Rev. James A. Wallace, C.Ss.R.

Jan 29 2025

Rejoice Always

Certain watchwords are associated with each season of the church year, almost becoming a motto. Advent’s is “Wake up.” It then leads to other words like “Watch,” “Wait,” and “Witness.” But every Third Sunday of Advent, we anticipate the coming Christmas season, whose key word is “Rejoice.” This Sunday was traditionally called Gaudete (“Rejoice”) Sunday. Priests continue to wear rose-colored vestments today, signaling joy.

Joy is not only for Christmastime and the occasional Sunday. I remember as an altar boy, before Vatican II, Mass began with the “prayers at the foot of the altar.” The priest would begin: “I will go up to the altar of God.” The server responded: “To God who gives joy to my youth,” or as some translations had it, “To God, my exceeding joy.”

It was a reminder that God is the source of all joy and that joy is one of the great gifts of God, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul reminds us that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (see Galatians 5:22). Now there is a good list for Christmas giving. Tell your loved ones your Christmas gift this year will be to pray throughout the coming year that the Spirit will bring them one of these gifts.

John’s gift to the people who came out into the wilderness was to call them to prepare for the Lord, to give them a sense of heightened anticipation that the One coming to them would fill them with joy.

Consider/Discuss

How do you think of joy? Is it the same as happiness?
Do you recognize that the Spirit who dwells in us is the giver of joy?
Have you asked for this gift?

Responding to the Word

Dear God, source and giver of joy, open my heart to receive your joy. As the Advent season continues, help me to live in a spirit of anticipation and watchful ness for how Christ continues to come into the world, a spirit of joy rooted in the awareness that you are faithful to your children. Amen.

Jan 29 2025

God’s Passionate Love for Us

A stained glass window in the Redemptorist house chapel in Washington, D.C. offers visitors an image of the Annunciation. Mary looks like a beautiful princess, wearing a white gown embroidered with gold stars, shrouded in a dark blue cloak. Her blond hair falls around her face, her eyes are cast down in humility, and her arms folded across her breast. She is in a sunlit room with multicolored coverings on various pieces of furniture, a lily by her side. An open book of the scriptures is behind her. Most striking is the handsome angel hovering above her, hair wreathed with flowers, and wrapped in enough cloth to drape several large windows. Above them, a dove.

For years I confess I found it all a little silly. After all, wasn’t Mary an illiterate peasant woman, living in a small town? Her appearance, clothing, and household furnishings would have been quite simple. But one day, the look in the angel’s eyes caught my attention as it never had before. I realized what the artist was trying to communicate. Gabriel, whose name means “God is strong,” was looking so lovingly and protectively at her that I found myself thinking of those words in the Song of Songs that speak of a love “stronger than death,” one that “deep waters cannot quench, nor floods sweep away.” As Gabriel stands in for God in this scene, so Mary does for us. Today’s feast celebrates God’s saving love waiting again and again to become incarnate in all human flesh.

Consider/Discuss

Consider God’s gift of grace to you, given at your baptism into Christ. You are chosen to be holy, destined for glory, as Ephesians reminds us.
Does this feast separate Mary from us or bring her closer?

Responding to the Word

Creator God, your grace touched Mary from the moment of her conception, making her worthy to be the mother of your Son. May your grace work with our freedom so that we might bear your Son in our lives and be holy, all to the praise and glory of your name. Amen.

Jan 29 2025

Roadwork in Progress

I remember hearing about a little boy coming home from church and being asked what the preacher had spoken about. The church used the King James Version of the scriptures and the preacher had spent some time on the reading from Isaiah we heard today. But that translation began: “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God.” In response to his parents’ inquiry, the child said, “It was just lovely. The priest told us how God is saying, ‘Come to tea, come to tea, my people.’ ”

While Isaiah’s message today is certainly comforting, with God telling the prophet to speak tenderly and tell an exiled people that all is forgiven, that the punishment for sin has run its course, these words are not the equivalent of an invitation to a relaxing cup of tea. Now as then, they serve as an invitation to get to work, to remove any obstacle that prevents God from coming into our hearts. This means that we have to get our hearts into shape, and our voices have to become willing to announce that God lives and comes with power to save.

