Living with Christ the “Last Hour,” December 31, 2018

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, New York
Mass for December 31
December 31, 2018
1 Jn 2:18-21, Ps 96, Jn 1:1-18

To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• “Children, it is the last hour.” Those words of St. John in the first reading today are a fitting starting point for our reflections as the civil year 2018 draws to its close. St. John goes on to describe the “many antichrists” who have appeared. The antichrist is not the devil, but, as St. John says later in his first epistle, anyone who denies the mystery of Christmas that we continue to celebrate, anyone who denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. During St. John’s time, there were many docetists and gnostics who because they believed that all matter was evil denied that God could have ever taken on human flesh. But today there are other types of antichrists, who even though theoretically they may have no problem with the incarnation, live as if God hadn’t taken on our humanity to make us sharers in his divinity. For us to have lived 2018 as a year of the Lord and for us to prepare to live 2019 in this way we must live it together with Christ who has entered our world, promised to remain with us always until the end of time, and desires to be our full-time Savior, Lord, King, Shepherd and Friend. Many times practicing Catholics can behave as practicing antichrists through most of their day, week and year, denying that Jesus wants to come to them in the flesh of their work and study, their sufferings and joys, their Mondays through Saturdays, their TV rooms and bedrooms, indeed that he wants to come to be God-with-them in all aspects of their life. That’s the essence of the spiritual cancer of secularism, which — despite the fact that we believe in God — gets us to live as if God doesn’t exist, as if he hasn’t become one of us, as if he doesn’t want to accompany us, love us, and help us each moment.
• That’s the proper context for us to consider how to live this “last hour” of the last day of the year leading to the “last hour” of the year that’s about to begin. It’s meant to be a year of the Lord, a year lived together with him. How can we best mark this day?  I think the phrase from St. John’s Prologue today is very helpful: “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” The past year has been a year of many graces, graces upon which God wants to build in the upcoming year. Yes, there has been a lot of sin — our own sins and the sins of so many in the Church, which have made some call 2018 an annus horribilis — but as St. Paul reminds us, “Where sin abounds, grace superabounds” (Rom 5:20). God’s grace has been greater than all and every sinful disgrace. For us to cooperate in what God wants to do in us in the new “year of the Lord” that is about to begin, it’s important for us to look back, therefore, and see the graces he’s given us in 2018, in 2017, in 2016 and beyond as the foundation for what he hopes to do this year.
• One of the most important spiritual practices of the saints and serious Christians is a nightly general examination of conscience. For many years I have done it in the way taught by Blessed Alvaro del Portillo, who was beatified by Pope Francis in 2014. He taught that the nightly general examination is a different practice than the examination we make before going to sacramental confession, when we focus mainly on our sins. In the daily general examination, we examine God’s presence over the course of the day in our lives, our awareness of his presence, and our cooperation with him, leading to three expressions: first, thank you for all the graces of the day; second, sorry for the times we were oblivious to his presence or did exactly the opposite of what he wanted; and help me more tomorrow to live in union with Him. The same practice can be used to our spiritual profit at the end of a year, so that the graces of the past year may be built upon or even recuperated, so that we can live this “last hour” as a grace building upon what’s come before and serving as a building block for what God still intends.
• First, we need to thank God for all the graces of the past year, the grace of his presence with us, the grace of all the times he fed us with himself in the Holy Eucharist, the grace of so many prayers heard, the grace of his holy word to guide us, the grace of so many times he has washed us in his mercy. During this last year, I’ve had a chance to celebrate and receive the Eucharist 392 times. I’ve gone to confession I believe about 45 times and heard thousands of confessions. I’d had a chance to meet Jesus in prayer several times every day. I’ve made new friends in the Lord, been entrusted with various new spiritual directees, been blessed with some crosses. Each of us can say something similar. We’ve all had these graces and more: the grace of the people he has put into our lives who have walked with us throughout the year, who were there when we needed someone, who were perhaps born into our family during the last year. We can thank the Lord for all the women who have responded to God’s grace through you and others and chosen life, for all the babies born and baptized, for all the new postulants, novices, professions, vocations. We thank him  for the difficulties of the last year, with our health, with our family members, with our work, which have been occasions for us to grow in dependence on God. Our receptivity to the graces that God has planned to give us in 2019 is somewhat dependent on our recognizing how lavishly he has blessed us in 2018. It’s somewhat dependent on our coming to him, like the grateful leper, to say thanks, so that he might give us the even greater “graces upon graces” he has in store. There’s a certain fittingness to the fact that in Spanish the word for graces and the word for “thank you” are the same: gracias. To say thanks is to recognize a grace. This is our first response to God at the last hour at the end of the year, to say thanks, which is why the Church lifts up a Te Deum on December 31 each year, because God-with-us has been with us as the greatest grace of all, blessing us, feeding us, teaching us, forgiving us, calling us anew and sending us forth.
