Gaudete!

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Advent, attentive, be happy, celebrate, gaudete, John the Baptist, Latin, Luke, prepare, rejoice, The Lord is near, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

In Luke’s gospel there is a moment (or some unspecified period of time) when people thought John the Baptist might be the Messiah for whom they had been longing. He was a strong preacher whose call of “Repent!” was gaining traction. This morning’s gospel shows how exacting John’s message was and how individualized to each group of people. Three times in response to his rather stark (some would say withering) comments to listeners whom he had just called a “brood of vipers” he was asked: What should we do? To the crowds he said, Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none and whoever has food should do likewise. To the tax collectors he said, Stop collecting more than is prescribed. And finally, when the soldiers asked the same question, he said, Do not practice extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your wages. (LK 3:10-18) If taken literally – which I would wager was John’s intent – those would have been tall orders for the people of his day. I had a new respect for John this morning because he saw each group as needing a specific change of heart and his message was appropriate to each group who was listening.

Today is Gaudete Sunday, one of those days in the liturgical year when I am grateful for Sister Thomas Aquinas, my high school Latin teacher. Because of her, I know that gaudete is the plural imperative of the verb to rejoice. We are half-way through the waiting period of Advent (another Latin term meaning to come toward). So if I were asked this morning, “What should we do?” I would respond to everyone that we should Be happy! Celebrate! Rejoice! because the Lord is near to bursting forth once again in the fullness of hope in our hearts. But each of us must determine how that rejoicing will help us prepare. Do we need to be attentive to a relationship or might we find a service organization that needs our help? Maybe our prayer life needs more of our time in order to bring us to the realization of a deeper happiness. Whatever the way to express our anticipation of the Christ event so that Christmas will see us full of celebratory joy, today is the day to consider the possibilities. So Gaudete, everyone! The Lord is near indeed.

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Simply Said

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amen, Gospel, Lord, prepare, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Some mornings I wake up hoping to find something extraordinary to say. Today I was happy to see that the gospel acclamation was simple, direct and sufficient for me as a guide through the day. I can do no better. It says: Behold, the Lord comes to save his people; blessed are those prepared to meet him. Amen, I say, and again amen!

Prepare!

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Advent, apostles, devotion, Good News, holiness, Isaiah, Jesus, John the Baptist, Mark, Peter, prepare, prepare ye the way of the Lord, psalm 85, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

As the big commercial push of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc. recedes (after more than a week of each!), the urgency of preparation in a different way for Christmas emerges more strongly. Interestingly, the word prepare is the theme in every one of the readings for this morning, beginning in the Hebrew Scriptures with the foreshadowing message of the prophet Isaiah (40:1-5) centuries before the birth of Jesus. Psalm 85 echoes the prophetic words: Justice shall walk before him and prepare the way of his steps.” For those who recognized Jesus as the one spoken of by Isaiah, John the Baptist appears at the very beginning of Mark’s gospel as “a voice of one crying out in the desert” proclaiming the same theme: Prepare the way of the Lord!

By the time the gospel of Mark was written about 40 years after the Resurrection, belief in Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecies had taken hold in many places in the known world. We have the letters of those apostles who became missionaries of the “good news” urging faithfulness to Christ and his message of God’s love. In those early years, their understanding of the prophecies and the words of Jesus had convinced the Christians that the end of the world as they knew it would be coming soon and Christ would appear to take them to their next life in the kingdom of heaven, a realm of peace and justice. The fact that we are still here does not negate the importance of the messages to the early Christians about preparing “as we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” The second letter of Peter (3:8-14) asks us to reflect on a great question as we wait – maybe the perfect one for a Sunday in Advent:

What sort of persons ought you to be, conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion…?

“Coming To”

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Advent, be alert, be watchful, come to, Corinthians, grace, Jesus, Latin, Mark, Paul, preparation, prepare, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wake up

Today is the first day of the season of Advent, a time of preparation for the great feast of Christmas when we celebrate the incarnation – the birth in flesh – of Jesus, the Christ. Paul is quite encouraging this morning in his greeting to the Corinthians as he writes (in part), Grace to you and peace! You are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of Jesus Christ…He will keep you firm to the end…God is faithful. (1Cor 1:3-9) Paul had already met Christ in a flash of insight, a personal revelation that turned his life around. If it could happen to him, a former persecutor of Christians, it could probably happen to anyone although he was also convinced that Christ was coming back soon for the whole world. Accordingly, he could be speaking to us today.

Jesus was a bit more challenging in his words. “Be watchful! Be alert!” he says. “You do not know when the time will come. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.” (MK 13:33-37) Jesus was telling a story about a master who went on a trip and left his servants in charge. In all similar parables, servants were strongly advised to be ready to greet the master upon his return. Just as in the first instance, we could be the audience for this message.

In the first reading, Paul is confident of a good outcome because of God’s fidelity. In the gospel the challenge of fidelity is ours. I learned in my youth as a Girl Scout to be prepared and I have always loved this season as a chance to settle into the quiet of winter and reflect on what it might mean each year to welcome Jesus more deeply into my life. This morning as I thought about the word – Advent – that characterizes this time of waiting and preparation as well as the stance of expectation, I played with the Latin – one of my favorite subjects in high school because of my stellar teacher, Sister Thomas Aquinas. The preposition ad gives the verb “to come” a nuance that focuses us on the arrival, i.e; to come to = to arrive. What I experienced this morning was another sense of to come to which was what Jesus was talking about this morning. “Wake up!” he was saying. “Recognize what’s going on here! Prepare your heart because I’m already here. It’s time to notice your potential for transformation. It’s time to come to!“