 |
“St. John the Baptist”
by Francesco Solimena, c. 1700 |
Readings
for the Second Sunday of Advent [2]
Readings
from the Jerusalem Bible [3]
Readings and Commentary: [4]
Reading 1: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11
Comfort, give
comfort to my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her
that her service is at an end,
her guilt is expiated;
indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD
double for all her sins.
A voice cries out:
In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!
Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill shall be made low;
the rugged land shall be made a plain,
the rough country, a broad valley.
Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together;
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Go up on to a high mountain,
Zion, herald of glad tidings;
cry out at the top of your voice,
Jerusalem, herald of good news!
Fear not to cry out
and say to the cities of Judah:
Here is your God!
Here comes with power
the Lord GOD,
who rules by his strong arm;
here is his reward with him,
his recompense before him.
Like a shepherd he feeds his flock;
in his arms he gathers the lambs,
carrying them in his bosom,
and leading the ewes with care.
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Commentary on Is
40:1-5, 9-11
This passage from Isaiah provides the first
prophetic vision of John the Baptist: “A voice cries out: In the desert
prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our
God” (see Matthew 3:3 which quotes this passage). Isaiah's prophecy then announces the
coming of the Messiah and what a blessing he will be to the people. It uses
language similar to that spoken by God as Jesus walks out of the Jordan
following his baptism. He goes on in the first paragraph to describe the
compassionate and loving character of the Messiah who is to come. In the second
paragraph the prophet focuses on the new covenant that will be established with
the people with the advent of the Messiah.
CCC: Is 40:1-3 719; Is
40:11 754
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Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 85:9-10-11-12, 13-14
R. (8) Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant
us your salvation.
I will hear what God proclaims;
the LORD—for he proclaims peace to his people.
Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him,
glory dwelling in our land.
R. Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.
Kindness and truth shall meet;
justice and peace shall kiss.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
and justice shall look down from heaven.
R. Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.
The LORD himself will give his benefits;
our land shall yield its increase.
Justice shall walk before him,
and prepare the way of his steps.
R. Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.
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Commentary on Ps
85:9-10-11-12, 13-14
Psalm 85 is a communal lament that focuses on
the woes of the nation. These strophes reflect the joy of salvation at the
restoration of the land following the destruction of the temple and the
Diaspora. Those faithful to God see the reward: a land restored, justice
returned, and the salvation of God. When used in the context of the Advent
season, the theme of preparation for a time of peace is announced. It is a
clear tie to the herald of the Messiah, echoing Isaiah’s oracle (Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11).
CCC: Ps 85:11 214; Ps 85:12 2795
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Reading II: 2 Peter 3:8-14
Do not ignore
this one fact, beloved,
that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years
and a thousand years like one day.
The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,”
but he is patient with you,
not wishing that any should perish
but that all should come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief,
and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar
and the elements will be dissolved by fire,
and the earth and everything done on it will be found out.
Since everything is to be dissolved in this way,
what sort of persons ought you to be,
conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God,
because of which the heavens will be dissolved in flames
and the elements melted by fire.
But according to his promise
we await new heavens and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you await these things,
be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.
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Commentary on 2 Pt
3:8-14
The author begins
this passage cautioning the people not to lose heart because the Lord had not
returned in their lifetimes. St. Peter reminds them that God’s time is
different than man’s perception: “a thousand years [is] like one
day” (see also Psalm
90:4). He continues,
reaffirming the Parousia (the second coming and the Apocalypse). St. Peter
teaches them that they must understand the day is coming, at a time they do not
expect, when they will be called to account for how they have used the life God
gave them. Their actions, he tells them, must be the very image of holiness and
devotion to Christ Jesus.
CCC: 2
Pt 3:9 1037, 2822; 2 Pt 3:11-12 671; 2 Pt 3:12-13 677; 2 Pt 3:13 1043, 1405
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Gospel: Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of
the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.
As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare your way.
A voice of one crying out in the desert:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.”
John the Baptist appeared in the desert
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
People of the whole Judean countryside
and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem
were going out to him
and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River
as they acknowledged their sins.
John was clothed in camel’s hair,
with a leather belt around his waist.
He fed on locusts and wild honey.
And this is what he proclaimed:
“One mightier than I is coming after me.
I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.
I have baptized you with water;
he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
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Commentary on Mk
1:1-8
This introduction and beginning of St. Mark’s
Gospel contains several important elements. First, Mark begins by announcing
his intent; to provide the good news of Jesus as the Christ – the Son of God.
He follows this immediately by linking Jesus’ story to the Hebrew Scriptures
describing John the Baptist’s role as fulfilling the oracle of Isaiah 40:3 (he actually includes other OT
references from Malachi 3:1; and Exodus 23:20).
The description of John the Baptist recalls the prophet
Elijah (2 Kings 1:8), further establishing St. John’s role as prophet and providing the
preconditions necessary for the appearance of the Messiah (It was explicit in
Hebrew tradition that the appearance of the Messiah must be preceded by the
second coming of Elijah (cf. Malachi 3:23-24)).
The passage closes with St. John the Baptist
announcing the coming of the Messiah who will transform the people, not simply through
repentance, but also by placing a new spirit within them (cf. Ezekiel 36:24-28).
CCC: Mk 1:1 422, 515
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Reflection:
The themes of Advent are well
represented in Sacred Scripture this day.
We begin with the prophetic vision of the prophet Isaiah, who sees the
coming of salvation heralded by one who must appear to him to be Elijah
returning, but who is in fact St. John the Baptist.
The glory of God will be
revealed as his path is prepared. We
understand the metaphor being used. Not
only must the event be announced, but the spirit of those who will receive the
gift must be readied. Preparing a path
for the Lord means that the “will” must be ready to accept the spirit of
holiness that God will impart.
