Homily: 3rd Sunday of Advent - Year A

I've embedded below a video of this homily preached on December 15, 2019, the 3rd Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday). The complete text of the homily follows the video.

Readings: Is 35:1-6,10; Ps 146:6-10; Jas 5:7-10; Mt 11:2-11

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Today is Gaudete Sunday, the Sunday of Joy, a day on which we wear these rose-colored vestments to symbolize the joy that should fill us in anticipation of our celebration of the birth of Our Lord. Looking out at you all, I don’t see a lot of joyful faces, so how ‘bout a smile or two. That’s better. 

Sadly, in today’s world far too many people live joyless lives. And interestingly, the most joyless of these are not the poor, but rather those who are among the most affluent. Having so much, they can’t understand why they aren’t happy.

Back in the seventies the wife of a friend just upped and left him and their children, saying that she had to “find herself.” There was a lot of that going around back then – men and women leaving their families in search of something else, presumably something better. I’ve always found that a bit odd – people going off in search of themselves, when what they really seek is right there in front of them and within them. They search for meaning but look in all the wrong places.

St. Teresa of Avila, whose works are certainly worth reading, made a point of teaching that it is only in the search for God that we can uncover and discover our own true selves. Yes, indeed, as Christians we believe no one can encounter themselves until and unless they encounter Jesus Christ.

But who is this Jesus? Is He God? Is He man? Is He both? Do we accept or reject Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life? Do we acknowledge Jesus as the Incarnate Word of God? Our answers determine both our entire worldview and how we view ourselves; for once we accept Jesus for who He is, those identity crises disappear. In a word, we find ourselves. When we find ourselves in Jesus, He becomes the very center of our being. It’s then we begin to experience the distance between who we are and who we’re called to be.

In today’s Gospel reading, John the Baptist has his disciples ask these same questions of Jesus.

“Are you the one who is to come, or do we look for another?” [Mt 11:3]

I’ve always believed John knew full well the answer to his question, but his purpose was to release his disciples, to turn them into Jesus’ disciples. After all, wasn’t John the one who said, 

“He must increase, and I must decrease”? [Jn 3:30]

Didn’t John, as an unborn infant, leap in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary arrived at his mother’s doorstep? If the infant knew who Jesus was, then surely the adult knew as well. And hadn’t John, as he baptized Jesus in the Jordan, watched the Spirit descend and heard the voice of the Father praising the Son?

"He must increase..."

No, John he knew his mission was ending. Locked in Herod’s prison, facing execution, John had only to convince his disciples of this same truth. Indeed, this would be the final act of his mission: to send his disciples to Jesus, He who must increase. John’s question was not about himself; it was about Jesus. John didn’t need to find himself; he needed to help others find Jesus. That had been His mission all along.

How fitting this all is. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus had just sent out his disciples to evangelize, to bring His saving presence to others. And then John sends his disciples to Jesus, seeking answers: Is Jesus the One revealed by the prophets, the fullness of Revelation? John teaches his disciples one more thing: “Go to Jesus. Ask Him yourselves, and you will see.”

“Are you the one who is to come, or do we look for another?”

Jesus’s answer, neither “Yes” nor “No”, must have disappointed some, but I’m sure John understood. For in answering the prophet’s question Jesus turned to Isaiah, another prophet. The passage, originally written to celebrate the return from the Babylonian Exile, is also a revelation describing the reign of the Messiah.

Calling on Isaiah, Jesus testifies to the signs that are taking place…by Him, in Him, and through Him. The blind see; the deaf hear; the lame walk; the poor —the outcasts, the hopeless; they all hear the Good News. The Kingdom of God is at hand.

And Jesus adds a beatitude, a blessing: tell John that those who take no offense at me, who are not disappointed in me, are blessed. After this we hear no more of John. Stripped of his disciples, his mission complete, he dies at the hands of Herod: “He must increase. I must decrease.”

The Messiah has come, but we still wait don’t we? 

Yes, Jesus is present and working through His Body, the Church, and He will come again in glory, but He must still come more fully into each of our lives. Jesus heals. Jesus cleanses. Jesus forgives. Jesus brings back to life that which was dead. Jesus brings good news to those who despair.

In a few moments Father Cromwell will pray these words in today’s Preface to the Eucharistic Payer: 

“It is by His gift that already we rejoice…so that He may find us watchful in prayer and exultant in His praise.”

