The Epiphany of Our Lord Year A 2023

 

The Epiphany of Our Lord

(Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12)

 

 This great solemnity of the Epiphany evokes the majesty, glory, and power, of the Promised One Who comes: a majesty testified to by the Father Himself speaking from heaven at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan; a glory manifested and confirmed again by the voice of the Father at His Transfiguration of Jesus on the mount; a super-abundant power and loving compassion displayed at the wedding feast of Cana where Jesus changed water into rich and copious new wine.  These signs give us unshakeable confidence that what Jesus has promised, He can and will fulfil in and for His Church, in and for you and me. 

As you heard in the Gospel reading, this humble Lord of majesty, glory, and power, is the One to Whom the heavens themselves -- nature’s primeval powers -- gave obedient witness by means of the guiding star; the One Whom the inspired prophets and the ancient scriptures had foretold would come, even disclosing the very place of His birth, Bethlehem in the land of Judah; the One recognized and worshipped by the Magi -- the first-fruits of the Gentiles -- as supreme King, Prophet, and Priest.  Yes indeed, we worshipping People of God are in tune with creation itself, and are united with our ancient fathers and with all who, throughout the ages, have humbly searched for God to the best of their abilities; and, being endowed with such a privilege, we have very, very good reason to rejoice on this most holy day.

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour does not reserve this His glory to Himself, as a right understanding of our first reading shows:

Rise up in splendour, Jerusalem (Mother Church)! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you.   See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples; but upon you the Lord shines, and over you appears His glory. Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance.

In these days of scandals, contradiction and rejection, we must never forget the truth of Isaiah’s prophecy, for Mother Church is -- even -- today supremely privileged as the spouse of Christ: for her proclamation of Jesus’ Gospel still enables whole peoples surrounded by the darkness of this world to walk safely and surely by the Holy Spirit along the way of Jesus’ teaching.

Let us consider those prophetic words a little more closely:

Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance.

Mother Church can, and does, enrich the world with her proclamation of the truth of Jesus; nevertheless, besides the light of Mother Church’s teaching, the shining radiance of her people’s lives is required that the nations may be brought to walk with confidence and joy in the footsteps of the Lord.   That means, that all of us, each and every ordinary member of the Church. has a necessary role to play in enabling her to fulfil the commission given her by the Lord Jesus to continue in our world of today the work of salvation that He started by His own life, death, and resurrection.  How are we to rise to such a calling?

Jesus once told a Samaritan woman asking Him for the water of life:

Salvation is from the Jews.

And, in that respect, St. Paul teaches (cf. Romans 2:28s):

One is not a Jew outwardly. True circumcision is not outward, in the flesh.   Rather, one is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not the letter.

Jesus went on to tell us how we can show forth the shining radiance of Mother Church:

The hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed, the Father seeks such people to worship Him.

And St. Paul again (Philippians 3:3) took up Jesus’ teaching most faithfully:

We are the true circumcision, we who worship through the Spirit of God, who boast in Christ Jesus, and do not put our confidence in flesh.

That is the only, worthy programme we can set before ourselves as disciples of Jesus in the world of today: to worship the Father in Spirit and Truth, that is, to worship the Father, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and according to the Truth of Jesus’ Good News.

The Word of God, the Good News of Jesus’ proclamation made during His time on earth and continuing in His Church through all ages and all lands, is a Word that does not return empty to God (Isaiah 55:11):

The word that goes forth from My mouth shall not return to Me void, but shall do My will, achieving the end for which I sent it.

That means, that if we hear and embrace the truth of Jesus’ Good News in sincerity -- trying to understand, wanting to love and serve Him, and thus come to knowledge of the Father Who sent Him -- that is, if we sincerely seek Jesus, then that Word, that Truth, will achieve the end for which It has been passed down for our hearing, thanks to the Spirit of Jesus at work in us: the Spirit of prayer Who supplies for our inability to pray at times, the Spirit of power Who enables us to do what is beyond our merely natural powers. 

