4th. Sunday of Advent B)
(2 Sam 7:1-5,
8-12, 14a, 16; Romans 16:25-7; Luke 1:26-38)
Dear
brothers and sisters in Christ, all our readings this week-end speak about what
God is going to do. David, you heard, planned to build a temple for the
Lord:
When the LORD had given King David rest from his
enemies on every side, he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am living in a
house of cedar, while the ark of God dwells in a tent!” Nathan answered the
king, “Go, do whatever you have in mind, for the LORD is with you.”
However, it
was God Who would build the temple He wanted when – in accordance with His
Providence -- the time was right. Therefore, He sent Nathan back to David
with this message:
Go, tell my servant David, ‘Thus says
the LORD: Should you build Me a house to dwell in? When your time comes
and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your heir after you, sprung
from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm. I will be a Father to
him, and he shall be a son to Me. Your kingdom and your house shall
endure forever before Me.’
In those
words there is a most important point for us to recognize and appreciate:
whatever good work we do for God is essentially dependent upon the intention
we have in mind when doing it; but even when our work and our intention are
both good, the attitude in which we do it can be of essential importance.
David was adopting a somewhat condescending attitude to God, therefore the Lord
answered him:
Should you build Me a house to dwell in?
A
comparatively faint trace, you may think, of the original pride that led to
Adam and Eve’s disregarding of God’s authority and providence; but any trace
whatsoever of that original catastrophic evil left uncorrected would quickly
sour David’s present zeal for the glory of Israel’s God and gratitude for His
goodness; therefore, the prophet was instructed to make it clear to David just
Who was leading and guiding, just Who was protecting and saving.
David
subsequently lived long enough before God to gladly look forward, in his
restored humility and hope, to the beginning of the fulfilment of the Lord’s
promise through his son Solomon who did indeed build an earthly Temple for the
Lord in Jerusalem. However, that first Temple would be destroyed by the
Babylonians after some 350 years and was not replaced until a second and
truly splendid Temple was later built by the wicked King Herod, who did produce
a wonderful structure which amazed the world in its time but was in no way
pleasing to God in so far as it had been built with the wrong intention, not
indeed for God’s glory -- as with David and Solomon before -- but for the
personal glory of Herod and the renown of his kingdom under the watchful eyes
of his imperial overlords in Rome. It was, however, the Romans who -- as
Jesus foretold -- not only destroyed, but indeed totally obliterated, that
symbol of Herod’s glory before one hundred years had passed.
And so,
God’s word by the prophet was looking over and beyond Solomon, for it envisaged
Jesus Himself Whose risen, glorious, Body would become the ultimate Temple of
God among men: a temple not built by human hands, a Temple wherein Jews and
Gentiles without distinction would have access to the Father by the one most
Holy Spirit:
The Jews said to Him, ‘What sign can
you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Destroy
this Temple and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews said,
‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will
raise it up in three days?’ But He was speaking about the Temple of His
body.
(John 2:18-21)
Consequently,
our Gospel was all about God choosing when -- in the fullness of time -- by
Whom (His own Son), and through whom (the virgin Mary of Nazareth), salvation
would ultimately be offered to the human race:
The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee
named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the
house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And coming to her, he said,
‘Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!’
But she was greatly troubled at what was said, and pondered what sort of
greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid,
Mary, for you have found favour with God. Behold, you will conceive in
your womb and bear a Son, and you shall name Him JESUS. He will be great,
and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the
throne of His father David. And He will rule over the house of Jacob
forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.’
It is God
alone Who gives salvation and works wonders. However, we are not excluded
from His purposes for we are called – in Jesus -- to share in and contribute to
His work. Although the Lord did not allow David himself to build
the Temple in Jerusalem, his desire to do so was most pleasing to Him, and
therefore He rewarded David with great blessings, the greatest of which being
that He, the Lord, would build David a house, and from that house the Messiah
Himself, Israel’s supreme King, would eventually come.
Now Mary
had always wanted to give her utmost for the God of Israel, and therefore she
had longed to devote herself completely by offering her virginity to Him.
However, such a gesture was almost inconceivable among the Jewish people who
held marriage and childbirth in such great honour, but it was the only way Mary
could think of that would give expression to her burning desire to belong
entirely to, and totally glorify, Israel’s God. Therefore, she said in
response to the angel Gabriel’s good news:
How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?
Here, as in
the case of David, her desire itself was most pleasing to God and so would be
neither disregarded nor frustrated; on the contrary, it would be most sublimely
fulfilled in the way God wanted: Mary could, indeed, remain a virgin;
notwithstanding, she would bear a child, God’s Child, the very Son of God.
