Roman Rite
Second Sunday of Advent - Year B – December 10, 2023
Is 40.1-5.9-11; Ps 85; 2Pt 3,8-14; Mk 1, 1-8
Ambrosian Rite
Is 11.1-10; Ps 98; Heb 7: 14-17. 22. 25; Jn 1.19-27a. 15c. 27b-28
Fifth Sunday of Advent - "The Precursor"
1) To change life and way of thinking.
Last Sunday, the first of Advent, the Liturgy invited us to vigilance. Today, the second Sunday of Advent, it asks us to convert and to return to God. Conversion requires a change of mentality and of life. Let us pay attention to the gestures and the words of St. John the Baptist, who, baptizing in a deserted place on the banks of the Jordan, proclaimed the baptism of conversion for the forgiveness of sins and cried out: "Prepare the way of the Lord, straighten his paths" (Mk 1, 3).
To straighten the paths of the Lord means to welcome a word that comes from God and pierces the heart of those who listen to it, opening it to the great gift of conversion that liberates, and putting oneself in the spiritual condition of a profound revision of a life of faith, hope, charity, and morality. Therefore, conversion begins with a careful and welcoming listening to the word of God contained in the Scriptures.
If it is true that the Bible leads us to Christ, it is equally true that the word of God has as its first result the recognition of our sins (see Mark 1: 5). Faced with the Lord who comes, we recognize that our ways are not his (see Is 55) and we are driven to conversion, that is, to change road and direction to return to the Lord.
To walk steady on this road that makes us return home to our Father, we must find the essentiality that St. John the Baptist shows and the gospel describes to us by saying that he was sober in food and poor in the way of dressing. The essentiality of his preaching is deeply linked to the essentiality of his life.
Moreover, Saint John does not limit himself to prepare a way for the Lord, but he is the “way” to Christ. He is the "precursor" not only because he comes before the Messiah, but also because he is the voice that precedes Christ. He is the Word-bearer and cries out in the spiritual desert of this humanity inattentive to the Word of God but very in tune with the words (it would be more correct to say the chatter) of the world.
In this sense, the Apostle Peter invites us to seek a new and authentic conduct of life that can lead to full holiness so that we can be found "spotless and irreproachable before God" (Cf. 2Pt. 3, 8-14).
In addition to listening to the word of God and to the essentiality of life to put this word into practice, there is a third aspect for a journey of conversion that must not be forgotten: that of the sacramental Confession, which, as the Fathers of the Church teach, is a "second "Baptism. In the first baptism, we were baptized with water, and it is valid once and for all. In the second, that we must receive when we have lost the baptismal candor, the water is our tears, at least spiritual, which express our sorrow to Christ who confirms us in his love and embraces us.
Pope Francis teaches "Confession is the embrace of infinite divine mercy. Let us remember the beautiful parable of the son who has left his father’s house with the inheritance money. He wasted all the money, and then, when he had nothing left, decided to go back home not as a son, but as a servant. He had a lot of guilt and shame in his heart.The suprise was that, as soon as he started asking for forgiveness, the father did not let him speak but embraced him, kissed him and celebrated his return. I tell you: every time we confess, God embraces us and celebrates"(General Audience - February 19, 2014) Let us go forward on this path of conversion, and Christmas will flourish in our hearts that we have prepared during Advent "Like the manger that welcomed the Eternal who became small and poor like one of us" (Medieval Anonymous).
2) John, the Baptist: example of a converted person.
As the Gospel of this Sunday recalls, the coming of Jesus requires a time of preparation that is announced by John the Baptist with the proposal of "a baptism of conversion for the forgiveness of sins".
The simplest, most authentic, most immediate and more humane way to "prepare the way of the Lord" (see Mk 1,3) is to begin to follow it. One lives Advent setting off on a journey to go, even if only with some timid and insecure steps, towards the One who, merciful and loving, freely comes toward us.
Today, in this journey the Church proposes the stupendous and humanly disconcerting example (how it is possible to imitate a man of this type?) of Saint John the Baptist, who asks to be converted and to prepare the way for the Lord because he lives it.
In fact, Saint Mark in his gospel does not present him as a simple announcer of Jesus, but as his precursor. The Evangelist does not dwell on the Baptist's preaching. He merely says that he "baptized in the desert, preaching a baptism of conversion" and focuses on the fact that the Precursor announces the imminent coming of the Messiah and shows his superiority. John the Baptist is all encased in this task: to draw attention to Jesus. It is the essential task of every disciple. There is also a second insistence when the evangelist dwells in describing the way John lived: in the desert, in austerity, like the prophet Elijah. John is not only the preacher of conversion, he is the "figure" of the converted.
