Fr. Robert Altier ~ Homily ~ Epiphany ~ Jesus is the Light of the World!

Darkness Covers the Earth

Epiphany
Homily by Fr. Robert Altier
From: Sunday ~ 2 January 2005

Reading I (Isaiah 60:1-6)
Reading II (Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6)
Gospel (St. Matthew 2:1-12)

Today we celebrate a feast that has lost much of its meaning for people in the modern day. In the ancient world, the Feast of the Epiphany was one of the most important of all the feast days in the Church year. The word epiphany, recall, means “manifestation”, so it is the manifestation of the divinity of Christ, that God has become man and He dwelt among us. What was so important about this feast to the early Christians was not only that Our Lord was made manifest, but particularly that He was made manifest to the Gentiles. It is precisely the mystery of which Saint Paul speaks, the mystery that was foretold by the prophets but not understood, and now the mystery that has been brought to its completion in Christ, the mystery that the Gentiles are now coheirs with the Jews, that they are members of the same body, that they are children of God and heirs of heaven. It is a mystery that points to the fact that all of us, being made in the image and likeness of God, now have the opportunity to live according to the fullness of our human dignity. In fact, in Christ, we have the opportunity to live with a divine dignity. This is something that the Jewish people of old were able to do, and now the Gentiles have been united with them so there is no longer this separation but all are one in Christ.

Now we look at this in our own day and we ask ourselves, “What is so important about this?” This feast is critically important because the mystery we celebrate today is so important for us. If we look in the first reading today from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, he talks about how darkness covers the earth and the thick clouds the people. Look around and ask yourself if it is not true that our world is in darkness and if most of the people we know are not walking around in something of a fog. Thick clouds seem to cover the minds and the hearts of the people. They cannot see clearly. They do not understand. They have given themselves over to sin.

What happens when someone gives themselves over to sin is the same basic problem that happened in Jerusalem when the three Magi came to the palace in Jerusalem to ask Herod where they would find the newborn King of the Jews. One of the most tragic lines of all Scripture tells us what we would expect to hear and what we would not expect to hear: Herod was troubled (who would be surprised?) and all Jerusalem with him. The people of Israel were awaiting the Messiah. They knew the time, and now that the newborn King of the Jews was born, they were troubled, they did not want Him. Some of the people were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem, but the vast majority wanted to live in darkness because their sins had clouded their minds, just like today. When God makes Himself manifest, people do not want to believe. They do not want to see. They have chosen darkness instead of light.

But the beauty of what we celebrate today is that a star, which would be seen only in the darkness, is shining brilliantly so that anyone with the eyes of faith can see it. God made Himself manifest in this way to some pagans who were looking at the stars to try to discern what was going on in the world. Obviously, that is not the way Christian people are going to be operating. But it is not a question of a star up in the sky that we are looking for; rather, inside of each one of us God has placed a light. It is a light of faith that illumines the night of this world, that brings light into the darkness that surrounds us. It is, once again, exactly what Isaiah says: Upon you a light shall shine, and the glory of the Lord will appear above you.

We could ask ourselves in general, “How is it possible, on a natural level, that there would be darkness in some places while right next to that darkness is light?” It is not what is on the natural level; it is what is on the spiritual level. If you are in the state of grace, this light burns within you and it shines brightly in the darkness so that if you are surrounded by people who have rejected the truth, they have chosen darkness while the light shines in you. This is the way that prophecy can be fulfilled, that darkness covers the earth and the thick clouds the peoples; but upon you a light shall dawn, and above you the glory of the Lord will be revealed. That is happening inside of you.

If we consider what it is that the three Magi were seeking, it was not the star, but it was the Person represented by the star. It is precisely the fulfillment of what we hear way back in the Book of Numbers when the pagan prophet Balaam was hired to curse the Hebrew people. He climbed up the mountain, and instead God required that he bless the chosen people. In one of those occasions, the oracle of Balaam says something to the effect of I see him, thought not near; I behold him, yet far away. A star shall rise in Jacob and a staff in Judah. The star is a king – it is the newborn King of the Jews – a newborn king not only for the Jewish people, but for the Gentiles as well so that all of us will be one in Christ. This being the case, what the Magi sought was a Person, and that Person is the Light, as Saint John makes very clear: He is the Light of the world. The Light came into this world and the darkness could not overcome it. Like that star the Magi saw, He shines brilliantly in the darkness of this world. And it is He Himself Whom we must seek.

We have been given knowledge of the truth. For whatever reason, in God’s mysterious ways He has chosen each one of us. He has given to us this gift of faith, and He has given us knowledge of Himself. It is purely a gift on God’s part; it is not something we have earned or deserved, but it is a gift. Now the question is, just like the gift the Magi were given, what are we going to do with this gift that has been given to us? The three Wise Men were willing to leave everything behind and travel a long and arduous journey across the desert to come to find this Child and bow down and worship Him. If this light of faith truly burns within our hearts, then it is that light of faith that allows the eyes of our hearts to see. Just as the Magi would not be able to see with their bodily eyes the fact that this little baby is God, yet with the eyes of their hearts they were able to recognize Him and they worshiped Him. They would not worship Him if He were just a human king; they will worship Him only because He is God. And they left behind all of their paganism. They left behind the darkness from which they had come because they found the light.

Now that we live in this neopagan society of ours, we too must reject the worldly ways, the pagan ways, because we have seen the light. We know Who He is. The eyes of our faith allow us to recognize that what appears to be a piece of bread is truly God. The eyes of faith allow us to be able to enter into our hearts and have knowledge of the One Who dwells there. In the darkness that surrounds most people because they have rejected Christ, when they enter into their hearts all they find there is themselves. Their little world revolves around themselves, and everything is about themselves. For one who has seen the light of Christ and that light shines within their hearts, their lives then revolve around Him. And when they go inside of themselves, they do not find just themselves but they find Jesus Christ, indeed, they find the Holy Trinity Who dwells within. It is that which helps us in the midst of the darkness to continue to move toward our goal, toward the goal which is union with this One Who is the light. Just as the Magi followed the star and the star led them directly to the place where they found Our Lord and Our Lady, so too this light of faith shining within us is going to lead us directly to the place where we too will find Our Lord and Our Lady – and that is heaven.

In the meantime, we learn from the Magi what we are to do. We are to come before Him, to recognize Him for Who He is through the eyes of faith and open up our coffers. Not gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but a heart that is filled with love. That is all Our Lord wants. He wants us to give Him the greatest gift of all, and that is love – a life that is completely devoted to Him, a heart that is filled with love for Him, a mind that accepts the truth and lives it. Those are the treasures we can give to Him now. They are not too difficult for us, but it is just like the Magi: We will have to make a journey and we will have to give Him something which is very, very precious to us. But in return for their gold, frankincense, and myrrh, the Magi walked away with the greatest treasure of all. They held God within their hearts, and so can we. If we are willing to open our hearts and allow that light to shine in the darkness that is there to fill us with love, then we can give Him back that love. And the greatest treasure is ours because the light, Who is Jesus Christ Himself, will shine within us and the darkness will be dispelled. In this world that is filled with darkness, we will be able to see clearly as the light of faith guides us to the fulfillment of all our desires: union with Jesus Christ forever in heaven.


* This text was transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing. From ~ A Voice in the Desert

It has been a year since I began this journey, answering our Papa's call to use technology to Spread the Gospel Message! I hope that even one person has benefited from the beautiful and powerful homilies of Father Altier and the various Holy Priests of AirMaria - as well as the pro-life messages and saint stories, the various prayers and beautiful paintings, the pro-life songs... I will leave up this site: We Need Faith, Hope & Charity, but will not be going forward with updates. Blessings to all who found this little site... if any!

