Our readings for Sunday are here.
These are the poem, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis Dillon, SJ’s homilies from the Masses of
- December 17, 2017 Noon
- December 14, 2014 Noon
The poems Fr Dennis references this cycle are:
- Minnesota Thanksgiving by John Berryman on December 17, 2017 Noon
- The Place by Paul Zimmer on December 17, 2017 Noon
- December by Gary Johnson on December 14, 2014 Noon
- Wait by Galway Kinnell on December 14, 2014 Noon
In 2017, we reflected that —
- In the gospel, John the Baptist won’t say who he is! It is almost like a legal language game:
- “Are you ….?” Nope
- It feels like this familiar and frequent first question in a courtroom
- It is happening with scribes and pharisees
- He doesn’t deny or admit anything
- And, on repeated listenings, it takes on the rhythm of a comedy sketch
- In Jewish rituals
- lotsa water is used (ritual purity, drawing of water, blessing on water ….) but no baptisms
- so the innovation of the baptism with water by John the Baptist may be why the Jewish leaders think he is the Messiah
- One reason the Jewish leaders may be unable to recognize Jesus as the Messiah
- John the Baptist testifies to the Light, rather than the power and crampedness of scripture interpretation of the time, the heuristic of many Jewish religious leaders of the time, some Roman appointed
- John the Baptist says, “I am not worthy to untie his sandal strap” —
- The pharisees and the scribes (those of power) think John the Baptist must be beneath this unrecognized and thus earthly poor “Messiah” Jesus, whom they do not see as holy
- But, we now know that John the Baptist is really saying that he cannot lower himself in heavenly humility as much as the one who will wash our feet and be hung on the cross.
- In Minnesota Thanksgiving by John Berryman, captures the sense of how gratitude opens the door to our perceiving God’s grace and sanctification in us … even in secular circumstances, even with Thanksgiving is a civic holiday.
- “Dusk comes as perfect ripeness.”
- “This is where you will go / At last when coldness comes.”
- “At the end of your life / You remember and dwell in / Its faultless light forever.”
- rl reflection: The Pope Francis Center in Detroit, serving central Detroit’s community of people who are unsheltered and/or food insecure, for some time shared a quote of one of their guests: I’m not grateful because I’m joyful; I’m joyful because I’m grateful. If there was a hallmark of D2, it was his contentedness — with a couple dozen at daily Mass, with near 600 lined up the aisles at Ash Wednesday (he quipped with his cheery smile, “We should do this more often” joking about the annual celebration.) And so I find myself turning to gratitude, not to avoid my life but to live it fully, not allow myself to be inured in any dark room that circumstances may have me in — but remember I am housed in a mansion of which most rooms have been filled with light and joy, even as the current one may not feel that way. Sometimes they are so in the very moment I live them, sometimes after the fact. When I feel gratitude, I am humble like John the Baptist (love this icon image for praying; Thanks!, Fr Peter Fennessy, SJ, for your icon class). A Friendly Reminder: icons are sacred objects — they are to be displayed in churches or in your home’s designated and attended prayer space. They are not art to be displayed in museums or printed out from a computer and left on a table. We revere or let them be. :-)
In 2014, we reflected that —
- We accidentally sang the Gloria at the Gaudete Sunday Noon Mass in 2014. As he and we realized it, Fr Dennis cheerily noted, “Oops! Ah, but we’re told in the second reading not to quench the Spirit!”
- The first reading focuses on Joy and Justice. On reflection (by rl) it seems that qualities of God — justice, gratitude, peace create joy in us. That resonance of our soul in God creates that Joy that shines from us.
- In the second reading, the line “Do not quench the Spirit.” stuck with Fr Dennis, even before our unanticipated Gloria!
- Several things came to him as he reflected on the nature of Advent —
- When D2 was doing his studies at NYU, he was assigned to and living in the Nativity Parish on the Lower East Side of NYC.
- On occasion he would visit the Catholic Worker House. He noticed that Dorothy Day seemed completely present to whomever she was with; no sense of rushing off or other things to do — even when she must surely have had such demands on her time, as she had already become a national and international figure. When a staff member approached her as she was engaged with a guest; her simple response — “Do you need to speak with one of us?” struck D2 as this John the Baptist humility.
- His recollection from T.S. Eliot’s play “Cocktail Party” — a one character cocktail party in which one “waits and does nothing.”
- And, so is Advent — being present, waiting, and, need be — do nothing, in this time of remembering.
- And so the poems are Wait by Galway Kinnell and December (a poem in English sonnet form!) by Gary Johnson. The poems focus on what sustains us in the waiting — people, kids, hope. They are how we hear “the voice of the angels.”
The Surest Sign 