Sunday Reflections, 3rd Sunday of Lent, Year A, 8 March 2026

 

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well

Guercino [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, Ireland, New Zealand)

Readings (English Standard Version, Catholic Edition: England & Wales, Scotland, India)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel John 4:5-42 (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

[For the shorter form (4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42) omit the text in brackets.]

At that time: Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?’ (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.’

[Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.’] The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming — he who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’

[Just then his disciples came back. They marvelled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you seek?’ or, ‘Why are you talking with her?’ So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’ They went out of the town and were coming to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, ‘Rabbi, eat.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Has anyone brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, “There are yet four months, then comes the harvest”? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’]

Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me all that I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.’

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Servant of God Alphonsus 'Alfie' Lambe

24 June 1932 – 21 January 1968

Alfie Lambe was born in Tullamore, Ireland, joined the Irish Christian Brothers but was advised to leave because of his poor health. He joined the Legion of Mary where he showed outstanding qualities and was appointed to South America as a Legion envoy, with the mission of helping the Legion grow there. With Seamus Grace, another Irish legionary, he left for Bogotá, Columbia on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel 16 July 1953. He was only 21.Until his early death in Buenos Aires, he was to serve in Columbia, Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay and Brazil. He acquired the Spanish nickname El Corderito, 'the little lamb'. The Archdiocese of Buenos Aires initiated the cause for his beatification in 1978.

Noel Lynch, who went to South America as a Legion envoy around the time of Alfie's death, wrote about Alfie. One story he tells parallels today's gospel.

One of the ideas of the Legion Handbook is that a legionary most always be on duty. Alfie taught by example. One day Alfie met a young man in a railway station. With a smile he asked him would he like to do something for Our Lady. The young man answered that he would but that he did not go frequently to Sunday Mass. Alfie replied; 'I did not ask you about Mass but would you be willing to work for Our Lady?' That same week he attended his first Legion meeting. Within a few weeks he was an officer of that Praesidium and soon after became officer of his Curia. Within a few years he went for the priesthood and today is rector of the diocesan seminary.

The Praesidium is the basic unit of the Legion of Mary and meets weekly while the Curia consists of the officers of a group of praesidia in a particular area and meets monthly.

In today's gospel Jesus asks for help: Give me a drink. He asks a stranger, a Samaritan woman, which astonished his disciples. Alfie approached a stranger while waiting for a train and asked him if he would like to do something for Our Lady.

The question of Jesus to the Samaritan woman led her to become a missionary that very day to the people in her own town. Alfie's question to the young man in the railway station led him to become a missionary in his own diocese as a priest.

Jesus was aware of the background of the woman. Alfie didn't know anything about the young man he approached but wasn't put off when the latter indicated that he didn't attend Sunday Mass regularly. Alfie replied, I did not ask you about Sunday Mass but would you be willing to work for Our Lady?

The gospel has these striking words: Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, 'He told me all that I ever did.' Clearly the woman was not filled with fear or shame like someone whose sins have been publicly revealed. She wanted to share the good news that she had found the Messiah. 

Her words echo those of Psalm 139 (138): O Lord, you search me and you know me . . . you discern my purpose from afar . . . For it was you who created my being, knit me together in my mother's womb. I thank you for the wonder of my being . . . O search me, God, and know my heart. O test me and know my thoughts. See that I follow not the wrong path and lead me in the path of life eternal.

The woman at the well experienced the truth of the words : O Lord, you search me and you know me . . . you discern my purpose from afar.  Jesus called her to be her real self, to be the person God wanted her to be. The young man approached by Alfie Lambe discovered who God wanted him to be through the gentle invitation to work for Our Lady.

Because of the Samaritan woman's missionary work among her own people they came out to meet Jesus and many more believed because of his word. And the final words of the gospel tell us that a missionary's work is to bring people to meet Jesus: It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world. 

That too was the whole purpose of Alfie Lambe's work in South America: accompanying Our Lady knowing that her mission is to bring us all to know her Son.

