+ J. M. J. +
Homily Outline for the 2nd Sunday of Advent, Year C
John the Baptist brings a basic, visceral, forceful message: “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Recognizing that we are sinners, that our lives and deeds are not wholly pleasing to God or according to His law, we repent, we turn back, we change direction. To dramatize this invitation, John invited people to a baptism of repentance, an exterior washing that spoke of an interior desire. This is not yet the full Christian baptism, but it serves to prepare the soil of their souls for the further message Jesus Himself would bring.
As Luke records John the Baptist’s ministry, he recognizes the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy:
A voice of one crying out in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”All creation expresses the call to every human heart: circuitous motives and desires to be straightened out and brought into the light, obstacles overcome and surmounted, weakness supplied with God’s strength, clouded flesh and bleary eyes beginning to see clearly the beautiful salvation of God.
This restoration and healing, this homecoming echoes through our first reading as well, from the prophet Baruch:
Up, Jerusalem! Stand upon the heights; look to the east and see your children gathered from the east and the west at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that they are remembered by God.Exiles who have been wandering lonely and poor in a strange land are restored to communion with God and with God’s people. They see from the heights of God’s truth out over the beautiful work that God is doing in their midst.
I am struck by how the profound call of the Year of Faith coincides with the message of our Scriptures today. Pope Benedict and Bishop Sample are calling us to leave our lonely wandering in the poor strange land of our modern time, a wandering characterized by so many Catholics who have slipped farther and farther away from God and the life of the Church… I refer to those of us here at Mass! Certainly there are many more who have fallen away more completely, but those of us here, those of us who still worship, at least occasionally, those of us who still pray, at least occasionally… God is speaking FIRST to us through His Church. We are the ones who still perhaps possess some flickering weak light of grace in our hearts that can be blown upon by the wind of the Holy Spirit and fanned into a beautiful flame of love. If we will re-appropriate, re-visit, re-learn the faith given to us at Baptism, then we may well stand upon the heights, then we may well stand upon the solid rock of the Church’s teaching and life and sacraments, rather than constantly getting bogged down in the shifting quicksand of popular opinion.
It has been a profound joy for me to accompany our Catholicism Project groups as we do exactly this, sinking our teeth into the solid food of the Church’s doctrine. Many perceptive questions have been asked that have led us into the heart of the fire of God’s love for us. This past week, one person sat with an uneasy face, and asked about going door to door. “Father, if we learn what our faith teaches, then we’re going to have to go out and knock on doors, right, and tell people about it.” You could see this person almost turning green at the gills at the thought! Isn’t this the gist of the New Evangelization, that we need to become more and more like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who with great and persistent courage go from door to door?
Well, perhaps, but this is not exactly what Pope Benedict has in mind! The moment will come when some among us may well be called to do more inviting, even of strangers. But this movement must well up in the context our own personal and ongoing conversion to Christ. We cannot give what we do not have… as long as our own faith is lukewarm and wavering, we do not have much to offer! If we pick and choose the parts we like from amongst our broad and challenging tradition, we don’t have much to offer. If we think to ourselves, “Well, heh, I’m a pretty good person, I do some good things, isn’t that enough…” Well, I hate to say it… we don’t have much to offer. John the Baptist calls us to repentance, Jesus Christ calls us to repentance, Pope Benedict calls us to dig deep, repenting, and seeking once again the fullness of our faith, in all its challenging beauty. As we draw nearer and nearer the fire of God’s love, as the obstacles that separate us from God are overthrown, who knows what God might do in us? If we stand upon the bracing heights of Christ’s saving truth, who knows what path we might see leading deeper into God’s light? Who knows who we may see there, waiting for us to live the truth and speak the truth to them? God might well call us to all these things, but as long as we muddle along half-committed, half-converted, we’re not likely to hear any call clearly. If anyone ends up going door to door, it must be because of a burning love in their hearts that will not leave them in peace unless they share it with their neighbors!
This, then, is the project before us, the project of Advent, the project of the Year of Faith which we have begun by focusing on penance and repentance: to prepare the way for the Lord into our hearts and lives. The simple practices outlined last week will provide us with the concrete steps: Sunday Eucharist, regular confession, daily prayer. As we come into contact with God’s grace and truth, who knows what might be unlocked in our hearts and lives?! Let me close with St. Paul’s beautiful prayer on behalf of his beloved Philippians, a prayer our Mother the Church prays for us:
that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
+ A. M. D. G. +
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