A Spiritual Reflection for Advent: 'The Comings of Jesus'

As part of my own preparation for the season of Christmas, I am going to post on the Sundays of Advent reflections from a publication entitled "All Things Made New: Homily Reflections for Sundays and Holy Days" by Harold A. Buetow, PhD, JD. Father Buetow has in recent years published an array of superb spiritual reflections for all the days of the liturgical calendar and the special occasions in one's life.

Father Buetow is a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn who spent thirty years on the faculty of The Catholic University of America and was Senior Staff Editor on The New Catholic Encyclopedia. He is the author of the two most important books on Catholic education -- Of Singular Benefit: The Story of U.S. Catholic Education and The Catholic School: Its Roots, Identity, and Future. His more recent spiritual reflections are published by Alba House and are available through Amazon (see widget to the right).

I was privileged to take two graduate courses from Father Buetow at Catholic University and he has been my good friend for over twenty years. I have no doubt you will find these reflections helpful and inspiring for your own spiritual journey.

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Is 63:16f.;64:1, 3-9 -- 1 Cor 1:3-9 -- Mk 13:33-37

The Comings of Jesus
By Harold A. Buetow, PhD, JD

A critic with a sense of humor once said of a play he disliked that he saw it under adverse conditions -- with the curtain up. For many people life itself is a shapeless play without any apparent plot or direction. Many of us just slide along in life. If we gave the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two-week vacation, we'd be startled at how aimless are our "busy" days. Reflection upon meaningful goals of life is made difficult by such pressures of modern living as how we're going to meet payments, the rampant secularistic outlook which suggests that this present world is all there is, the political approach which says that the materially good life is all we want.

Christian teaching goes against all that. In the Church's celebration of the mystery of Christ, during the closing Sundays of the past Church year we looked forward to the final coming of Jesus. Today, as we're beginning a new Church year, we do the same, in a marvelous mixture of end and beginning. Some, however, say that the Church's real "New Year" should be at Easter time, when the Lord makes all things new in his death and resurrection. Still others observe that there really is no "Church Year" as such, but that we simply have different liturgical seasons and celebrations. In any case, there are three cycles of readings, today we begin Cycle B, and Cycle B is the year of St. Marks' Gospel. Because of the analogy with Lent, Advent acquired a penitential character. The liturgical color is the color of penitence. But in Advent we're told to rejoice. So many would like to eliminate the penitential character of Advent. Advent should be a season when we renew our hope because of the coming of Christ.

As we reflect upon the period of waiting for Jesus' first coming at Bethlehem, as we begin to prepare for his coming now at Christmas, we also await his final coming into our lives. In other words, we celebrate his coming in history, his coming in mystery, and his coming in majesty. Knowing that he has already come as a child born of Mary gives us confidence. Amidst the overshadowing material preparations for Christmas, we begin our spiritual preparation for Christ's coming by way of the season of Advent.

Jesus' voice, through St. Mark's Gospel, stirs us to be watchful and alert (v. 33). The disciples had asked when the end of the world would come, Jesus didn't get specific about time, but his central teaching is that he will return in glory to usher in the end of the world. Because no one but the Father knows the precise time of any of the end events, it's necessary to be constantly vigilant. One thing is sure: No matter when Jesus' second coming to planet Earth, he will be coming to each of us at our death.

Jesus' one-line (v.34) parable about it tells of a traveling master who leaves his employees in charge. The moral of the story (vv. 35f.) is that we have to be on the alert not only about the end, but about our responsibility toward the present; Every moment has an eternal significance, so we should be on guard (v. 37). It's a message that's relevant to all times, but especially to our own, when some of our technological inventions remind us constantly that we live in the shadow of eternity. Troubled societies always ask questions about the end of the world. Ours is no exception. The fact always is that we're either going to go meet the Lord at death or when he appears in his glorious second coming -- whichever comes first, as the warranties say. These are fitting thoughts for Advent.

Equally fitting for the spirit of Advent are today's thoughts from Isaiah; thoughts given to his dispirited people around the end of their exile in Babylon of the need for a Redeemer for the human race's sinfulness. The passage opens and closes by addressing the Lord our father (vv. 63:16; 64:7), a reminder of the Exodus from Egypt when God had called Israel his son, his first-born (Ex 4:22). Because in this life we're all exiles, we make Isaiah's Advent prayer our own. No matter what one may see of sin in oneself and be disappointed, there's always encouragement: God rescues and saves -- but He does rescue and save. Even if you've hit bottom, there's the encouragement that there's no place to go but up.

