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10 December 20172nd Sunday in Advent – Year BJoseph Simmons, SJ Delivered at the Church of Saint Ignatius, Chestnut Hill, MA

In the Tender Compassion of Our God

Comfort, give comfort to my people, says the Lord.

Friday was the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, and I had the opportunity to go with Fr. Peter Folan and Deacon Pat Nolan – a fearsome pair from Massapequa – to say Mass at a local Catholic middle school. Fr. Folan preached, as he does, beautifully. He talked about Mary’s courage in saying yes to the angel Gabriel. Fr. Peter riffed on Thomas Aquinas’s definition of courage: courage is the virtue that removes obstacles between me and what I know is the right thing to do. Courage overcomes my fears, so I can connect with the people I want to be in relationship with.

It was a great homily.

And as soon as Fr. Peter finished preaching, a nervous young student, with glasses and a tie, came up to the lectern to read the petitions, with all of his fellow students’ eyes on him. His nerves got the better of him, and his voice cracked. A wave of laughs rippled through the crowd, and the boy’s face blanched. He tried again, and again his voice cracked. Students spontaneously laughed again, and teachers shhhed them. He froze, head hung down as if he had done something wrong. A teacher came up to the student, and placed a comforting hand on his back: “It’s okay, you’ve got it!”

He continued again, with voice cracking again and again. Students giggled nervously here and there, but it dawned on them that giggling was not helping. All of us have felt the scalp-tingling, sweaty-palmed anxiety of public speaking at some point or other; my heart went out to this young man, who was only trying to give voice to the prayers of the community. Another

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teacher placed a hand on his shoulder, and by God -- he pushed through to finish those petitions, even though his nerves tried to unsettle him.

And then Fr. Folan, a master on his feet, closed the petitions with his own spontaneous prayer. “Today we pray in gratitude for courageous words, but also for acts of courage, like what we all just saw right here today.”

As Thomas Aquinas himself would say, “Boom goes the dynamite!”

“Comfort, give comfort to my people, says the Lord” in our first reading from Isaiah. When was the last time you need to be comforted? When did you find yourself overcome with grief or fear, sadness or undue shame? When your nerves surged to the surface, your face flushed, your scalp tingled, yours hands sweated, your legs threatening to give way at any moment?

For me it was the day before I was ordained a priest this June, in Milwaukee. I was heading downtown to Marquette University’s campus for a lunch with the bishop who would ordain us, Cardinal Blase Cupich. Finding myself once again five minutes late to life, I was flying in my dad’s borrowed car, faster than I needed to be, and on a long, empty street, I gunned it. And…I blew right past a parked police officer.

The police car roared to life and flew up on me like a shark to a school of fish. The lights and sirens started – I had a decision to make - so I gunned it… and escaped! Just kidding.

I pulled over this borrowed car, my heart pounding and my mind racing for what to say.   Officer Svensson came up to the car and said, “what do you think you are doing?”  “I’m sorry officer… I was speeding.”  I was shaking like a dog that had just come in from a cold rain.   “So you just blew past a police officer parked there?”  “I’m sorry, officer, I didn’t even see you!”   That apparently was the wrong answer.

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“Wow, so you were going so fast you didn’t even see me there??? Where are you going so fast?”  That’s when I, shaking and nervous, explained that I was going to be ordained a priest, and was going down to meet the bishop who was going to ordain me. “Well that’s the first time I’ve heard that one!”

Getting pulled over is no fun – it stirs up visceral feelings of fear, panic, of getting caught.  I was literally shaking and sweating. So, when were you in a panic and in need of comfort? Whatever that situation for you was – a loss of a job, a student loan debt, a fractured friendship – always feels like the end of the story.  We carry with us wounds and scars, shames and fears, which we cannot ourselves dispel. 

When Officer Svensson saw me shaking, his face and tone changed: “Calm down.  Calm down.  Just breathe.  It will be okay. You want to get to your meeting in time?  I’ll let you go with a warning.  But drive sloooowww, and… go be a good priest.” My fears and panic drained away, and as I lay on the cold marble floor the next day, awaiting to be ordained, Officer Svensson’s words came back to me: Calm down. Just breathe.  It will be okay. Go be a good priest.”

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I don’t think God is in the business of getting us out of speeding tickets. But if Isaiah is to be trusted, God is very clear about how we are to treat others in times of distress: Comfort, give comfort to my people, says the Lord.

That young student had a few kind teachers who stepped forward and gave him the courage to finish reading the petitions; their comfort gave him courage in his time of need. In our broader culture, we are seeing many once-respected public figures exposed, for using their power and privilege to shame others. And in these courageous revelations, other shamed women and men are given the courage to seek the comfort -- the dignity and respect – they deserve. The Gospel of Mark begins,

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Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;he will prepare your way.A voice of one crying out in the desert:"Prepare the way of the Lord,make straight his paths."

With eyes of faith, we search the unsettling details of our lives – the causes of grief or fear, sadness or shame – and we have a choice. We can give in to the forces of darkness and dread that pull us down, or we can search the uneven terrain for the messengers God has placed in our lives to give us comfort, and indeed courage, along the way.

We are, each of us, just trying to make it in life. Through the semester.

Through the year. Til the next check comes, til the kids graduate, til the mortgage is paid off, til the dark clouds part, and I feel alive again.

Most of the time we manage – stiff upper lip! But what happens when none of the tools in our grown-up toolbelts is sufficient to the task of comforting and calming ourselves? Today’s Gospel reminds us that we do not face this journey of life – with its twists and turns – alone. For those of us needing a word of comfort, Mark reminds us that even Jesus had someone to help him on his way. We, too, do not journey through the turns of life alone.

And for those of us who have been comforted – which is, I dare say, all of us at some point – the challenge is to look around us for those in need of comfort. Is it the shut-in neighbor who doesn’t – or perhaps can’t – shovel his sidewalk? Is it a classmate or co-worker who is struggling, God love him – to fit in? Is it your newly widowed friend whose new-found loneliness makes you unconsciously avoid calling or visiting her, for fear that her grief will trickle in to your heart as well?

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At the end of the day, the comfort we give, and the comfort we receive, is not just about us – it is about God laboring in us, and laboring too in the people around us. A Labor of Love which becomes concrete not in grand gestures or earth-shattering revelations – but in the birth of a poor boy born in a far-off stable, whose own ministry of giving consolation is nurtured by Mary and Joseph, and prepared by John the Baptist.

So today, as we move another week closer to Christmas, let us hear the words which are addressed to Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, which are likewise addressed to us today:

You my child, shall be called the prophet of the most high.For you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,To give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.

In the tender compassion of our Godthe dawn from on high shall break upon us,to shine on those who dwell in darkness    and the shadow of death,and guide our feet into the way of peace.

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