Second Sunday of Advent

Today the Church presents to us John the Baptist as a model to follow. He was the Precursor, the one who comes first. His mission was to open the ways of the Lord, to give witness to the light, to prepare men’s hearts so that Christ may enter. Our mission is to follow in his footsteps. He came two thousand years ago; now it is our turn. How do we do that, if we have lost our way and our life is in complete darkness? We need first find the way, and make sure our soul is full of light. This is what we need to do these days. It is our task for this Advent. John the Baptist leads the way and gives us an example.

It is not easy to be a Precursor, to open the way, to go before foretelling the coming of another, becoming a bridge between two different sides. The Pope is called Pontifex, a bridge builder. We Christians are called to build bridges between people, to be forerunners of Christ in the world, torches that shine amid the darkness of this mad society of ours. John leads us to eternity and then other people can follow our path. It is not easy to find the narrow gate that opens to paradise.

What did John do? He went into the desert, to find silence, solitude and simplicity. He ate locust and wild honey and was dressed in camel hair. We too need to seek a wilderness around ourselves, where we can speak in silence, the language of God; to find solitude, to spend time with God alone; and to live the simple life of John the Baptist. What is the desert for me? In this time of Advent we need to find that space where we can develop our spiritual life, to be able to see things with different eyes, through God’s eyes. We eat locust, things we don’t want to eat; we dress rough, with the garments of modesty; and look for honey, the sweetness of God.

John the Baptist was tough. You wouldn’t like to meet him alone in the desert. His body looked like it was made of roots of trees; his skin was hard and burnt; his hair was meshed like a wild beast; his voice had the sounds of thunder; his eyes burned with prophetic fire. You couldn’t hold his gaze. Only Jesus managed to do so, when John didn’t want to baptise him. They almost had a wrestling match. To follow him we need the gift of fortitude, not to be afraid of the elements, to be able to defend the truth, even though we can lose our head as he did. Fortitude is the only gift of the Holy Spirit that it is related to a cardinal virtue.

John the Baptist is the only saint that we celebrate twice, his birth and his martyrdom. We normally celebrate the dies natalis of the saints, the day when they were born to eternal life, when they died. But Saint John, before he was born, he was sanctified in his mother’s womb, when his mother Elizabeth met Jesus’ mother; both were pregnant at that time. This is how both babies met, and John leapt in the womb with the infusion of the Holy Spirit. We, on the contrary, were born in sin and we need to wait till we die, to enter back into the bosom of God. We are now waiting with great expectation the birth of Jesus, who is still in his mother’s womb. We should follow in his mother’s footsteps to be there at his birth.

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First Sunday of Advent

Watch out, the Lord is coming, the Lord is very near. This is what the liturgy is reminding us these days: to be awake, to be vigilant, to be ready. In a crescendo manner, putting pressure with the passing of days, the prayers of the Mass are telling us slowly that he is coming: he is on his way, he is getting there, only a few days to go, he is almost here, he is knocking at the door, he is already opening the door. When he comes, we need to be with our mobile phones on, our camera open, ready for a selfie. He cannot finds us playing games, sending messages or surfing our favourites sites. Otherwise he will keep going, without stopping in our hearts.

We are celebrating the three comings of our Lord. He came two thousand years ago as a man. He is going to come again at the end of time as a judge. He is coming now as a baby. But he is also constantly coming to meet us personally, in our hearts and minds. Christmas is a reminder of this reality. Jesus not only will come to pick us up when our time is up, but he wants us to experience his presence now in our daily lives.

We need to tell him that we are waiting for him, that we want to be with him. People in love do this all the time. We know we need him, but we forget, we become distracted, we get side tracked. We need to be reminded of this reality. This is what advent means, “Parusia” in Greek, “Adventus” in Latin: presence, arrival, coming. “Marannatha” in Hebrew or “Veni Domini Iesu”, in Latin, meaning “Come Lord Jesus.” Maranatha is two words in Hebrew and is found only once in the New Testament, at the end of the first letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. At the very end of the Bible, in the last words of the book of Revelation, Saint John says: Come Lord Jesus. It is a cry that we all should repeat often these days, fostering a desire, waiting in expectation for his coming.

