SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT
St.
Michael Parish – 40 Hours Devotion
Saturday,
Dec. 4th, 4:00pm Mass - Sunday, Dec 5th, 9:30am Mass
Bar 5:1-9
Phil 1:4-6, 8-11
Lk 3:1-6
Praised be Jesus Christ!
The Alleluia verse proposed for the
Second Sunday of Advent reads: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make
straight his paths: all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
That is basically Advent in a nutshell
and with very little need for unpacking. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make
straight his paths: all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” (Before
going on with my homily, I better add a little parenthesis.)
[I am really quite pleased to accept the
invitation of your pastor and pastoral team to lead 40 Hour Devotions here at
St. Michael this weekend. I do so, as they have suggested to me, with two
intentions in mind: 1) To prepare you all for Christmas, our annual celebration
of the great feast of the Lord’s Incarnation, and 2) by way of the classic 40
Hours focus on Eucharistic Adoration, to seek to stir up in your hearts that
faith which is ours as Catholics in the Real Presence of Jesus, truly God and
truly Man, in the Eucharist, the Sacrament of the Altar, He the Lord being
present here Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
Regardless of how much time you are able
to dedicate to 40 Hours this weekend, I would ask you to pray intensely for the
success of our parish devotions. With what intention? That hearts may be
changed! That sinners may repent! May everyone at St. Michael’s come to deeper
faith in the Lord Jesus born for us and for us given! May Christ reign in our
hearts and in our homes this Advent and for Christmas!]
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make
straight his paths: all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Advent and this Sunday’s readings bring
an insistent question to my mind. Over the course of history, I wonder who has had
a tougher time believing in the victory of our God over human events: Was it Jerusalem?
The chosen people to whom the Prophet Baruch addressed his book in the Old
Testament, they, a city under siege, a people carried off into exile, but nonetheless
promised the impossible: “… for God is leading Israel
in joy by the light of his glory, with his mercy and justice for company”? Remember!
In the Book of the Prophet Baruch, we are talking about God’s People at an all-time
low in their history and yet they are told by the prophet that God is coming to
save them. The Prophet Baruch talks about glory, mercy, and justice for them
from God, Who is leading Israel in joy…
Advent and again our question! Was it
tougher to imagine: hope and excitement for Jerusalem
back in the Old Testament because of God’s promised victory for them or hope
and excitement for Catholics today, despite the fact that many are filled with
anxiety and maybe have serious doubts as to whether they should be confident in
St. Paul’s promise to the Philippians: “I am confident of this, that the one
who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of
Christ Jesus”? We are faced with the challenge of believing and hoping in
the power of God to save, to reign victoriously not only in a spiritual sense,
but truly over our lives and our world. Baruch told Jerusalem they would
recover from the present devastation and be back on top again. Paul described
an ongoing work in the lives of his listeners which would reach completion in the
day of Christ Jesus.
To complicate matters even further, let
us turn to the passage just proclaimed from Luke’s Gospel for today! Just what is
it that would accredit the message of John the Baptist, spoken in the desert, by
this ragged, emaciated figure, dressed in a camel’s hide and physically barely surviving,
living off of locusts and wild honey? Just how are we to believe John’s claim that
… “all flesh shall see the salvation of God”? Who was John the Baptist
to make such promises in God’s Name?
There is no doubt about it: the readings
assigned for this Second Sunday of Advent are upbeat and full of anticipation. But
how do we get past that which is seen and suffered, day in and day out, to the
truth that it is God Who does the good work in us. The Lord Jesus brings all to
fulfillment, to fruition.
Part of the reason that I am sort of
fixated on this idea that the primary action is God’s, that He brings the
captives back from exile (thank you, Baruch), that He brings the work He has
begun in you to fulfillment (yes, St. Paul), that John the Baptist was indeed
the last and greatest prophet preparing the Lord’s victorious way, is that not
few sensible Catholics are skeptical about that being the case. To say it
another way: Just as in other times in the history of God’s People, so today we
find ourselves in a spiritual wasteland, an arid place where people do not seem
to pray much at all and as such show very little evidence of true, deep, and
lifegiving faith.
While I was working on this homily, I happened
to listen to one of my favorite podcasts, by a younger husband and father,
whose point was that as lay Catholics you don’t have time to waste. You are
putting your children at risk, if you are investing time and effort in a
parish, which may be a toxic environment at worse or at best a dud without
heart or soul. My man urged his listeners to shake the dust off their feet,
leave a lukewarm parish behind, and move in search of a true faith community. How
does this square with St. Paul? “I am confident of
this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it
until the day of Christ Jesus.”
I understand my man’s point of view, but
disagree that that requires that we must, necessarily and in the first place,
pronounce judgment on others.
One of the very powerful scenes in the
Book of Daniel shows the prophet quietly defying the king’s orders not to pray
to anyone but the king for a given period of time. Daniel, despite those orders,
continues to go home, close his door, open a window toward Jerusalem, and pray
in private to the Lord for the deliverance from captivity of his people and the
restoration of Jerusalem. The rest of the story we know. Daniel’s enemies
denounce him to the king, who throws him into the lion’s den, but God delivers
Daniel from the jaws of the lions when the king could not, the king feeds all
of Daniel’s enemies to the lions and confesses the supremacy of Daniel’s God to
his whole kingdom.
Moral of the story and the message for
this Sunday? In good times and in bad, but especially in adversity, we need to
trust absolutely in God’s power to save. Our steadfast prayer amidst suffering
and persecution has not to do with resignation but with hope. We cannot be
slack; it is no solution. Our prayer, our engagement is what places us on God’s
side; it is our choice, not so much to empower God as to open our hearts and
lives to His victorious reign.
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make
straight his paths: all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” Or to use the words of St. Paul? “I
am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue
to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Praised be Jesus Christ!
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