Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 24, 2023

Listening to and accepting God’s plans for me

Luke 1:26–38

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary.

And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.

“He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

“And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Music Meditations

• “Holy Is His Name” (composed by John Michael Talbot) [YouTube]
• “Mary Did You Know?” (sung by Anthem Lights) [YouTube]
• Night of Silence/Silent Night (St Olaf Choir Minnesota)

Opening Prayer

From the prayer from the liturgy for the Fourth Sunday of Advent:

In the psalms of David
in the words of the prophets
In the dreams of Joseph,
your promise is spoken, eternal God,
and takes flesh at last
In the womb of the Virgin.
May Emmanuel find welcome in our hearts.
take flesh in our lives, and be for all peoples
the welcome advent of redemption and grace.
We ask this through him whose coming is certain
whose Day draws near:
your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit
One God, for ever and ever.

Companions for the Journey

Adapted from a sermon N.G. delivered at Stanford’s University Public Worship in 2008 (with a little help from Walter Burghardt, S.J.):

Can it be that Christmas is almost upon us? Where did Advent go? It seems that Christmas comes while we are busy doing other things: baking cookies to leave on people’s doorsteps, writing cards, shopping—mostly online these days, trimming trees, creating a sense of nostalgia about what Christmas ought to be but can’t be this year this year (and maybe never was…). And becoming a family happens, too, often while we are not paying attention: while we are trying to decide how to adapt our Christmas traditions to ones that are safe, or attending the kindergartner’s Christmas Sing via zoom, or patching up boo-boo’s or listening to our pre-teen talk about how mean the other kids are. That’s how family happens. That’s how becoming a family happens except most of the time we are not thinking about it, we are simply going about the business of living and loving. And a marriage happens that way and also divorce it seems, while we do the dishes or do lunch or make love or make money, or hang drapes or hang lives—or don’t do any of those things. That’s when and how marriages happen and how divorces happen, and sometimes we don’t even know it.. Life is what happens when we are making other plans.

It is also true that that is the way God happens—as we go about doing other things. Look at Luke’s story of a Hebrew maiden in Galilee: As she swept the floor or washed clothes or baked bread, (somehow I don’t think she spent her days praying at a pri dieu while servants did the heavy lifting), as she busied herself about the task of putting together the pieces of her future, into the midst of her dreaming and planning for her new life comes God disguised as an angel (which is almost always how God comes—in disguise—and turns her future upside down.

When I was young, I believed that Mary serenely acquiesced to what was being asked of her—she had no fears, no doubts; after all, she was being given the great honor of carrying God. Who could say no to that? Well, a closer reading of this gospel passage Has Luke portraying Mary as unsettled and perplexed by this unannounced visit. Catholic tradition has had much to say about the confusion and hesitation that Mary experiences when the angel first makes its announcement. (”She was much perplexed and pondered what sort of greeting this might be… ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’”)

As a result, Christian artists have tended to focus on Mary’s surprise at the moment the angel approaches her. In many Renaissance Annunciations, Mary holds up her hand, palm outward, as if to tell the angel to slow down; in Botticelli’s sublime Cestello Annunciation—probably my favorite painting of all time—Mary’s knees buckle and her eyes drift closed, as if she is about to faint. In a Donatello sculpture from about 1430, Mary’s body twists away from the angel even as she turns her face toward him. In an even more dramatic Ghiberti relief from 1407, the Virgin holds up an arm protectively, as if she expects the angel to strike her. A Memling Annunciation from the 1480’s, like Botticelli’s, portrays a fainting Virgin; however, in this one, she has a couple of smaller angels conveniently at hand to help keep her steady.

One more look at the passage shows that “she was greatly troubled” at Gabriel’s announcement. And “she pondered what sort of greeting this might be.” The angel quickly has to reassure her, “do not be afraid.” How could she not be afraid? In her tiny village, where everyone knows everyone else and many people are related to one another, everyone knows that she and the man who is already her legal husband have not yet begun to live together. And all of them can count to nine. What will they say about her, what kinds of nasty looks will they cast her way when her precious child is born too soon?

The angel did not lay out a blueprint for Mary—telling her in great detail what the scenario would be. So the key words here are not obedience, but courage and trust. It is the same for us. At least in my life, no angel appeared at my graduation from a tiny women’s college in New Haven with a little outline mapping out future events. Life unfolded, day by day, year by year, crisis by crisis and joy by joy, until this very moment, when the road ahead is still not any too clear. There are still options to be weighed, choices to be made, and where the spirit will lead I, personally, do not have a clue. As I look back, I see that often I had to trust in God when the way was murky or painful, I had to have the courage to make difficult choices when an easier way presented itself. Sometimes I had that courage, and other times, unlike Mary, I hedged my bets, choosing a safer route.

The bottom line is this: when God called Mary, when God asks you and me: “Will you?”, he reveals very little: the basic call, the bare bones. His invitation does not include a vita, a biography, a script; and so it calls for an unbelievable faith, trust beyond imagining, your hand in God’s. He does not promise a rose garden. He only promises that whatever the garden, Eden or Gethsemane, He will be there, faithful through all your infidelities.

Given the open-ended nature of the request, given the fact that Mary lived in a society where unmarried women who fetched up pregnant were often stoned, given the fact that She and Joseph did not make this decision together (I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that first discussion between the two of them), it is almost unbelievable that she responded that way the Luke says she did. “Be it done unto me according to your word”

Mary lived out that “yes” through the hardship of eking out a living in a land beset with political and economic woes, through the normal problems and joys of being a parent, through witnessing the difficulties of her son’s unpredictable career. She lived out that “yes” as she stood at the foot of the cross one terrible Friday afternoon, as she huddled in fear with the remnant of Jesus’ followers in that upper room after he died, as she went wherever life and the early church community took her. Her yes had to be said once, and repeated in her heart over and over. She, actually, was Jesus’ first disciple. According to St Augustine, DOING THE WILL OF JESUS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BEING THE MOTHER OF JESUS. So it was with Mary herself.

So it is with us. Through the changes and adjustments, through wonderment and success, through sorrow and loss, through uncertainty, and often failure, we learn that doing the will of Jesus is easy when it is what we want, less so when it is something we do not choose to have happen. “Be it done according to your word” is harder to say when God’s word and my wishes don’t always line up perfectly. We are asked to give birth to the word of God in our everyday lives. The question: Will you follow me? Will you bring the Word of God into a broken and troubled world?

Saying yes, or “let it be” will change our lives, break our hearts, and move us closer to the Kingdom of God’s love.

That is how God happens.