Peace & Prayers to each of you,
Friend of Filumena

Ephiphany ~ Message from Human Life International ~ Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro-Carambula

Human Life International e-Column
Volume 05, Number 48 Friday, December 31, 2010

Epiphany

Christmastide is completed by the feast of the Epiphany, which is the manifestation of the Lord to the whole world. Following an ancient tradition that originated in the Eastern Church, in this feast we celebrate not only the adoration of the child Jesus by the three wise kings, but also the baptism of Christ in the Jordan and the first miracle of Christ, the transformation of water into wine at the wedding of Cana. In this feast we see Christ as the Light of World, the only light that can illuminate the way for those who are walking in darkness and in the shadow of death, as Saint Gregory Nazianzeno reminds us. For the Greek Fathers of the Church, the worse tragedy of man is the ignorance of Christ. This ancient and valuable insight, which is part of the traditional wisdom of the Church, is confirmed by the darkness that we experience in the contemporary world. Sadly, many in the world today do not really know about Christ and His saving power, or have only a sad caricature of who Christ really is.

At Christmas, the child Jesus was adored by a small group of shepherds, but at the Epiphany he is adored by the three wise kings who represent the whole of humanity. This is why we believe that with this feast we celebrate the manifestation of the saving grace of the Lord to the whole world. The three kings are depicted in Catholic tradition as being Caucasian, African and Asian, so in them we have represented the main ethnic groups of the world. Also, another tradition sees the kinds at varying ages, one being very young, another being a mature man and the third being a man of senior years. So in them the three ages of mankind are reflected.

In the gifts of the wise kings we have a very important insight into the nature of the Divine Child; an insight based on a message they received before they saw Christ, before they started their voyage, when they were guided by God to select their gifts. So before adoring the visible Lord, they started to adore Him in their minds and hearts with the hope of seeing him in person, and their three gifts have great significance for the faithful even today.

Incense proclaims the divinity of the child Jesus, as incense is traditionally offered primarily to God. Remember how many Christians in the early Roman persecutions suffered martyrdom because they refused to offer a pinch of incense to the infamous idols that St. Augustine describes so well in The City of God. This is also reminder to us that the increasingly tyrannical world in which we live is ready to persecute us because we refuse to pander to what is politically correct. Myrrh was offered to Him signifying His human nature: it is a prophetic reminder of the mix of herbs that would be prepared to preserve the body of Christ by the women who loved Him. Gold represents the regality of Christ, as it is clearly proclaimed in the liturgy of this feast and has been taught by many Popes. It comes from the tributes that are due to earthly kings or to other civil authorities. Also it makes a reference to the obligation that Christians have to support in a material way the Church and other Christian works of charity in proportion to their economics means and the duties they have towards their families.

These symbolic gifts lead us to meditate on the gifts that we Christians ought to offer to Christ, as Saint Leo the Great reminds us in his Second Homily on the Epiphany. The Lord wants our serious commitment and our work, because the Kingdom of God is not given to the ones who sleep, but instead to the persons that make a serious and constant effort to practice the Commandments. In our particular case, besides practicing the Commandments, the Lord has given us the particular vocation to proclaim the Gospel of Life, so in this Epiphany our gift to the newly born King is to strengthen our efforts to proclaim the integral truth of the Church, especially those teachings on life and family.

The Lord manifested Himself to the world, but after two thousand years this presence seems to have been muted. The Lord established His Church to carry on His manifestation until the end of the world, so the Church, and ourselves as members of the Church, have to find ways to continue to present Christ's saving message in all possible ways. We have to present this message in such a way that it will create the same admiration and marvel that it caused in its first listeners. At the same time, this message should be accompanied by the liturgical beauty that led the delegates of Kiev to convert after experiencing the Divine Liturgy at Santa Sofia in Constantinople. The grace of the Lord in the same way that converted the hearts of the wise men before they saw the child Jesus, also works in the hearts and minds of many men today. Still, in same way that those wise men were confirmed in their interior faith by seeing the Child, the men of our days need to see our convincing testimony so that the interior movement of the soul might be confirmed.

On behalf of everyone at HLI, I wish you a happy and prosperous new year. 2011 will be happy and prosperous, we can be sure, if we follow the ways of the Lord. So what I sincerely wish to all you is that you truly accept the Reign of our Lord in your hearts and minds, then all the rest that you need will be granted to you, because no one defeats the generosity of the Lord!


Sincerely yours in Christ,


Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro-Carámbula
Interim President, Human Life International


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A Blessed New Year to All ~ Fr. Robert Altier ~ Homily ~ Mary the Mother of God!

Prayer for the New Year
O God of new beginnings and wonderful surprises,
thank you for the gift of a new year.
May it be a time of grace for me,

a time to grow in faith and love,
a time to renew my commitment

to following Your Son, Jesus.
May it be a year of blessing for me,

a time to cherish my family and friends,
a time to renew my efforts at work,

a time to embrace my faith more fully.
Walk with me, please,

in every day and every hour of this new year,
that the light of Christ might shine through me,
in spite of my weaknesses and failings.
Above all, may I remember this year that I am a pilgrim
on the sacred path to You. Amen.

Mary, Mother of God
Homily by Fr. Robert Altier
From: Saturday ~ 1 January 2005

Reading I (Numbers 6:22-27)
Reading II (Galatians 4:4-7)
Gospel (St. Luke 2:16-21)

As we celebrate this great solemnity of our Blessed Mother, we stop to reflect upon a couple of different things. It is today, of course, the octave day of Christmas, and therefore the purpose for celebrating this feast is the Divine Maternity, or Mary as the Mother of God. It is also the day that Our Lord was circumcised, on the eighth day after His birth. It is the day that His name was formally given to Him, just as it is today that a child actually does not have a name until the child is baptized. Parents, of course, choose a name sometimes long before the baby is even born, but the child receives a name as a Christian person at the moment of Baptism. So too, Our Lord received His name in His human reality on the eighth day when He was circumcised. All of these events would be taking place over these eight days. We think about Our Lady coming down from Galilee and going to the area outside of Jerusalem, to Bethlehem, and giving birth to her Son, laying Him in a manger, all of the different things that certainly would have been going on around her and within her during those days, with prayer, gazing upon her Son Who is God and reflecting upon the mystery that was conceived within her and born through her, bringing the Child in now for circumcision, and having everything fulfilled exactly as it had been proclaimed by the angel.

We are told that Our Lady held all of these things in her heart and she pondered them. Our Lady continues to ponder things within her heart as she gazes now, not upon the infant face of her Son, but upon the face of her Son in glory, united perfectly with the Father and the Holy Spirit. But as Our Lady looks at the Holy Trinity, she sees within God every single person, every single action, and she recognizes each of these people as her own children because they are made in the image and likeness of God; and Jesus Christ, Who was born of Mary, is, as Saint Paul says, the image of the invisible God. The great mystery is that Mary is made in the image and likeness of Jesus, and Jesus is made in the image and likeness of Mary. So as she looks upon God and sees all of these people created in the image and likeness of the One Who was created in her image and likeness, she reflects upon all these things. She holds them in her heart.

And what she is holding in her heart is exactly what Saint Paul told us in the second reading, that not only in the fullness of time was the Son of God born for us, born under the law, born of a woman; but that in Him we have all become members of Jesus Christ, we have all become children of God, and we have all become heirs of heaven. Just as every child is made not only in the image and likeness of God but also in the image and likeness of his parents, Our Lord was no different. Each one of us, as a member of Jesus Christ through Baptism, has been remade into the very likeness of Jesus Christ Himself. As a member of Jesus Christ, we are able then to call God our Father. And if we can call God our Father because He is the Father of Jesus Christ, then we also call His Mother our Mother because spiritually we are born from the same virginal womb, we are brought forth into the same divine life, we are made members of the same Person to Whom she gave birth.

So as we celebrate today her divine maternity, that is, the fact that she is the Mother of God, we celebrate also her spiritual maternity, that is, that she is the Mother of each and every one of us in the spiritual realm, that we are her children, that we have become heirs of heaven through her Son. Our Lady is our Mother. Every good mother, of course, wants only what is best for her children. Every mother feels very acutely all the things that happen with her children, and, like Our Lady, every other mother holds all these things in her heart and she ponders them. She rejoices when her children rejoice; she suffers when her children suffer.