That too is the mission of the Legion of Mary: The object of the Legion of Mary is the glory of God through the holiness of its members developed by prayer and active co-operation, under ecclesiastical guidance, in Mary’s and the Church’s work of crushing the head of the serpent and advancing the reign of Christ (Handbook, page 11).

The special Preface used when the Gospel of the Samaritan woman is read has these beautiful words:

For when [Jesus] asked the Samaritan woman for water to drink, 

he had already created the gift of faith within her

and so ardently did he thirst for her faith, 

that he kindled in her the fire of divine love.

The last line of the quotation from that Preface is a reference to an ancient prayer to the Holy Spirit with which every Legion of Mary meeting begins, leading to the Rosary.

Come, O Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of Your love.

v. Send forth Your Spirit, O Lord, and they shall be created.

R. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

Let us pray.

God our Father, pour out the gifts of Your Holy Spirit on the world. You sent the Spirit on Your Church to begin the teaching of the gospel: now let the Spirit continue to work in the world through the hearts of all who believe. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jesus kindled in the Samaritan woman the fire of divine love. Through the  Legion of Mary he kindled in Alfie Lambe the fire of divine love. Through Alfie he kindled in the young man at the railway station the firs of divine love.

Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation Jesus has kindled in each of us the fire of divine love.

Ave Regina Caelorum

This ancient Latin hymn to Our Lady is traditionally sung or recited at the end of Compline (Night Prayer) from the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, 2 February, through Wednesday of Holy Week.

Hail, Queen of heaven; hail, Mistress of the Angels; hail, root of Jesse; hail, the gate through which the Light rose over the earth.

Rejoice , Virgin most renowned and of unsurpassed beauty. Farewell, Lady most comely. Prevail upon Christ to pity us.

Traditional Latin Mass

Third Sunday in Lent

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 03-15-2026 if necessary).

Epistle: Ephesians 5:1-9. Gospel: Luke 11:14-28.

Christ Carrying the Cross

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it! (Luke 11:28; today's Gospel)

 

 

           

 

 

 

Sunday Reflections, 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 5 October 2025

 

Farmer in a Field

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

‘Will any one of you who has a servant ploughing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, “Come at once and recline at table”'? (Luke 17:7; Gospel).

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, Ireland, New Zealand)

Readings (English Standard Version, Catholic Edition: England & Wales, India, Scotland) 

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 17:5-10 (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

At that time: The Apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ And the Lord said, ‘If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you.

‘Will any one of you who has a servant ploughing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, “Come at once and recline at table”? Will he not rather say to him, “Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterwards you will eat and drink”? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.” ’

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

                                        

The Mulberry Tree

Vincent van Gogh [Wikipedia; photo]

And the Lord said, ‘If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you' (Luke 17:6; Gospel).

In the summer of 1964, after my third year in the seminary, I spent a couple of weeks working in the Morning Star Hostel in Dublin. It was within walking distance of my home. I had been in the Legion of Mary for most of my five years in secondary school and used to rejoin my praesidium (the basic branch of the Legion) during summer vacations. In the summer of 1963 I spent a week on Peregrinatio pro Christo in a parish in Liverpool, England, and in 1965 did the same in a parish in Paisley, Scotland. My last experience of Peregrinatio was in Pewsey, Wiltshire, in the southwest of England in 1966.

Morning Star Hostel has a small number of 'indoor brothers' taking care of the men who stay there. These are laymen, Legionaries who devote themselves full-time to this work with the help of male legionaries who work there for a number of hours each week. I remember two of the indoor brothers from 1964, Tom Doyle and Sid Quinn. The old webpage about the Morning Star -  the page doesn't seem to be there anymore - gave a short biography of Tom, along with a photo. It describes him in these terms: Tom Doyle was the manager of the hostel for about 50 years and he is regarded as an unknown saint by most if not all the people who knew him.

