Apparently we were just fine but there was no way we could come in from the cold.

What a bitter time of the year this is and we see that others have it much worse than we do, but this is the time of the year when there is more dark than light. The shortest day of the year was Friday; the days are ever so lightly extending themselves, incrementally growing every day to be the longest day of the year in June, but we are a far cry from June. It appears that darkness will never go away; look how fast the sun went away. It appears that rulers of this earth are so powerful, yet all of the governments of the world combined, were they to vote in unison for the sun not to come up tomorrow, it wouldn’t stop it. Appearances are deceptive!

We seem to be so ready for Christmas.

”I can’t wait for Christmas; let us just get it over with!”

You see how ready we really are to celebrate this great day in the life of the world, the day the world yearned for when the very Son of God and the very “Sun” of Justice would break forth upon this wretched darkness and with it the bitter cold that came with sin and death. Jesus Christ is born and what apparently was ruling is now cast aside.

You and I are to prepare with the hours remaining for this great event. You and I would do very well to take out the Bible and look up Isaiah in the Old Testament and read that beautiful passage from Chapter 7, verse 11. That is easy to remember. Or, go forward to the very beginning of St. Luke’s Gospel and read about the beginning of the Life of Jesus on earth. But then again you and I are apparently so ready we have probably already done that. I haven’t done it today; I still have my Rosary to say today. How many families are preparing together by offering a Rosary together?

“Well, I love my family members but I am not going to pray with them!”

Oh I see; you see how ready we are? Shutting out the Word of God or any meditation on God, like the Rosary, you see how ready the world is to embrace the bitter darkness and cold. The warmth and light of Christ seem to be a burden when we consider these things that are helpful to us in preparing this room for Our Lord; they seem to be so burdensome and we’d rather stay in the darkness and in the shadow of death as the New Testament says.

There is a lot of preparation with only a few hours remaining. Like Ahaz, we are in good company. We recognize that God has come because God is good and we are not as good as we should be. The Lord has given us, not the appearance of salvation but his very Son to enter into this milieu, this valley of tears, and like Ahaz we should not beg to be excused by ridiculous and fatuous excuses. Rather, we should embrace Him all the more.


The Lord spoke to Ahaz saying, “Ask for a sign from the Lord your God, let it be deep as the netherworld or high as the sky. But Ahaz answered, “I will not ask; I will not tempt the Lord.” Then Isaiah said, “Listen O House of David, is it not enough for you to weary men, must you also weary my God? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you this sign; the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall name Him Emanuel.”

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit

Amen