Deacon Dan Wright

Musings on the Morning of Christmas Eve

This morning I had the early Mass.  At St. Thomas More there are eleven Masses scheduled altogether today, though I'm a little uncertain about the exactness of that number.  It's one of those things that comes with being at an immensely large parish during the holiday season.  So, I had the 5 p.m. Mass yesterday evening and the  7 a.m. this morning.  That ought to do it, right?  Well, you've got add into the equation that today we celebrate both the fourth Sunday of Advent and then later this afternoon we'll get to the Christmas Vigil.  Yes, I still need to return this afternoon for two more liturgies (and there are several other liturgies as well).  It's enough to keep three priests and four deacons, and one liturgical coordinator busy all day.

But not so right now.  I'm taking a welcome moment to do something I haven't had much time for lately... Yes, the blog.  I must admit there's been something of a slow down from where I was when I started this thing way back in June.  It doesn't seem all that long now.  It's been a good six months of blogging and I anticipate many more to come, especially when I encounter quiet moments when I can relax and put my spiritual self into it.  Right now, I'm being as about spiritual as my soul will allow.  All the shopping is done, I'm settled back with a cup of chocolate-flavored coffee, and I'm enjoying the moment while I get ready to face the parking lot and the crowds at the parish this afternoon.

Winter has come late to central Texas, but finally it has arrived with chilly nonstop raining.  It's rained for past 20 hours now with the temperature holding at around 40.  Good thing we don't get snow very often in this part of the state!  I have a fire in the fireplace and the sound of televised Christmas music and children playing comes from the next room.  I take a moment to think back on the past when in my youth Christmas stood out as the one occasion, year after year, that I remember most.  I suppose the reason that Christmas stands out so well in my memories is because it is the event that brings people together.  And what better way is there to truly celebrate the coming of our salvation than by coming together to be with the ones you love?  For me, being with my wife and children fulfills the meaning of the season.  Certainly, I appreciate their allowing me to get away for a short while to serve the parish today.

Thus far, there have been plentiful blessings this year to balance out whatever difficulties I've faced.  I take Christmas as a moment to celebrate blessing.  I always celebrate my blessings with the ones I love, which also includes taking this moment to share with whomever might think of logging on to deacondanwright.org today--but hey, as Catholics we have this entire wonderful season of Christmas.  It won't be all gone day after tomorrow--I'll have other Christmas messages to share with you later this week I'm sure.  Our challenge, as Christians throughout the year, is to keep the blessings flowing.

As we head into Christmas--later today and this evening--I'll keep you in my prayers.  It's my tradition to stay at home and watch the Midnight Mass televised from Rome.  Many years before I became Catholic, when I was about 19 I remember watching the Mass from Rome with my mother.  It was celebrated by our great pope John Paul--the first Christmas of his pontificate.  I recall the conversation that my mother and I had that night as we were blessed by the pope's message and the beauty of the images from the Vatican.  It was at that time, I believe, that mother and I opened our hearts to the message of the Catholic faith.  I look back on it now as a miracle of faith--though certainly sublime.  John Paul had that kind of charisma; it was a time of blessing indeed.  However, the time for blessing is far from over.

May the blessing in your life continue in this Christmas season and beyond.  Wherever you are, family, friends, near and far... I pray that you have a most blessed Christmas season.  May it be bright and full of the joy and love that we find in Christ and in one another.

Having Trust Despite Appearances

Very often we are most likely to hear Advent described as a season of anticipation, of waiting, a time to slow things down a bit.  I have no reason not to agree, although it's always been a little difficult for me to accept the slowing down part in the busiest season of the year.  I dread think what would happen if I were to shut down right before Christmas, "You do the shopping and getting everything ready Dear, I'm going to kick back and be spiritual."  Although I know the intention is not to drop out of the season, but often I get the feeling that those who tell us to slow down either don't have families or they're not being quite honest with us.

Certainly anticipation and waiting are part of what Advent is all about, and undoubtedly amid all the busyness of the year it doesn't hurt a thing to remember to take a moment to recall the source of every blessing: we mustn't forget to pause from our activities for a moment of prayer.  However, what has been standing out even more to me lately in the Advent message is the idea that we are to trust God despite appearances, despite what the world tells us, and above all else, we are to trust God despite what the facts have to say.  Maybe the truest meaning of Advent has to do with trusting God when the circumstances come to tell us that we've been abandoned.

In today's first reading the idea of trust, as it is lived in the life of the mother of Samson, serves to remind us of Elizabeth's trust, or even Mary's trust, despite what the facts had to say.  For me, Advent, and consequently Christmas, is about somehow getting around the biggest stumbling block for faith that exists: what other people tell us is reality.  How else are we able to comprehend things like the childless giving birth or visitations by angels, or even the virgin birth of our Lord?  How else in our own lives can we overcome trial, hardships, maybe failure?  We too must be about birthing the improbable.

