We just heard a minute ago that, when Mary heard that her cousin was going to have a baby that Mary set out "with haste," and the Greek word, in haste, it means QUICK! Now most scholars agree that Our Lady could not have been more than sixteen years old at this time. But she hears that her cousin, who's an elderly lady, is going to have a baby and Mary says to herself, "I've got to help Elizabeth now, NOW!" In the hill country it was real dangerous travel!

We had a Spanish teacher when I was a child in high school, (well, teen-ager in high school, not a child) and every time Christmas came, he'd set us off on our Christmas holiday, the Spanish teacher, (It was the last class of the day before Christmas vacation.) and he'd say, "You begin....." (I love this guy. His name was Father Myral. He's dead now.) He'd say, "Gentlemen!" (It was a high school seminary.) "Gentlemen, your vacation begins nunc." "Nunc" is a Latin word meaning "now." Isn't that a great sound? Nunc!...Nunc! And then he'd say, "Ahora!" (That's Spanish, now.) And then he'd say in English, "Now!" And we'd all flood out. And then when we came back from holiday, Christmas vacation, he'd say the same thing with the same genial warmth, "Gentlemen, we begin our work nunc, ahora, now!"

And Mary starts out and says to herself, "My elderly cousin is going to have a baby. I'm also going to have a baby, but she's old and she needs some help nunc, ahora, now!"

Have you ever been to F.A.O. Schwarz Toy Store? I slithered by one in San Francisco when I first arrived here. But, when I was in New York, (Some of you are going to be weary of hearing these New York allusions, but most of my life was there.) there was an F.A.O. Schwarz, very posh, on Fifth Avenue, very expensive toy store for kids. And at Christmas it's a bonanza.

I remember one Christmas, before Christmas, a couple of weeks, I went there just to snoopervise. I love doing that with, you know with the scarf, so no one can tell you're a priest and kind of just snoopervise. I love watching the kids and their parents in this big expensive toy store. And they had an electric train set, HUGE electric train set, took a huge space. I remember it cost, I think, $1600 or something. And it had a little conductor, a little toy conductor in the electric train set. And he'd tip his hat, and smoke came out, and if you peered, when the train stopped, through the windows it was like the Orient Express. It had these little seats, upholstered little seats in a dining room. It was fantastic! And there was this little kid watching it...... well, two kids, he and I! Watching it. Watching it. And I think he was about five, well a young kid, five, not more than. And his mother I remember she was swathed in mink!

"Mommy, I want it NOW! Mommy, I want.... I want it NOW!"

And she looked past her Cartier pearls, looked down at him and she says, "You're going to get it for Christmas." But, you see, this was a couple of weeks before Christmas, and when you're five, a couple of weeks stretches into infinity! Whereas, at the age of sixty-six, it's "My God, Christmas? It was twenty minutes ago!" Anyhow, the little kid wanted it NOW. It's perfectly human and understandable from his perspective. Now is......Don't tell me it's so far away.

My brother recently made me a gift of a computer. Now, I approach pencil sharpeners with caution. And have this computer delivered with a fax and a copier and all that, brand new. It was a Christmas gift. I called up a man from the company and I said, "Would you please come here and teach me some rudiments, because my brother is very busy. He can't...." And we sat down, and what a courteous, genial gentleman this fellow was! And, first thing he said (And I'm not making this up!), he said, "Well, first, Father, we plug it in. And then you press this little button...."

And, after awhile, I said, "OK! NOW I want e-mail. I want e-mail." (This was just a couple of weeks ago.) And he said, "Well, it takes time for the machine to warm up and it takes...." "But, I thought the whole point of getting a computer was you can get everything RIGHT NOW!" And I thought of that little boy in F.A.O. Schwarz. "I want it, and I want it NOW!"

And the apostles, Our Lord has been with them almost two and a half years, teaching and miracles and teaching as Christ taught.....And the apostles were very human. Remember the passage in the Gospel. It's a little bit before He is arrested. And they come to Him, all of them, all twelve. "Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel NOW?" They haven't heard a thing He's said for two and a half years, in a sense. You know, restore the kingdom to Palestine and Israel. We boot these Roman jerks out and we take over our own country. Will you restore the kingdom NOW? Nunc! Ahora! Now? Our Lord tries to explain the kingdom He's going to give them is going to last a lot longer than the Roman Empire. But, they wanted it NOW. And, if I were among them, so would I!

Now, it's almost the year 2001. We have had all those centuries of the teachings of Our Lord and the sacraments and the gospels. And don't you sometimes say, "Well, we should have had a perfected world by NOW. Two thousand years of the most powerful spiritual message, and Jesus Christ, man and God, risen, not just dead, executed... RISEN! And the Church, for all of its mistakes, carries the gospel and the sacraments. I want it NOW! I still do. I mean after forty years as a priest, why isn't the thing better now?

Now, I keep mentioning this guy to you because he's written so many wonderful works for people who are looking for some more answers, C.S. Lewis. He was a convert to Christ, as an Oxford professor. He READ his way into the Church, the history, the psychology, the historical facts, the validity of the gospel. Oxford professor, he says, "I can't fight it anymore. It's true. He lived. He died. He rose. He set up a Church. I can't fight it!" And C.S. Lewis has written many wonderful books about people who want to feed their brains, about faith. And he said, he refers to Our Lord the night He dies, and Our Lord says to the apostles the night He is arrested.... Our Lord says to His eleven friends (You know, one has split and gone into the darkness.), "In this world you will have suffering." He doesn't feed them a line. He tells them the truth. He tells us the truth. He doesn't hand us a line. "In this world you will. If you're going to follow me, you will have suffering. But have confidence. I have overcome the world."

