From our Pastor’s Desk

Dear Family:

Every year, the liturgy places two characters in charge of preparing us to welcome the coming Lord. They are Isaiah and John the Baptist. Isaiah is the prophet who, in the dark times of the history of his people, knew how to instill joy and hope; he kept alive the certainty that the promises made by the Lord would be fulfilled, even in the darkest times of history when the events seemed to deny them; and one of his most beautiful prophecies we heard in today’s first reading.

Today we have much need to listen to the words of Isaiah because discouragement and pessimism are very widespread in our society; it is enough to listen to certain speeches that we hear, sometimes they sound like a race to denounce more and more evils in our world; ‘times are bad, everything stinks, the world is getting worse and worse.’ Isaiah wants us to see our world as God sees it. And so, instead of complaining about the pains of childbirth, we will begin to rejoice thinking about the new creature, the new world that is being born. The pains are not the pains that preclude the death of the world, but the birth of a new world.

The second character is John the Baptist, the prophet that the Lord sent to prepare Israel to receive the Messiah of God. Today, he also prepares us in two ways: with his words and with his life. We are told by the Gospels and by historians of John the Baptist. Josephus Flavius was a Roman-Jewish military leader and historian, born ten years after the death of the Baptist. He testifies to us how much the memory of this extraordinary man was still alive in his time. In his book, The Jewish Antiquities, the Baptist is described in this way: ‘He was a good man; he encouraged the Jews to lead an upright life, to treat one another with justice, to submit devoutly to God, and to be baptized.’ And then, Flavius clearly specifies how the Baptist understood his baptism; he says that John believed this washing was not sufficient for the forgiveness of sins; he was convinced that it was only a purification of the body if the soul had not been previously purified by righteous conduct.

The Gospel of Matthew presents the sudden appearance of John the Baptist, introduced as a “Voice” crying. It appears unclear whether the expression “in the wilderness” has to do with the location of the crying Voice or the location where the highway has to be prepared for the coming Messiah. The general oddity characterizing both the Messenger and his Message makes it quite difficult where to place the expression.

John the Baptist was a rare witness; his choice of food and clothing suggests he could have been in the wilderness, for everything about him spelled detachment. The regions of Judea that are mentioned also had some desert-like outskirts from where John could have emerged from time to time to baptize the teeming crowds in the river Jordan. However, taken in the context of Isaiah’s prophecy, the desert might have been well suited for the preparation of the highway for the Lord because that completes the healing of nature and conclude the expectation of all the odd occurrences and bewildering peace that will follow the reign of the Messiah: with the wolf being a guest of the lamb, the leopard lying with the kid, the calf and the young lion browsing together, led by a child, the cow and the bear as close neighbors and their children playing together, the lion eating hay like ox, and the baby left to play by the cobra’s den.

The message of John the Baptist is clear, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”. He not only announces the kingdom, but sounds a warning on the correct disposition to receive it, which is repentance. There is so much to be taken, both from the messenger and his message. Many would naturally desire the kingdom without accepting the condition for its attainment. The kingdom promises peace and serenity and an abolishment of all enmity and predatory tendencies in every creature.

The major reason for lack of peace in our world today is unbridled desire for worldly things. Pay attention, the Baptist tells us, you have before your eyes two kingdoms: the kingdom of this world, the old one, where the successful person is the one who manages to impose himself on all, the one who subdues others, the one who makes himself served. It’s where everybody thinks about themselves, about accumulating goods, and disregarding others. It is the kingdom of the evil one. When the evil one appears to Jesus, he says, ‘ The world is mine; the kingdom is mine; I give it to whom I will.’ And Jesus rejects this kingdom because he, the Messiah, comes to initiate the kingdom of God, the new world.

The kingdom of God is near and at hand for us today, and it is the opposite of the former. In the kingdom of God, the great the one is the one who serves, not the one who dominates, and great is the one who does not think of himself but of his brothers. John the Baptist stands out as the model of the message he preaches. Standing before the Pharisees and Sadducees, clad in animal skin, and with only locusts and wild honey for nourishment, he challenged them to produce good fruits for their repentance. He identified them as a brood of vipers, not only venomous in themselves but also drawing a more ominous implication, as a brood of vipers are known for killing their mothers. It would no longer be enough for the Pharisees to claim to be children of Abraham, but they have to produce their own good fruits to show their identity.

As Christmas draws nearer, all Christians anticipate the joys of Christmas but not many would yield to the call for repentance. The only preparation for many would be the acquisition of worldly things. And in the bid to acquire more, many will become wolves to other men. John the Baptist again utters threats: “He who is to come has his winnowing fan in his hand to cleanse his harvest: He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” The Baptist certainly intended to use these words in the threatening sense; he was announcing that when the Lord would come he would vigorously cleanse the world. When the Baptist realized that Jesus was very tender and kind to sinners, he was scandalized and sent his disciples to question Jesus, and Jesus said: ‘Blessed are you if you are not scandalized of the Messiah of God,’ who will cleanse, as the Baptist said with his winnowing fan, but not by removing the wicked and sinners. By changing the heart of every person, the wicked would disappear from the world.

As we await the coming of the Messiah through the anticipation of Christmas, let us awaken to John’s clear message of repentance. Let us prepare our hearts. Let us, like John the Baptist, witness to Christ with our lives and not just our lips. May the message of John the Baptist penetrate our hearts and make us good for God’s kingdom through Christ our Lord, so that we may remain One Body, One Spirit, One Family! Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Katharine Drexel, Saint Michael the Archangel, St. José Gregorio Hernández, Pope Saint Pius X, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Charbel, pray for us.

Yours in Christ Jesus!
Fr. Omar