In today’s gospel (Luke 1:26-38), we see the fulfillment of the promise made to David that we read about in the first reading. I’d like to reflect a little bit on the promises of God.

I think it’s safe to say that all of us to some extent govern our lives according to God’s promises. For example, we all believe that if we die in the state of grace, we will go to heaven. There may be some purification needed but eventually, we’ll be in heaven, re-united with our loved ones and united with God in an eternal state of total joy, total peace, the fulfillment of all our desires.

We believe in Jesus’ promise that He would be with us until the end of time so that even here and now we can have a relationship with Him and the Father and the Holy Spirit and Mary and the saints and so on.

We believe that when a priest says the words of consecration in Mass over bread and wine, that it becomes the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus and if we are in a state of grace, we are encouraged to receive Him.

We believe in Jesus’ promise that He has built a Church, and the gates of hell will never prevail against her.

We believe all this because we believe Him, and we live our lives accordingly – we come to Mass, we pray, we try our best to follow His commandments, we do good works. We do all this because of Him and His promises.

But sometimes we can have doubts. We may not feel His presence and so we can begin to doubt, is He really with me? We may think the Church is a bit of a mess and wonder – is this really His Church; is He watching? We may have doubts about our salvation. I don’t feel very holy or worthy – even though I’m not conscious of serious sin on my soul. Is He really going to bring me to heaven?

This is where I think today’s readings can give us real hope and confidence. God fulfilled the promise He made to David, but they had to wait over a thousand years. He kept His promise despite the fact that they weren’t very holy either. There were lots of times when they rejected God and His commandments. He never abandoned them. He let them suffer so as to bring them back, but He was always there. There had to be many times when they felt abandoned. They had to have doubts. In the early days under Moses and the Exodus and David God was active. There were many prophets speaking the Word of God. But that subsided. Especially after their return from the Babylonian captivity, God was much less active. In the last 400 years before Jesus, there were no prophets. But God delivered. Jesus was born. He kept His promise.

I really believe that God works with us, both individually and collectively as a Church, like this in order to draw us closer to Him. This has certainly been my experience. I’m definitely not holy, but my longing for God is much greater than when I was young. In the psalms we see a deep, passionate, longing for God. For example,

Ps 63: O God, you are my God, for you I long,
for you my soul is thirsting,
My body pines for you
like a dry, weary land without water.

Ps 69: I am wearied with all my crying,
my throat is parched.
My eyes are wasted away
from looking for my God.

And there are many other examples. He blesses and then withdraws. If we get complacent, He lets us suffer the consequences. He doesn’t abandon us, but He wants us to be with Him and He’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. I think this is what we’re seeing in our Church today.

I’m sure many of you heard the news earlier this week that the Pope approves blessing same-sex couples and you’re probably wondering what’s going on. I will comment briefly on this. The document comes from the Cardinal Fernandez, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and has the approval of Pope Francis, but it is not a mandate, so priests are free to implement it in any way that seems best to them.

The goal is to encourage those couples who are living in immoral situations (same sex couples and couples who are living together but not married) who desire a blessing from God to come to the Church and be able to receive a simple, informal blessing. The document wants to broaden our understanding of blessings beyond liturgical blessings (e.g., weddings, various blessing rites given in the Book of Blessings) to a broader understanding of pastoral blessings as simple spontaneous blessings to invoke God’s help on anyone who asks with a sincere heart. The document emphasizes that the blessings can’t look in any way like a Church ritual. It also emphasizes that there is no change to the Church’s teaching on marriage or morality.

We are seeing 3 types of responses. Those who want the Church to change her teaching on homosexuality are delighted because they see this as a small step forward. Homosexual couples can now be openly blessed in the Church. Everyone else is divided into 2 camps – those who are open to offering these blessings say they are blessing the persons, not the union. Cardinal Fernandez, the author, says the blessing does not validate or justify anything. It’s a simple blessing for the persons. Those who are opposed to these blessings say that blessing a couple is defacto blessing the union.

I’ll give an example. Let’s say a teacher asks a priest to bless her class. In this case, there’s no issue and a priest would surely be willing to bless the class. He’s not going to be concerned with the moral status of the teacher or students, and the relationship among students and teacher is perfectly legitimate. It is not in any way contrary to God’s will.

In the case of a homosexual couple, or a couple that is not married, the relationship is contrary to God’s will, and the document clearly affirms that. It has nothing to do with the moral status of the individuals and there would be no problem with blessing each individual separately. Again, the question comes down to – when you bless a couple, is it possible to bless only the persons, or by the very nature of blessing the couple, are you also blessing the relationship?

The document has tried to give pastoral guidance, but it’s not working so well. It is creating a division in the Church. Many priests and bishops have said they are not going to implement these blessings. Many others are open to it.

I would simply say this. I think we need to cry out to Jesus to come to our aid. We need His help to bring us together in Him. The second thing is don’t let this turmoil into your heart. Keep your heart in Jesus. What works for me is to focus on my longing to be with Him like I mentioned at the beginning. That helps keep my heart in Him. And remember, He didn’t abandon His people Israel despite all their failings, He will not abandon us. He kept all the promises He made in the past; He will keep the promises He made to us. God bless you.