20171210
JOY COMES FROM LIVING A BLAMELESS LIFE IN
CHRIST
Readings
at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Violet.
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First reading
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Isaiah 40:1-5,9-11 ©
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‘Console my people, console them’
says your God.
‘Speak to the heart of Jerusalem
and call to her
that her time of service is ended,
that her sin is atoned for,
that she has received from the hand of the Lord
double punishment for all her crimes.’
A voice cries, ‘Prepare in the wilderness
a way for the Lord.
Make a straight highway for our God
across the desert.
Let every valley be filled in,
every mountain and hill be laid low.
Let every cliff become a plain,
and the ridges a valley;
then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed
and all mankind shall see it;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
Go up on a high mountain,
joyful messenger to Zion.
Shout with a loud voice,
joyful messenger to Jerusalem.
Shout without fear,
say to the towns of Judah,
‘Here is your God.’
Here is the Lord coming with power,
his arm subduing all things to him.
The prize of his victory is with him,
his trophies all go before him.
He is like a shepherd feeding his flock,
gathering lambs in his arms,
holding them against his breast
and leading to their rest the mother ewes.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 84(85):9-14(Advent) ©
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Let us see, O Lord, your mercy, and give us your
saving help.
I will hear what the Lord God has to say,
a voice that speaks of peace,
peace for his people.
His help is near for those who fear him
and his glory will dwell in our land.
Let us see, O Lord, your mercy, and give us your
saving help.
Mercy and faithfulness have met;
justice and peace have embraced.
Faithfulness shall spring from the earth
and justice look down from heaven.
Let us see, O Lord, your mercy, and give us your
saving help.
The Lord will make us prosper
and our earth shall yield its fruit.
Justice shall march before him
and peace shall follow his steps.
Let us see, O Lord, your mercy, and give us your
saving help.
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Second reading
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2 Peter 3:8-14 ©
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There is one thing, my friends, that you must never forget: that
with the Lord, ‘a day’ can mean a thousand years, and a thousand years is like
a day. The Lord is not being slow to carry out his promises, as anybody else
might be called slow; but he is being patient with you all, wanting nobody to
be lost and everybody to be brought to change his ways. The Day of the Lord
will come like a thief, and then with a roar the sky will vanish, the elements
will catch fire and fall apart, the earth and all that it contains will be
burnt up.
Since
everything is coming to an end like this, you should be living holy and saintly
lives while you wait and long for the Day of God to come, when the sky will
dissolve in flames and the elements melt in the heat. What we are waiting for
is what he promised: the new heavens and new earth, the place where
righteousness will be at home. So then, my friends, while you are waiting, do
your best to live lives without spot or stain so that he will find you at
peace.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Lk3:4,6
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Prepare a way for the Lord,
make his paths straight,
and all mankind shall see the salvation of God.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Mark 1:1-8 ©
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The beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
It is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah:
Look, I am going to send my messenger before you;
he will prepare your way.
A voice cries in the wilderness:
Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.
and so it was that John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness,
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. All Judaea and
all the people of Jerusalem made their way to him, and as they were baptised by
him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. John wore a garment of
camel-skin, and he lived on locusts and wild honey. In the course of his
preaching he said, ‘Someone is following me, someone who is more powerful than
I am, and I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals. I have
baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.’
10 DECEMBER, 2017, Sunday, 2nd Week of Advent
JOY COMES FROM LIVING A BLAMELESS LIFE IN CHRIST
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ IS 40:1-5, 9-11; 2PT 3:8-14; MK 1:1-8
]
Deep in the
heart of every human person, there is this feeling of unrest and
unhappiness. In spite of the fact that we have such an affluent life, we cannot
deny that many of us are not happy. We have so many anxieties, fears, and
emotional problems like anger, resentment and unforgiveness. Indeed, like
the people of Israel, we are waiting for consolation. We hope that we can
be liberated from all these problems that afflict us. The question is,
can we really live a liberated and joyful life as prophesied in the first
reading? Or is the prophecy just another utopian dream?
The
conviction of the Church is that this dream can become a reality. Advent precisely celebrates
our hope for liberation. Advent is a message of hope that our sufferings
will be over soon. This will happen when the Lord comes and lives within
us. This is the day of the Lord, a day of deliverance and therefore to be
awaited with joy and not with fear. In a concrete way, the day of the
Lord will come for us in a special way at Christmas.
How do we
prepare ourselves for the Lord’s coming into our lives? The first
thing that is required of us is repentance. John invited his people
just as he now invites us to repent and confess our sins so that we might find
forgiveness and so that the Holy Spirit can be given to us. But the word repentance is
most frightful for many of us. We simply do not like to hear that
word. It sounds like a bad word to us because repentance means giving up,
turning around; and that is what many of us are unwilling to do. The fact
is that not many of us want to give up our present way of life. We want
to cling on to our old life-style. We know it is not the best but we are
not yet willing to exchange it for something else. Perhaps we are not too
sure if there is something else better than what we have now.