• Second, like in our daily examination, we need to express deep contrition for the graces wasted, resisted or rejected over the course of the last year. We’ve all squandered the precious gift of time, filling some of our days with vanities and inanities rather than with God. As the ancient Roman sage Seneca once said, “It is not that we have so little time, but that we have wasted so much of it.” Rather than seizing the day, we have often let days and weeks just drift by. St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus about time, giving them advice that has not lost any relevance in 2000 years: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men (and women) but as wise making the most of the time” (Eph 5:15). But beyond asking God for mercy for the times that we have not made the most of the time he has given us, we can also turn to the other sins of commission and omission of the past year and say “perdon!” God wants these sins through his mercy to become “happy faults” for us, he wants to transform them from disgraces into graces, so that he can build upon them grace upon grace in the upcoming year. And this is not just personal but ecclesial. We need to do reparation for the sins committed by all, to turn to God and say, “Forgive us our sins” and “Deliver us from the Evil One.” Pope Francis summarized this in his pre-Christmas address to the members of the Roman Curia ten days ago when he said, “This year the barque of the Church has experienced, and continues to experience, moments of difficulty, and has been buffeted by strong winds and tempests. Many have found themselves asking the Master, who seems to be sleeping: ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ (Mk 4:38). Others, disheartened by news reports, have begun to lose trust and to abandon her. Still others, out of fear, personal interest or other aims, have sought to attack her and aggravate her wounds. Whereas others do not conceal their glee at seeing her hard hit.” He went on to describe how this year has brought us to face anew the revolting reality that there are “consecrated men, ‘the Lord’s anointed,’ who abuse the vulnerable, taking advantage of their position and their power of persuasion; [who] perform abominable acts yet continue to exercise their ministry as if nothing had happened; [who] have no fear of God or his judgment, but only of being found out and unmasked; who rend the ecclesial body, creating scandals and discrediting the Church’s saving mission and the sacrifices of so many of their confrères; … who, without batting an eye, enter into the web of corruption and betray God, his commandments, their own vocation, the Church, the people of God and the trust of little ones and their families; [who] often behind their boundless amiability, impeccable activity and angelic faces, shamelessly conceal a vicious wolf ready to devour innocent souls; [who] disfigure the countenance of the Church and undermine her credibility.” The Lord was giving us, and especially his ministers, the grace of holiness and yet not only was it not received on good soil but we could argue that it was rejected! That’s why the second moment of our examination must be, “Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned against you!”
• The third moment, however, is one of hope. As we look ahead, we count on the Lord’s help as we make the profession that we need that help. We can’t fix ourselves by ourselves alone. But God in his goodness always wants to give his help. The more we take the honest assessment of our life, the more we can make “spiritual new year’s resolutions” and ask God for the graces to persevere in keeping them. As we make new year’s resolutions in many areas of our life, knowing that some of our resolutions to get better will span many years, it’s key for us to focus on this divine assistance improving in the essentials of the most important things of every day and year: how to grow in prayer, receiving God’s gift of himself to me and offering myself in response; increasing my knowledge of the Word of God and my living by it; entering more deeply into the prayer of the Mass; growing in docility to the Holy Spirit in my day-to-day choices; preparing myself to receive God’s mercy more frequently and with greater contrition; sacrificing myself more for my family members, members of my community, neighbors and those the Lord sends to me; counting my blessings more and more rather than obsessing about what others might have that I don’t; and so on. God wants to give us his help to build on the graces he’s given us in the past and we thank him in advance for his lavish generosity that he has been prepared to shower upon us in 2019 since before the foundation of the world.
• Pope Francis summarized the point of an examination like this back when he beatified Blessed Alvaro in 2014: “Thank you, forgive me, help me! These words express the thrust of a life that is centered on God. It is the life of someone who has been touched by the greatest Love and who lives totally on that love; someone who, while experiencing their own human weakness and limitations, trusts in God’s mercy and wants all mankind, their brothers and sisters, to experience it too.” This is the means by which we are to live with Christ in the world, to structure our existence not as a practical anti-Christ but as a Christian! One of my favorite passages in Sacred Scripture is from the Letter to the Hebrews where it says Iesus Christus Heri et Hodie et in Saecula, “Jesus Christ, Yesterday, Today and Forever” (Heb 13:8), which is today’s communion antiphon.  Jesus Christ is the greatest gift we received in 2018, he will be the greatest gift we receive in 2019 and he wants to help us convert our time into eternity with him. We have only so many laps around the track of life and 2019 may be our last go round. This thought shouldn’t be something that fills us with dread if we are trying to orient our entire life to God. It will mean that 2019 we’re one step closer to an eternity of life with the deep treasure of our heart. 2019 is a year in which, surrounded and assisted by the saints, we’re called to run together with the Lord, building on all the gifts that he’s given us until now. “Children, it is the last hour!” Let’s live the end of 2018 looking not only toward 2019 but to eternity where God will continue to bless us grace upon grace!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Gospel jn 1:1-18

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
A man named John was sent from God.
He came for testimony, to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light,
but came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world,
and the world came to be through him,
but the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own,
but his own people did not accept him.But to those who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God,
to those who believe in his name,
who were born not by natural generation
nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision
but of God.And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only-begotten Son,
full of grace and truth.John testified to him and cried out, saying,
“This was he of whom I said,
‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me
because he existed before me.’”
From his fullness we have all received,
grace in place of grace,
because while the law was given through Moses,
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God.
The only-begotten Son, God, who is at the Father’s side,
has revealed him.