We need then to look at ourselves and ask, “What are we doing to our Mother’s heart?” Are we giving her cause for rejoicing? What have we given to Our Lady to ponder? Are we giving her holiness, goodness, virtue, and all the things that would resemble her Son so she can look upon us and see her Son within us, and see us within her Son, and continue to ponder the mystery of God become man so that man could become as God? Or are we giving to our Mother the problems that mothers of lots of young people have to deal with now, wondering what happened, wondering why, wondering about this child and all of the errant ways, having to ponder things that are more like the devil than they are like Christ? We want to give to our Mother only the best. We want to give to her the greatest gift that we can, and the greatest gift that we can give to our Blessed Mother is to be more like her Son, to be holy, to be virtuous, to be prayerful, to have our sights set on heaven.

For ourselves, we need also to look at what happened with the shepherds. When they saw this Child, they returned, glorifying God, and telling everyone all about what had happened. We do not just look upon this Child – we receive the fullness of His being in Holy Communion. Do we return praising and glorifying God? Do we return out into the world by living the life of Christ and bringing Him to others? These are the examples we need to look at and from which we need to learn so that we will truly rejoice the heart of our Mother, so that the things she can ponder in each one of us are things that will bring her great joy, so that she will see in us the continuation of the mystery that took place within her, the mystery of the Incarnation, of the unity of the divinity and the humanity in the Person of Jesus Christ. As she looks at us, the mystery continues that we who are incorporated into Christ have become her children, who share in the divine nature of her Son, so that the humanity and the divinity continue to operate in each one of us and we continue to live, not according to our fallen human nature, but according to the elevated divine nature that God has given to us, so that in all that we do we give praise and glory to God and give to our Mother a great reason to rejoice as she holds us in her heart and ponders the mystery and the reality of each and every one of us.


* This text was transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing. From ~ A Voice in the Desert

Fr. Robert Altier ~ Homily ~ Feast of the Holy Family! ~ Let Us Imitate the Holy Family in All Ways!

Prayer in Honor of the Holy Family

Lord Jesus Christ,
who, being made subject to Mary and Joseph,
didst consecrate domestic life
by Thine ineffable virtues;
grant that we,
with the assistance of both,
may be taught by the example
of Thy Holy Family
and may attain to its everlasting fellowship.
Who livest and reignest forever. Amen.

God’s Plan for the Survival of the Family

Homily by Fr. Robert Altier
Feast of the Holy Family
From: 26 December 2004

Reading I (Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14)
Reading II (Colossians 3:12-21)
Gospel (St. Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23)

Today we celebrate a feast that in our society has become really one of the most important of the liturgical events of the year, that is, the Feast of the Holy Family. This is something that just a couple of generations ago nobody would have believed would have had the kind of importance that it does today, because everybody understood that the family is the foundation of the Church and of society, and everything within the Church and within society was at the support of the family. But that has changed. Everything within the Church certainly (at least in Her official teachings) is still at the support of the family, but society has changed very drastically in the last couple of generations. It has turned against its own self because it is attacking its own foundation.

Consequently, what is happening in our society is that we are trying to redefine what a family is. It has become anything that anyone wants it to be. If two people live together outside of marriage, that has become a family. If two people of the same sex want to say that they are “in love” with one another, that is a family. If you have all sorts of bizarre arrangements of differing groups of people – as it has become now, they switch off and do various things – they call that a family. And the ones who are paying a price for this are the innocent: the children. So today we have young people who have no conscience. We have young people who do not know who they are as human beings, as male or female. They do not know how to be in a relationship because the very relationship that is supposed to model for them what a family is, and what a male-female relationship is to be, has been completely destroyed or has been altered to such a degree that one can hardly recognize it anymore. Consequently we have very, very confused young people.

The tragedy of this is that in the next generation we have all kinds of young people who are going to try to get married, but they do not know what marriage even is because they have not seen it and they have not experienced it. Because they are human, their hearts, like all of ours, long to be loved and long to give love, but they do not even know what it is because they have not experienced that either. In all too many situations in our society, two very selfish people beget children; and rather than loving them, these two individuals who begot the child continue to be totally selfish. We stick children in front of the TV now for hours to baby-sit them. We give them violent videogames so they learn from an early age that killing is not a problem. We present them with all sorts of immoral things. We have children now who can run around the Internet far better than most adults can. And I suspect that most of us have probably heard that the vast majority of the queries on the Internet are all about sex. Considering the age of the people who are often on the Internet, that should tell us exactly what is happening to these precious young minds. So we see that in this redefinition of the family that is being attempted in our society, not only is the family being destroyed, but the most precious commodity that any society has is being destroyed – and that is our beautiful children. Because of this, the society itself is being destroyed.

The answer to all of these problems is a very simple one, but it requires that we are going to have to go against the grain of society. The answer is the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and the family, not the way that society has defined the family to be, but the way that God has defined the family to be. So we need to look at the factors that are present that are destroying the fibers of the family.

We have to begin with the very dignity of the human person. Even before we look at the dignity of the human person in general, we need to recognize first and foremost the dignity of the one who is the foundation of the family, that is, the woman. In our society, women have been relegated to objects. They are not only just mere objects, but they are disposable objects in this disposable society. Little girls are being taught from all of the filth they see all over the place that they are created to be ogled. Little boys are being taught that it is perfectly acceptable to look at little girls in a way that is completely inappropriate. We now have young women running around wearing hardly anything because they believe that is what they are supposed to be doing. Everybody else, of course, is doing it, so that supposedly makes it okay.

We have young men who are addicted to pornography. The addiction to pornography is extremely serious, not merely that it is an epidemic, but it is more difficult to overcome an addiction to pornography than it is to overcome an addiction to drugs. And do not think this is some merely harmless thing, because, as I continually point out in the confessional, if you look at one woman as an object and you make her into a thing and violate her dignity, you cannot go home and treat your wife with the dignity of a person and love her. If one woman is an object, so is the next. Gentlemen, all you need to do is take the logic and run it out. If one woman who is allowing her own self to be violated by removing her clothing and allowing her pictures to be portrayed all over the place, that does not give any of us a right, just because she is presenting herself in an undignified way, to violate her dignity as well. She is still a human person made in the image and likeness of God, and she still has the full dignity that God has given to her, even if she herself is not upholding it. We do not have a right to fail to uphold it. But if that young woman is just a thing for us to be lusting after, then not only is your wife in that same position, but so is your daughter, and so is your mother, and so is every other woman.

It does not just stop with the idea that women are objects to be ogled because now they can be objects to be used. If a woman can be looked at in an impure way, she can also be approached and violated in an impure way. And our society is more than happy to present the opportunity to do so. Contraception is the single largest reason for the breakdown of marriage, and it is completely destructive of human dignity. What happens automatically when two people introduce contraception into their relationship is that the marital union becomes selfish, which is exactly the opposite of what God intended it to be. It becomes two people using one another for their own selfish pleasure, having no responsibility, and giving no gift.

In marriage, the way that God has given it to us, when two people are married their souls are united. There is a spiritual union of a husband and a wife, and the two become one. The marital embrace is the very sign of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. If that sign is undermined and destroyed, the marriage is going to be undermined and destroyed. Put it into a different context for a moment. The Mass is the greatest expression of the priesthood. What would you think if a priest were at the altar being completely irreverent, not properly vested, not using the proper matter and form for the sacraments, doing all kinds of foolish and unfortunate things at the altar of God? I would hope that you would be duly outraged by the sacrilege that is happening. If the union of husband and wife in their physical embrace is the very sign of their marriage, what does it say about how much they think of their marriage if they are going to destroy the very sign of that marriage?

On the day that a couple gets married, they vow to one another and to God that they will love each other every day for the rest of their lives. As soon as they contracept, it is no longer an act of love – it is an act of using one another – and it violates not only the dignity of the person, but it violates the marriage vows and it violates the very purpose of human sexuality as God has created it. It undermines everything in the marriage. If it is okay to use one another in that perspective, then it is perfectly acceptable to use one another in any other form. This is exactly what our children are seeing: two parents who have no respect for one another, two parents who do not love one another, because we have two parents who are being selfish toward one another.

