Saturday

2nd Week of Advent, Saturday

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Today’s Gospel is just after the Transfiguration, an experience of Our Lord on the mountain where the disciples caught of glimpse of his divinity and glory and saw Elijah and Moses at his side, representing the prophets and the the Law that testified to him. This experience confirmed their faith that Jesus was the Messiah, but also raised a question: in the Old Testament it was foretold that Elijah, one of the greatest prophets who was taken up into Heaven on a fiery chariot at the end of his mission, would return before the coming of the Lord. This thought captivated the imagination of the Jews (see Malachi 4:-56 and today’s First Reading, Sirach 48:1ff.), so they were on the lookout for a great prophet before the Messiah came, and some thought Jesus was that prophet when he began his public ministry.

Our Lord helps the disciples understand that the sign of the coming of the Lord they were expecting had already happened: John the Baptist was the prophet who announced the immediate arrival of the Lord (see Luke 1:16–17). He was the greatest prophet because he was the last prophet: on his watch the Lord came, and he rejoiced at that, even in his mother Elizabeth’s womb. Advent is an Elijah moment in this sense. John the Baptist is a little baby, but that little baby points to the little baby about to be born on Christmas, just as he rejoiced at his presence in his mother’s womb.

We already know the story that is playing out each Advent and Christmas. Let’s also rejoice, like John the Baptist, that the Lord is coming soon.

Readings: Sirach 48:1–4, 9–11; Psalm 80:2ac, 3b, 15–16, 18–19; Matthew 17:9a, 10–13.

1st Week of Advent, Saturday

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The purple in Advent symbolizes penitence, sorrow, and suffering before the coming of the Messiah: a world lost in sin and in need of saving. That purple reminds us today that there are a lot of people out their beaten up by life and in need of healing and strength. This season, being a season of family, can be a source of joy or a source of pain depending on whether we’re estranged from those we love. We also need to see it as a opportunity: this the season when many loved ones are reconciled because it reminds them of the love and joy they’d once shared together. Beyond our family circle it is also a time characterized by showing a greater concern for others and their needs.

Where’d we learn all that from? Our Lord, which is why we’re preparing for and eagerly awaiting his coming on Christmas Day. Like the Twelve in today’s Gospel we are sent out to help find the lost, heal the sick and suffering, and cast out the evil that afflicts so many today. The First Reading today reminds us of how much Our Lord provides and will provide. When Jesus reminds the Twelve today, “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give,” he is reminding us of all the blessings we’ve received in our life for no other reason than his goodness or the goodness of others, and to give with the same attitude.

Let’s be instruments of Our Lord’s concern, compassion, and desire for reconciliation this Advent season by being there for others.

Readings: Isaiah 30:19–21, 23–26; Psalm 147:1–6; Matthew 9:35–10:1, 10:5a, 6–8. See also 14th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday and Thursday.

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34th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday

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The end (of the liturgical year) is upon us, and in today’s Gospel Our Lord encourages us to keep the big picture in mind. It is salutary to ask ourselves once in a while if what we are doing or worrying about right now would matter if the world were to end today. That question is salutary not only for party animals concentrating on a prolonged escape from life and its responsibilities by leaping from thrill to thrill, but also people who bury themselves in their work and their immediate pressing concerns, hoping that down in that foxhole nothing that explodes in life will affect them. Experience shows that reality can get up close and personal at times, and blow up in our faces no matter how much we ignore it or put it far down on our to-do list.

In these last few weeks we’ve considered Our Lord’s invitation to persevere in trials, to hope in the face of evil, to be realistic in acknowledging that challenges will come, to be vigilant, and to have courage in facing and overcoming challenges. It will be a long haul, not easy, and full of lights and shadows, but it’ll be worth it.

Welcome to life on earth. Keep the big picture in mind and you’ll know that good will triumph and that you’re not alone: your fellow believers will support you, and Our Lord himself.

Readings: Daniel 7:15–27; Daniel 3:82–87; Luke 21:34–36.

33rd Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord reminds us that even something as beautiful as matrimony is only a means to an end, and if lived well, a happy end. The Sadducees denied the Resurrection, and by seeing marriage as an end, not a means, they couldn’t understood how the Resurrection would work, in part because they didn’t understand what the Resurrection would be, since their outlook was so worldly. The Sadducees are the distant result of the attempt by King Antiochus Epiphanes to Hellenize Jewish culture, which, as today’s First Reading reminds us (along with other readings this week) ended badly for him, but not without leaving its mark. The Sadducees see marriage according to reason and civil order: it results in an obligation to continue the family line by some member of the family marrying the widow and providing her with children who’ll care for her in the future and also continue the family line. To some degree the question degrades into being one of property law: after the Resurrection, who does she belong to and who has obligations toward her?

It’s no coincidence that when marriage vows are made today the clause is included “until death do us part”: in eternity marriage will have already served its purpose, which is the fostering of unconditional and exclusive love between a man and a woman that is often blessed by children who are loved and learn to love as well. All this is a means to enjoying an unconditional love for God and for others that will blossom in eternity. Even physical marital intimacy is a means toward that end, but, as we know, that physical intimacy has the danger of being debased, exploited, and even “weaponized”; if it stops being something good for the spouses and closed by the spouses to bringing children into the world, it becomes the means to an unhappy end. Marriage when lived well are a foreshadowing and a path to the happy and loving life to come in eternity.

Let’s pray today that all marriages be lived well and become homes and schools of unconditional love that help us love God unconditionally too. Let’s also pray for all marriages and families in difficulty.

Readings: 1 Maccabees 6:1–13; Psalm 9:2–4, 6, 16, 19; Luke 20:27–40. See also 9th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday.

32nd Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord presents the polar opposite of Our Heavenly Father, the most just judge, to remind us that we should continue to pray and to not be discouraged in the face of persisting injustice. He alludes to his return at the end of time, so he prepares us to continue our struggles and supplications for justice, knowing that some injustices will not be addressed until he returns in glory, but they will be addressed. We have to persevere in faith and hope.

The widow in today’s parable wants justice in her case. Widows and orphans are repeatedly mentioned in the Old Testament as those deserving special care, since they represent those who have no one to care for them, and the Lord gives dire warning to those who’d abuse them. The widow today can only get justice through a judge who cares nothing for those things; he only cares about himself. Yet the widow’s persistence starts to wear on his obstinacy; he doesn’t do justice for the right reasons, but he does do justice in the end, albeit for a little peace and quiet as well as a concern for his own hide. In the face of maximum injustice and little hope of attaining it the widow continues to ask for it and in the end is heard.

Our Lord reminds us today that we are in a much better situation, but we only realize that if we have faith and trust in him. Let’s continue to battle injustice in this world and not be discouraged when the cause seems hopeless. Sooner or later justice will come.

Readings: Wisdom 18:14–16; Psalm 105:2–3, 36–37, 42–43; Luke 18:1–8.