Dear Friends, it is a particular Joy to be with you this evening in this Sacred and Joyful season of Advent. I thank Fr Alan the Rector of the Shrine and Parish Priest of this parish, which this year celebrates its 150th anniversary, for the invitation to preach at this Mass. Advent, of course, invites us to contemplate the consummation of history and our redemption at the appointed time in the mystery of the birth of Jesus Christ and the promise of God with us. Too often in the over commercialized preparation for Christmas, we can find that we arrive at the great Feast of the Incarnation already satiated, overstressed and out of sorts.
Advent asks as to wait patiently in joyful expectation so that we might be ready and rightly disposed to truly celebrate Christmas in all its wonder.
The Popular Canadian priest and Spiritual writer Fr Ronald Rolheiser tells the story of when the famous historian Christopher Dawson decided to become a Roman Catholic. His aristocratic mother was distressed, not because she had any aversion to Catholic dogma, but because now her son would, in her words, have to 'worship with the help'. That is, the servants. Dawson’s mother was painfully aware that, in church at least, his aristocratic background would no longer set him apart from others or above anyone. At church he would be just an equal among equals because the Eucharist would strip him of his higher social status.
Dawson’s mother was right. The Eucharist, among other things, invites us to disregard the distinction between rich and poor, noble and peasant, aristocrat and servant, both around the Altar of the Lord itself and afterwards outside of the church. Every celebration of the Eucharist contains a call to justice, emphasizing the interconnectedness of our holy communion and social responsibility. Whilst Mass of course involves a personal encounter with Christ, it is also a communal act that compels believers to engage in the pursuit of justice and solidarity within society.
It was this very insight that first drew the likes of the venerable servant of God, Dorothy Day, to Christianity. Day noticed that, at the Eucharist, the rich and the poor knelt side by side, all equal at that moment. Is that not our experience too?
When at Mass, or in our own personal contemplation of the presence of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament in cathedrals, churches, chapels and communities around the world, the Promise of the Kingdom of God is glimpsed and realised in that moment, no matter how fleeting.
There can be a tendency among some to think that the call to work for justice, especially social justice, is an optional part of being a Christian. St Pope John Paul II described the celebration of the Eucharist as a 'project of solidarity for all of humanity' where the Church renews its awareness of being a “sign and instrument of unity among all people”. This universal character of the Eucharist encourages Christians to become promoters of peace and solidarity, especially in a world marked by conflict and division. (Mane nobiscum Domine.) It is truly a mandate from the Lord.
In the Gospels, the call to reach out to the poor and to help create justice in the world is as non-negotiable as keeping the commandments and going to church.
In the New Testament, there is a constant challenge to reach out to the poor. This challenge is contained in the Eucharist itself.
As we known the Eucharistic Altar is a table, a place, where the rich and the poor are called to be together beyond all class and status. At the Eucharist there are to be no rich and no poor, only one equal family worshipping almighty God together in a common humanity. In baptism we are all made equal and for that reason there are not separate worship services for the rich and the poor. Moreover, St Paul warns us strongly that when we gather for the Eucharist, the rich should not receive preferential treatment.
Moreover, the celebration of Mass fosters a newness in our social relations, highlighting that 'union with Christ' is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. This sacramental reality urges us believers to reconcile and engage with one another, particularly those who are marginalised or suffering.
One of the many aspects of the Mystery of the Mass is that the Eucharist commemorates Jesus’ brokenness, his poverty, his body being broken and his blood being poured out for the brokenness of our world. The Mass offers up the tears and blood of the poor and helps us in our own poverty to answer the Lord’s call to help alleviate the conditions that produce those tears and blood. Truly this is bread broken for a new world ushered in by the saving action of the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.
Whether it be the celebration of Mass or in Eucharistic adoration; every encounter with the crucified and risen Lord draws forth a personal response in each worshipper. The sublime act of worship that is the Mass is never a private matter but is always, in a profound sense, a communal act of worship.
Even if we are physically cut off from the community of faith, the Mass is always the Work of Christ the High Priest and of His Church
Think of the experience of St Charles de Foucauld. Alone in the desert yet, through the Eucharist, united with the whole body of believers; the Body of Christ.
The dismissal at Mass too sends us forth, enabled by the Holy Spirit, to live out in the world what we celebrate inside of a Church, namely the non-importance of social distinction, the special place that God gives to the tears and blood of the poor, and the challenge from God to each of us to work for healing of souls and an end to the conditions that cause so many tears and bloodshed in our common home, the Earth . The Eucharist calls us to love tenderly and, just as strongly, it calls us to act in justice. Both Pope Francis and the late Pope Benedict XVI emphasised that the Eucharist demands a practical commitment to building a more just and fraternal society, reflecting the love of God that overturns worldly criteria of power and affirms the criterion of service. Sacramentum Caritatis (Pope Benedict XVI)
Every celebration of the Mass, every encounter with the Lord really and truly present in the blessed Sacrament, is a recalling and making present of the salvific act of God in Jesus Christ, God with us, True God and True Man. From the carpenter’s son, the poor man of Nazareth, we receive our mandate. To be artisans of a new creation, the Kingdom of God, urging all Christians to live out our faith through acts of charity, solidarity, and loving kindness. Transforming unjust structures in society that all may live with the dignity of the children of the One God. This sacred mandate is a reminder always that the love we encounter in the sacrament of unity and charity needs to be translated into tangible actions, in our lives as little brother Charles de Foucauld wrote and gave witness to; We can never love enough.