Fourth Sunday in Advent - Year C

“I Come to Do Your Will, O God”

As we arrive at the final days of Advent, a season of expectation, we would do well to ask ourselves, “What have we been waiting for?” The question is a fair one, given the fact that Jesus has already been born incarnate two-thousand years ago, and we know neither the day nor the hour of his second coming. How can we expect an event that has already occurred or an event whose coming is clouded in unknowing?

The answer lies in the fact that while Jesus has been born incarnate centuries ago, he has yet to be born in our hearts and lives today. Every Christian has to make the message of the incarnation his or her own. Today’s readings make that fact abundantly clear. In each case we meet a humble person or place who has received the message of receiving the Messiah. Bethlehem, the lowliest place, will become the location for the Messiah’s coming in the first reading from the prophet Micah. St. Paul summarizes the entire prophetic tradition of Israel in today’s second reading: God desires not sacrifices and offerings, but a will entirely devoted to Him.

The Gospel reading presents us with the one human being who exemplifies this lesson of the first two readings. The Blessed Virgin Mary accepted the will of God completely in her life and became the Mother of God. She brought forth the incarnate Word of God into the world. Yet, when she received this message, Mary did not exalt in her own gift, but immediately set out to visit and serve her cousin Elizabeth. Mary brought forth Christ in the flesh and in her deeds for others.

That example of Mary provides us with our own goal for the Advent and Christmas season. The Lord Jesus must be born in our hearts and we must bring him forth into the world through our words and deeds. The authentic Christian life is one that incarnates Christ again in the world by corresponding to God’s grace, surrendering to God’s will, and performing the deeds of justice, love, and mercy. The angel did not ask Mary about her theory of God or any other proposition. Instead, she was asked to surrender to God’s will and to make Christ present to the world. That is the duty of every Christian. As Pope Benedict XVI stated in reference to the final judgment parable of Matthew 25, “In this parable, the judge does not ask what kind of theory a person held about God and the world. He is not asking about a confession of dogma, solely about love. That is enough, and it saves a man. Whoever loves is a Christian. However great the temptation may be for theologians to quibble about this statement, to provide it with ifs and buts, notwithstanding: we may and should accept it in all its sublimity and simplicity, quite unconditionally – just as the Lord posited it” (What it Means to be Christian, p. 68-69).

The real tragedy of the Advent and Christmas season isn’t over whether a person says “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”, or whether public nativity displays will be allowed or whether kids can sing Christmas carols in public schools. The great tragedy will be that we failed to allow Christ to be born in our hearts and into the world through our deeds of justice, love, and mercy. Let us beg for this grace so that the real meaning of Christmas may be forthcoming and we fulfill our human vocation. May our prayer be that of St. Ambrose: “O Mary, you did not doubt, you believed and received the just reward of your faith. ‘Blessed are you that have believed.’ But we too are blessed because we have heard and have believed: every soul that believes, conceives and begets the word of God, and recognizes his works. O Mary, obtain for each of us your spirit of glorifying the Lord; that each of us may have your spirit of rejoicing in God. Through you alone are Mother of Christ physically, yet through faith Christ is begotten by all; help me, O Mary, to receive within me the Word of God” (St. Ambrose, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, II, 26).

Why Rejoice?

The Third Sunday of Advent is traditionally called “Gaudete” Sunday based on the Latin word that is the first word of today’s entrance antiphon: “Rejoice in the Lord always!” In the midst of the penitential season of Advent and as we approach the darkest day of the year at the Winter Solstice, the Church encourages us to rejoice. Why on earth should we be rejoicing at this particular time? Once again, the readings chosen for the day provide us with the answer.

The first reading from the prophet Zephaniah is a cheerful passage in the midst of a prophetic book that is otherwise quite dour. The prophet Zephaniah appears in Judah before the Babylonian captivity to warn the people of Israel to stop worshipping false gods and to repent of the injustices they are committing against others. In the midst of that warning comes this passage about rejoicing, even though God’s judgment is imminent upon Israel. He urges the people to rejoice in Israel’s future deliverance because “the king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst, you have no further misfortune to fear.” The age of the Messiah will bring forth this confidence: God is with us, and we must rejoice because God is present, even in the darkest hour.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written while Paul was in prison, and yet he urges the Christian community to rejoice because “the Lord himself is near. Dismiss all anxiety from your minds.” The Lord is near not in the sense of his second coming, but rather because God is spiritually and physically near to us in all our needs. Why, then, should we fear anything? Very often we are afraid because we have looked for happiness in things that cannot really make us happy. As the spiritual writer Francis Fernandez states, “We need a firm foundation for our happiness. It cannot depend exclusively on changeable circumstance like good news, good health, peace and quiet, enough money to bring up the family comfortably and having all the material possessions we would like. All these things are good in themselves if they do not separate us from God, but they are unable to provide us with real happiness” (In Conversation with God, vol. 1, p. 115).

