Homily for the week of December 6, 2009

2nd Sunday of Advent, 2009

Psalm 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6

Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11

Luke 3:1-6

Today we celebrate the Second Sunday of Advent. But we are also on the weekend of December 5-6. Most of you may know, but some of you may no know that the Catholic Church has the important tradition of honoring women and men whose holy life is an inspiration to others. These are teh offical sints of the Catholic Church, and tehre are hundreds of them. These sains represent the wide variety of people who became offical saints of the Catholic Church. Most of them are famous names, and many of us are named after these saints. Whenever we read about their story they can help us to become better persons and by trying to imitate some of the spiritual activities that helped them to be come holy. The witness of the faith in God and in Jesus can strengthen us and give us a model of being a better person.

The Catholic Church gives each one of them a special day in the calendar. It is called the Feast Day of that saint. For example we think of St. Patrick on March 17th, we think of St. Joseph on March 19th. December 6th happens to be the Feast of St. Nicholas. Other than the people in the Gospel stories about Jesus' birth, no other saint is so identified with Christmas as is St. Nicholas.

Most Americans know that somehow our Christmas figure Santa Claus is based on ''Good St. Nick.'' The name ''Santa Claus'' is an anglicized version of Sinkerclass which is the Dutch name for St. Nicholaus. St. Nicholas was a very real person. He was a fourth century bishop, the bishop of Myra, now in modern day Turkey. It was a time of persecution by Roman emperors. Many legends grew up around him, all based on his practice of charity and care for the poor.

One legend tells of a poor man who had three daughters that he could not marry off because he was too poor to provide a dowry. A dowry was property or money that a bride brought to her husband on the day they were marreid. The legend says that in secret St. Nicholas saw to it that the father received three bags of gold for dowries so each of the daughters could get married. It is said that Nicholas, on different nights, threw the bags of gold in the window of the man's house and they landed in the shoes of the children. Even now in Catholic countries, gifts of candy and nuts are placed in children's shoes and stockings on December 6th.

There is growing interest in reclaiming the original saint in the United States to help restore the spiritual dimension of this season. St. Nicholas, a lover of the poor and the patron of children, is a model of how Christians are meant to live. Nicholas's imitating Jesus Christ was the center of his entire existence. Perhaps better than Santa Claus ever can, St. Nicholas can help us reclaim the true center of Christmas-- the birth of Jesus. Such a focus helps restore balance to materialistic and stress-filled Advent and Christmas seasons.

There are many traditions that surround Christmas, but too much historical distance between the origins of our practices and how they are now experienced has robbed many of our traditions of their depth of meaning.

Legends develop to tell and teach an important truth. The truthfulness of the details of legends is not important, but the truths the legends pass on are vital. Whether there is factual truth in the legend of Nicholas seeing to it that a poor man had money for a dowry for his daughters does not matter; it is a legend that began in a truth about a love for the poor and about generosity.

We do not want to destroy our Advent and Christmas traditions, but Advent should help us peel away the non-religious aspects of our traditions and help us reclaim what they were originally meant to do, that is, teach us about Christ coming into the world.

A tradition developed that candy, nuts, and other things were put into the shoes and stockings of children during the eve of the feast of St. Nicholas. It was a tradition that began with the poor. There were no presents the way we think of presents. Candy and nuts were luxuries for the rich. On this eve the children of the poor were reminded that they were not forgotten. They didn't believe that a ''Santa'' figure brought these things, they believed that a saint of God brought these things. There was no question of the connection between filled shoes and the love of God.

An important Advent person was mentioned in the Gospel which I just read. That person is John the Baptist. The people listening to John the Baptist were from all walks of life, but they held one thing in common: they were looking for meaning in their lives. Somehow the faith they had inherited had grown stale and rigid. Rome, a foreign government, occupied the land. There was no middle class; just rich and poor. John the Baptist brought a message of hope to these people. At last the Lord was coming. John's preaching brought excitement to a defeated people. His promise of the coming of the Lord gave people motivation to change and to rediscover their ancestral faith.

John the Baptist might well be considered the worlds first hippie. He live in a desert where there was nothing. He was clothed in a camel hair wrapping with a leather belt to hold it up. He may have sandals, or possibly not. His favorite food consisted of grasshoppers and wild honey. But John the Baptist is in stain glass windows, and churches have been named after him -- like St. John’s Church in Plattsburgh.

This Advent, using our traditions of decorating homes and trees, setting out manger scenes, and even hanging ''stockings by the chimney with care,'' we must reclaim the fervor that John the Baptist brought. Christ is coming. We must make ready. Baruch, the secretary of the prophet Jeremiah, was filled with hope that God would rescue His people in exile. The first reading captures this joy.

We have a lot of tools at our disposal to do the same. Christ has come once, in preparing for Christmas we are really preparing for Him to come again. As the psalm says, let us be '' filled with joy.'' The message of John the Baptist is very simple: PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD. Jesus cannot come unless there is a road, and there will be no road unless we prepare one.