Homily for Monday of the First Week of Advent

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/120108.shtml

Jesus is not a pacifist simply because war does not work. He is a pacifist because war has worked, and by His stripes, we have been healed. Jesus does not tell us to love our enemies because He does not know how to fight. If anyone teaches us how to fight, it is the One who came to conquer sin and death. Jesus in learning obedience from what He suffered showed Himself to be the ultimate fighter. From the cross, He revealed Himself as the ultimate victor in the battle to do only the will of His Father, even as He prayed that His cup of suffering would pass Him by. It is because Christ does battle for us on the cross, and there conquers the enemy that has already conquered us, that He has the power to heal us! In Christ, the tiny defenseless babe born in a manger, and in every martyr who follow Him, God chooses the weak and makes them strong in bearing witness to the almighty power of God, a power mysteriously able to be held by frail humans like you and me.

God chooses the centurion, presumably a foreigner who does not know Abraham, and thus is weak in faith, to demonstrate the supernatural gift of real faith in the victory Christ has over sin and death. Christ's victory in Jerusalem is foreshadowed before He ever arrives there in the healing of the centurion's servant. Like the preservation of Mary from original sin, the merits of Christ's victory go backward in time, and fortunately for us, they also go forward in time so that we too are healed completely by the fruits of His victory. We receive these fruits of victory most completely in the Holy Eucharist. Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.

Gandhi can show us the futility of war. Jesus shows us that the victory over sin and death is already won, and this victory, not tolerance, is the source of everlasting peace. We fight no longer for the victory itself, but that His victory would be born in us anew on Christmas morning. If this victory is born in us again, we will go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere, so that the knee of every nation will bend before the everlasting Prince of Peace!