Hence,
instead of speaking about repentance, we should perhaps speak more positively
about living a blameless life so that we can share the joy of the kingdom as Prophet Isaiah
tells us. Unless we are convinced that it is of a greater joy to live a
blameless life than to live our rotten life of self-centeredness, anger and
bitterness, then we will not give up our old life. So repentance is not
something that is we have to exercise our will and go against our very grain to
do; something contrary to our nature. On the contrary, true repentance is
not so much to turn away from what we are doing but to turn into ourselves so
that we might be faithful to who and what we are. This is true repentance.
So when we
speak about repentance, we are not talking about trying to be something or
someone we are not. Repentance is the call to be faithful to oneself.
This is what Peter meant when he spoke about living a blameless
life. To live a blameless life is to live a holy life. Now, what is
a holy life if not a life that is wholesome; a life that is integrated; a life
that is lived harmoniously within oneself and with others; a life that is in
Christ. Yes, only a blameless life, that is, a life lived in clear
conscience, true fidelity to oneself and a deep trust in God can give us real
and lasting peace and joy.
Now to live
such a life, all we have to do is to simply stop doing what is against our
nature.
And truly, if we reflect on ourselves, we are doing many things against our
nature. How can we say that our lives are in accordance with our nature when
they are filled with valleys of prejudice; when we stand up like mountains of
pride and walk in the crooked paths of injustice? Concretely, isn’t
it against our nature to be selfish since we all want is to be loving and in
harmony with others, yet we are always thinking about ourselves; isn’t it
against our nature to eat or have more than we need, especially when others are
hungry or deprived; isn’t it detrimental to our inner peace to hold grudges and
resentment against others, and yet we hold on to grievances for years, refusing
to let go, letting these hurts to fester in us? Therefore, only by
realizing the harm we are doing to ourselves, can we have the wisdom and
strength to get rid of them.
The beauty of
truth is that the moment we stop acting contrary to our human nature, our real
nature appears. That is what Isaiah says in the first reading. He
says that the moment when everything becomes levelled, that is, when everything
becomes normal and settled, then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.
In other words, the moment, we give up our resentments, we find peace; the
moment we eat moderately, we become healthy; the moment we give up our desires,
we no longer compete and crave; the moment we learn to accept, we become at
peace. Yes, the corollary of unhappiness in life is happiness. That
is why Peter says that when we live lives without spot or stain we will be at
peace.
Indeed, life
is like a well-spring. It is said that all of us are like springs. The water in us wants
to flow out. This water is love. This water is life. And it
is when we allow the water of life and love to flow out from us that we find
our happiness because that is the nature of a spring and our nature as
well. Consequently, all we need to do is simply to remove the stones
which are the obstacles to life and love. Once the obstacles are removed, then
we become normal again. Conversely, not to allow life and love to flow out from
us because we continue to live lives that are contrary to our nature, is to
live abnormal lives. Naturally, a person who lives an abnormal life
cannot be happy because he is not one with himself; nor authentic to
himself. In the words of John the Baptist, to be authentic to oneself is
simply to allow the Holy Spirit who is living in us to be operative in our
lives. To be authentic to oneself simply means to live the life of the
Spirit.
This is the
invitation of God to us today. He wants to give us a new heaven and a new earth. Isaiah
tells us, God is like the good “shepherd feeding his flock, gathering lambs in
his arms, holding them against his breast and leading to their rest the mother
ewes.” He is not asking us to give up anything that is good for us.
He is not a joy-killer or a life-killer nor a wet blanket. No, he does
not want us to burn ourselves by courting danger. He wants us to realize
that all the things that we have been doing will in the end be burnt up.
Desires, ambition, wealth, power, unforgiveness, licentiousness, slander, etc
will destroy us in the end. This is what Peter is warning us about.
We must see the vanity of our useless pursuits in life. All these things
will pass away. The tragedy is that we are really blind, in fact so blind
that what we think is good for us is actually the cause of our unhappiness and
sorrows in life.
Nevertheless,
as Peter says, God has been patient with us all this while. Day after day and
year after year, He waits for us, even though we are so slow to respond to His
love and invitation. But that is not the only meaning when Peter says
that one day is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day for the
Lord. The reality of this statement is that God is always
coming. God transcends time. He is beyond time. He is always
inviting us. But the question remains: Are we going to miss another
opportunity again? Are we removing all blockages and obstacles that prevent the
Lord from coming close to us? Our peace and happiness is dependent on our
positive response.
If the answer
is in the affirmative, then the implication is that the joy and happiness which
God wants for us would also be given to us immediately the moment we welcome
him into our lives. We must not limit the Day of the Lord’s coming to a physical last
day on earth. Rather, the Day of the Lord is that day, it could be any
day, when the Lord comes into our hearts because we allow Him in by opening our
doors to Him. On that day, the new heaven and the new earth will already
be ours; and all our anxieties and sadness and sufferings will be dissolved in
flames because peace and righteousness now lives. Indeed, the last Day
has already begun today. This is our hope and the promise is real.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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