St. Mark introduces us to the
herald of Christ, St. John the Baptist.
We have known about him from before his birth. He greeted Holy Mary when Jesus was in her
womb by leaping for joy (Luke
1:39-45). Now, fully grown, he takes up his mission,
calling for a return to God’s law and reign.
Eccentrically, he comes out of the wilderness reminding us of the prophet
Elijah, and basically hijacks the Jewish rite of ritual purification. (The
Pharisees used this ritual out of Ezekiel’s prophetic book (Ezekiel 36:24-29) to symbolize that they had turned from sin. Later,
in Jesus' public ministry (John
2:1-11), the Lord changes water
intended for this use into wine at the Wedding Feast at Cana.)
The Baptist calls for
conversion of heart and “repentance for
the forgiveness of sins.” We note
that St. John clarifies that there is one coming after him who will forgive
those sins. His baptism is symbolic, the
Lord’s is efficacious – it does what it signifies.
All of this is given to us in
Scripture, and how do we take it to heart?
As luck would have it, I had a recent experience that provides an apt
analogy.
Our family has a cabin
(literally a log cabin) up north near Gladwin, Michigan. In that cabin there is a very old round
wooden table. How old, I’m not exactly
sure, but to give you an idea, it was found in the attic of a house my parents
bought in 1961. It had been there for a
long time and house itself was nearly 100 years old. My guess is the table is probably around 100
years old now. It once had leaves, long
since lost. The table is about 5 feet in
diameter so our family of 7 fit around it quite nicely. It became our kitchen table and the place
where most of our meals were shared. In
that role it saw a lot of use.
When my mother found the table,
she went to work on it. She took off the
peeling surface veneer and underneath found solid planks of what she called
wormy Walnut, really pretty wood in spite of the name. Knowing the use she had in mind for the
table, she needed to protect that wooden surface. She proceeded to refinish the top using stain
and varnish. Now, the varnish available
back in the early sixties was not what we have today. She put on several coats of varnish in order
to protect it from spills and five growing children. As the years wore on, this
varnish became sticky. By the time it
was moved to the cabin in the early seventies the top had become tacky enough
so that we expected to find flies trapped on its surface.
We decided it was time to
refinish the table. So, on a long
weekend the project was undertaken. For
those of you who have never refinished furniture here is the process we followed:
First – the table was taken
apart. The top was placed on long
benches in the garage and the pedestal was put next to it on the same drop
cloth we had under the tabletop.
Second – the old varnish had
to be stripped off so we applied stripping compound and let it sit
overnight. We were not sure if we were
going to need to do this twice since at some point in the recent past a plastic
tablecloth was put on the table and the backing, a sort of cotton fabric, had
stuck to the top so it looked as if it was growing fur.
Third – the next morning we
came out with plastic putty knives and scraped off the gooey mess. Even though that was a messy job it was
easier than what had to happen next.
Fourth – we needed to take
the top down to clean bare wood so we started sanding – and sanding – and
sanding, first with coarse paper, then medium, then fine, until we had a clean
smooth surface.
Fifth – came the stain. In
our case we used a combination stain and polyurethane coating so we combined
two steps that any cabinet makers among you might consider sacrilege. But we needed to put on two coats and could
have put on a third.
To complete the job we
polished up the top with fine steel wool and moved it back inside and
re-assembled it. The results were
good. The table no longer traps flies
and it looks great in that old log cabin of approximately the same age.
That refinishing project is
what St. John the Baptist invites us to do to ourselves in this Advent season
as we hear his call to repentance. Just
like that old table, our finish gets flawed and perhaps even sticky with
time. We need to strip off that old
finish and renew ourselves as we prepare to receive the great guest who comes
at the Nativity of the Lord.
First, just as with that old
table, we need to strip off the varnish of sin and bad habits that have
accumulated since last we undertook this kind of effort. Also like the table, the longer it’s been
since we have had ourselves down to bare wood, the more difficult the finishing
process is going to be. In place of the
stripping compound and sandpaper we have the sacrament of reconciliation to
take care of the really big stuff, sins that blemish the soul.
Once we get that taken care
of we can start refining the clean-up process.
Prayer is a great refiner of our spiritual selves. It is a lot like sanding if you think about
it. Since we are commanded to pray in
private, no one really sees us praying, but it is in that way we get to know
the Lord. We speak with him and he
answers (if we listen). While people do
not see that interior life of prayer, it is the foundation that ultimately
determines what is seen by others.
So, in our analogy, what
represents that last step, the finishing process, in our lives? It is our actions in accordance with our
faith. It is how we act around others
and what we do for those less fortunate.
Acts of charity do amazing things for the luster of our finish. In those
instances, others see us as we hope to be seen, as adopted children of God.
As we really get into our
Advent journey, the hardest part is really deciding to begin the transformation
that will make us worthy to receive the one who came and who is to come. Let that be our pledge going forward: that we
will make the effort to remake ourselves so that like a beautiful piece of
furniture we will be fitting guests at our Lord’s great feast.
Pax
In other years on this date: Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Loreto.
Did you know, by clicking the link at the beginning of each
commentary you can see all the places in our liturgy where that Scripture
passage is used?
[1]
Catechism links are taken from the
Homiletic Directory, Published by the Congregation for
Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, 29 June 2014.
[2]
The picture used today is “St. John the Baptist” by Francesco Solimena, c.
1700.
[3]
S.S. Commemoratio[4]
The readings are taken from the New American Bible, with the exception of the
psalm and its response which were developed by the International Committee for
English in Liturgy (ICEL). This republication is not authorized by USCCB and is
for private use only.
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