911 / 411 Annunciation / Advent (2023-12-24, Advent Sunday)

___ Click Here for Audio of Homily ___    

____ Click Here for Video of Mass ____ 

Homily, 4^th Sunday Advent  ●  2024 December 24 ●● 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16 ● ● Psalm 89  ● ● Romans 16:25-27 ● ● Luke 1:26-38

Title: 911 / 411 Annunciation / Advent  (2023-12-24, Advent Sunday)

[__01__]      This is the 4^th Sunday of Advent, although by your vision and seeing we are on the verge of Christmas Day …. thanks to our art and Environment Team have set up our altar so beautifully with our trees and lights.

[__02__]  This Sunday morning, by reading the Annunciation gospel, we are pumping the brakes on the Gran Prix race to Christmas day. Everything is more “annunciated” and accelerated this year because Christmas falls on Monday, tomorrow, December 25. I'd like to touch on the “Annunciation of Jesus’s birth” in reference to a type of announcement. The word annunciation means announcement.

[__03__]  Recently, one of our buildings our school building received an upgrade to its fire alarm system, new wiring, smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, communication. Fortunately, praise God, we have not needed to use this for an actual fire for an actual 911.

We have only used it for fire drills or false alarms. But this new system has a device that perhaps was could be defined in biblical or doctrinal terms. It's called the “annunciator” panel or screen on the fire alarm. And the annunciator panel is shows with sound and words where the fire alarm was pulled, or where the fire is, or where the smoke condition is. We never had this information before with date, time and location. And it will keep our West Orange firefighters safe as well. So it's all good news.

[__03__]    Why do we use a fire alarm? This fire alarm system? Why is there this screen / panel? Why is there the Annunciation? Is it only for 911? Now, of course we all know that we dial 911 on the phone for emergencies.

But there is also another service – less used these days --- where you can call not just for emergencies but simply to look up a phone number or address. This is 411 information.  I admit that if you are younger than 39, you might not recall 411 as a service. Fewer of us press 411, because we have websites and Google searches and everything.

          I’m making this contrast – to ask myself as well – do I, do you, do we only turn to God in 911 emergencies?

          I can easily turn to God at such urgent moments. And I want that problem solved right away.

It's good to pray to God in times of crisis, and emergency. But it's also important to pray for God just for 411 Just for more information. And sometimes I have trouble doing this. Maybe I feel moved to make a decision or I have to do something right away. And I don't like waiting, waiting, waiting around for information to make my next move.

Mary, our Blessed Mother in this gospel is praying not just at a time of 911. She's going to be the mother of God. This is urgent. But she also has some 411 type questions like How can this be I have no relations with a man? How am I going conceive and bear a child?

And she's waits for that information? She waits for that answer. So Mary gives us an example of pumping the brakes, not accelerating too fast of silence and retreat on this Advent Sunday.

[__03__]

John Henry Newman wrote this about the identity of Mary as connected to Jesus:

“Had the blessed Mary been more fully disclosed to us in the heavenly beauty and sweetness of the spirit within her, true, she would have been honoured, her gifts would have been clearly seen; but, at the same time, the Giver would have been somewhat less contemplated, because no design or work of His would have been disclosed in her history. She would have seemingly been introduced for her sake, not for His sake. When a Saint is seen working towards an end appointed by God, we see him to be a mere instrument, a servant though a favoured one; and though we admire him, yet, after all, we glorify God in him.” (https://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume2/sermon12.html)

And that's true for every saint. It's also true for you and me, that we are strengthened by God not for our own sake, but also to point others towards God towards Jesus in our lives, to be His servants.

That's why we are introduced to her. That's why we are connected to her. And it's true for all of us that we are called to recognize that we are here pursuing holiness, sanctity, forgiveness, not just for our own sake, but also to glorify God.

 

We are also called to live the out the words that Mary gives us in the Gospel today, are challenging words, which are similar to words we pray ourselves. Those words are, let it be done to me according to your word. Now, maybe you've never made that particular prayer. Maybe you've never said, Lord, let it be done to me according to your word. But have we not said similar words in the Lord’s Prayer. We will pray them in a few minutes: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. This is similar to “let it be done to me according to your word.”  It's similar to the prayer Jesus makes in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus says, Not my will be done, but your will be done, but Thy will be done.

What's my preference? I want my will to be done often on a 911 or emergency basis.  But what I'm called to do and what we're often called to do is to pray for God's will to be done or at least for me to understand what God's will is and for me to desire what it is. It involves not just praying on an urgent basis for 911, but also praying for information to pray that God will make his will known to us, on both in the information and consolation we need, on a 411 basis, so that we can let his will be done to us according to his Word, even if the information is only that we know that He calls us to follow him not because we are his servants, but because we are truly – in Christ – God’s friends.

[__end__]