3rd Sunday of Advent Year B 2020

 

 3^rd. Sunday of Advent (B)

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

 

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The great prophet Isaiah spoke most assuredly about God’s coming work of salvation in Israel, and in today’s reading he tells of figures yet to come:

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 was Isaiah foreshadowing there?  Who would be able to speak like that?  Surely, only Our Lord Jesus Christ, speaking of His humanity.

Isaiah then went on:

            Like a bride bedecked with her jewels.

He speaks there of Mary of Nazareth, bedecked with the blessings 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 loving purpose of Our God, and mankind’s 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.

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 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 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 like ‘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 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 Jesus of Mother Church’s teaching and tradition.

Dear Catholic People of God, as Catholics we 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 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 witnessed by their own eyes and heard by their own ears, remain intact and appreciated in Mother Church today.  No one -- not even 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 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 already 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 Our Lord and Saviour; 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:

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

Behold, the Lord God will come with might; behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him.

And therefore, even now this very day, all true disciples of Jesus 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.

 

3rd Sunday of Advent Year B 2020

 

2^nd. Sunday of Advent (B)                  

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

 

 

John came baptizing in the Jordan and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins to those members of God’s Chosen People who were sufficiently religious and humble to want to hear him.   This was his message:

One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of His sandals. I have baptized you with water; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets of Israel -- indeed, as Jesus said, the greatest of all those born of woman -- was sent to immediately precede Jesus and personally introduce Him to His People, and John fulfilled that commission by proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, Saviour, and the One who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.  And that, People of God, is what makes us Christians and Catholics: the fact that, having believed in and been baptized into Jesus, we have received from Him the gift of His Holy Spirit.  It is the Holy Spirit within us Who subsequently enables us to cry out to God, “Abba”, “Father”.  The true Christian is one who already shares, in some measure even here on earth, the life of the Most Holy Trinity; because the true Catholic is, through faith and baptism, a living member of the Body of Christ, the Son of God; and, being in Jesus, the faithful soul is moved by the Holy Spirit of Jesus to recognize and cry out as a child to God the Father.

John the Baptist was brief and to the point, in a few words giving us the essential characteristic of the coming Messiah Whom he, John, would point out:

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

The person of John the Baptist is no longer with us, but his call still resounds.  He was given the privilege of preparing God’s People for the coming of the Saviour by the God Who never repents of His gifts; so, though John no longer pours water from the Jordan over those coming to hear him, nevertheless his words remain valid for all time as the only preparation whereby we can fittingly receive the Lord into our lives, “Repent”:

John (the) Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

And Jesus Himself, on beginning His public ministry, took up John’s call for repentance in His very first words, as St. Mark tells us (1:14-15):

After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfilment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Now, there are many who regard that call to repentance proclaimed in Mother Church today as over the top and excessive: there is, they say, a danger of making ourselves paranoid by constantly looking for sin, for fault, for guilt, in all aspects of our lives?  Should not our lives as Catholics and Christians rather be a manifestation of joy in the Lord?

Yes, there can be a danger of becoming paranoid in an ill-advised and ‘over-the-top’ search for sin in ones’ life, and we have heard of some such cases from the past.  Nevertheless, paranoia is no true fruit of authentic Catholic teaching or practice, nor does the possible danger of ill-advised and excessive attempts at spiritual purification in any way condone, let alone require us, to tolerate sin in our lives, for sin is the most certain evil, and the most harmful influence, in our lives.  Again, it is true, that our lives should bespeak our joy in the Lord, but such witness is not one that can be ‘put on’ in a clap-happy, pumped-up, display of emotionalism.

For the authentic Christian understanding and practice of repentance, we need to look closely, very closely, to our readings today in order to appreciate Mother Church’s teaching in this matter.   What was it that John the Baptist said?  What did Isaiah proclaim? 

John said ‘repent’ first; and then, to Andrew and another of his disciples, ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ just as Jesus was passing by.

That is the composite nature of conversion: first turn from sin, then turn to the Lord.

Turn from sin, try to correct the ravages it has caused in your life; which is what Isaiah proclaimed in those words:

A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!  Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!   Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; the rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley.