What we need to do is get back to the very basics of what God Himself has given to us in marriage. We hear it at the end of the second reading today. After Saint Paul tells us that we are to practice patience, meekness, humility, and so on, he tells us then that we have to put all of this together and bind it up with love. And then he tells us what people in our society do not understand and do not want to hear: Wives, be subordinate to your husbands; and husbands, love your wives. This does not mean, “Women, you are now the slave of the household; and husbands, you can just snap your finger and think your wife should do anything you want.” But rather, the word subordinate means “to be under the order of”. That does not mean to be “under order to”, but rather “under the order of”. So what is the order that is given to the husband? To love his wife. That means to seek her good, to always serve her, to do what is the best for her. And so to be under the order of means “to be beneath the order of your husband”; in other words, to allow yourself to be loved and to love in return. It is a very different perspective than what most people think when they read these readings, but it is absolutely essential. If the two people love one another and allow themselves to be loved by one another, they build one another up and they help one another to grow in holiness.

The marital union of husband and wife must be a prayer. It is holy. It is the sign of your sacrament. Again, what would you say about a priest at the altar who is not praying? I would say the exact same thing about a married couple who is using one another, where their embrace is not something that is holy but just the opposite. Because the marriage is a spiritual union first and foremost, it must be built up spiritually. A couple has to pray together, and then that spiritual union is going to have a spiritual expression in the physical realm when the two are united in marriage. When the couple is accepting their own dignity – first of all, as male and female, when they accept and uphold the dignity of the other as male and female, when they are building up their marriage through spirituality and prayer, and when the expression of their marriage becomes something which is truly holy – there is going to be an unbreakable foundation and the children that issue forth from that union are going to see the example of two people who truly love one another, and they are going to understand who they are.

A child is the living, tangible, and fleshed sign of the love of a husband and a wife. When you look at your children as a married person, you should be able to see in that beautiful little face the love you have for your spouse and the love your spouse has for you in a living human form. That is why children are to be conceived in love, raised in love, and filled with love. They are to understand and experience love, not only by what their parents shower upon them, but especially by the example that they see in the marriage union in the relationship of their parents. That is the call that is given to married couples. That is the call that is given to the Christian family: to be holy, to help one another to become saints, and to raise up new saints for God. There is only one way that we can become saints, and that is to love, to become who God created us to be, and to raise up children to be the persons God created them to be.

So this Feast of the Holy Family is a time, once again, for married couples to renew their commitment, to look at the love of Our Lady and Saint Joseph, to model themselves after such perfect love, to accept their own dignity, the dignity of their spouse and the dignity that God has given to the two of them in re-creating them to become one on the day that they got married, to build up that unity through prayer and through true love, so that the end result will be two saints who are parents and a multitude of new saints who are their children.


*This text was transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing. From ~ Desert Voice

Fr. Robert Altier's ~ Christmas Homily ~ Behold the Christ Child ~ Savior of All!

Christmas Day
Homily by Fr. Robert Altier
From: Saturday ~ 25 December 2004

Reading I (Isaiah 9:1-6)
Reading II (Titus 2:11-14)
Gospel (St. Luke 2:1-14)

Like so many things in God’s Providence, today is a feast of irony. Today, however, is a day upon which the most extraordinary things are celebrated. Not merely the most obvious, for instance, the fact that the Creator became a creature, that God Who sustains all things became dependent on a human woman to sustain Him, that God Who has no beginning in time suddenly in His human nature has a beginning in time, and all of these sorts of things that we can see, but there is even more.

Saint Paul, in the second reading today that we heard from his Letter to Titus, says something that is really extraordinary. He says, The grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways. The grace of God has appeared… When you just ponder that for a moment, you begin to see the extraordinary nature of what he is saying. The grace of God is His life. The grace of God is what is given to each one of us when we are not in the state of mortal sin. It is given initially at Baptism, and if all of our mortal sins have been forgiven then the grace of God dwells within our souls. And along with that grace, because it is the very life of God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit dwell within our souls. They are able to do that because they have no body. Therefore, because they can be in all places at all times it is not anything that is difficult for them.

But now the grace of God has appeared. So as Saint Paul says in his Letter to the Philippians, Jesus is the image of the invisible God. God, by His very nature, has no body. There is nothing visible that we can look at; there is no appearance for us to be able to grasp. Yet, this day two thousand years ago, our Blessed Lord was born as a human baby. He did this for us because He created us as sensible people. “Sensible” meaning that what we receive is received through the senses: we see, we taste, we smell, we touch, we hear. When sinful humanity refused to believe in the love of God and to trust in His mercy and His promises, God did something that was truly extraordinary by its nature and purely love in its essence: He became one of us so we could see Him, so we could touch Him, so we could hear Him.

If we even just think about our own selves and how we would deal with something, if somebody whom we loved were in trouble, if there was an emergency of some sort that occurred, we would say to the person, “I will be right there.” You do not merely call the person on the phone at that point and talk to them. When someone is truly in need, we still recognize the necessity of being there in person, of being able to be present to the person so they can see us, they can touch us, they can hear us. On the telephone, certainly, they can hear, but there is something much more to actually being present in person. God, of course, is always present to us but our senses cannot perceive Him. And because we cannot perceive Him, all too often humanity chose not to believe. So God in His mercy recognized, in essence, the “emergency situation” and He came to us. He did not just stay up in heaven and say, “Look, I am real. Believe. I have told you all about Myself; just read the Scriptures and trust and believe.” He could have done that, but instead He said to us, “I will be right there. I will come to you. I will show you.”

We do the exact same thing (again, in our humanness) when somebody tells us that they love us. While we do not say this in words, in the depths of our beings we say to ourselves, “Prove it. How do I know that they are not just words? How do I know that you’re not just saying that to manipulate me, to try to get something for yourself? How do I know that you really, truly love me?” Well, Saint Paul, in this same Letter to Titus, goes on to say, The kindness and the generous love of God our Savior have appeared. Again, think about that. The love of God has appeared. Jesus is the grace of God, and God is love (as Saint John tells us); therefore, when Jesus came to us in human form, the love of God appeared to us in human form because Jesus is a divine Person from all eternity. When Jesus Christ took on human flesh, He did not cease to be the very Person that He had been from all eternity because God cannot change. Remember always that Jesus did not become a human person. Jesus became a human being but His person remains divine. It always was and it always will be; He cannot be anything different. And since God is love, the very Person of Jesus Christ, Who is the Second Person of the Trinity, is love by His very nature. So when He came down to us as a divine Person Who took on human nature, the love of God appeared in human form.

And how can anyone deny the love of a baby? Any parent knows fully well the love of a child. All that you do with a baby is love them. They are the most vulnerable of creatures and they are the most lovable of creatures. Only the most hardened of heart cannot love a baby. So if the love of God is going to appear, how is He going to do it? Love by its very nature is something which is vulnerable. In order to love, it requires a risk. And so He made Himself to be as vulnerable as a human being can be, completely dependent upon His mother and presented to each and every one of us as Love in a way that we will not be afraid. No one is afraid of a baby. There are people who are afraid to hold a baby because they think the baby is going to break or that they are going to drop the child. But no one is afraid of the baby because they know the baby is not going to hurt them. How many people in this world who have suffered abuse, who have been rejected and down-trodden by so many people, take those experiences and place them on God and think He is going to do the exact same thing that others have done to them? And so the Lord comes to us in a form that we can recognize we will not be rejected, we will not be hurt, and we will not be violated. We do not have to be afraid. We do not have to fear to come to Him because He Himself is vulnerable. We only have to fear when we are afraid of what the other person is going to do to us. The only thing He is going to ask of us is that we too would be vulnerable with Him. But you notice that He does not ask anything of us that He was not willing to do Himself.

Once again, it is what Saint Paul told us in his Letter to Titus, that we await the glorious appearance of our great God. He will return in His glory, but for now what we are celebrating is the glory of God in human form. When you look at the very reason why Jesus came into this world, it was to save us. And so if you look thirty-three years later to a Man upon a Cross, once again you see complete and total vulnerability. The word vulnerable comes from the Latin word that means “wound”. Look at the Cross and look at the wounds of Our Lord. There is nothing there on the Cross to push us away. His arms are wide open. His heart is wide open as it is pierced. There is nothing there that says, “I do not want you; I do not welcome you,” or even, “I do not love you,” but just the opposite. It is the invitation to us to come to Him.

