By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily during a Mass he celebrated Dec. 8, 2024, at St. Matthew Parish in Hallandale. During the Mass, he also blessed the church's new refurbished worship space. Dec. 8 is the second Sunday of the Advent Season.
On this the second Sunday of the Advent Season, the voice of John the Baptist cries out from the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord.
Then tomorrow, we will celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, a Holy Day of Obligation. By preserving Mary from all stain of sin, the Lord himself was doing his part in preparing the Way of the Lord. Mary, full of grace, would say “Yes” to the Lord, accepting her role in the history of our salvation. Her “yes” opened the doors of our world to hope, to the one hope that will never disappoint, Jesus Christ.
Advent is a season charged with expectations; it is a season filled with hope. This message of hope is certainly sorely needed today. We live in a world of fragile peace and of broken promises. Advent reminds us of this fact as well. The world is broken, and it needs fixing. And if the world is broken it is because we have forgotten about God. To live without God, to live without reference to his truth, to pretend that we can organize our world, that we can live our lives without God, without acknowledging that he has made us more than just to die one day, leaves us hopeless.
And so many of the problems, so many of the social ills of our time, are merely symptoms of this loss of hope. And the drop in Sunday Mass attendance by many Catholics could also be symptomatic of this loss of hope. Only those who have hope pray.
Without hope, the toils of our daily life, the trials and tribulations that we all face in one way, or another make life joyless and just drudgery. Life becomes like an arid desert, a wilderness.
And from that desert, from the depths of the loneliness that is our plight when God seems silent and far away, John the Baptist announces that the Lord is in fact very near to each one of us. But we must prepare the way, making straight those paths along which we travel, removing those obstacles, those potholes in the road of life, that keep us exiled from God.
Thus, Advent is a call to repentance, to conversion, for if we do not recognize our need for God, if we don’t acknowledge that only he can save and that we cannot save ourselves, then what meaning would Christmas have for us?
This aspect of Advent, of course, is easy for us to miss, especially as the secular aspects of the Christmas season have us busy with Christmas parties and shopping. Many do spend a lot of time buying gifts and wrapping them up for Christmas Day.
But let’s be careful lest we get so absorbed in the gifts we forget about the gift that is, after all, the reason for the season: the Christ Child, God become our own flesh, through whom, as we sing in the Christmas carol, “God and sinner is reconciled.”
As one wise man said, anybody wrapped up in himself or herself makes himself a very small gift. So, while we might spend some time wrapping gifts, Advent reminds us that we must first unwrap ourselves, we must come out of our living only for ourselves, we must come out of our self-absorption, our self-centeredness, our self-pity to be able to welcome the Lord who comes into our lives. And so as not to intimidate us, or frighten us, or shame us, he will come as a little child, a little bambino, with arms outstretched, seeking our embrace, our love.
God enters into our lives and offers each one of us new hope.
The renovation of the sanctuary here at St. Matthew’s also points us to that hope which is Jesus Christ. For here in this sacred space, which is one way to translating “sanctuary”, we celebrate the Mystery of Faith. The Mass is the source and summit of our Christian life, and as such each Mass is an anticipation of the heavenly banquet that awaits us in heaven. Our Communion in His Body and Blood is food for our journey.
I congratulate Father Govin and all of you for this beautiful renovation of the sanctuary – and it is also a bit of a restoration.
Prayer is the lifting up of our minds and hearts to God. The beauty of this sanctuary does help us to focus our minds on God and to open our hearts to Him.
That being said, I also remember the story – a true story – of St. Francis of Assisi when he first began his journey with the Lord.
He was praying in a run-down, beaten-up chapel on the outskirts of Assisi, and he heard Jesus speaking to him from the Crucifix: Francis, rebuild my church. And so, Francis started doing just that: replacing rotted timbers, sweeping out the dust and dirt, painting the walls, etc.
Later, he realized that this wasn’t what the Lord was asking of him. He didn’t mean to fix up the chapel, made up of bricks and mortar, but to fix up the Church, made up of living stones, the People of God.
So, Father Govin, you still have a lot of work to do. And, not only you, but also all the parishioners here. The Lord is coming. There are a lot of lost souls out there to be brought back into the Church, which should be like an oasis in the desert, where people can seek refuge from the enemy, where they can refresh themselves with the Sacraments, where hope is nourished and strengthened.
