Homily for December 12, 2004
Liturgical Year A - Cycle I
3rd Sunday of Advent
by Dcn. Bob Villarreal
Topic:
"Prepare
the Way of the Lord" + + +
Reading I
Is 35: 1-6a, 10 The
desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and
bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers, and rejoice with joyful song.
The glory
of Lebanon will be given to them, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will
see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God. Strengthen the
hands that
are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, say to those whose
hearts are
frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with
vindication;
with divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the
blind be
opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a
stag,
then the tongue of the mute will sing.
Those whom the
LORD has ransomed will return and enter Zion singing, crowned
with everlasting joy; they will meet with joy and gladness, sorrow and
mourning
will flee.
Gospel : Mt 11:2-11 When John the Baptist heard in
prison of the
works of the Christ,he sent his
disciples to Jesus with this question, "Are you the one who is to come,
or
should we look for another?" Jesus said to them in reply,"Go and tell John what you hear and
see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed,
the deaf
hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed
to them.
And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me."
As
they were going off, Jesus began to speak to the crowds
about John, "What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed swayed by
the wind? Then what did you go out to see? Someone dressed in fine
clothing?
Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces. Then why did you go
out?To see a
prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one
about whom
it is written: Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will
prepare
your way before you. Amen, I say to you, among those born of women
there has
been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom
of heaven
is greater than he."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In
the words of John the Baptist, “Prepare
the Way of the Lord.Make straight His path.”After His death
and resurrection, Jesus, on
the road to Emmaus, accompanied and heard the sad commentary of two
downhearted
disciples regarding the events that had occurred. He warmed their
hearts when
He spoke to them and went on to interpret all the scriptures that
referred to
Him as the Messiah.He related to them
that the entire Old Testament pointed to the birth of the Messiah and
eventually they did come to recognize Him as the risen Jesus. He was
indeed the
Messiah.”Why is this
introduction necessary?Because Matthew
was writing to the Jewish Christians and he knew that if it wasn’t
prophesied
in the Old Testament, concerning the Messiah than it had no relevance
in the
New Testament.The Advent season for
Jesus’ first coming began with the creation of the universe in Genesis
and was
fulfilled at His birth—His incarnation through Mary.
Today
is the third Sunday of Advent. The church
re-experiences that long before the first glorious coming of Christ in
today’s
Old Testament reading, Isaiah, in about 750 BC, prophesied certain
healing
events that must occur with the coming of the Messiah; the blind will
see, the
lame leap like a stag, the brokenhearted will be healed, the deaf will
hear,
the dead will return safely, and He will bring glad tidings to the
lowly.
In
today’s Gospel reading from
St. Matthew, John
the
Baptist, from his prison cell, sends his disciples to ask Jesus this
question,
“Are you the one who is to come?Or
should we seek another?”Jesus’ reply
was, “Go and tell John what you hear and see:the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are healed,
the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the good news is proclaimed to the
poor.”As a final addition, He said, “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at
me.”In other words, the criteria
set down by Isaiah in the Old Testament had now been fulfilled and had
been met
for the Messiah in the New Testament according to the Gospel of Matthew.Actually, John already knew that Jesus was
the Messiah when he baptized Him and called Him the Lamb of God.But he wanted his disciples and all future
generations, including us, to change the preconception of the Messiah
as a
powerful, earthly ruler to the one he calls the Lamb of God—the one who
rules
by love and not power.That was going
to require a total reversal of expectations of the Messiah. That is why
Jesus
said, “Blessedis the one who takes no
offense at me.”Heknew that this was
going to be troublesome
At
this time in history, as we anticipate the
second coming
of Christ, we know that Christ will come again and we can revel in His
triumph.But knowing the inevitability
of His victory, we cannot now call for a “time out” in our struggles
because
Satan well knows your divine gift of freedom and will use it to his
advantage.Satan will define truth to you
in melodious or odious tones and he will try to captivate you with his
illusion
of sincerity.Thomas Aquinas defined
truth as the identity of thought and things.His definition is in human terms but points to the supernatural
power of
God because only God’s thoughts can become reality.Only God’s thoughts can become a thing.Why
is this important?Approximately, perhaps, 90% of what is written about Catholic
belief,
mixes the metaphors of Catholic theology and gets it wrong, thereby,
trivializing our beliefs.They confuse
divine symbols with human symbols; real symbols with mere symbols;
divine
nature with human nature. They mix it all up and what comes out is
totally
wrong and it trivializes our religion and we have to know about it.When Jesus said, “I am the way,
the truth and the life,” He was speaking from His
divinity and expects us to understand through the divine spirit in our
humanity.This was our gift.When Satan redefines truth, he does it in
profane human terms that are most satisfying to our base sensibility
because he
is not allowed to talk about divine symbols.Jesus is appealing to our spirit, while Satan is appealing to
our
spirituality.So we must either accept
the spirit of truth offered by Jesus or the aimless (and I want to
emphasize
aimless) but sensually alluring offer of Satan.