When Isaiah saw Jerusalem hit bottom in ruins, he pleaded for God to tear the heavens open and come down (v. 19); the people of that time thought of the skies as a solid, plastic-like transparent vault, which would need breaking through for God to come to earth. At the same time Isaiah's prayer (64: 2-7), intended to be recited by all the people, confessed their guilt and admitted that God was right to have permitted the Exile as a punishment for sin. God hasn't heaped a heavy burden of sorrow upon sinners; He's simply allowed sinners to wallow in their own responsible guilt. By ourselves, we're like withered leaves carried to and fro by the winds of our guilt. (God's welcoming attitude is well expressed by the beautiful hymn, "Come back to me.")

St. Paul in today's Second Reading also provides an appropriate opening to the season of Advent. Paul was aware of the sinfulness of the Corinthians, even the Christians among them: pride, immaturity, faithlessness, and -- a very great problem -- the divisions within the community. Despite his knowledge that he was going to have to deal honestly with these problems, Paul diplomatically begins his letter warmly. He opens (v. 3) with a prayer for what have become the essential blessings of Christianity: "grace" -- what the nonreligious world might call "good health" or "good luck" -- and "peace," the Jewish "shalom," a special kind of all-embracing well-being that can come from God alone. This includes not only harmony among people, but also the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God: the kind of warmth we feel at Christmas.

In this opening of his letter, Paul addresses some Corinthian Christians who were boasting of their many gifts. None seemed to understand that gifts are things one doesn't deserve and can't earn. Among their gifts were the wonder-causing speaking in tongues, prophecy, proclaiming wisdom, teaching, and making public God's revelations. We can think of others that have been given to us -- music, for example, or the ability to work with one's hands, and all kinds of other talents. All of them aren't to be used for our gain, but held in trust for the honor of God.

Right up front, Paul states his own position about himself. Some Corinthians had had doubts about whether Paul was a true apostle, because other preachers were more dynamic than he. He reminds them that the very gifts they had from God were proof that his preaching had been effective (vv. 6f). Paul's reference to waiting for Jesus' full revelation (v. 7) is an excellent expression of the Advent spirit. Part and parcel of Paul's teaching is that the Lord will come in glory at the end of time. Until that time, all are to rely on God's gifts of faith, grace, and peace.

The Advent theme continues as Paul speaks of the "day of our Lord Jesus Christ." The Jewish Scriptures had often used the phrase, "The Day of the Lord." Paul and the other early Christians looked upon that day as the time when the Lord would return in his full glory; it would also be a day of judgment. Meanwhile, reminiscent of the spirit of encouragement in Isaiah, Paul reminds us that through all our problems and difficulties God is faithful, and has called us to fellowship with his Son (v. 9). That fellowship is very intimate: It means the life-giving union that exists among us faithful that arises from our union with Christ.

We can't call ourselves Christian and live our lives without a purpose. We wait for the comings of Jesus -- in everyday living, at Christmas, at our death, and at the end of the world. We're going to be held accountable for the eternal significance of every moment. All waiting involves some tension, even if it's simple waiting on a street corner for a friend. When waiting involves the very meaning of life, temptations can intrude themselves. In that respect, we're no different from the ancient Israelites who were tempted to despair before seemingly insurmountable difficulties, the Corinthians who were tempted to pride over their gifts, and Jesus' first apostles who were tempted to gloat in the power of the Second Coming.

The seventeenth-century Italian painter Salvator Rosa painted "L'Umana fragilita." It depicts a mother, an infant, and Death, who is represented by a winged skeleton. As the mother looks on passively, Death is forcing the baby to scrawl the following words on a piece of paper: "Conception is sinful, life is suffering, death inevitable." At an exhibit of that painting in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., modern cynical non-believers stood transfixed before this barren summary of their lives.

But Christians have what Isaiah promised: a new hope, a new light. And our waiting for Jesus isn't a despair-filled tension. So we live by faith, walk in hope, and are renewed in love so that, when the last scene of the drama of our life unfolds and Jesus comes to be our judge, we shall not merely know him, but come to him as a friend.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

The Impact of Same-Sex Marriage on Religious Freedom

From the Christian Examiner

At the heart of the arguments in favor of Proposition 8 are concerns about eroding religious freedoms that come about as the same-sex agenda is advanced. Below are some of the legal cases heard across the country as compiled by Rancho Santa Fe Attorney Charles S. LiMandri. Affiliated with the Thomas More Law Center, LiMandri was involved in the Mount Soledad cross case and the first case listed below. He has also been involved in the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign.

