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Mission means to re-launch Hope
Advent Sunday II Year A - 09.12.2007
Isaiah 11:1-10 Psalm 71 Romans 15:4-9 Matthew 3:1-12
Reflections There are three persons who, during Advent, prepare us most for the meeting with Christ: the Prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist and Mary. And each has a particular missionary link with the Messiah-Saviour who is coming: Isaiah foretells him, John points Him out when He comes, Mary gives Him, for he is hers. In the Old Testament others too, ‘the poor ones of Yahweh’, waited for a Messiah, even though for most of the people the waiting was unclear, and confused with human expectations.
Even today Hope is in crisis, and devoid of content, because many have no clear idea of what they really need for their life to grow in a harmonious whole. A play that is emblematic of our times was written by the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. Waiting for Godot highlights the absurdity of the human condition: the whole play consists of a long wait for an important but unknown person, undefined and unclear. When finally word comes that the person is close by, the last words we hear are: “Let’s go!” spoken without conviction, and the stage directions note: “Nobody moves”. Nothing has happened. The long wait has been fruitless. An illusion! Christian hope is just the opposite, the dynamics are those of expectation and of encounter with a Person who is known, and the feeling is that this Person loves us intensely: it is the Saviour of all, with a name and a face that are clear. It is Jesus Christ. He is the centre of the missionary proclamation of the Church. Pope Benedict XVIll has made “Christian hope” the subject of his second Encyclical: Spe Salvi (it was by hope that we were saved – Rm 8,24). If Love (Caritas) is the heart of Christian Faith (because God is Love), Hope is the powerhouse that keeps it alive in space and time; the soul that sustains the missionary proclamation of the Gospel in all places and at all times to all peoples. The Pope illustrates it through the ‘typical’ story of St. Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947), who from slavery in Darfur, “kidnapped, beaten, sold five times in the markets of Sudan” was freed and saved: physically and in her dignity as a person, and later through Baptism and her vocation to be a nun. She felt she was known, and “definitively loved” and wanted by her Lord, whom she called, in the local Italian dialect, her supreme Parón (Master). It was from that experience that her missionary ardour was born: she was convinced that the hope that was born in her and ‘redeemed’ her could not be kept for herself; it had to reach many – indeed, everybody! (cf. Spe Salvi, 3). St. Daniel Comboni was in the Sudan during the same period, but they never met. (*)
The Prophet Isaiah (Reading I) who lived eight hundred years before the Birth of Christ, during a period of violence and desolation, was still able to sing of the hope of a future in life, of reconciliation and hope for his people. In similar circumstances another young prophet, Jeremiah, saw the almond tree in flower (Jer.1:11). The prophets looked beyond the despondency of others; far off, there was a much different story and hope: the story of God who leads all to salvation. Isaiah saw a shoot spring up, immediately filled with the multiform Spirit of the Lord. (vv.1-3). He describes the stupendous zoo where there is a peaceful coexistence between living creatures and the rest of creation. (v.5-9). Only a people that lives in that manner, in justice and harmony of relationships, has something positive to say to others, and can become a “signal to the peoples” (v.10). This is the only way to have something true and beautiful to share in the society of nations. And thus it becomes a missionary community! Among the characteristics that mark such a society, St. Paul includes (2nd Reading) the ability to “treat one another in the same way as Christ treated you” (v.7), “for his mercy” (v.9).
John the Baptist (Gospel), a prophet who is austere, but completely free, prepares with words of fire the way for the Lord who is coming behind him; he baptises “in the waters of conversion, while proclaiming the one who is greater than he, and will baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire, (v.11). That is why John calls out: “Repent!” There is one creature who is totally ‘converted’, that is, completely turned to God and filled with the Holy Spirit: Mary, the purest of creatures, without stain. The Immaculate Conception is celebrated on December 8th. Mary welcomed her Lord and gave Him a human body; now she offers Him to all, even those who do not yet know him. Advent is a wonderful time to live Mission: during Advent and at Christmas the Lord comes to us, and he will not delay. But he also wants to reach others through us.
The Pope’s words (*) “According to the Christian faith, “redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey… Here too we see as a distinguishing mark of Christians the fact that they have a future: it is not that they know the details of what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness. Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well”. Benedict
XVI
- 10/12: World Day of Human Rights (UNO, 1948). - 12/12: Our Lady of Guadalupe, who appeared in 1531 to St Juan Diego. Her message for the people was: “Don’t be afraid. Am I, your mother, not here?” - 14/12: St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), a Spanish Caremlite priest, mystic and Doctor of the Church. He laboured to reform the Carmelite Order along with St. Teresa of Avila. - 14/12: St. Nimatullah Youssef Kassab Al-Hardini (1808-1858), a Lebanese Maronite priest,and ascetic, who dedicated his life to study and to pastoral ministry.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Compiled by Fr. Romeo Ballan, mcci -
Comboni Missionaries (Verona) Translated by Fr. J.M. Troy, mccj Website: www.euntes.net “The Word for Mission” ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
