Fourth Sunday of Advent
Fr. Francis Di Spigno, OFM,
Pastor
December 19, 2021
Fourth Sunday of Advent and Star Wars!
After dinner I have this habit of sitting in the recliner with my computer on my lap and the TV in front of me. The computer is to go through my emails or continue some office work not yet finished and the TV is simply for entertainment.
I scroll through xfinity’s TV guide trying to find something that I might enjoy. I have figured out how to set up my “favorite” channels so I don’t have to scroll through all 2000 of them – or whatever crazy number it is. Now I only have a few hundred from which to choose. More often than not I scroll through and don’t find anything that I really want to watch. “Let me scroll through one more time,” I say to myself. Off I go, back to channel 2 and zip through for a second pass. Nothing. Truth be told, I usually end up landing on something that I’ve already seen.
Of late, one of the channels has been having a Star Wars marathon. The original Star Wars series [1977, 1980, 1983] have always been one of my favorite series of movies so I indulged and spent a few hours with Obi Wan Kenobi, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader.
This futuristic, intergalactic drama is filled with flashy graphics. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I enjoy watching it, but if I dig a bit deeper, one of the reasons it speaks to me is because the story is the basic story of good vs evil, dark vs light … and the good always wins. There is no doubt that the technological imagination added a unique telling of this story [at least it was unique in 1977!] but the message is that timeless storyline of the challenge for the good.
In life we face challenges all the time. We are forced to make choices, and those choices are always filtered through the many things going on in our life at that specific time. So in addition to the battle for what is good, these primal stories also include forgiveness, rebirth, new life, and hope.
Star Wars is from “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” and the scriptures that tell our stories of good vs evil, light vs dark, were literally written a long, long time ago, yet the stories still speak to us because the stories are our stories, today.
In the first reading from the Book of Micah, we hear that our savior is going to come from this small forgotten place, so small that it doesn’t even count among the clans of Judah. Yet, the Shepherd will come and lead us, and He shall be peace.
The two main characters of the Star Wars saga are Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. These reunited siblings, born of special lineage, both chose to pursue the good. Despite all the challenges that confronted them, the self-doubts, the personal struggles, they continued to follow the good. In the end they were victorious.
We might think that we keep flipping through the channels of our life but we too will be victorious if we continue “to believe that what was spoken to us by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
May God continue to bless you and may the force be with you!
Fr. Francis J. Di Spigno, OFM
Pastor