Such indeed is the first requirement of repentance in our lives, turn away from sin in all sincerity; and do that in order to turn to the Lord:

Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all mankind shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.   

Were would-be-Catholics to simply apply themselves to turning from sin without turning to the Lord, then, that could lead to paranoia.  Were they, on the other hand, to simply proclaim the glory of the Lord without any serious endeavour to reject and avoid sin, such praise would be hypocritical, not what ‘the mouth of the Lord has spoken’.  The prophecy of Isaiah is one, entire, and whole:

In the desert prepare the way of the Lord … make it straight, level, and plain … then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Notice too, People of God, that Isaiah’s prophecy provides us with a sure way to test the quality of our repentance: is the glory of the Lord being revealed to you?  Do you, as you grow older, see and admire in Jesus more and more of the glory, that is, of the beauty, the goodness, the truth, and the wisdom, of God?  Do you, as the years pass by, become ever more grateful to the Father for His goodness in calling and guiding you to Jesus?  Do you find yourself gradually more willing to trust Him completely, to trust Him alone?  Do you aspire, more and more, to know, love, and serve Him with your whole being?  If you can say “Yes” to questions such as those then, indeed, you are both sincerely repenting, and truly seeking the face of the Lord; and, moreover, I could confidently say that the glory of the Lord is, indeed, being gradually revealed to you and in you.

But what if -- as the years go by, when you seriously look at yourself and sincerely question yourself before God -- you recognize that you are thinking less and less of Jesus because you are increasingly absorbed in worldly interests and aspirations; that you are more and more preoccupied by cares about money and people’s opinions or attitudes in your regard, and less and less attentive to God speaking through your conscience or drawing upon your heart-strings?  Do you feel yourself obliged to respond in kind for every little benefit you receive from others, a Christmas card for a Christmas card, an invitation by an invitation, a gift for a gift, and yet never think that you owe a debt of gratitude to God for all the many blessings He has bestowed on you throughout Hyour life?  Are you gradually becoming tolerant of failings you are aware of -- you might like to call them ‘mere peccadillos’ -- in your daily living?

All these things are quite possible where Christian people are found no longer looking to God, for God, but looking at others, and looking after themselves.

People of God, let us briefly recall all three of our Scripture readings today: first of all we heard the prophecy of Isaiah made over 2500 years ago; then, in the Gospel, John the Baptist more than fulfilled that prophetic desire by preparing the way for the coming of the Lord  Who would baptize in the Holy Spirit; and we also heard  St. Peter telling us that that Holy Spirit of Jesus is at work in us today preparing us for the ultimate and glorious manifestation of Our Lord; and assuring us most emphatically that many intervening years should in no way dishearten us, for:

With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.

Therefore, no matter what might be the state we find ourselves in at this moment, advent is the season when we are urged by Mother Church to aspire once again to welcome Jesus into our lives to renew them: that His truth might enlighten us, His love inspire us, and the Gift of His most Holy Spirit might protect, guide, and sustain us along His way to the Father.   Time is irrelevant to God, it of this world, not of His heavenly Kingdom, our future home.  What is essential for us, therefore, is that here and now, we have the will to prayerfully aspire to the blessings He prepares for us, and the humility and fortitude to forget our self-solicitude, and by our daily prayer and Christian experience, learn to rejoice as He gradually makes them real for us.

Dear People of God, may your Advent preparations and Christmas celebration thus lead you to fulfil, in all things and at all times, St. Peter’s injunction:

Waiting for the coming of (Our Lord and) God, you ought to be (found) conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion; eager to be found at peace, without spot or blemish before Him.

                       

 

 

 

 

 

1st Sunday of Advent Year B 2020

 

1^st. Sunday of Advent (B) 2020

(Isaiah 63:16-17, 19b, 64:2-7; 1^st. Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:33-37)

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I give thanks to my God that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Be watchful, be alert, you do not know when the lord of the house is coming”.

Those two snippets are the essential of our readings from St. Paul and then Our Blessed Lord’s Gospel message.   And our last four Sunday Gospel readings have been warnings and/or exhortations of a very similar sort.