Further reflection:

• Reflections for the 4th Sunday of Advent from “First Impressions” >>

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Let it be done to me according to your word

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• What are some real-life attention-getters that we sometimes do not recognize as a visitation of the Holy Spirit?
• When have you most felt favored by God?
• Has your life turned out exactly as you have planned it?
  Is that good or bad?
• Who reveals to you the mysterious presence of God in human flesh?
• When have you experienced God dwelling with you in difficult circumstances?
• Is God asking you to do or agree to something that seems impossible?
  Has it happened in the past?
  What was your answer?
  What will it be now?
• When has doing God’s will been easy?
  When has it been hard?
• In what sense am I available to God’s spirit in me?
  What holds me back? (Fears, prejudices, greed, need to control the results; need for success, jealousy, resentments, excessive self-doubts, perfectionism (Mother Teresa: “Jesus did not call us to be perfect, He called us to be faithful”), sheer laziness)
  What holds me back?
• To which people in my life have I been anointed to bring glad tidings?
  What are those messages?
• How do I deal with sudden changes in my life?
  What is my first reaction?
  How do I adjust to those changes?
  Can I imagine Mary going through the same process?
• Doing the will of Jesus is more important than being the mother of Jesus. In my own life, it might be easier to do God's will when it is what I want, less so when is something I did not want to have happen. Doing the will of God is easier when it is something we want to do or expected to do anyway. Doing the will of God is much harder when it takes us out of our comfort zone. But when God happens in all part of our lives, our job is to say yes, not as an act of a blind faith, but as an act of the will. How did Mary deal with the unknown? How do we?
• When God called Mary, when God asks you and me: “Will you?”, he reveals very little: the basic call, the bare bones. His invitation does not include a vita, a biography, a script; and so it calls for an unbelievable faith, trust beyond imagining, our hand in God’s. Was this situation much easier for Mary than it would be for us?
  Why or why not?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination:

A young girl, sheltered, waiting in Galilee, waiting for her life to begin. She is a virgin, untouched, still almost a child. Waiting. A marriage is planned for some time in the future. A contract has been made, a formal betrothal. He is older, stable, kind. They will never be rich; he is only a carpenter, after all. But life will be predictable, safe. Joseph will care for her. Until then, she works at home, and dreams of the future. Life will be good. She knows that.

Gradually, she is aware of wind, a slight noise, something is in the room with her. “Hello, Mary.” She hears her name on the merest breath of a sound. And with that greeting, her life changes forever.

Can you imagine that conversation between Mary and her parents? How does she explain things to Joseph? In her tiny village, where everyone knows everyone else and many people are related to one another, everyone knows that she and the man who is already her legal husband have not yet begun to live together. But all of them can count to nine. What will they say about her, what kinds of nasty looks will they cast her way when her precious child is born too soon? What makes her decide to visit her cousin Elizabeth so far away? What is the trip like? How does Elizabeth greet her? Does Mary’s response surprise you?

Go over the words of the Magnificat and savor the way in which Mary feels God’s presence in her life and in the world. Open yourself up to whatever God is calling you to this day. Contemplate how God is present to you, when, like Mary, you don’t get what you want, but get, instead, what God wants for you. Practice acceptance. Practice faith. Practice hope.

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

This meditation is based on the events just after the Annunciation in the gospel of Luke; the visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth:

It is striking that Mary, newly pregnant, hurries to the side of her cousin Elizabeth, to offer companionship and whatever help Elizabeth might need. Henry Nouwen said:

I find the meeting of these two women very moving, because Elizabeth and Mary came together and allowed each other to wait. Mary’s visit made Elizabeth aware of what she was waiting for. The child leapt for joy in her. Mary affirmed Elizabeth’s waiting. And then Elizabeth said to Mary: “Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.” And Mary responded: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” These two women created space for each other to wait. They affirmed for each other that something was happening worth waiting for. Here we see a model for the Christian community. It is a community of support, celebration, and affirmation in which we can life up what has already begun in us. The visit of Elizabeth and Mary is one of the Bible’s most beautiful expressions of what it means to form community, to be together, gathered around a promise, affirming what is happening among us.

—Henri Nouwen, The Path of Waiting, p 23-24

Have you ever looked upon marriage, upon friendship and community as a way to wait together for what is to come? Sometimes all that is needed when someone is troubled or frightened is to be present, to sit with another in his or her sadness or fear and simply to be there for that person. However, there are times when we get so wrapped up in our own obligations, busyness or problems that we miss the cues that tell us we are needed. Have you ever known anyone who just seemed to come alive in the service to others? Did that person’s energy inspire you to exert yourself a little more? Is there a friend or someone in your family you can count on when you need companionship, especially while you are in transitional moments of your life? Do you count God or any of the saints as companions in such times? Speak to Jesus about your need for him in good times and in bad.

Poetic Reflection:

A discussion on the poem “Annunciation” by the late Stanford Professor Denise Levertov, adapted from Poetry Magazine:

Levertov asks us to slow down, to take a second look, to ponder for a moment what this eternal moment was like for Mary. Levertov invites us to notice. To notice Mary and her courage, her willing consent, her freedom offered to the glory of God. And as we do this, Levertov asks us one more thing: to take seriously that we might also experience an annunciation. Not just like this, of course, and yet something like this. Certainly, as she says, there have been other annunciations, some, where the recipient accepts openly; some happen where the recipient accepts in a sullen spirit, still others, where there have been outright refusals. And this observation both heightens the beauty, boldness, and courage of Mary’s response as well as invites us to wonder if we might do the same. Invites, us, indeed, to do the same: to be open to the movement of God, to receive with courage and joy, mingled of course with a holy terror at the presence of God, and in this way to participate in the movement of the Spirit:

“Annunciation”

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished, 
almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.
God waited.

She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.

---

Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from

in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

---

She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child–but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power–
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love–

but who was God.

This was the moment no one speaks of,
when she could still refuse.

A breath unbreathed,
Spirit,
suspended,
waiting.

---

She did not cry, ‘I cannot. I am not worthy,’
Nor, ‘I have not the strength.’
She did not submit with gritted teeth,
raging, coerced.
Bravest of all humans,
consent illumined her.
The room filled with its light,
the lily glowed in it,
and the iridescent wings.
Consent,
courage unparalleled,
opened her utterly.

Artistic Meditation:

Pick an artistic depiction or two on the subject of the Annunciation (Fra Angelico, Boticelli, da Vinci, Caravaggio, Murillo, Dinatello, for example), or use this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Annunciation_(Leonardo).jpg Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

General Guidelines for viewing artistic representation of the Annunciation:

Each artist who has rendered a painting of the Annunciation (and there are many) has offered his or her unique interpretation, both artistically and religiously, of this sacred mystery. Keep in mind that each artist may also use details such as dress and physical surroundings which more closely match the culture from which he or she is coming rather than the actual biblical time and place. This is, in some ways, not true to scripture, but it is true to the understanding that biblical narratives are not just period pieces, or good stories, but can be interpreted through the filters of our own experience and should offer meaning for us and hope for us in the time and place in which we find ourselves. In that sense, they are timeless.

