3rd Sunday of Advent Year B 2017

 3^rd. Sunday of Advent (B)

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

 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.

Who can speak like that?  Only the Christ, speaking of His humanity,

Like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem,

and the blessed Virgin Mother referring to her Immaculate Conception:

like a bride bedecked with her jewels.

The book of Revelation (19:7) gives us another viewpoint:

Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him (God) glory, for the wedding day of the Lamb has come, His bride (humankind) has made herself ready.

And the reason for all this our Advent rejoicing is because, as the prophet Isaiah tells us:

          The Lord God will make justice and praise spring up before all the nations.

However, the greatest of all the prophets who was uniquely close to our Blessed Lord Jesus on the very cusp of Israel’s fulfilment, found himself confirming Isaiah’s prophecy by making use of more sober language in order to reveal with all clarity a truly disconcerting reality:

I am not the Christ; 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 Who is coming after me, Whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.

That, dear People of God, is the setting for our Advent preparations to welcome the Lord coming to His spouse, Mother Church, like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem:

            There is One among you Whom you do not recognize.

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 to too many modern self-styled believers, and that is because they are out of touch, unaware of and insensitive to the authentic Traditions of Mother Church … they are ‘undoctrinal’ believers, being entirely given over to and satisfied by the emotional feelings and convictions welling up from their just-me-and-Jesus-here-and-now drive, enthusiastically accompanied by others who much prefer to feel rather than to think about Jesus; who prefer to demonstrate publicly rather than to privately pray to God in the solitude of their hearts, or to consider calmly with other good Catholic friends, or (most unacceptable of all) to humbly seek enlightenment.   They make use of the Bible of course but interpret it popularly for themselves, as they will, as they want, here and now.

Dear Catholic People of God, we Catholics are the original Christians, members of the original body established by Jesus as His Church on the foundations of His Personally chosen and 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:

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

There are difficulties today for a faithless generation wanting to justify itself and confirm its worldly popularity: it tries to confuse issues by subtly ‘updating’ texts, by teaching in accordance with modern preferences while, on the other hand, simply trying to consign to oblivion what 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 now abides with them as the future Catholic (universal) Church of Jesus, and will be in them, individually, as faithful disciples of and witnesses to Jesus their Lord, their Master and their Saviour.

The season of Advent is a time of great expectancy, because we are looking forward to the coming of the Lord; and, being certain that His coming anew this Christmas will be for our blessing, we 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 teaching and traditions.

We are also aware that at the appointed time -- we do not know 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 the great Greek seaport of Corinth (1 Corinthians 15:22-26):

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." 

This season of Advent is, consequently, a time of joyful expectancy, because the true disciple of Jesus, although being fully aware of his human weakness and personal sinfulness, nevertheless, most assuredly hopes and trusts that, ultimately, he will be called to share in His Lord’s heavenly glory and experience eternal blessedness in His Kingdom, for Isaiah (40:10) rightly spoke of the Lord God coming to His People with an abundance of blessings:

Here comes with power the Lord GOD, Who rules by His strong arm; here is His reward with Him, His recompense before Him;

and therefore, even now, all true disciples of Jesus can take up in all simplicity, humility, and sincerity the blessing, the  reward and recompense, of rejoicing enshrined in Isaiah’s great prophecy: 

I rejoice heartily in the LORD, in my God is the joy of my soul.

                                                                                                                              (

2nd Sunday of Advent Year B 2017

 2^nd. Sunday of Advent (B)

(Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; 2^nd. Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8)

           

There is one thing, my friends, that you must never forget: that with God ‘a

day’ can mean a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day.

God is infinite, He is not subject to time; and so, the admonition contained in this morning’s reading from St. Peter recalls to our minds that John the Baptist’s preparing the way for Jesus around 28 AD., yes, and even the first reading from the prophet Isaiah which was first heard about 540 BC., are still as relevant as they were then: they tell us how, in this Advent time, to prepare to welcome the God Who is coming, coming into our lives to transform them, if we will allow Him.

