A Jewish Menorah
Lamp-lighting Time in Dark Days
To the churched and unchurched[1]
gathered in a church not built by human hands[2]
November 29, 2009: First Sunday of Advent
Jeremiah 33:14-16 I Thessalonians 3:12-4:2 Luke 21:25-28, 34-36
First reading from the prophet Jeremiah
The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah. At that time, I will choose as king a righteous descendant of David. That king will do what is right and just in the land. The people of Judah and Jerusalem will be rescued and live in safety. The city will be called ‘The Lord Our Salvation.’”
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke
Glory to you, Lord.
Lk 21, vs. 25-28: Jesus said to His disciples: “There will be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars. And on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then people will see `the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven[3]’ with power and great glory. When these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”
Lk 21, vs. 34-36: Then Jesus said to His disciples: “Be watchful! Don’t let your spirits become bloated with indulgence and drunkenness and worldly cares. That great day will suddenly close in on you like trap. It will come upon all who dwell on the face of the earth. So be watchful at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Introduction
Advent & Hanukkah 2009
Introduction
Advent & Hanukkah 2009
Today November 29 is New Years Day in the church; today we exit Ordinary Time and enter into the Extraordinary Time of Advent in preparation for Christmas 2009. Today we also go from liturgical cycle B to cycle C for the scripture readings for 2009. The evangelist for cycle B was Mark; for cycle C it will be Luke (that great evangelist who records the very best of Jesus’ parables -- like the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son and the Rich Man and Lazarus. Those immortal parables are to be found only in evangelist Luke.
Today we also exchange the liturgical color green for penitential purple. That’s a leftover from pre-Vatican II days when Advent, like Lent, was considered a strictly penitential season which frowned on all partying, gift-giving and decorating before the 24th of December. Now Advent is considered to be more a season of joyful expectation instead of penance, and in some places the color purple has been exchanged for blue in honor of mother Mary and baby-boy Jesus.
This Sunday also we light the first of the four candles of the Advent wreath, as a kind of fourfold genuflection to Christmas - our feast of lights. And at this time of the year we remember also our Jewish brethren who at sundown on Friday, December 11 will light the first candle on their eight branch menorah (candelabra)[4], as they begin to celebrate Hanukkah 2009 – their feast of lights.
Today we also exchange the liturgical color green for penitential purple. That’s a leftover from pre-Vatican II days when Advent, like Lent, was considered a strictly penitential season which frowned on all partying, gift-giving and decorating before the 24th of December. Now Advent is considered to be more a season of joyful expectation instead of penance, and in some places the color purple has been exchanged for blue in honor of mother Mary and baby-boy Jesus.
This Sunday also we light the first of the four candles of the Advent wreath, as a kind of fourfold genuflection to Christmas - our feast of lights. And at this time of the year we remember also our Jewish brethren who at sundown on Friday, December 11 will light the first candle on their eight branch menorah (candelabra)[4], as they begin to celebrate Hanukkah 2009 – their feast of lights.
The apocalypse genre
The gospel reading today contains an apocalypse. That’s a literary genre foretelling supernatural cataclysmic events that will transpire at the end of time. The genre is a product of a Judeo-Christian tradition which appeared two centuries before and three centuries after Christ. An apocalypse is characterized by a narrative form with esoteric language, it expresses a deeply pessimistic view of the present and it foretells an imminent crisis and a universal judgment. But it also promises a supernatural resolution to a pessimistic and apparently insoluble state of affairs. The most famous and influential of the early Jewish apocalypses is to be found in the last part of the biblical Book of Daniel (chapters 7–12).
Contrary to popular belief, apocalypses were meant more to encourage people than to frighten them. They were written because the times were terribly tough, and the writer believed that only a cataclysmic intervention of God and His Messiah could fix matters. The apocalyptic strokes themselves were not to be taken literally, as some preachers like to do. It was the happy resolution to a pessimistic and insoluble situation that was the heart of the genre.
In today’s gospel Luke puts the apocalypse genre into the mouth of Jesus. [5] He has Him speaking about a cataclysmic event:
Then there will be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars. And on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves.
People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
And then there is a happy resolution to a humanly insoluble situation:
And then people will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory. When these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.
An apocalypse for Advent 2009
A painful recession has just now peaked at 10.2 percent unemployment. An endless and testy national debate about healthcare is now raging, and it is divided mostly along party lines; one side does its best to misrepresent the other. An unpopular war which began way back in October 2001 in Afghanistan rages on, with no end in sight. A war which numbers 4,682 casualties as of November 13, 2009 disheartens a war-weary nation. And if that were not enough, a horrific massacre in Fort Hood, Texas, killed 13 and wounded 29, as an Islamic extremist cried out “Allahu Akbar!” (“Allah is great!”) That has sent the nation into a state of collective grief and has many of us wondering what to do with angry Islam and political correctness.
The times are really tough this Advent of 2009; it seems that only some cataclysmic event at the end of time will put things right and do for us what we humans never seem able to do for ourselves.
The times are really tough this Advent of 2009; it seems that only some cataclysmic event at the end of time will put things right and do for us what we humans never seem able to do for ourselves.