There are several artistic conventions surrounding religious/biblical art:

1. Birds are a symbol of the spiritual; a dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit
2. The angel Gabriel, either aloft or on the ground, is usually portrayed in human form, beautiful and young; some robes can be said to be priestly and flowing, others ethereal. Gabriel often is seen with a lily, which is the symbol of his official task as a herald. Occasionally he is portrayed with a scepter, sometimes with the words “Ave Maria, gratia plena” on or around it. In any event, his affect would portray his origin from on high, his attitude toward for Mary, and the content of his message.
3. Mary is almost always shown with a halo, or even a crown to reflect her holiness. The style and elegance of the halo/crown (gold with jewels or a simple wreath of flowers) is deliberate. It is significant when she is not painted with a halo or crown. If she is bareheaded, then it implies a sense of privacy or intimacy, as women throughout much of history did not go out in public with their heads uncovered.
4. Olive branches or olive wreaths are a sign of peace
5. The colors used by the artist for the clothing, and for the background carry a message as well.
6. Sometimes there are other scenes, some peopled with saints, biblical personages, or significant architectural details which are seen in the distance or in the background. For example, Fra Angelico’s painting is set in the Dominican convent of St. Mark, and a Dominican, St Peter Martyr, stands to the left.

Questions for Art Reflection on the Annunciation:

Where does this seem to be taking place? Describe the room or surroundings. Is the space indoors or out, public or private? That do you think the author is trying to convey? Are there other people in the vicinity? Does the angel lay out a blueprint for her future? Is God asking me right now to do something that seems impossible?

What do you notice about the posture of Mary? (Is she serenely listening? Is she brooding? Is she repulsed? Are her knees buckling in trepidation? What is the position of her arm or arms? What is her facial expression? What does that suggest to you? Do you get a sense of the artist’s interpretation of Mary’s personality, her response to God’s message, or her possible answer? How would I react in similar circumstances? Who reveals to me the mysterious presence of God in my life? Have I ever been faced with a very frightening situation and been assured that God was with me as I went forward?

Closing Prayer

Take some time to offer personal prayers for yourself or others, if you wish to…

By Thomas Merton:
You have trusted no town
With the news behind your eyes
You have drowned Gabriel’s word in thoughts like seas
And turned toward the stone mountain
To the treeless places.
Virgin of God, why are your clothes like sail?

Reflections for the 4th Sunday of Advent from “First Impressions”

“FIRST IMPRESSIONS”
4th SUNDAY OF ADVENT (B)   DEC. 24, 2023
2 Samuel 7: 1-5,8b-12,14a,16  Ps 89  Romans 16:25-27  Luke 1:26-38
by Jude Siciliano, O.P.  <jude@judeop.org>

It is the final Sunday of Advent. Before we focus on today’s readings did you notice the pattern or themes of the Sunday Gospels over the four weeks? The pattern is the same in each of the Sundays of our three-year cycle.

The first Sunday of Advent always has an apocalyptic theme. This year it was from Matthew (13:33-37). “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.” So Advent opens with caution and uncertainty about the Parousia -- the second coming of the Lord.

Our second Sunday featured John the Baptist and his call to us to, “Prepare the way of the 
Lord, make straight his paths!”

Staying with this year’s Advent Gospels, the third Sunday (John 1:6-8, 19-28) also has John the Baptist, but he is denying his authority and highlights, “The one who is coming after 
me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”
Which brings us to today’s fourth and final Advent gospel. This gospel usually is about details right before Jesus’ birth. Today’s is from Luke (1:26-38) and is the evangelists account of the Annunciation. Knowing the pattern of these Sunday gospel can help worshiper hear and respond to the good news they contain for us now.

Today’s first reading from 2 Samuel,  points to the dangers of religion becoming institutionalized and fixed in brick and mortar, stained glass and flower arrangements.  When the Israelites traveled through the wilderness, God traveled with them and dwelt in their midst in the “meeting tent.”  God wasn’t limited to one place made by human hands, but moved in the hearts and faith of the people. But now Israel was going through a comfortable period of peace and prosperity with its enemies vanquished and king David ensconced in a comfortable palace.  He had led his people from being a loose assembly of tribes to a politically stable nation.  Now he wants to bring the ark of the covenant from its tent dwelling to a temple he considers suitable for 
God. He probably also hopes the elaborate temple he has in mind will show that the nation has arrived; these are a people of some importance. Seems to make sense, doesn’t it?  But, David needs to be reminded who’s in charge.  God was the one who took the lowly shepherd boy David (“from the pasture and from the care of the flock”) and made him king of Israel.  God, not David, was the reason for Israel’s success and God will be the one to give them peace and protection from their enemies.  Since God was the reason for their past success God, not David, will see to their future as well.

Our relationship with God is alive, flexible and growing. This kind of relationship challenges us to see God moving with us through our lives and giving us opportunities for a growth in faith.  Some people still worship the God they knew as children, a God frozen in the past and 
recalled with romantic images and spoken to with prayers that may no longer reflect current realities. David wants to build God a fixed dwelling; God will have none of it.  The true “house of God” is established by God (“...God will establish a house for you”) and moves with us through our lives and the lives of our descendants, helping us face the challenges  desert was out different stages of our lives present.  God had a much better idea than David.  David’s son Solomon would get to build the temple, but it would be destroyed, the people scattered and taken into exile. Away from their land and with their temple destroyed, they would have no need for a God fixed in some former place. What they needed was a traveling God who could accompany them in their travail to a foreign land and then lead them once again to freedom.

It’s a very human instinct, to want to build a temple for God.  Of course a believing community needs a place to worship, we are not the ancient Israelites traveling through the wilderness with a portable temple that can be set up and taken down as the community moves.  But the reading does place a caution before us “temple builders.”  When we build the temple, we will determine its dimension.  We will image God in it; maybe even make God in our own image and likeness.  (God may look white and male, if that’s what the ones in charge of the design look 
like.)  A comfortable community may also want to have an image of a comfortable looking God in its temple, one that does not look like it will upset the status quo.  We will also build the walls; keeping some out and shielding ourselves from outside influences. We will build doors, locate the entrance points into the temple, lay down rules for admission, welcome folks like us, but make others feel uncomfortable as they pass through.  Such are the dangers of temple building.

God reminds David that God has “destroyed all your enemies.” Tomorrow is Christmas. What “enemies” can God help us deal with these days?  The “enemies of the season” are many. For example, we carry idealized pictures in our heads of what a “merry Christmas” should look like -- the Hallmark card version. Very few, if any, of us can match that image, either from our past, or our present. God will help us work with the realities we face, and will be born among us in the real-life scenes of our daily lives. God will help us deal with the loneliness some of us experience in this season; God  will travel with us in that wilderness. God will be the assurance we need as we feel so inadequate for the way this season is advertised -- a jolly time of “good will towards all.”  God will also feed our hunger to see Jesus born again among us after so many half-hearted attempts on our part for renewal and re-commitment to 
faith.