Having found Jesus and worshipped Him in Spirit and in Truth, the Magi did not find it hard to leave without meeting Herod again.  There was, indeed, much splendour in Herod’s palace, there were many gifts awaiting  them on his tables and flattery a-plenty from his own lips and those of his courtiers, but what was that in comparison with the peace and joy they had just experienced in the cave at Bethlehem?  Could those who there had been so privileged to hear, or hear of, the angels’ chorus, ever want to hear, let alone be seduced by, the siren music of Herod’s dancers and the lascivious pleasures of scents and cushions, voluptuousness and wine?

But, as you all well know dear People of God, not all presumed members of Mother Church are like the Magi; far too many priests in our times have allowed themselves to be seduced by pleasures of the flesh, and what is yet worse, there are far too many seeking to justify such scandals by pseudo-Christian talk of love and fellowship, freedom, and joy in the Lord!

And then, delighting in such betrayal from within the Church, the world’s information media try to make sure that all young people from their earliest years hear all about such lasciviousness: hypocritically, most loudly and profusely, decried by the treacherous, and most joyfully lapped-up by the lecherous.

However, for all who have made the Magi’s trip to Bethlehem and have begun to worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth, the following words of St. Paul (Philippians 3:13s.) express all that is necessary and desirable:

Forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.

However, today, it is essential for us in Mother Church to realize just what we are meant to be fighting against … what programme of Jesus we are called to give our lives (and deaths!) to furthering.

The stark challenge of Jesus to the world of today is the same as that which He made abundantly clear to the leaders and people of the Jewish theocracy at the beginning of His public ministry: He had come to destroy sin in God’s Chosen People’s practice of their divinely-covenanted faith, and to eradicate sin from the hearts and minds of His authentic disciples by His own Good News, by the Gift of His own most Holy Spirit, and by the solemn promise of eternal life as truly adopted, and well-loved, Children of God, fit to have a place at His festive table in His heavenly Kingdom.

That challenge of Jesus is Mother Church’s commission, her work in and for the world of today.  She must seek to destroy sin in the religious, social, political, and economic world man has created, and to do that she must, first of all, seek to destroy sin in individual men, and above all in each and every one of us who profess ourselves proud to have received our Catholic inheritance.

Mother Church’s task today is not to re-convert peoples who have tasted and rejected Christianity, by making things easier, cosier, more natural (not so super-natural!), for their practice.  Her task now is to propose to all men and women of good will the glory of Jesus proclaimed by the Apostles and maintained throughout the ages by her dogmatic (rock of ages!) Tradition and her grateful and disciplined obedience. Thus may she help men and women of today to look humbly at Jesus and -- glimpsing something of His Personal goodness, beauty, and truth -- to recognize the fact of their own sinfulness by joyfully embracing the Christian hope for the peace and joy of eternal life in the Father’s heavenly home, purified by the Blood of the Lamb and renewed by the Gift of the Spirit.

As we too seek in all sincerity to keep fresh in our hearts, and hear ever-anew in our minds, Mother Church’s proclamation of the Word of God, may that leading-light draw us to worship Jesus whole-heartedly as the Father expects of each of us personally; and may we gradually discover  our true selves by being gradually trans-formed into a unique likeness of the Son, by the Holy Spirit, as a personal gift for the Father of us all.

 

  

 

Mary, Mother of God 2022

 

Mary, Mother of God (2022)

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Who appreciates Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus the Son-of-God-made-flesh, today?  Very few, indeed, because so many in today’s world love, seek, and delight in pleasure, sex, and even promiscuity in so far as it makes absolutely clear their own individuality, their law-less individuality and independence, their freedom to be what they want to be!   And that, of course, implies doing what they want to do in so far as the society they choose to dwell in can stomach it.

But, notice dear People of God for whom and to whom I am now writing, those last few words: ‘to be what they want, and to do what they want’, can be seen as pre-eminently characteristic of Mary, Mother of God and our mother in God!!

And yet, how different the results of those characteristics in the worldlings I first mentioned, who will end up sick in themselves, sick of themselves, and ‘spewed out of the land’ (cf. Leviticus 18:28) and kingdom of God; whereas in Mary, we find a beautifully human luminary, second only to her beloved Son, in God’s heavenly constellation of beauty, goodness, and truth.