There is a sense in which we can, and perhaps must, allow the faith that overcomes obstacles, moves mountains, and calms the raging seas to be a part of how we face the world in which we live.

I think it's important in our lives to have a supernatural kind of faith--not a credulous faith, or one that treats the laws of nature, which were established by God as if they were nonexistent, but a faith that overcomes.  Having trust despite appearances is all about believing God and being able to receive God's greatest gift.  Isn't that what we truly anticipate in Advent?  During Christmastime are we not celebrating the greatest gift ever given?  I'm only suggesting that we take our faith in the gift a step further--we must allow it to empower our lives and to bless us abundantly even when all circumstances point to believing the contrary. 

The Blessing of Obedience: Penance

The Lord offers a rich and beautiful blessing in the reading from Isaiah today.  It is one that is given with the condition that we hearken to his commandments.  In my view what we receive from God, before we receive abundant blessing, is a challenge to live a penitential lifestyle.  Furthermore, I believe that our living a lifestyle that reflects penance is not something that we need understand as negative in any way.

Advent offers us a beautiful time of year to turn our hearts toward God.  As we anticipate the joy of Christmas in our celebration of the birth of our salvation, the inner movement of our lives toward God is made possible.  All of my life I have loved the Christmas season above all others.  From my childhood into my adult years my fondest and clearest memories center around Christmastime.  It was only natural, it seems, that upon my conversion to the Catholic faith that Chistmas would take on a new and deeper spiritual sense.

Thus, each year since my conversion I have noticed the interesting phenomenon that during the Advent season my heart grows closer to God in prayer and longing for holy and spiritual things--the truest Christmas gifts.  Also, we can see the truest meaning of penance--not self-inflicted punishment, but a natural and genuine turning of the heart within.

Many ways exist for us to hearken to the commandments of God, and with the blessing pronounced by Isaiah in mind, it makes sense for us to think of those who may be without blessing at this time of year.  In choosing to give of ourselves we show our obedience.  In choosing to stand for those without we often find ourselves not fitting in with preconceived molds of spirituality.  We may find ouselves being political outsiders.  We could find our timidity being challenged or our boldness put in a more humble place.  This is all penance too, and it comes with blessing to balance whatever affliction that comes, and for sure there will be moments to do without.

It is clear to me that God does indeed bless my life as I offer myself to his little ones.  Sure, there are difficulties--I couldn't begin to mention--and certainly there are risks involved in love, that is, in giving ourselves.  Yet here is something to consider: perfect love casts out fear.  So, go ahead risk giving, risk loving, risk offering something special, and above everything, be open to the kind of penance that is the inner turning of the heart toward God.

On the Memorial of St. John of the Cross

Entréme donde no supe,
y quedéme no sabiendo,
toda sciencia trascendiendo.

1. Yo no supe dónde entraba,
pero cuando allí me vi,
sin saber dónde me estaba,
grandes cosas entendí.
no diré lo que sentí,
que me quedé no sabiendo,
toda sciencia trascendiendo.

2. De paz y de piedad
era la sciencia perfecta,
en profunda soledad,
entendida vía recta ;
era cosa tan secreta,
que me quedé balbuciendo,
toda sciencia trascendiendo.

3. Estaba tan embebido,
tan absorto y ajenado,
que se quedó mi sentido
de todo sentir privado ;
y el espíritu, dotado
de un entender no entendiendo,
toda sciencia transcendiendo.

4. El que allí llega de vero,
de sí mismo desfallesce ;
cuanto sabía primero
mucho bajo le paresce ;
y su sciencia tanto cresce,
que se queda no sabiendo,
toda sciencia trascendiendo.

5. Cuanto más alto se sube,
tanto menos se entendía
qué es la tenebrosa nube
que a la noche esclarecía ;
por eso quien la sabía
queda siempre no sabiendo,
toda sciencia trascendiendo.

6. Este saber no sabiendo
es de tan alto poder,
que los sabios arguyendo
jamás le pueden vencer ;
que no llega su saber
a no entender entendiendo,
toda sciencia trascendiendo.

7. Y es de tan alta excelencia
aqueste sumo saber,
que no hay facutad ni sciencia
que le puedan emprender ;
quien le supiere vencer
con un no saber sabiendo,
irá siempre trascendiendo.

8. Y si lo queréis oír,
consiste esta suma sciencia
en un subido sentir
de la divinal esencia ;
es obra de su clemencia
hacer quedar no entendiendo,
toda sciencia trascendiendo.

