Displaying items by tag: Celebrating At Home

Today is Gaudete Sunday. The name comes from the first word of the Entrance Antiphon in Latin, which means, ‘Rejoice’. The full text of the antiphon is: Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice! Indeed, the Lord is near.

That is what we are rejoicing in: God’s nearness to us.

We recognise that nearness in the presence of Jesus, born so long ago, and his continuing presence through the Holy Spirit in our lives now. We rejoice that God has always been with us, whether we realised it or not.

God has never left us.

Advent is very much about a fresh discovery of God’s presence and grace in our lives, in our own moment of history.

This is what we are celebrating on Christmas Day, too. Christ is God’s great present to the human family.

Christmas celebrates not only the birth of Jesus in one moment of human history, but his continual birth in us so that he may be present in every moment of human history.

As we wait for the final coming of Jesus we, like John the Baptist, are called to be witnesses to the Light.

We do that best by taking up the mission of the prophet in the first reading, just as Jesus did. The Lord has anointed us to bring Good News to the poor, to bind up hearts that are broken, to proclaim liberty to captives, freedom to those in prison and a year of favour from the Lord. God trusts us to do that. We have been commissioned by the Church through our Baptism to do that.

Our faith in (that is, living relationship with) Christ is meant to be lived openly, generously and graciously, at the service of our brothers and sisters in the world by being the living presence of Jesus in our day and age.

Repentance and forgiveness console God’s people and prepare the way for the Lord to enter our hearts.

The magnificent first reading from the prophet Isaiah today looks forward to the appearance of God.

Great preparations take place for his arrival - hills are lowered, valleys filled in, a straight highway is made in the desert. The joyful message of God’s approach is proclaimed from the mountain tops and shouted in the streets.

How will this God show himself to his people? Not as a warrior-king with a frightening display of military power or with thunderbolts in his hands, but as a shepherd-king: feeding his flock, gathering the lambs in his arms, holding them against his breast and leading the mother ewes to rest. God’s coming liberates and frees his people through tenderness and forgiveness.

The Gospel presents John the Baptist as one who comes preparing the way for the Lord by proclaiming ‘a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’. According to Mark, all Judea and the whole of Jerusalem come to John for baptism and to hear the proclamation of forgiveness – a moment of real conversion. John says that another will come, more powerful than himself, who will baptise, not with water, but with the Holy Spirit.

Our Advent readings help us realise God’s profound love for us and his presence within us through the Holy Spirit. Knowing that God will always treat us with love and tender care helps us to turn again towards him and to trust in the depth of his mercy.

Our Advent journey is showing us how to prepare our hearts for a fresh discovery of God’s presence in our lives; how to recognise the hidden presence of Jesus among and around us; how to turn around and face towards God with faith, hope and love; and how to be the living presence of Jesus in our moment of history.

The candles of the Advent Wreath remind us of the growing light and warmth of God’s love made visible in Christ.

Our Advent journey begins today. “The Advent readings form a rich tapestry of images centered on the truth that God has come among us. In Advent we do not pretend that we are waiting for Jesus to be born in a stable. That happened once in history and it will not happen again. We remember that birth as we remember our own birthdays. The God who came among us is still among us. Advent’s invitation is to become aware of the all-pervading presence of the risen Jesus as Emmanuel – God among us.” (Break Open
the Word. The Liturgical Commission, Brisbane.)

This week’s Gospel calls us to ‘Stay awake’, to be vigilant and attentive so that we do not miss the moment when God breaks into human history once again. The God who came among us is still among us.

In Advent we train our eyes to see the reign of God more clearly so that we may be totally caught up in God’s action in the world.

We live in the ‘in between’ time – between the first and final comings of Jesus. This excerpt from the Gospel urges us to stay awake, alert, watchful and ready not only for the ‘day of the Lord’s coming’ at the end of time, but also for when the presence of God breaks in our lives and our world.

Only Matthew tells us this story of final judgement in the Kingdom of God. He paints a picture of the glorious arrival of the King and the assembly of all the nations of people who are then separated into two groups, sheep and goats.

Judgement is then pronounced - not on the basis of physical beauty, wealth, power, status or even religious practice.

What determines who will inherit the eternal life of the Kingdom are the works of service done to fellow human beings in need: the hungry, the thirty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison.

Perhaps surprisingly, there is no mention in the list of religious duties like prayer, liturgical worship, fasting, giving tithes or indeed any identifiably religious practice.