How has our world come to so misunderstand the wonder that was and is Mary, the mother of Jesus?

The reason is because Mary is and always has been, regarded in Mother Church’s teaching as the touchstone for our right understanding of Jesus Himself: and so many today do not appreciate Mary aright because they have not understood Mother Church’s teaching about Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, Who is, she tells us, both Perfect God and Perfect Man.

‘Perfect Man’ means that Mary’s Son was an infant, a little boy, before He became a youth and ultimately attained manhood.  Joseph would have guided the youngster into manhood, but the formative years of infancy and childhood were Mary’s domain to whom the Child had been given from conception: Mary taught Jesus the fundamentals of human life and living!  She had been chosen to teach Him as man for His heavenly Father.

Mary was sublimely wise in her understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures, which are now our Old Testament, writings inspired by God to teach the children of Israel how to become children of God.   But Mary was specially endowed by the Spirit of God to become the mother of the Father’s Word and thus give Him flesh and blood to become perfect Man; consequently, Mary understood the Spiritual truths of Israel’s Scriptures as no other before or after her Son Himself, and she gradually taught her Son in His early years precisely what God had wanted Israel to learn … and even more, because words, even the words of Scripture, can never convey the fullness and beauty of God’s intent, and Mary listened for and to God better than any prophet or priest.

Even in full manhood Jesus could still be taught … about the perfection of  human sympathy and understanding befitting God’s perfect Man … by His human mother inspired by the Spirit of His heavenly Father as we learn from the marriage feast at Cana. 

Jesus had just started out on His public mission after having been baptized by John in the Jordan, and then tempted in the Judean desert by Satan.  He had come to the wedding with several chosen disciples when His mother told Him of their hosts’ dilemma … and her words were not just information, they contained a request, however hidden.   But Jesus, thus recently endowed and proclaimed by His Father for His divine vocation, was initially inclined to act instinctively as a young man most zealous to fulfil the mission entrusted to Him by His Father.  He was not going to be told how or when to use His divine power for simply human purposes! 

Mary however, guided by the Spirit within her and backed-up, so to speak, by the heavenly Father, completed her request in such a way as to give Jesus the opportunity to embrace what was ultimately His Father’s will: that Jesus at the very beginning of His ministry, be fully manifested as the One called to bring ultimate joy and fulfilment for all who would love God and each other.   That ‘initial manifestation’ of a fulness both divine and human that was to come only after His death and Resurrection was, by the Father’s good pleasure, Mary’s maternal blessing for her Son’s future career as our Saviour, our Glory, and our great Joy.

Jesus would always treasure and protect His Father’s wishes for Him above all; friends and relatives might interrupt ‘Your mother and your brothers are wanting to see you’ but Jesus’ answer was henceforth always as fully-grown Man, ‘these who do God’s will and are now listening to My words are my mother and my brothers’.   And Mary would never again put herself forward.  But men and women of today’s truly adulterous generation (Jesus’ words!) must never forget Jesus’ ultimate commendation of His mother to all His true disciples:

                 BEHOLD, YOUR MOTHER!

Respect, love, and treasure her if you would be My true disciple!

 

 

 

 

Christmas: Mass during the day, 2022

 

CHRISTMAS: MASS DURING THE DAY, 2022

(Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-6; John 1:1-18)

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 Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, today is special, even in this country which no longer believes the Christian faith.  Why is Christmas so very special for us who do believe, who are believing and practicing Catholics and Christians? 

Of course, the supreme reason why Christmas is so special to us is that at Christmas we celebrate the birth -- as man born of the Virgin Mary of Nazareth – of God’s heavenly, only-begotten, Son: born, not of man, but by the power and grace of God’s most Holy Spirit, so that His mother, Mary of Nazareth, at His conception, in His birth was, and subsequently, throughout her life, remained, always a true virgin: the mother of a beautiful Child Who was the most sublime Gift of God.

This absolutely unique Child was perfect God and perfect man, and yet there was for Him, in His human being, a problem: one not recognized early on, but there, nevertheless, at the very centre of His being and gradually-developing consciousness, a question for Himself to solve: who is My father??

