Author: Daniel Scofield, MTS

This poem celebrates, in the open countryside, a rebirth of nature and love. Just as the fruitfulness of spring overcomes the infertility of winter, love triumphs over the selfishness that imprisons us within ourselves. An allegorical reading of this poem as a celebration of the spousal covenant between God and Israel during the restoration is relatively easy to make. Israel is depicted in many prophetical texts as a vineyard. Also, that literature used the images of devastation and of the Garden of Eden to describe Israel’s unfaithfulness and fidelity. St. John of the Cross writes that “The soul desires that nothing should diminish the delights of love it feels within, a love which is the flower of the soul’s vineyard—not the envious and evil demons, nor the body’s wild desires, nor the vagaries of the imagination, nor the attractions of created things; it calls upon the angels, asking them to root out all these things or prevent their growth, so that they cannot hinder the flowering of interior love; for the sweet taste and delight of that love is the joyful sharing of the virtues and graces that pass between the soul and the Son of God.” Richard Reece also notes that the depths within today’s readings speak to us differently. “Have we been ecstatically in love, waiting excitedly for the arrival of all we have hoped for? Have we been with a child or awaited the birth of a child, surprised or worried, or just bursting with the news and needing to share it with an understanding friend? Today’s Scriptures are not just about us. Elizabeth knows, her unborn child knows, and Mary knows now that the world has been fundamentally, supernaturally changed. After millennia of longing, ‘the winter is past, the rains are over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth,’ and ‘what was spoken by the Lord is fulfilled.’ God is with us.”

How would we respond to a request from God? Last week, a reading from Genesis provoked thoughts on human impatience in the face of God, who works in incomprehensibly long time frames. Today’s gospel directs our attention in the opposite direction, toward God’s impatience. We cannot be sure why Mary asks her question about her part in bearing the child announced by the angel, but one possibility is that she senses the urgency in the angel’s words. “You will conceive, bear, and name him Jesus.” Mary could be saying, “How can I do all of that right now when I’m not even married yet?” God isn’t really being impatient with Mary. The angel answers her question and waits for her yes. Yet there is a note of urgency in his announcement. The moment of God’s decisive action toward humanity has arrived: now is the time to respond! How do we respond to urgent inspirations in thoughts like “This is the moment to ask for forgiveness…to speak in faith…to offer to help…to give a back rub…to pray”?      

At this point in the season of Advent, the spirit of anticipation is palpable in the Church’s liturgy. In today’s beautiful balance of our readings, we see the birth of two key figures in the Judeo-Christian story, Samson and John the Baptist. Sr. Ephrem Hollermann asks us to ponder the similarities between Samson of the Hebrew Scriptures and John the Baptist of the New Testament. In the time of Judges, an angel appeared to the wife of Manoah and said, “you will conceive and bear a son . . . who will begin the deliverance of Israel.” Six or seven centuries later, an angel told Zechariah, “your wife Elizabeth will bear a son…to prepare a people fit for the Lord.” The spirit stirred both Samson and John to begin their work. In Judges, we read of Samson, “And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him.” Of John, we read in Luke, “the word of the Lord came to John.” God inspired both Samson and John the Baptist to begin their work, yet both died in seeming defeat. Samson never lived to see Israel delivered, and John was beheaded during his imprisonment. Samson oversaw the weakening of Israel’s oppressors, preparing the way for David, from whom the Messiah would come. John the Baptist would announce the Messianic mission, fulfilled by Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection. Although Samson and John were men that God used in remarkable ways, their unique roles were to prepare for David and David’s heir, the Messiah. This was their true calling. Despite their differences, they were preludes to what would follow.

The prophet Jeremiah prophesizes the coming birth of a new king. We celebrate this birth in the promise of Christmas. Jesus’ birth means God comes to be with us in the flesh. But Fr. Rolheiser writes that God doesn’t send a superhero to rid the earth of evil by forcefully destroying all that’s bad. God sends a helpless baby lying in the straw, needing to be picked up, nursed, and nurtured. That’s God’s wisdom, the power of a baby. Babies don’t shoot bad guys, like Sylvester Stallone or James Bond, at the end of the movie; they change hearts by offering a gentler presence. So, Christmas doesn’t rid the world of evil. For the Christian, just as for everyone else, there will still be sickness, senseless hurt, broken dreams, and cold, lonely seasons when love is far away. Christmas doesn’t promise heaven on earth. Instead, it promises us, here on earth, something else: God’s presence in our lives. And it’s that presence, not the power of a superhero to blow away all that’s bad, that redeems us. When we sense that God is with us, we can give up selfishness, bitterness, and jealousy because we are no longer alone in them. Everything can be born if it can be shared. We no longer walk alone in our pain. When we are not alone, then pain and happiness are not mutually exclusive, and the agonies and hurts of life do not exclude deep meaning and deep joy. Avery Dulles once said, “The incarnation does not provide us with a ladder by which to escape the ambiguities of life and scale the heights of heaven. Rather, it enables us to burrow deep into the heart of planet earth and find it shimmering with divinity.”