Which moves our attention to the gospel reading and the announcement of the birth of the descendant of David, Jesus, whose “kingdom will have no end.”  The gospel shows that God did exactly what God had always wanted to do, build a temple in human flesh and pitch another “meeting tent” among us. This temple would be lasting, mobile and the sure place of encounter with our God. God chooses to dwell right in our midst, as a human descendant of David.  Mary is asked to help fulfill God’s ancient plan to establish the house of David forever. When Mary asks how all this will happen, she is assured that “the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”  There it is--- the language of the Exodus. God’s cloud guided the people in the desert and rested on the “meeting tent” (Exodus 40: 35).  This is the God we worship here today, the One who travels with us and  rests upon us here in our prayer assembly and then  guides our way during the week as we continue our desert travels.

We are very close to Christmas now.  It isn’t just in the calendar date; you can hear it in the readings today.  God’s promise of a permanent resting place with us is being fulfilled.  And where will this God be found?  Not in the places of power and world influence; but among those 
of David’s line, who have known the powerful works of God in their lives.  Just as David was instructed to look back and see how God had worked in his and the nation’s life, so we look back and see how God’s hand strengthened us when we were floundering across a difficult desert time.  God guided us when we wandered, strengthened us when we faltered and consoled us when we wept.

Who are we gathered here at this Sunday worship?  We are descendants of David, in Jesus Christ, who have known the same God who addressed David and who says to us too, “I have been with you, wherever you went....”  We are the temple David wanted to build; our lives are also the unique works of art that cover its walls.  Together we form a dwelling place for God on earth, a “meeting tent” where others can find God’s presence.

AN ADVENT POEM

MONEY ORDER ANGELS
With fingers seamed in sweet potato dirt
the migrant farm workers
count out new hundred dollar bills
for money orders
by the clerk.

When the winged god
of the U.S. Postal Service
scatters those bills across Mexico,

children have shoes and notebooks for school
beans and a chicken on Sunday
Grandmother gets new teeth
and wives smile at husband memories.

Like an Advent Angel
announcing that this birth counts
that someone can be counted on
the money orders fly
on filaments of faith
to brighten
barest rooms

Christmas blessings!
Sr. Evelyn Mattern

Third Sunday of Advent, December 17, 2023

Rejoice in the Lord always; like John, we are to be witnesses to the goodness of God

John 1:6–8, 19–28

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”

He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”

Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said.

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

Music Meditations

• O Come Emmanuel—by Jim Wolfe, sung by Chris Brunelle
• Holy is His Name—John Michael Talbot
• Breath of Heaven—Amy Grant
• People Look East—Alfred Deller and the Deller Consort

Opening Prayer

Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55)

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.

Companions for the Journey

From “First Impressions,” a service of the Southern Dominican Province:

How would you summarize Advent?—Hope? Waiting? Longing? Expectation? On the first Sunday of Advent we heard the prophet Isaiah pray, “Return for the sake of your servants…rend the heavens and come down.” We heard Jesus advise his disciples, “Be watchful! Be alert!” On the second Sunday Peter warned, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief…” And, “…we await a new heavens and a new earth.” John the Baptist announced, “One mightier than I is coming…” The first two weeks certainly had us looking and waiting for God to act. This Sunday has a bit more action in it—human action—as various people hear the call of God and do something.

The pattern today seems to be a “call—response” dynamic. Isaiah tells us about his anointing by God’s Spirit. That is just part of Isaiah’s experience with God. God’s blessing on Isaiah isn’t just for his own inspiration and edification, for God has sent him, he tells us, to bring “glad tidings to the poor.” God has a purpose, has work to be done and Isaiah is the instrument who will accomplish God’s purposes. Isaiah was sent to the nations, especially those eager to hear that God was coming to help them. Ours might not be such a broad or universal call. Nevertheless, like Isaiah, each baptized Christian has been called by name to proclaim, through words and deeds, “glad tidings” to those waiting in need of it. While we may admire the gifts and service other servants of God have, we have been uniquely gifted ourselves for service in God’s name. Each of us has our call; we have something to do—what is it?

In our psalm response, Mary proclaims God’s greatness—for though she is “lowly,” the Spirit of God has come upon her for a special mission. While she will give birth to the savior, even before this happens, she is already responding to her call as she opens her mouth and announces what God has done for her and will do for the poor who have turned to God for help. When the Spirit of God comes upon someone, like Isaiah and Mary, they cannot keep the news of God’s goodness to themselves, they must go and proclaim it to others. Which is what people in our parishes do. They have heard a call from God; they have been “anointed to bring glad tidings to the poor,” and so they do. They minister to the grieving; proclaim the scriptures in the assembly; sit with the dying and comfort their families; take the Eucharist to the aged and infirm; legislate on behalf of the homeless; serve on community boards for the homeless; teach good environmental practices to school children, etc. “Bringing glad tidings to the poor,” has as many faces as the members of our faith communities who have been baptized and anointed by the Spirit to fulfill God’s good work on earth.

“Hear ye, hear ye!” It’s the way trials begin here in the States. An officer of the court calls those assembled in the court room to attention and announces the arrival of the judge. The trial is beginning. John’s gospel has a similar beginning for very early we are introduced to John the Baptist. He was already well known by those early hearers of his gospel; his birth had been described by Luke and the three Synoptics describe his early preaching and baptizing mission. In fact, John was so renowned that some saw him as a greater prophet than Jesus. So, John the evangelist introduces us to the Baptist and clearly delineates his role: first by a series of “nots.” He is “not the Christ…not Elijah…not the Prophet.” John may have been immensely popular among those who heard and followed him, but he was only a precursor, anointed by God for his specific task: he was to announce Jesus’ coming.

At the end of this gospel Jesus will be put on trial, found guilty and executed. But this gospel shows us that we humans are really the ones on trial. The trial has begun and the first witness, John the Baptist, has been called forth to give witness to Jesus, who will describe himself in this gospel as “the way, the truth and the life.” John is just the first to come forward to bear witness to Jesus—more will follow. In particular, Jesus’ signs will testify to his identity: he will provide food for the hungry, he is the living bread; he will give water to those who thirst, he is living water; he will raise Lazarus from the dead, he is life itself; he will open the eyes of the blind, he is the light of the world. Indeed, Jesus will tell those who confront him for one of the signs he performed, the curing of the cripple man on the sabbath, that his works show that “the Father has sent me…and gives testimony on my behalf” (5, 37). God also bears witness to us about Jesus.

