Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Advent
6 December 2009
St. Lawrence Chapel, University of Kansas
Year for Priests
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Man has found a way to travel to space, but has not found a way to feed the hungry. Man has found a cure for many diseases, but has not found a way to get enough mosquito nets to Africa to keep children from dying of malaria. Man has found a way to build the internet, but has not found a way to provide lasting peace and justice to all mankind. The Church has produced many saints, but has not rid herself of sin. The Church has preached love convincingly to almost every corner of the world, but has not reached the hearts of many who will not trust God.
For every gorge man gets himself out of, there are others he remains stuck in. For every mountain man climbs over, there are others that seem beyond his ability to climb.
Gorges and mountains. The Advent prophets speak of them often. One being filled in. The other being made low. Confession is good for getting out of the gorge you might be in. Go to confession this Advent. Make it a good one. Go twice if you must to get out of any ruts you might be in. In confession the momentum that our sins have is always reversed. Sin leads to more sin. One sin makes it easier to sin again. Sin gains momentum so quickly, that we can find ourselves in such a rut that we can't even find the energy to go to confession. This situation must be remedied quickly. Discouragement and despair must always give way quickly for the Christian to hope and joy. This is Advent! A time when when the gorges will be filled in by the Lord's coming. We are not meant to dig ourselves out of the gorges we are in. Whether it be gluttony or sloth, pride or greed, envy or anger or lust, we are not to resign ourselves to sin. We are not to allow our sin to keep us stuck where we are, but we are to let the mercy of Jesus fill in the gorge and put us on level ground again. Advent is not a time for tinkering with small adjustments. It is a time of dramatic turnaround, when we focus not so much on what we are doing wrong, but what Christ has done right. What He is doing right, right in our midst! It is a time for focusing on what Christ is doing but what we are failing to see. It is a time of hopefulness, of focusing not on ourselves and what we can do, but on Christ, and what His coming can do. Advent is a time of asking Christ and his mercy to pull us out of the gorges we are in. Gone is the time of resignation and lowered expectations. Whenever we make a good confession, the gorge is filled in by God's mercy, so completely that we should leave the confessional sure that if we rely on that mercy, we need not ever sin again. Whenever we make a good confession, the Lord's coming in that sacrament makes all things new for us. We are out of the rut, and we have the grace to do something new.
The mountains will be made low. This too, is not done by us, but by Christ. When we look at our lives, we see all that is impossible. We see our many failures, our many empty promises to ourselves, and our unfulfilled dreams. When we look at our lives in isolation, we are tempted to quit trying to climb mountains and instead to settle for managing the circumstances in the situation we find ourselves in. But Advent is a reminder that we are made to climb mountains! That is what is deep within us. Nothing less. When we look to Christ, and to His coming, we see the mountains that He has already climbed. He has climbed the highest mountains, higher than any we would ever dare to climb! If we are focused on the coming of Christ, then, we see how easily He can scale the mountains in front of us, and with him, every mountain is made low for us! For his yoke is easy, his burden is light. When we see how faithfully Christ climbed the mountains that constituted his mission here on earth, sacrificing himself so completely and loving so deeply, we become once again people of hope. For the Lord's coming means that we do not have to find out a way to climb a mountain we have never made it over before, but can focus on how easily Christ will take us over the mountain should we choose to let His power and strength come alive within us once again and make us new!
John the Baptist, the greatest of all prophets, appears on this second Sunday of Advent reminding us to get ready. The Lord is coming, bringing with him God's mercy that fills every gorge, and God's strength which lowers every mountain. A Christian is an optimist in the face of every circumstance, no matter how steep the climb out of the gorge or over the mountain. We are an optimist not because we will find a way out or a way over, but because Christ is pulling us out and shoving us over, with his mercy and his grace. In today's Gospel, we see what little the powers that be can do, whether it be Herod or Pontius Pilate or Caiphas, who all held considerable power in the city, compared to what God was preparing to do, through the voice of one lonely crazy man in the desert, John the Baptist. Through the life of the John the Baptist we have the Advent hope that God is going to start something new very close to us, but in a way that we may least expect. If we are focused on ourselves and what is impossible for us, we will miss that new thing that God is starting today, right in our midst. If instead we are focused on Christ's coming and what is possible for Him, his mercy and his strength will renew our hope that the work that Christ has begun in us, will be brought to completion! +m
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