• Smile and enjoy the attempts to bend your minds and imaginations around images of peace, harmony, relationships, and identity which come to us through the mail, store windows, TV and newspapers. Prepare to experience your being insulted by how easily seduced they think we are, and smile at how vulnerable we really are to these allurements.
• We prepare for the Eucharist in the same manner with which we prepare for Jesus’ first coming — with openness, simplicity and truth. We need a Savior and that Savior comes now-and-now-and-now again. The emptiness of our outstretched hand when approaching our reception of the Eucharist is an Advent-Gesture of hope and fulfillment.
• REFLECTION
• During the liturgical year, we do not hear much from the prophet Baruch. As a messenger and poet of God, he has accompanied the Jewish people into exile and captivity. Jerusalem is their City of Identity, but only in memory and prayer.
• The Israelites have been confronted with their infidelities and long to return to their homeland and their relationship with the God who brought them out of the first exile in Egypt. What we hear is a new song from the prophet. There is hope and Jerusalem is the center or image of recovery and restoration. The great city, remembered by those now in captivity as beautiful, but in reality reduced to destruction, is pictured with new glorious dressing. This prophetic poem addresses Jerusalem, not only as a city, but more, the people who are to return and be adorned themselves with the glory of God.
• There is return to Jerusalem promised and also the return of God’s faithful love for all God’s holy and redeemed people. They have been remembered by God. The way will be made clear as will the mercy and justice of God.
• The prophet might have been standing in the sun too long or under the influence of some strange spirit. There he is in the midst of exile and he begins, like a cheerleader to expand what sounds like a dream. In reality it is the Word of God meant to begin the return. The prophet’s words are an advance-advertising alerting the people for the coming of salvation and the rebuilding of the Great City. The question would arise about whether the people will believe in the midst of their shame and gloom.
• The main Advent character arrives on stage in today’s Gospel. After quite a lengthy historical setting, Luke presents John as appearing prophetically announcing the coming of “the salvation of God.” He, as did Baruch, speaks of valleys and hills being made level and the windy roads made straight.
• John is preaching a baptism of repentance. Baptism itself is a purification ritual and John is inviting people to be purified from the unholy hanging-on-to’s in their lives. In his way he is asking the people to check out what they are holding onto for their identities, their securities. In short he is announcing that they will be asked to let go of the old and stale forms of relating with God and prepare for something, a Some One who is coming to be held onto. The familiar is so comforting and the Baptist is proclaiming the latest surprise in a long history of unusual revelations.
• Jesus is not on stage yet, but the dramatic tension is rising. The people, and we as well, are called to trust the off-stageness of the Promised One. The people in exile, the people listening to the Baptist, we listening to both, all are called to re-pent or return to our being held by the ever-loving and faithful God.
• Our hearts have hands in a way and we easily tend to reshape gifts into little gods and those hands and grasp these gods for life-support. This is a wonderful time of year, of preparing to give gifts and receive as well. The people of Israel were in exile, because they had forgotten the gift of their being God’s holy people and their city a holy place of God’s presence. We need Advent to remember what’s what and what’s not. The “off-stage” voice of the One Who is to come is what will get things straight, will fill in the empty valleys and level our mountains of defensive fear. To allow this, we trust the call, the unusual, the new of Jesus’ coming. We need these Advent moments to check out our little heart-hands and see if there is any room in those hands for our receiving the new Surprise.
Our Western World relaxes with the predictable, knowing causes and expecting results. This makes trusting the unpredictable and surprising God a great leap. The leap by God from eternity to time-bound, flesh-bound finitude is as unpredictable as God taking back the people of Jerusalem to their city of shame and glorifying it again with honor and fruitfulness. Advent can surprise us even more when we free ourselves from holding on to what we think we are entitled to, that is security and control.
• “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.” Ps. 126
The Day of Christ Jesus
Bottom line: The one who began the good work in you will continue to complete it right up to the day of Christ Jesus.
I’d like to lead into today’s homily with one of my favorite Far Side cartoons. It goes something like this: A large dinosaur is addressing a group of smaller dinosaurs. They are standing in front of him like a football squad. The expressions on their dinosaur faces show eagerness mixed with concern. The head dinosaur says, “Things are looking bad. The climate is changing. Mammals are on the rise. And you guys have brains the size of a walnut!”
Well, I don’t know how our brains compare to the dinosaurs. I know they are bigger, but we don’t always use them well. And, like the dinosaurs, we do face an ultimate demise. St. Paul refers to the end of the world in today’s second reading. He speaks about “the day of Christ Jesus.” That is, his second coming – the day when he will wrap things up.
Some people are saying the world will end on December 21. Others think it will be sooner – this coming Wednesday, December 12. That will be the twelfth day of the twelfth month of 2012. Wednesday would be good because we will be celebrating Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Whatever happens, the important thing is not predicting the exact day, but – as we heard last Sunday – being vigilant and praying at all times. Today we get a further explanation about the meaning of prayerful vigilance.
The first thing we need to know is that salvation is not our own work. No one can save himself. Nor can you or I save anyone else. St. Paul speaks about “the one who began the good work in you.” God has taken the initiative. He began the good work in us – beginning with our creation, then with a new creation: baptism.
God not only begins the good work – like clicking a download button and then waiting. No, God is active. He begins the good work, he tracks it at every step and he will see it through to the end. St. Paul is confident – not because we have a bank account of good deeds – but, as he says, “The one who began the good work…will complete it.”