Thirty-three years after His birth, Our Lord was laid in a stone tomb and He was wrapped in swaddling clothes. On the day of His birth, He was laid in a stone manger. The manger is not the barn; the manger is the feeding trough. In ancient Israel, the feeding trough was always made out of stone, not out of wood. It would stand about four feet high and it would look sort of like a rectangular basin. They carved out of the stone the basin where they would put the food for the animals, or the water. And so here is a Baby who is wrapped in swaddling clothes, the clothes of the dead, and He is placed in a stone manger which would be very similar to the tomb He would be placed in thirty-three years later. He came into this world for one purpose, and that was to die for us.

In so doing, Saint Paul tells us that He came to save us and train us to reject godless ways. We live in a godless society, but God is with us. Emmanuel, He is with us. He has come to us in a way that we can understand and accept, and He remains in us; not only dwelling within us when we are in the state of grace, but present among us in the Blessed Sacrament, where still He makes Himself completely vulnerable. There are no defenses that are up in the Blessed Sacrament. We either can receive Him with the greatest tenderness and care as we would a little baby, or we can reject Him and try to destroy Him, as evil people did on Calvary, and He will not put up a defense. You see the vulnerability of our God made flesh for us, the Eternal Word spoken by God Who took on our human nature so that we could have life, divine life, eternal life. That is what we celebrate today.

If there is any fear in your heart, if there is any doubt in your mind, stop over at the crèche after Mass and look at the Baby. Look at His vulnerability, look at His humility, look at the love of God in human form and believe. Let your guard down, put the defenses down, and open your heart to receive on this beautiful feast the love of God made visible so that we could receive Him and so that we would doubt no longer but believe.


*This text was transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing. From ~ Desert Voice

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What Child is This ~ Mercy Me

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Luke 2:6 -14

And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!"

Homilies ~ Frs. Robert Altier & Dominic Murphy ~ A Mighty Savior ~ Raised Up for Us! God is Faithful! Trust in the Lord God Almighty!

Homily by Fr. Robert Altier
From: Friday ~ 24 December 2004

Reading (2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16)
Gospel (St. Luke 1:67-79)

In the first reading today, we hear the promise God made to David that one of his sons would sit upon his throne forever and that his throne would remain firm before God forever. Now if we look at things from a perspective of history, we know that after fifty kings there no longer was a king in Israel; and for a couple of hundred years before Our Lord was born, there was not a king who was from the house of David. So it appears on the natural level that God’s promise was not fulfilled. The people of Israel who would be faithful to the Lord would have to continue to trust; they would have to continue to have faith that God’s promise is fulfilled even though it appears that it has not been – in fact, it appears that just the opposite has occurred.

Well, when we look at what Zechariah says at the time that his son is born (his son being, of course, Saint John the Baptist), he proclaims this canticle that we just heard in the Gospel and he talks about how God has raised up for us a mighty savior born of the house of His servant David. For the faithful Israelites, they did not know how God was going to fulfill this promise. They knew that He would. They knew that there was the promise of a Messiah. They knew He would fulfill the promises made to Abraham, and so we have that promise right in the canticle as well. This was the oath He swore to our father Abraham, he says. We hear about the promise to David, the promise to Abraham, the promise that God would raise up a Messiah after the house of David. It was to be understood in a spiritual way, not in a physical way, but that is not the way most people would think of it.

This is the way that God requires faith of us, because He will fulfill all of His promises and He will fulfill them perfectly. But He will not fulfill most of them, at least, in the way that on the natural level one would think they ought to be fulfilled. We would naturally look at something and say, “This is what He promised and this is what it means.” Well, that is not necessarily what it means, because we know when Our Lord was conceived that Our Lady was told by the angel that her Son would sit upon the throne of David forever and of His kingdom there would be no end. So the fulfillment of God’s promise was far greater than what anybody in ancient Israel could ever have imagined.

What we tend to do is to hold God to a very low standard. God, on the other hand, is trying to hold us to a much higher standard. We keep trying to bring God down to our level, and it is not ever going to work because the only way we are ever going to be able to go to heaven is if we go to God’s level. He has already done His part in coming to us. Now He has given us a share in His divine nature, so we have the capacity to go to Him, to rise up to a divine level. God is not going to ask small things of us, He is not going to ask that we would have just a little bit of faith in some natural-level promises, but rather what He is going to ask is that we would practice extraordinary faith in supernatural promises, in promises that are going to be fulfilled spiritually, in promises that when you look at the letter of the promise you are going to be able to say (as you chuckle to yourself), “He fulfilled it exactly the way that He said He was going to, but not in the way that I ever would have thought,” which is why when God makes certain promises we need to be very careful not to try to assume that we know what they mean because that is what is going to get us into trouble. What we need simply to do is have faith that since God is the One Who made the promise – and God is faithful – He will fulfill the promise, but not necessarily the way we think it ought to be fulfilled. The part that is so important is not to try to put our preconceived ideas onto God, but rather through prayer to allow God to show us what His intention is, what He meant when He made the various promises.

What He is going to require of us is exactly what He required of Israel, that we will walk in the darkness, that it will appear that God’s promises have not been fulfilled – in fact, it would appear that just the opposite has occurred – because then and only then are we operating solely by faith to be able to say, “I know what God promised and it looks like it has gone completely astray, but I believe that God is going to fulfill His promise in a way that I could never imagine. Who in ancient Israel would ever have imagined the way that God’s promise was fulfilled? Even though we know how the promise is fulfilled of the coming of the Messiah, of His being seated upon the throne of David, of the fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham and so on, if we really stopped to pray about it, not just to say, “Oh yeah, I know what happened,” but to really, really pray about it, it would still boggle our minds, it would still be beyond what we could ever ask for or imagine, and it would still require absolute and total faith because there is no way you can ever prove that Jesus Christ is God. There is no way you can prove that Jesus is seated upon the throne of David forever. You cannot prove that Jesus is in heaven and seated at the right hand of His Father. These things still require faith. We know they are true. We cannot see them, we cannot prove them, and so it is still a walk in the darkness of faith that we believe because God has promised. And the Lord has made many promises, a number of which have not yet been fulfilled, but every last one of them will be. They will be fulfilled completely and perfectly, not according to our standards but according to God’s.

So we need to learn from this, as well as so many of the other promises that God fulfilled already, not to bring God down to our level, but to allow Him to raise us up to His level so we can understand His promises according to His terms and we will then be able in faith to accept them and to know that they will be fulfilled perfectly and completely.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing. From ~ Desert Voice

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Fr. Dominic Murphy
The Dawn from on High
AirMaria ~Breath Freely

Fourth Sunday of Advent ~ Fr. Robert Altier ~ Wonderful Homily ~ True God & True Man ~ Our Lord & Savior!

Catholic Collect for the

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Pour forth thy power, O Lord, and come:
Assist us by that mighty power,
so that by thy grace and merciful kindness
we may swiftly receive the salvation that our sins impede:
Who livest and reignest with thee
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
ever one God, world without end. Amen.

~ ~ ~

Fourth Sunday of Advent
Homily by Fr. Robert Altier
From: Sunday ~ 19 December 2004

Reading I (Isaiah 7:10-14)
Reading II (Romans 1:1-7)
Gospel (St. Matthew 1:18-24)

In the first reading today from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, we hear one of the most well known passages in all of Scripture and yet one of the most extraordinary. Here we have the prophet Isaiah being sent by God to King Ahaz, who was a pretty unfortunate soul to say the least. He was the king in Israel who had done many, many, many, bad things and led the Israelite people into all kinds of sin. Suddenly, this man who had done so much against God is doubting, and God sends the prophet to be able to say to him, “Ask for any sign, whatever it is that you want, as high as the sky, as deep as the netherworld; make it as ridiculous as you want to make it, make it as extraordinary as you want, just go ahead and ask for anything and I will prove to you that I am real.” Suddenly, this horrendously sinful man becomes real pious: “I will not tempt the Lord – I’ll sin against Him all day long, but I’m not going to tempt Him.” And so the Lord Himself gives a sign, a sign that is so extraordinary it could not be missed by anyone, that a virgin shall be with child and will bear a son and they will name him Emmanuel.