Are we doing that? As individuals, as a Catholic community here at St. Vincent de Paul, are we “watchful in prayer and exultant in His praise?” So many have yet to know the deep joy of becoming whole in Christ. In the words of Pope Francis, 

“The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus.”

But do we share our joy, and do so with the same patience and love urged by St. James in our 2nd reading?

Our Christian vocation is really not unlike John’s. We’re called to prepare the way for Jesus to come into our hearts and the hearts of others, so that they, too, may "experience the joy of salvation" [Ps 51:14], the healing, wholeness and holiness we all long for and which alone give real meaning to our lives. 

What will be the message others receive about your life and mine? Do our lives bring hope to others? To those who are searching? So many today search in vain, looking in all the wrong places, seeking themselves, but finding nothing.

To those for whom Jesus is simply a name? When they ask -- “Is Jesus the One, or do we look for another?” -- How do you and I respond? Will our lives, our voices, open their ears to the Word of God? Do we give the answer Jesus gave? Do we offer them the light of Christ, the light of hope that helps the spiritually blind see, the light that reveals the presence of God’s salvation in our lives?

And the lame, those crippled by hatred. Or today’s lepers – the ostracized, the cast-offs, the forgotten – those filled with self-hatred. Will you and I take Jesus and the hope of salvation to them, or will they look for another? Go to the nursing homes, the soup kitchens, the shelters. Bring hope where there is despair. Bring the good news to those who hear so much bad news.

We’re also sent to raise the dead, but don’t look for them in the cemetery. No, to find the dead, the spiritually dead, go to the prisons and jails. Put all that is hurting, stained, impoverished, and dead and lay it at the Lord’s feet. He’ll pick it up, so nothing will come between us and Jesus Christ. Shame and hatred and sin paralyze, brothers and sisters. Only the love of Christ brings healing.

This is our vocation: to be healers and prophets, to pave the way for Jesus Christ in the world. Our lives must reflect God’s Love within us, so the world might experience conversion, and know that the Kingdom is here, in Christ and in His Church!

Christmas is a time of gifts -- giving and receiving. Include Christian joy among the gifts we take to others, the joy we celebrate on this Sunday of Joy.

The world doesn’t need to find itself. It needs only to find Jesus Christ. And you and I are the ones God sends into the world so those in search of Jesus need not look for another!

Blessed are those who are not disappointed in us.

Homily: 3rd Sunday of Advent, Year C

Readings: Zep 3:14-18a; Phil 4:4-7; Lk 3:10-18

Newtown, Connecticut – Years ago some dear friends of ours lived in Newtown and we visited them on a number of occasions. In fact, as a youngster I lived only 15 miles away in the much smaller town of Nichols, Connecticut.

I remember Newtown as a lovely town, quiet and quaint, one of those typical New England towns of the kind pictured in calendars, a nostalgic sort of place where people long to settle with their families.

On Friday that quiet town and many of its families were shattered by the actions of a single person – horrific actions, evil, irrational – and quite likely we’ll never fully understand the motivations involved. These unanswered questions will only add to the grief of those families.

Yet here we are in this holy season of Advent, looking forward to Christmas, the celebration of our Savior’s coming into the world. For Christmas is a joyous event. Indeed, today is Gaudete Sunday, the joyful Sunday of Advent. As a sign of that joy, we light the rose-colored candle on our Advent wreath. Our readings instruct us not only to experience the joy of expectation in Christ’s coming but also to express our joy openly. We’re repeatedly called on to shout for joy, to sing joyfully, to cry out with gladness, to exult with all our hearts, not to be discouraged, to have no anxiety and to fear nothing.

And yet, as we think of and pray for those families who mourn and grieve for their children today, it just doesn’t seem to fit together, does it?

Holy Innocents - Sagrada Familia - Barcelona

When I first became aware of the extent of that tragedy, my thoughts turned to a similar tragedy that occurred in another sleepy little town 2,000 years ago. The town was Bethlehem, where God had told the prophet Micah the Messiah, the ruler of Israel, would be born. Thinking he could actually thwart God’s plans, King Herod sent his soldiers into Bethlehem to kill all its young boys two years old and under. Yes, that first and most joyous Christmas was also marred by tragedy.

