In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Our Lady, Queen of Heaven and Earth.
St. Joseph.
Pope St. Damasus.
Our patron saints and guardian angels.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today we celebrate Pope St. Damasus, or I suppose if you put the emphasis on the wrong syllable, it would be Damasus.
So, it's either name, I guess, he's been called, I've heard him used.
He was a saint of the 4th century.
The father, St. Damasus, either after his wife's death or with her consent,
had entered the priesthood and served the parish church of St. Lawrence in Rome.
His son, St. Damasus, also entered the sacred ministry, being attached to the same church.
Under Pope Liberius, he obtained a great chair in the government of the church.
And when Liberius died in 366, St. Damasus, then 60 years old, was elected Pope.
In 368, St. Damasus held a council in Rome, another in the same city in 370,
both directed against the Arians, and one in 374, in which the heirs of Apollinaris were condemned.
St. Jerome, who was a great admirer of St. Damasus,
acted as his secretary during the last three years of the life of this holy pontiff.
The Pope encouraged St. Jerome in his studies, and the latter calls him, quote,
an incomparable person learned in the scriptures, a virgin doctor of the virgin church,
who loved chastity and heard its praises with pleasure, unquote.
The church, named to the present day,
St. Lawrence in Damaso, was repaired by the saint,
who also made other improvements in Rome.
He was a poet and a man of genius who wrote with elegance.
Ancient writers commend especially his zeal for the purity of the faith,
the innocence of his manners, his Christian humility,
his compassion for the poor, and his piety.
St. Damasus,
sat in the chair of St. Peter for 18 years and two months.
He died in 384.
And it's amazing that he didn't die a martyr,
because usually around those early parts of the centuries of the church,
you didn't live very long as a pope.
You usually ended up being a martyr,
and he served for 18 years as a pontiff and died a death that wasn't a martyrdom.
And so we look to Pope St. Damasus to continue to pray for our Holy Father today,
who, as it says, that St. Damasus was pope during a time of great upheaval
and a lot of turmoil in the church and in the world.
In some ways, it doesn't seem to change.
It always seems to be a time of some kind of upheaval in our world.
The devil never stops.
And he always is, of course, raging against the church.
And so the pope has to be a man of great faith and great strength.
And we are to pray for our Holy Father,
because he depends on our prayers,
and we are to support our Holy Father with our prayers and sacrifices,
as we ought to as faithful sons and daughters of the church.
Pope St. Damasus,
Pope St. Damasus is one of those who would very much
look to our Lord's words in the gospel as words of encouragement
to come to him, all who are labored and are burdened,
and our Lord will give us rest.
We talk about Advent being a time of the coming of the Lord.
But you might say this coming is a two-way street.
We are to come to the Lord, and he comes to us.
We're supposed to be making progress.
We're to be coming to Bethlehem.
We're to be making our way to the Christ child.
And even that is a grace, to be able to do that,
because there are many people, as you know,
probably the majority of people you meet,
have no clue as to where they're going in life,
that they don't know that they should be coming to the Lord.
They are coming or going after something else
and trying to find their fulfillment.
They're trying to find their fulfillment
in all the wrong things.
We can see that very clearly that even, you know,
the spirit of Christmas, so many people can celebrate Christmas
and not ever once mention Christ,
not even think about what the real purpose for this season is.
And so Advent is a time for us to really get back our compass
pointing true north, you might say,
that we're going in the right direction,
that we truly are making our way,
to the Lord, because our Lord is saying,
come to me, and he wants to come to us.
But we have to do something.
We have to cooperate and listen to that call from the Lord
that we will truly come to him and be with him,
because he wants to truly give us rest from our labors.
And of course we know that that will be finally fulfilled,
at the end of our lives,
when we will finally put down the yoke
that we have carried throughout life,
the yoke of Christ,
and to take it up, you might say,
the fulfillment of that, all that labor,
that restful peace in eternity with our Lord.
We know that this yoke that our Lord is talking about
is the cross.
And we see that very clearly
in our...
As priests, when we put on our chasuble every morning,
we say this prayer,
that when we take up the yoke of the Lord,
for his yoke is sweet, and his burden is light.
And to remind us that that is the case.
We all have to take up the yoke of Christ.
And otherwise, we'll take up the yoke of something else,
whether it be the world,
you know, we're working for something that's in this world,
and we're a slave,
and we're kind of being driven like an ox,
you might say, by the masters of our life,
whether they be the masters of this world,
or the master, maybe even the devil, the evil one,
who wants to put his yoke of sin on us.
And our Lord wants to remove that yoke of sin,
and wants to put the yoke of loving service,
of dedication, of taking up our cross,
the cross of duty of our daily state in life,
and to use that as a means to serve him,
and come to him, and labor on his behalf.
So today, as we continue this Advent season,
maybe we should ponder, who do we find at Bethlehem?
Who are those that did come to Bethlehem?
They were the humble, the shepherds, the ones who were,
in the eyes of the world, good for nothing.
You know, they didn't think that they were
really deserving of anything.
They should be out in the fields where they belong, you know.
And those who were humble, the wise men,
who were truly wise because they recognized
that they were not wise.
They recognized that they needed to learn
from someone greater than them.
And so the needy and the humble,
the poor, all those who are truly recognizing their need for Christ, they've come to Bethlehem.
Those who are not, you might say symbolized by those who are not there, you might say the two
animals that are on either side of Christ represent those who don't go to Bethlehem,
the ox and the ass, the ox being those who think they're powerful, and the ass, those who are
fools, fools because they're spending all their time in this world, those who don't believe there
is a God, for the fool says in their heart there is no God, those you won't find at the stable at
Bethlehem, they are not there. So let us pray especially today that we will recognize that we
do need Christ in our life, and that we do come to him,
and that we do come to him, and that we do come to him,
we seek him as earnestly as Christ seeks us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Thank you.