3rd. Sunday of
Advent (B)
(Isaiah
61:1-2, 10-11; 1st. Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28)
Advent is a time of expectation … what are we to look for, what should
we prepare ourselves to expect?
On reading today’s Gospel I was somewhat surprised at St. John’s version
of the words between John the Baptist and the priests and Levites from
Jerusalem. John does not present the Baptist reported by all three of the Synoptic Gospels who tell of him saying that though he himself baptized with water, the One to come would baptize
with the Holy Spirit, and also -- according to Matthew and Luke -- with fire.
Now the cause of this omission is not something I want to discuss here,
but the result of it might be of significant help for us today, since,
undoubtedly, the mention of the Holy Spirit connotes supreme, sublime, power,
while that of fire confirms that impression of power and colours it, so to
speak, with one of threat. John’s
Gospel, on the other hand, simply reports the Baptist as saying:
I baptize with water;
but there is One among you Whom you do not recognize, the One Who is coming
after me, Whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.
There we have it: just pure expectation … indeed, tantalizing
expectation because the expected One is already present, among them at that
very moment -- someone wonderfully holy -- and yet, they are not seeing
Him! Why?
Here, Mother Church in her Spirit-gifted wisdom comes to direct our
Advent expectancy, for she sets before us a most beautiful passage from the
prophet Isaiah:
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, and to
announce a year of favour from the LORD and a day of vindication by our God.
According to that, we are expecting One the Lord has endowed with His
Spirit to bring glad tidings to the lowly, bestow healing, restore liberty and
grant freedom: all favours from the Lord in vindication of His people. No threatening mention of supreme power, nor
one of destructive -- though purging -- fire …. Just Someone wonderful, coming
peaceably, and bringing with Him so much that is totally desirable and
longed-for in those days and in our present state.
Now notice what joy, gladness, and blessing results for the recipients
of His gifts:
All who see
them shall acknowledge them as a race the LORD has blessed. I rejoice
heartily in the LORD, in my God is the joy of my soul; For He has clothed me
with a robe of salvation, and wrapped me in a mantle of justice, Like a
bridegroom adorned with a diadem, like a bride bedecked with her jewels. As
the earth brings forth its plants, and a garden makes its growth spring up, so
will the Lord GOD make justice and praise spring up before all the nations.
And how wondrously did Isaiah, having begun with the many:
All who see them shall acknowledge them as a race the LORD has blessed
continue with words referring to but one … a woman most beautiful … as
if he knew, prophetically, that only Mary, the Immaculate Maid of Nazareth,
would be able to fully receive and possess all those blessings from the Lord. For all that, however, since she is one of
us, she represents us, and all faithful disciples of Jesus do indeed receive
their measure of His blessings. Of that,
Mother Church assures us with her choice of the second reading taken from St.
Paul’s exhortation to his converts in Thessali:
Rejoice always;
pray without ceasing; in all circumstances give thanks. May the God of peace make you perfectly holy:
(for He) the One Who calls you is faithful and He will also accomplish it.
I believe all of us will wholeheartedly agree that Mary, our Mother, is
indeed rejoicing in the Lord as depicted by Isaiah and in accord with all our
readings today; but the question is, does she indeed represent us therein, does our experience of the Christian faith
and of life in the world today cause us similar heartfelt rejoicing as befits
Mary’s true children?
Without doubt, it did and does bring
such joy and happiness to God’s saints and Mother Church’s most committed
members; again, it can bring and does offer such joy and happiness to all faithful disciples of Jesus
and sincere members of the Church. But
why, indeed, do we come across so many lapsed or lapsing Catholics, hear so
often of Christians, who are unsure disciples of Jesus, or dissatisfied with
their experience of faithful living?
We should look again at Isaiah’s reading today, for he rightly foresaw
and portrayed the great glory and abounding goodness and generosity of the One
to come; however, he also was prophetically endowed and enabled to appreciate
that only a unique individual -- the Immaculate Mary of Nazareth -- would allow
the Lord to freely bestow on her all those heavenly blessings. What then, hinders so many Catholics and
Christians, from being faithful enough, willing enough, open enough, hungry and
empty enough, to follow in the steps of our Mother, the handmaid of the Lord?
Let me just give you
a short passage from a recent book about the experiences of one journeying in
the Caucasus (the area of Grozny in Chechnya) where there are lots of Christian
sects to be found:
Before going to church, Sergei explained how he
would call on those in the community whom he thought he might have offended. He
would ask their forgiveness. It took
time but he didn’t mind because he loved to talk and he was able to go to
church happy. “It’s difficult in those
services because they’re so long. They
go on and on, for hours! You stand and stand
and you can hardly go on standing. But
then afterwards you come home and you feel not just clean in your soul but in
your body as well and you’re all dressed up and your wife looks beautiful and
everything else looks beautiful too.”
