Receiving and Extending the Lord’s Visceral Compassion, First Saturday of Advent, December 6, 2014

Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Bernadette’s Parish, Fall River, MA
Saturday of the First Week of Advent
Memorial of St. Nicholas of Myra
December 6, 2014
Is 30:19-21.23-26, Ps 147, Mt 9:35-1:1.5-8

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• We’ve been focusing all week on the “double-dynamism” of Advent: Christ’s coming to us in history, mystery and majesty and our going out to meet him. We’ve pondered his reasons and sentiments for coming into our world and the dispositions we need to meet him where he’s at and allow him to bring us the salvation he came into the world to give. But there’s really a “triple dynamism” in Advent, a third movement that is supposed to happen after we run out to meet the One who has come into the world. It’s our moving to continue his holy work, our going forth united with him to continue the mission of salvation. Today’s readings help us to focus on all three of these Advent movements.
• The first movement concerns Christ’s reasons and sentiments coming into the world. They’re aptly summarized in today’s Gospel: “At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” These words not only describe why Jesus “went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom and curing every disease and illness,” but also why he came into our world in the first place. He looked at us and saw that we were mangled and abandoned, lost, in need of God’s guidance and God’s healing, and he entered the world as our Shepherd to protect us from the wolves and to call us by name to follow him through dark valleys into the verdant pastures of his sheepfold. He was the fulfillment of what Isaiah had been inspired by the Holy Spirit to prophesy in today’s first reading: “He will be gracious to you when you cry out, as soon as he hears he will answer you. The Lord will give you the bread you need and the water for which you thirst. No longer will your Teacher hide himself, but with your own eyes you shall see your Teacher, While from behind, a voice shall sound in your ears: ‘This is the way; walk in it,’ when you would turn to the right or to the left.” Jesus would be the Answer to, and the Answerer of, our prayers. He would give us not only our material bread but become our spiritual Bread to feed us. He would not only quench our physical thirsts but becoming our Living Water so that we would never thirst again (Jn 4:13-14). He would assume our human nature so that we could see our Teacher and be able to learn not only from his words but most especially from following his example. And his words and example would attune our consciences to hear his voice speaking to us from within, “This is the way; walk in it,” because we would have observed his path and be moved inwardly to follow in his footsteps. That’s the dynamism of the Lord’s coming to us in history, mystery and majesty.
• The second movement is for us to go out to meet him who is coming to us in this way, with these sentiments. It’s go out with eagerness, with our prayers to be heard, with our hunger and thirst for more of what God alone can give, with our need for a Shepherd to guide us, with a passion for his proclamation of the Good News, his teaching about how to live it and his healing, especially the much needed healing of our souls. Just like the crowds in the Gospels went to meet Jesus on mountains, on seashores, in valleys, in cities and villages, so we go out to meet him who looks on us with bowel-bursting mercy (which is what the phrase “had compassion on the crowds” literally means in Greek).
• But there’s also a third movement. It’s what happens after the encounter with God that occurs when these first two dynamisms meet. Jesus wants that encounter with him to be transformative, nourishing, and healing to such a great extent that we seek to extend it. He wants to change us through our meeting him in such a way that we can share his presence, so that others, in seeing us, may see a reflection of the Master and of his teaching, his proclamation, his healing, his compassion. Today’s readings show us this.
• His heart bursting with compassion, Jesus told the disciples that “the harvest is abundant but the laborers are few.” He therefore asked them, “Pray to the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” Little did they know that when they were praying for laborers, they were praying for themselves! Immediately after those prayers, St. Matthew tells us today, Jesus “summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.” He gave them his own authority to continue his work. He instructed them to do exactly what he himself had been doing: “Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’  Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.” He told them that just as “without cost you have received,” so “without cost you are to give.” Jesus wanted their own innards sick with compassion on the mangled and abandoned crowds. He wanted to empower them with his own compassion and authority in order to be able to shepherd them aright. And part of the disciples’ own healing, part of their own absorption of the Lord’s