December 13, 2009
Reading 1 Zep 3:14-18a
Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!
Sing joyfully, O Israel!
Be glad and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
The LORD has removed the judgment against you
he has turned away your enemies;
the King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst,
you have no further misfortune to fear.
On that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged!
The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in his love,
he will sing joyfully because of you,
as one sings at festivals.
Responsorial Psalm Is 12:2-3, 4, 5-6
R. (6) Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.
God indeed is my savior;
I am confident and unafraid.
My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.
With joy you will draw water
at the fountain of salvation.
R. Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.
Give thanks to the LORD, acclaim his name;
among the nations make known his deeds,
proclaim how exalted is his name.
R. Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.
Sing praise to the LORD for his glorious achievement;
let this be known throughout all the earth.
Shout with exultation, O city of Zion,
for great in your midst
is the Holy One of Israel!
R. Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.
Reading II Phil 4:4-7
Brothers and sisters:
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Gospel Lk 3:10-18
The crowds asked John the Baptist,
“What should we do?”
He said to them in reply,
“Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. And whoever has food should do likewise.”
Even tax collectors came to be baptized and they said to him,
“Teacher, what should we do?”
He answered them, “Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.”
Soldiers also asked him,
“And what is it that we should do?”
He told them,
“Do not practice extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your wages.”
Now the people were filled with expectation, and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ. John answered them all, saying,
“I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn,
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Exhorting them in many other ways, he preached good news to the people.
……………………
Today is what used to be called ‘Gaudete” Sunday. The theme the Church gives us in today’s mass and readings is rejoice. Be joyful and happy. Christmas is only a week and a half away. Advent – that season of preparation and getting ready – is over the hump, as they say, winding down. Rejoice that what we have been preparing for is almost here.
That, you may say, is somewhat like rejoicing at 3 PM because 6 PM dinner time is almost here. You may rejoice if you want to, but that doesn’t fill your stomach.
True enough. But such dreaming can fill your spirit in a way that a full stomach could never achieve.
This past summer I had the privilege to officiate at 3 weddings, for the first time in my 5 years as a priest.
It was a special experience to meet these wonderful couples in love, as they were preparing and looking forward to a special day that would change their lives forever. It was a joy and privilege to accompany them. I have never seen people more happy than in the last meetings with them, a short month away from the weddings. They were full caught up in the breathless joy, the palpable anticipation, the excitement, the realization that after all the discernment and planning and waiting, that their wedding would indeed happen. Their happiness then was even greater than it was during the actual wedding celebrations when they were swept up and along by the many events and social obligations to relatives and friends.
There is something special about the joy of anticipation, the joy of realizing intellectually before actually experiencing.
The joy of expectation of the pure concept is untrammeled by the imperfections and complications we unavoidably experience in this world. In anticipation the perfection of the form can be experienced.
I have never had the experience, but I know that a newly expectant mother is radiant with joy. The sure knowledge that she will bring a new image of God into the world must be so fulfilling, so joy filling.
But later on, the expectant mother who endures morning sickness and the burden of carrying extra weight, whose body image has been compromised by her joyful burden, is usually a little less radiant. And I am told that in the throes of birth many a mother has wished she had joined a convent. This impulse passes of course, but the realization of reality can have its harshness.
I think even God himself had this experience. In those months before his birth in Bethlehem, even God must have been excited.
God though he was, he had never experienced life as a human being. He never experienced a hug, a refreshing drink of cold water, the exhilaration of a rapid climb up a tall hill. All these things and many more God had to look forward to in the incarnation of His Word. And God knew too that his people had been waiting for this, and although many would be taken by surprise, many would welcome him with open arms and caress his feet.
God must have very much looked forward to this. And He must have enjoyed it because he chose to remain in a physical presence in the Eucharist so he could continue to be touched by us, so his physical presence could still witness the love in the eyes and hearts of his people.
Indeed God must have rejoiced in anticipation in the short weeks before his birth.
Simeon too experienced this rejoicing in anticipation when he beheld the Child Jesus being presented in the Temple. He knew, he had seen in the eye of his mind and soul the salvation promised by God. It was no matter that the eyes of his body would not witness the paradoxical paschal triumph of the messiah.
He had seen the light which would illumine the world and his joy was complete as was his life.
This kind of joy in anticipation, the joy of the spiritual experience of the platonic form, requires faith on our part and a strong view of the positive workings of God, a real trust that for those who love God all things work for the good.
That is because everything we happily anticipate does not turn out to be OK in human terms in our experience in this world.
The angel at the annunciation never mentioned to Mary the problems there would be. In God’s excited anticipation of His incarnation, as God only, He could not have known the depths of fear fighting despair which he came to know in the garden of Gethsemane; He could not have known just how painful and life draining His passion would be.
The perfection of the forms and spiritual realities we know intellectually and from faith are not meant to be perfected in this world.
Many Jewish people gave up on God after the Holocaust, saying a real God would never allow such a thing to happen. Many people in France, after 2 world wars in 30 years, also gave up on God and raised their children as atheists. I wonder what those people thought her in America, those who were executed but whom DNA evidence later showed were innocent. Their mothers bore them, they had dreams and anticipated joyfully many things, which were not to be realized here.
They are extreme cases obviously, but just as obviously real. And they show that this world is not so real in the long run. The Risen Jesus ascended from this world to the truly real.
They Jewish people who had faith In God and his promise saw the rebirth of Israel. The French who kept their faith would see little miracles in a Polish and then a German Pope and a Cardinal Archbishop of Paris who had been a Jew. And those innocents who lost their lives in this world but kept the joy of their faith, would gain their life fully in the next.
We must rejoice in the Lord always. We must never – ever - lose our hope and joy. In the Gospel today we hear the good news John preached, the Gospel of John the Baptist, John’s preparatory Gospel.
It’s so simple but so hard: Do Good, don’t lie, don’t cheat, be just, follow the ten commandments. This is the necessary preparation to recognize and receive the surprise Messiah about to arrive, John tells us, and set up his Kingdom not of this world in this world.
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice! The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Rejoice. Be glad. We have a lot to look forward to. Not just on December 25,but everyday. But it is what we commemorate on December 25 that made it all possible. The kingdom of God is here and God is with us.
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