LiMandri’s list also includes source documentation, which can be found at his Web site at www.limandrilaw.com. Click on the resources link. The cases are listed in a Powerpoint presentation called “The Impact of Same-Sex Marriage on Religious Freedom.” The cases are listed on pages 4 to 11.

February 24, 2000: A professional printer refused to print material for the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archives because he felt doing so would violate his religious beliefs. He was fined and ordered to print the material anyway. He took his case to the Ontario Supreme Court and then to the Ontario Court of Appeal and lost both times. His total legal bills exceed $170,000.

2001: An evangelical Christian employed as a prison guard in Canada placed an ad in the Saskatchewan Star Phoenix. The ad was a picture of two stick men holding hands, with a red circle with a bar superimposed on them. Below the picture were four Scripture references, but not actual Bible verses. He was convicted of a hate crime by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal. The judge suggested that using Bible verses in a newspaper ad like this could be construed as hate literature. Thus, there is now legal precedent in Canada that the Holy Bible is hate literature.

May 1, 2002: A Catholic high school in Whitby, Ontario was forced by the Ontario Supreme Court to allow a homosexual student to take his boyfriend to the graduation prom, even though the church-run school has strict prohibitions against condoning any kind of homosexual behavior.

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Geert Wilders: 'Our Culture Is Better'

Like Churchill before him, Geert Wilders is a prophet whose message is not yet heard by those with most at stake -- his fellow Europeans. He rightly sees a Western culture that is superior to that which threatens to overwhelm it, but it is a culture that has lost all vitality because it has lost touch with the Christian roots from which it rose. Indeed, the multiculturalist elites that are guiding Europe on its suicidal course cannot even admit the possibility that Western culture is superior to that of Islam and Sharia Law. The Wall Street Journal recently profiled Europe's courageous, lone voice.

By his own description, Geert Wilders is not a typical Dutch politician. "We are a country of consensus," he tells me on a recent Saturday morning at his midtown Manhattan hotel. "I hate consensus. I like confrontation. I am not a consensus politician. . . . This is something that is really very un-Dutch."

Yet the 45-year-old Mr. Wilders says he is the most famous politician in the Netherlands: "Everybody knows me. . . . There is no other politician -- not even the prime minister -- who is as well-known. . . . People hate me, or they love me. There's nothing in between. There is no gray area."

To his admirers, Mr. Wilders is a champion of Western values on a continent that has lost confidence in them. To his detractors, he is an anti-Islamic provocateur. Both sides have a point.

In March, Mr. Wilders released a short film called "Fitna," a harsh treatment of Islam that begins by interspersing inflammatory Quran passages with newspaper and TV clips depicting threats and acts of violent jihad. The second half of the film, titled "The Netherlands Under the Spell of Islam," warns that Holland's growing Muslim population -- which more than doubled between 1990 and 2004, to 944,000, some 5.8% of the populace -- poses a threat to the country's traditional liberal values. Under the heading, "The Netherlands in the future?!" it shows brutal images from Muslim countries: men being hanged for homosexuality, a beheaded woman, another woman apparently undergoing genital mutilation.

Making such a film, Mr. Wilders knew, was a dangerous act. In November 2004, Theo van Gogh was assassinated on an Amsterdam street in retaliation for directing a film called "Submission" about Islam's treatment of women. The killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, left a letter on van Gogh's body threatening Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the film's writer and narrator.

Ms. Hirsi Ali, born in Somalia, had renounced Islam and been elected to the Dutch Parliament, where she was an ally of Mr. Wilders. Both belonged to the center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, known by the Dutch acronym VVD. Both took a hard line on what they saw as an overly accommodationist policy toward the Netherlands' Muslim minority. They argued that radical imams "should be stripped of their nationality," that their mosques should be closed, and that "we should be strong in defending the rights of women," Mr. Wilders tells me.

This made them dissenters within the VVD. "We got into trouble every week," Mr. Wilders recalls. "We were like children going to their parents if they did something wrong, because every week they hassled us. . . . We really didn't care what anybody said. If the factional leadership said, 'Well, you cannot go to this TV program,' for us it was an incentive to go, not not to go. So we were a little bit of two mavericks, rebels if you like."

Mr. Wilders finally quit the party over its support for opening negotiations to admit Turkey into the European Union. That was in September 2004. "Two months later, Theo van Gogh was killed, and the whole world changed," says Mr. Wilders. He and Ms. Hirsi Ali both went into hiding; he still travels with bodyguards. After a VVD rival threatened to strip Ms. Hirsi Ali's citizenship over misstatements on her 1992 asylum application, she left Parliament and took a fellowship at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. Mr. Wilders stayed on and formed the Party for Freedom, or PVV. In 2006 it became Parliament's fifth-largest party, with nine seats in the 150-member lower chamber.

