December 8, 2002

It is the custom in the four weeks of Advent to meditate and preach on the “Four Last Things.” Advent has become smothered by the Christmas shuffle, partly because a superficial culture feels uncomfortable with the deep mysteries of Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. These are discordant with the “Christmas spirit” only if the “Christmas spirit” is some kind of enthusiasm other than the Holy Spirit. Our nation and our entire world are presently engaged in a grave political crisis whose solution is to be found in what Christ has shown us about the Four Last Things. Mature adults do not distract themselves from threats of terrorism and war and more domestic discontents by singing “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

In saying this, I do not want to sound like the Grinch that stole Christmas. A portrait of the “Dr. Seuss” who created that entertaining character now hangs in a corridor of my old college library where he studied writing very well. The real Grinch is that Prince of Lies who would steal from us life itself, if we let him. The Holy Church speaks with marvelous warnings in Advent, because there is a great joy that souls are in danger of missing if they do not know what the Birth of Christ means. Parties and banter have their rightful and even necessary place, but Christianity gives the world the paradox of a “solemn feast” because salvation is a joy deeper than frivolity can express, and so glorious that it would frighten us if we saw it face to face in this fragile world.

This second week of Advent, when the focus in on divine Judgment, Cardinal Egan will solemnly dedicate our mortgage-free church (with an entirely appropriate party in the undercroft afterward to which all are invited) on Monday at 6 PM. All of us should think about the parish’s life as we enter a new phase of growth and witness, for we shall be accountable to the Divine Judge for what we have done with His blessings. Two days later, His Eminence will return to celebrate Mass for the area chapters of Legatus, as he presided at Mass celebrated by Archbishop Martino on November 22. The generous availability of the Cardinal, and of Bishop McCormack on many Sundays here, is a reminder that a parish is part of a much larger Church against which “the gates of Hell shall not prevail.”

The Holy Child of Bethlehem, whom no grimness can steal from us, is splendidly honored in this season by the children of the parish. They will perform the annual Nativity play in the undercroft following the 11 AM Mass next Sunday as a prelude to the Solemn High Feast of the Nativity.

Fr. George W. Rutler