The Gospel reading provides us with a group of people who had a comfortable life and then some. From a material point of view, the tax collectors who come to John the Baptist had it good, and yet we find them coming to John looking for authentic happiness. John urges those who come to him to practice the deeds of justice and mercy in preparation for the coming Messiah who will bring judgment upon his arrival. Luke states that John “preached the good news to the people.” The Greek word for “good news” was used by secular rulers to denote messages of salvation from secular rulers and the Roman emperor. In adopting this term to denote the message and work of Jesus the Messiah, the New Testament writers again challenge the structures of the day: salvation and peace – good news – come only from God through Jesus the Messiah, not from the secular realm.

As we await the coming of the Messiah at Christmas, let us remember that he is already near and present to us. We need not fear as we practice the works of justice and mercy in our world that needs them so desperately. If we have not been as diligent in those practices, now is the time to begin. Let us conclude our reflection with words from the theologian Karl Rahner, “For the Lord has come and yet he is still coming. He is already here, but is in our midst, still, as the hidden God; and so we are still men who have no lasting city here, pilgrims between time and eternity, men who must still await God’s coming, men who keep Advent even at Christmastime and must remember that we are still at the beginnings, still on pilgrimage; that we must make our way through time, amid sorrow and distress, but with a heart full of faith, toward the eternal light that still awaits us. What this means is that eternity is not yet here. But it does not mean that we must not cherish the light that is already lit, and it does not mean that we ought to turn our backs upon this world. It means that we ought not to neglect the other light…You are here. You are the Lord of my faith, you are my strength and delight. You are the Christmas in the Advent of my existence” (Biblical Homilies, p. 65, 67).

Second Sunday of Advent - The Road Not Taken

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both


And be one traveler, long I stood


And looked down one as far as I could


To where it bent in the undergrowth;





Then took the other, as just as fair,


And having perhaps the better claim,


Because it was grassy and wanted wear;


Though as for that the passing there


Had worn them really about the same,





And both that morning equally lay


In leaves no step had trodden black,


Oh, I kept the first for another day!


Yet knowing how way leads on to way,


I doubted if I should ever come back.





I shall be telling this with a sigh


Somewhere ages and ages hence:


Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -


I took the one less traveled by,


And that has made all the difference.


(Robert Frost)





The theme for this Sunday's Mass certainly has parallels to this poem from Robert Frost. Both the first reading and the Gospel have to do with preparing and traveling on roads. The historical context of each reading provides us with a rich background for better understanding their theological meaning.


Baruch is writing to the Israelites who are in captivity in Babylon. The nation of Israel has been brought low due to its following of false gods and the injustices they commit against others. The prophet provides a message of hope by envisioning a road back to a restored Israel from their place of captivity. Baruch has no timetable for such an event; only the hope that God would someday restore his people and liberate them from outside oppression and from their sins. Following the road to Jerusalem - the road made by God - is the way of salvation.


The Gospel reading from Luke is situated within a very specific time period offered by the Evangelist. Luke reminds the readers of the oppressive times in which John the Baptist came preaching. The Jewish people were under harsh occupation by the Romans, and they suffered much at the hands of Pilate and Herod. During this time the image of the road had a specific context: only the Romans build roads, and they did so to prepare a way for their army and the coming of the Emperor's reign in a land. The Jewish readers saw these roads being built and knew what those roads brought.


Now, however, John the Baptist comes and proclaims the coming of the Messiah using the prophetic image of the road from Baruch: "Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight his path." The Lord here is not the Roman emperor but the coming Messiah. The message John preaches - and one that Luke reiterates fifty years later - is a direct challenge to the Roman occupation: the peace and salvation of Israel will not come from Roman roads but from the way of the Lord.


Jesus is the Messiah the prophets foretold and expected. If we put aside our false hopes that we put in political leaders and place that hope in Christ, we will find the blessings of the promised Messianic age. These blessings Paul prays for in the new Christian community: "that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception to discern what is of value so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God."


What road will we choose to travel upon? Will we choose the popular road of worldly expectations and political messiahs, or will we choose the road less traveled by, the road upon which Christ traveled to Calvary where we find our salvation and our hope? May our prayer be that of St. Augustine's: "Only one thing do I ask, only one thing, I say, do I desire: that you scorn not the works of your hand. Preserve me in your good work, not mine; because by looking at mine you may condemn me; looking at yours, you will give me a crown. Since whatever is good in me all comes to me from you, it is therefore more yours than mine...Through your goodness I have been saved by means of faith, not through any merit of mine, but through your gift; not in virtue of my works lest I become proud. I am your creature, fashioned by your grace together with my good works" (St. Augustine, Commentary on the Psalms, 137, 18).