Fr. JC Maximilian

Hello everyone! I am the new guy. My name is Fr. JC Garrett, but you can call me Fr. JC. I am very happy to be here at St. Mary’s. Since I am just coming from down the road at St. Theresa’s in Tuckerton, I have heard so many wonderful things about the people in this parish and I am really looking forward to getting to know all of you. I must admit, that I am not very good with remembering names, so please be patient with me if I have to ask you your name a few times. Of course as I get to know you, you will also get to know me. I really do not want to spend this homily time giving you my biography; like any friendship, we will get to know each other over time. After all, that is one of the things that makes new relationships exciting.

Last year someone gave me a book, Advent of the Heart, which collects several homilies and letters by Fr. Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest who lived in Germany during the Second World War. Fr. Delp was very involved in the German Resistance movement, which helped those were seen as enemies of the Nazi Regime escape to safety. Fr. Delp also spoke a lot about what would need to be done to rebuild Germany on a strong Christian foundation after the Nazi Regime collapsed. Because of his work, Fr. Delp was arrested by the Nazis, convicted of treason, and executed.

In 1941 Fr. Delp gave a series of marvelous homilies for the four weeks of Advent – a season that he had a particular devotion to. Fr. Delp recognized that we all have a desire, deep in our hearts, for the Ultimate, the Absolute, the Mystery – in other words, a deep longing for God. In his Advent homilies that year, Fr. Delp looked at four ways in which Advent invites us to an encounter with God.

Last week I preached on the first way that Fr. Delp saw that we can encounter God – a violent shaking of the heart. It was very easy for Fr. Delp’s parishioners to relate to such a violent shaking of the heart; after all they were in the midst of a world at war. While not experiencing a world at war, as the people in Fr. Delp’s parish did in 1941, I would say that we are experiencing a great shaking of the heart right now. The current economic crisis has had an impact on nearly everyone Many carefully made plans for retirement and the future have been tremendously effected. So many people have lost their jobs. I am sure that those of you involved in the St. Vincent de Paul Conference could testify that there has been an increased need for assistance. This kind of great shaking of the heart invites us to re-examine what we put our trust in. Money, science, medicine, technology, while providing so many wonderful benefits, can also give us a false sense of security if we put all our hopes and trust in them. They are fragile, and when shaken they can collapse. So what can we cling to that is unshakeable? God!

It really takes us back to the Garden of Eden. Distrust of God was at the root of the Fall, Original Sin. If our first parents truly believed in God’s absolute love for them, they would have followed God, allow Him to provide for all their needs in His time. Instead they tried to take control of their destiny themselves. In short, they forgot that God is God and they are not.

Last week in the Gospel we heard that the heavens and earth will be shaken, and all will come to know that only God is unshakeable. He is the Absolute, the Ultimate, and He is Love. If we allow our hearts to be shaken – out of our complacency, out of our pride and sinfulness – then we can encounter God. In planning the Incarnation, God planned to allow us to encounter Him, not just abstractly and spiritually, but concretely and physically in Christ Jesus. Advent is not merely a remembering of that historical waiting for Jesus, but a time for us to prepare ourselves to encounter Jesus right here and now, in our lives.

To this shaking of the heart, Fr. Delp adds a second way of encountering God in Advent; through authenticity. Advent is a time that invites us to live a greater authenticity of who we are. In the presence of God all compromise must be given up. In our Second Reading today, St. Paul calls the Philippians to live so that they may be “pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”

Today’s Gospel introduces us to John the Baptist, who “demonstrates two laws about authentic people and shatters two dangers to which man’s authenticity generally succumbs” (Delp, Advent of the Heart, p. 64). The first of these laws is that we cannot allow regard for our own private security and personal existence to make us into inauthentic people. At our baptism we were all given the role of prophet. Throughout history, when the prophet encounters the earthly king (or president or government), the political authority is always in the superior position of power. Certainly Fr. Delp saw that as true as he carefully preached against the evil of the Nazi Regime. Fr. Delp was just following the example of St. John the Baptist who certainly knew that King Herod could put him to death at any time, not to mention the Romans. Yet it is the “voices calling in the wilderness who filled the cosmos, who prepared the way, who directed people toward Advent, and who arranged for the proper meeting with the end and the Ultimate” (Delp, Advent of the Heart, p. 65). The true prophet lives and preaches authenticity, and does not hesitate to point out the inauthenticity of the worldly rulers when they are not in accordance with God’s Law. The true prophet of God lives this authenticity even when they know that they are likely to be crushed by the world for it.

How authentic are we? Do we make compromises with God’s Law so that we will fit in better with the crowd? When things are being discussed – whether of national concern like the current debate on health care, or just the gossip around the office water cooler – are we authentic witnesses of Christ’s love for all people, or do we remain silent, or even worse go along with the voices of inauthenticity?

The second law and danger of our authenticity is that, “Futility or ineffectiveness do not dispense one from speaking the truth, declaring what is wrong, and standing up for what is right and just” (Delp, Advent of the Heart, p. 65). Fr. Delp knew that many of his parishioners did nothing to resist the Nazis, not because they didn’t see Nazism as evil, but because they thought that there was nothing they could do about it. What good is the voice of one person against an unjust, even evil, regime? Rosa Parks was only one woman, yet when she refused to go to the back of the bus just because she was African-American she was saying “NO” to the evil of racism. St. John the Baptist was only one man, but his voice in the wilderness prepared the way for the Savior of the world.

Fr. Delp told his parishioners, and us, “Whoever considers success, or making his decisions or attitudes dependent upon whether something is futile or certain of success, is already corrupt. Then authenticity no longer means his personal encounter with what is real; it is rather his personal dependence upon success, upon being heard, on popularity and applause, and on the roar of the great throngs. . . . And woe, if the prophets are mute out of fear that their words might not be heeded” (Delp, Advent of the Heart, p. 65).

We are all baptized to be prophets. Will we be authentic ones, or false prophets? “Prepare the way of the Lord . . . . all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”