Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien – Thoughts on Our Church

So perhaps what we need for the balance of Advent is a simple little formula for welcoming the Lord, a few simple bywords we can refer to at will . . . so here they are: Let us welcome the Lord with open hearts, open minds, and open arms.

This is the joy of Gaudete Sunday: that nothing in our lives, not our worst instinct, not our gravest sin, not our most secret thought —nothing is outside the purview of the Redeemer’s healing love, and the Lord never grows tired of working with us and in us.

Juan Diego’s encounter with Mary speaks to us, nearly 500 years later. Mary’s tender words to Juan give us confidence amid the storms of life.

Perhaps that is how we should think of tonight’s feast of the Immaculate Conception: the dawning of salvation amid the night of sin and death.

The newly renovated church is a metaphor of our Advent journey. Like our reading from Isaiah, it is a link to times past, indeed, to the original church built on land that once belonged to Charles Carroll.

May you enter into candidacy with hearts filled with expectant hope and jubilant praise, for the Lord who comes into our midst every day of our lives ready to accomplish in us and through us more than we could ever ask or imagine.

In taking this step towards the diaconate, you seek to answer Jesus’ prayer for laborers for the harvest. An acolyte, “akalouthos”, is a follower of Jesus Christ, a disciple, and a co-worker with him in the vineyard.

When we are doers, not talkers, when we build on solid rock, we experience over time a growth in intimacy with the Lord, a greater sense of communion with his Church, and a greater affinity with the poor with whom Jesus identifies.

On the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year, the Church offers us a vision of life in Christ that frees us to embrace the future – not merely the near future, but the absolute future, that future we were created for and that we long for.