Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).
GospelMatthew 3:1-12 (English Standard Version
Anglicised: India)
In those days John the Baptist came preaching
in the wilderness of Judea,“Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”For this is he who was spoken of by the
prophet Isaiah when he said,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
make his paths straight.’”
Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a
leather belt round his waist, and his food was locusts and wild
honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan
were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river
Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees
and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood
of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear
fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We
have Abraham as our father’, for I tell you, God is able from these stones
to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of
the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down
and thrown into the fire.
“I
baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me
is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize
you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in
his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into
the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
A major theme in the texts for this Sunday's Mass is the call to repentance. In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea,“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand . . . You brood of vipers! . . . Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire . . . His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he [the Messiah] will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
St John the Baptist is echoing the words of Isaiah in the First Reading about the Messiah who is to come: with righteousness he shall judge the poor,and decide with equity for the
meek of the earth;and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his
mouth,and with
the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Sin has been with us since the time of Adam and Eve. That is why the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). No human being except Jesus and Mary has been sinless. Sin is ultimately the rejection of God's love.
In our time, within the last few decades, Western society in particular has accepted as 'good' and as 'rights' practices that have always been seen by Christians and by others as sinful. It has largely rejected what we read in Genesis 1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Linked to that is the rejection of Genesis 2:24: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. A powerful international lobby has persuaded many Western countries to deny both of these statements, to legalise a parody of marriage and to undermine the family, all in the false name of 'equality'.
In some Western jurisdictions it is lawful to genitally mutilate perfectly healthy bodies of adolescents who may be going through the 'turbulence' that hits everyone of that age to one degree or another.
Another new phenomenon is surrogacy, hiring women who almost always are struggling financially and living in another country, to bear a child conceived artificially outside of the way nature itself teaches us. Alongside that we have the widespread destruction of children in their mothers' wombs. This is not something new in itself but it was never presented before as a 'good' or as a 'right' promoted and paid for in many instances by the state on an industrial scale.
All of these things are a grave affront to God our loving Creator who made us to be with him for ever in heaven.
We are preparing in Advent to celebrate the arrival of the Christ-Child, God who became Man, 2,000 years ago. More importantly, perhaps, we are also preparing to welcome him, now the Risen Lord Jesus coming in glory, when he returns at the end of time. At the same time we are preparing to face the Lord Jesus at the end of our individual lives.
Jesus died so that each and every one of us would seek his forgiveness and be with him for ever in glory in heaven. His coming into the world in a stable in Bethlehem was a personal act of love by God for each of us individually and for all of us as the only creatures made in his own image.
St John the Baptist says to the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to him for baptism in language that would be considered 'offensive' by many today and perhaps labelled as 'hate language' by some politicians, You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. The great saint was reminding them - and us - never to take God's mercy for granted, never to forget that God's mercy is shown above all in the death of Jesus on the Cross.
But the Entrance Antiphon - far too often omitted at Mass - expresses God's desire for all of us with the note of joy that is central to Advent: O People of Sion, behold the Lord will come to save the nations, and the Lord will make the glory of his voice heard in the joy of your heart.
The Communion Antiphon expresses something similar: Jerusalem, arise and stand upon the heights, and behold the joy which comes to you from God.
May each of us judge wisely the things of earth and hold firmly to the things of heaven. Through Christ our Lord (Prayer after Communion).
Conditor Alme Siderum - Creator of the Starry Height
Translation from Latin by Monsignor Ronald A. Knox
Musical setting by Flor Peeters
Traditional Latin Mass
Second Sunday of Advent
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 12-o4-2022 if necessary).
Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of
the Christ, he sent word by his disciplesand said to
him, “Are you he who is to come, or is to come, or shall we look for another? (Matthew 12:2-3; today's Gospel).
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia,
England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,
Scotland, South Africa)
GospelMatthew 2:13-15, 19-23 (New
Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition, Canada)
Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord
appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother,
and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to
search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child
and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was
to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I
have called my son.’
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly
appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the
land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his
mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea
in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned
in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so
that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be
called a Nazorean.’
St Joseph is central in the Christmas story
as St Matthew tells it. His role is to be the husband of Mary. It is as such
that he names Mary’s son and so becomes his legal father (Mt 1:21). It is as
husband of Mary that he ‘took the child and his mother by night’ and fled to
Egypt. It is as husband of Mary that he ‘took the child and his mother, and
went to the land of Israel’. It was as husband of Mary that ‘he was afraid to
go there’ (Judea) and risk not only his own life but theirs and took them
instead to Galilee
The major feast of St Joseph, on 19 March, honors him as
‘Husband of Mary’. I can’t help repeating that the primary vocation of a
married couple is to be spouses, not parents. It is as loving spouses that they
become loving parents. This was most clearly expressed for me by an 11-year-old
boy at a family day of Worldwide Marriage Encounter in Bacolod City, Philippines, during
an activity for the pre-teens. They were asked what they loved most about their
parents. He said, ‘What I love most about my parents is that they are always
together’.
A wife can fail as a spouse by giving more attention to her
children than to their father. Nobody questions the love of a mother. But it
can be a temptation. If a husband, who has pledged his life to his wife ‘till
death do us part’ thinks that he is not any more the most important person in the life of his wife he may be more easily tempted to look elsewhere, with tragic
consequences for the whole family.
So many married couples in the Philippines, and elsewhere,
are separated by the fact that one is working overseas, sometimes both and
possibly in different countries. It is vital that they have living and vibrant
communication. Modern technology has made that possible in almost every part of
the globe. I knew one Filipino couple nine or ten years ago where the husband was on a scholarship in
Japan and who talked every night using Skype. And their
children had a chance to see and talk to their father as he saw and talked to
them.
