Fr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY
Third Sunday of Advent, Year C
December 12, 2021
Zeph 3:14-18, Is 12:2-6, Phil 4:4-7, Lk 3:10-18
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided today’s homily:
- For the second Sunday in a row, like we do each Advent, we go out to meet Saint John the Baptist at the Jordan River. There the voice of one crying out in the wilderness summons us to make straight the paths of the Lord, to lower the mountains of our pride, to fill up the valleys of spiritual minimalism, to straighten our crooked ways and smooth our rough ones. People were walking for 20-50 miles to meet John out in the middle of nowhere at the Jordan, some to investigate whether he was the Messiah, others sent by the religious authorities to evaluate him, most to listen to him with sincerity, be converted by him and prepare for the coming of the Messiah whom he was announcing.
- As a result of his powerful preaching, as we see at the beginning of today’s Gospel, the crowds were moved to ask him to get practical about how to prepare the way for the Messiah. “What then should we do?,” they asked. And he got very concrete. He called them to self-giving charity: “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none and whoever has food should do likewise.” When despised tax collectors asked him the same question, he instructed them to stop collecting more than is prescribed and basically cease their greedy ways and the notorious shakedowns of their own people to which they were accustomed. When even the Roman soldiers present had their hearts pierced by his words to ask what they had to do, he told them to practice justice rather than use their power for extortion, to tell the truth rather than falsely accuse, and to be satisfied with their wages so that they would not be prey to corruption.
- We need to be just as practical when we hear John the Baptist’s message each Advent. We are called to be generous in sharing what we possess with those in need, to avoid greed, be just, tell the truth, and be content with what we have rather than obsessed about more. We need to be willing to make a journey out into the desert, away from our comforts, and with courage ask not John, but God in prayer, or even his earthly emissaries, “When then should I do?” And then, as fruits of repentance and a desire for renewal in our faith, act on what God through prayer, conscience or his representative indicates.
- But John calls us further than asking for and making such minor or major course corrections, as important as they are. Ultimately he summons them to a new life through a life-changing relationship with the One for whom he was preparing the way. “I am baptizing you with water,” he blared, “but one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” John was preparing us for Jesus and for our living out the true meaning of Christian baptism. John’s baptism at the Jordan was just a sign of the need for the forgiveness of sins and of a new life; the baptism Jesus would inaugurate, by the power of the Holy Spirit, would actually accomplish that forgiveness and make possible that new life together with him, a life that rejects Satan, his empty promises and evil works, and lives consciously by faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in communion with the holy, Catholic Church, forgiven by sin, risen with Christ, seeking eternal life. Jesus would come with fire, John indicates, to clear his threshing floor of chaff so that we might be free to live this new, fully Christian, way of life. To live this way is ultimately the response to the question, “What must I do?” To receive this gift, open it, and live by it, is what we make straight the paths, lower the mountains, fill the valleys for.
- One of the characteristics of that new life being offered, of the truly Christian life with Jesus, is joy. This Sunday the Church celebrates Gaudete Sunday, taken from Saint Paul’s command to the Philippians which we hear in the second reading, “Gaudete semper in Domino,” “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice.” Elsewhere he said the same thing to the Christians in Thessalonika: “This is God’s will for you: rejoice always!” (1 Thess 5:16). Our vocation, our fundamental Christian mission, is to rejoice. To highlight the importance of this calling, the priest uses rose vestments and we light a rose rather than a purple candle on the Advent wreath according to medieval color schemes for joy. A Christian who is not joyful is not just an oxymoron but a false prophet. If we’re not joyful, we imply that the “good news” is a lie. On the other hand, if we are really filled with joy, the world will eventually bust down the doors of our churches to get in, because our family, our friends, our neighbors, are made for joy, don’t have it, and consciously or unconsciously are seeking it in the midst of short-lived technological pleasures that can never deliver it. If they see it in us, they’ll hunger to know why, and they’ll follow us to the source of our joy, who is Christ Jesus.