Having his own party liberates Mr. Wilders to speak his mind. As he sees it, the West suffers from an excess of toleration for those who do not share its tradition of tolerance. "We believe that -- 'we' means the political elite -- that all cultures are equal," he says. "I believe this is the biggest disease today facing Europe. . . . We should wake up and tell ourselves: You're not a xenophobe, you're not a racist, you're not a crazy guy if you say, 'My culture is better than yours.' A culture based on Christianity, Judaism, humanism is better. Look at how we treat women, look at how we treat apostates, look at how we go with the separation of church and state. I can give you 500 examples why our culture is better."

He acknowledges that "the majority of Muslims in Europe and America are not terrorists or violent people." But he says "it really doesn't matter that much, because if you don't define your own culture as the best, dominant one, and you allow through immigration people from those countries to come in, at the end of the day you will lose your own identity and your own culture, and your society will change. And our freedom will change -- all the freedoms we have will change."

The murder of van Gogh lends credence to this warning, as does the Muhammad cartoon controversy of 2005 in Denmark. As for "Fitna," it has not occasioned a violent response, but its foes have made efforts to suppress it. A Dutch Muslim organization went to court seeking to enjoin its release on the ground that, in Mr. Wilders's words, "it's not in the interest of Dutch security." The plaintiffs also charged Mr. Wilders with blasphemy and inciting hatred. Mr. Wilders thought the argument frivolous, but decided to pre-empt it: "The day before the verdict, I broadcasted ['Fitna'] . . . not because I was not confident in the outcome, but I thought: I'm not taking any chance, I'm doing it. And it was legal, because there was not a verdict yet." The judge held that the national-security claim was moot and ruled in Mr. Wilders's favor on the issues of blasphemy and incitement.

Dutch television stations had balked at broadcasting the film, and satellite companies refused to carry it even for a fee. So Mr. Wilders released it online. The British video site LiveLeak.com soon pulled the film, citing "threats to our staff of a very serious nature," but put it back online a few days later. ("Fitna" is still available on LiveLeak, as well as on other sites such as YouTube and Google Video.)

An organization called The Netherlands Shows Its Colors filed a criminal complaint against Mr. Wilders for "inciting hatred." In June, Dutch prosecutors declined to pursue the charge, saying in a statement: "That comments are hurtful and offensive for a large number of Muslims does not mean that they are punishable." The group is appealing the prosecutors' decision.

In July, a Jordanian prosecutor, acting on a complaint from a pressure group there, charged Mr. Wilders with blasphemy and other crimes. The Netherlands has no extradition treaty with Jordan, but Mr. Wilders worries -- and the head of the group that filed the complaint has boasted -- that the indictment could restrict his ability to travel. Mr. Wilders says he does not visit a foreign country without receiving an assurance that he will not be arrested and extradited.

"The principle is not me -- it's not about Geert Wilders," he says. "If you look at the press and the rest of the political elite in the Netherlands, nobody cares. Nobody gives a damn. This is the worst thing, maybe. . . . A nondemocratic country cannot use the international or domestic legal system to silence you. . . . If this starts, we can get rid of all parliaments, and we should close down every newspaper, and we should shut up and all pray to Mecca five times a day."

It is difficult to fault Mr. Wilders's impassioned defense of free speech. And although the efforts to silence him via legal harassment have proved far from successful, he rightly points out that they could have a chilling effect, deterring others from speaking out.

Mr. Wilders's views on Islam, though, are problematic. Since 9/11, American political leaders have struggled with the question of how to describe the ideology of the enemy without making enemies of the world's billion or so Muslims. The various terms they have tried -- "Islamic extremism," "Islamism," "Islamofascism" -- have fallen short of both clarity and melioration. Melioration is not Mr. Wilders's highest priority, and to him the truth couldn't be clearer: The problem is Islam itself. "I see Islam more as an ideology than as a religion," he explains.

His own view of Islam is a fundamentalist one: "According to the Quran, there are no moderate Muslims. It's not Geert Wilders who's saying that, it's the Quran . . . saying that. It's many imams in the world who decide that. It's the people themselves who speak about it and talk about the terrible things -- the genital mutilation, the honor killings. This is all not Geert Wilders, but those imams themselves who say this is the best way of Islam."