Those who hear this gospel and give ear to these witnesses will have to decide: is Jesus the One on whom we will place our faith? Will we follow him and reject what will not satisfy our hunger or quench our thirst for life—as Jesus does? If a trial has begun and witnesses are being called, then we being asked to make a decision: shall we accept what this gospel will say about Jesus? If so, how will it affect our lives? Of course, if we profess our faith in Christ by accepting the witnesses in John’s gospel, then we too will become another in the unbroken line of witnesses since John the Baptist. How we act…what we say…who we are…will either give witness to Jesus or deny him. People will draw their own conclusions about us: “Yes, that person is a true follower of Jesus, their life gives clear witness to him.” In the light of the witness theme which runs through John’s gospel, it is obvious that those who accept the testimony of the witnesses, must also live a public life of faith. Christianity is not a private religion, kept to oneself, but each of us must live up to the identity our baptism has given us as “lights of the world”.

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

He was not the light, but came to testify to the light.

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• Have I ever deflected attention from myself and my accomplishments in order to emphasize the accomplishments or efforts of another?
  When could this be false humility and when could it be the honest and gracious thing to do?
• What is your greatest cause for joy? How do you share your joy with others?
• “You say you are Christians. Where the hell is your joy?” (Bertrand Russell)
  How do we reflect the joy of the Incarnation to others around us?
• What is the difference between joy and happiness?
  Can I experience joy in the midst of sorrow or pain?
• Has there ever been a time when an insignificant moment (in the eyes of others) actually meant a lot to you?
• Has there been a prophet in your life?
  How has his/her advice affected your life?
• What are the “wilderness experiences” in today’s world that need hope of rescue, Divine or otherwise?
• How are we called to be prophets for the kingdom?
• Who have I been anointed to bring glad tidings to in my life?
• From Jude Siciliano, O.P., in “First Impressions”:
  Advent is a time for dreaming big dreams, and so we ask ourselves:
  How does my life proclaim the greatness of God?
  How can I share the goodness of God with others, especially the most needy?
• From Paul Gallagher, OFM, in “First Impressions”:
  Who are the people who confuse you?
  Do you like to know who people are complicated or hard to understand?
  Does it bother you when people act out of character from what you expect?
  Are you ever tempted, or feel a pull, to respond to a person or a situation that is different than the way you normally would?
  Do you usually follow that urge?
  Are you generally pleased with the way you respond to those urges?
  Do you think those urges might be from God?
  Who have been the people in your life who have been the most effective in asking you to reflect on the way you live?
  What meaning does your Baptism have for how you live your life?
• From Barbara Reid, O.P., in America magazine:
  How would you answer the question, “Who are you?”
  Would others say the same about you if they were asked?
  How do you recognize the One in our midst and point out that divine presence for others?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship:

We are what we love, If we love God, in whose image we were created, we discover ourselves in Him and we cannot help being happy; we have already achieved something of the fullness of being for which we were destined in our creation. If we love everything else but God, we contradict the image born in our very essence and we cannot help being unhappy because we are living a caricature of what we are meant to be.

—Thomas Merton

Spend some time talking to Jesus about what you love in this life, about what makes you happy, and what gives you joy. Resolve to strengthen your relationship with Jesus in these weeks of Advent, so that the joy of his love may be yours. Rest in silence.

A Meditation in the Thomistic Style/Asking Questions:

God rejoices. Not because the problems of the world have been solved, not because human pain and suffering have come to an end, or because thousands of people have been converted and are now praising him for his goodness. No, God rejoices because one of his children has been lost and been found.

—Henri Nouwen

God is continually offering us the opportunity to rejoice with him at his holy banquet, if only we can tear ourselves away from our miserable and self-absorbed table for one. What in my life distracts me from being joyful in the Lord?

1. Too much work or too much responsibility? No one has ever been heard to say on his deathbed: “I wish I spent more time at the office.”
2. Worry? Yet we know that worry about the future doesn’t change it one bit.
3. Lack of belief that God is really calling you? The scriptures are full of instances where God says: “I have chosen you. I call you by name. You are mine.”
4. In despair over the state our country and our world is in? Most of us ignore the little subtle signs that God is at work in the world.

In short, we all have a choice to stay rooted in fear, anger or sadness or to let go and let the Spirit take us where She will. True joy rises out of the lightness of soul we experience then we let God be in control. Ultimately, God will love us no matter what we choose. Doesn’t THAT bring you joy?

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination:

Adapted from Sacred Space, a service of the Irish Jesuits:

In prayer today, I walk with John in the desert. What does the desert feel like? Smell like? Sound like? What does John look like and how does he act? Am I drawn to him or repulsed by his appearance? I sit with my imaginary trip to the desert with John for a few moments. Then I let him ask me: ”Who are you?” And “How are you witnessing the presence of Jesus in our midst?” Then I ask myself, as someone following in John’s footsteps if I can I describe to others my relationship with Jesus and do so with as much conviction and integrity as John did….

And finally I pray: “Lord, I long to hear your healing voice. Give me a firm belief that you are always inviting me to share in your mission”.

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

Read Psalm 100 in light of the Isaiah passage. All too often, religious people are found to be without joy or humor or understanding. These people replace joy with judgment, replace humor with grim devotion to duty or rules, replace understanding with rigidity and spiritual arrogance. Find someone whom you admire for her joy as well as for her goodness, and go for a cup of coffee to see what makes her tick. Or, read something about someone whose humility gave him the perspective to experience true joy—say, C.S. Lewis, or Henri Nouwen, or Tony DeMello, S.J.

Poetic Reflection:

Read the following poem and ask yourself what you are choosing for this holiday season:

“The Winter Journey of Advent”

In this time of darkness,
We choose to look toward the Light.
In this time when so many suffer,
We choose faith, not despair:
We choose the work of compassionate justice.

As we move through Advent together,
Hungry for transformation, for hope,
Our steps themselves
Transform us, nourish us.
We are on constant pilgrimage,
Moving to the heart of things,
Reaching beyond what any one of us
Can reach alone.

The brightness of the Incarnation
Guides us as we continue,
With the promise of the Prince of Peace
As the bright star in these dark nights.

—by Jane Deren, Education for Justice (from “First Impressions”)

Poetic Reflection:

Read this poem by the monk Thomas Merton. Then give yourself some time in silence to reflect on the question “Who are you?” during the quiet days of Advent:

”In Silence”

Be still
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
To speak your

Name.
Listen
To the living walls.
Who are you?
Who Are you? Whose
Silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
Are you (as these stones
Are quiet). So not
Think of what you are
Still less of What you may one day be
Rather
Be what you are (but who?) be
The unthinkable one
You do not know

O be still, while
you are still alive
And all things live around you
Speaking (I do not hear)
To your own being,
Speaking by the Unknown
That is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
To be my own silence:
And this is difficult. The whole
World is secretly on fire. The stones
Burn, even the stones
They burn me. How can a man be still or
Listen to all things burning? How can he dare
To sit with them when
All their silence
Is on fire?”