I can denounce a king, but I cannot enthrone one.
I can strip an idol of its power, but I cannot reveal the true God.
I can wash the soul in sand, but I cannot dress it in white.
I can devour the word of the Lord like wild honey, but I cannot lace his sandal.
I can condemn sin, but I cannot bear it away.
Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
– John Shea.

John the Baptist was aware of both his strength and his impotency. He can point out what’s wrong and what should be done, but after that, he’s helpless, with nothing to offer regarding the strength needed to correct the wrong. Fr. Rolheiser writes that at one point in the gospels, Jesus tells his disciples that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. The disciples are stunned, and Peter responds: If that is the case, then it is impossible! Jesus appreciates that response and adds: It is impossible for humans, but not for God. The gospels speak of this as a baptism, and they speak of two kinds of baptisms: the baptism of John and the baptism of Jesus, adding that John’s baptism is only a preparation for Jesus’ baptism. What’s John’s baptism? It’s a baptism of repentance, a realization of what we are doing wrong, and a clear resolution to correct our bad behavior. What’s Jesus’ baptism? It’s an entry into grace and community in such a way that it empowers us internally to do what is impossible for us to do by our willpower alone. But how does this work? Is grace a kind of magic? No. It’s not magic. All psychic, emotional, and spiritual energy is, by definition, beyond a simple phenomenological understanding. Simply put, that means that we can’t lay out its inner plumbing. There’s a mystery to all energy. But we can empirically lay out its effect: spiritual energy works. Grace works. This has been proven in the experience of thousands of people (many of them atheists) who have been able to find energy inside them that clearly does not come from them and yet empowers them beyond their willpower alone. Sadly, many of us who are solid believers still haven’t grasped the lesson. We’re still trying to live out our lives by John’s baptism alone, that is, by our own willpower. That makes us superb critics but leaves us mostly powerless to actually change our own lives. What we are looking for and desperately need is a deeper immersion into the baptism of Jesus, that is, into community and grace.

Today’s Gospel passage identifies the appearance of John the Baptist with the expected return of the prophet Elijah. John, the herald of Christ, appears in the desert. Here, he stands for all of us in the desert of sin, the lifeless place. It is as though John purposely went there to remind us of our need for grace. Fr. Rolheiser asks us to pray for the grace to know Jesus more deeply so that we may abundantly love and follow him. No one born of woman is greater than John the Baptist, and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. This doesn’t quite seem congruous. Why so great in one regard and seemingly so unimportant in another? John himself answers that question when they ask him if he is the Messiah. He replies unequivocally that he is not the Messiah and isn’t even worthy to fasten the Messiah’s sandal strap. How does he see the difference between himself and the Messiah? The Messiah comes baptizing with fire, whereas John comes baptizing with water. What’s the difference? Water can only cleanse something that is encrusted in dirt. You can power-wash an old lamp that you find in the sand, but water will only make it clean; it can’t really change the lamp. Fire can melt down. Fire can change a shape. Fire can transform something into something else. Water is a symbol of repentance; fire is a symbol of grace. John the Baptist can tell us what’s wrong with us; he can name our sins. But naming alone, valuable as it is, does not give us the grace, the strength to change our behavior, to free ourselves of our addictions. We need fire, grace, and Jesus, not just water, repentance, and John. John deconstructs us; Jesus puts us back together. John is a prophet; Jesus is a Savior.

In today’s first reading from the Prophet Isaiah, he says, “I, the LORD, your God, teach you what is for your good, and lead you on the way you should go.” In speaking about today’s gospel passage, Pope Francis echoes the lesson from Isaiah, noting that the leaders of Israel were not open to God’s word as being presented by Jesus, the son of God. Jesus pointed out to them that neither were they open to John the Baptist, another messenger sent by God. He goes on to say: “Just think of the people of that time who preferred to escape into a more elaborate religion: a moral precepts like the Pharisees, in political compromise like the Sadducees, in social revolution like the zealots, and in gnostic spirituality like the Essenes. This is why Jesus refreshes their memory by recalling the prophets who were persecuted and killed. There are Christians today who do not allow themselves to dance when the preacher gives them good news of joy, who don’t allow themselves to cry when the preacher gives them sad news, Christians who are closed, caged, who are not free for fear of the freedom of the Holy Spirit that comes through preaching. These sad Christians do not believe in the Holy Spirit; they do not believe in that freedom that comes through preaching, that admonishes you, that teaches you, that even smacks you around a bit, but it is the freedom that makes the church grow.” The message today from Pope Francis can hit many of us too close to home. Our reaction is sometimes to discredit the message by discrediting the messenger. But God’s Spirit is relentless and will always break through our defenses. And when it does, we will discover the new life that God always wants to bring to us.