Close
to the end of October (it was getting close
to my
birthday) I got a call from my son who lives in Rancho Santa Margarita,
California.He said, “On the last
Saturday of November, there’s going to be a great game here at the
Coliseum in
Southern California.It’s going to be
between the Southern California Trojans and Notre Dame.”He knew that I was a fan of Notre Dame for
as long as he could remember.He said,
“If you will come and spend Thanksgiving with us, we can go to the
game.”I accepted, of course, because I
had never
been in a crowd of more than 15 or 20,000, and here we were going to go
to the
Coliseum to a crowd of around 100,000.I said, “Wow!For a little
country boy, this is going to be something new!”So
we went.
On
that day, we got ready to go and my son said,
“The game
is at 5 PM and we need to leave at 12 o’clock.”I
said, “Why?”He said,
“Just wait.”So, we drove to the
freeway and everything. We got there and there was a big line of cars.The first thing we noticed was parking.All the parking had already been taken.
There were signs “Parking $50.”This
was, oh, about a few blocks from the Coliseum.If you go a few blocks farther, “Parking $40.”“$30.”We were way out
there, I don’t know, half a mile, three quarters of a mile, and it got
down to
$20, so we took it.We had to weigh the
advantage of this whole thing.On the
way back to the Coliseum, I noticed all these parties and trailers and
tents
and people, already gathered there.They had been gathered there for a day and spent the night.
There were
parties and they were offering everybody that walked by, “Have a beer!”They all had their own hand symbols.If you wanted a beer you did this (palm up).If you didn’t want the beer, you just did
this (palm down).I don’t drink beer,
so, I walked (palms down).We had been
invited by one of these tailgaters to come and join his tailgate party.I got there and he said, “Ah, I wanted to
talk to you anyway.”He took me all
around, showed me everything.It was
kind of like, “This is my whole empire here.”There was 100 acres of tailgaters. They
had flat screen TVs and they had seats and everything
there.They had all sorts of power
machines going and it was a happening!That’s what it was.It was all
new to me.At one point, I asked him,
“What is the sense in all of this?What
is the reason for all of this?”He knew
I was a Catholic and a Deacon, and he said, “I am not like you
Catholics. You have a reason for life.”I thought, “Wow!”I
said, “Well, what are you?”And he said, “I am like a USC pagan, that’s what I am.I am a Trojan and they were pagans.And that’s what I am.I
have no reason in my life.This is like a
cult.”His words.Then, after we talked a while, he said something that really
struck me
really deep.“Actually,” he said, “I am
a Catholic.But I don’t take it
seriously, yet.”And that really hurt
me, because, again, it’s this whole notion of trivializing the faith.So I asked him, “So what are you going to
do?”He said, “I’m going to start
preparing for next week.”I said,
“That’s what you do?”“We’ve been
preparing since summertime for this.”The
thought struck me at the time that this man prepares for this, in his
terms,
“pagan happening” much more passionately than I do for our Catholic
celebrations.Yet, if the time ever
came that I was either run out of the Catholic church or left the
Catholic
church for some reason or another attraction, I can submit to you right
here,
that I would come back on my knees praying and pleading for a return to
the
sacraments and the mass.I am sure the
words of Peter would pierce right through me, those words, “Only
you, Jesus, have the words of eternal
life.”In the mass we have
Jesus.That’s everything!
After
the time of His first coming, the Spirit of
God was
given to the apostles and believers of Jesus, to strengthen them until
His
second coming.This is what we await
now.The tradition of the apostles was
passed down, unwritten, for 20 or 30 or 40 years. Out of this apostolic
tradition
came the Profession of Faith or what we call the Creed and from the
Creed came
the Bible.It was in that
sequence.We read from scripture at every
mass and profess our faith by reciting the Creed.We
partake of His body and blood and we don’t want to cling to
Him as if it was for ourselves because what it is, is that we become
Jesus to
each other.This is our preparation for
His second coming.So, that when the
Son of God appears before us and asks, “Did
you feed the hungry?Clothe the
naked?Welcome the stranger?Care for the sick?”We can
emphatically say, “Yes!”And when you are
sent forth at the end of
this mass, with the words, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord,”
that is
not just a theoretical saying.That is
a divine call to your humanity.And
with the help of Jesus, you can make it a reality.