In our modern,
affluent, Western society many do not experience their own Church-going as did
Sergei: they seem to find regular Sunday observance a burden, even when they do
not find it also a bore. Perhaps the
difference is at least partly due to the fact that Sergei made “going to
Church” something special: it involved
being at peace with others, and required that he take greater care with his
dress for the honour of God. Many
members of our Western culture, on the other hand, having their minds filled
with money matters and the many varied opportunities available to them for
their enjoyment of it, easily find themselves not even noticing harm done to
others in the general struggle for success; and, thinking that they are doing
God a favour by attending Church on Sunday, would scoff at the very idea of
what they would call “dressing up” to come before His Presence.
Now, that is not something
I want to enter into here, but there can be no doubt that the joy and peace
Sergei experienced after Church on Sunday was, as I said, in some way related
to his efforts to make that day special; and that is in perfect accord with a
dictum of St. John of the Cross: ‘where there is no love put love and you will
find love’.
Yes, People of God,
during Advent the true disciple not only hopes
for future joy, but can even aspire to experience,
here and now, something of that joy which is described by the prophet Isaiah.
However, John the
Baptist, giving clear testimony to the Lord, used words that express precisely
why many contemporary Catholics find too little joy in their religious
observance:
There is One among
you Whom you do not recognize, the One who is coming after me, Whose sandal
strap I am not worthy to untie.
John’s words: “there
is One among you Whom you do not recognize” are, sadly, still too true for many
Catholics and Christians, although in a manner somewhat different from that
intended by John. John was saying to the
crowds on the banks of the Jordan, where he was immersing penitents in the
waters flowing by, that they did not know, were not aware of, could not recognize,
the Holy One standing in their midst.
Most Catholics and Christians today, however, do know, are aware of,
Jesus, in that sense. Where they fail in
knowledge of the Lord however, is in the fact that they have no personal
relationship with Him: their minds know of Him, but their hearts are not
attuned to Him, nor are their lives lived with Him or for Him. Their knowledge of the Lord in their midst is
merely objective, not personal.
Now, it is indeed
necessary to know the truth of and about Jesus, because any relationship with
Him has to be based upon reality open to our minds, which is why Mother Church
insists that her catechetical, scriptural, and dogmatic teaching be based on
accurate scholarship, backed up by philosophical and scientific truth, and
exemplified by authentic Catholic and Christian spirituality. Such true teaching about the reality of
faith, however, is meant to enable us to aspire and attain to personal contact
and living communion with the Lord, in and through the Scriptures and
sacraments of Mother Church and the intimacy of personal prayer; for only such
sincerity and commitment can lead to real love for, and joyful fulfilment in,
the Lord Jesus.
In our modern
sophisticated social structure, money and education are readily available, and
consequently we are inclined to self-satisfaction; and, having no real, basic
needs of a material kind, we easily imagine that we have no spiritual needs
either. Because our experience of the
world seems to offer everything for relatively easy taking, many are unwilling
to make efforts to satisfy spiritual needs of which they are almost
unaware. Therefore they do not search
for Jesus: their Bible is rarely opened, let alone studied; their reception of
Holy Communion is routine and perfunctory; and since the house of God is no
house of prayer for them, Jesus is left in splendid isolation in the
tabernacle. It is because of such things that the divine truth in the Church’s
teaching, and the heavenly grace available through her sacraments, bring forth
but little fruit in the lives of many.
However, it is lack of personal prayer that is the most fundamental
failing in most nominally Christian and Catholic lives, and St. Matthew, quoting Isaiah
, gives us the reason:
Gross is the
heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed
their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and
understand with their heart and be converted, and I heal them.
Gross, coarse, are the hearts of too many to hear the Lord speaking with
them, whether He be seeking to guide and encourage, or admonishing and warning
them. For a society where normality it too often considered boring and excess
routinely craved; where joy is inconceivable without pleasure and peace
unbearable without excitement; there is little opportunity for the voice of the
Lord to make itself heard, perhaps even less possibility that He will be
appreciated or understood. Too little good soil
into which the divine seed can fall and take root; no humble mind or longing
heart where divine love can take hold and flower.
People of God, seek
Jesus more and more; Advent is a time for joy, peace, and hope. His promises are true and His coming is at
hand; it is we ourselves we must indeed attend to but not despair of, because
He comes with gifts to offer: not to those imagining themselves worthy to
receive them, but to those aware of their need, and wanting and willing to
accept them: wanting and willing to turn away from themselves and embrace Him
on His terms, willing to forget self and to serve God and their neighbour.
Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.
In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in
Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. Refrain from every kind of evil.
He Who is to come shall come; He will not
delay. But my just one shall live by
faith, and if he draws back I take no pleasure in him. (Hebrews 10:37-38)