- One of the biggest challenges facing the Church, Pope Francis has been saying, is that many Christians do not live the faith we joy. That’s why in 2013 he wrote a beautiful exhortation called the Joy of the Gospel, since he said that joy “fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus, who accept his offer of salvation [and] are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness.” But we must really encounter Jesus at the depth at which he seeks to meet us.
- One of the problems for many of us is that we relate to Jesus mainly as a moral teacher rather than one who said to us, “I have come so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be made complete.” Many of us are not accustomed to thinking of Jesus as the most joyful person who ever lived. We don’t imagine him smiling or laughing. Many times we picture Jesus as he was depicted in the 1977 Franco Zeffirelli film Jesus of Nazareth in which Robert Powell portrayed Jesus in a way in which Jesus seldom smiled and was, at least to me, rather lifeless. Back in 1975, Saint Pope Paul VI wrote a beautiful exhortation entitled, appropriately, Gaudete in Domino, taken from Saint Paul’s words this Sunday, in which he went on at length about Jesus’ contagious joy. This is so important for Missionaries of Charity in particular to do insofar as the spirit of the Society of the Missionaries of Charity is one of loving trust, total surrender and cheerfulness as lived by Jesus and Mary in the Gospel.”
- Paul VI wrote wrote that Jesus “experienced our joys. He … celebrated a whole range of human joys, those simple daily joys within the reach of everyone. … He admires the birds of heaven, the lilies of the field. He immediately grasps God’s attitude towards creation at the dawn of history. He willingly extols the joy of the sower and the harvester, the joy of the man who finds a hidden treasure, the joy of the shepherd who recovers his sheep or of the woman who finds her lost coin, the joy of those invited to the feast, the joy of a marriage celebration, the joy of the father who embraces his son returning from a prodigal life, and the joy of the woman who has just brought her child into the world. For Jesus, these joys are real because for Him they are the signs of the spiritual joys of the kingdom of God: the joy of people who enter this kingdom return there or work there, the joy of the Father who welcomes them. And for His part Jesus Himself manifests His satisfaction and His tenderness when He meets children wishing to approach Him, a rich young man who is faithful and wants to do more, friends who open their home to Him, like Martha, Mary and Lazarus. His happiness is above all to see the Word accepted, the possessed delivered, a sinful woman or a publican like Zacchaeus converted, a widow taking from her poverty and giving. He even exults with joy when He states that the little ones have the revelation of the kingdom that remains hidden from the wise and clever. Yes, because Christ was ‘a man like us in all things but sin,’ He accepted and experienced affective and spiritual joys, as a gift of God. And He did not rest until ‘to the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation…and to those in sorrow, joy.’”
- Saint Paul VI doesn’t stop there, but says we have to “understand properly the secret of the unfathomable joy which dwells in Jesus and which is special to Him. … It is by reason of the inexpressible love by which He knows that He is loved by His Father. When He is baptized on the banks of the Jordan, this love, which is present from the first moment of His Incarnation, is manifested: ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on you.’ This certitude is inseparable from the consciousness of Jesus.” Jesus’ joy came from his abiding in the love of the Father and Jesus wants to communicate to us that joy by helping us to know and experience that love. At the same time, however, Paul VI makes plain that this joy is not some spiritual cotton candy. This Christ-like joy, he said, is a “demanding joy,” saying it begins with the beatitudes. People today think joy comes from being rich but Jesus says it comes from spiritual poverty; the world says it comes from comedy, but Jesus says it comes through mourning; the world says it comes from having everyone fear starting a conflict with you, but Jesus says it comes through being meek and a peacemaker; the world says it comes from having all of your sexual fantasies and even perversions fulfilled, whereas Jesus indicates it flows from being pure in heart; the world says it flows from being popular and admired, but Jesus says real joy comes from being persecuted, reviled and hated on his account. That’s the path for us to “rejoice and be glad,” for our reward in heaven will be great. Christian joy is a demanding joy. We see this in Jesus’ own joy. “In a mysterious way,” Saint Paul VI writes, “Christ Himself accepts death at the hands of the wicked and death on the cross, … but the Father has not allowed death to keep Him in its power. … This is why the disciples were confirmed in an ineradicable joy when they saw the Lord on Easter evening.” And so Paul VI draws a conclusion: “The joy of the kingdom brought to realization can only spring from thesimultaneous celebration of the death and resurrection of the Lord. … Neither trials nor sufferings have been eliminated from this world, but they take on a new meaning in the certainty of sharing in the redemption wrought by the Lord and of sharing in His glory. … Here below this joy will always include to a certain extent the painful trial of a woman in labor and a certain apparent abandonment, like that of the orphan… but the disciples’ sadness, which is according to God and not according to the world, will be promptly changed into a spiritual joy that no one will be able to take away from them.”
