Breaking the Word

Sunday, December 17, 2006

3rd Sunday of Advent (C)
The Path to Joy

Readings: Zephaniah 3:14-18a; Isaiah 12:2-3, 4, 5-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:10-18

Sing and shout for joy for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel!

What do these word’s mean for us? What is our spontaneous reaction to this exhortation from today’s psalm response? Perhaps there will be those blessed ones for whom singing and shouting for joy at the Lord’s coming will come quite naturally and spontaneously. Then there may be those who will think immediately of the revelry that prevails at Christmas: the feasting and caroling, partying and gift-giving. Truly these are legitimate expressions of the joy that our readings speak of today. But might there not also be some among us who – perhaps because of the particular situations we might be facing in our lives – find ourselves resisting and even resenting the obligation to rejoice? Of course, we may force ourselves to go through the motions of the external expressions of Christmas joy, but deep within we may find ourselves continuing to nurse life’s unresolved aches and pains. Is this the kind of joy to which our readings are calling us today? Are we being asked to consciously or unconsciously suppress our less presentable feelings in order to offer others a more politically correct exterior if only till the festivities of the season have passed? Or are we being invited instead to claim the authentic Christmas joy which results from allowing the One-Who-Comes to soothe the guilty conscience, to calm the traumatized nerves, and to heal the broken heart?

Assuming the latter is the more desired alternative, how do we go about acquiring this experience of authentic Christmas joy? Our readings offer us several helpful suggestions of how we might come to sing and shout for joy from the heart.

First, we need to SEE. We need to see the nature of this joy that is our birthright as Christians. This is quite unlike the joy of those who win a race or the lottery. It is not quite the joy of ultimate gratification. Rather is it more like the joy experienced by the married couple expecting a long-awaited child. For, quite mysteriously, the readings tell us at once that the Lord is both in our midst and also very near. This is thus a joy that can coexist with ongoing struggles because it’s a joy that is born of faith and hope in the One-Who-Comes. And we are helped to receive this blessing also when we come to see the truth proclaimed in the first reading: that the joy we are seeking is really a participation in the very revelry of God. It is God who wishes to exult with joy over us, to renew us by his love, to dance with joy for us as on a day of festival.

Clearly, this kind of joy is not something that we can manufacture for ourselves, neither with log-cakes and pine trees, nor eggnog and tinsel, important as all these things are. Rather is it a freely given grace from the God-Who-Comes. Isn’t this why we need to SEEK? We need to heed the advice of Paul in the second reading: if there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving. If we wish to receive this joy, if we wish our families and communities to experience it, we need to pray continually, perseveringly, hopefully for it. And then, that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand will guard our aching hearts and calm our troubled thoughts in Christ Jesus.

There is at least one more important thing we need to do. We find it in the advice of John the Baptist in the gospel: if anyone has two tunics, he must share with the man who has none. Our capacity to experience true Christmas joy is intimately connected with our willingness to SHARE. This is not a matter of clearing out the old stuff to make space for the new that comes at Christmas. We are called instead to cultivate the awareness that the poor have a claim on our possessions. In the words attributed to St. Basil: The bread in your board belongs to the hungry; the cloak in your wardrobe belongs to the naked; the shoes you let rot belong to the barefoot; the money in your vaults belongs to the destitute.

Sisters and brothers, what is our next step on this path to Christmas joy?

1 comment:

AnonymousWed Dec 20, 08:30:00 am GMT+8
This Christmas Vigil Mass, I will be singing with the Solo Deo Gloria Choir of St Ignatius' Parish. We're into our 6th rehearsal, this Thursday being our last.

I can only fathom the joy that Fr Chris writes about after singing with the Choir. Intense, consoling, liberating, all-embracing, unadulterated, near-ecstacy welling up from deep within the soul and breaking through the senses. LORD Jesus, this must be the closest I will ever get to the joy of being in Your eternal Kingdom. Thank You for the authentic joy of your love. Maranatha, LORD Jesus.
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Breaking News: Ordinary Time

Apart from those seasons having their own distinctive character, thirty-three or thirty-four weeks remain in the yearly cycle that do not celebrate a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ. Rather, especially on the Sundays, they are devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects. This period is known as Ordinary Time. Ordinary Time begins on Monday after the Sunday following 6 January and continues until Tuesday before Ash Wednesday inclusive. It begins again on Monday after Pentecost and ends before Evening Prayer I of the First Sunday of Advent. This is also the reason for the series of liturgical texts found in both the Roman Missal and The Liturgy of the Hours (Vol. III - IV), for Sundays and weekdays in this season. ~ General Norms for the Liturgical Year & Calendar, 43-44

From 36th Jesuit General Congregation

It is our union with one another in Christ that testifies to the Good News more powerfully than our competences and abilities.... In our individualistic and competitive age, we should remember that the community plays a very special role since it is a privileged place of apostolic discernment.... The Jesuit community is a concrete space in which we live as friends in the Lord. This life together is always at the service of mission, but because these fraternal bonds proclaim the Gospel, it is itself a mission. –Companions in a Mission of Reconciliation and Justice (CMRJ), nn. 7-9.