Tom Doyle (1905 - 1992)

I didn't get to know Tom or Sid well, certainly not their inner lives, though I did join them at prayer, which is central to the lives and work of members of the Legion of Mary and at all meetings. Sid knew my father as they had grown up in the same working class neighbourhood where I also grew up. I saw the utter dedication of Tom and Sid, or 'Brother Tom' and 'Brother Sid' as they were known within the hostel. During Legion meetings and Legion work members address and refer to each other as 'Brother' and 'Sister' but not outside of that.

As Pope Francis might put it, Tom and Sid well knew 'the smell of their sheep'. That might be the smell of alcohol, the smell of unwashed bodies. Sometimes for Tom it might be the smell of his own blood: Rows and scuffles and fist fights were regular occurrences and poor Tom had the responsibility of calming every storm. No doubt Tom who was small in stature was on the receiving end of some of those blows and it is well known that near the end of his life one of the residents very badly beat him up so that he had to spend time in hospital but when he came out he made himself the best friend of that resident! 

Things have changed somewhat for the better in the Morning Star since I worked there during the summer of 1964, as you can read here. The dedication of the members of the Legion of Mary who look after it is still very much there.

When I read the words We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty in today's gospel I thought of Tom Doyle and Sid Quinn. The words of Jesus seem to be in contrast with what he says elsewhere, especially in St John's Gospel, where he calls us friends, where he asks Peter, Do you love me? Feed my lambs.

When I used the material above six years ago Liam Hayden, a friend who was my classmate in primary school and who was deeply involved all his adult life with the Legion of Mary along with his wife Moira, some of their children following in their parents' footsteps, posted this comment: I was very close to both men and they had a profound effect on my development as a person and as a legionary, especially in 1969 when I took leave from my job to volunteer as an indoor brother for a year. I went on holiday with both on separate occasions and they were, to my mind, saints of the Church and both are interred, at their own insistence, in the Morning Star plot in Glasnevin cemetery Dublin.

Thanks for reminding me of a priceless interlude in my life.

Liam wrote a chapter on Tom Doyle for a book published last November in Ireland, The Rock from Which You Were Hewn; International edition by Ignatius Press. (I have a chapter on the seven Columban priests killed in the Korean War who, with others, are being proposed for beatification as martyrs by the bishops of Korea.)

Liam died of Covid on Holy Saturday 2021. May his generous soul rest in peace.

There are 'unknown saints' like Tom Doyle and Sid Quinn throughout the world, many of them for example taking care of aged parents or of their children with severe disabilities, who gladly say We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.

These have fanned into flame the gift of God, to use the words of St Paul in today's Second Reading.

Ave Stella Matutina – Hail, Morning Star

El Carmen

Traditional Latin Mass

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful (Benedict XVI). 

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 10-05-2025 if necessary).

Epistle: Ephesians 4: 1-6. Gospel: Matthew 22:34-46.

Altarpiece

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’ (Matthew 22:37; Gospel). 

'You will be blessed, because they cannot repay you . . .' Sunday Reflections, 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

 

Young Jew as Christ

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,)

Readings (English Standard Version, Catholic Edition: England & Wales, India, Scotland) 

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 14:1, 7-14 (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully.

Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honour, saying to them, ‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honour, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, “Give your place to this person”, and then you, with shame, will take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher.” Then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.’ 

He said also to the man who had invited him, ‘When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends, or your brothers and sisters or your relatives or rich neighbours, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.’

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Baptism, Confirmation and First Holy Communion at Holy Family Home for Girls, Bacolod City

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed . . .

Nine years ago I experienced this in a striking way after Mass at Holy FamilyHome for Girls (HFH) in Bacolod City, Philippines. I was based in Bacolod City from 2002 until 2017. Kathy Chua wished to share her birthday joy with the girls at Holy Family Home along with her family and co-workers. Most of the girls living in Holy Family Home - there are usually more than 30 there - have had traumatic experiences in their lives and the majority are from poor families.

