WORD FOR MISSION
Missionary reflection on Sunday Liturgy
Missionary reflection on Sunday Liturgy
“Rejoice!”:
The Lord is near!
III Sunday of Advent
Year B – 11.12.2005
Isaiah 61:1-2,10-11
Response Lk.1:46-50,53-54
1Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8,19-28
Reflections
“The one who reaches the spring firs drinks the cleanest water" This Tanzanian proverb has a taste of a mountain brook about it, and awakens a feeling of joy that is typical of Advent, as we live a time of expectation and watching. Today is "Gaudete" Sunday. The liturgy calls us to joy, insistently: the call is in the Entrance Antiphon, the Collect, the First Reading, the Responsorial psalm, the Second Reading. St. Paul explains the motive for this Christian joy: "The Lord is near!" (Phil.4:4-5). According to Paul in the second Reading, joy is fed on prayer and on fidelity to the Spirit (vv.17-19). Among the characteristics of missionary spirituality, John Paul II includes, most appropriately, "the internal joy that springs from faith" (RMi 91) *In the second Reading the Prophet addresses the people just freed from slavery: there are "joyful tidings" for the poor and the suffering, there is liberation for captives, a year of favour for all (vv. 1-2)… The people can exult for joy in the Lord, who is able to renew the world by making fresh things grow. In the Responsorial psalm Mary, the first believer, echoes this joy with here canticle of praise for the "marvels" the Almighty works in his servants. In Mary the voice of the Church echoes: a Church still on pilgrimage through joys and sorrows. Hers is the voice of all of us. Above all, there is the voice of Jesus who, in the Synagogue of Nazareth, states his programme as a prophet, feeling that he is consecrated to carrying it our (Lk.4:18-21).
In the Gospel, John the Baptist has the same awareness of being "sent by God" (v.6) to prepare the way for the Lord (v.23). He acknowledges that he is only the "voice" of Another, who is greater than he is. Indeed, God is the Word; John is only his voice, because the message is not his own. He knows that power rests in the Word, and not in the spokesman. Just as the strength to grow is in the seed, not in the sower. John is the witness of this reality of Salvation. He is filled with joy; he is happy to decrease, because he knows he is only "the friend of the bridegroom", and it right that He, the bridegroom, should increase (Jn.3:29-30). This is a powerful witness, stated in from of an official commission sent down from Jerusalem to interrogate him. John the Baptist, in this as in other situations, is a truly authentic model of a missionary, as far as martyrdom.
In the reality of Mission, the transforming power comes from God. The Word is His; the missionary is called to be the voice, to scatter the seed in the furrows of the world. The apostle is sent to bear witness to everything, but is not the Word, nor the seed, nor the field. The missionary is the voice, sent to speak out. "Woe betide me if I do not proclaim the Gospel!" exclaims St. Paul (1Cor.9:16). The herald is not master of the hearts that receive the message. The missionary - and indeed each Christian - makes a journey of progressive identification, like John the Baptist: first discovering the Word, then gaining strength from it, then becoming its witness and messenger. To the ends of the world!
The Pope's Words
* “By living the Beatitudes, the missionary experiences and shows concretely that the kingdom of God has already come, and that he has accepted it. The characteristic of every authentic missionary life is the inner joy that comes from faith. In a world tormented and oppressed by so many problems, a world tempted to pessimism, the one who proclaims the "Good News" must be a person who has found true hope in Christ”.
John Paul II
Redemptoris Missio, (1990) n. 91
In the
footsteps of Missionaries
- 12/12: Our Lady of Guadalupe, who appeared on the hill of Tepeyac in Mexico (1531) to St. Juan Diego, giving him a message of hope at the start of a period the evangelisation: "Do not be afraid. Am I not here - your mother?"
- 14/12: St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), a Spanish Carmelite priest, mystic and Doctor of the Church. He underwent a lot in working with St. Teresa of Avila to reform the Carmelite Order.
- 14/12: St. Nimatullah Youssef Kassab Al-Hardini (1808-1858), a Lebanese Maronite priest. A man of great asceticism, dedicated to pastoral activity and to study.
- 16/12: Bl. Philip Siphong Onphitak (1907-1940), a family man and a catechist. When the priest was expelled he was chosen to lead the community. Later he was killed at Mukdahan.
- 17/12: St. John of Matha (1154-1213), a French priest, founder of the Trinitarian Order for the redeeming of slave from the hands of Arabs.
- 12/12: Our Lady of Guadalupe, who appeared on the hill of Tepeyac in Mexico (1531) to St. Juan Diego, giving him a message of hope at the start of a period the evangelisation: "Do not be afraid. Am I not here - your mother?"
- 14/12: St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), a Spanish Carmelite priest, mystic and Doctor of the Church. He underwent a lot in working with St. Teresa of Avila to reform the Carmelite Order.
- 14/12: St. Nimatullah Youssef Kassab Al-Hardini (1808-1858), a Lebanese Maronite priest. A man of great asceticism, dedicated to pastoral activity and to study.
- 16/12: Bl. Philip Siphong Onphitak (1907-1940), a family man and a catechist. When the priest was expelled he was chosen to lead the community. Later he was killed at Mukdahan.
- 17/12: St. John of Matha (1154-1213), a French priest, founder of the Trinitarian Order for the redeeming of slave from the hands of Arabs.
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Edited by: Fr. Romeo Ballan, mcci – former Director of CIAM, Rome
Website: www.ciam.org “Word for the Mission”
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