The Prophet Isaiah reminds us what we need to do: “Make straight a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low.” We need to build a road, a freeway, to make it easy for us to reach him. We should flatten the mountains and fill the valleys. We need to prepare the surface of our lives to reach him better and faster. The mountains are our addictions, those things that we give too much importance to, that try to take over and easily are out of control. What are those things? Work, finances, family, entertainment, social media, hobbies, sport. What we call wealth, honour, power and pleasure. We need to put a measure on them, to restrict them, to bring them down to their proper place. We should be sincere and seek to acknowledge the lack of balance. And fill the valleys; give importance to what’s important: God and others. Look after our relationship with God and with people around us: our prayer life, spending time with our loved ones, helping people in need, reaching out to the poor and the disabled. Both, mountains and valleys, are correlated, they don’t exist one without the other. We need to fix them both at the same time. We should have our priorities right, and Advent gives us an opportunity to do so.

We tend to have two attitudes, a passive one, waiting for the Lord, or an active one which is better still: coming out to reach him. Like the sensible virgins, who came out of themselves, to greet the bridegroom, when they heard the voice that he was coming, we too, need to have our lamps ready, with plenty of oil, burning brightly, illuminating our highway that lead us to his presence.

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The Good Thief

Three crosses, two thieves and three different expressions of suffering. Jesus wanted to be crucified surrounded by sinners, sharing his throne of glory with them. Many saints would have liked to have been there, to change places with one of them, with a holy envy. Three crosses; as Saint Augustine says, one gives salvation, the other receives it and the other despises it. Two thieves; we are represented by these two criminals, and we all deserved to be there. We should be there, but we are still running away from the cross. These two thieves represent two attitudes in front of the cross, two ways of life that can be summarised in every human being: for or against God, with Him or without Him. Three sufferings, one redemptive, another purifying, and the third useless. Which one is mine? Am I with Jesus, accompanying him in his redemption? Or maybe, I am the good thief, waiting for the end of my life to jump into paradise. I hope we are not the bad thief, wasting our lives in useless frustration.

What did the good thief see to believe? It is a very good question, almost impossible to answer. The two thieves were crucified on both sides of Jesus, suffering the same penalty for their crimes. One, whom we call Gestas, was abusing Jesus, asking him, in frustration and pain, to save all of them at the same time, in a very selfish manner. Dismas, the one on his right, rebuked him, telling him that they were there for a just reason, to pay for their actions, a right punishment. But Jesus was innocent and he shouldn’t be there. And he made the best petition a man can make to God: “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” We need to repeat these words over and over again, especially when we are suffering.

There were other people at Calvary, and they witnessed the same thing, but only Dismas made this petition. Maybe because he looked at things from the cross, from a higher ground; or maybe because he was suffering the same fate as Jesus, wearing the same shoes. When we suffer we see things with different eyes. What he saw was a man dying in silence, not only accepting his cross, but coming out of himself to meet his suffering, welcoming the pain with open arms, with a reason for his torture, savoring every minute of it. But the Roman centurion also present, only believed after Jesus died, when he felt the earthquake and experienced the darkening of the sky.

“Today you will be with me in paradise.” What did Dismas feel when he heard these words? “Today”, not tomorrow, but now, after few minutes of suffering, opening the door to a new beginning, with a meaning to your crucifixion, with a happy ending, like a successful operation healing your wounds. “With me”, you are coming with me; we are going together, crossing the threshold of this life to eternity hand in hand, lighting for you the way forward. “Into paradise”, the place you long for, what you have been created for, what your heart believes, with all the people you love.

The good thief gives us plenty of hope. We can easily place ourselves in his shoes. We can turn our bad thief into a good one and at the same time steal heaven. But we don’t need to wait till our last moments. We can begin now to repeat his petition many times, from the cross of our suffering.

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