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- Today we begin the second phase of Advent dedicated to the proximate preparation for the celebration of the Lord\u2019s birth. In the first phase of Advent, which runs from the first Sunday of Advent through December 16, we focus on the Lord\u2019s \u201ctriple-coming\u201d in history (Bethlehem), mystery (the sacraments and prayer), and majesty (on the clouds of heaven for the second coming), with a special accent on the third and, based on it, the second and how we\u2019re called to run out to embrace him in each of these three ways that, transformed by him, we begin to journey with him. Now we shift gears and we will begin traversing the events that happened just before our Savior\u2019s birth.<\/li>\n
- To accompany us each day, the Church gives us the ancient \u201cO Antiphons,\u201d called \u201cO\u201d because they all start with a vocative, calling the Lord Jesus by a specific title, and then asking him under that title to do something specific for us so that we may become more like him. These antiphons were already in use in the 700s in Rome but may have their origin a few hundred years earlier than that. In them, we\u2019ll address\u00a0Jesus in Latin,\u00a0O Sapientia (O Wisdom), O Adonai (O Lord), O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse), O Clavis David (O Key of David), O Oriens (O Rising Sun), O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations), and finally O Emmanuel (O God-with-us). These Antiphons are prayed by the Church twice a day, during the Alleluia verse to prepare us for the Gospel at Mass, and before and after the Magnificat canticle at Vespers. They influence the way\u00a0we\u2019re supposed to relate to Jesus as he comes into our world, the way we\u2019re supposed to receive God\u2019s word and the way\u00a0we\u2019re called to\u00a0respond with joy. The beautiful Advent hymn we sing \u201cO Come, O Come, Emmanuel,\u201d is based on the O Antiphons, but the translation is a little loose and they\u2019ve changed the traditional order. Regardless, it is a beautiful hymn not just to sing but upon which to meditate during these last days before Christmas.<\/li>\n
- The O Antiphon we have today orients our approach to today\u2019s\u00a0readings:\u00a0O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter sauviterque disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae<\/em>. \u201cO Wisdom, who have come from the mouth of God Most High, guiding all created things strongly and sweetly from end to end: come to teach us the way of prudence.\u201d And Jesus, Wisdom incarnate,\u00a0responds to that prayer by teaching us the\u00a0way of wisdom\u00a0that effuses his genealogy.<\/li>\n
- The first reaction of most of us to the Lord\u2019s genealogy is that it concerns anything but wisdom. Pope Francis, whose 80th birthday we mark today, said two\u00a0years ago that\u00a0when this passage is read, many say it\u2019s like reading straight out of the telephone book. But there\u2019s something else going on. The genealogy of the Lord first shows us history, that the Word of God not only became man and dwelled among us but became \u201chistory.\u201d He entered our history. Jews were even more focused on genealogies than French Canadians and it was highly significant for St. Matthew to show that Jesus was a descendent first of Abraham and then of David. This communicated, respectively, that he was a Jew and he was an appropriate candidate to be the Messiah as a descendant of King David.<\/li>\n
- But Jesus didn\u2019t merely enter into history, but changed it, making it \u201csalvation history.\u201d That\u2019s what the three main phases of fourteen generations show us in the genealogy. They trace out for us the three main stages in salvation history. The progression from from the wandering Abraham to established King David shows the \u00a0dignity to which God calls us all, to his kingdom, to greatness. God\u2019s made us for this greatness. The middle 14 generations show how we squandered that greatness, ending up in slavery in the Babylonian exile. But the last 14 show us that God didn\u2019t leave us there, but entered not just to bring us back to the beginning but to bring us forward to an even greater state, because now we know that how much God really does love us mercifully.<\/li>\n