God will finish what he began. Do not be anxious. God is not like us. He doesn’t leave things half done. Don’t despair about your sins, your weaknesses, your failures. God started a good work and he will complete it. That’s the first point.
The second point is about how God completes his good work in us. He does it by eliciting our cooperation. What did John preach? We heard it today. People went out the desert to hear John because he told them to repent and have their sins forgiven. The Greek word for repentance literally means, “a change of mind.” Turn away from sin and turn toward God. Reprogram your thinking. You can do it. Repent.
Regarding repentance the Ignatius Study Bible says, “Because repentance is a gradual process of transformation, God is patient with sinners’ struggles…” God is patient. He has all eternity. You and I, however, have deadlines. The time to repent is not December 21 or even next Wednesday. The time is now.
A person might think, “I’m going to confession next week, so I can slack off until then. I’ve already committed one moral sin. So what if I commit another?” Well, some of you remember the old Act of Contrition. It says, “I firmly resolve with the help of thy grace to confess my sins, do penance and amend my life.” A person who repents and has a firm resolve to confess their sins is already forgiven. The moment a person becomes conscious of a grave sin, he should repent and make plans for confession. Reprogram your life. If you start today, you can do it. It will be much harder – maybe insurmountable – if you wait till tomorrow.
Jesus calls us to prayerful vigilance. Repentance, conversion, change of mind – that’s today’s work. Once you’ve made the prayer of repentance, be at peace. God will do the rest. “Take off the your robe of misery,” says the Prophet Baruch. The one who began the good work in you will continue to complete it right up to the day of Christ Jesus. Amen.
OPEN NEW PATHS TO JESUS
The early Christians saw in the conduct of John the Baptist the prophet who decisively prepared the way for Jesus. So, through the centuries, the Baptist has become a call always urging us to prepare ways that will allow us to welcome Jesus among us.
Luke has summarized his message in this cry taken from the prophet Isaiah: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” How should we listen to this voice in the Church today? How should we open ways for men and women of our times to encounter him? How should we welcome him in our communities?
The first thing is to realize we need a much more lively contact with his person. It is not possible to survive only on the nourishment religious doctrine provides. It is not possible to follow a Jesus who has become a sublime abstraction. We need to identify ourselves with him in a vital relationship, to allow ourselves to fall in love with his way of living, to absorb his passion for God and the welfare of humanity.
In the midst of the “spiritual desert” of modern society, we must conceive of and shape the Christian community as a place where the Gospel of Jesus is welcomed; create an experience that unites believers, lukewarm believers, those who hardly believe and even unbelievers, drawn together around the Gospel story of Jesus; give him an opportunity to enter deeply with his humanizing power into our problems, crises, hopes and fears.
We must not forget him. In the Gospels we do not learn an academic doctrine on Jesus, inevitably destined to grow old over the centuries. What we learn is a way of life valid for all times and in all cultures: the way of life of Jesus. Doctrines do not touch, much less win hearts; they do not convert people. Jesus does.
Direct and immediate experience of the Gospel story brings into being a new faith in us, not through “indoctrination” or “theoretical learning”, but through vital contact with Jesus. It is he who teaches us to live the faith, not out of obligation but by attraction. He inspires in us a Christian life not as a duty but by being drawn to it through infectious influence. By contact with the Gospel we recover our true identity as followers of Jesus.
By following the story of the Gospels we come to realize that the invisible and silent presence of the Risen Christ takes on human features and acquires a particular voice. Suddenly everything changes: we can live accompanied by Someone who puts meaning, truth, and hope into our existence. The secret of the “new evangelization” lies in putting ourselves in direct and immediate contact with Jesus. Without him it is not possible to engender a new faith.
VOICE IN THE DESERT
We don’t known when or how, but one day a village priest called John gave up his temple duties, left Jerusalem and headed for the desert in search of silence and solitude – and listen to God.
In the desert, he would not hear about the Antipas’ plots and he would not be disturbed by temple noise and the shouts of the merchants and landowners of Galilee. As we read in Isaiah, the desert is the best place to open up to God and start one’s conversion. According to the prophet Hosea, God speaks to our hearts in the desert. Is it really possible for us to listen to God in the desert?
In the desert one learns to survive with the essential. There is no room for the superfluous: we hear God’s words much clearer than in the shopping malls! There isn’t time or place for complacency or self-deceit: the desert brings closer to God than any temple could.
When the voice of God reaches us in the desert, we hear it undisturbed by economic, political or religious interests, which, normally, distort everything. It is a clear and distinct voice, that speaks about what is important, and nothing about our own petty disputes, intrigues and strategies.
Normally, essential things are very few, what is strictly necessary. Such, for instance, was John’s message: “Place yourselves before God, and recognize your sin. Don’t trust your innocence. Go to the root.” Each one of us, somehow, is guilty of some of the injustices and selfishness that exist between us. Every believer has something to do with our infidelity to the Gospel.
In the desert, the critical thing is survival. Such was John the Baptist’s message or repentance and forgiveness: “Repent and turn to God”. It was a call to conversion and starting a new life without malice and indifference. Our first responsibility is our own personal transformation, before we can change others to the Gospel.
In the midst of all the agitation, noise, slogans and misinformation of the present world, who will hear the voice from the desert? Who will even try to speak about what is essential? Who will show God’s ways?