December 8^th 2013. SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Gospel: Matthew 3:1-12

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

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Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

Gospel                           Matthew 3:1-12

In due course John the Baptist appeared; he preached in the wilderness of Judaea and this was his message: 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand'. This was the man the prophet Isaiah spoke of when he said:     

 A voice cries in the wilderness: 
 Prepare a way for the Lord, 
  make his paths straight.

This man John wore a garment made of camel-hair with a leather belt round his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him, and as they were baptised by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, 'Brood of vipers, who warned you to fly from the retribution that is coming? But if you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruit, and do not presume to tell yourselves, "We have Abraham for our father", because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones. Even now the axe is laid to the roots of the trees, so that any tree which fails to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire. I baptise you in water for repentance, but the one who follows me is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to carry his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand; he will clear his threshing-floor and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.'

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary  . . . . This week the Gospel reading in Italy is for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. In the English speaking world, we have a different reading and it tells of the coming of John the Baptist. I have adapted Don Fabio’s homily from two years ago to fit our Gospel for this Sunday. John the Baptist cries out in the desert, “Prepare ye the ways of the Lord!” The word “prepare” means “to turn your face towards”. This Advent we are asked to turn our face towards the way of the Lord. In reality, we are fixated with our own ways, our own plans, our own needs. To get ready for the Lord is not just a matter of sorting out a few bad personal habits. It requires turning ourselves towards what God wants to do with us. It means to make ourselves open to his saving action in our lives. We have made the Lord’s ways crooked in our lives! We have domesticated him, relegated him to forty five minutes on a Sunday! We have based the structure of our daily existence on our ways, our needs, and these ways are certainly not the ways of the Lord! They effectively block his entrance to our lives. Advent is a time for straightening the ways and letting the Lord enter. This involves the conversion demanded by John the Baptist. Conversion is the painful detachment from old ways. It involves a period of transition and transformation. That is what Advent should be all about, not talk about toys and presents, nor listening to Christmas carols long before Christmas has come, nor hanging up snowmen, reindeers and colourful lights! Someone is coming who is greater than John, someone who is the Lord of the universe and Saviour of the world! Let us leave aside our own ways and turn our faces towards him this Advent!

Whose ways must be straightened? The Lord's, or ours?

God enters our lives through this character, John the Baptist, who has been given the role of preparing the way, of straightening the path. Whose ways does the text intend to refer to? Sometimes when we hear this Gospel we think that it is our ways that need to be straightened. We surmise that we are being asked to straighten out a few personal problems and bad habits. But this is not the full story. The fundamental point is that we must prepare the way for Him. In the ancient text from the prophet Isaiah, the verb "prepare" ("prepare in the wilderness a way for the Lord") means to "turn one's face" to the ways of the Lord; to stop being fixated with our own ways and to be attentive to the ways of the Lord. To begin to turn away from our own projects and plans and to turn towards His plans. To "prepare the way of the Lord", thus, does not so much mean to sort out a few bad habits before the Lord comes, but to make ourselves available for what He wishes to do with us, what He wishes to accomplish in our lives. So we have to make the Lord's way's straight. But why? Are the Lord's ways crooked? They are only crooked in the sense that we have twisted them! We have "domesticated" the Lord's ways and subordinated them to our own designs. The human being tends to view the world from the point of view of his own interests, and he tries to manipulate reality towards his own ends, his own rewards, his own needs. In this way, he transforms reality into a thing into which the Lord cannot enter. Man organises his existence in such a way that he has as much control over it as possible. In this way he makes crooked the way of the Lord and impedes God from entering. On the face of things, God might appear to have a place in this world of our own making. Perhaps we have relegated Him to forty-five inattentive minutes on a Sunday. Often, we domesticate God into an artificial corner of our lives and prevent Him from having a significant influence on our existence.

John the Baptist asks us to confront the comprises that impede the Lord from coming

We are experts in making the ways of the Lord crooked. The fact is that we fear the eruption of God into our lives, and we expend much effort in making His entrance as tortuous as possible. Then along comes John the Baptist who says: "Stop twisting the ways of the Lord. Stop turning prayer into a supplication for what you want, instead of what the Lord wants from you. Stop pretending that obedience to the Lord consists in a few external, publicly-seen, acts. Stop pretending that your attachment to worldly goods is compatible with the message of the Gospel."

            Our lives are composed of a series of compromises that impede the Lord from entering in a meaningful way. We distort the workings of our conscience and fail to form it in an honest and healthy way. We fail to place before our consciences the ways of the Lord. The Lord cannot come into our lives because we have barricaded the entrance, and sometimes the barricades themselves are elements of our lives that we have purportedly constructed in His name! To allow the Lord to enter we must descend into the profundity of our being and confront the ambiguities that make His entrance all but impossible. It is through these small and hidden "corrections" of the twisted path that the Lord will find a way in, not in ostentatious acts or attitudes.

Conversion necessarily involves painful detachment from old ways

John the Baptist invites us to open wide the doors and to undertake a baptism of conversion. Conversion is a fundamental notion that the church places before us at significant times of the year, such as Advent and Lent. Conversion is the transformation and transfiguration of man, and we are being constantly called to mature, develop, and bring to fruition the best of ourselves. This involves abandoning the ambiguities of our lives. The word "baptism" is a Greek term meaning to "immerse oneself", and it involves the complete annihilation of that which went before. We must leave behind in the water our old stagnant ideas and false Gods. Change of this sort involves pain, the pain of detachment from old ways. It is not possible to arrive at something new without leaving behind the old. For that reason John the Baptist is a necessary step for the coming of the Lord.

The transformation from ambiguity to authenticity is beautiful and life-giving

Why did the inhabitants of Jerusalem flock to John, to hear a message so austere and severe? The human being is always searching for the clear message of John, for something greater than the mediocrity of our existence, for a message that invites transformation from the crookedness of our lives, to live a live full of beauty and meaning. When Francis of Assisi embarked upon his life of penitence and simplicity he was persecuted by the middle-class families of Assisi because their children began to follow him. These young people could see the attractiveness and beauty of the life that Francis had to offer. The mission of John the Baptist involves a similar call to live authentically, to live simply, instead of twisting the message of the Lord to our own ends. John ate locusts and wild honey and dressed in camel hair. This was a man who had returned to the life of the desert that was so much a part of Israel's history. The time in the desert for Israel was a time of transition and transformation, the transformation that all of us are desperately in need of. We are misshapen and deformed in our lives of compromise and comfort. All of us need the time of transition that is the meaning of Advent.

Someone is arriving who is greater than John

Someone is arriving that is "greater" than John, someone who alone has the right to be our spouse. The expression "I am not fit to carry his sandals" refers to a Jewish marriage custom. If a man was betrothed to a woman but for some reason was unable to marry her, then before she could be given in marriage to someone else, the new spouse had to undo the sandals of the original candidate. John's statement emphasizes the fact that he is unworthy to take the place of the true spouse. That true spouse is coming, someone who is more powerful than the cleansing water of the Jordan, one who brings the new life of the Holy Spirit.

            Let us wake up this Advent! Let us try to take our lives in hand and get rid of the ambiguities that litter our existence. How beautiful it is to get rid of the dross and return to clear and simple lives of authenticity! Let us ask the Lord for an Advent of straight ways and genuine conversion.