- We see this truth about salvation history clearly depicted in the genealogy. It was almost unheard of to mention the names of women in genealogies. But we see several women named \u2014 and not just the Blessed Virgin. We see Tamar, who was a seducer and adulteress, deceiving her father-in-law into impregnating her(Gen 38); Rahab who was a prostitute in Jericho (Josh 2:1-7); Ruth who was not even a Jew but a Moabite whom the Book of Deuteronomy said shouldn\u2019t be admitted into the assembly of the Lord (Deut 23:3); and Bathsheba, an adulteress, whom David seduced and who became the mother of Solomon (2 Sam 11). These are women who were clearly sinners \u2014 as were various of the other men in the genealogy, but whose sins were not quite as infamous \u2014 but sinners who were grafted onto the tree of salvation history leading to Jesus. They show us how Jesus wants to redeem all of us from the inside, from within history, turning even our sins into an opportunity for salvation.<\/li>\n
- But the genealogy in a sense doesn\u2019t stop there. God has entered into salvation history in order to walk with us, in order to lead us out of sin onto the path of wisdom and right judgment. In his 2014 homily on this genealogy, Pope Francis said something very beautiful and creative. He asked, \u201cWhat is God\u2019s last name?\u201d It\u2019s only a recent phenomenon that people have first and last names. Throughout most of history, people\u2019s last name either was the place that they were from (Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Philip of Macedonia, Paul of Tarsus), or what they did (Smith, Baker, Miller, Seaman, Taylor, Piper, Cook, Farmer, Hunter, Cartwright, Carpenter, Dyer, Knight, Archer, Butler, Mason and so on) or whose son they were (Simon bar Jonah [Simon, son of John], Hansen [son of Hans], MacDonald [Son of Donald]). What\u2019s God\u2019s surname? \u201cWe are,\u201d Pope Francis said, \u201ceach one of us. He takes our name for his name.\u201d Just as God said to Moses from the burning bush, \u201cI am the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob,\u201d so he says still, \u201cI am the God of Roger,” of Manual, of Odete, of Jose, of Fernando, of Grace and so on. \u00a0He makes us all part of his family tree, at its very roots, so that we can be grafted not only onto his history but his salvation history.<\/li>\n
- The true path of wisdom onto\u00a0which we beg God to lead us culminates in our letting Jesus, salvation history incarnate, to begin to write our own history. True\u00a0sanctity is letting the Lord write our history, cooperating with his plans to save us and through us to help him save the world. As we prepare for communion with the Lord of history, let us ask him for the grace to do in us what he did with Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba, and make our names famous because of their association with Him, who loved us so much to take our names as his own!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The readings for today\u2019s Mass were:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
Reading 1
\nGN 49:2, 8-10<\/a><\/h4>\nJacob called his sons and said to them:
\n\u201cAssemble and listen, sons of Jacob,
\nlisten to Israel, your father.<\/div>\n\u201cYou, Judah, shall your brothers praise
\n\u2013your hand on the neck of your enemies;
\nthe sons of your father shall bow down to you.
\nJudah, like a lion\u2019s whelp,
\nyou have grown up on prey, my son.
\nHe crouches like a lion recumbent,
\nthe king of beasts\u2013who would dare rouse him?
\nThe scepter shall never depart from Judah,
\nor the mace from between his legs,
\nWhile tribute is brought to him,
\nand he receives the people\u2019s homage.\u201d<\/div>\n\nResponsorial Psalm
\nPS 72:1-2, 3-4AB, 7-8, 17<\/a><\/h4>\nR. (see 7)\u00a0Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.
\nO God, with your judgment endow the king,
\nand with your justice, the king\u2019s son;
\nHe shall govern your people with justice
\nand your afflicted ones with judgment.
\nR.\u00a0Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.
\nThe mountains shall yield peace for the people,
\nand the hills justice.
\nHe shall defend the afflicted among the people,
\nsave the children of the poor.
\nR.\u00a0Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.
\nJustice shall flower in his days,
\nand profound peace, till the moon be no more.
\nMay he rule from sea to sea,
\nand from the River to the ends of the earth.
\nR.\u00a0Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.
\nMay his name be blessed forever;
\nas long as the sun his name shall remain.
\nIn him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed;
\nall the nations shall proclaim his happiness.
\nR.\u00a0Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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