proclaiming and teaching, was to become nurses of the Divine Physician, teaching assistants of the Master, echoes of his Proclaiming in the world. They were able to do all of this because once they really encountered the Lord as he wants to be met, he would transform them more and more into members of his body and then accompany them in all of this work. Isaiah prophesied in today’s first reading, “He will give rain for the seed that you sow in the ground.” He would bless their labor in the Vineyard — the Lord wants laborers, not just bodies, in his Vineyard! — but in a special way water the seed they sow, not letting their efforts ever go to waste. But I think there’s also a more significant meaning here. Jesus himself would say, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” Just as Jesus fell to the ground and died as a grain of wheat and bore great fruit, so he calls us to sow ourselves, promising that he would water that sacrifice. The encounter with Jesus on which Advent helps us to focus is geared toward this type of transformation, so that we, meeting with Christ, will take on his compassion and seek to sow ourselves for the salvation of others and in the process preserve our own life into eternity.
• We have an example of that type of transformation in the famous saint we celebrate today. St. Nicholas was born in the town of Patara in the Roman Province of Asia, which is now southern Turkey. He grew up in the faith, formed in a good Christian home. After his parents both died when he was young, he looked to sow his life for the Gospel. Before he would enter training to become a priest and then later would become the Bishop of Myra (modern day Demre, Turkey), he would already be giving what he had for others. There’s the famous story of his help for a poor family in Patara when he was still a layman. The culture of the time looked at women as burdens of the men who were responsible for them. In order for a girl to marry, the father had to provide her with a dowry so that her new husband would be able to pay for her upkeep, at least for some period of time. Families without money for a dowry often couldn’t get their daughters married. One poor father didn’t know what to do for his three daughters for whom there was a danger, if he were to die or be incapable of work, that they would be driven or drawn into prostitution for survival. Nicholas heard of the family’s situation and one night threw a bag of cold coins through the family’s open window, enough for the dowry for the oldest daughter who was soon married. A short time later, Nicholas threw in another bag, sufficient for the dowry of the middle daughter, who likewise was married. Months later Nicholas tossed a third bag to help marry the third daughter of the father, who was waiting this time to find out who was the anonymous benefactor. The generosity of Saint Nicholas is continued through the generosity of Santa Claus (a translation of St. Nicholas) every Christmas, when all of us, like St. Nicholas, pay forward the generosity we have received from Christ. It’s unsurprising that someone like St. Nicholas who had compassion on that poor family and sacrificed his inheritance to help them would likewise sow his entire life for Christ and his Gospel, becoming a laborer in his vineyard and continuing the Lord’s work of proclamation, teaching and healing. The Lord is hoping that we will be touched in the same way as Nicholas was from the encounter with Christ who has come into our world, so that we, too, will engage with Christ in that third dynamism of the continuance of the Lord’s compassionate work.
• All three parts of the triple dynamism of Advent happen here at Mass. The Lord Jesus comes here to teach us, to proclaim his Good News, to heal us, to feed us, to quench our thirst. We come out to meet him, not because we have to, but because we want to, because we love him, because we know we need him. And it’s here that the Lord transforms us by his teaching in the Liturgy of the Word and by our communion with God-with-us in the Eucharist so that, at the end of Mass, he may send us forth to glorify the Lord by our life, to roll up our sleeves as laborers in his vineyard. Little did the twelve disciples know that when they were praying for laborers for the Lord’s harvest that Jesus would immediately respond by calling them by name. The Lord wants us to grasp that every time we’ve heeded his command to pray to the Harvest Master for workers, we haven’t just been praying for others, but we’ve been praying for ourselves. He’s called us here today in order to teach, heal and transform us so that, with his heart-filled compassion, we may go out and sow ourselves together with the One whose words and very Body and Blood will be sown in us today. If we respond to this triple dynamism with the docility and faith of St. Nicholas, then we may be able to make as big a difference in the lives of other as he did in the family in Patara and in the lives of the Christians of Myra, and come one day to share his eternal company. St. Nicholas, pray for us to become more and more like you, and like the Lord whose generosity you always sought to imitate!

The readings for today’s Mass were: