The Three Movements of Advent, First Saturday of Advent, Leonine Forum Day of Recollection, December 5, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Saint Andrew’s Church, Manhattan
Leonine Forum NYC Advent Day of Recollection
Saturday of the First Week of Advent
December 5, 2020
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 what is easily and helpfully describable as the “double-dynamism” of Advent: Christ’s coming to us in history, mystery and majesty and our going out to meet him. But neither Jesus’ nor our movement stops there. After the encounter, we are called to journey with Jesus, going forth united with him to continue and fulfill his messianic 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 Living 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 by 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, heard him say, “I am the way,” 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 to 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. On Monday, the Prophet Isaiah will tell us that this path Jesus will come into our world to indicate is a special one: it’s a highway called “the holy way.” And Isaiah says it has several characteristics: First, “no one unclean may pass over it:” It’s not only for those who desire holiness, but those who have been cleansed; God’s mercy, in other words, precedes our repentance, our making straight the paths. Second, it’s “for those with a journey to make”; it’s not for the inert who desire to remain exactly where they are, who don’t want to change, who don’t want to move. Third, it’s an exodus route on which “the redeemed will walk”; Even when we’re redeemed that is not the end of the journey, but in a sense the beginning. Once we’ve been redeemed, now we can begin that journey. That is the path of repentance, metamorphosis and holiness we’re called to make as we go out to meet Jesus.
• That leads to the third movement. Jesus wants our 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, and others, in seeing us, may see a reflection of the Master and of his teaching, his proclamation, his healing, his compassion. Today’s Gospel shows us this. Jesus’ heart bursting with compassion as he told the disciples that “the harvest is abundant but the laborers are few” and 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 others aright along the holy highway Jesus came to indicate. 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 Proclamation in the world. They would be able to do all of this because once we really encounter the Lord as he wants to be met, the Lord transforms us more and more into members of his body and then accompanies us 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 will bless our labor in the Vineyard, our work of harvesting; he will water the seed we sow, not letting our efforts ever go to waste. But I think there’s also a more significant meaning here. Jesus himself would say later in St. John’s Gospel, “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 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. This is the holy way on which the redeemed walk. This is the way of the kingdom.
• All three parts of the triple dynamism of Advent happen here at Mass. The Lord Jesus in the Mass comes to teach us, to proclaim his Good News, to heal us, to feed us, to quench our thirst. We go out through the Mass 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 him in the holy 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 for his harvest. 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 heed his command to pray to the Harvest Master for workers — as we do today — we are not just praying for others, but 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. This is the point of Advent. This is the point of life.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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