Let God in to your Car

Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent
Given at St. Patrick's Church
By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd, STL

Three priests were driving down the road when they missed a turn and went into the ditch.

As they pulled themselves together, a drunk pulled up and asked if they were all right.

"Oh, yes, Jesus is with us," one replied.

The drunk thought that over for a minute then said: "well, you'd better let him get in with me, because you're going to kill him!"

My friends, today we wait and prepare ourselves for Emmanuel, which means God with us. In the Gospel today we hear a long litany of names that mean little or nothing to most of us, Twenty centuries after the fact, we are interested in Jesus, not in tetrarchs and obsolete geography, but these names and places are important because they anchor the story of Jesus' birth to history, to a particular time and place, to the everyday world of work and taxes and politics. Pope Benedict XVI made this same point in the Advent of 2006, when he said: “In these days the liturgy constantly reminds us that ‘God comes’ to visit his people, to dwell in the midst of men and women and to form with them a communion of love and life: a family” (Angelus, 10 December 2006).

In today’s Second Reading, St Paul makes the same point in one of the most memorable, beautiful, and powerful phrases of the entire New Testament: “"I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus."

God doesn't create us and then forget about us, like some kind of divine architect or watchmaker. RATHER He gives us the gift of life, and then wants to accompanies us, gently trying to guide us into a deeper and deeper friendship with him, never giving up on us. He knows where we were born, where we grew up, what we have suffered and enjoyed, the wounds in our hearts. Nothing about our lives is unimportant to Him, because we are each important to him.

As today’s First Reading puts it, we should rejoice because we are “remembered by God.” Its so important to realize that God is not a God of the North Pole or a galaxy far far away, but the God of the here and now, the God of our everyday life.

God is not an alien He isn't up there and we don't just find him in Church, he is in that car with the three priests, but also with the drunk he is in our workplace, at school, and on the sports field,

St. Paul teaches us that we should pray always, this is only possible if God is where ever we are, and if prayer is not something foreign to us, but as simple and essential to us as breathing.

The many saints that God has given to the Church throughout the centuries are powerful reminders
that God is with us in all the situations of our life. St John Vianney, used to make a point of being available to the faithful no matter what--He would spend 13 hours a day in the confessional and travel long distances to visit the sick. This was before the invention of the automobile, and since he had no horse of his own, his generosity often took him on long walking trips

One time word came to him that a very sick man about three miles away was asking for confession.
so St John Vianney threw on his cloak and hit the road. Unfortunately, it was bitter cold, and raining. Thinking of the sick man, the saint was undaunted. He trekked through the cold and the freezing rain,
and finally made his way to the house of the sick man. By the time he arrived, St John was himself shivering and dizzy with a high fever. He had fallen so ill that he had to hear the confession lying down on the ground beside the sick man's bed. Witnesses, in fact, noted that the priest was sicker than the penitent.

The determination of St John Vianney to make sure this sick man could experience the mercy of God's forgiveness in the sacrament of reconciliation is a living sign of just how much God wants to stay involved in our lives. Not because we are perfect, or even good, but because he loves us as a perfect Father loves his little children, and he wants to give us an abundant life. We all want to believe that God wants to be involved in our lives. And yet, sometimes it feels as if God is pretty far away.

Sometimes, in the face of economic difficulties, sickness, and so many other kinds of suffering, it seems hard to find him. Advent is the time to remember and get used to the idea that God wants to be a part of, to accompany us, in everything we do and to get better at finding God's hand in all things, even our crosses,

This advent I would like to propose three things to do to help you see that God is with us in the Year that Barrack Obama became president, when Deval Patrick was Govenor of the State, in the Pontificate of Benedict the XVI and the Episcopate of our Bishop George

First, we need to have an honest, regular prayer life.
• Too often we only pray to God when we are in trouble.
• Imagine Mary or Joseph coming to the infant Jesus only when THEY needed something; That's not just child abuse,
• it's GOD ABUSE --> and yet so often we are all guilty of it.
• We need to recommit ourselves to daily, personal prayer,
• even if it's only for 10 or 15 minutes.

Second, we need to take the crucifix seriously.
• It is no coincidence that the crucifix is the central image of our religion
• As Catholics we start all our prayer with this sign because God chose to save us by sharing in human suffering.
• We need to look often at the crucifix, and contemplate it, and teach ourselves to remember that suffering is not outside of God's plan of salvation, but an essential part of it.

And third, we need to help others carry their crosses.
• The devil's favorite tactic is to make us think so much about ourselves that we lose sight of the bigger picture.
• When we go out of our comfort zone to support, console, and encourage those who are suffering even more than we are, we break the devil's spell.

This week, if each of us chooses just one of those three tactics, I can guarantee you will begin to see more clearly and have a deeper experience of God's involvement in your life, and thus gain a bigger share of Advent joy.

This Advent let God into your car with you, let him into your homes, and schools, and workplaces so that you can exerience life with God.