Thoughts & Homilies

Homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent
Father Jim Poulsen’s 35th Anniversary of Ordination
Readings for the Mass: Micah 5:1-4; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45

Theme:
On this final Sunday of Advent, our scripture readings speak of a place and a person – Bethlehem and Mary. Both were considered small and insignificant at that time. And so, we are assured today that when we feel unimportant and insignificant, we may be surprised by what God has in store for us.

Homily:
There is a sudden and dramatic change of mood in the readings for this 4th and last Sunday of Advent.
After three Sundays of apocalyptic warnings,
predictions of terrible things happening in the world
and urgent cries to repent and prepare the way of the Lord,
at last, an Advent Gospel that seems to fit our traditional notions of what Christmas is about.

We have heard the story of the Visitation
-the touching account of Mary and Elizabeth
-two women of 1st Century Israel meeting and discussing the remarkable babies they are expecting.
This event tells us that, once again, God has chosen ordinary, unlikely people to do his work in this world.
Mary and Elizabeth are from the poorest of families
-women in a man’s world
-they had no power or influence in the world.
Elizabeth was too old to be seriously contemplating maternity.
Mary was too dangerously unwed to be carrying a child
in a culture that stoned women for far less.
Two women in the same family
-from a distance of miles and generations
–daring to do something strange and risky
-trusting in God’s will and providence
-delighting in this new role in life.

The story of the Visitation fits so well as a prelude to the Christmas story.
People love the Christmas story.
The prospect of God choosing to come among us as an infant makes all but the hardest of hearts leap with delight.
This is an invitation for each of us
to seek God in other unlikely places.
-our homes, our work place, our neighborhood
-our extended families,
-and even in the strangers we meet.
We can find God not only in our joys,
but in our darkest hours, as well.
I think it is so right that Advent and Christmas are celebrated at the darkest weeks of the year
–at least here in the Northern hemisphere.
If I lived in New Zealand, I would probably have different thoughts about it.
In this season of short days and long nights,
we wait in faith for the light of the world to come.
Darkness is often used as a metaphor for evil,
for ignorance, for troubled times.
Who among us has not known the darkness of fear, calamity, horrifying world events, or the personal darkness of disappointment, or broken promises
-our own or others
-or the darkness of serious illness or loss.
We have also known the darkness of our own sin
and our own limitations.
There must have been the darkness of fear, uncertainty and confusion for Mary and Elizabeth as well.
Yet they trusted the light.
They waited for the dawn,
and they found joy in their troubled hours.

The days we live in are as dark as they get
-tonight is the longest night of the year.
Thirty-five years ago in Rome on this day
-the darkest day of the year,
I was ordained a priest.
It was 1968 – a very turbulent and violent year
-a year of riots and assassinations, protests and turmoil,
-and with our nation deeply entrenched in a disastrous and unpopular war in South East Asia.
At the end of that year, my family made the journey to Rome to celebrate something good, something hopeful
–a graced moment in my life and theirs.
–my ordination to the priesthood

How true it is that God chooses unlikely people to do his work, people whose personal worthiness has nothing to do with it.
It is with sincere humility that I look at my 35 years of priesthood in awe
-awe of what God can do with us if we let him.
-awe of how many lives can be touched through the ministry of one priest
-and awe of how kind and supportive people can be,
especially when you need them most.
No priest makes it on his own.
No priest hangs in there for three and a half decades without the love, encouragement and prayers of the people he tries to serve.

I have spent most of these 35 years as pastor of this parish.
It has been one of the grandest rides of my life,
-an experience I would not trade for anything.
I am so grateful tonight for my parents, now in heaven,
gave me life, showed me the power of faith,
believed in me and loved me even in my lowest moments.
And I am grateful for the people of every assignment and ministry I’ve attempted who have brought me joy,
-made me their friend,
-challenged my way of seeing things
-but mostly accepted me as the flawed human being that I am.

Most of all, I am grateful to God, who has called me to a life and a mission I never dreamed I could do,
and then gave me the grace, the strength,
the courage to make it work.
This has been my own personal visitation,
a great light in the darkness.
And all of you area very big part of the of the brightness.

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