BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (# 2)
Second Sunday of Advent, Year C – December 7, 2003
BIBLE READINGS
Bar 5:1-9 // Phil 1:4-6, 8-11 // Lk 3:1-6
It was past midnight. Everything was peaceful and quiet in the departure area of Bombay (now Mumbai) airport. After praying some decades of the rosary, I entertained myself by observing the people around me. The flight crew that had just arrived caught my attention. I was attracted by the serenity and limpid quality of one of the flight attendants who appeared to be Japanese. After boarding the plane bound for Manila and putting my seat belt on, that remarkable flight attendant came to me and greeted me in Japanese. I told her that I am not a Japanese and I do not speak Japanese. She laughed good-naturedly and started to speak in English. She explained to me that she had just been baptized a Christian. There was joy and gladness etched in her face as she humbly avowed her Christian faith. I rejoiced with her and thanked the Lord for the gradual realization of the Advent prophetic promise: “All flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Lk 3:6).
The Gospel reading of this Sunday (Lk 3:1-6) resounds with God’s promise of salvation transmitted to us by the prophet Isaiah when he wrote the Book of Consolation of Israel (cf. Is 40:3-5). The evangelist Luke, in narrating the inaugural ministry of John the Baptist, cited the Isaiah text more amply than Mark and Matthew. The final words of today’s Gospel passage: “All flesh shall see the salvation of God” are not cited by Mark and Matthew in the parallel accounts of John the Baptist’s ministry. Luke’s editing strategy is meant to highlight the promise of universal salvation that is so important to him and his Gentile readers. According to Aelred Rosser: “It is significant that Luke chooses to include them, for they tell us something Luke will remind us of over and over again: the universality of salvation. That is, the entire world is included in God’s plan.”
The celebration of Advent entails the missionary task and commitment for the coming of God’s kingdom. The liturgical season of Advent, while it reveals the true, profound and mysterious dimension of the Lord’s coming, delineates likewise the missionary commitment of the Church and of every Christian to work for the advent or coming of God’s kingdom. “ADVENIAT REGNUM TUUM” (“Thy kingdom come!”) should be the missionary mantra of every Christian in this Advent season. The Advent celebration is meant to enkindle our apostolic obligation to bring the Good News to those already baptized but had developed a culture that is not compatible with the Gospel, as well as, to those who have not known Christ explicitly.
In the Church’s Advent mission to bring about the coming of God’s kingdom so that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God”, we have an important paradigm or model: John the Baptist. The Jesuit missionary, Andre Retif, remarks: “He continues to be the model of every Christian and every missionary, whom each dawn and each sunset should find awaiting the return of the Son of Man anxiously, but without agitation, joining in that expectation of the last things, which we know throbbed in the heart of early Christians … Together with Mary, whose expectation preceded his own and was superior to it, he is the summit of waiting for the Messiah, and he resembles those peaks on which the sun is already shedding its faint red rays when everywhere else night still reigns.”
Indeed, together with the Advent figure, John the Baptist, whose ministry is described by Luke as “the voice crying out in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight his paths …” (Lk 3:5), let us welcome the Word of God that comes to us like a refreshing dew from above. We must allow the Word of God to convert us, mold us and strengthen us; and then, let us dedicate ourselves to the task of missionary witnessing.
With regards to the twofold Advent challenge resounded by John the Baptist, A. Tessarolo remarks: “In the first place, the committed task of preparing the Lord’s way within us: in our hearts, in our lives. Before thinking of converting others, we should first convert ourselves to the Lord, seek him in our prayer, serve him in our brothers, and follow him in the eventful folly of the cross, but also, to be a ‘voice that cries’ so as to proclaim Christ to the world. The Christian should be no other but eyes to contemplate him, heart to love him, voice to cry out his presence ‘in our midst’, as specified by the evangelist John in the fourth Gospel (cf. Jn 1:26). Hence not a proclamation that urges us to look elsewhere, rather an invitation to look within us and search ‘among us’ because the Son of God, in becoming man, intended to hide himself behind the face of every man.”
To make the missionary goal: “ADVENIAT REGNUM TUUM” a reality and in order to fulfill the prophetic vision: “All flesh shall see the salvation of God”, the Church needs to be nourished by the Eucharist and must always be renewed from within. The papal document Redemptor Hominis asserts: “The Church of the new Advent, the Church that is continually preparing for the new coming of the Lord, must be the Church of the Eucharist and Penance. Only when viewed in this spiritual aspect of her life and activity is she seen to be the Church of the divine mission, the Church ‘in statu missionis’, as the Second Vatican Council has shown her to be.”
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
(Adapted from an Advent Preface)
Leader: Father, all powerful and ever-living God, we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks through Christ our Lord. For through him, with him and in him …
Assembly: “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Leader: His future coming was proclaimed by all the prophets. The virgin mother bore him in her womb with love beyond all telling. John the Baptist was his herald and made him known when at last he came. For through him, with him and in him …
Assembly: “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Leader: In his love Christ has filled us with joy as we prepare to celebrate his birth, so that when he comes he may find us watching in prayer, our hearts filled with wonder and praise. For through him, with him and in him …
Assembly: “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“All flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Lk 3:6).
Marist Missionary Sisters are called to bring the Good News of God’s love to all, especially the poorest and most neglected. They have missions in 29 countries and their service to people of different cultures includes projects like help to abandoned street children in Ngozi, Burundi, ministry to AIDS victims in Montego Bay, Jamaica, service to refugees from violence in Cartegena, Colombia and prison pastoral work in Lima, Peru. Contributions to support the work of the Marist Missionary Sisters around the world can be sent to:
The Development Office of the Marist Missionary Sisters
Sr. Teresia Tinanisolo, smsm (Director)
349 Grove St. Waltham, MA 02453-6018, USA
E-mail: maristsmsm@aol.com
Prepared by: Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang, PDDM