Category Archives: Radio Reflections

Yesterday, Catholics had a Holy Day of Obligation, which is a special day in which Catholics are to attend Mass as part of the celebration of this feast. This is something that is unique to Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Churches, as most other Christian denominations do not expect worship attendance Monday through Saturday. Often, when discussing Mass attendance, the question arises, “Why is it important to attend weekly worship in a church? After all, I can pray to God anywhere.”

That is a legitimate question. After all, Jesus Himself tells us, “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Mt. 6:6) Since Jesus tells us to pray in secret, we shouldn’t go to communal worship, right?

Not exactly. First of all, Jesus Himself regularly went to Jewish communal worship by attending synagogues and temple services. He obviously had no problem with joining others in prayer to God the Father. In fact, His next words make the meaning of this command clear: “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” Our Lord is telling us that our prayer needs to be sincere, spoken from the depths of our souls. A long, drawn out prayer with many words is useless if there is no sincerity, but a short, silent prayer is the most effective if the sincerity of heart is there.

Secondly, the Scriptures encourage us to gather as a community in worship. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us to “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Heb 10:25) The Apostles regularly went to synagogue and temple on Saturday, as observant Jews, then gathered again on Sunday for worship of Our Lord. The Apostles thought it was important, so why shouldn’t we?

Obviously, it is. Human beings are not isolated, strictly individualistic, creatures. We all desire some level of social involvement, some more and some less, but all have a need for contact with other humans. When we gather on Sunday for communal worship, we make visible our unity with one another as Christians. We join together to worship God with one voice, and allow the Holy Spirit to work in and through us who have gathered to strengthen each other. The Body of Christ, sadly divided into denominations by human disagreements, is shown in some sense through our unity at Christian worship.

This Sunday, instead of staying home or sleeping in, if that’s your regular practice, join your brothers and sisters at Sunday worship. Jesus tells us, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Mt 18:20) Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?

We don’t like looking foolish. We get mad when someone makes a fool of us, and become upset with ourselves when we say or do something that makes us look like a fool. In general, we avoid doing anything that might be considered foolish by those around us because we want to avoid looking foolish.

This tendency is not a bad thing, as many foolish acts can lead to serious harm to ourselves and those around us. Unfortunately, there is a negative side this as well, as it can lead us to be more reserved about our faith in Jesus Christ. After all, we don’t want to look like one of those foolish, overzealous Christians. It should be enough to believe in Jesus, right?

Well, not exactly. To be a Christian is foolish in the eyes of the world, because we believe in a Savior who is God Himself, yet humbled Himself to become one of us lowly humans and was killed by being hung on a cross. Not only that, but we also believe that He rose from the dead and now lives bodily in Heaven. As St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians tells us, “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.” (1 Cor 1:23) In our physical, material world, this is beyond foolishness, it’s insanity.

Even so, that is what we believe, and that foolish faith calls us to do more things that could be seen as foolish in the eyes of the world. In the Catholic Church, we have a list called the Corporal Works of Mercy which are actions commanded by Jesus Himself to His followers. Most of the Corporal Works come right from Jesus’ mouth in the Gospel of Matthew: “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, and I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. […] As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” (Mt 25:34-36, 40)

Clearly, just having a belief in Jesus isn’t enough, there are also demands by Our Lord for physical action. Of course, the physical actions are where we can look foolish, as someone could misinterpret our intentions. We might have to stand out in the crowd when we would much rather just blend in. We might even fail in our work, and fall flat on our face. Regardless, we are still called to be, in the words of St. Paul, “fools for Christ’s sake.” (1 Cor 4:10)

Of course, there’s one good reason why we would want to be fools for Christ: those who are foolish in the eyes of the world are open to the great joy, peace, and love from God our Heavenly Father. St. Paul reminds us that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men,” (1 Cor 1:25) and as the song I picked for this morning says, “That’s why I don’t care if I look like a fool.”

This morning’s song: Look Like a Fool, by Matt Maher

I’m sure you all have noticed how much earlier the Christmas shopping season seems to start. It used to be that the weekend after Thanksgiving was spent by store employees setting up Christmas decorations and putting out the latest products to be purchased as gifts. Now, that weekend is considered the busiest shopping weekend of the Christmas season (it really isn’t, according to some reports I’ve recently heard), and Christmas sales begin almost right after Halloween. It’s almost as if the major retailers haven’t figured out how to make lots of money on Thanksgiving, so they skip it all together.

The problem is that the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is not the Christmas season. “Sure it is,” you might think. “Look at all the decorations and Christmas sales and Christmas music on the radio. It has to be the Christmas season.” Unfortunately, that’s because it’s become culturally popular to celebrate Christmas earlier and earlier. Until relatively recently, Christians have always celebrated the Christmas season starting on Christmas Day. We all know the song The Twelve Days of Christmas. Those twelve days began on Christmas Day and ended on January 5th, the day before the Feast of the Epiphany, which commemorates the arrival of the Magi from the East. Christmas Day is the beginning of the celebration, not the end.

Because we celebrate the Christmas season so early, we’ve lost Advent. During the Advent season, which lasts for four weeks before Christmas, we prepare ourselves for the celebration of Jesus’ birth, but we also look forward with joyful anticipation to the return of Our Lord at the end of the world. This is the season we should be in right now, not the early Christmas shopping season.

Since we don’t recognize Advent as a culture, we end our Christmas celebrations when we should be just getting started. On December 26th, the Christmas music and decorations go back into storage, and the trees get thrown to the curb. We’ve lost any real extended celebration of Our Lord’s birth.

How should we recognize the Advent season? By preparing ourselves for the celebration instead of prematurely jumping into it as we do now. If you were to visit St. Mary’s Church right now, you’d see that there aren’t any Christmas decorations or trees up at this time, just an Advent wreath and some violet, a traditional color of royalty, to prepare for the coming of Our King and Lord. Visit on Christmas Day and the decorations will be up, the trees will be lit, and we’ll be in the full swing of celebrating Our Lord’s birth. Our celebration will continue until the Feast of the Epiphany, marking the Twelve Days.

For now, we need to ready ourselves for Christ’s coming, and not worry about celebrating His birth too early. For our prayer, may we use this popular Advent hymn: O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

This morning’s song: O Come, O Come Emmanuel, performed by Sugarland