‘If we will allow Him’, yes, Jesus’ message to mankind, His Gospel proclamation, is an address, even an appeal, to our freedom.  The time will come when He will be revealed as Judge and then, we will have no say in the matter, we will be judged according to our works; for the present, however, we are offered a choice, we can opt for good or for evil.  If we choose evil, or, let us put it in St. Paul’s language, if our choice of preference is for the flesh – all the sensible joys and pleasures offered to us by this world – if we deny our need for, our dependence upon, God and prefer to trust in the strength of our own right hand so to speak and the cleverness of our mind, we shall, St. Paul warns us, choose corruption and death, with all that they bring of pain and bitterness.  Make such decisions for pleasure and power in youth, comfort and profit in middle age, with immediately-to-hand advantages always being in view, and it will become a habit you cannot break, not even as those pleasures become daily more insipid and short lived, and the desired advantages prove ever more illusory; ultimately, indeed, it can become a habit so ingrained that there is neither pleasure nor advantage, or anything of that sort left to be tasted, nothing but unsatisfied self, thwarted sensuality, and bitter pride.  And the terrible danger, dear People of God, is that, having been destined for eternity before God, our denial of such a destiny will be no mere peccadillo but a deliberate anti-life option, and could indeed, even become a positive choice of death and corruption in a self-destructive fury of frustration and pride.

That is why the option for good is characterized as salvation: it is God saving us from ourselves, saving us from the powers of destruction which allure us on every hand with their seeming sweetness and deceptive promises.

Our Catholic and Christian Advent season is a time for truth about ourselves and about God, a time for sizing life up in all its aspects, for listening to and recognizing the deepest needs and aspirations of our being, it is also a time for youthfulness of spirit, looking forward in hope and opting for life in all its fulness, eternal life, in the conviction that by God’s goodness to us in Jesus we can attain it.

Advent is a time for divine truth, for listening to the voice which, as the Gospel said ‘cries in the wilderness’, a ‘still small voice’ that whispers in the depths of our hearts as we wander in the wilderness of youthful experience, a voice which urges us to give the Lord Jesus a chance in our lives, to prepare a way for Him, to make His paths straight, that He might come to us, enter into our lives, as King and Saviour; every valley of despair is to be filled in with confidence, trust, and hope in the Lord Whose Spirit  guides and sustains His People in all circumstances; no matter how difficult, painful, or shameful they may be.

Advent is a time for truth about ourselves, for every mountain and hill of pride and self-conceit to be laid low, for there can be no peace, no true fellowship or love, in the heart of a proud and conceited person centred on self-first-and-foremost, and every cliff of precipitous anger and violence must become a plain where justice, patience and peace rule, allowing the ridges of anxiety to become a valley of trust and contentment.

However, such blessings, desirable and admirable as they are, are not ends in themselves, for Christianity does not offer us merely a happier, but still earthly, life; it offers the truly authentic fulness of humanity where death no longer overshadows all, indeed, it promises that:

The glory of God shall be revealed (for us and in us), and all mankind shall see it.

Christianity offers the prospect of eternal blessedness and glory in God, thus making Advent a time of supreme hope, giving us a sense of belonging and significance in creation, and among our fellows of being endowed with a supremely beautiful, transcendent purpose: the opportunity of being a channel, an instrument, an influence for good which is able to face up to and overcome the forces of evil that wreak so much havoc in our physical world and human society today; and above all, Advent offers us the supreme joy of personal communion with, and eternal fulfilment in, the all-holy God Who is our Father, our Saviour and our Brother, and our most intimate Spirit of holiness and truth,  God’s Gift to guide and sustain us in the darkest depths and details of our life and being.

People of God, Isaiah tells us that:

            The time of service (slavery) is ended.