With the poor, we can learn what hope and courage mean.... In our communities and apostolates, we hear the call to rediscover hospitality to strangers, to the young, to the poor, and to those who are persecuted. Christ himself teaches us this hospitality. –CMRJ, nn. 15-16.

At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is the transforming encounter with the mercy of God in Christ that moves us to a generous personal response. The experience of the merciful gaze of God on our weakness and sinfulness humbles us and fills us with gratitude, helping us to become compassionate ministers to all.... For us Jesuits, compassion is action, an action discerned together. Yet we know that there is no authentic familiarity with God if we do not allow ourselves to be moved to compassion and action by an encounter with the Christ who is revealed in the suffering, vulnerable faces of people, indeed in the suffering of creation. –CMRJ, nn. 19-20.

(T)he Society must respond more decisively to the Church’s call for a new evangelization, giving special emphasis to ministry to and with the young and with families.... A special gift Jesuits and the Ignatian family have to offer to the Church and her mission of evangelization is Ignatian spirituality, which facilitates the experience of God and can therefore greatly help the process of personal and communal conversion. –CMRJ, nn. 22-23.

In many societies, there is an increased level of conflict and polarization, which often gives rise to violence that is all the more appalling because it is motivated and justified by distorted religious convictions. In such situations, Jesuits, along with all who seek the common good, are called to contribute from their religious-spiritual traditions towards the building of peace, on local and global levels. –CMRJ, n. 28.

Pope Francis has emphasized the fundamental connection between the environmental crisis and the social crisis in which we live today. Poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization are linked with environmental degradation. These are not separate crises but one crisis that is a symptom of something much deeper: the flawed way societies and economies are organised. The current economic system with its predatory orientation discards natural resources as well as people. For this reason, Pope Francis insists that the only adequate solution must be a radical one. The direction of development must be altered if it is to be sustainable. We Jesuits are called to help heal a broken world, promoting a new way of producing and consuming, which puts God’s creation at the center.... The multifaceted challenge of caring for our common home calls for a multifaceted response from the Society. We begin by changing our personal and community lifestyles, adopting behaviour coherent with our desire for reconciliation with creation. – CMRJ, nn. 29-30

From 35th Jesuit General Congregation

From General Congregation 35

By sending us to 'those physical and spiritual places which others do not or have difficulty reaching,' the Pope entrusts to us the task to 'build bridges of understanding and dialogue,' according to the best tradition of the Society, in the diversity of its ministries.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 6

To be missioned to this work 'at the New Frontiers of our times' always requires that one also be rooted at the very heart of the Church. This tension, specific to the Ignatian charism, opens the way to true creative fidelity.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 13

In every mission that we carry out, we seek only to be where (Christ) sends us. The grace we receive as Jesuits is to be and to go with him, looking on the world with his eyes, loving it with his heart and entering into its depths with his unending compassion.
- Decree on Identity, n. 15

For ultimately, there is no reality that is only profane for those who know how to look. We must communicate this look and provide a pedagogy inspired by the Spiritual Exercises, that carries people - especially the young - into it.
- Decree on Identity, n. 10

Our ministries of proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Life of Christ in the sacraments continue to be fundamental for our mission and our lives together as Jesuits.
- Decree on Mission, n. 19

The complexity of the problems we face and the richness of the opportunities offered demand that we engage in building bridges between rich and poor and establishing advocacy links of mutual support between those who hold political power and those who find it difficult to voice their interests. Our intellectual apostolate provides an inestimable help in setting up these bridges, offering us new ways of understanding in depth the mechanism and links among our present problems.
- Decree on Mission, n. 28

Jesuit community is not just for mission, it is itself mission.
- Decree on Mission, n. 41

In this global context it is important to highlight the extraordinary potential represented by our character as an international and multicultural body. Acting consistently with this character can not only enhance the apostolic effectiveness of our work but in a fragmented and divided world it can witness to the reconciliation in solidarity of all the children of God.
- Decree on Mission, n. 43

Faith in Jesus Christ teaches us that self-realization comes from self-giving and that freedom is not so much the power to choose as the power to order our choices toward love. At the same time, love for Jesus Christ and the desire to follow him call us to trusting commitment. Commitment to the Word Incarnate cannot be separated from commitment to the concrete manifestations of the Word that are at the center of our lives, the Church and the Society which exists to serve the Church.
- Decree on Obedience, n. 19