Very likely these things are presumed to be present in all the assembled people. But, the difference between the two groups is how they responded to fellow human beings in need.

At the end of the day, the disciple is called to be the Kingdom (living presence) of God in the world and to transform the suffering of its people into joy by deeds of loving kindness. The goats appear to have made horrible situations suffered by human beings worse by their neglect, their lack of love.

The virtuous disciple is the living presence of Jesus in the world. He or she realises that Jesus has entrusted the kingdom into his/her hands. In the Kingdom of Jesus, the disciple is not master but ‘servant’ - remember how frequently we have heard about the first being last and the last first?

The whole idea of ‘kingdom’ has been thoroughly re-written in the teaching of Jesus: there is only one master and you are all brothers… The disciples are indeed kings – they have the power of Jesus’ spirit in them. But this power is not to be exercised in the classical sense ‘having power over others’, but by being true servants. The power of the spirit of Jesus fuels deeds of loving kindness for the brothers and sisters of Jesus – reversing horrible human conditions, and bringing healing and salvation.

This is, once again, a ‘warning’ parable for disciples to make sure that they are living the life of the Kingdom properly. It is not meant as a ‘prophecy’ about the last day. It is meant for careful consideration by the disciples in their attempt to live the life of the kingdom which has been entrusted to them.

Disciples of Jesus are not to repeat the mistake of the Pharisees in objectifying faith in God and reducing it to external observance.

Disciples are to seize the life (grace) of the Kingdom within them, to work industriously with this great gift so that the life of Jesus at work in them overflows into deeds of loving kindness; so that, becoming one in heart and mind with Christ (as St Paul puts it), the disciple becomes Christ in his/her moment of history - seeing, thinking and acting as Jesus would.

Wisdom is at the heart of the first reading and Gospel. In the Bible, wisdom is not separate from God but a feminine personification of various attributes of God. The first reading presents wisdom as like a light which never fails. God is always taking the initiative with us, searching out the believers and revealing himself to them.

The parable in the Gospel continues the theme of wisdom. The ten virgins (representing the disciples) are waiting for the coming of the bridegroom (the return of Christ). The wise ones brought both their lamps and extra oil. The unwise ones brought only their lamps.

While they are waiting the lamps of the unwise begin to go out (their faith and love has grown cold, their good works are fading). The wise virgins cannot lend their faith, love and good deeds (the oil) to the others. Each disciple has to take personal responsibility for their faith and their salvation.

The wise disciple, whose love, faith and good works do not grow dim, is recognised by the Lord and takes their place in the Kingdom of God.

The disciple needs to remain alert, vigilant and prepared for the ‘day of salvation’ by continually growing in a faithful and loving relationship with God. This loving relationship with God bears fruit in good works for neighbours. That is what it means to be hearers and doers of the Word.

The warnings against the leaders conclude this week. This is the final part of this series of readings in which Jesus strongly criticises various groups of leaders who have failed to grasp what religion and faith in God are really about.

The problem centres around the belief that religious practice is all that is necessary to be justified in God’s eyes. According to Jesus, however, it is really about conversion, the continual process of turning oneself towards God. Bit by bit as our hearts are changed by the Holy Spirit we come to see with God’s eyes and feel with God’s heart. That is why Jesus insists that it is what is within one’s heart that is important, not how many religious laws one fulfils.

The Scribes and Pharisees have a ‘one-dimensional’, narrow view of religion and faith. Jesus’ view embraces the whole person in the journey of faith. As St Paul puts it in the Letter to the Romans: faith is a journey of being remade in the image and likeness of Christ. It changes and transforms every part of us.

No true believer can live as though faith and life are separate. Often contemporary civil leaders wish that the Church would confine its comments only to ‘religious’ things. For us, all the dimensions of life are part of our religious framework – social, political, economic, physical, psychological, mental and spiritual.

All these are viewed from the perspective of our faith. As Pope John Paul II said, “The light of the Gospel must be brought to bear on every aspect of human life.” Our moral sense of what is right and wrong develops as we reflect on the issues of human life inthe light of the Gospel.

Ours is never an attitude of “all’s fair in love and war”. No matter what the issue, or what sphere of human endeavour in which we are involved, our words and actions must always be true to the values of our Christian life.

With Christ as our only teacher we learn the ways of wisdom and love. We learn how to live, not by the values of the world, but by the values of the Spirit.