- On this day in which we remember 490 years ago the appearances of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Saint Juan Diego, we recall Mary’s joy. “Joy,” Saint Teresa of Calcutta said, “was the strength of Our Lady.” She was full of joy because she was full of grace and full of God, because the Lord was with her. Later in her Magnificat, which is a hymn of joy, she exulted, “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior” and then gave reasons: because he has looked on her humility, done great things for her, extended his mercy from generation to generation, exalted the humble, filled the hungry, and faithfully helped Israel as he promised. We have the same perennial reasons for joy. As Mary as “cause of our joy” intercedes for us. This Gaudete Sunday is an opportunity for us to receive that help, which is constitutive to our Christian vocation and to the identity and apostolate of the Missionaries of Charity. “An MC must be an MC of Joy,” Mother Teresa famously said. “By this sign the world will know that your are MCs.”
- So this Sunday, as we ask, “What must I do?” and John the Baptist orients us, we are summoned to rejoice always and ask Jesus, with his winnowing fan, to burn away whatever keeps us from recognizing in the Father’s love and Jesus’ triumph the ineradicable sense of Christian happiness even in this world. The Mass is the perfect place to begin our re-rooting ourselves in Christian joy. In the Mass, we enter live in time into the eternal events of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We bring our whole lives, the good and the bad, to Calvary, where we ask Jesus to take them, to unite them to himself on the Cross, to transform and transfigure them by the power of his resurrection. We ask him ultimately to change and transform us through his word and through entering into communion with him. One of my favorite saints, St. Josemaria Escriva, was once asked why he couldn’t stop smiling when he distributed Holy Communion. He responded, “Because I am giving Happiness incarnate to people!” Jesus is our happiness. Jesus is our joy. And during the celebration of the First Mass in the Upper Room, he told us, “I have said these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete!” Jesus our joy has called us to rejoice always. Jesus our joy will soon be in us to make our joy complete. We cry out with joy and gladness, because among us, within us, is the great and holy one of Israel! May we exult always at this incredible gift and help the whole world to rejoice with us!
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!
Sing joyfully, O Israel!
Be glad and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
The LORD has removed the judgment against you
he has turned away your enemies;
the King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst,
you have no further misfortune to fear.
On that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged!
The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in his love,
he will sing joyfully because of you,
as one sings at festivals.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (6) Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.
God indeed is my savior;
I am confident and unafraid.
My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.
With joy you will draw water
at the fountain of salvation.
R. Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.
Give thanks to the LORD, acclaim his name;
among the nations make known his deeds,
proclaim how exalted is his name.
R. Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.
Sing praise to the LORD for his glorious achievement;
let this be known throughout all the earth.
Shout with exultation, O city of Zion,
for great in your midst
is the Holy One of Israel!
R. Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.
Reading II
Brothers and sisters:
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
The crowds asked John the Baptist,
“What should we do?”
He said to them in reply,
“Whoever has two cloaks
should share with the person who has none.
And whoever has food should do likewise.”
Even tax collectors came to be baptized and they said to him,
“Teacher, what should we do?”
He answered them,
“Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.”
Soldiers also asked him,
“And what is it that we should do?”
He told them,
“Do not practice extortion,
do not falsely accuse anyone,
and be satisfied with your wages.”
Now the people were filled with expectation,
and all were asking in their hearts
whether John might be the Christ.
John answered them all, saying,
“I am baptizing you with water,
but one mightier than I is coming.
I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor
and to gather the wheat into his barn,
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Exhorting them in many other ways,
he preached good news to the people.
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