Now that is no criticism of Our Lord’s words, for His proclamation of divine wisdom for our salvation was done over a period of time, relatively short of course, but to many different individuals, in a Jewish society ‘stratified’ between radicals and traditionals, between the vociferous with plenty of time for trouble and the disinterested with no time for anything but just living, between the humble – the unique fruit of generations of right living in covenant with the God of Israel -- and the self-seeking career servers,  all of them with differing hopes and expectations, fears and agendas, and in circumstances of constant flux.

No, dear People I am rather wondering what was in Mother Church’s mind – so to speak – when choosing today’s readings for our Sunday celebration. One might possibly say that I am wondering what individual ‘bright spark’ decided on today’s readings after the series of readings we have been having from St. Matthew’s Gospel for the last four Sundays.  Any such thoughts, however, would have been nothing more than the somewhat irreverent expression of a preacher’s frustration at being faced with several basically similar texts and wanting to make his sermon in some measure both spiritually instructive and interesting. 

However, Mother Church is usually able to find and call upon God-guided disciples of her Lord and Saviour, individually unknown and unpraised, to save her rightful reputation of wisdom in her choice of liturgical texts: texts manifesting both divine (the Scriptures) and human (her Latin hymns and saintly commentaries) wisdom and beauty.  And we can see that today with the reading given us from the prophet Isaiah which serves to most providentially to guide us into an appropriate appreciation of both today’s Gospel passage and second reading:

             You, LORD, are our father, our redeemer You are named forever.

Why do You let us wander, O LORD, from Your ways

and harden our hearts so that we fear You not?

Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down.

Would that we were mindful of You in our ways!

Behold, You are angry, and we are sinful;

all our good deeds are like polluted rags;

There is none who calls upon Your name, who rouses himself to cling to You, for You have hidden Your face from us and delivered us up to our guilt.

Yet, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay and You the potter:

we are all the work of Your hands.

There we have our Christmas longing contained in Isaiah’s words, ‘Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down’: but isn’t the context changed?

‘We are sinful; all our good deeds are like polluted rags‘: could all our rightly praised workers and carers say that of themselves?  Can we say that of ourselves?  And yet that is infallibly true in so far as Isaiah’s subsequent words are also true:

There is none who calls upon Your name, who rouses himself to cling to You.

Do you demur?  But didn’t Jesus Himself most solemnly declare (John 16:8):

When He (the Holy Spirit) comes He will convict the world in regard to sin, because they do not believe in Me.

Oh yes, Dear People of God, those words of Isaiah are so pertinent for our appropriate longing, praying, for Jesus’ coming to us this Christmas; and how they have confirmed in my eyes the divine wisdom of Mother Church in her liturgy.  Our liturgical inheritance is a gift transcending time, a gift not ‘coffined-in’ to present events and current attitudes-and-expectations.  Isaiah was a prophet for his times and ours: he interpreted for Israel the ‘signs of the times’.  Today we do not have much guidance, help, for God’s People about ‘panvirussing-sin’ and our world’s -- and Mother Church’s -- present sufferings and distress. Is there any connection?  Mother Church does, at times, tell governments how better to govern and mostly they reject or ignore what they consider to be her ‘interference’; but she is presently saying very little about what is her own unique ‘business’: our Christian and Catholic understanding of the supremely significant event of our times.

This Advent we centre our hearts and minds on Jesus’ coming among us at Christmas .... not just the original one in Bethlehem .... but on the 25th. December 2020!  What is our attitude to be?

Preparing, with the world, to have as good a meaning-less-celebration as possible?  Or, in refreshed awareness of our spiritual state, to long whole-heartedly for Jesus to come as our whole LIFE, our only HOPE, and our eternal SALVATION.

Come, Lord Jesus, we need You, come, Lord Jesus, our unbelieving world needs You!  And in such need, may St. Paul’s words provide us with a modicum of present consolation and hope that only You Yourself can fulfil in Your Coming:

As you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, He (God the Father) will keep you firm to the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus (Christ).

God is faithful, and by Him you were called to fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.