St. John Neumann
Catholic Church

Everyone had heard about the promise. The stories of the promise were told around family meals, especially on the Sabbath. The people of the Covenant had this hope written deep in their hearts, for an Anointed One, a Messiah (in Greek, a Cristos). This hoped for Messiah would be God's gift to Israel, a divine gift that would bring them freedom from the misery of sin and suffering, and from the detested slavery to Imperial and Gentile Rome. The promise was for a new David, a new King, anointed by the Lord God, for the deliverance promised.

We too begin this season of Advent with hope in our hearts, looking in anticipation for our King, the Anointed One that offers healing to our broken humanity. We too remember the promise, and all that the Lord God has given us in blessing. We exist as a world-wide universal Church because of this gift: a Messiah born in time... the Christ, born in our flesh and blood, born as son of Mary, as son of David, proclaimed in faith as the Son of God.

*** Everyone had heard about the promise. The stories of the promise were told around family meals, especially on the Sabbath. The people of the Covenant had this hope written deep in their hearts, for an Anointed One, a Messiah (in Greek, a Cristos). This hoped for Messiah would be God's gift to Israel, a divine gift that would bring them freedom from the misery of sin and suffering, and from the detested slavery to Imperial and Gentile Rome. The promise was for a new David, a new King, anointed by the Lord God, for the deliverance promised.

We too begin this season of Advent with hope in our hearts, looking in anticipation for our King, the Anointed One that offers healing to our broken humanity. We too remember the promise, and all that the Lord God has given us in blessing. We exist as a world-wide universal Church because of this gift: a Messiah born in time... the Christ, born in our flesh and blood, born as son of Mary, as son of David, proclaimed in faith as the Son of God.

***

Now, as we begin this Advent season, we need to recognize that we will be celebrating  another season alongside Advent, another season anticipated by most every person we know. In our beloved country and in that part of the world formerly known as Christendom, this "holiday season" is a season of special meals, of parties and presents, a time when all seem to agree to be a bit kinder to one another. This "holiday season" is centered on the winter solstice, and is a time when our favorite stores are decorated in vivid greens and reds, where "holiday" music is piped into the waiting rooms, shopping centers and malls we frequent. This "holiday season" brings joy to most everyone. The salutation of happy holidays is heard on our radio stations and on the 900 stations we can watch on our cable-fed or satellite-linked television sets. From about Thanksgiving Day to the 25th of December, most everyone in our beloved country celebrates this "holiday season."

In a sense, every disciple of the Lord Jesus does live under the influence of two realities: a secular reality, one that offers us secular seasons and secular holidays, based on commonly-held human precepts (and occasionally, on different religious ideals); and, a sacred reality, one constructed in and through faith, a reality that offers us sacred seasons and holy days, a reality that has as its cornerstone a belief in all that the Lord God has revealed.

As disciples of the Lord Jesus, we experience these parallel universes, sometimes with ease, sometimes in distress. Let us seek to find common ground with all men and women of good will, and enjoy these secular holidays as citizens of the land; but let us look to the Lord this Advent, in this sacred season. As disciples of the Lord Jesus, our frame-of-reference is not bound up with what can be produced, bought, sold and consumed. Our frame-of-reference... our anchor... is on the great gift given (all that led to the Nativity, and his life among us), the great gift lived (the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church), the great gift promised (God's Kingdom).

AMDG

Msgr. David Talley

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