John the Baptist remains a model for us today. He spoke out boldly, calling people to prepare a way for the Lord, which was a call to conversion and inner transformation. We are to take in this same message, first as listeners, then as heralds ourselves, witnessing to family, friends, and any who will listen that Jesus desires to come more fully into our lives.

Consider/Discuss

Do you accept God’s commission to work at preparing a way for the Lord?
What does it mean today to be a herald, a proclaimer of the gospel?

Responding to the Word

Loving God, you come to us with compassion, mercy, and forgiveness, but at times we set up barriers that prevent your entry into our hearts. Teach us how to prepare a way for you so you have access into our lives. May Jesus, who is the way, show us the way. Amen.

Jan 29 2025

Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones

Are you a watcher? Some are people watchers. I remember a former teacher of mine saying how he liked to sit by the window in a restaurant or, if the day was nice, on a park bench, and just watch people go by. It served as a reminder of God’s infinite imagination in creating us. Or, perhaps you are a clock-watcher, checking your watch frequently, even searching to find a clock whenever you enter an unfamiliar place. Clock-watchers tend to be on time and are especially appreciated when running meetings.

Advent calls us to be watchers, but neither of clocks nor of people merely passing by. We are called to be watchers for the Lord’s return. Now this might not seem as interesting as watching people, or as practical as watching the clock, or even as likely to get results, but its importance is on a deeper level. We are called to take seriously Jesus’ promise that he will return and that we are to live now in light of that return, that is, to live in the light this promise offers us for our lives.

As we watch for the Lord’s return in glory, we might catch glimpses of him more frequently here and now because he returns more often than we might suspect, but we miss it because we are not watching for it. So when we hear Jesus commanding his disciples, “Be watchful! Be alert!” this holds for us today—and tomorrow.

Consider/Discuss

Are you a watcher? Of what?
In your watching, have you had any experiences of kairos time, those moments of grace when you felt the presence of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit?
Can you become more watchful and grow into a deeper confidence that the Lord will return?

Responding to the Word

Make us a watchful people, Lord, living in such a way that we keep one eye watching for your return, while we meet the challenges of the present. Let us not grow discouraged or fearful that you will not return. Help us recognize how you come even now in your word and in the sacraments. Amen.

Jan 16 2025

Dividing Day

Every so often when I am driving, I see that old bumper sticker calling us to commit random acts of kindness. Good advice in light of the story of the Last Judgment. Did you notice that the story makes no mention of many of the sins we usually worry about as the basis for the Last Judgment? This is not to say such things don’t matter. But the emphasis here has to do with getting out there and responding to people really in need, basic needs relating to hunger, thirst, being a stranger—an unwelcome immigrant? (that one is certainly ripped from today’s headlines!)— lacking clothes, needing health care (another relevant one), and being imprisoned.

While it is always interesting to watch other people being judged, it is not something most of us enjoy experiencing ourselves—especially when it comes to evaluating our moral lives. It is much easier to think of Jesus as the forgiving, compassionate, tender shepherd who is out there looking for us than as the one who comes in glory to judge and separate out the goats and the lambs. Who wants to be counted among the goats?

So, pick your area that will help you to be counted among the sheep. Food distribution, environmental concerns, immigration reform, clothing—include here those nets that can save lives threatened by various issues surrounding health care, or prison reform. Perhaps you thought this was one of those quaint stories Jesus tells that seem so long ago and far away. The last we hear from the Gospel of Matthew for this year invites your participation—now. The reason? When you do something for them, you do it for him.

Consider/Discuss

Have you had any experiences of being judged that proved helpful?
Can you bring together images of Jesus as both shepherd and judge?
Can you hear in today’s Gospel an invitation to a fuller life?

Responding to the Word

We pray with confidence to the Father to whom all things will be handed over by Christ, the new Adam, through whom we have become children of the king dom. We ask the Spirit to teach us to recognize the freedom that comes from sub jecting ourselves to God’s rule and serving, as Christ served, those most in need.