His mother always referred to St. Joseph as His father, and St. Joseph always behaved as such: loving, protecting, guiding and teaching the young Jesus through His teens and early manhood.  Jesus saw, He knew, that Mary and Joseph were one for Him, and He loved them both with all His heart, but while Mary was undoubtedly His mother, just as He was her child, the boy Jesus could not quite say that Joseph was His father; because He had an awareness, deep in His being, that God --- the God to Whom He Himself, together with Mary and Joseph, and all Israel, prayed, the God Who had made the whole of beautiful creation where, in which, He lived and played, with which worked as ‘the carpenter’s son’ --- yes, indeed, God Himself, sometimes seemed to say something to Him; something that touched Him so very, very, deeply, something that led Him to think that GOD was the  only One Whom He could fully, most humbly and gratefully, call Father.  

It all came to a surprising head when Joseph, Mary, and Jesus went on their annual pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem.  Jesus was about 12 years old and He was so very impressed by the Temple worship He witnessed and took part in, by the words about God and the Scriptures that He heard from the priests, scribes, and holy people He met there, that He entirely forgot to turn up for the caravan preparing to leave for home, the caravan which, consequently, left without Him: Mary and Joseph having thought that He, Jesus, was with other young people excitedly running hither and thither, helping here and there, as they slowly moved off.

Jesus was, as I said, engrossed with what He witnessed and heard in the Temple and its precincts; but He was even more aware of and engrossed by a far deeper awareness of the One speaking in His inmost being: speaking so secretly, so meaningfully, and so very purposefully, that three days passed by before Mary and Joseph eventually found Him in the Temple precincts still listening, questioning and, occasionally, speaking about God.

As you will remember, Mary reproved her Son with the words:

Son, why have You treated us this way?  Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You!

Those words of Mary were suddenly determinative for Jesus, Who quite deliberately, calmly, and yet so very decisively said:

Why is it that you were looking for Me?  Did you not know that I must be in MY FATHER’S house?     (Luke 2: 48-49)

Mary and Joseph did not understand of course, but they all left together,  with the young Son now being led by that mysterious inner voice as well as – for the present – by the voices of His mother and presumed father, whom He obediently lived with, worked with, and loved in their home at Nazareth.

Mary treasured all these things in her heart for things were never quite the same again: her Son was manifestly growing in wisdom before and, more and more, with God; and also in His standing among local people gradually becoming aware of Jesus’ secret ‘something’.

The decisive moment came when Jesus was near 30 years old.  Still living in Nazareth and working as the son of the carpenter, He heard about His cousin John the Baptist’s work and pondered in His mind and heart on how God seemed to be working with John in that work.  Jesus’ pondering was, however, more listening than thinking; and His listening for that inner voice was always accompanied by His Own prayerful response to, and longing for, Him Whom Jesus now recognized exclusively as ‘My Father’, (cfr. Mt: 23:9):

Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven.

After years of reading and learning as He searched the Scriptures for whatever they could tell Him of His Father in heaven; after years of humbly obeying and fitting-in-with the events of His ordinary life and duties in Nazareth; after years of prayerful longing for communion with His hidden Father; Jesus was in no doubt whatsoever when His Father, the Voice in the depths of His own Being, ultimately spoke to Him!

Jesus immediately left Nazareth and went to where John was baptizing in the Jordan in Judea!  Jesus went to meet, hear, respond to His Father now guiding Him to John the Baptist!!

And there, following His guiding voice, Jesus humbly joined the penitents asking for John’s baptism, and finally, coming up from the waters of the Jordan, He heard His Father’s voice from a cloud, and saw the Holy Spirit like a dove come down upon Him (Luke 3:21–22):

After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened and the holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.”

And there, dear People of God, we have the fulness of meaning for Jesus’ birth as the God-given Child of Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth: He comes to be our Saviour, our Redeemer from sin, and to be our Inspiration, showing us the best way to live the new life He has won for us as children of God, seeking to know, love, and serve their heavenly Father to the utmost:

You shall seek the LORD, your God; and you shall indeed find Him when you search after Him with your whole heart and your whole soul.   (Deuteronomy 4:29)

Were those the very words Jesus Himself first took to heart when He began searching and praying to answer that basic question of His Being in human flesh:

          Who is My Father?