Of course, if we are not asked to imitate him in the way of living in the desert wearing a camel skin and eating locusts, we are asked to imitate him in sobriety, humility and firm decision to tend to Christ, whom he, exulting with joy, already recognized when still in the womb of his mother Elizabeth. As an adult, he had such pure eyes that he knew how to recognize the Messiah among the people coming to him pointing him out clearly by saying "Behold the Lamb of God". He was able to attract people to Christ and then to step back saying: "It is necessary for him to increse and I to decrease".
3) St. John the Baptist and Virginity which is not sterility.
The theme of virginity and that of the Bridegroom (Christ) acquire a close bond starting from the positive meaning of the offering of oneself for the Kingdom of Heaven. Some forms of virginity are immediately preparatory to the New Testament such as that of St. John the Baptist. Other figures are the full realization of this link: the Virgin Mary, Joseph, the Apostle John, Mary Magdalene,and the Apostle Paul.
It could be said that, with the birth of John, sterility that is the negative condition in which his mother Elizabeth lived before the miraculous intervention of God, is definitively separated from virginity that begins to have a positive value in relation to the Kingdom of God and to the person of Christ of whom he is the precursor.
The virginity of the Baptist is strongly ascetic, it has all the characteristics of renunciation and offer, but this saint is only "apparently" austere. He is not indifferent to the affection of Christ, of whom he calls himself friend by saying that he is the friend of the Bridegroom: " You yourselves can testify that I said [that] I am not the Messiah, but that I was sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom; the best man, who stands and listens to him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase; I must decrease.” "(Jn 3: 27-30).
Therefore, virginity does not mean sterility but, on the contrary, maximum fruitfulness even if on a different level from the physical one.
The first time that virginity appears in the history of salvation, it is associated with the birth of a child: "Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son ..." (Is 7, 14). Tradition has grasped this link, constantly associating the title of virgin with that of mother. Mary is the virgin mother; the Church is virgin and mother. "One is the Father of all - writes Clement Alexandrino - one the Word of all, one and the same is the Holy Spirit and only one is the virgin mother: so I love to call the Church" (Clement Alexandrino, Pedagogue, I, 6).
Finally, every Christian, and in particular every consecrated virgin, is virgin and mother: "Every believing soul, bride of the Word of God, mother, daughter and sister of Christ, is considered virgin and fruitful in her own way" (B. Isaac of the Star, Sermo 51, PL 194, 1863).
The invitation that I address to the consecrated virgins is to keep their hearts awake to welcome the Christ-Spouse who comes into the world, and to point him out to their brothers and sisters in humanity as Saint John the Baptist did.
Patristic reading
Saint John Chrysostom (344(354 – 407)
Jn 1,6
"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John."
[1.] Having in the introduction spoken to us things of urgent importance1 concerning God the Word, (the Evangelist) proceeding on his road, and in order, afterwards comes to the herald of the Word, his namesake John. And now that thou hearest that he was “sent from God,” do not for the future imagine that any of the words spoken by him are mere man’s words; for all that he utters is not his own, but is of Him who sent him. Wherefore he is called2 “messenger” (Ml 3,1), for the excellence of a messenger is, that he say nothing of his own. But the expression “was,” in this place is not significative of his coming into existence, but refers to his office of messenger; for “‘there was’ a man sent from God,” is used instead of “a man ‘was sent’ from God.”
How then do some say,3 that the expression, “being in the form of God” (Ph 2,6) is not used of His invariable likeness4 to the Father, because no article is added?5 For observe, that the article is nowhere added here. Are these words then not spoken of the Father? What then shall we say to the prophet who says, that, “Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way” (Ml 3,1, as found in Mc 1,2)? for the expressions “My” and “Thy” declare two Persons.
Jn 1,7. “The same came for a witness, to bear witness of that Light.”
What is this, perhaps one may say, the servant bear witness to his Master? When then you see Him not only witnessed to by His servant, but even coming to him, and with Jews baptized by him, will you not be still more astonished and perplexed? Yet you ought not to be troubled nor confused, but amazed at such unspeakable goodness. Though if any still continue bewildered6 and confused, He will say to such art one what He said to John, “Suffer it to be so now for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness” (Mt 3,15); and, if any be still further troubled, again He will say to him too7 what he said to the Jews, “But I receive not testimony from man.” (c. 5,34). If now he needs not this witness, why was Jn sent from God? Not as though He required his testimony —this were extremest blasphemy. Why then? Jn himself informs us, when he says,
“That all men through him might believe.”
