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1. Advent is preparation for General Judgment Day. We read news on many people killed by terrorists. And the news are concerned on who are the terrorists and what weapons they used. We read news about passenger jets crashing. And governments are more concerned about the black box and where the missing tail and wings are. We read about global warming. And the world is concerned on how to maintain a 1 degree rise in temperature to avoid death and destruction caused by storms.
But nobody ever asked what happened to the souls of those thousands who have perished. Are they in heaven or in hell. Really. Not a bit of concern on the eternal destiny of those souls. Even the Vatican never asked that question being more concern on how to enjoy this world by allowing divorce for married couples and citizenship for migrants.
But what about the souls of those innocent babies in abortion clinics, Christians in the Middle East, excursionists on crashing planes, vacationers in tsunamis devastated beaches, bishops and priests who do not know the way to heaven, dioceses and parishes who do not have a single visible signs of the true church, and those attending concerts in France……what about their souls?
2. The lost of the sense of the spiritual.
There are two realistic realms in the world; the spiritual and the natural. Everybody is conscious of the natural realm. A handful is conscious of the spiritual realm. And yet it is the spiritual realm that matters. The natural realm last only a life time. The supernatural realm last for all eternity. Though we have a spiritual faculty, the intellect, it cannot perceive the supernatural without the grace of God.
The mind needs the grace of God to perceive the realm of the spiritual.And grace is not given to everybody. It is given to very few; it is given only to those who are inside the Catholic Church. How do we enter the true Church and receive this grace? The answer is given by the 3rd Advent Gospel Mass message.
3. Grace is given to the humble of heart.
The Beatitudes are the eight different degrees of grace and holiness. We receive more graces as we ascent to the higher Beatitude. But the lowest degree of Beatitude that is the proper disposition to enable us to receive the grace of God, like mercy, is ‘to be poor in Spirit.’
To be poor in spirit is to be humble in a spiritual sense.
4. How to become humble in spirit.
We must be humble in the faculties of our spirit. And the faculties of the soul are the mind and the heart. And this is the way to be humble in spirit as taught by the Catholic Church on the 3rd Sunday of Advent.
Fasting…..prayer……and good works. These three activities had been taught in the Old Testament and perfected in the New Testament. They are three activities of man’s human nature and described in the three Readings in the 3rd Sunday of Advent.
5. Fasting
The first is Fasting. This is exemplified by the publican and soldier who questioned St. John; what shall we do? Publicans, like tax collectors, and soldiers tend to be corrupt. The first, because they handle money that is their own and tend to demand more than what is their due.as Soldiers, because they carry firearms they tend to bully others. John told them to avoid their sinful tendencies. That is fasting. To refrain from sinning.
6. Fasting and prayer.
But it is impossible for most men to know what is evil because of his tendency to rationalize all his deeds. So man needs to pray to know his sins. Man must pray to know all his sins, specially his secret sins. So Prayer must accompany all attempt to examine one’s conscience in preparation for confession.
And after man has known his sins, it becomes nearly impossible for him to avoid those sins in the future. So man must pray to get the help needed to avoid those sins in the future. So here, man needs prayer both to know his sins and to avoid them in the future. It is this lack of prayer that he is unable to do both. Fasting and Prayer is the baptism of water that St. John was preaching.
7. Good works.
Avoiding sin saves us from hell but does not bring us to heaven. What brings us to heaven is doing good works. What are good works. The New Testament specifically enumerates good works. We are, often, acquainted with the corporal and spiritual works of mercy but there are countless good works. The Rule of St. Benedict list more than 70 in his ‘Instruments of Good Works.’
No one can do Good Works unless he has learned what is evil and have avoided them. Only then will he be ready to think about and do good works as described in the New Testament. You have to finish the Old Testament before you can begin with the New Testament.
You can only understand the realm of Good works after you have abandoned the realm of sin. And to know what are the Good works pleasing to God, you need grace which can be attained through prayer. So there we have, again, the combination of Good Works and Prayer. And to be able to put any good work into action we still need more graces which comes with prayer.
8. The importance of prayer.
See the importance of prayer. It has to go hand in hand with fasting and good works. In fact, it has to go hand in hand with practically everything you have to do for the salvation of your soul. With fasting, prayer and good works, prayer is more important .
9. Winning God’s mercy.
There are two kinds of mercy. The first kind is mercy as a virtue; this is an act of the intellect and the will as all virtues are perfect human acts. As such it is based on the virtue of Justice as its root as can be seen in the list of Beatitudes. And its flowering is in purity of heart. The 3rd Sunday of Advent mass (the above) describes how to receive this virtue of mercy.
The second kind of mercy is purely emotional. It is not a human act thus does not entail an act of the intellect and will. It does not come from Justice and does not lead to purity of heart. It leads towards a licentious life of passion and vice. And this is the mercy of the ‘Year of Mercy.’ No matter how many cathedral doors you enter will not get an ounce of mercy for your soul.
The present ‘Year of Mercy’ is not the mercy of the Gospel. It is a relatively new concept; less; than 60 years old. And so, according to St. Robert Bellarmine it cannot be the mercy of the Gospel but a protestant-emotional mercy.