Now this prophecy is really just a repeat of the very first prophecy in the very first promise that is contained in Scripture. If you go all the way back to Genesis 3:15, to the passage that is called the Protoevangelium (that means “The First Gospel”) where we are told that there will be enmity between the serpent and the woman, between her seed and his, and that she would crush his vile head, in this prophecy we hear that there is one woman who is going to give birth to one son. But the extraordinary nature of this prophecy is we are told that the seed of the woman is going to be at enmity in this way with the seed of Satan. What is so extraordinary about this is that if you really look at it carefully you recognize it is telling us that it has to be without a male; once again, it is a virgin who is to give birth. What is particularly extraordinary about this is that medicine up until very recently did not even realize the woman had an egg because they could not see it. We are told “the seed of the woman” – but a woman does not have seed, and yet this is exactly what God tells us is going to happen. This would be completely mind-boggling for people especially of the Old Testament times because they would not be able to understand how this could be possible. And so we see God presenting to us the truth of things, even though it was beyond human reason to be able to understand until fairly recently. The fact that a virgin would give birth is still beyond anyone’s understanding because it is completely contrary to nature, but this is exactly what God told us was going to be.

We see further what this son who is the offspring of the woman is going to be like. Saint Paul, in the second reading, tells us that he is descended from the flesh according to David. God had also made promises to David that one of his sons would sit upon the throne, so this is the exact same person who is being spoken of. When we look in the Gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke, we see the genealogy of Jesus and it comes down to Saint Joseph. And we see in the Gospel reading today the story that we all know so well of the conception of our Blessed Lord and how it was through the power of the Holy Spirit that Our Lady conceived, in fulfillment (as Saint Matthew makes very clear) of the prophecy of Isaiah.

Yet we see something else that is happening: The angel tells Saint Joseph not to fear to take Mary as his wife. Just ponder that for a moment. It would be pretty evident to anyone why he would be a little afraid. Not for one split-second did Saint Joseph think that Our Lady had been unfaithful to him. He knew her holiness; they had already agreed that theirs would be a virginal marriage. It was the realization that what was happening inside of this extraordinary woman was so holy that Saint Joseph recognized his own unworthiness to be involved in this mystery. But Saint Joseph’s involvement was absolutely essential because according to Jewish law the moment that a man would accept a woman as his wife and she would step over the threshold of his home the child within her would by law be adopted by that man. So at the moment Saint Joseph received our Blessed Lady into his home, the Child within her womb legally became his child. Biologically, of course, Our Lord was not the child of Saint Joseph; but legally He became the child of Joseph, so He could truly be legally called “the son of the carpenter.” He was indeed, then, a son of David. He was also a son of David through Our Lady. Today, Judaism is what is known as a matriarchal society; if your mother is Jewish then you are Jewish, but if your mother is not then you are not. But in the ancient world it was still a patriarchal society, and therefore the fact of having to have a father who was descended from David was essential for Our Lord.

Why is this so important? What the Church is giving us these readings for today is to demonstrate the truth of the humanity of Jesus Christ. Jesus is God from all eternity. He is a divine person from all eternity Who took to Himself our human nature. There are some who would like to say, “Because He is God, being human is beneath His dignity, so He didn’t really become a human being.” If Jesus did not become fully human, then we are not redeemed. There are some who would like to say, “He did not take on a human soul, just a human body.” If that is the case, then our souls have not been saved. There are some who would say, “He took on a human soul, but certainly not a human body. He just made it look like He had a body, but He really didn’t.” That means our bodies have no part of redemption. The reality is that He became fully human. He is not a human person – He is a divine person – and because He is a divine person that cannot change. The Second Person of the Trinity took to Himself a human nature, a human soul and a human body with human blood flowing through His veins. That is why in the Eucharist we talk about the Body, the Blood, the Soul, and the Divinity of Christ, because it is the fullness of the person of Jesus Christ.

Now as we look at this extraordinary mystery of the Incarnation of Our Lord, we recognize also that as God He has no beginning and He will have no end. Yet, because He took a human nature to Himself, in His humanity He has a beginning. He became flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He created her so that He could become created in her. As God, of course, He is uncreated; but, in His humanity, He has a created nature. He did not need to have a mother (and as God He does not have a mother), but because God decreed from all eternity that His Son would become man and would be born of a woman, it became necessary because it was the Will of God. Our Lord humbled Himself to share in our humanity in every way, to begin as the tiniest little baby in His mother’s womb and to be born of a woman. In this way, it helps each one of us to be able to see that we have been incorporated into the mystery of the Incarnation, because in Baptism we become members of Jesus Christ. Jesus, Who is God from all eternity, takes on our human nature; in Baptism, we, who are human by nature, take on the divine nature. As the saints have told us: God became man so that man could become God. Not that we become God per se, but rather we become partakes, as Saint Peter tells us, of the divine nature. We share in His nature as He has humbled Himself to share in ours; the difference being that His is a substantial union and ours is not. Nonetheless, it is a real participation in the divinity of Christ.

Our Lord, in taking on our humanity, has come into this world to save us from our sins; but, in His mercy and generosity, that was not enough for Him. He did not just take away our sins, but He elevated us to a divine level, which means we have the capacity to act as divine beings, that is, to act in a divine manner. Not that we are ever going to be God (again, we cannot), but because we share in His divinity we can act the way Jesus did, we can continue to live the life of Jesus even now. And so the Church gives us these readings right before Christmas so as we prepare ourselves to celebrate the Birth of Our Lord into this world that we will meditate deeply and profoundly upon this mystery of the Incarnation, that we will consider the reality of Who Jesus Christ is, not only in His divinity but particularly in His humanity, and that we will recognize the miracle of Who He is in His birth, the miracle beyond the normal miracle of every child who is conceived and born, the absolute and extraordinary miracle of God becoming man, of a virgin being a mother, of a woman having seed, of Him being of the flesh according to David because of a father who was not part of His conception.

As you meditate upon these things in this upcoming week, ponder also the reality that is you, that is, the reality that you are part of this mystery, that you have been incorporated into the Incarnation, and that you are invited by Our Lord to share in this glorious mystery. That is your dignity. As He humbled Himself to become one of us, He has exalted us to become part of Himself. This mystery of the Incarnation and of the Birth of Our Lord is not something that we merely look at from a distance of two thousand years and hold at an arm’s length, but rather it is something into which each one of us is fully incorporated. It is something of which we are a part, and it tells us the very essence of the dignity and reality of who we are. So use this last week to prepare your hearts, your souls, for the birth of our Savior. But recognize the reality, not only of Who He is, but of who you are and of your invitation to enter into and to be part of the very mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing. From ~ Desert Voice

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Veni Veni Emmanuel

Wyoming Catholic College

Fr. Frank Pavone ~ No Room in the Inn ~ Will You Welcome Him?!

A Deeper Understanding of the Incarnation

Christmas is Not Merely an Event of the Past

No Room in the Inn

~ From Fr. Frank Pavone's Blog

“She wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).

The fact that there was no room for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the inn at Bethlehem on the first Christmas should make us wonder, because the birth of Christ was foreseen and planned by God from all eternity. Hundreds of years before it happened, the prophets announced he would be born of a virgin (Is. 7:14) and that Bethlehem would be his birthplace (Micah 5:2). Many other details of his life and death were also foretold. Did God, then, forget to make room for his only Son? How is it possible that there was no room, when the child born at Christmas owns the inn, and Bethlehem, and the world, and every inch of room in the whole universe?

Obviously, God did this on purpose. There was no room in the inn, because this demonstrates that the world has rejected God. The world makes no room for the God who created it. There was no room in the inn because God wanted to show that His Son comes as a Savior, to reconcile a world that is at enmity with God. Being turned away from the inn foreshadows the fact that the Savior himself will be rejected, despised, and ultimately crucified, and that all this was part of God’s plan from all eternity. Ultimately, the lack of room in the inn symbolizes the lack of room we make for him in our hearts. When our hearts are filled with all kinds of other desires than God, we gradually crowd him out altogether.

