3rd Sunday of Advent (A)

December 11, 2022

INTRODUCTIONHOMILIESPAPAL HOMILIESCOMMENTARYECUMENICAL RESOURCESVIDEO ARCHIVEHOMILY STARTERSGROUP SHARINGCHILDRENMUSIC

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Fr. Tony’s Collection of Homily Starters

1) “Joy to the World!” 
2)   Encouraging others with facial paralysis
2) “Sweetheart, you’re the answer to my prayers” 
3) “Down with Khrushchev!”
4) Broken dreams of a warrior Messiah
5) John expected better treatment from a Messiah
6) Greek, and Jewish civilization
7) “The only Christ I ever knew” 
8) Dreams for sale
9) “Look, this was Elijah’s face that night”
10) No Sea Gull came
11) “She can’t sing while she plays” 
12) “I wasn’t sure which song God would like better” 
13) Michael Jordan playing with country kids? 
14) Tom Sawyer Finds Light in the Darkness
15) “Why are you outside?” – Not involved
16) Disillusioned or determined
17) “Buddhist gives a Jew a Christmas gift made by a Hindu!” 
18) Walking among the reeds
19) Facilitating God’s Coming – Will you hold me? 
20) Be a lamplighter
21) Waiting for God in joyful hope
22) Are You Swapping Heaven?
23) It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
24) “I Will Be There”
25) “When a child finds such joy in learning, then it is my joy to help her learn! “ 
26) What are the ten major Faith and Church struggles of our time?
27) Like a bride bedecked
28) Don’t let criticism immobilize you
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Joy to the World

Consider the story of one young man. He was often sick as a baby. He was always small, puny some would say. As a youth he was always frail and delicate. He was not able to play sports with the other boys his age. Eventually he entered the ministry. But his health was so fragile, he was unable to serve his growing congregation. Amazingly, he did not dwell on his troubles. In fact, his spirit soared. His only real complaint was the poor quality of the hymns of his day. He felt they did not convey hope and joy. Someone challenged him to write better ones. He did. He wrote over 600 hymns, most of them hymns of praise. When his health collapsed completely in 1748, he left one of the most remarkable collections of hymns the world has ever known. His name was Isaac Watts. In a few weeks we will be singing one of his most famous hymns, “Joy to the World!”

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–Isaac Watts discovered joy in his life because he knew that God would never desert him. He was able to live his life with all sorts of health problems, feeling close to God and Jesus. He had joy deep in his heart.

SOURCE: Fr. Tony’s Homilies (Timothy J. Smith; quoted by Fr. T. Kayala).
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3rd Sunday of Advent (Year A)

Tom Sawyer Finds Light in the Darkness

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You may remember the famous final chapters of Mark Twain’s classic novel, Tom Sawyer. Tom and his friend Becky have been exploring a cave, just for adventure’s sake. But the cave is full of dark caverns and twisting passages, and as they explore, they end up getting lost. Fear sets in. They start to panic. Their candles – the only light they have – are running low. An entire day goes by. Their candles are spent. They lose track of time. They are becoming desperate. They keep wandering through the darkness, looking for the smallest glimpse of daylight. But they don’t even know if it’s night or day any longer, so they are afraid that they may pass right by a passageway that leads out of the cave, because if it’s nighttime outside, they won’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, they spot a pinprick of light far in the distance, and they follow it to freedom.

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 The fallen human race is like Tom and Becky, lost in the dark caverns of a fallen world. We light little candles – like money, pleasure, power, fame, philosophy, comfort, but they all waver and burn out. But Christ, the eternal Son of God, is the everlasting light that has conquered the darkness. He has given us a glimpse of everlasting life. His revelation is the pinprick of light that is the source of true, lasting joy, not the anemic joy that is inspired by the passing flicker of a fragile candle.

SOURCE: Fr. Tony’s Homilies (E-Priest)
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“Why are you outside?” – Not involved

Henry David Thoreau was an American writer who authored the renowned essay “Civil Disobedience.” He championed the freedom of the individual over the law of the land. He distinguished between ”law” and “right.” He wrote: ”What the majority passes is the ‘law’ and what the individual conscience sees is the ‘right’, and what matters most is the ‘right’ and not the ‘law.’” Once Thoreau was imprisoned for a night for his refusal to pay the poll-tax as a protest against the government’s support of slavery and its unjust war against Mexico presumably in support of slave trade intentions. When he was arrested, he hoped that some of his friends would follow his example and fill the jails, and in this way persuade the government to change its stance on the issue of slavery. In this he was disappointed. Not only did his friends not join him, one friend paid the tax on his behalf and got him released the very next day. When he was in the prison, Emerson, another American writer, came to visit him. He said to Thoreau: “Thoreau, Thoreau, why are you inside (jail)?” And Thoreau replied, “Emerson, Emerson, why are you outside?”

Thoreau was a great lover of truth. He suffered because he spoke and stood for truth. Emerson said in his obituary of Thoreau, “He was a great speaker and actor of truth.”

SOURCE: Fr. Tony’s Homilies (John Rose in John’s Sunday Homilies; quoted by Fr. Botelho).
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Disillusioned or Determined

In her book, Return to Love, Marianne Williamson points out that a friend said to her, “Marianne, I’m so depressed by world hunger!” Marianne replied: “Do you give five dollars a week to one of the organizations that feed the hungry?”

She goes on to say she asks this question because she has noticed how people who participate in solving problems don’t seem to be as depressed as those standing on the sidelines doing nothing. Application: Have we recently gone out of our way to help someone?

SOURCE: Fr. Tony’s Homilies (Gerard Fuller in Stories for all Seasons; quoted by Fr. Botelho)

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