Yet he insists that his antagonism toward Islam reflects no antipathy toward Muslims: "I make a distinction between the ideology . . . and the people. . . . There are people who call themselves Muslims and don't subscribe to the full part of the Quran. And those people, of course, we should invest [in], we should talk to." He says he would end Muslim immigration to the Netherlands but work to assimilate those already there.

His idea of how to do so, however, seems unlikely to win many converts: "You have to give up this stupid, fascist book" -- the Quran. "This is what you have to do. You have to give up that book."

Mr. Wilders is right to call for a vigilant defense of liberal principles. A society has a right, indeed a duty, to require that religious minorities comply with secular rules of civilized behavior. But to demand that they renounce their religious identity and holy books is itself an affront to liberal principles.

Mr. Taranto, a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, writes the Best of the Web Today column for OpinionJournal.com.

Children are Born Believers in God, Academic Claims

Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic.

From The Telegraph
By Martin Beckford

Dr. Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.

He says that young children have faith even when they have not been taught about it by family or at school, and argues that even those raised alone on a desert island would come to believe in God.

"The preponderance of scientific evidence for the past 10 years or so has shown that a lot more seems to be built into the natural development of children's minds than we once thought, including a predisposition to see the natural world as designed and purposeful and that some kind of intelligent being is behind that purpose," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"If we threw a handful on an island and they raised themselves I think they would believe in God."

In a lecture to be given at the University of Cambridge's Faraday Institute on Tuesday, Dr Barrett will cite psychological experiments carried out on children that he says show they instinctively believe that almost everything has been designed with a specific purpose.

In one study, six and seven-year-olds who were asked why the first bird existed replied "to make nice music" and "because it makes the world look nice".

Another experiment on 12-month-old babies suggested that they were surprised by a film in which a rolling ball apparently created a neat stack of blocks from a disordered heap.

Dr Barrett said there is evidence that even by the age of four, children understand that although some objects are made by humans, the natural world is different.

He added that this means children are more likely to believe in creationism rather than evolution, despite what they may be told by parents or teachers.

Dr Barrett claimed anthropologists have found that in some cultures children believe in God even when religious teachings are withheld from them.

"Children's normally and naturally developing minds make them prone to believe in divine creation and intelligent design. In contrast, evolution is unnatural for human minds; relatively difficult to believe."

Is GOP Heading Down the Wrong Path?

From OneNewsNow
By Jim Brown

The Family Research Council is expressing frustration that some of the new leaders of the Republican Party want social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage to take a back seat to an agenda of smaller government and lower taxes.

New National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions of Texas recently spoke at a fundraising dinner for the Dallas Log Cabin Republicans, a homosexual group that supports same-sex marriage. Sessions reportedly said the GOP can no longer run on just "guns, God, gays [and] taxes." David Nammo, executive director of Family Research Council Action, believes Sessions is heading down the wrong path.

"People are trying to rebrand the GOP; they're trying to find a course for the future. They want to get back in power, and many of the voices that the GOP is listening to is [sic] telling them we need to be moderate, we need to jettison the social conservative issues, we need to not talk about life or marriage," he contends. "And if that is what the direction of the GOP is going to be, I think they're going to find themselves in the minority party for many years to come."

Nammo contends FRC is even more concerned about the strategy of rising Republican stars such as former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. Steele, who may be in line to chair the Republican National Committee, recently told NPR that the GOP needs to be more inclusive of groups like the Log Cabin Republicans. Sanford, a potential 2012 presidential candidate, said recently at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Florida that the GOP has alienated younger voters with its intolerance on homosexual issues.

America’s Moronic Iraqi Policy

From Chronicles
By Paul Craig Roberts

According to all accounts, the United States faces its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, with $2 trillion in near-term financing needs for bailouts and economic stimulus. This is an enormous sum for any country, especially one that is so heavily indebted that it is close to bankruptcy. If the money can’t be borrowed abroad, it will have to be printed—a policy that carries the implication of hyper-inflation.

In normal life, a borrower who must appeal to creditors makes every effort to bring order to his financial affairs. But not the Bush regime.

The out-of-pocket costs of Bush’s Iraq war are about $600 billion at the present moment, a figure that increases by millions of dollars every hour.

In addition, there are the much larger future costs that have already been incurred, such as long-term care for the wounded and disabled U.S. soldiers, the replacement costs of the used-up equipment, interest payments on the war debt, and the lost economic use of the resources and manpower squandered in war. Experts estimate that the already incurred out-of-pocket and future costs of Bush’s Iraq war to be $3 trillion and rising.

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