No room at the inn also means that we fail to make room for our brothers and sisters. The first great commandment is to love God, and the second is like it: Love your neighbor. Christ willed to be left out, because he is always in solidarity with those who are left out, shut out, and crowded out. That is the position of the unborn children today. They are crowded out of the busy schedules of so many people doing so many good and important things, but who don’t have a finger to lift to protect the lives of these children from abortion. They are crowded out of legislative agendas, preaching schedules, career plans, and volunteer activities. There’s just too much going on already; there’s no room in the inn.

Christ comes at Christmas to change all that. Today, he does not seek an inn; he seeks room in our own hearts and lives. And he asks that as we welcome him, we welcome everyone whom he welcomes, including the children most defenseless and forgotten. We welcome the Divine Child, and in doing so, we welcome every child. As we celebrate Christmas, we sing in “O Holy Night” the words, “Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease.” Amen! Let oppression cease and let Christmas come for the unborn!

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O Holy Night

sung by Adrian Alcantar

Matthew 22: 36-40
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

Fr. Robert Altier ~Homily ~ Third Sunday of Advent ~ Rejoice!

Catholic Collect for the Third Sunday of Advent

Pour forth thy power, O Lord, and come:
Assist us by that mighty power,
so that by thy grace and merciful kindness
we may swiftly receive the salvation that our sins impede:
Who livest and reignest with thee
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
ever one God, world without end. Amen.

~ ~ ~

Third Sunday of Advent
Homily by Fr. Robert Altier
From: Sunday ~ 12 December 2004

Reading I (Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10)
Reading II (James 5:7-10)
Gospel (St. Matthew 11:2-11)

Today the Church celebrates what is called “Gaudete Sunday.” The word gaudete means “rejoice.” If we look at the entrance antiphon from this morning’s Mass, the first word is “rejoice,” and that is where the name for this week comes from, the very first word that would be spoken at the beginning of the Mass. Now one would ask why it is that we would be rejoicing if it is a season of penance. It is precisely because we have made our way more than halfway through this season and the day of the celebration of Christmas is drawing near. So on this day, as well as on the fourth Sunday of Lent, the Church prescribes that rose-colored vestments be worn, rose being the halfway mark between the purple of the penance and the white of the celebration of the feast of Christmas. It is a sign of hope that is in the midst of our penance to encourage us to keep going and remind us that we have made it more than halfway there and we just have a little way to go.

And there is great reason for rejoicing as we look at the readings that the Church has given us for today. We hear in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah that the desert and the parched land will exalt, the steppe is going to bloom. We think about what this really means. Certainly, on the natural level, it implies that those areas that are barren, that are dry, where there is nothing growing, are suddenly going to burst forth with new life; and not just any variety, but we are told that the glory and the splendor of Carmel and Sharon are going to be given to them. Carmel and Sharon are two mountains in the Holy Land that are particularly lush and green with beautiful evergreens and flowers and springs around the mountains, and so the glory of these mountains is what is going to be given even to these barren places.

Now if apply these things to ourselves, we might be very quick to point out that our souls sometimes are very much like a desert, like the wilderness. They are barren, they are dry, and they are dark. There are various reasons for that. Anyone who has been serious about the prayer life knows very well that the majority of time in prayer is spent in darkness and dryness. Sometimes it seems that God is a million miles away and we cannot find Him. People think they are doing something wrong when that happens in prayer, and they say things like “God is nowhere around,” “I’m not getting anything out of it,” “I shouldn’t be wasting my time trying to do this because I can’t do it well.” The saints, on the other hand, tell us that when things are dry and difficult in prayer is actually when we are getting the most out of prayer, just the opposite of what it feels like. They would encourage us, of course, to persevere, to keep going and to wait (as Saint James tells us) in patience as we await the precious yield that is going to burst forth in the darkness and the dryness of the desert of our souls.

But there are other ways that our souls can be a desert. Anyone who is in the state of mortal sin is deprived of divine life. The grace of God is not there, and therefore the dew which brings forth the vegetation, the rain which is going to provide for the growth and for the glory and the bursting forth of these flowers that are foretold is not present in a soul that is in the state of mortal sin. If that is the case, if you look within your own heart and you recognize that there is mortal sin there that has not been confessed, then that is the first thing you have to do. You need to get very quickly to confession. You need to confess your sins and be forgiven so the divine life once again is there, and you will indeed experience the beauty and the glory that God is going to bestow upon your soul because in that case – literally, in an instant – you go from being a barren wasteland to being filled with the glory of God. Indeed, your soul will be bursting forth with new life and the glory of God’s holy mountains will be given to you.

But all of us, in the readings today, are called to holiness. If we listen to what Our Lord speaks about in the Gospel reading today, He talks about Saint John the Baptist and calls him the greatest man born of woman. With that in mind, we can look at that and say, “If this is the case, why?” It is because Saint John the Baptist was born without Original Sin. He was conceived with Original Sin, but at the Visitation when Our Lady went to visit Saint Elizabeth, when Our Lady’s greeting entered the ears of Saint Elizabeth, Saint John the Baptist, in her womb, leapt for joy. At that moment Original Sin was removed from his soul so that he was born without Original Sin. And yet Our Lord speaks to us and says that the least born into the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist. That is you. You have been born into the kingdom of heaven because you are baptized into Jesus Christ. And if you are greater than John the Baptist because of the grace of God which is in your soul, look at the holiness that incredible man achieved and now ask yourself, “If that’s the case, what is God asking of me?” If by grace we are higher than John the Baptist was by nature – and that is the case – then God is calling each one of us to profound holiness.

So we can begin, as we already have, with those who are in the state of sin. We need to begin by getting rid of the sin, because if we are in the state of mortal sin we have cut ourselves off from Christ. If that is the case, we are a living contradiction because on one hand, being baptized into Christ, we say we are members of Christ, but because of our sin we have removed ourselves from Him. It is a schizophrenic existence that we live because at the same time we are saying we are members of Jesus but we are not. We want to be one with Him but we do not want Him. We desire the divine life in heaven but we have chosen the opposite. So we need to repent, we need to confess our sins, and be forgiven.

There is only one place in this world where mortal sins will be forgiven, and that is in the confessional. If it has been a long time since you have been to confession, if you have not heard those beautiful words, “I absolve you of your sins in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” then come to Jesus. The devil is a liar and he is the one telling you that you should not go. He is the one telling you that you need to be afraid. There is nothing at all to fear in the confessional – it is the tribunal of mercy, it is the place where Jesus extends to you His mercy and His forgiveness. You are not there to be yelled at; you are not there to be ridiculed; you are there to be forgiven. All that is asked is to make the act of the will, to humble yourself, to come before the mercy of God, and to open your soul to receive His forgiveness. Remember the consequences on either side. If we die in the state of mortal sin, we cannot go to heaven. There is no forgiveness on the other side. So for anybody who has bought into the devil’s lie that after your die you can stand before God and He will forgive you, that is wrong. That is the devil tricking you so you can spend eternity with Him. There is only forgiveness in this life, not in the next. And if we come before the Lord and confess our sins humbly and honestly, our sins will be destroyed. He will literally remove your sins from your soul and they will never be heard of again, ever. Even on the day when you stand before Christ for judgment, you will not hear about the sins that you have confessed and that have been forgiven in the confessional. All that is asked is one small act of humility, and the mercy of God is yours. Your soul will burst forth with new life, a new life that you perhaps have not known for a long time if you have fallen headlong into sin that has not yet been forgiven.

But we are not called merely to overcome mortal sin in our lives; we are called to be saints. If you have been able to overcome mortal sin, you need to praise God; but you need then to work on your venial sins and get rid of them. They are actually much more difficult to get rid of than the mortal sins because they are much more entrenched, they are much more a part of our personality, and they take a lot more effort to get rid of. If you have overcome venial sin in your life, then it is time to work on the imperfections, starting with the voluntary imperfections and then moving to the involuntary imperfections. Regardless, we are called to holiness. If we look at what Saint James tells us we are to be about, he says that we are to be patient; he says also that we are not to complain and that we are not to judge. The only ones who will not be complaining and will not be judging are very saintly people. For the rest of us, complaining and judging come pretty quickly and pretty easily, sadly. If we are called to the kind of holiness that is to overcome even complaining, judging, and impatience, that is a very, very great level of holiness because the last thing to go before perfection is our desire to judge.