We find
this pattern so often among the great saints, People of God: Francis of
Assisi longed to be a martyr for Christ, he even went to preach Christ among
the Muslims. Though God had His own plans for Francis, He did make him
great and He even gave him the signs of Jesus’ own martyrdom: the
stigmata! Again, St. Therese of Lisieux most ardently desired to become a
martyr, or else a missionary; indeed, she did not know how to satisfy her
manifold and ardent desires for God’s glory. God, however, wanted her in
the solitude of an enclosed convent where she was to serve Him with
whole-hearted love in each and every one of the minutely regulated, and very
ordinary, details of her life as a nun. For all that, He did love
and respect her ardent desires, as is shown by the fact that He had her
proclaimed as the heavenly patroness of all those living, working, and dying in
the mission fields of Mother Church today.
My dear
people, it is a fact that God alone does the work of salvation, for to Him
alone is the glory and power. Nonetheless, He wills to associate us in
the work His own dear Son accomplished in human flesh and blood, to the
extent that even the bread and wine we offer Him at daily Mass must be, and
must be declared to be, made by human hands. Moreover, God does not use
human beings like tools; for, in Jesus, we are called to co-operate with Him as
true children trying to glorify their Father, and that is the attitude
we should always have as we work to do His will for His glory; for it is
through such work that we are enabled to receive, by the Holy Spirit, a
personal share -- in Jesus -- of God’s infinite holiness and eternal
blessedness.
Since, in
the work of God, there is absolutely nothing any of us can do of ourselves,
therefore, none of us can excuse ourselves by complaining that we are less
talented than others. Whereas our natural physical powers and mental
abilities are individual and strictly limited, our spirit, on the other hand,
is capable of being tuned into the infinity of God Himself, but this can only come
about, if each and every one of us, diligently and perseveringly, exercises our
freedom -- won for us by Jesus -- to love good and reject evil.
The true
criterion for a faithful servant of God is, therefore, the nature and the depth
of that person’s desires and intentions. What do you desire most
sincerely and, ultimately, above all else? Do you, in all truth,
want to make something of your life with and for God, to serve Him faithfully
and supremely? Do you want with most sincere desire to become a true
Child of God in Jesus? If you can say “Yes” to such questions, and if you
can keep on aspiring to serve Him even though you see little of worth in your
life … if you will keep on telling God of your desire even though He never
seems to hear you, then you will indeed be used by Him for His purposes -- be
they secret or manifest -- and you will become a disciple after Jesus’ own most
sacred heart, and in Him, a true child of the heavenly Father.
Of course,
that is not easily done nor is it done in the short term, it is a life’s
work. Today people expect to see results come quickly: that is part of
the character of modern Western society; and when, in the spiritual life,
things do not seem, are not seen, to come quickly, the temptation for many is
to give up the attempt to live life religiously. The advantages resulting
from sin in the world are more easily, quickly, and intensely, experienced than
the blessings accruing to us through devotion to God and constancy in the
Faith; and consequently, though the wages of sin are ultimately pernicious,
their passing pleasures can cloud over God’s eternal and sublime blessings for
those who prefer the present delights of earthly solicitation to God’s promise
of eternal fulfilment in Jesus, as beloved children of His in heaven.
There are
other ways of succumbing to sin and the world, however, than by openly falling
away from the practise of the Faith. Some, yielding to pride, try, by
subtle or by blatant means, to make themselves appear holy, to put on for
themselves what they cannot wait to receive from God, seeking to establish a
reputation in the sight of men rather than humbly persevering before God Who
might seem to be ignoring them. Those, however, whose mind is centred on God,
though they may, at times, be made painfully aware of their own nothingness, do
not become thereby downcast or disheartened, precisely because their mind is
always occupied with desires, intentions, for His good-pleasure and glory, and
they are, consequently, always looking forward and hoping in Him rather than
despairing of themselves.
People of
God, our readings today reveal to us something of the secret of Christmas joy
and peace. Let us welcome Jesus anew into our lives this Christmas; let
us seek to serve Him humbly as King David learned to do, allowing Him to guide
and rule our lives, for St. Paul told us that God is able to strengthen us by
the gospel of Jesus Christ. Mary, our Mother, urges and encourages us to
follow the example she herself gave in our Gospel reading, when, abandoning
worries about herself and her standing before men, she explained her attitude
before God to the angel He had sent to her:
Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord! May it be done
to me according to your word.
Than that,
there is no surer way to experience the unique quality of Christian, Christmas,
joy, which comes from the divine fulfilment -- by His most Holy Spirit -- of
the sum total of our human potential; a joy that bathes us in peace while it
heals our wounds of sin and separation by our human fellowship in and for Jesus
our Brother, and by forming us as faith-committed disciples of the
heavenly Father’s only-begotten Son, sent to us and given for us who were
destined and have been called, to become, in Him, members of God’s family in
heaven.
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