Huh? Doesn't a part of you, or certainly a part of me, say, "Huh?" I love you, Lord. I reverence you, Lord. You've overcome the world? Have you looked at headlines? Have you looked at the history of this planet, even since you arrived? "I've overcome the world." But He said it! We can't pat little Jesus on the head and say, "Yeah, that's nice, and we know you're talking metaphor." No. But, how has He conquered the world?

C.S.Lewis writes this, (Remember, he was a scholar.) "When Christ says He's conquered the world, it's as if an explorer, many centuries ago, lands on an island, an explorer from England or Spain, or whatever, and the explorer lands on the island and he plants his flag. And the explorer could say, in a sense, "I conquered this island for England," or Spain, or whatever. Christ has established His flag. This world is enemy territory. Our Lord Himself talks about the Prince of this world is evil. You can't make that nice and soft and pretty. But Christ has landed His flag. He has conquered it, but He wants us to help. I don't know why. Gets me irritated daily. He wants us to help Him do it. Two thousand years in the history of the human race (And I had to study all this in anthropology.).....Two thousand years is the blink of an eye, just the blink of an eye, compared to the age of the planet. He's planted His flag. He wants us to continue the job. And it's a long wait. I know.

Another anecdote. Be patient with these anecdotes. It's the only way I know how to.... But, when I left teaching in upstate New York, I was sent to a parish on the upper East side before I came here. Very expensive section of New York, the upper East side, very posh. And it was before Christmas and I went shopping to the delicatessen, again wearing the anonymous scarf so I could snoopervise. There was a..... There's no polite way to put it, it's kind of like a beggar, hobo, a knight of the road, standing outside this very expensive delicatessen. And he was standing like this.....Forgive the dramatics. And he said to me, "Hey, Bud!" (cause I had the scarf...) "Hey, Bud! You got somethin' for Christmas?"

I said, "Oh, yeah." I only had change and a twenty dollar bill. I said, "If you wait here, yeah, I have to get some stuff in here, some groceries, and when I come out, yeah, I will." And I was there, I guess, about twelve, fifteen minutes. And I came out. And I gave him what I thought was vast riches. I gave him a five dollar bill.

He took it and he looked at it, and he said, "That's it? I've been waitin' here fifteen minutes and that's it??" And I thought, "Wow! On the upper East side, even the beggars are posh!" He'd been waiting fifteen minutes and that's it. And we've been waiting two thousand and one years almost. Maybe sometimes in the little rebel in our hearts, we can say to Our Lord, "Hey, I look at the world, and I look at my own condition and my own spiritual state, and that's it? Yeah. Yeah. But you can't have everything nunc, ahora, now! He taught us one thing, and Mary, carrying a baby for nine months. Give time, time....

And the last thing is Father Billy Leyden. (I'm saying his name out loud cause I'm told these things are on the internet, and if he's got relatives I want them to know I remember Father Billy Leyden.) I've also told you about him. He was a businessman until his mid-fifties. He worked for an airline. He was a big shot in an airline. His wife was dead. His kids were married. He became a priest, late in life. And I used to go to him for spiritual direction. And he kept saying, "Now." He did. "Michael, stay in the Now!" cause I'd always be worrying about the past. "Michael, stay in the Now!" At first, I thought, "What a cliche!" Now I know it was deep wisdom. "Stay in the Now."

And his last Christmas on this planet, before I came out here, he was in bed. And I said, "Billy," (It's a very dumb question but he didn't mind.) I said, "If you could live your life over, what would you do, or what would you change?" And we both knew he wasn't going to see another Christmas. And he said, "Well, Michael, I would stay in the Now." I said, "I know. I've heard that. But anything else?" And he said (Now this took two hours, and I'm going to try to do it in a minute and a half.) But he said two more things. "Starting in high school, if I could live my life over, starting in high school, I would stop trying to impress people who didn't like me. I would stop trying to be cool like them or indifferent like them. I would just be myself. I'd stop trying to impress. I'd be myself."

And I thought of Billy Leyden last afternoon, yesterday. I have a seven month Irish terrier puppy. And I am training the puppy. And when he grabs a pen or a piece of paper, (He grabbed this (the sermon) and was almost shredding it. You might say, "Well, a discriminating dog!") In the seven months I've had Dinny, I say to him, "Dinny, NO!" And now, he does, he drops the thing. He does. He drops the pen or whatever he shouldn't be chewing. I say, "Dinny, NO!" But I got a book for Christmas which I read yesterday afternoon, most of it. And it said that when you give a command (N.O.) to a dog, you should make your voice DEEP and SCAREY! So, I thought, "OK. I'm going to get macho with this terrier." And he grabbed this (the sermon). I said (with a HUGE DEEP VOICE), "DINNY, NO!" And the terrier went like this: (his head tilted to the side, with a quizzical expression on his face) All Dinny was saying to me was "Be yourself." And then I said what I've been saying now for so many weeks, "Dinny, NO!" and he dropped it immediately. Sixty-six years old and trying to impress a puppy!!

Be yourself! You know, with the Lord be.... And the last thing Father Billy Leydon said was, "And when I was very, very busy with the airline or very, very busy as a priest, super busy, that's when I would pray more." But, then he added, because remember he had been in business until his mid-fifties, he said, "I don't mean I'd pray longer prayers or spend hours in church. You can't. But all through the day I would say short prayers for peace. All through the day I would say quick prayers for serenity. I'd pray more. The busier I got, the more I would pray, all through the day.

In any event, you're all at Mass, on a chilly morning before Christmas. But, you're here. You're here. You're doing the right thing. Nunc.... Ahora.... NOW!