 

 

           

 

 

4th Sunday of Advent Year A 2022

 

 Fourth Sunday of Advent (A)

(Isaiah 7:10-14; Romans 1:1-7; St. Matthew 1:18-24)

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you know very well the Gospel account of Mary’s  conception and the birth of Jesus, of Joseph’s loving and protective care for them both, and of the Magi bearing gifts; so perhaps we may today profitably give closer attention to the reason ‘why’ Jesus came among us, as distinct from the manner of His coming.

The simple fact is, that the Son of God became Jesus our Redeemer, out of love for His heavenly Father; He became One of us in order to save us from the fault incurred by Adam and Eve, a stain of the Devil that soiled what the Father had originally esteemed and loved as good – a stain now known as SIN -- which is in us ourselves and, inevitably, in aspects of our social structures,  and which, being the Devil’s spawn,  is always and implacably, actively against us as children of God.

Let us first of all try to appreciate that fact, Jesus did not come as some pagan-type of imaginary deity working miracles, making stupendous changes of whatever sort in human political and social life.  As the Word and Son of God He became Man out of sheer love for His Father, Whose love for the mankind He had originally made in His own image and likeness still endured despite the fact that both Adam and Eve had abused that ‘God-given likeness and freedom of choice’ by sinning.  The Son of  God willed to become a most humble and helpless human-child – Jesus, born of the virgin Mary of Nazareth -- simply and solely to rejoice His Father, by freeing us from the shackles and consequences of the devil’s deception and offering us the opportunity to become wholeheartedly loving and obedient, children of God anew.

Being free to live here on earth for our authentic human fulfilment, and thereby find  eternal happiness, is the supreme Gift Jesus offers and wants to give to each and every one of us this Christmas.  And an ever-greater appreciation of that prospect of freedom and fulfilment is the HOPE we treasure during our Advent preparation and the JOY we embrace and express throughout our Christmas worship and Christian celebrations with our children, friends, and neighbours.

Throughout the whole of the Old Testament period God had been gradually teaching and preparing His Chosen People to recognize and acknowledge sin in their own lives.  If we recall the original sin of Adam and Eve, when God confronted Adam about his part in it, Adam said, ‘It was the woman who gave me the apple to eat’; and when God confronted Eve, she said, ‘It was the serpent who deceived me’.  Neither of them was willing to accept personal fault, and that attitude became characteristic for their descendants to this very day.   The Mosaic Law was given to God’s Chosen People to warn them how to recognize and avoid occasions of sin; and Israel’s glorious prophets were sent to show the beauty and goodness of the God Who was calling them to a better understanding of human life as God had originally intended it: a life rejoicing in His love and delighting in His creation.

Ultimately God sent His only-begotten Son to complete the work as yet only initiated  through His gift of the Mosaic Law and the Prophets of Israel, a work, a purpose, which had floundered for many years in the Chosen People until the coming of John the Baptist.  John was, Jesus said, the greatest of the prophets; and John recognized himself as having been sent to prepare for, and even point out, the Messiah of Israel, Who would proclaim His Good News of eternal life, and bestow His Gift of the Holy Spirit of God.

However, as in God’s Chosen People of old, there is, a literally devilish resistance to God’s work in today’s world; and the fact, the spiritual reality, of SIN – manifesting itself especially as personal pride and ignorance, lust, hatred and indifference -- which Jesus came to destroy, is largely ignored and even hypocritically denied by society as a whole today. 

It is increasingly recognized that a human being can suffer much from unsatisfactory relationships with other human beings in the social set-ups at work, at home, and at play; and for such sufferers, helpers called ‘counsellors’ are increasingly provided with ‘promotional’ qualifications, so to speak.   But there is no public recognition of human relations with God!  All so-called personality or psychological sicknesses are exclusively referred to those ‘qualified’ counsellors who, as such, profess no spiritual awareness, no aspirations to holiness of life, nor are they given any authentic training in Christian spirituality.  Anyone feeling ‘unsourced’ guilt  sin is just to be told that it is all a matter of psychological crossed-wires or of the ‘genes and juices’ of human physicality.

