This is a good week to spend some time (yes, in the midst of everything else), and reflect on what we believe and even to make note of the things in our Creed that we're unsure about or maybe, that we don't yet fully believe.  Meditating on the Creed offers a great way to prepare so that this coming Feast of the Nativity of Christ is one in which you can fully enter and celebrate, for all the best reasons - most especially the Birth of Christ.

The Nicene Creed​

I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
 
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made.

For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.
 
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.
 
I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Today the Church is reminding us that we have been created for something greater than passing comforts, empty pleasures, superficial popularity, and earthly achievements. We all want our lives to matter, to make a lasting difference in this world, not just a passing difference, a little scratch on the surface. But do we all want to live fully and faithfully under Christ's rule, firmly entrusting our lives into his care so that we can all reach our God given potential to make the world a better place, living in the imitation of Christ the King, experience fulfillment of purpose and the interior peace that follows. 
 
Jesus came to inaugurate among us the Kingdom of God. It is he himself who embodies the whole vision of the Kingdom by the way he lived, spoke, worked, taught, healed, liberated, and finally sacrificed his life in love for us.  He is our model, the one we are to imitate. There is no other who so completely reveals to us the truth of who we are and who we were made to become.
 
Colossians tells us that before all, he existed, and it is he holds it all together, sustains and supports the unity of creation. In him, we gain our freedom, through the forgiveness of our sins.  By him who frees us from the power of darkness, we are brought into his Kingdom to live freely what we now see clearly is our true identity. It is in him, the first-born of all creation that we see the image of the unseen God and ourselves. 
 
Yet, we find it so difficult to remain free and faithful. We are all too willing to hide who we are, what we believe and find that too easily we cede our influence to the knowing and the ignorant minions of the enemy. Bombarded by media messages that tell us to keep our religion to ourselves and out of the public square we effectively allow the world to be ruled by the shadow masters. If we truly believe that Christ is the Savior, that there really is one God who created us and redeemed us, we should not be afraid to bring that faith to action in the society around us. If we don't, others will fill the void. 
 

• If we don't defend and spread Christian values in society, what values will thrive there?
• If we don't continue to bring Christ into culture, what will culture become?

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Sin is a failure to love, and very often our worst sins are the things we ought to do but don’t. 
          But unworthy as we are, God is always ready to heal us.

​One of the lessons of today’s readings is that God listens to all of us who humbly call upon the mercy and love of God. Our prayers and supplications, though they leave our lips directed to God they remain powerful and with life. Jesus reaffirms in the Gospel; this certainty and he emphasizes being humble before God and others. Although we should be grateful for the ways in which our prayers have been answered and grace has enabled us to grow in the way of holiness – we ought not to be presumptuous, judgmental, and arrogant.
 
Not everyone believes that God is listening or that God wants to forgive them. After doing something we know is quite wrong, we might wonder how God could continue to love us. It is precisely as a sinner that a person most needs the love of God, most needs God’s help.  The poor, the widow, and the orphan often suffer from insecurity or a lack of confidence that God hears them. God assures all of them in this first reading that no less than any other humble person whom they might consider more worthy, God is listening and ready to answer their prayers according to the divine plan. God sees the sinner as a person who needs to be healed and restored.  
Sometimes we believe we can only be in God’s good graces based on our performance-and not His mercy. This is a dangerous place to be.

For many of us, our Christian life could be summarized by saying we have done what we were obliged to do. We will even proudly say before God. Did that, now let me in to heaven. But God wants more than just what we’re obliged to do, just as our husbands, wives and kids want more from us than the bare minimum.  God also wants us to know that he understands that it's hard and that we get discouraged. And he needs us to hear him when he says that he has given us all we need to do more than we're obliged to do. 
 
Before you were a parent, with that first child, I'll bet you didn't think that you were capable of all of the things that you ended up needing to do as a parent, especially that first year.  Yet, it almost never fails when you become a parent it's like you become superhuman. Love for another human being can empower you to do the most incredible of things that you never imagined yourself being capable of doing, being, saying. 
 
Like in the time of Amos, we are witness to the great suffering of so many in the world and the rejection of the ways and truths of God by the faithful, even leaders in the Church. Things that make us wonder where is God in all of this. Make us ask what's going on and how we can face it all. How can we face the challenges that we are confronted with? How can I face the challenges going on in the church today? We could just loudly complain to God and others about the situation in the world, right? Which might involve yelling at a television that can't hear you. We could just loudly complain to God and others about the Church. And we could become discouraged about the power and presence of God, about the strength of the church, the mystical body of Christ and about our own power in Christ? 
 
But we like the apostles know in our hearts that we were made for greatness. We must believe God who tells us that we can do so much more than we imagine possible, so much more than that which we're obliged to do. Because of his love for us that inspires in us a supernatural love for others, for ourselves, and for God. That this supernatural love will raise us up to be capable of amazing things that we never thought we could be and much of the ordinary strength to be superhuman parents, spouses, priests. Just like before you had kids. You doubted. You wondered about your own abilities. You wondered if you were up to the demands of it all. And then you came to know that love really does have a power to raise us up. To make us more. 

