3rd
Sunday of Advent
Fr.
Philip Neri Powell, OP
Lay
Carmelites/OLR, NOLA
Last
Sunday we heard a tough question from St Paul, “Since everything is
to be dissolved [by fire], what sort of persons ought you to be[?]”
This is the sort of soul-searching question we ask when it appears
that there is little else we can do to make things right. The sort of
question that cuts away the fat and exposes the meat of the matter.
When everything you know and love is rushing headlong toward a fiery
end, and there is nothing to be done, nothing to be said, and the
only thing that matters is the eternal disposition of your soul, you
ask yourself: “What sort of person ought I to be?” Of course, for
a follower of Christ, not knowing the time or place of the Lord's
return, every minute and every hour of everyday is an occasion to
ponder this question. Standing before us as Savior and Just Judge,
our Lord draws us toward our final judgment, our ultimate end. And
our response to his allure – how we choose to see and hear his
invitation – says everything that can be said about our
faithfulness to the mission and ministry we left us to complete. What
response from us best exemplifies our faithfulness? JOY!
Writing
to the Thessalonians, Paul straightens their spines with an
admonition, “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In
all circumstances give thanks. . .” That's your plan for
next week, your plan to prepare for the coming of the Christ-Child.
First, rejoice always! Are you joyful, filled with joy? I
don't mean, “Are you a nice person who's always smiling and
laughing?” Ask any comedian – being funny, making others laugh is
not always a matter of joy. There's plenty to laugh at in a
despairing world, plenty to mock and disparage. Humor alone is not
joy. Joy is an act of charity, a willful-doing-of-love; conscious,
active behavior that give God the glory and increases the Good of
another. Joyfulness then is the disposition, the attitude from which
every truly loving act begins. Not all good deeds are loving. We can
do “good deeds” out of selfishness – to gain advantage, to
massage an ego, to put another in our debt, or to pay a debt. We can
say nice things in order to avoid an unpleasant confrontation or to
win someone to our cause. But every truly joyful act, every truly
loving act is done so that God's glory is made manifest and the Good
of another is perfected. To rejoice always is to live in a permanent
state of giving God the glory for the love He has shown us and
sharing His love abundantly, recklessly.
One
way – the best way – we can share God's love is to follow Paul's
second admonition to the Thessalonians: pray without ceasing.
Prayer, simply put, is talking to God; specifically, giving Him
thanks and praise for His many gifts, and receiving those gifts to
use for the benefit of others. But how do we give God thanks and
praise w/o ceasing? Do we walk around mumbling the Our Father all
day, or let the Act of Contrition run through our minds while we go
about our work? We could. But Paul is pointing toward a kind of
prayer that goes much deeper than mere recitation. To pray w/o
ceasing is to make every thought, word, and deed a prayer. Make
everything you think, say, and do an act of praise and thanksgiving
to God. We accomplish this by “putting on the mind of Christ,” by
wholly surrendering our hearts and minds to the mission and ministry
of Christ. To make a cup of coffee, hot water must be strained
through a filter of ground up coffee beans. To pray w/o ceasing, our
thoughts, words, and deeds must be strained through a filter of
sacrificial love. Is this thought, this word, this deed filtered
through self-giving charity, through the joy that comes with
receiving the Father's mercy?
Paul's third admonition to us is probably the most difficult: “In
all circumstances give thanks. . .” Rejoicing always and
praying w/o ceasing are too easy when compared to giving thanks in
all circumstances. We understand the need for thanksgiving when we
receive a gift or a compliment. Saying, “thank you” is a habit
our parents instilled in us from day one. However, Paul says that we
must give thanks in all circumstances not just when we receive
something we want. Is it possible to give thanks for disease and
disaster? Yes. For loss and setbacks? Yes. These are the times when
thanksgiving to God is the most efficacious in strengthening our
relationship to the Father. How? The whole point of giving thanks to
God is to acknowledge our total dependence on His grace for
everything we have and everything we are. If we are alive – even in
the worst circumstances – then we are alive to give thanks. We are
alive to serve, alive to love, and to forgive. In other words, we are
alive to carry on growing in holiness and bearing witness to the Good
News. Circumstances, by definition, change. We change. Our reactions
change. God, however, never changes. He is steadfast in loving us and
drawing us closer and closer to Himself.
As
God draws us closer to Himself, we respond by rejoicing always; by
praying w/o ceasing; and by giving thanks in all circumstances. When
we do these things, we not only heed Paul's admonitions, we also
begin to imitate the ministry of John the Baptist. John is sent ahead
to announce the coming of the Christ. He's not Christ himself nor is
he an ancient prophet reborn. Like John, we are forerunners,
harbingers of the Christ. Like John, we go out and bear witness to
the mercy of Father, announcing the need for repentance, and
rejoicing at the coming of the Lord. This season of preparation is
set aside so that we might pre-pare; that is, pare away before
he comes. Cut away anything that stands btw us and the Christ –
pride, despair, vengeance, old wounds, jealousy, spite, anger –
whatever might pull us away from Christ and toward the desolation of
the Enemy. Like John, we were made to go back to God; we were re-made
in Christ to preach and teach his Good News. In about ten days,
Christ will come as a child – vulnerable, needy, small. When his
hour comes, he will come again as Savior and Just Judge – powerful,
merciful, majestic. Between now and then, btw this 3rd
Sunday of Advent and his awaited return, we are drawn into the
mission and ministry of John the Baptist – to preach, to praise, to
bless in Christ's name any and all who see and hear the Word of the
Father. As followers of Christ, our job is to make sure – with our
rejoicing, our praying, and our thanksgiving – to make sure that
His Word is clearly see and clearly heard.
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