Third Sunday of Advent Year B, 2023

  

(Isaiah 61: 1-2, 10-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1: 6-8, 19-28)

The great prophet Isaiah spoke most assuredly about God’s forthcoming work for the glorification of Zion and salvation in Israel, and in today’s reading he portrays one majestic figure yet to come:

I rejoice heartily in the LORD, in my God is the joy of my soul; for, like a bridegroom adorned with diadem,

Who was Isaiah foreshadowing there?  Whom did he have in mind when saying:

He has clothed me with a robe of salvation, and wrapped me in a mantle of justice.

Above all, who could he imagine to be:

            Adorned, with a diadem …

Indeed, with the diadem of the MOST HOLY SPIRIT (cf. 61:1)

Isaiah was not of course ‘imagining’ anyone, he was speaking under divine inspiration of one of whom only God could authoritatively speak, Jesus, the Beloved and Only-Begotten Son of God: incarnate, that is, clothed in, wrapped in, flesh given Him by His immaculate mother, Mary the Flower of Israel, herself adorned with jewels, that is, the privileges of her Immaculate Conception.

And the ultimate reason for all this rejoicing?  It is indeed a most sublime reason, pre-eminently worthy of such rejoicing, because it fulfils and answers both the eternally-loving purpose of Our God and Father, and mankind’s own deepest longing since being cast out of Eden and away from God’s presence:

THE LORD GOD WILL MAKE JUSTICE AND PRAISE SPRING UP BEFORE ALL THE NATIONS.

Notice, dear People of God, that PRAISE is associated with ‘justice’ essentially!!  One fully justified instinctively rejoices in the Lord, such a one cannot not-rejoice in the Lord!

And yet, when that promised Coming One -- Son of the Virgin Mother -- was about to  begin His work of making ‘justice and praise spring up’, the greatest of all the prophets, John the Baptist found himself confirming Isaiah’s prophecy by making use of much more sober language in order to reveal with all clarity a truly disconcerting reality:

I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, make straight the way of the Lord; for there is One among you Whom you do not recognize, the One coming after me, Whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.

That is the setting for our Advent preparations to welcome the Lord coming to His spouse -- Mother Church – this Christmas, to make her more recognizable as ‘a bride bedecked with jewels’.

Dear People of God, look all around you this Advent time at the great majority of Christmas celebrations and you will have no doubt about the truth of the Baptist’s words:

            There is One among you Whom you do not recognize.

Why is Jesus not recognized today by those, so many of them, who were formerly professing Catholics or Christians?  It is, to a certain extent, because many have succumbed to the lure and enticements of popular sin, or have fainted or despaired under the burden of personal and worldly cares.

There is, however, another cause for Jesus being unrecognizable for too many of our fellows, be they merely nominal Catholics or Christians or just present-day unbelievers, and that is because they have long been out of touch with, and have become unaware of and insensitive to, the real Jesus of Mother Church’s authentic teaching and apostolic traditions.

Dear Catholic People of God, as Catholics we are members of the original body established by Jesus as His Church, on the foundations of His Personally chosen and Spirit-endowed Apostles, to whom He uniquely said:

I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told YOU everything I have heard from My Father.    (John 15:15)

Moreover, He promised those original Twelve that:

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in My name — He will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you.    (John 14:26)

Those original Apostles are thus the source of Mother Church’s doctrinal teaching and traditions,  and it is absolutely necessary that those Apostolic memories of Jesus’ words --- addressed Personally and directly to them as His friends for the good of further friends to come through their ministry -- that those Apostolic traditions learned from Jesus’ very actions and attitudes, and witnessed by their own eyes and heard by their own ears, remain intact and appreciated in Mother Church today.  No one -- not even a Pope -- can sever us from Jesus’ love and guidance handed down through the ages in those Apostolic doctrines and traditions.

There are difficulties today for a faithless generation wanting to justify itself and acquire worldly popularity: it tries to confuse issues by subtly ‘updating’ certain texts of the Gospel, that is, by teaching them in accordance with modern preferences while, on the other hand, simply trying to consign to oblivion other authentic teachings that cannot be thus ‘updated’.

This is due to the fact that (as Jesus Himself said, John 14:17):

This is the Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, because He abides with you, and He will be in you.   

The world cannot receive the Spirit of Truth because it does not, will not, believe in Jesus: 

And when He (the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth) comes, He will convict the world in regard to sin, because they do not believe in Me.   (John 16:8–9)

The Apostles, on the other hand, know the Spirit of Truth, because He already abides with them as leaders of the future Catholic Church of Jesus, and will be in them individually, as faithful disciples of and witnesses to Jesus their Lord and Saviour.

The season of Advent is a time of great expectancy, when devout Catholics and Christians  look forward to the coming of the Lord; and being certain that His coming anew this Christmas will be for our blessing, let us all beseech His most Holy Spirit to prepare us to welcome Him with hearts and minds authentically attuned to Him in the Apostolic purity of Mother Church’s authentic teaching and traditions.

We are also aware that at the appointed time -- we do not know precisely when -- He will come in glory to judge the world, to triumph over all His enemies and cast out Satan; and then, after having ultimately established the Kingdom of God, He will lead all His faithful ones to worship and rejoice in, the supreme Lordship of His Father. This is what St. Paul explained when writing his first letter to his converts in Corinth:

As in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.   But each one in his own order: Christ the first-fruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming.  Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.  For, He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet; the last enemy that will be destroyed is death, for, "He has put all things under His feet."  (1 Corinthians 15:22-26)

This season of Advent is a time of joyful expectancy indeed, but it is a Christian joy, sieved, as it were, through a God-given awareness of his/her human weakness, ignorance, and personal sinfulness; it is a most-truly Christian joy: gladdening-the-heart and also humbling-the-mind of those called to become true children of God, loving Him in all and above all, as Jesus Our Saviour would have us do by the Gift of His own Most Holy Spirit.

And therefore, all true Catholics and Christians can share, take part in, with all confidence and simplicity, humility and sincerity, that blessing enshrined in Isaiah’s great oracle: 

I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my GOD IS THE JOY OF MY SOUL.