Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1st Week of Advent - Thurs
[Isa 26:1-6 and Matt 7:21, 24-27]
Trust in the Lord forever! For the Lord is an eternal Rock. [Isaiah] "Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffered the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. [Matthew]
DECEMBER 4 [St. John Damascene]
[Isaiah 26:1-6 and Matthew 7:21, 24-27]
The words from the Gospel According to Matthew come at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. The image is one that always causes me to remember the one earthquake that I experienced. I was visiting our Dominican House of Studies which, at that time, was located in Oakland, CA, in October of 1989, when the building and the ground began to move!! It was no minor trembler. The Bay Bridge collapsed, along with apartments in an area called the Marina. It was a weird feeling because there were those aftershocks and one wondered if the earth would ever stand still again!
Jesus challenges us to build on the "rock" of his teachings. We must begin with LISTENING TO and then ACTING on those words. It is not enough simply to tell the story. We have to live it out in practice. The same person whose teachings are remembered and preached to us on the pages of the New Testament is the one whose human birth we are preparing in Advent to celebrate. Is our devotional and liturgical observance of Advent (wreath, Jesse tree, purple vestments, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!") matched by our daily interaction with our neighbor? Do we "put skin on" the HOPE that this season can offer? Can we offer something solid to stand on in the midst of the many "earthquakes" our lives are prone to experience? AMEN
<< Previous Date
[Back to List]
Next Date >>