Kathy and her husband Hernan have been celebrating her birthday for many years now  - and continue to do so - with the girls at HFH and the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family who run it. There are other families who have been doing the same, some in HFH, some in orphanages or homes for the aged in Bacolod City.

And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you . . .

Kathy, whose father died suddenly when she was only three months old, spoke briefly at the end of the programme after the catered lunch but asked Hernan to take over. (The programme included a magician, some games and dances by the girls.) He told us how blessed his whole family was simply by the joy they saw in the faces of the girls. That was my own experience over the more than 14 years I was involved with HFH. That involvement has been one of the greatest blessings of my life, an ongoing one that I carry with me now in Ireland, and all the greater because it was something I had never expected when I returned to the Philippines in 2002 after a two-year stint in Britain that was supposed to be a four-year one.

Most of these girls have had experiences that no child or young person should ever have. But in HFH they get the best of truly caring professional care that enables them to feel the healing power of God's love. Much of that healing comes from their interaction with each other and from their shared responsibilities. For example, each cubicle for personal hygiene is used by three girls, who also have to maintain it. And something that touched me when I first began to go to HFH and given the 'grand tour' was to learn that each new girl, whether still a child or already an adolescent, is given a cuddly toy which she keeps on her bed. There are two large dormitories, each maintained by the girls. And they make their bed first thing in the morning, have an early breakfast, gather for prayers and then go off to the local elementary and high schools, both within walking distance.

Columban Fr Michael Sinnott visits HFH

The girls had been praying their hearts out for Fr Sinnott, then 79, after he was kidnapped in October 2009. (He died unexpectedly here in Ireland on 23 November 2019, St Columban’s Day.) He visited HFH after his ordeal to thank the girls, the Sisters and the staff for their prayers. This was the reaction of the girls when I told them of his release:

Hernan reminded us in his 'few words' of Jesus and children: Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:14). 

The First Reading and the Gospel remind me of a line in the Handbook of the Legion of Mary: Always will the legionary bear in mind that he is visiting not as a superior to an inferior, not as one equal to another, but as an inferior to his superior, as the servant to the Lord. This is the opposite of what I have heard many well-meaning people say: We must go down to the level of the poor (or whoever). Jesus identifies himself with the 'outsider', with the 'other', whoever the 'other' may be. And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me' (Matthew 25:40). 

Children's Games

Pieter Bruegel the Elder [Web Gallery of Art]

Alleluia 

by Ronald Raz, Conducted by Maria Theresa Vizconde-Roldan

Hail Mary the Queen Children's Choir

Quezon City, Philippines 

                                    

Traditional Latin Mass 

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful (Benedict XVI). 

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 08-31-2025 if necessary).

Epistle: 2 Corinthians 3:4-9. Gospel: Luke 10:23-37.

The Good Samaritan

Théodule-Augustin Ribot [Web Gallery of Art]

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him (Luke 10:33-34; Gospel). 

There is nothing further for God to say. Sunday Reflections, 2nd Sunday of Advent, Year C

St John the Baptist Preaching

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

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.’”

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

 

Every valley shall be exalted

from Messiah by Handel

Tenor: Jon Vickers; conductor: Sir Thomas Beecham

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 Altar

[Wikipedia; photo]

This 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.)

Linaioli Tabernacle (shutters open)

Blessed Fra Angelico [Web Gallery of Art]

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

Francisco de Zurbarán [Wikimedia]

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.

 

Antiphona ad Communionem  

Communion Antiphon Baruch 5:5; 4:36

Ierusalem, surge et sta in excelso, 

Jerusalem, arised and stand upon the heights,

et vide iucunditatem, quae veniet tibi a Deo tuo.

and behold the joy which comes to you from God.

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

Blessed Fra Angelico [Web Gallery of Art]

And he came to her and said, 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!' (Luke 1:28; Gospel).