As we studied Matthew’s Gospel in a freshman theology class, someone asked our professor, “How many children do you think Herod killed?” I remember the good Jesuit saying, “Well, Bethlehem was a pretty small town – probably only about 20.”

About 20…the Holy Innocents we call them – infants and toddlers, unknowingly martyred, canonized by their baptism of blood. How the mothers and fathers of Bethlehem must have mourned.

About 20…today 2,000 years later we mourn the loss of another 20 innocents, a loss that will change how we will celebrate Christmas. We will hug our children and grandchildren a little tighter this year, and we will pray in thanksgiving for keeping them safe.

Of course, as Christians we’re called to see these events through the eyes of faith; and in faith we know that this life is not all there is, that our true home is elsewhere. And so we accept that these young innocents, who had tasted only a sample of this life, are now in God’s loving, eternal embrace.

Did you hear what Paul told us in our second reading? “Rejoice in the Lord always. I say again, rejoice!” [Phil 4:4]

Rejoice always? Truly remarkable words. And they’re remarkable because Paul didn’t write these words to the Philippians from some hotel room in Ephesus, from a condo in Corinth, or from a retirement community in the Greek isles. No, Paul wrote them from a Roman prison, where his life was in imminent danger.

Rejoice always! That’s hard to do sometimes, for certain times just don’t seem to call for rejoicing. And yet, in the early church our mothers and fathers in faith went to their deaths rejoicing. They literally did “Rejoice in the Lord always.”

And Christians are still doing it today. I recall reading about a Romanian Baptist preacher named Josef Tson. Back in the 1970s he was continually persecuted and imprisoned by the communists in his country…simply for preaching the gospel. It’s still happening today, in China, Viet Nam, Cuba, in many parts of the Islamic world…Christians are imprisoned or martyred simply for preaching the gospel.

After one of his many arrests Tson felt certain he would be killed. Resigned to his fate, he told one of his interrogators, “You should know your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying,”

You see, brothers and sisters, that’s how St. Paul can say, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him…” [Rom 8:28] In the immediate aftermath of this tragedy, the good is not readily apparent…but we must give God time to work, because He works through us, through you and me.

You and I can’t address the causes of what happened, because we don’t know what’s in the heart of another human being. We leave that to God. Instead we can do only what John the Baptist told the crowds to do in today’s gospel passage as he preached the Good News throughout Judea.

“What should we do?” they all asked him [Lk 3:10].

Give to the poor, he told them…and give from your own need, not just from your surplus. Be honest, loving, caring people.

This was the message that John was sent to give to the world. He was educating the souls of men and women, preparing them to receive what Christ would tell them.

And the result? Paul supplied the answer: “Your kindness should be known to all…Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” [Phil 4:5,7]

And perhaps the best place to first express our kindness is in our own homes, to those who love us most, those to whom we can sometimes be most unkind indeed.

Yes, John and Paul, two men who died martyrs’ deaths in prison, both discovered that the joy of God’s presence overcame all fears, removed all anxiety, turned every kind of suffering into a reason to rejoice and give thanks. It was their work to awaken those who were totally unconcerned with the things of God, to pull them out of their complacency, to wake them up with the Good News.

It’s no different today. To shake the world out of its indifference we need prophets like John and Paul, men and women who are true witnesses to God’s love for the world. Today, brothers and sisters, we need people of joy, not just on one Sunday of Advent, but every day. We need you, because God has sent each of you to do just that.

Pray for the souls of the children and teachers who died.

Pray for peace in the hearts of those who love them.

Now the hard part…As Christians we must pray too for the soul of the confused and troubled young man responsible for this massacre of innocents. We must pray for him because the families of most of his victims will be unable to take that step, probably for years to come. Forgiveness cannot easily enter a heart that is understandably filled with grief and anger. We must extend forgiveness for them who are as yet unable to do so.

And bless your children and grandchildren each day, for blessings are spiritually powerful acts, especially when extended by a parent. As fathers and mothers, as grandfathers and grandmothers, reach out and touch their precious heads with your hands and extend God's blessing in the name of Jesus Christ. Send them into the world each day cloaked with God's love and your love.

Let them know you love them deeply and ask the Father to protect them, for as Jesus told us, "See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father" [Mt 18:10].

God’s peace…