DECEMBER 3, 2017
4:30 PM, 7:30 AM ORDINARY FORM (ENGLISH) MASSES
Charles Pierre Peguy was born in 1873 in Orleans, France. He was a poet, editor, and essayist. Throughout his early life, he was an uneasy agnostic, hanging his hat on socialism and nationalism. Yet at the age of 35, he was baptized Catholic; and from that point Catholicism strongly influenced his works.
In 1912, two years before his death, he wrote Le Porche du Mystère de la Deuxième Vertu, the title is literally The Gateway of the Mystery of the Second Virtue, but is more often translated as The Portal of the Mystery of Hope.
Peguy’s imagery is vivid and bold. He paints the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love in varying ways:
Faith is a loyal wife … who holds fast through century upon century … who resists through century upon century … Faith is a soldier, a captain who defends a fortress …Faith is a church, a cathedral rooted in the soil … Faith is a great tree, an oak rooted … who watches through centuries of centuries.
[Love] is a fervent mother … who gives herself through centuries of centuries … who yields through century upon century … [Love] is a doctor … who nurses the sick, who nurses the wounded ... [Love] is a hospital, an alms-house which gathers up all the wretchedness of the world. [Love] shelters all the distress of the world … [and] watches through centuries of centuries.Yet, listen to how Peguy personifies Hope:
But hope is a very little girl … Who gets up every morning … [and] says good-day to the poor man and the orphan … who lies down every evening and gets up every morning and says her prayers with new attention … [Hope] that little promise of a bud which shows itself at the very beginning of April.
Today is the First Sunday of Advent. Today we begin a new liturgical year. Today we begin our spiritual preparation for the great feast of Christ’s Nativity.
In the First Reading from the Prophet Isaiah, we hear:
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
with the mountains quaking before you,
while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for,
such as they had not heard of from of old.
I think we are comfortable with a God who shakes mountains and tears open the fabric of space and time. Our latent guilt desires an angry God who is [enthroned] upon the cherubim.
But we are called to wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ … to be firm to the end … and to Be watchful! Be alert!
Because the whole point of the Incarnation is that God does indeed come – Immanuel … “God with us.” Yet he comes, not in power … but in innocence … humility … and vulnerability.
We are called to wait in joyful hope. And so in this hope we are called to watch … wait … expect … and embrace.
Faith indeed is a bulwark, a defender, a companion.
Love indeed is a shelter, a healer, a nurturer.
But Hope is found in gentle perseverance … and in innocence. Hope is found in the innocence of a child … the child of Bethlehem … Jesus Christ, Our Savior and Our Lord.
As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, let us pray for a renewal in our hearts of Faith, Hope, and Love. May we be rooted in our Faith, and sheltered in God’s Love … and may we persevere in Hope … an innocent hope … a vulnerable hope … a humble hope … the hope of a little child.
