Second Sunday of Advent, Year A
First Reading: Isa 11:1-10
Second Reading: Rom 15:4-9
Gospel Reading: Mt 3:1-12
This Sunday’s first reading encapsulates the Christmas spirit: the spirit of peace. “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”
The world says that the way to “get into the Christmas spirit” is to put up coloured lights and tinsel, to hope for snow, and to give and receive expensive presents. However, St. John the Baptist, sent by God to prepare the world for the very first Christmas, had a different message. “Repent,” he said, “for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” In particular, be reconciled to those with whom you are not at peace.
That is easy to say, we think, but no one could live peaceably with my boss, or my husband, or my mother-in-law, or my son-in-law, or my teenage daughter, or my secretary, or my teacher, or one of my students, or my colleague at work. There is nothing I can do about it. It is not my fault: I hardly ever lose my temper or even get irritated except with that person.
Probably we each have someone who seems to make it impossible for us to behave like the peace-loving person we really are. Having admitted that, let us stop and realize that, for at least one other person, we may be that one. Our bad temper, or laziness, or tardiness, excusable as it seems to us, may be the rock on which our spouse’s or our children’s or our colleague’s patience is wrecked repeatedly.
In 1995, Father Robert T. Kennedy, a professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington DC, spoke to the priests of the Vancouver Archdiocese. “We are all finite and sin-wounded people,” he said. “That means that we all trample on one another’s rights now and then.”
Injustice can be deliberate and malicious, he noted. However, it can also be inadvertent, because we are not conscious of other people’s rights or how we trespass on them.
“Finally,” he said, “there is supposed injustice. Those in authority, especially, have to be very careful that the way in which they act does not make people think that they are being dealt with arbitrarily, unfairly, or unjustly. Supposed injustice is not injustice at all, but it has the same effect of injuring community.”
During Advent, let us be reconciled with everyone around us. First, let us try hard to identify and correct the faults in ourselves which make it difficult for others to get on with us. If necessary, we can ask around to find out what they are.
Second, let us repent and apologize for our offences against others: not just “I’m sorry for anything I may have done to offend you” (which implies that we do not know and cannot imagine what we have done), but a genuine apology for a real, specific offence, whether deliberate, inadvertent, or supposed.
Third, let us forgive the same faults in others. They may be inexcusable, but they are still forgivable. In justice, we must excuse what is excusable; but Jesus commanded us to forgive what is inexcusable. In the “Our Father,” he taught us to pray that God will forgive us as we forgive others. To make it clear, he added, “If you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you.”
We all need God’s forgiveness. Without it, we are nothing more than the chaff that he will “burn with unquenchable fire.”
During the rest of Advent, let us heed John the Baptist: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.” Let us pray with St. Paul that “the God of steadfastness and encouragement” will enable us “to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus,” so we may truly get into the Christmas spirit.
Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English, with new insights. The whole course is available in written form and, one session per week, in YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Father is also teaching the course in person: on Sundays at 2 p.m. in the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 Saint John Paul II Way, Vancouver (33rd and Willow); and on Mondays at 10 a.m. in St. Anthony’s Church hall, 2347 Inglewood Ave., West Vancouver. Next week’s topic is “God: Unity and Trinity.”