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The theme for Advent this year, as you can see on your parish bulletin, is “Come, Emmanuel. Show us your face,” “Emmanuel“ meaning “God with us.” Last weekend, Father Dibble gave us a beautiful introduction to that theme when he spoke of the invisible people in our lives, the ones that we can walk past and not even recognize or know that they are there. As he was speaking, my thought was about the Broadway musical and movie, “Chicago.” If you saw that you remember there was one song in there called “Cellophane Man,” and the person singing is saying, “I am so insignificant that people look right through me. I am like a cellophane man.”

I’d like to pick up on that theme today and take it in a little different direction. This year, I have been put in charge here at Christ the King of the RCIA program. That is the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. Basically what that means is that it is the process that people who want to become Catholic go through before they are received into the Church. It has been my privilege as the coordinator for that program to listen to the life stories of the fourteen people who are in our process this year. Hearing their stories has given me a wonderful vantage point from which to understand who the people are who sit in these pews every weekend with us, and an understanding of the newcomers, the seekers, the searchers who are here in our midst and are totally unknown to us.

These people fall into two main categories. There are Catholics, and there are those who are not Catholic. Among the Catholics, there are people who are simply searching for a parish. Now, maybe that sounds familiar to some of you. My wife and I moved into this parish about twelve or thirteen years ago. I should say we “moved into the area.” And we started looking for a parish and we went to some of the outlying parishes in the Central Contra Costa area. We finally arrived at Christ the King and found our spiritual home here. This is where we felt comfortable, but not just comfortable because that is not a good enough reason to belong to a parish. But we felt that our faith would be challenged here and that our faith would grow here. So maybe some of you sitting in the pews this morning are similar to that, seeking a new parish for yourself.

Others, among Catholics who might be in our pews this morning, that are strangers to our community are those who have in sometime in the past, “left the Church” or stopped practicing their faith. And now, some years later, they have come back and are sort of wondering, “Now, what did I miss while I was gone?.... Is this the same Church that I left, maybe in 1970 or ‘80 or’90? Is Christ the King Parish in the year 2003 somehow different, and would I find a new home here and will it be different from what I knew before?”

Others, and these are people in our RCIA group, had been baptized Catholic in their youth, but were never raised in the Catholic Church. So, they really know nothing about Catholicism and so they have come back saying, “Teach me. I want to know what it means to be a Catholic. I want to know what it is about to be a participant in the Church in which I was originally baptized.”

The other group is those who are not Catholic. There are people sitting in these pews, and I would guess at this very Mass, who have never been Catholic. Maybe they have never been baptized, or they were baptized in a Protestant denomination. But they are here because they are curious about us. Some may be married to Catholics. Others may be engaged to Catholics, or, who knows, they might have simply walked in off the street just to find out who we are. And these are people who are sitting in the pews right now. I call these folks people who are “hiding in plain sight,” because they are here and yet we don’t know who they are. If you turned around and looked at the people around you, you would not be able to recognize them because they do everything we do. They stand when we stand. They sit when we sit. Maybe they even sing along with us. But they are looking at us and I would say even “checking us out.” They have come here to check out what we are doing and who we are and what we believe, and they begin by checking out the priest. So, as the priest goes through the liturgy and says the Mass, they are watching very carefully to see if they think that he really believes in what he is doing, because that is essential. If the person presiding at the liturgy gives the impression that he doesn’t believe this, then why should they bother? They also are checking out the homilist and they are asking themselves, “Are these just holy words that are coming out of this person’s mouth, that have no relationship to my life, to my real situation in this world, or am I hearing something that is going to make it easier for me to live through the next seven days of my life? Is the homilist saying something that is important and that really touches who I am at the deepest level? But they are not just checking out the priest and the homilist. They are checking out you. They are watching you. And when I am sitting in the pews, they are watching me. They want to see from us, the members of Christ the King Community, they are watching to see if they think that we believe in what we are doing. Do we bring a strong sense of reverence to the liturgy that we share? Do we look like this is really an important part of our lives, and that we come here to be nourished and strengthened to go out and bring the gospel to the people that we meet during the week? Or, do they find that Christ the King isn’t the place for them because these people don’t give evidence that they are truly believers and committed to what they are doing?

Other signs that the newcomers and strangers and non-Catholics look for when they come to our liturgy are do they arrive here and receive a friendly welcome, a smile, a “Good Morning” or a “Good Afternoon?” And we might say, that is the usher’s job. That is what we “pay them for,” to be the smilers and the greeters. But no. That is not true. Every one of us in the community has the responsibility to be a greeter as we come through those front.doors. We are walking side by side with people. We don’t know necessarily if they belong to our community or not. I don’t know every member of the Christ the King Community. I don’t think anybody sitting here knows every member. I speculate that maybe Brian would know everybody, but I am not even sure of that. And so, we don’t always know who is walking through the door with us, and so we need to turn sideways and say, “Good Morning” or “ Good Afternoon” or “Hi. How are you? Welcome to Christ the King!”

And then they are looking for a sincere greeting of peace at the Our Father. Do we, as the community turn to the people around us and, with eye contact, say, “May the peace of Christ be with you?” because that is important for those people? They want to know that we are turning to them and wishing them the peace of Christ so that Christ will go with them through their week. They want to have that feeling that we are sincere when we say, “May the peace of Christ be with you” or “Peace be with you,” that those aren’t just words, but that they mean something.

And then, on the way out, do we all just dash for our cars and head for the parking lot, or do we turn again to the people walking out the door with us and say, “Have a great week.... Goodbye..... Nice to see you today,” whatever words we have? Do we let the people around us feel that their time here was valued, that they made a difference, that it wouldn’t have been the same if they had stayed home in bed, that we really cared that they were here? In other words, the bottom line is do we give them a reason to come back next week? Do they feel like, “Wow! This is a place where I can find my spiritual home?” Or, the opposite (I hate to think of it!) that they would simply chalk off Christ the King as another failure in their attempt to find a home for themselves, a spiritual home, where they can worship and be part of a loving community. You just don’t know. Someone could decide today to become a Catholic, to get into the RCIA program, just because one of you took the time to be extra nice to them. Sometimes the decision to become a Catholic is based on something as simple as that, someone was nice to me and made me feel that I was welcome and that they wanted me to come back.

Our theme then and our prayer for Advent is “Come Emmanuel, let us see your face in the strangers, the newcomers, the people who have come here today, who are not part of our community. Let us see your face in them and welcome them.”