You however, Jesus’ Chosen People of God, can recognise not only the sin of the world, but also the sins (at least some of them) we all commit personally, and you are well aware of  sin’s baleful, and ever-so-subtle, influence on your daily experience of living life to the full.  When Our Blessed Lord humbled Himself to the utmost before His crucifixion by accepting the full weight of human sinfulness upon Himself, He sweated so profusely that it was as though drops of blood were ‘watering’ the Garden around His kneeling or prostrate figure.

The fact that Jesus comes expressly to take away such a load from us by offering us, in Himself, peace of heart and soul through our restored relationship with God, is the reason why we, as Christians, are so filled with JOY at Christmas!

And in all this monumental campaign against sin, Jesus did not come seeking to accuse anyone, but simply to save one and all!

He came to begin His Father-given task as a child, so beautiful, so helpless and needy, and,  for Mary, so adorable!!  And He ended that task by dying on the Cross -- hated by many who were powerful and ambitious -- for love of us, with absolutely no recriminations.  So, throughout the whole of His life on earth, Jesus sought not to personally accuse but to embrace and save all who were and are willing to hear and respond to the first words and very essence of His Gospel: 

This is the time of fulfilment; the Kingdom of God is at hand; Repent and  Believe the Good News. 

‘Repent’ means turn away from sin, and in order to do that it is necessary to ‘believe’, that is turn towards, aspire to, Jesus’ Gospel or Good News of salvation, offering freedom from the power of sin.  We can appreciate how unique Jesus’ message and offer was if we think that men’s thirst for revenge -- so prevalent in radical groups all over the world --  is a deliberate rejection of and refusal to accept an absolutely essential part of Jesus’ Good News, namely that we must forgive ‘those who trespass against us’ if we want to have part with Him and gain freedom from the dominating power of sin in our lives.

Sin is incontestably manifest not only in the ‘older’ world around us but most sadly,  in the world and lives of even young people, where pride manifests itself so often in a distaste for what is ordinary, and their subsequent desire for excitement to lift them out of the ‘ordinary’ so easily leads them on to criminality and violence, excessive drink, sexual abuse, and drug-addiction. 

 Jesus’ offer of freedom from sin means His lifting from our shoulders all such burdens by His gifts of peace, hope, mutual love and self-respect, all of which are fruits of Jesus’ self-sacrifice and God’s grace in our lives.  Such fruits are redolent with the blood of Jesus and the incense of His Most Holy Spirit, and they cannot in any way be compared with, or imitated by, the political pseudo-blessings bequeathed to us by the  inglorious and bloody French Revolution, though expressed by purely rational ideals of liberty, fraternity. and equality, which convey no God-given grace able to raise us up above our native earthly sinfulness, and which are always themselves subject to changing human interpretations and aspirations.

For us, however, we have Jesus’ own chosen words to make clear for us the purpose of His coming among us:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me: He has anointed Me to bring glad tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.  (Luke 4:18)

He is the Anointed One, sent, come, to bring the Good News of the Gospel proclaiming His offer of liberty, freedom, for all presently held captive by their own sinfulness and spiritually benighted by the darkness and evil in the world around them.

How well Saint Paul understood and expressed our human situation

I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 7:23–25)

And the final book of the Bible, in tune with St. Paul, joyfully proclaims:

I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have salvation and power come, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed.   (Those who fear Your Name) have conquered (the Devil) by the blood of the Lamb.  Therefore, rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them.”   (Revelation 12:10–12)

Dear faithful People of God, your rejoicing at this Holy Mass should indicate that you already ‘dwell in the heavens’: only initially, it is true, but the way before you is level, smooth and inviting, and God’s goodness will guide along it to your full calling and ultimate fulfilment as a beloved son or daughter of the Father of us all.

Let us prepare to celebrate Jesus’ coming with, by the help of, Mary who knows supremely well , as our Mother, how best to help us co-operate with God’s Most Holy     Spirit in learning how to become ever-more true disciples of her Son in giving sincere and heart-felt thanks to God the Father, the Giver of all that is good.

