Tag: Christmas

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Sermon Notes – December 8, 2024 – “We Have Christmas Every Day”

 “We Have Christmas Every Day”

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

December 7-8, 2024

Gospel:   Luke 3:1-6

I heard confessions on Monday night in Statesville and Thursday night at St. Lukes.  On Monday night, we were invited to dinner at Outback.  One priest had never heard the phrase “circling the drain.”   My gosh!  Where have you been all your life?  You haven’t spent much time in hospitals and around nurses, have you?   On Thursday night, I had to educate one of the older priests when he said, “Well, the patient’s mother and wife wanted him to be given Last Rites, but the patient wouldn’t take it, so I left without giving it to him.”   I told this priest I’m a trained hospitalist, and this is how you handle that situation.   You wait until you see the nurses go by with the medication cart.  Then, have a cup of coffee and, after about ten minutes, go back into the patient’s room while he’s bombed and ask him, ‘Would you like Last Rites now? Oh, I thought you might say ‘yes.’”   Or you could ask the nurses when the patient will be medicated again and wait about ten minutes after that to ask him if he wants Last Rites.  Get the mission done, Father.   But God takes care of that anyway.  That’s just my bed-snide manner.  That night at dinner, Father Rossi ordered some hors d’oeuvres.  He asked me if I would like some tuna ahi.  It looked like undone roast beef.  I said, “That’s very kind, Father.  Would it get me any time off purgatory?”   No?  In that case, they don’t make a pharmaceutical strong enough to make me eat that thing.   I don’t eat fish.  I have a rule. 

In 17 days and a wake-up, we will celebrate the incarnation of God.  Our good Lord became incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Mother and made visible on Christmas.  We do not have to ask what love looks like because we can see it.  It’s a wonderful day.  God becoming incarnate was a great act of love by God.  But was it His greatest act of love?  No.  His greatest act of love was the crucifixion.   People say, “I wish we could have Christmas every day.”  You do!  I don’t get cookies every day like I do at Christmas, but God comes to us every day in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. 

Jesus, as the 2nd Person in the Blessed Trinity, was hard to see under the veil of human flesh and blood.  He is also hard to see under the veil of bread and wine in the Mass when it becomes His Most Precious Body and Blood.  But this is our faith.   His human nature was united with His divinity in what is called hypostatic union.  In the Mass, that happens when I put a drop of water into the chalice of wine.  That is His human nature being assumed into His divine nature.  At every Mass, God becomes flesh again.  He is incarnate in the Most Blessed Sacrament in every Catholic church in the world.  So, we have Christmas every day but without bad music like, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause” and “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”  Shut up!  Those songs make me want to rip out the loudspeaker. 

God is present in our world.  On His ascension, Jesus took the flesh that he received from the Blessed Mother and brought it to Heaven.  But He did not leave our world.  He didn’t say, “I’m going up to Heaven, and when it’s time, I’ll come back to get you and take you home.”  God is made present in our world every day in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  It was hard for the Apostles to see our Lord and believe He was truly God.  Because of our fallen human nature, it is also difficult for us because we see with the eyes of our bodies instead of the eyes of our souls.  The trouble is our vision.  I appreciate all the hard work my eye doctor, Dr. Billingsly, has done for me.  He has saved me from walking around with a stick and a dog.  But the ability to see with the eyes of faith is most important to me. 

We have God’s physical presence every day, just like the Apostles.  We have Christmas every day.  Isn’t that wonderful?  It truly is.  Granted, we don’t have cookies and baked goods every day.  I will leave my back door open if anyone would care to make a donation.  I would be most grateful; just don’t tell my doctor.    We have Christmas every day without the bad music, wreaths, trees, and lawn statues, but that is unimportant.  What is important is what resides in the Tabernacle.  God came into the world, and He never left. 

Father’s Afterthoughts: 

We had a new patient in hospice.  He’s 91 years old.  So, I went into his room and started talking to him to see if he was oriented to time and place.  He was pretty “gah-gah.”   My final question was, “Do you remember the branch of service you were in?”  He said, “Marines!”   That question always gets through.