And Christ also, after having said that “I receive not testimony from man” (c. 5,34), in order that He may not seem to the foolish to clash with8 Himself, by declaring at one time “There is another that beareth witness of Me and I know that his9 witness is true” (c. 5,32) (for He pointed to John;) and at another, “I receive not testimony from man” (c. 5,34); He immediately adds the solution of the doubt, “But these things I say” for your own sake, 10 “that ye might be saved.” As though He had said, that “I am God, and the really-Begotten 11 Son of God, and am of that Simple and Blessed Essence, I need none to witness to Me; and even though none would do so, yet am not I by this anything diminished in My Essence; but because I care for the salvation of the many, 12 I have descended to such humility as to commit the witness of Me to a man.” For by reason of the groveling nature and infirmity of the Jews, the faith in Him would in this way be more easily received, and more palatable. 13 As then He clothed Himself with flesh, that he might not, by encountering men with the unveiled Godhead, destroy them all; so He sent forth a man for His herald, that those who heard might at the hearing of a kindred voice approach more readily. For (to prove) that He had no need of that (herald’s) testimony, it would have sufficed that He should only have shown Himself who He was in His unveiled Essence, and have confounded them all. But this He did not for the reason I have before mentioned. He would have annihilated 14 all, since none could have endured the encounter of that unapproachable light. 15 Wherefore, as I said, He put on flesh, and entrusted the witness (of Himself) to one of our fellow-servants, since He arranged 16 all for the salvation of men, looking not only to His own honor, but also to what might be readily received by, and be profitable to, His hearers. Which He glanced at when He said, “These things I say” for your sake, “that ye might be saved.” (c. 5,34). And the Evangelist using the same language as his Master, after saying, “to bear witness of that Light,” adds,
“That all men through Him might believe.” All but saying, Think not that the reason why Jn the Baptist came to bear witness, was that he might add aught to the trustworthiness of his Master. No; (He came,) that by his means beings of his own class 17 might believe. For it is clear from what follows, that he used this expression in his anxiety to remove this suspicion beforehand, since he adds,
Jn 1,8. “He was not that Light.”
Now if he did not introduce this as setting himself against this suspicion, then the expression is absolutely superfluous, and tautology rather than elucidation of his teaching. For why, after having said that he “was sent to bear witness of that Light,” does he again say, “He was not that Light”? (He says it,) not loosely or without reason; but, because, for the most part, among ourselves, the person witnessing is held to be greater, and generally more trustworthy than the person witnessed of; therefore, that none might suspect this in the case of John, at once from the very beginning he removes this evil suspicion, and having torn it up by the roots, shows who this is that bears witness, and who is He who is witnessed of, and what an interval there is between the witnessed of, and the bearer of witness. And after havingdone this, and shown His incomparable superiority, he afterwards proceeds fearlessly to the narrative which remains; and after carefully removing whatever strange (ideas) might secretly harbor 18 in the minds of the simpler sort, so instills into all 19 easily and without impediment the word of doctrine in its proper order.
Let us pray then, that henceforth with the revelation of these thoughts and rightness of doctrine, we may have also a pure life and bright conversation, 20 since these things profit nothing unless good works be present with us. For though we have all faith and all knowledge of the Scriptures, yet if we be naked and destitute of the protection derived from (holy) living, there is nothing to hinder us from being hurried into the fire of hell, and burning for ever in the unquenchable flame. For as they who have done good shall rise to life everlasting, so they who have dared the contrary shall rise to everlasting punishment, which never has an end. Let us then manifest all eagerness not to mar the gain which accrues to us from a right faith by the vileness of our actions, but becoming well-pleasing to Him by these also, boldly to look on Christ. No happiness can be equal to this. And may it come to pass, that we all having obtained 21 what has been mentioned, may do all to the glory of God; to whom, with the Only-Begotten Son and the Holy Ghost, be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
1 ta; katepeivgonta.
2 al). prohgovreutai, “is foretold.”
3 Vid. supra, Hom. 4,3).
4 ajparallaxiva vid. supra, Hom. 3,4 ad fin.
5 i.e. to Qeou`.
6 ijliggiw`n, “dizzy.”
7 [kai; pro;" aujto;n], perhaps “and with reference to him (the Baptist), Sav. al). kai; pro;" sev.
8 peripivptein.
9 aujtou`. h(n marturei` peri; ejmou` G. T.
10 diAE uJma`" (not in G. T).
11 gnhvsio", “genuine.”
12 tw`n pollw`n.
13 eujkolwtevra.
14 hjfavnise.
15 Lit. “unapproachable encounter of that light.”
16 ejpragmateuvsato.
17 oJmovfuloi.
18 uJformou`n).
19 al. “goes on and instills.”
20 politeia.
21 al. “living worthily of.”
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