On the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

It was difficult at first for me to learn to let Guadalupe speak to me.  Culturally it seemed that I lived a world far from that of those for whom Guadalupe resonates.  However, what Guadalupe represents most to us is the ability of our faith to transcend language and culture--Guadalupe is truly a catholic event.

My relationship to Guadalupe grew gradually out of the Marian devotion I learned as a new Catholic coming through the RCIA many years ago.  Having come from a Protestant background, I think that the Marian dimension of the faith might have been the hardest for me to accept, but perhaps the one thing that helped in that regard more than anything else was the rosary.  Someone had the foresight to put a rosary in my hand.  Certainly, I feel that God had invited me to explore the rosary and to examine how I might come to Jesus by way of the one who bore him.  There was something irresistible in the prayers of the rosary.  Someone, it seems, had been praying for my soul--my mercy-needful soul--for some time.

My first experiences of Guadalupe were introduced to me by means of a culture where I live that has coexisted alongside the English speaking culture since the days when my Anglo-Saxon and Scottish ancestors first arrived in what was then a foreign land.  Ironically we look to Our Lady of Guadalupe as the patroness of the Americas--rather than standing for a segment of us, she stands for everyone, especially in our ability to carry and receive the message of Christ.  Guadalupe stands for our hope that the western hemisphere, and the whole world, ultimately will belong to Jesus. Naturally the first bearer of the message of universal salvation is the one who bore salvation for us.  Guadalupe tells us that Christ has come for all people, especially for future generations and converts.

Six years ago my mother, actually my great aunt but still the only person whom I had ever known as Mother, lay dying in a nursing home.  I was just finishing up the last part of the diaconal formation process with ordination only a few months ahead.  I was planning on making a trip to the far Northeast corner of the state to visit my mother.  I felt her need as she struggled with the pain of her last days.  Relatives had said, "How long will God let her suffer?"  So, a week before my visit, at one of the parishes where we were having formation classes, I took a moment to pray.  I found in the parish church a beautiful copy of Guadalupe and I knelt and prayed--"Assist me dear Mother, and assist that one who gave her love to me as a mother."  A week later mother converted to Catholicism as she lay in a nursing home bed and I had the privilege of baptizing her.  That afternoon she held my rosary--the same one I still use for prayer and carry in my pocket daily.  Mother died peacefully only a couple months later.

Throughout my faith journey icons have played an important role.  Perhaps none has been so important as she who is surrounded by the light that is her Son while she mysteriously bears him at once.  She always bears him--always she serves as carrier of the Good News, the Evangel within.

In Guadalupe the mystery appears richer because in order to apprehend it we must suspend our cultural prejudices.  We let go of who we are in order to hear her speak to us--she speaks neither in English nor Spanish.  We hear her in the tongue of the New World, a tongue that leans toward heaven because it resembles the new and final world in which Christ is the eternal light.  We too are the new people of God and when we are able to receive the message of Christ in a tongue that transcends our own, it is as profound as roses blooming in the snow.

I'm Still Here

My apologies for disappearing without a lot of notice.  For years I, like you probably, have heard time and again that Advent is a time for us to slow down.  Although my blog slow down of the past couple weeks or more hasn't actually been a planned seasonal observance, it does sometimes do good to step back and get a fresh look.  The truth is that for me the demands of being a teacher often supersede the demands of being a blogger.  The past several weeks at work have been an intense time.  Thank God for his presence and for the power of the Holy Spirit to sustain us!

So, I'm still here at the blog and tonight I simply wanted to give you a "heads up" that I'll be writing a little more frequently this week and in the weeks to come--Lord willing.  Keep me in your prayers as I pray that the Lord speaks to me and through me as we anticipate Christmas and the New Year.

My desire was to return somewhat sooner and I had actually intended to post something for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception--what a great witness to the redeeming power of Christ to break into all times with the grace that brings perfect holiness!  And, what better example of holiness for us is there than Our Lady?  Truly her conception witnesses to the power of Christ to transcend time.

Now, whenever I'm away, I suggest that you visit this fellow's websites--you'll be blessed! 

I'll be looking for your comments as I post this week.

The Gospel truth: How the board of the Christian Coalition came to fear the basic teachings of Jesus.

The coalition's incoming president, the Rev. Joel Hunter, pastor of a megachurch in Longwood, Fla., proposed that the group broaden its agenda beyond opposition to gay marriage and abortion. He proposed a campaign to, among other things, reduce poverty and prevent disease.

Faced with this agenda in line with the clearest teachings of Christ, the board of the Christian Coalition told Hunter it would be better if he got lost.

Get the whole story from the Houston Chronicle

There are many things one could say in response, but this speaks best.