Closing Prayer

This is the Latin version of the Magnificat from the opening prayer:

Magnificat anima mea Dominum;
Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo,
Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae;
ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes.
Quia fecit mihi magna qui potens est, et sanctum nomen ejus,
Et misericordia ejus a progenie in progenies timentibus eum.
Fecit potentiam brachio suo;
Dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.
Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles.
Esurientes implevit bonis, et divites dimisit inanes.
Sucepit Israel, puerum suum, recordatus misericordiae suae,
Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros, Abraham et semini ejus in saecula.

Second Sunday of Advent, December 10, 2023

There was and is good news in our lives; how are we good news for others?

Mark 1:1–8

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ [the Son of God].

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths,’” John [the] Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.

John was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He fed on locusts and wild honey.

And this is what he proclaimed: “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.”

Music Meditations

• “Come Lord Jesus” (Chris De Silva) [YouTube]
• “Prepare the Way of the Lord” (Taizé) (sung by Choir of Grace Lutheran Church) [YouTube]
• “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (sung by Enya) [YouTube]

Opening Prayer

From the liturgy for the Second Sunday of Advent:

Oh God, whose will is social justice for the poor and peace for the afflicted,
let your herald’s urgent voice pierce our hardened hearts and announce the dawn of your kingdom.
Before the advent of the one who baptizes with the fire of the Holy Spirit, let our complacency give way to conversion, oppression to justice, and conflict to acceptance of one another in Christ.
We ask this through him whose coming is certain, whose day draws near:
Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever
Amen.

Companions for the Journey

Adapted from First Impressions, a service of the Southern Dominican Province, 2002 and 2008:

The gospel tells us that it’s in the desert where the messenger and message are to be found. And there in the desert the voice is “crying out”—trying to get our attention. A woman at the door of a church said to me recently, “Please say a prayer for me, I’m going through a desert time in my life.” She didn’t have to say much more than that; the expression on her face and the term she used to describe what she was experiencing, were enough. Life had taken an unexpected turn in the road; it had taken her out to the desert. Not a trip she wanted to take; nor would I! Was it her advanced age and its subsequent ailments; had she lost her husband; was she alienated from any of her children; was her prayer dry and without consolation? Has covid-19 been devastation for her and her family? Deserts don’t come in any “one-size-fits-all.” Some desert sojourns last a long time; others may be very intense and mercifully brief. Some are inner spiritual desolations, when faith seems to offer no solace. Others are outer struggles when life’s sureties collapse and the old supports fail us. But, as difficult as desert periods are, the scriptures today suggest they may also be the place we meet the messenger from God, with a message we need to hear. Somehow and somewhere, Isaiah says, God will come to us and lead us through our current deserts. As difficult as the desert is for us, the prophet promises that there the “glory of the Lord shall be revealed.” Where we are most vulnerable, there God’s power will be felt. Perhaps God won’t provide a quick escape hatch, instant relief, but the tender God the prophet describes is concerned about exiles and refugees who see a long desert journey ahead of them.

Today’s selection from Mark is the Prologue to the gospel. Notice what is missing in the opening of Mark’s gospel: no Annunciation, no journey to Bethlehem, no stable, no angels, no Herod, no Kings! Mark’s gospel starts with John the Baptist signaling the beginning of Jesus’ public career. Before the story gets going and a cast of characters enters the scene, Mark gives the reader an inside piece of information. We learn a lot about Jesus in these first eight verses and are immediately told that Jesus is “the Son of God.” He is empowered with the Holy Spirit and ready to give it to those who accept him. He is not just a shadow or echo from the past for us. This Jesus is God’s way of opening a whole new future for us. God the Creator is ready to start again with us; to remake us. We don’t have to be stuck in our old selves for, while John baptized with water, Jesus will bring God’s Spirit and recreate us from within. Strange place for the crowds to go to hear a message of renewal—the desert. There was a temple in Jerusalem that could have been the place for people to meet their God and be renewed. Instead, the renewal and fiery encounter (for that is what God’s Spirit provides) comes in the desert, the place the slaves fleeing Egyptian bondage first met and got to know their God. It is where God still wants to meet us, in the place where we are stripped of distractions and ready and anxious to listen. In the desert all our facades are removed.

Mark tells us today that the desert places may very well be a suitable place to hear God speaking to us—and what we hear there is good news for desert travelers. He links us to Deutero-Isaiah’s words as he evokes the Israelite desert times. In the desert, the Israelites were asked to believe that God was going to bring them home, to a permanent place of security and intimacy with God. John the Baptist’s voice announces that now the time is at hand when God will fulfill the ancient promises to Israel. Those who heed his voice are to repent, turn from their self-delusions and thoughts that they can make it on their own. John says that God has noticed their plight and that One is coming who will be powerful, where they are weak. This One will pour God’s Spirit into them, to revive their own drooping, discouraged and road-weary spirits. A new road is being cut thought the desert and it is Jesus who will walk with us along it; help us deal with hills and valleys that would make it impossible for us to travel them on our own.

What is dependable and sure are not the events, but the surprising ways God finds to come back into our lives again and again. Can you hear the promise of John the Baptist today; his voice in barrenness and in the empty places? He calls out to us from what feels like desolation, the desert places in our lives. Accustomed to its harshness, he sees our need and makes a promise to us. One is coming (at this moment? This Eucharist? This period of our lives?) who comes with power to breathe a Spirit of God over us and transform us. Who or what else will be our surety, our journey companion in what lies ahead? The events of our lives are not dependable; God is. Here is a desert experience: a woman, who just went through a terrible losing battle with her husband’s cancer, said that through it all she felt the most profound experience of the intimacy, the presence of God, each step of the way. It wasn’t a feeling of warmth, it wasn’t cozy, but it was God, she is sure of it. “A voice cries out in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord.”

The dependable One is reaching out to us today through John the Baptist, inviting us to repent. John is preaching to the “chosen people” the very message they preached to others. None of us is superior to the others, there is no room for smugness, no room to look at others we consider inferior. Here is John’s invitation to repent of our useless patterns of living, to be honest about ourselves, to stop maintaining an illusion of innocence. Doing this welcomes in the God of this Advent, the God who will be our dependable source for our newly-born life. If we are ever going to the manger, get to experience the “Spirit of Christmas,” we need to pass through this deserted place, free ourselves of distractions, so that we can hear his call to put aside our guises of respectability and independence and claim our dependable God.

This Gospel begins in a desert, stripped of noise and distractions. John the Baptist touches into their hungers. God has noticed them and sends a powerful prophet to speak to them and invite them to a new way to live with new choices and new goals. John asks for repentance. Hardly sounds like an attractive “sales pitch.” But they come out in droves to hear him and accept his invitation to repent. That’s what they need, a chance to admit they are feeling the forces of other powers. The good news for them is that they can admit their need, ask for repentance and be forgiven. The passage puts it in the right order: first repentance, then, “for the forgiveness of sin.” One follows the other, no doubt about that. The Jesuit biblical scholar John Kavanaugh says that repentance means we have hope. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Things don’t have to be this way forever, they can change, I can start over again. The presence of the Savior also means the rebirth of my fatigued and bloated spirit. That is the joy of Advent.