We need no longer have to endure being pushed around, hither and thither, by our fears and passions, by every passing emotion that froths up in the unending disturbances of life.  We can learn this Advent to appreciate and mould ourselves to the responsorial psalm we heard today:

I will hear what the Lord God has to say, a voice that speaks of peace, peace for His people.  His help is near for those who fear Him, and His glory will dwell in our land.

His help is near, indeed very near for those who experience time under the guidance and inspiration of Mother Church’s Liturgy.  For us here today, Jesus is about to come among us as we offer His sacrifice at Holy Mass, He will come into our very hearts as we offer ourselves with Him and receive Holy Communion.   What welcome will we give Him?  Not only our own lives depend on the answer to that question but the well-being of our modern world is likewise in the balance.  Welcome Him, every one of you, with all the sincerity of your joyful heart and trusting mind.

First Sunday of Advent Year B 2017

1^st. Sunday of Advent (B)

(Isaiah 63:16-17, 19b; 64:1, 3-8; 1^st. Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:33-37) 

Our reading from the prophet Isaiah on this, the first Sunday of the Advent season, is a direct preparation for what is the supreme teaching of the Gospel and the ultimate realization and fulfilment of the purpose for which Jesus the Christ came among us as man: namely, the revelation of God as Father, and the re-birth by the Holy Spirit, of Jesus’ faithful disciples as living members of His Mystical Body and adopted children of the heavenly Father.

In our first reading Isaiah referred to God three times as Father, twice in the following verse:

You are our Father.  Were Abraham not to know us, nor Israel to acknowledge us, You, LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer you are named from of old.  

Isaiah was very conscious and equally proud of the fact that God was a Father to Israel; yet, what did he mean by that word ‘Father’? 

Let us now turn our attention to the Law, to the book of Deuteronomy, source of the fountain which supported and inspired Isaiah, and there we read:

Of the Rock Who begot you, you are unmindful, and have forgotten the God Who fathered you.    (Deuteronomy 32:18)

Then it continues in the name of the Lord (32: 21, 28):

They have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God, but I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation; they are a nation void of counsel.

So, though the word ‘father’ is used, and even backed-up by the words ‘begot’ and ‘fathered’, nevertheless they are all used metaphorically, since it is all about the birth, that is, the calling, formation, and establishment of a nation from those who had previously been wandering desert tribespeople and latterly a persecuted minority of slaves in Egypt.  That is why when for the third time the word ‘father’ is used in our reading from Isaiah we hear:

O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay and You the potter: we are all the work of Your hands.
  

Obviously, Isaiah did not realize the full significance of the word ‘father’; and though he said: ‘You are our Father, our Redeemer you are named forever’, he showed more precisely what he meant with the word ‘father’ in the words that followed: ‘You are our Father, our potter’.   So we have it: the prophet himself was not, and could not be, fully aware of the meaning and sublime significance of the word he was being led to use when calling God the Father of Israel.

Nevertheless, as St. Paul said to his Christian converts at Corinth in our second reading:

God is faithful, by Whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yes, God in His faithfulness guided His Chosen People over hundreds, indeed thousands, of years – surely that is one of the deepest reasons for our loving and trusting Him – and, having thus gradually formed Israel as a nation, He latterly encouraged them through His prophets, Isaiah above all, to refer to Himself by a word they could not as yet, fully appreciate. He then further guided His People and gradually formed their history so that those words of prophecy and traditional faith were finally shown to be true in the sublime beauty of their fullest meaning and significance when He brought about through Mary of Nazareth, the Flower of Israel, the birth in time of His only begotten and eternally beloved Son, as Son of Man, Jesus of Nazareth, for mankind’s salvation.

Yes, God sent His co-equal Son in fulfilment of the words of the prophet to save His People and all mankind from Satan’s power of sin and death.  Through faith in, baptism into, and obedience to Jesus -- the Son of God become our Brother -- we are enabled by the Gift of His Holy Spirit to become living members of the Unique Body of which Jesus is both Lord and Head, and in Him to become children of the One, true God and Father of us all.  That, dear People of God, is why you heard St. Paul exclaim in the second reading:

I give thanks to my God always on your account for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus.