Today, we celebrate Saint John of the Cross, a unique figure in the church’s history. He is famously known for one particular writing, “The Dark Knight of the Soul,” which, over time, has taken on what many theologians and historians believe has been mischaracterized. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that when John of the Cross speaks of the dark night of the soul, he is speaking of a purifying passage that an individual undergoes that transforms one kind of life into another. In a simplistic manner of speaking, natural life becomes eschatological life, earthly life becomes eternal life, and the life that draws its support from natural gratification becomes a life that draws its support from the motivation of Christ. In metaphorical terms, what happens in a dark night of the soul is that the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies so that it can give birth to new life. As articulated by John, this transformation is almost universally understood as something that pertains mainly to prayer. Too infrequently is it understood as something that has to do with our entire lives…relationships, work, and play. However, what John describes in his concept of the dark night of the soul is really the paschal mystery, the movement through death from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. This movement has to do with the transformation of our whole lives. Therefore, John’s outline of this can serve as a paradigm of paschal transformation (“structural” transformation, in the terminology of certain current schools of psychology). The dark night of the soul traces the pattern that love, service, and prayer must move through to come to eternal life. Human life and every dimension within it must, if it is to come to eternal life, fall into the ground and die in order to rise again. Christ illustrated this in his person through the paschal mystery in his journey through Good Friday to Easter Sunday. John of the Cross outlines, descriptively and prescriptively, in his metaphor of the dark night of the soul, how this passage takes place concretely within our lives (beyond its more radical form in our actual physical death).

Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes about growing up in Canada, where he lived in a very sheltered and safe environment. He notes that his childhood was lived inside of a virtual cocoon. “In the remote, rural, first-generation immigrant community I grew up in, we all knew each other, all went to the same church, all belonged to the same political party, all were white, all came from the same ethnic background, all shared the same accent when we spoke English, all had a similar slant on how we understood morality, all shared similar hopes and fears about the outside world, and all worshipped God quite confidently from inside that cocoon. But this also had a pejorative underside. When there are no real strangers in your life, when everyone looks like you do, believes what you do, and speaks like you do, when your world is made up of only your own kind, it’s going to take some painful subsequent stretching, at some very deep parts of your soul, to accept, existentially accept, and be comfortable with the fact, that people who are very different from you, who have different skin colors, speak other languages, live in different countries, have different religions, and have a different way of understanding things are just as real and precious to God as you are. It is hard for us to believe that we, and our own kind, are not specially blessed and are not of more value than others. But we must also be aware that the God whom Jesus revealed and incarnated may never be turned into a God of our own, a God who considers us more precious and gifted than other peoples, a God who blesses us specially above others. Sadly, we are perennially prone to turn God into our own tribal deity in the name of family, blood, church, and country. God too easily becomes our God. But true faith doesn’t allow for that. Instead, a healthy and orthodox Christian theology teaches that God is especially present in the other, the poor, and the stranger. God’s revelation comes to us most clearly through the outsider, through what’s foreign to us, through what stretches us beyond our comfort zone and our expectations, particularly our expectations regarding God. God is everyone’s God equally, not especially ours and God is too great to be reduced to serving the interests of our own family, ethnicity, church, and patriotism.”

Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that there is an axiom that says Roman Catholics tend to adore Mary while Protestants and Evangelicals tend to ignore Mary. Neither is ideal. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, has, in effect, two histories within Christian tradition. We have the Mary of Scripture and the Mary of Devotions, and both offer something special for our Christian journey. The Mary of Devotions is the mother of the Poor. Karl Rahner once pointed out that when you look at all the apparitions of Mary that the church has officially approved, you will notice that she has always appeared to be a poor person – a child, an illiterate peasant, a group of children, someone without social standing. She’s never appeared to a theologian in his study, a pope, or a millionaire banker. She’s always been the person to whom the poor look. Marian devotion is a mysticism of the poor. We see this, for example, very powerfully in the effect that Our Lady of Guadalupe has had on much of Latin America. In all of the Americas, most of the indigenous peoples are now Christian. However, in North America, while most of the indigenous peoples are Christian, Christianity itself is not seen as a native religion but rather as a religion brought to the native peoples from elsewhere. In Latin America, in every place where Our Lady of Guadalupe is popular, Christianity is seen to be a native religion. The Mary of Devotions is often so enshrined in piety, over-simplicity, and asexuality that she needs to be protected from human complexity. Still, the Mary of Devotions offers us a lot vis-à-vis our spiritual journey. The Mary of Scripture is presented as a model of discipleship. She’s the first to hear the word of God and keep it. As the New Eve, she is seen as the universal mother, and as our mother, she stands in helplessness under human pain and within human pain when she stands under the cross. In this, she shows herself as the universal mother but also as an example of how injustice must be handled, namely, by standing within it in a way that does not replicate its hatred and violence so as to give it back in kind. Mary offers us an excellent example of not being adored or ignored.