20201218 HOPE FOR A NEW BEGINNING
18 December, 2020, Friday, 3rd Week of Advent
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour: Violet.
First reading | Jeremiah 23:5-8 © |
I will raise a virtuous Branch for David
See, the days are coming – it is the Lord who speaks –
when I will raise a virtuous Branch for David,
who will reign as true king and be wise,
practising honesty and integrity in the land.
In his days Judah will be saved
and Israel dwell in confidence.
And this is the name he will be called:
The-Lord-our-integrity.
So, then, the days are coming – it is the Lord who speaks – when people will no longer say, “As the Lord lives who brought the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt!” but, “As the Lord lives who led back and brought home the descendants of the House of Israel out of the land of the North and from all the countries to which he had dispersed them, to live on their own soil.”
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 71(72):1-2,12-13,18-19 © |
In his days justice shall flourish, and peace until the moon fails.
O God, give your judgement to the king,
to a king’s son your justice,
that he may judge your people in justice
and your poor in right judgement.
In his days justice shall flourish, and peace until the moon fails.
For he shall save the poor when they cry
and the needy who are helpless.
He will have pity on the weak
and save the lives of the poor.
In his days justice shall flourish, and peace until the moon fails.
Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel,
who alone works wonders,
ever blessed his glorious name.
Let his glory fill the earth.
Amen! Amen!
In his days justice shall flourish, and peace until the moon fails.
Gospel Acclamation |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Ruler of the House of Israel,
who gave the law to Moses on Sinai,
come and save us with outstretched arm.
Alleluia!
Gospel | Matthew 1:18-24 © |
How Jesus Christ came to be born
This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph; being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.’ Now all this took place to fulfil the words spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son
and they will call him Emmanuel,
a name which means ‘God-is-with-us.’ When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home.
HOPE FOR A NEW BEGINNING
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ JER 23:5-8; MATTHEW 1:18-24]
In the first reading, the prophet Jeremiah, speaking to the Israelites in captivity in Babylon prophesied a new beginning for Israel, even though King Zedekiah, a prisoner still alive in Babylon, was blinded. Jeremiah said, “See, the days are coming – it is the Lord who speaks – when I will raise a virtuous Branch for David, who will reign as true king and be wise, practising honesty and integrity in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel dwells in confidence. And this is the name he will be called: The Lord-our-integrity.”
For this to happen, the tree of Israel had to be chopped down first because that tree was contaminated by the evils which Israel’s leaders and the people had committed. The history of Israel’s monarchy is a sad story. Right from the onset, Samuel had warned the Israelites not to have a king but they insisted. (1 Sm 8) In rejecting Yahweh as their only king, misfortunes came to Israel. When Saul became the first king, he was rejected by God eventually because he was insecure and self-serving. After him, there was King David, supposedly the ideal King who united both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. Although he was generally God-fearing and obedient to God, he was not a perfect king as well because he committed adultery with Bathsheba and took a census of his people against God’s will. (cf 2 Sm 11, 24) After them, the Davidic Dynasty deteriorated. Many kings were apostates, like King Ahaz (2 Kg 16), the most wicked of all Israel’s kings. Many were murderers. Then we have weaklings like King Zedekiah who could not stand up for the truth even though he believed in Jeremiah. (Jer 38) In between there were a few good kings like Josiah and Hezekiah.
This was why Israel needed a new beginning. The new king would come from the stump that was left after Israel was devastated by the Babylonians. Even if God were to be faithful to His promises to King David to perpetuate his dynasty (2 Sm 7:16), He would not be able to do so as long as the kings were corrupt, inept, weak and self-serving. Indeed, sometimes to heal a situation, we need to purge all that is evil in us. This is what Pope Emeritus Benedict said about the future of the Catholic Church. It will once again be a minority, be purged of all her sins, corruption in the hierarchy, and complacency in the faith before Catholicism could rise again to be a potent force of change in the world. So long as the Church is infiltrated by corrupt officials and the values of the secular world, radical change would be very difficult.
