SECOND WEEK OF ADVENT
Don’t Be Childish
“If you had only paid attention to what I have said,” complains the Lord through the prophet, for God wants our own good. Jesus complains that there are people who behave in a childish way when John the Baptist preaches repentance in preparation for the coming of the Messiah: they are like girls who refuse to dance when the flute plays joyful tunes or boys who refuse to mourn when people are weeping. The Lord is among us and asks for commitment so that we can lead the world to life and justice and happiness. What is our faith worth, if we do not practice it?
First Reading: Isaiah 48:17-19
And now, the Master, God, sends me and his Spirit
with this Message from God,
your Redeemer, The Holy of Israel:
“I am God, your God,
who teaches you how to live right and well.
I show you what to do, where to go.
If you had listened all along to what I told you,
your life would have flowed full like a river,
blessings rolling in like waves from the sea.
Children and grandchildren are like sand,
your progeny like grains of sand.
There would be no end of them,
no danger of losing touch with me.”
Gospel: Matthew 11:16-19
Jesus started talking to the crowd: “How can I account for this generation? The people have been like spoiled children whining to their parents, ‘We wanted to skip rope, and you were always too tired; we wanted to talk, but you were always too busy.’ John came fasting and they called him crazy. I came feasting and they called me a lush, a friend of the riffraff. Opinion polls don’t count for much, do they? The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
Prayer
Lord our God,
too often we are deaf to your voice
and to the presence of your Son
among us, his people.
Inspire us by your prophets and your Spirit
that now is the right moment to change
and to commit ourselves
to the kind of life and to the justice
demanded by the kingdom.
Help us to make people see
that your Son is alive among us
and that he is our Lord for ever. Amen.
Reflection:
Let us not become sad Christians
In the Church today, we come across some people who are overly critical of the Pope, the bishops, the priests…. But this is nothing new! Jesus, himself was rejected by the people of his time. Religious leaders in the time of Jesus refused to receive the Word of God. In today’s Gospel, Jesus explains that these perpetual critics behave like children who are always unhappy. They always have a reason to criticize the preacher:
Change is hard to accept. The groups of Pharisees, Sadducees, and religious leaders were happy to remain in their religious and moral precepts, traditions, and a spirituality that understood God as a task-master who would be pleased when people accepted his commandments. They believed that defending their traditions and religious practices were equal to defending God. Anyone challenging the traditions was considered a heretic. The prophets challenged their fake religiosity and hence they persecuted and killed the prophets.
History repeats! There are so much of divisions and hatred with in the Church today on account of preserving rituals, traditions and popular piety. Some believe that they alone are the custodians of the absolute truth and consider even the teachings of the Vatican II as wrong. They are those Christians, who are always discontented with the messages of forgiveness and mercy. Pope Francis calls them “Christians who are afraid of the freedom of the Holy Spirit. These Christians are closed, they are trapped, sad … these Christians are not free,” the Pope says.
It is a scandal for them to believe that God would speak to us through sinful, ordinary men and women. This was the similar scandal that the Jews had to deal with: How could they believe that God could speak to them and save them through an ordinary preacher who did not even have a proper address for himself?
Pope Francis comments that, “These sad Christians do not believe in the Holy Spirit , they do not believe in the freedom that comes from preaching, which admonishes you, teaches you and even slaps you as well – but it is the very freedom that makes the Church grow.”
Let us not become like these sad children who are afraid to dance, to cry, and afraid of everything, who ask for certainty in all things and who always criticise the preachers of the Truth. Let us not be afraid to open the door to the Holy Spirit. Let us not become sad Christians, cutting off the freedom of the Holy Spirit that come to us through the scandal of preaching.
Video available on Youtube: Let us not become sad Christians