Sunday, November 24, 2024

November 24, 2024: Solemnity Sunday of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

We acclaim Christ as a great King on this last Sunday of the liturgical year.

As the readings make clear, especially the Gospel, He is a different kind of King.

He doesn't follow the typical ideas of an earthly King, like what Pontius Pilate has in mind when he questions Jesus.

Furthermore, Christ transcends the idea of an earthly King.

He entered into our humanity to show us the reign of God's love by dying for us on the Cross.

Now He lives and reigns on High as the Mighty One, the Alpha and the Omega, holding all time in His hands.  He spreads that love to all the world, because through the Cross, Love has triumphed, as His Kingdom shows.  The reading from Daniel describes how the Son of Man comes on the clouds, imagery of God's revelation.

We have the opportunity to advance the Kingdom of God by opening our hearts so God may reign in us, and cooperate with His grace as we live to honor Him Who shed His blood for us so we could enter that Kingdom and be priests to serve our God. This Kingdom will not end, in the spirit of the words from the first reading in Daniel, because it stands for Who God is, characteristics that are timeless.

One notable person who did so much to advance the Kingdom of God in the Western Hemisphere was San Padre Junipero Serra, who founded several missions up and down the California coast.

Cardinal Cupich has done much to serve the Kingdom of God in the course of 10 years since his installation as Archbishop of Chicago on November 18, 2014.

Holy Name Cathedral celebrated its 175th anniversary on November 18, 2024, and the occasion is a great opportunity to reflect on how this cathedral parish community has advanced the Kingdom of God through worship and service.  It was splendid to attend a special Mass celebrated by Caridnal Cupich at the Cathedral today to celebrate this milestone.

20 years ago, on the eve of Christ the King Sunday, I attended my Confirmation Enrollment Mass.  The liturgy gave me the opportunity to be aware of how by my Confirmation, I would live more fully in the Kingdom of God, to show God's timeless characteristics, especially His Love, to the world.

Indeed, as I reclaimed the 2nd reading today, from the ambo, I gazed upon Christ the King in the rose window at the other end of Church, flanked by Alpha and Omega.  He Who was once dead, now is alive and rightly rules.

Sunday, November 17, 2024

November 17, 2024: 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

God has promised He is coming again.  Christ will come to set everything right, and establish a new order for everything.  He has already revealed this new order in the Paschal Mystery of His Death and Resurrection.

Those of us who were faithfully in relationship with God in this life and lived that relationship in righteousness will shine.

We can count on God to fulfill His promises because Christ came to offer the one perfect sacrifice that makes us, His Chosen, righteous before Him.

Now, we live in a state of readiness, living out the righteousness God imparts to us as we await His coming again, making ready by helping to bring forth the Kingdom on Earth now.

It is a Kingdom that will one day come in its fullness and last forever. For even though Heaven and Earth shall pass away, as Jesus said, His Word shall not, and that will be at the foundation of the Kingdom where we will be with Him forever, even as He is with us now.  We will live in the fullness of His Love that, as Bishop Barron said in his homily for this Sunday, He has revealed already in the Paschal Mystery, and the revelation to come will manifest His Lordship.

It was a special evening in Oak Park at the Sunday evening Mass with the Confirmation enrollment when the young people preparing for this sacrament expressed their commitment to the process.  It was a time to recognize how they are chosen to be part of advancing the Kingdom of God that is coming, even as we recognize how God has chosen us to be part of His Kingdom.  This week, I will reflect on my own Confirmation enrollment Mass 20 years ago.  And this week marks 10 years since Blase Cupich was installed as Archbishop of Chicago, and his role in shepherding the church in the Archdiocese of Chicago to Eternal Life.

Sunday, November 10, 2024

November 10, 2024: 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

On yet another Little Easter, we behold the Mystery of how God gave of Himself totally for us.

We see an illustration of it in the widow who gave of all she had to serve Elijah, in the midst of the desperation of a drought, trusting in God's Word through Elijah that she would have enough.  Then, God provided abundantly.

Jesus acclaimed a widow who put two small coins in the Temple treasury, demonstrating how she was giving out of her livelihood, all she had, as a sacrificial offering.

These stories remind us that we can trust God because He sent His Son Jesus Christ, Who, just days after this encounter with the widow in the Temple, would give totally of Himself on the Cross as the all-sufficient sacrifice that would bring us salvation.

As people saved and chosen by God, we are called to follow in the way of our Savior to live, giving of ourselves sacrificially to honor God while serving others.

Saturday, November 9, 2024

November 9, 2024: Feast of the Dedication of St. John Lateran Basilica

We are a Church because we are a body brought together in Christ, Who offered His Body to save us.

We build upon that foundation, and by Christ's power, we reach to Heaven.

Sunday, November 3, 2024

November 3, 2024: 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

God is God and He is the source of everything.  He declared Himself to be God alone to the people of Israel when He delivered them from Egypt and brought them to the Promised Land.  To be in a relationship with Him, God commanded them to love Him with all their heart, mind, and strength, as He reveals Himself in love.

Jesus Christ came to show us the full extent of God's love by offering Himself for us so we could be restored to a right relationship with God.

Now, we love to acknowledge the reality of God's existence and presence in our lives, and to reflect what God has done for us.  We love the unseen God by loving our neighbors.

Since God is the source of everything, all we do is a means to more fully realize God's presence in our lives and in our world.

One great example of someone who lived the love of God was St. Martin de Porres, whose feast day is today.  Because he was a mixed-race person, he faced much discrimination.  Yet he sought to grow in divine character and faced discrimination with character revealing God's presence.  Indeed, he made God more real in the world by facing hatred with divine love.

Saturday, November 2, 2024

November 2, 2024: All Souls Day

By the power of Christ's redemption, God makes death a gateway to new life.

In His mercy, He makes possible a path for the souls of the faithful departed.

Christ has promised Eternal Life for those who live professing faith in Him and the power of His Resurrection.

So we confidently acknowledge that nothing, not even death, can separate us from experiencing God's love.

Friday, November 1, 2024

November 1, 2024: Solemnity of All Saints

God desires holiness for us, a way of life that leads straight to the fulfillment of the Beatific Vision in which we constantly and ceaselessly gaze upon God.

Ultimately, all our desires are fulfilled in the Beatific Vision.

And He is already revealing this reality to us in foretastes of Heaven.

By the Paschal Mystery of Christ, God has made it possible for us to grow in holiness, exhibiting the character that reveals God to the world, laid out in the Beatitudes.  The saints who have achieved Heaven are rooting for us to experience this Glory in its fullness.

So as we live God's way, we are making the reality of Heaven known as we journey there.