It is interesting that the only two Sundays in the
liturgical year that have joyous names fall in the middle of sober, even
penitential seasons. In the midst of Lent there is Laetare; the third Sunday of
Advent is Gaudete Sunday – “Rejoice!”
Today was Gaudete, and the rejoicing was linked to John the
Baptist replying to the envoys of the Pharisees. “No,” he said, “no, I am not
the Messiah.” “Uh, huh? So, are you the Prophet Elijah?” “No, I’m not Elijah.”
“OK, listen. We have to have an answer for the guys who sent us, all right? So
who are you really?”
[Long, pregnant silence. Finally the scarecrow in rags with
Al Pacino’s face deigns to answer. And he replies with a quotation.]
“I am the voice that cries in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the
way of the Lord!’”
[? ? ?]
“In the midst of you there is Someone you do not know:
Someone whose sandals I’m not worthy to undo.”
Temporary end of story. Beginning for us. As someone in
France wrote: In the midst of us there is the Someone we do not recognise. He
is here, already. He is here, among us. Whose face he has taken, we don’t know.
We look around us and see all kinds of people on the train, in the shopping
mall. Which one of them is He? We don’t know. Perhaps the best bet is to say,
Anyone of them; Everyone of them; All of them.
The presence of God is one of the astonishing mysteries that
gets deeper as you live and think about it longer. This morning I was at Mass
in a vast and icy cold village church on a mountaintop, where the echo and the
sound-system combined to make part of the service and almost all of the sermon
incomprehensible. And yet, at the Consecration, at the Peace, and at the
Communion, there was a sense of the Presence I have rarely felt. And the
awaiting of the Birth became very quiet, and very joyful – an extension of ‘Be
it unto me according to Thy word’ and of the Magnificat: the quiet, accepting,
awaiting joy of Mary.
So today, three candles: the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost; but all of them burning in Mary’s inner room. Rejoice!
Beautiful as always, Hrothgar. I do wish you would collect such comments (and verse), but then I'm from the age of print. Right--Christ was not. I wish we knew more about the Baptist's inner life. How did he know what he knew? Well, that's being a prophet.
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