3rd Sunday of Advent Year A 2022

 

3^rd. Sunday of Advent (A)

(Isaiah 35:1-6, 10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11)

 

It has often been said that too many Catholics know little of the Bible because of their failure to appreciate the fact that not only do the Scriptures form the basis of our Christian faith and Catholic teaching, but also that the Scriptures are the Word of God to and for each and every individual child of God.  Consequently, even the humblest of Catholics and Christians should be able to establish, sustain, and gradually deepen a personal relationship with God by the help of the Scriptures: for what we find written there can – under the guidance of the Spirit given us -- be of special significance and particular importance for our personal formation as a child of God and disciple of Jesus in a secular and hostile society. 

Let me now show you how Jesus recalled the Scriptures to John the Baptist in his prison, thereby helping him learn how to face up to the future that lay before him.

John had been told by his father Zechariah:

You, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the forgiveness of their sins.  (Luke 1:76-77)

And John had, indeed, tried throughout his life to be faithful to that calling to prepare the way for the Lord Who was to come.  From his earliest years he had lived in the desert seeking not food so much as the opportunity to learn and live the ways of God: ever striving to listen for, recognize, and respond to, His guidance.  Then having entered upon his public ministry, he had preached repentance to the people, who had come in crowds to be baptized by him in the Jordan.  Finally, having publicly rebuked the king himself for his sinful behaviour, he had been put in the dungeon where he now found himself. 

However, despite such fidelity, John had not yet come to know sufficiently well the Lord Whose way he had been preparing, the Messiah sent by Israel’s God to usher in the Kingdom of God.  There had been a time when he thought that Jesus of Nazareth, his own relation, might be the One sent by God; but Jesus had certainly not rallied the mass of the people around Himself as John might have hoped; and now -- perhaps because of his weariness from hunger, pain, and lonely abandonment -- John didn’t know what to think.  It was in some such a state of mind that he had managed to send a message to Jesus saying:

Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?

Jesus well knew John's faithfulness and courage; He knew full well that John was in danger because of his zeal for the Law of the Lord and the well-being of God's People. Was He -- Who later would tell the repentant thief dying on a cross beside Him, that he would, that very day, enter Paradise with Himself -- now going to let John, the greatest of all the prophets, just linger on in prison, unsure and worrysome of the outcome and value of his life’s endeavour, while awaiting a violent and degrading death in lonely isolation?  By no means!  Jesus would, indeed, send help: He would speak to John – who was, He declared,  more than a prophet -- through the words of the prophets so well known to him .

Accordingly He sent John's disciples back to their master with a reference to Scripture which they could easily remember and in which John would find the comfort and strength he needed, if, fully trusting in Jesus, he could open his mind and heart to the grace of the Spirit Who had inspired God’s Word:

Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: the blind see, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.  And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.

As John considered those words the cloud of dark-unknowing in his mind and the burden of anxiety in his heart would have begun to lift; for those words showed that Jesus was, indeed, taking over from John; and that, as the promised Messiah, He was now preparing to usher in the Kingdom of God! 

The eyes of the blind were being opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;  the  lame were walking, and the tongues of the dumb were singing praise to God.

But those other words of Jesus:

The poor have the Good News – beginning with John’s very own word of proclamation ‘Repent’) -- preached to them;

were even more personally relevant to John.

It was the very last few words, however, that invited, nay, they lovingly warned, John to stand firm in his faith in God, and with confidence in his own calling by God, in order to  embrace the fulfilment of that calling now about to be asked of him:

Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me!

Words exhorting John to take courage from yet another prophecy of Isaiah:

Make your alliance with the LORD of hosts— for Him be your fear and your awe!  He shall (indeed) be a snare, an obstacle and a stumbling stone to Israel,  a trap and a snare to those who dwell in Jerusalem; and many among them shall stumble and fall, broken, snared, and captured.    (8:13-15)

People of God, note carefully, for here we can trace how grace works, secretly and powerfully, upon those in tune with God:  Jesus was offering John a glimpse of the ultimate fulfilment of his own life’s work and Israel’s calling.  As Moses had been given just a distant glimpse of the Promised Land before he died, here John is likewise being given a glimpse of the full majesty and beauty of the One Whose way he -- foremost of the prophets of Israel -- had been called to prepare: God’s Anointed, the Messiah of Israel, indeed; yet, still more, even the very Lord of Hosts Himself.