So that is what we are being called to, and this will only happen through prayer, through effort on our part. We have to really want it, to desire it. But if we enter into prayer and into the darkness and the dryness, out into the desert (which is the norm for the prayer life), it is through that that we will be purified, we will be strengthened, and all of the things spoken of by the prophet Isaiah will be ours. The spiritual blindness will suddenly be removed and we will be able to see the glory of God. The spiritual deafness will be gone and we will be able to follow the voice of our Good Shepherd. Our spiritual paralysis will be removed and we will be able to leap like a stag. All of the things that seem to be so contrary will be healed within us, and truly then our souls will be bursting forth with new life.

It is in this way that we also demonstrate ourselves to be united with Christ. Last week in the readings we heard about the shoot that will sprout from the stump of Jesse, a bud that is going to blossom from the roots. Well, that is what we have the opportunity to do, to enter into the desert of our souls and to watch them be transformed so that from this seemingly dead stump new life will burst forth; and the bud that is going to blossom within each one of us is none other than Jesus Christ. That is the glory being offered to each of us. It is the glory of our call, of our dignity as members of Jesus Christ, to reflect upon that reality that Our Lord speaks of in the Gospel, and to recognize that by grace through Baptism we are higher than what Saint John the Baptist was by birth. And when we look at the greatness of that man whom God chose to be His forerunner, then we recognize also the greatness to which He is calling each of us, not merely to overcome mortal sin, but to strive for great holiness, to overcome every imperfection, to get rid of everything which is not of Christ, so that in the desert of our souls new life is going to burst forth. As on Christmas in the darkness of the year, the Light of the world will enter, so that in the darkness and the dryness of our prayer life, of our hearts, the light of Christ will shine forth and the glory of God will be given to us.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing. From ~ Desert Voice

Miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe ~ Homily by Fr. Robert Altier ~ Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of the Americas, Patroness of the Unborn, Pray for Us!

The Miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Homily by Fr. Robert Altier
From: Friday ~ 12 December 2003
Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Reading (Zechariah 2:14-17)
Gospel (St. Luke 1:39-47)

Today we celebrate the feast of the Queen of the Americas, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Today we celebrate the day that Our Lady, 472 years ago, presented herself in a most marvelous fashion. We all know the story of how she appeared to Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac. The bishop would not listen, as one could understand. If somebody showed up at your house and said, “Guess what! The Blessed Mother just appeared to me this morning and said she wants a temple built in her honor,” what would you do? You are probably not going to jump up and down for joy and immediately go and start building a temple, because you need some kind of evidence that in fact the person whom you have never met before is not insane or not seeing things or whatever. And so after several days, Our Lady tells Juan Diego to climb to the top of the hill and there he will find some roses; he is to bring those to the bishop and that will be proof to him.

Well, Juan Diego did not know, but the bishop had actually asked Our Lady for a sign because things were not going well in the missions in Mexico. They could not get the people away from their native religion, which included massive human sacrifice – over 50,000 human beings every year being sacrificed by the Aztecs in their various temples. The people were so into the worship of Satan in this way that they were not able to get the people away. Finally, Juan Diego goes to the bishop because the bishop had asked Our Lady for a sign, a sign that would be absolutely unmistakable, that is, that somehow she would give him a Castilian rose. Castilian roses did not grow in Mexico; the only place they grew was in Spain. And it is pretty obvious, with travel the way it was back then, that there was not going to be a rose coming from Spain that would still be alive by the time it got there. But there, at the top of the hill, were a bunch of Castilian roses. So he picked those and put them in his tilma, in his poncho, and brought them to the bishop. When he finally was admitted to the bishop’s presence, he dropped them on the floor. The bishop, seeing the roses, recognized immediately that this was the sign for which he had been seeking to let him know that Our Lady was indeed with him in this mission in Mexico.

But then, as he looked at Juan Diego’s tilma, like a modern-day Polaroid picture Our Lady’s image began to appear. This tilma should have rotted out within 20 to 30 years because it is made out of Maguey cactus fibers. It has been there now for 472 years. It hung outside for quite a while in the weather, and then it hung without any protection and people coming to touch it and venerate the picture in a variety of ways. Now it is behind bulletproof glass, but that is because the Masons tried to blow it up back in 1920. They brought in a vase of roses with a large bomb inside the vase and blew the sanctuary to pieces. Not even the glass in front of Our Lady’s picture, which was just a regular ordinary pane of glass, was even cracked, but the marble in the sanctuary was blown to pieces. They finally put her behind bulletproof glass now so that she cannot be destroyed.

The colors are unknown to humanity, that is, they are unknown to earth; they do not know what they are made out of. Scientists have done tests on them and they cannot find what they are made out of. They have had ophthalmologists come and look into the eyes with their instruments, and they are not painted eyes. When they were done with their tests, the ophthalmologist, three of them together, had to admit that they were looking into real human eyes, just as if they looked into your eyes or mine with their instruments. It is not an ordinary picture. And the most extraordinary thing about this picture, in my opinion, is that it is the only picture that we actually have of Our Blessed Lady. Every other painting or statue of Our Lady is a model that some artist takes and thinks that this woman would be beautiful enough to be thought to be a model for Our Lady. None of them ever work. But this one is the actual picture of Our Lady from heaven. So this is the one, of all the images of Our Lady throughout the world, that is the most perfect and the most extraordinary of all.

Our Lady appeared in a place where they were killing human beings left and right. Sadly, now in our land we are doing the exact same thing. But Our Lady remains with us. A picture that should have disintegrated (at least the tilma that it was on should have disintegrated 450 years ago) is still in perfect condition. There is no change in this beautiful image of Our Lady; she remains with us. And the place where she chose to appear is in the geographic center of the Americas. From east to west and north to south in the Americas – North, Central, and South America – she chose to appear in dead center to be able to show that she is not merely the Queen for the Mexican people but she is the Queen for all of the Americas. She came into a land that was filled with darkness and sin, and she came to bring it light.

So too now, for us, it is the same. There are many people, sadly, who do not even know much about Our Lady of Guadalupe; yet this is the largest pilgrimage shrine in the world. There are more people that go to Guadalupe than Lourdes, Fatima, or anyplace else in the world just to see this extraordinary image and to praise God for sending His mother to save so many. Our Lady appeared almost simultaneously with the time that Martin Luther broke from the Catholic Church. Nine million people in Europe were lost to the Church at the time of the Protestant Revolt. When Our Lady appeared in Mexico, this image was responsible for the single greatest mass conversion in human history: Nine million people joined the Church. And so when we look at what happened in the Church – we lost 9 million in Europe and gained 9 million in the New World – we see how God was going to protect His Church. Now, as far as Catholicism goes, Central and South America are the strongest place in the world.

It is interesting that in Mexico the Masons have run the country since 1920. They forbid religious education; they forbid the priests from wearing clerical garb; they forbid them from being able to go out and bring the Faith to the people. So most of the people of Mexico have a very, very simple faith. They know a little of what it is that their Faith teaches, but the Masons never succeeded in the least in being able to break the people of their faith because they all know Our Lady of Guadalupe, and they all know that she appeared for them and that she appeared to bring them to her Son. That is all they needed to know. Obviously, it would be important for them to learn their faith, but to have that confidence in the Mother of God – it was an unshakeable confidence – that they could rely on God Who was in their midst, as we heard in the reading.

So when we look at that beautiful image of Our Lady, we need to say with Elizabeth, “Who am I that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” She has come to us and she remains with us. She remains there for a reason, that is, to continue to call us to a deeper conversion and to know that God Himself, through the ministry of His own mother, remains present in our midst.


*This text was transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing. From ~ Desert Voice

Molly Chesna Sings

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe,

Pray for Us!