THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT – C
Luke 3:10-18
Today
is GAUDETE SUNDAY, a day of rejoicing!
There are many creative ways to spend
the time while waiting for a person or an event. We can be romantic and enjoy daydreaming
while anticipating the arrival of a special someone. It is the interior aspect that caters to the
emotions and feelings of the person in waiting.
We can also be busy in external preparations like physical arrangements
and decorations. It is the exterior
aspect that occupies our attention most of the time.
Advent is a different waiting! It is sacramental! It is more than a cosmic time when we
commemorate a past even like birthdays or anniversaries. It is rather a liturgical season that opens a
holy door that beckons us to enter into kairos,
a sacred time of grace. After entering
this door, like the people asking John the Baptist in the gospel this Sunday, we also ask WHAT SHALL WE
DO?
First of all, the call to holiness is
universal as Vatican II teaches us; it permeates the different strata of our society. Discipleship is the call to
holiness within the secular or religious lives that we have chosen as long as we follow the
gospel value of Jesus.
Secondly, the voice of John the Baptist
is not only heard during Advent although it becomes more relevant during this
season when we stop in our life’s journey like a spiritual retreat in order to
evaluate our value system before we step further on. Because conversion is a
continuous call, like a journey, it will always be an on-going process of
transcending the old self towards a better way of living. It is like a
pulsating energy that draws us closer to perfection. If this is
true, then conversion is not just about feeling good, not even being
“spiritually high” but something that we work on even after having done
something good.
Holiness is not just limited in the confines
of the church, it permeates through the ordinariness of our secular lives
beyond piety. It is the “holiness of the gutter” hardly found in the
forgotten peripheries of life! We tend
to forget it because it is too ordinary!
What shall we do while waiting?
We do things right and just in all the strata of our being. Goodness is diffusive because it is a vestige
of the pulsating Ultimate Good that seeks expression in the holiness of the
ordinary. Because of this, we can all be
saints in the eyes of God only if we are able to live the way God wants us to
be.
Later on Jesus would be praising John
Baptist by saying “No man born of a woman is greater than John the Baptist…”
and yet the greatness of John the Baptist did not get into his
head. He knew his place and would not grab the opportunity of
self-canonization: “I am not worthy to untie his sandals…”
John the Baptist is the perfect example of Christian humility.
He acknowledges his prophetic mission but he puts Jesus in the centre of
things. He gives a lesson most especially to people who are given more
opportunities in life: the higher we go up in the ladder, the smaller we become
for those who are below us. We may call this as “diminutive
spirituality.” We do not become bigger than others just because we
have more in life. On the other hand we do not falsely accuse
ourselves of being close to nothing simply because we are at the base of the
ladder. The self should never be the standard to measure up
things. Jesus should be the centre which is the ultimate criterion
by which someone or something is judged or recognized.
If we are able to
do things right and just, we can truly rejoice because we are emerging ourselves into the
resemblance of Christ.
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