Jesus was doing for John what He would later do for the repentant thief: that is, urging, encouraging, him to gird up his loins and lift up his head in hope for what was soon to come.

That was indeed the message which none but Jesus could get through to John in his total isolation, a message carried by the Scriptures but only to be interpreted by John's life-long sensitivity to God’s ways, and sovereign willingness to once again commit himself, in response to the grace of the Spirit, to Jesus the Messiah, and to the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel.  John had prepared the way for Jesus, Jesus was now preparing the way for John; preparing him to die as he had lived, the greatest of all Israel's prophets. 

And so, when the soldiers would come to cut off John’s head, they would not find him cowering from fear in the darkest recess of his dungeon cell; but, having confirmed his alliance with the Lord of Hosts, they would discover John having  a profound joy in his heart and a gleam of expectancy in his eyes, with a new uprightness in his stance and a calm strength in his bearing.  All of this would show those executioners that they were not so much taking his life from him, as he, John, was offering it -- through them indeed! -- to Someone they could not see and did not know.

Such was indeed the case: they came, quickly and secretly, they carried out their dread task, and went back to Herod with John's head.  However, they left that dungeon both humbled and puzzled.  What had happened to the man imprisoned there?  They had come to take his life and he had received them as welcome guests, as friends bringing him a gift: what, indeed, had happened in that cell?  The answer was, of course, that John had come to realize that he had, indeed, fulfilled his life’s purpose: he had borne witness to God’s truth; he had pointed out, even baptized, God’s Messiah; and now -- having learnt his ultimate lesson through the words of Jesus and the Scriptures -- he had found the peace and been given the strength to seal his witness and crown his commitment to God in Jesus with his very blood.   

People of God, how will you experience the end of your days?  Will you feel you have fulfilled your life’s mission?  Will you be grateful to God for having guided you to do something worthwhile with your life?

Let us listen to Jesus again as He spoke to the people about John:

What did you go out into the wilderness to see?  A prophet?  Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet.  For this is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You.'  Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist.

Dear friends in Christ, dear People of God, surely, when we come to our end and look back on our life, we want to humbly acknowledge the righteous judge sent by our loving God and Father, and embrace His presence with gratitude, humility and confident trust as did John?  Surely, none of us can ever envisage ourselves as painfully realizing that our life has been aimless, having pursued no saving purpose nor served any worthwhile cause.  In other words, none of us can ever willingly allow ourselves to be recognized as having been a reed, shaken hither and thither by winds of circumstance?  Who would ever want to risk, in those final moments, seeing oneself and being seen as one having enjoyed being “dressed in soft clothing” and having enjoyed the "good things of life"?

John the Baptist had fulfilled his life’s mission, and great joy, peace and gratitude were his at the end.  You might say, of course, that anyone called to be great -- like a prophet -- would feel they had a mission in life, a purpose to fulfil, and a cause to serve, but such is not the case with ordinary people not endowed with any special talents that they are aware of.  

Listen then to Jesus for a final time, and learn about yourself:

Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Dear fellow disciples of Jesus,  whatever the circumstances, all of us can -- in the power of the Spirit -- bear witness to Jesus: by teaching, encouraging, and correcting your children; by showing honesty in business and speaking the truth in love; all of us can be charitable in our attitudes and chaste in our relationships, steadfast in faith, selfless in service of God and neighbour; all of us can sympathetically share with the humble and those in need, and try to bear our own cross patiently with and for Christ.  Above all, as true children of Mother Church, each and every one of us can, through her teaching and sacraments, come to love our heavenly Father to the utmost of our being in Jesus, by the Holy Spirit.

Dear People of God, you are important enough to God for Him to want to speak to you, to speak with you, personally, in and through the teaching of the Scriptures and Mother Church, and above all by the example of the life, death, resurrection, and the  perennial presence and fruit  of Jesus Himself.  Let Him do this, beg Him thus lead you to fulfil your vocation in Mother Church, and true happiness here on earth and ultimate blessedness in heaven will be yours.

(2022)