He who came still comes
The apocalypse genre sees “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” only at the end of time. Christian theology joyfully claims that He, who came to us in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King (Lk 2:1), still continues to come. “Be sure of this,” Jesus tells Hs disciples after His resurrection, “I am with you always, even to the end of time.” (Mt 28:20) He comes not just at the end of time, He comes now. He who came to us in Bethlehem of Judea continues today to come to us in “a great cloud of witnesses[6]” like Fr. Mychal Judge of New York City, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, Archbishop Hunthausen of Seattle, Bishop Untener of Saginaw, Auxiliary Bishop Gumbleton of Detroit, Sr. Joan Chittister and a whole host of smaller folk whom you and I know.
A Jew who saved Christmas
In that “great cloud of witnesses” is Aaron Feuerstein, a Jew who saved Christmas. Feuerstein was CEO and owner of Malden Mills, a fabric factory in Methuen, Massachusetts. He was also a devout Jew who read Shakespeare and the Talmud.[7] On the night of December 11, 1995 (six days before the beginning of Hanukah on the 17th that year, and also the very day Hanukkah begins this year of 2009), a surprise party was held for his seventieth birthday. During the party a boiler exploded and a devastating fire broke out which demolished a good part of his factory.
Feuerstein didn’t grab the insurance money and run as a sharp man of business would do. Instead the morning after the fire he assured all his 2400 employees that with God's help they would all get through that tragedy together. Then he gave them their pay-checks plus a $275 Christmas bonus and a $20 food coupon. Three days later on the night of Dec 14th in the gym of the Catholic High School where 1000 of his employees gathered to learn their fate, he made a startling announcement.
For the next 30 days, and it might be more, all our employees will be paid their full salaries. I think you already have been advised that your health insurance has been paid for the next 90 days. But over and above the money, the most important thing Malden Mills can do for our workers is to get you all back to work. By January 2, 1996, we will restart operations, and within 90 days, God willing, we will be 100 percent operational.
There was a moment of stunned disbelief, and then the workers rose to their feet cheering and hugging each other and also weeping. What a bright shining star is CEO Feuerstein in the darkness of corporate greed and a painful recession which is peaking at 10.2 percent unemployment as the curtain comes down on 2009! Time magazine[8] reported that Feuerstein was true to his word; he continued to pay his employees in full, at a cost of one and a half million dollars a week and at an average wage of twelve and a half dollars an hour. Later that same year, corporate America, stunned by such fiscal insanity and half-hearted capitalism, named him CEO of the Year!
Feuerstein didn’t grab the insurance money and run as a sharp man of business would do. Instead the morning after the fire he assured all his 2400 employees that with God's help they would all get through that tragedy together. Then he gave them their pay-checks plus a $275 Christmas bonus and a $20 food coupon. Three days later on the night of Dec 14th in the gym of the Catholic High School where 1000 of his employees gathered to learn their fate, he made a startling announcement.
For the next 30 days, and it might be more, all our employees will be paid their full salaries. I think you already have been advised that your health insurance has been paid for the next 90 days. But over and above the money, the most important thing Malden Mills can do for our workers is to get you all back to work. By January 2, 1996, we will restart operations, and within 90 days, God willing, we will be 100 percent operational.
There was a moment of stunned disbelief, and then the workers rose to their feet cheering and hugging each other and also weeping. What a bright shining star is CEO Feuerstein in the darkness of corporate greed and a painful recession which is peaking at 10.2 percent unemployment as the curtain comes down on 2009! Time magazine[8] reported that Feuerstein was true to his word; he continued to pay his employees in full, at a cost of one and a half million dollars a week and at an average wage of twelve and a half dollars an hour. Later that same year, corporate America, stunned by such fiscal insanity and half-hearted capitalism, named him CEO of the Year!
Conclusion
Lamp-lighting time in dark days
Lamp-lighting time in dark days
Back in 1995 Hanukkah began at sundown on December 17 -- the day the Novena of Christmas began for Catholics. Three days after Aaron’s stunning announcement to his workers on December 14, he started to light the first of the eight candles on his menorah. After all were lit, Aaron’s menorah glowed luminously, particularly because it reflected the bright light that glowed from him. Today we start lighting the first of the four candles on our Advent wreath. And when they’re all lit, may our wreath also glow luminously, particularly because it reflects the bright light that glows from us.
[1]By the “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!
[2] Acts of the Apostles 17:24
[3] Daniel 7:13
[4] The menorah has eight candles for the eight-day celebration of the feast of Hanukkah ,i.e., feast of Dedication (of the Temple). The center candle of the menorah is used for lighting one of the eight candles each of the eight days of Dedication.
[5] Confer the parallel passages in Mark 13:24-32 & Matthew 24:29-31.
[6] Hebrews 12:1: “tantam nubem testium”
[7] A rich treasury of rabbinical tradition
[8] January 8, 1996
[1]By the “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!
[2] Acts of the Apostles 17:24
[3] Daniel 7:13
[4] The menorah has eight candles for the eight-day celebration of the feast of Hanukkah ,i.e., feast of Dedication (of the Temple). The center candle of the menorah is used for lighting one of the eight candles each of the eight days of Dedication.
[5] Confer the parallel passages in Mark 13:24-32 & Matthew 24:29-31.
[6] Hebrews 12:1: “tantam nubem testium”
[7] A rich treasury of rabbinical tradition
[8] January 8, 1996