Further reflection:

• Reflections on the Second Sunday of Advent from “First Impressions” >>
• Commentary on the Second Sunday of Advent from “Living Space” >>

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight His paths

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• From Barbara Reid, O.P. in America Magazine:
  What is God speaking to your heart in the hollowed-out spaces of these Advent days?
  What are the signs of a dawning “new creation” that you perceive?
  What obstacles need to be removed to make the way straight for the present coming of our God?
• From Jude Siciliano, O.P.
  Advent is a time for dreaming big dreams, and so we ask ourselves: What changes must I make in my ways of acting and my ways of thinking as I prepare for the Lord’s coming?
  In what new places will I look for the arrival of the Lord this Advent?
• The setting of this Prologue to Mark’s gospel is the desert. What is metaphorical about this setting?
• Can you recall an experience of waiting for someone important in your life to arrive?
  How did you prepare?
  How did you feel?
• The actual translation of the Greek word Mark uses when he metanoia is not repentance, but conversion or a changing of our mind, or a change of the direction of our life. How is advent a call to metanoia?
• What are the signs of a dawning “new creation” that you perceive?
• What obstacles need to be removed to make the way straight for the present coming of our God?
• Advent is a time for dreaming big dreams, and so I ask myself: What changes must I make in my ways of acting and my ways of thinking as I prepare for the Lord’s coming?
• In what new places will I look for the arrival of the Lord this Advent?
• The site of the beginning of this gospel is the desert. What desert am I experiencing right now?
  Is it internal or external?
  Can I fix this desert space it myself?
  Where does God fit in?
  What is God speaking to my heart in the hollowed-out spaces of these Advent days?
• Recall a time when an important event changed your life. Did you know about it ahead of time?
  If so, how did you prepare?
  If not, how did you respond?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination:

As I reflect on this gospel, I try to imagine John the Baptist preaching to the crowds about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry: I see a small, wiry man, dressed in rags and tatters. His clothes are dirty and hang off his too-thin frame. They say he eats little—locusts and honey gathered from the parched land he and the other Essene inhabit in the hills. Stranger and stranger. But there is something about the man that forces me to stay and listen to what he has to say. His voice, his eyes, speak eloquently of the passion which drives hiim… The conviction that time is short and the kingdom of Heaven is near rings out over the crowd. He makes us feel that we and the world we inhabit are at a crossroads. Something momentous is upon us. His name is Jesus. We must repent. Repent.
Repentance—Metanoia—more than a confession of sins.
More than guilt and anxiety.
More than fear of the Lord’s wrath.
Metanoia.
A complete change of heart.
To turn one’s very soul around.
Away from self-centeredness, selfishness and self-aggrandizement.
Away from meanness, from sniping at others to make myself more secure.
Away from greed, clutching frantically at what I have, holding it close because of anxiety that there might not be enough.
Enough time, enough money, enough attention, enough love.
We are called to turn our minds and hearts
Away from evil.
From envy of what others have achieved or acquired,
Envy fostered by the fear that someone might just have more of something than I do.
Metanoia.
A turning around.
A turning back.
Back to goodness.
Back to kindness.
Back to loving.
Back to God.

How would I respond to John the Baptist if I were sitting listening to him? What does his life and message say to me?
Would my heart be touched by the Spirit and would I experience the deep conviction that I must, MUST realign my will to God’s and live my life accordingly?
Do I realize the hardships this might entail?
Pleasures I might have to forgo or defenses I might have to abandon in order to be open to God’s call, to God’s living presence?
I sit with this story, trying to integrate it into my own circumstances, my own life. I speak to Jesus about by my desire to change my heart, to forgive, to let go of resentments, to align my heart with his. I give thanks for this time together with him…..

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship:

God was present all the time and I did not recognize him. I thought it was darkness but it was light… As excessive light of the sun blinds the human eye, so the excessive light of God plunges man into thick darkness. And God is approached in darkness and emptiness and nothingness simply because He is the mystery of mysteries.

—William Johnston, The Inner Eye of Love: Mysticism and Religion

I think of a dark time in my life when I experienced loss, pain, guilt, confusion, even the absence of God. How long did the period last? Is there any growth in my relationship with God that I am aware of that resulted from this terrible experience? I speak of this time with Jesus who knows so well what it means to suffer. Is there some life issue or relationship issue that is leading me into the “dark night of the soul” at this moment? I take the time to explore this with the Spirit of Light and try to discern what God seems to be asking of me at this time.

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions

From Sacred Space, a service of the Irish Jesuits:

The attraction of John the Baptist is mysterious. People flocked to him, not to be flattered but to be told the truth. They listened because of what they saw, a man who was indifferent to the world’s prizes, a man of minimal needs, who could not be bought by pleasures, comforts or money, but passionate about God. They recognized holiness. Show me, Lord, what there is about my life that takes from the value of my words and makes me less convincing.

John the Baptist preached forgiveness. This is one of the special gifts of God, and one of the big celebrations of Advent. We are a forgiven people, and we welcome the forgiveness of God in our repentance. This means we are firstly grateful for forgiveness—that we do not have to carry forever the burden of our sin, meanness, faults and failings. God covers them over in mercy.

The second step of welcoming forgiveness is to try to do better in life—to move on from this sinfulness and meanness to a life of care, compassion, love and joy, and to make steps to forgive others.

Poetic Reflection:

Psalms are songs of our call to God out of our individual experiences. The psalms of lament are particularly poignant. In this kind of psalm, we reveal ourselves the way we really are, bringing our questions about injustice and wickedness, our fears about the future. Psalms 17, 10 and 22, for example, are a plea for help when things get overwhelming, and Psalm 51, a true penitential psalm, asks for conversion. We stand before our God, bearing our pain, naked in our wretchedness. This is real prayer. Read one of the psalms of lament then read this poem by Father Ed Ingebretzen in Psalms of the Still Country:

“You Are Hungry”

Father
you are hungry
and we may be nothing in your hands

but let us at least
taste your fire:
let us be ash,
be dross, be waste
in the heat of your desire.

Let us at least
need, and want, and learn
that it is impossible
to want you too much,
to want you too long.

May the heat of our thirst
for you
dry the rivers
reduce the mountains to dust,
thin the air.

God, you who want us
more than we want you,
be a fan to our flame,
the end to our need,
the ocean we seek to drain.

Closing Prayer

Take time to call to mind all those you know who are experiencing particular deserts in their lives right now, reciting after each name you say aloud: “Lord, comfort your people”, or “Lord, give hope to the hopeless”.

