SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT
5 DECEMBER 2021
Saint
Luke makes it clear that something is happening that will become a turning
point in human history. But, it does not
happen in the palaces of the prominent people: not in Caesar’s palace in Rome,
and not in the Roman governor’s or any of the powerful tetrarchs around the
region. It does not even happen in the
Temple in the presence of the “holy” high priests. The Word of God skips all these people and
goes to an unlikely character in an unlikely place. The Word of God goes to a wandering preacher,
the son of a high priest. The unlikely
place is the desert on the banks of the Jordan River. The desert has stripped John the Baptist of
all comforts.
And that is
what the Baptist is calling people to do.
He tells people to strip themselves of all what they are clinging to and
be vigilant for the coming of the long awaited Messiah. In pointing beyond himself, he points to the
Lord who is coming. As a way of being
vigilant, John people to strip themselves of their physical clothing, enter
into the waters of the Jordan, and be immersed in a baptism of repentance. He defines “repentance” as more than
regretting the sins and failures of the past.
He defines “repentance” with the Greek word metanoia, which means a complete change of heart and mind.
Last
Sunday, Toni Medaglia told us in her witness talk about how she had been
stripped away. First, she was stripped
of living a comfortable life in Ohio.
She was not kidding when she said that Indiana was the last place where
she wanted to live. Then, she was
stripped of her loving husband when he died in her arms of cancer. She did not choose to live in Indiana or to
live as a widow. In the midst of her
pain and grief, she turned to the Lord in prayer. She opened herself to new possibilities. She continues in her ministry as a Pediatrician
and her role as a mother. She is
grateful for the support she has received from the parishioners of Saint
Pius. She has started a new ministry
here – Seasons of Hope – in an effort to help others who are grieving to work
through their pain and recognize the Lord’s consoling love in their lives. She has shown us an example of what metanoia means – a change in her heart
and mind.
The Baptist invites us to use this
Season of Advent as a time to be stripped of what we are clinging to. We may have been stripped in very painful
ways like Toni was: stripped of our
health, our income, our loved ones, or any number of losses. Advent becomes a time to enter more deeply
into prayer and open ourselves to a change of heart and mind in these
situations. In entering into a more intense
spirit of prayer, we can use Advent as a time to strip ourselves of habits or
attitudes that prevent us from preparing for coming of the Lord. We can level the mountains of our pride and
acknowledge that we are not self-sufficient.
We embrace more fully our need to engage in the partnership of this
community, as Saint Paul recommends to the Philippians. Or maybe we need to fill in the valleys of
our desire to exercise our personal freedoms and accept our responsibility to
contribute to the common good.
Pope
Francis said this about Advent: “Advent
invites us to a commitment to vigilance, looking beyond ourselves, expanding
our mind and heart in order to open ourselves up to the needs of people, or
brothers and sisters, and to the desire for a new world.” That new world began with the Mystery of the
Incarnation, the first coming that we will celebrate at Christmas. That new world will be fulfilled when the
Lord comes again, either at the end of our lives or at the end of the
world. We remain vigilant for the coming
of the Lord when we are willing to allow the Lord to give us a change of heart
and mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment