I think it=s hard for us to enter the Advent season, you already have tonight a Christmas party in our parlor. Yet the world we live in is rather very much in need of redemption. Not only do we have the Al-Quida and the constant fear of being wiped out, but there=s a lot of violence in our world, a lot of sensuality, there=s laws that allow us to kill, not only the unborn but now the elderly, and the sickly. And the seriousness that the Lord in his great compassion should come and save us really has to be focused on. Yet, this was focused on by the early monks when they saw the corruption in society they hot footed it to the desert and they became the first generation of monks. They knew the dangers of society and its capacity to corrupt and so their solution was to continue the martyrdom that was available before Constantine turned Christian. So that means that monasticism is a continuation of martyrdom. That=s one of the strong themes in early monastic life. Obviously its not a bloody one. So it=s a martyrdom or some people put confession of the faith, a witness.

        What kind of martyrdom is asked of us? Well, first of all a life of mortification of some kind because it realizes that we are more than just flesh. And so we need to mortify ourselves so that we live a life deeper than the flesh. There=s nothing wrong, of course, with enjoying a hamburger and enjoying food and good company but its not to rule our life as some lifestyles in our world live. Secondly, of course, it means that we need patience, that is we continue the cross of Christ. And patience, of course, is a martyrdom because it means that we have the capacity to endure the harshness of life. And then of course besides that, we have seen what pride can do. Now we have people cloning people and they=re going to do it anyway. And so how do we overcome our pride in human nature? We have the martyrdom of obedience. At first all these things sound very negative to us but when we think about them, when we think about what the Lord is asking and doing, then of course we see something quite different. The purpose of the martyrdoms was not to stop at denying this or that but rather to put on Christ.

        We heard in Sunday=s gospel that we are to watch and make sure that when the Lord comes he finds us working. Well the task is precisely to cooperate with Christ and to put on Christ so that our words become Christ=s words. Our works become Christ=s works. Our love is Christ=s love. Christ in us. To the degree that Christ is in us He will transform the world, change the face of the earth in us. So as we just prayed in the psalm ANot to us Lord, not to us, but to your Name be the glory.@ And this is very much about what Christmas is all about because not only did Jesus become flesh, but He intended that the whole of His mystical Body would take on His flesh and that=s what we do in the Eucharist. The power and the strength for this transformation is precisely the Eucharist and that=s where our confidence is. So we=re not trying to do this on our own, rolling up our sleeves, muscling it a little harder, gritting our teeth, but we open ourselves up to the great mystery of what Jesus does to us in the Eucharist. If we don=t do it this way then we have the danger of easily being discouraged or exaggerate our problems. Because we are weak and have no power on our own, problems and difficulty are easily exaggeratable. And so we need to come down in the consciousness of what God is doing and in the power of what the Lord gives us to really face and be at work. Jesus is empowering us to transform the face of the earth. Of ourselves we cannot do it but with the means that are available to us, with His word and sacrament and our openness to the Spirit, we can breath the aroma that counter acts the pollution of the air around us and transform the face of the earth.

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