Take time to call to mind several people you need to forgive or who need to forgive you, reciting after each name: “Lord, give me patience, understanding and the grace to forgive”, or “Lord, help me in my desire to do better”.

Recite the Lord’s Prayer.

Commentary on the Second Sunday of Advent from “Living Space”

2 SUNDAY ADVENT

LIVING SPACE

A service of the Irish Jesuits

Commentary on Isaiah 40:1-5,9-11; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

The central figure in today’s Mass is John the Baptist. And the overall theme of the readings is the announcement and preparation for the coming of the Lord. As we saw last week, that coming needs to be understood on more than one level and that is made clear especially in the Second Reading today.

The Gospel today is the opening of the gospel according to Mark. He sets the theme for his gospel in his opening sentence:

The beginning of the good news [Greek, euangelion or ‘go[d]spel’] of Jesus Christ.

That is the story he wants to tell, or rather, the good news he wants to proclaim. Unlike John’s gospel, where the full identity of Jesus is put in the very first chapter, Mark’s presentation is one of a gradually unfolding identity of the man Jesus. It reaches its climax and completion when – surprisingly, not a disciple but – a pagan soldier at the foot of the cross says in awe: 

Truly this man was God’s Son! (Mark 15:39)

John the Baptist

The story proper then begins with the appearance of John the Baptist. His role is to announce and to prepare people for the coming of Jesus. The Gospel describes him as fulfilling an Old Testament prophecy. Mark attributes this prophecy to Isaiah but in fact it also combines phrases from the Exodus and the prophet Malachi. It is clear that the “voice crying in the wilderness” is that of John the Baptist and that Jesus is the “Lord” whose coming is being prepared for.

The original text in Isaiah spoke of the Israelites’ return from exile in Babylon and was a classic text of God’s comfort and salvation for his people. But here John is preparing the people for the coming of Jesus.

There is no doubt that John was a prominent and charismatic figure who drew large crowds of people. His whole lifestyle spoke of a prophetic figure in the image of Elijah. John’s clothing is similar to Elijah’s. His unorthodox diet speaks of severe asceticism or ritual purity. And he lives in the “wilderness” or the desert.

The desert always has a special significance in Scripture. It is a holy place, a place where God is specially to be found. It is also a place of struggle. It was in the desert that the Israelites spent 40 years on their way to the Promised Land. It was in the desert that Jesus had his tussle with the Evil One. It was in the desert that Jesus often went to pray and in the desert that he fed the people.

Only a fore-runner

We are told that:

…all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him [i.e. to hear John]

Jerusalem was in Judea, the southern province. John performed a washing ceremony as a symbol of people’s repentance for their sins and their desire to change their lives in preparation for the coming of God’s Kingdom. When Jesus arrives on the scene he will announce that that Kingdom, through his presence, is “close at hand”.

John makes it clear that, despite his popularity and influence, he is only God’s “messenger”. And, he will say:

The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals.

This is describing a task given only to slaves. And, of course we know that as a sign of special significance and symbolism, this is exactly what Jesus himself will do for his disciples at the Last Supper. John’s role was to serve Jesus and to serve the people. Elsewhere John says:

He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30)

His whole life points to Jesus as Lord and Messiah.

Time for reflection and renewal

We read these texts today in the context of preparing for Christmas and the coming of the Lord into our own lives. Christmas, as was pointed out in last week’s reflections, is not simply the commemoration of a historic event in the distant past. It is a time for reflection and personal renewal about the coming of Jesus into my life, into the life of our Christian communities and into our wider society.

The Second Reading, from the Second Letter of Peter, reminds us, on the one hand, of God’s great desire to come into our lives and, on the other, of the need to be prepared for that coming when it happens. Although people sometimes complain that God seems oblivious to their needs, the Letter reminds us that:

The Lord is not slow about his promise [to come again], as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.

He wants no one to be lost and everyone to be brought to change his ways. Perhaps that is where the problem can lie. People want God’s help and comfort, but they are not prepared to change their ways, not prepared for a genuine conversion. For God to come to us, we also need to go to him.

Peter also speaks of the “day of the Lord”, that final coming when God will call us all to account. Elsewhere we are told:

…you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. (2 Thess 5:2)

The only sensible way to prepare for that Day is by:

…leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God…to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish…

It is clear from the author’s words that some Christians at the time were expecting the Lord to return imminently and wondering why he was so long in coming. At the same time, they waited in fear and trepidation for the judgement. But he did not come then, nor has he come yet. Although in another sense, he has come for everyone who has left this life. And he will certainly be coming for us – sooner or later. But there is no need to be filled with fear and anxiety.

On the other hand, those who are constantly in the company of their Lord will be at peace in spite of storms raging around them. For them, the Day of the Lord holds no fears. For them every day is Christmas and that is what makes Christmas so special to them. For them, every day is a Day of the Lord.

John’s role – a model for us

There is a further reflection we might make today concerning the role of John the Baptist. For he should help us to reflect that there have been many John the Baptists in our own lives, many people who have helped us to find Jesus, to know, love and serve him better. If we are born Catholic, then we have our parents who had us baptized and led us into our first understandings of our faith. Some of us have had wonderfully Christian parents; others may not have been so blessed. 

If we become Christians as adults, there are those people who were instrumental in our coming to believe and follow Jesus. In addition, there are all the sermons and talks we have heard, the books we have read, the retreats we have done, the people who have been a real inspiration to us. Today would be a very good day to say a special ‘Thank you!’ to them, if not directly, then at least through our prayers for them.

A second point is that John the Baptist reminds us that we, too, have a responsibility to proclaim the Good News of the coming of Jesus, and to help people know and love him and experience his love in their lives just as other people have brought us to where we are. 

It is not easy in our society to find Jesus and to accept his values and vision of life. People need people who can help “make straight…a highway for our God” to enter their lives so that: 

Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

And when this happens:

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

A joyful message

We have a responsibility as Christians not only to ourselves, but to bring the Good News of God’s love to others as well. We need to present a message that is full of joy, a joy that is clearly mirrored in our own behavior, because it flows out from an inner core of wisdom and peace. We have to present our faith, not as something formidable, and repressive, and difficult, but as bringing true liberation into people’s lives. We need to present a picture of our God who will:

…will feed his flock like a shepherd; she will gather the lambs in his arms
and carry them in his bosom…

People are longing to hear a message that brings trust and hope, truth and integrity, peace and security, justice and compassion. This message will not just drop from the skies. People are not normally granted private revelations. It depends on us to “prepare a way for the Lord” and be voices crying in the affluent wildernesses of our cities because:

How are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?…So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ. (Rom 10:14-15,17)

We have been blessed by all the people who have brought Jesus to us. The least that can be expected of us is to do the same for others. What better Christmas gift could we give to anyone than to help them know and love Jesus our Lord as the Way for their lives?