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Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, Ireland)
Readings (English Standard Version; England & Wales, India, Scotland)
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Gospel Luke 3:1-6 (English Standard Version Anglicised: England & Wales, India, Scotland)
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius
Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee,
and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and
Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas
and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah
in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan,
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As
it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
This is Handel's setting of the last part of today's gospel.
Charles Kuralt was an American
journalist who worked for many years for the CBS TV network in the USA. He was
especially noted for his 'On the Road' features on the CBS Evening News. These
started in 1967, the year I was ordained, and I became familiar with them when
I went to study in the USA the following year.
I vividly remember one particular story
- they were never from the highways but from the byways of the United States -
about a man somewhat on the older side who lived in a small town somewhere in
the heartland of the country. I forget the particular state. The nearest town
was only a few kilometres away but there was no road connecting the two. People
had to take a very long way around to get from one to the other.
The residents of both towns tried for
years to persuade their politicians to build a road connecting them, without
success. So this particular elderly citizen decided he'd start to build a road
himself, using planks. When Charles Kuralt caught up with him he hadn't got
very far - but he had started.
Legion of Mary AltarThis man was
engaged in what the Handbook of the Legion of Mary calls Symbolic
Action. The Handbook was written almost entirely by Frank
Duff, the founder of the Legion.
The Handbook says, It
is a fundamental Legion principle that into every work should be thrown the
best that we can give. simple or difficult, it must be done in the spirit of
Mary . . .
But
sometimes we are faced with works which are really impossible, that is to say,
beyond human effort . . .
'Every
impossibility is divisible into thirty-nine steps, of which each step is
possible' - declares a legionary slogan . . .
Observe: the
stress is set on action. No matter what may be the degree of the difficulty, a
step must be taken. Of course, the step should be as effective as it can be.
But if an effective step is not in view, then we must take a less effective
one. And if the latter be not available, then some active gesture (that is, not
merely a prayer) must be made which, though of no apparent practical value, at
least tends towards or has some relation to the objective. This final challenging
gesture is what the Legion has been calling 'Symbolic Action.' Recourse to it
will explode the impossibility which is of our own imagining. And, on the other
hand, it enters in the spirit of faith into dramatic conflict with the genuine
impossibility.
The sequel
may be the collapse of the walls of that Jericho.
I saw
Charles Kuralt's broadcast some time between 1968 and 1971. In the autumn of
1982 I was working in a hospital in Minneapolis as a chaplain on a three-month
Clinical Pastoral Education programme. Charles Kuralt came to town while I was
there to give a lunchtime lecture in an auditorium near the hospital and I went
along to hear him. When he invited questions from the very large audience
someone asked him, What happened to that road the old man began to
build? So I wasn't the only one who had remembered the story.
Mr Kuralt
told us that the man had since died - but that the road between the two towns
had finally been built by the authorities.
The chances are that the man
featured in Charles Kuralt's story, since he was from the heartland of the USA,
was familiar with today's gospel. St John the Baptist is quoting the Prophet
Isaiah and asking each of us to Prepare the way of the Lord, make his
paths straight. He assures us that Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made
straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh
shall see the salvation of God.
Jesus asks
for our cooperation. When he was faced with the hungry crowds he asked the
Apostles what food they had and then told them to feed the people. Their
cooperation with their feeble resources enabled him to show God's bounty in a
way they could not have imagined. At Cana Jesus told the servants to fill the
water containers - and changed the water into the equivalent of about 600
bottles of the very best wine. (I once read a commentary that advised the
reader to take that in a symbolic sense. I really don't see why we should
diminish God's bounty! What Jesus did is indeed a symbol of God's bounty
precisely because it was an act of that bounty in a specific situation.)
We have no idea what God can do with a seemingly insignificant or purely personal action. When the young St Anthony of the Abbot went of to live as a hermit in the desert, rather like St John the Baptist, he had no idea that it would lead to the foundation of monasteries of contemplatives around the world.
Jesus, through the
words of Isaiah repeated by St John the Baptist is calling us to actively
prepare for his coming, in so many unexpected ways in our daily lives, through
joys and sorrows, through the Mass and the sacraments, and in glory at the end
of time. We are also preparing to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. However,
that First Coming in the flesh has already taken place.
St John of the Cross
wrote in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, When he (God) gave us,
as he did, his Son, who is his one Word, he spoke everything to us, once and
for all in that one Word. There is nothing further for him to say. This is
part of the Second Reading in the Office of Readings for Monday in Week 2 of
Advent.
There is nothing further for him to say.
St John of the Cross goes on to write in the
same passage, Consequently, anyone who today would want to ask God
questions or desire some vision or revelation, would not only be acting
foolishly but would commit an offence against God by not fixing his eyes
entirely on Christ, without wanting something new or something besides him.
God might give him this answer, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well
pleased; listen to him.' I have already told you all things in my Word. Fix
your eyes on him alone, because in him I have spoken and revealed all.
Moreover, in him you will find more than you ask or desire.
The writings of St John of the Cross and of
other great theologians do not reveal to us anything new but rather bring us
into a deeper understanding of the Word. Likewise, the messages that the Church
recognises as having been received in such places as Lourdes, for example, do
not reveal to us anything new but rather emphasise some aspect of the Word, usually
a call to penance and to prayer, in other words, Prepare the way of the
Lord.
God asks us to look to the future in active,
sometimes symbolically active, hope like the old man in Charles Kuralt's story.
Be ready to meet Jesus in whatever guise he comes and whenever he comes, each
day, at the hour of our death, at the end of time.
Traditional Latin Mass
The Immaculate Conception
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 12-08-2024 if necessary).
Lesson: Proverbs 8:22-35. Gospel: Luke 1:26-28.
The Annunciation
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