How will you apply this message to your life? _______________________________________ 

You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to AnnunciationCatholicAlbemarle.com, clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” and then “Sermon Notes.”  On a cell phone: click on “Blog” and then “Menu.”  Scroll to the bottom and click on “Categories.”  Sermon Notes are also available on the Church’s Facebook page at OLA.Catholic.Church.  Click on “Groups” and then “Sermon Notes.”

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Sermon Notes – We Find God in the Silence – December 1, 2024

“We Find God in the Silence”

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

December 1, 2024

Gospel:   Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

Before Mass, I was talking to a lady who just returned from Lourdes.  I’ve been to Fatima several times but never to Lourdes.  Before you enter the shrine area, the grotto, or the church itself, signs ask for silence and appropriate dress.  Shorts are not allowed.  If you are not silent, someone will come to remind you; if one reminder is not enough, they will ask you to leave.  The silence is out of respect for Who dwells there.  Exterior silence is essential for prayer.  C.S. Lewis wrote “The Screw Tape Letters.”  Screwtape was one of the senior devils, and he had a little devil who was trying to rise up the demonic ladder.  This little devil said he was trying to think of innovative ways to get people away from God.  Screwtape told him that they already had an excellent method called noise.  Noise is very distracting.  It takes you away from who you are talking to or who you are trying to listen to. 

In the Mass, there are certain sections for reverential silence.  Unfortunately, the Mass has developed into something where people are moving, singing and doing whatever.  Someone said that those are supposed to be moments of meditation.  No, they are not.  Whoever said that did not go to a proper seminary.  Meditation takes about 20 minutes, and there is a reason for that.  Not only do we get the noise from outside that interferes with our concentration, but we also have silent, distracting noises in our hearts.  So, no matter how quiet it is in church, except for now, while I’m speaking, the hamsters are going and going, aren’t they?

We all have difficulties, and we all think about these things we must do whirling around in our heads.  Ideally, we leave all those things at the door.  But we bring them into church and give them to our Lord.  What happens when we have the stillness of the soul or as best we can?  Remember, we are men, not angels.  It is then we can hear God speak to us as He did to Elijah while he was in the cave.  God was not in the storm.  God was not in the earthquake.  God was in the silence afterward.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, our Lord asked the Apostles, “Can you not spare an hour to watch with Me?”  He didn’t ask them to talk.  He didn’t ask them to sing.  He asked the Apostles to watch with Him.  That is a huge part of prayer.

Last week, the hospice chaplain asked me if I would sit with a man who was actively dying.  He had been actively dying for three days, so he was a little slow at it.  I said, “Sure.”  I have done that many times.  Did I know him?  No.  Did I know his family?  No.  Did I know if he was a good man?  No.  What I did know is that he was a child of God.  So, I sat with him and reminded him to breathe.  He was trying to break the habit.  But in that room, in that reverential silence, I knew God was either there to take him or would be coming soon.  I prayed that he would have a merciful judgment and go joyfully to his loving God.  God was in that room, and I was listening.  That is a part of preparing for Advent. 

People ask, “Father, are you ready for Christmas?”  My response is, “I don’t mean to be sarcastic, but what difference does it make?  It’s going to come whether I am ready or not.”  It makes no difference.  Christmas is coming.  All these things we have to do are wonderful.  However, the most important thing we have to do is our interior preparation, which makes all the exterior preparations worthwhile.   All those gifts people give each other are expressions of God’s love.   The love within them is the love of God expressed by giving to others.  How much more expressive would they be if their souls were holier?  Do yourself a favor this first week of Advent and read “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry.

How will you apply this message to your life? ________________________________________ 

You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to AnnunciationCatholicAlbemarle.com, clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” and then “Sermon Notes.”  On a cell phone: click on “Blog” and then “Menu.”  Scroll to the bottom and click on “Categories.”  Sermon Notes are also available on the Church’s Facebook page at OLA.Catholic.Church.  Click on “Groups” and then “Sermon Notes.”