"The blind regain their sight, the lame walk . . ."
The Word for Sunday: http://usccb.org/bible/readings/121513.cfm
Is 35: 1-6a, 10
2 Jas 5: 7-10
Mt 11: 2-11
Have
you ever recalled famous people you may have seen or met such as a President, a
Pope, a living Saint, a movie star, a royal couple, a politician or even an infamous
criminal? Most likely you either cried
out to someone close to you, “There he (she) is!” or someone called to you,
“Look, there they are!”
My
earliest recollection of seeing a famous person goes back to when I was just a
small boy. My family had taken a trip to the east coast and we found ourselves
standing near the White House in Washington, D.C. My father and I happened to
be standing together peering through the fencing around the perimeter of the
President’s home. My Dad noticed someone
standing far in the distance on the green lawn of the famous mansion with a golf
club in hand and putting on a green.
He
said to me, as I looked up to him, “Do you know who that is?” I didn’t of
course. Then, with his arm outstretched
and finger pointed he said, “That’s President Eisenhower.” The President was
known to practice his putting in public.
I had nothing to go on; only the word of my father that this man was
indeed the President of the United States.
I trusted that he was based on the word of my father.
As
we draw close to the Christmas season, our first reading from Isaiah the
prophet and the Gospel from Matthew are calling to us – “There he is!” As I did
with my father, we have only the word of John the Baptist last Sunday to go on.
More fully, this Sunday the word of Jesus himself verifies John’s
inquiry, “Are you the one?” by an indication of the signs he was working for
the poor, oppressed, and marginalized: “. . .the blind regain their sight, the
lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the
poor have the good news proclaimed to them . . .”
Such
signs were meant to be proof of the Messiah’s presence; that God has come to
visit his people; to make all things new in Christ. As I trusted my Father, so
too John’s likely suspicions were confirmed by the word brought back to him in
prison – that the one he had baptized was indeed the Christ.
What
other “signs” verify this famous person we have come to know as the Christ? The
prophet Isaiah poetically speaks of a springtime event: “. . . the steppe will
rejoice and bloom. They will bloom with abundant flowers . . .” In God all
things are made new and this person to come, this Christ, will reshape the
relationship between God and humanity in a way that it is new and fresh. A new perspective on whom God had indeed
chosen as his people will bud forth like a new springtime.
The
military general, the political figure imagined was not to come with a mission
of force and fear. The Messiah was on a
mission of mercy, healing and wholeness.
In that way, all people can feel welcome and included in the salvation
that God has brought through his son, whose birth we commemorate in just a week
and a half. This is indeed good news and
cause for rejoicing on this Guadate Sunday.
In
our parishes and Catholic institutions we see the healing ministry of Jesus
continued – hospitals, missions of mercy in war torn and damaged countries,
education, and the explosion of ministries of service in our parishes. We’re not just do gooders. We are ambassadors
of the healing and merciful mission of Christ, which is ultimately the mission
of the Church. How much more clearly could
our Pope Francis make this evident for us?
Pause
for a moment and wonder if indeed someone has pointed this fact out to you and
how did you react? You and I are included in this family of Jesus; we stand in
his company through our baptism and we feed on his presence in the Eucharist as
food for our journey.
Again,
recently Pope Francis stated: “The Eucharist is not food for the perfect but
food for the weak.” As we process forward to receive this “medicinal bread” are
we in danger of being just too casual about it?
Why not bring our blindness, our uncleanness, our deafness, and our
sometimes lackluster attitudes to be healed and renewed by Christ?
In
that way, and authentically in that way, we can rightly say to others – “There
he is!” Let us pray to fall more deeply in love with Christ, our Lord.
faithfully
await the feast of our Lord’s Nativity,
enable
us, we pray,
to
attain the joys of so great a salvation
and
to celebrate them always
with
solemn worship and glad rejoicing.
(Collect
of 3rd Advent)
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