But, like Joseph in today’s gospel, we are in a dilemma. We cannot accept that a new and radical beginning is needed as individuals and as a community. We would need a miracle! And this miracle is the Virgin Birth when Christ was conceived in the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was something beyond the human mind to comprehend. Indeed, there were supernatural interventions before that of Mary. We had Sarah who gave birth to Isaac when she was 95 years old, beyond child-bearing age. Then there was Hannah who gave birth to Samuel when she was barren. Again, we had Elizabeth conceiving John the Baptist in her old age. All these happened even though they were beyond scientific calculation, able to conceive normally. However, in the case of Mary, God intervened radically by overshadowing her with the Holy Spirit so that Jesus was conceived without any help from man in the womb of the Blessed Virgin. The Virgin Birth signifies that God intended to bring about an amazing new beginning with the conception of His Son, who would be the Savior of the world. He would be the one to save us from our sins. The conception of Jesus was certainly miraculous and this remains a doctrine and a dogma of the Church. Mary remained a virgin even when she conceived Jesus in her womb.
Is a miracle possible in today’s scientific and rationalistic world? The mind of this generation is a mind shaped from the Enlightenment Period where nothing is accepted unless it is proven and it presupposes a philosophical starting point that no miracle is possible in this world. This argument itself is flawed because it begins with an accepted view that miracles simply cannot happen, and then one goes to prove that there are no such things as a miracle. Because the world is closed to the idea of a miraculous intervention from God, it blocks the grace of God from working in our lives. When we have a closed mind, we cannot expect a new beginning, a miraculous intervention beyond human imagination or expectation.
However, Joseph, although baffled by the virginal conception of Jesus, was willing to be receptive to the possibility. He was not too quick to dismiss the claim of Mary that she was made pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, since he could not understand how it was possible, he acted rationally and at the same time justly, by seeking to put Mary aside quietly through an informal divorce. This was done to ensure that he was keeping God’s honor by not marrying Mary due to her pregnancy and also to protect Mary’s future as she would be without support financially and economically if she were not married, and perhaps even stoned to death if people discovered that she had committed adultery. This is why, Joseph is described as a just man in the gospel. He was not rash. He was rational and yet a man of deep faith in God.
Indeed, what made Joseph eventually come to accept the virgin birth of Jesus was simply what the angel told him; that it was in fulfillment of the scriptures. “Now all this took place to fulfil the words spoken by the Lord through the prophet: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, a name which means ‘God-is-with-us’.” The virgin birth of Jesus would correspond to the prophecy of Isaiah. (cf Isa 7:14) But as it was in the time of King Ahaz and as it is now, it remains a divine sign of God’s presence. Hence, Joseph accepted the authority of the scriptures. More so when confirmed and enlightened by the Holy Spirit of how the birth of Jesus would fulfill the hope of Israel and how he would be the descendant of King David through his lineage. Thus, it would be right for Joseph to take Mary as his wife and being the legal father, he was given the right to name the child.
We too can also be like the prophets, or like Joseph when confronted with puzzling and conflicting situations that cause us to doubt the will of God and His love for us. We could be facing a tragedy in life, a terminal illness, loss of job or a collapse of our business empire. Or we might be facing personal tragedy in the domestic front; our loved ones are sick or sent to prison for committing offences or a marriage breakdown. We begin to think that God has abandoned us. Yet, such could be the occasions for God to raise us up anew. He wants to tear us down so that He can build us up. He has no intention to destroy us but to renew His love for us. But we will not come to Him until we are down and out, and no longer able to rely on ourselves.
Today, we are called to imitate the faith of Mary and Joseph, trusting in God’s assistance in understanding the miraculous pregnancy. We can be sure she did not know how to break the news to Joseph, or convince him of her miraculous conception. No one would believe her. Joseph also wanted to do the right thing not just for Mary but before God. Both sought to be obedient to God’s will even when it was extremely difficult. But in faith they said “yes” to God, each in his or her own way. Both remained faithful to God and therefore also faithful to each other. Because they did not trust in their intelligence alone but were docile to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, God intervened miraculously and overwhelmed them. We too should trust that God will bring us back to live on our own soil again where we will find peace through integrity, obedience and love. So with the psalmist, we proclaim, “Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel, who alone works wonders, ever blessed his glorious name! Let his glory fill the earth. Amen! Amen!”
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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