And what is the love of God that empowers? Is the Holy Spirit that we received in fullness in those first sacraments of baptism and confirmation. That we have strengthened within us as we receive the sacraments of reconciliation and Eucharist. That we received for living our vocations, the specific state of Life to which we're called when we received the Sacrament of Marriage and Holy Orders. These sacraments contain within them that which we need to vivify, to bring the life, to set aflame the Spirit of God within us. The love of God that animates us, to let God do truly wonderful things in US and through us. 
​
We have what we need to do more than the obligatory. We don't have to cry out to God to increase our faith so as to live it fully and powerfully in the Spirit. Do we want to grow? Absolutely. Do we want to become Saints, holier every day? Absolutely we should. And we should believe that God can make it so. If we cooperate. If we listen to him. If we do what he says. God's own strength will be released in our lives. A supernatural source of empowering love made possible by Christ himself. A supernatural strength that will yield, if we let it a supernatural joy in us. A joy that will help us and enable us to do all of this in the midst of what might be crushing times in the world or in the Church. The times we live in are objectively either good, bad, better or static. None of that, if we remain in the power of God and living life in the Spirit ought to affect our disposition. It should not discourage us. It should not give rise to doubts within us if we are plugged into that source of life. Then we can have that super abundant joy in the midst of those difficulties, and remain certain and confident, trusting in God that we have the power to overcome it all in him, just as Christ overcame death on the cross. This is who we are and don't let anybody ever, especially the enemy, tell you any different. You are God's own. And you are powerful in him. 

Natural and Supernatural Hope

​A life without the Lord is a life without hope that comes from God. Today’s readings remind us that a relationship with God is not optional in our lives if we truly want a blessed life. 
 
In today’s First Reading the prophet Jeremiah describes the importance of a relationship with the Lord in terms of favorable conditions for growth and unfavorable ones. The example of the barren bush teaches that trust and hope in human beings and the flesh at the expense of trust and hope in God is ultimately a lessor life that just limps along full of discouragement, despair, and disappointment. It is an arid life, compounded by the fact that human beings and the flesh are ultimately mortal, broken and weakened from sin. Putting our trust exclusively in the structures, things and people of this world can only lead to disunity and chaos in this world. Conversely, trust and hope in the Lord changes your life dramatically: it doesn’t mean we won’t experience poverty, persecution, pain, sorrow and death… but it does mean even in the midst of the real challenges of living, we can be at peace, joy filled, blessed.
 
In today’s Second Reading Paul affirms that a life without the Christ is ultimately a life of futility, because a life with the Lord is a life redeemed and transformed by the Resurrection into a life of hope. Paul is shocked when he hears Christians deny that the Resurrection happened. He teaches them that if Christ didn’t rise from the dead, there could be no real hope and no reason to hope. If Christ did not conquer death in the Resurrection, he did not conquer sin either, and we remain in a sinful life that is as finite, fleeting, and arid as the bleak desert bush of today’s First Reading.
 
Christ has risen from the dead, the “first fruits” for those who believe. He has conquered sin and death not only for himself but for those who believe in him.  Redeemed by him, we too will rise from the dead to new life. Not only that, but we will live in freedom in this world without fear of evil, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. However, that requires turning to him for redemption, daily if necessary. In today’s Gospel, we hear Luke’s account of the Beatitudes. The reward of living them and the consequences of ignoring them. The well-placed plant in today’s First Reading stays green during heat waves and fruitful during droughts: it draws on a deeper source that is undiminished by adverse conditions. The Christian who draws from hope in God, hope in the promises God makes, draws from something undiminished by poverty, hunger, sorrow, or persecution.  Life rooted in Christ gives us the fullness of life through faith, with hope, in love, if we receive and let flourish that which God offers us. 
 
Luke’s account also recalls Our Lord’s warning to those who would put their hope and trust in other things, like the barren plant of today’s First Reading. Those who trust in riches, a full belly, a perpetual good time, and the flattery of others, separated from Our Lord, will find how fleeting and ultimately unsatisfying those things truly are in comparison to what Our Lord offers: a resilient life that thrives and blossoms in eternity.
 
The readings today lay out before us a question about in whom or in what is our hope rooted.  Are we living with supernatural hope or natural hope? Is there a difference? We have all learned that the most important virtues are the ones that God gives us when we become members of the Body of Christ, the Church.  God gives them to help us ensure the free-flowing grace of God, the theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. Through prayer, the sacraments, and our own efforts, they grow to maturity and fruitfulness as wisdom, joy, peace, courage, and patience. Those fruits of the Spirit in turn help us to fulfill our life-mission, which is to follow Christ and help others do the same.
 
Let’s talk about supernatural hope and natural hope. Natural hope might keep us going for a while, but the supernatural hope will lift and sustain us through life into our eternal reward. Supernatural Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not only on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." "The Holy Spirit . . . he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life." Catechism of the Catholic Church #1817
 
In the next paragraph we read, that ‘the virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity. Catechism of the Catholic Church #1818
 
So, hope is the active, confident desire for heaven to which St Paul referred in today's Second Reading "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all."  St. Thomas Aquinas noted that hope is born from the desire for something good that is “difficult but possible to attain.” There is no need for hope if we can easily get what we want, but neither is there any reason to hope when what we desire is completely beyond our grasp. In 2007 Pope Benedict “The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life” Spe Salve No. 2. Hope empowers us to live differently because a Christian understanding of hope is rooted in the unshakable conviction that God loves us and wants our good, a fact memorably exclaimed by Paul’s declaration in Romans: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31 To live with hope is to take those words to heart and to allow that knowledge to change our lives in creative and surprising ways.
 
A human being cannot live without hope. But when we ignore or neglect supernatural hope, we start replacing it with merely natural hope. We start thinking that the right political and economic policies will solve everyone’s problems. That is dangerous, because it's false; we live in a fallen world; it will never be heaven; it will always remain the steep and difficult path to heaven. We will end up thinking that we deserve perfect happiness here on earth.