As we are now entering upon a new Church year, it is not only right and proper, but surely also most helpful and beneficial, for us to be aware of the ultimate goal of our life in Jesus under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which is, that we should truly become children of the Father. Moreover, it is not only Jesus and the Holy Spirit who are at work in us, leading us to the Father; no, the Father Himself comes to us, as Jesus promised:

          If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and           We will come to him and make Our home with him. (John 14:23)

The Father Himself, therefore, comes with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, to abide with us and make us His children in Jesus, and this He does in a way that is unique to Him, that is, by showing Himself to be the most perfect Father to us.

The Father can contact us -- if we will hear and listen -- because He, our Creating Father, speaks to us in the very centre of our being;  good parents share this ability, although only to a limited extent, which is why certain words and attitudes of our parents can remain with us throughout life.  However, since our creating Father is able to address us through unspoken words uttered in the depths of our personality, and because, in our early years we had not yet learned to recognize His traces, early experiences of such communication seem to originate within ourselves and to be, unaccountably, ours: mysterious longings and desires, sudden lights and quiet convictions, protecting fears and simple assurance, all can seem to be very much a part of us because they come from the centre of our being; nevertheless, because they are, in fact, communications from the as yet unknown-to-us-Father, they remain inexplicable to us. The Father’s addressing us as His adopted children in Jesus only becomes intelligible to us by our walking in the ways of Jesus and thus beginning to share in His infinitely sensitive awareness of and responsiveness to His Father’s abiding Presence and loving Providence.  When many apparently unrelated events and diverse incidents come to be seen and recognized as connected and coherent parts of one embracing Providential care protecting us from our own sinfulness and weakness; when parents and teachers, friends and personal talents, come to be understood as aspects of the Father’s Providence guiding us out of our native ignorance towards truth and fulfilment; and when the past gradually takes on an overarching shape that gives meaning and purpose, hope and expectation, to our life, then the Father’s now loved-and-appreciated Presence is able to reveal Itself to us in glimpses reflecting the beauty of His truth in the Scriptures and the splendour of His grace in Mother Church, where greater certitude arises from presence rather than proof, and deeper knowledge from experience rather than investigation.  Then, indeed, amazement stuns our mind, while love inflames our heart and restores our soul.
 

In ways such as these the Father can speak to us in any situation and throughout the whole extent of our life.  No earthly father or mother, no lover, no friend, can speak so intimately or be present to us in such a way; because He is the God who originally made us in His Own likeness for Himself.

Yet, much more than that; for He would be our All not only in our origins, but also in the end and ultimate justification of our being, because He wants to be for us the perfect Father, such a Father Whom only Jesus can reveal to us, for Whom only the Spirit can form us, and Whose Presence we can encounter only as living members of the mystical Body of Christ, our Brother and our Head.  He is indeed, and wills to be known by each one of us personally, as our sublime Father Who is always there, with us, in us, closer to us even than we are to ourselves; the Father Who gives us to Jesus and Who, in Jesus, forms us for Himself by the Spirit.

If we bear in mind that, in the Catholic and patristic tradition, the Son and the Holy Spirit have been spoken of, figuratively, as the hands of the Father, we are now in a position to understand the true significance of Isaiah’s words:

O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay and You the potter: we are all the work of Your hands.

Understanding the significance of Isaiah’s words and realizing that they were pronounced hundreds of years before Jesus, we are also in a position to appreciate not only the loving providence and sublime wisdom of our God, but also the fact that, as the most perfect of Fathers, He has indeed loved us before we were born, and continues to love us in such a way and to such an extent that, in return, we most surely can commit ourselves to His infinite wisdom and goodness wherever life may lead us or death o’ertake us, ever beseeching the Holy Spirit to inflame and inspire us in Jesus to echo, in perfect harmony, His sublimely Filial love, thanks, and praise to His Father and our Father.