December 13, 2015 – Third Sunday of Advent – Lectionary: 9

Reading 1 – Zephania 3: 14-18a

Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!
Sing joyfully, O Israel!
Be glad and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
The LORD has removed the judgment against you
he has turned away your enemies;
the King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst,
you have no further misfortune to fear.
On that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged!
The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in his love,
he will sing joyfully because of you,
as one sings at festivals.

Responsorial Psalm – Isaiah 12: 2-3, 4, 5-6.

1. Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.
   God indeed is my savior;
   I am confident and unafraid.
   My strength and my courage is the LORD,
   and he has been my savior.
   With joy you will draw water
   at the fountain of salvation.
2. Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.
   Give thanks to the LORD, acclaim his name;
   among the nations make known his deeds,
   proclaim how exalted is his name.
3. Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.
   Sing praise to the LORD for his glorious achievement;
   let this be known throughout all the earth.
   Shout with exultation, O city of Zion,
   for great in your midst
   is the Holy One of Israel!
4. Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.

 

Reading 2 – Philipians 4: 4-7

 

Brothers and sisters:
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Gospel  – Luke 3: 10-18

The crowds asked John the Baptist,
“What should we do?”
He said to them in reply,
“Whoever has two cloaks
should share with the person who has none.
And whoever has food should do likewise.”
Even tax collectors came to be baptized and they said to him,
“Teacher, what should we do?”
He answered them,
“Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.”
Soldiers also asked him,
“And what is it that we should do?”
He told them,
“Do not practice extortion,
do not falsely accuse anyone,
and be satisfied with your wages.”

Now the people were filled with expectation,
and all were asking in their hearts
whether John might be the Christ.
John answered them all, saying,
“I am baptizing you with water,
but one mightier than I is coming.
I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor
and to gather the wheat into his barn,
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Exhorting them in many other ways,
he preached good news to the people.

 

Listen to the Scriptures: click on the link below:

 

http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/15_12_13.mp3

 

3^rd Sunday Of Advent – C

 

 

 

Theme:  THE HUMAN SPIRIT YEARNS FOR JOY.  The Presence of the Lord (who has acted on our behalf and acts for us now and in the future) is the reason why joy, not fear and not anxiety, is the proper and possible human response.  “I want you to be happy.”  The prophet Zephaniah, John the Baptist, and Paul point up each in his own way the promise and the possibility of man’s happiness.

 

There is nothing that we desire more and nothing that seems so elusive as our happiness.  We have intimations of it, hints, and it is gone again.  We are happy one moment and then sad the next.  Perhaps happiness is a more concrete thing than we imagine.  Perhaps it is a reality that has a history; indeed a specific embodiment, a figure, a face.  Let us listen to some witnesses.

 

Point 1: The prophet is exultant: his vision of happiness is so intense and immediate that the structure of time seems to collapse: the future is now and his total being vibrates with joy in the presence of the Lord who will come.  John the Baptist is an ascetic rather than a poet.  He is aware of what is at stake for men in this offering of happiness: nothing less than the sifting, burning and transforming of every human reality.  The prophet’s experience and the Baptist’s caution meet in Paul’s sobriety.  Paul has experienced the reality of a joy that excludes worry but acknowledges the human condition that always remains needy – and so open in prayer and thanksgiving to God.

 

Point 2: John the Baptist remains a model.  Like John we stand at or within the threshold of the kingdom.  Like him we simply do not know what God will specifically ask of us; nor do we know specifically what God will do for us.   But we do know or believe that this “asking” and “doing” will make for our renewal: our happiness: our joy.

 

Point 3: Like John and Paul we tolerate the men we meet and the events we encounter because in them “the Lord is very near.”  It is in fact through these events and these men, that we encounter daily, that the Lord’s “asking and doing” are revealed to us.  We must not attempt to program or direct our own present.  The present moment is the gift of the Lord whom we have come to trust.  We know what He has done for men and what He promises to effect in us.  With trust we move forward in the presence of the Lord toward our happiness.

 

Conclusion:  It is not too much to say that our religious spirit is as genuine as the joy we possess and manifest in our lives.  Joy is the response we make in prayer and thanksgiving to what the Lord has done, is doing now, and will do for us.  Sometimes our joy will resemble the prophet’s – so keenly will we feel the loving kindness of God.  In times of trial our joy will be muted – a simple clear melody sounding beneath the surface turmoil.   But in times of vision or in times of trial our joy, large or small, will help to keep us open, facing toward the Lord who is leading us.

 

QUESTIONS THAT MAY LEAD TO OTHER THOUGHTS / REFELCTION / DISCUSSION

 

 

1. What are the concerns that make your life so worrisome? Do you bring these concerns to the Lord (in prayer) with regularity?

 

2. Are you sensitive to those persons in your life who are capable of evoking a joyous response? Explain how.

 

3. What can you do (what do you do) to guard the peace of God in your heart?

 

4. Is your faith externalized through joy? Do you really give testimony to the Good News?

 

 

“The Word… brought light to mankind.” – John 1:4

 

There was once a handsome prince who had a crooked back. This defect kept him from being the kind of prince he was meant to be.

 

One day the king had the best sculptor in his kingdom make a statue of the prince. It portrayed him, however, not with a crooked back but with a straight back. The king placed the statue in the prince’s private garden. When the prince saw the statue his heart beat faster.  Months passed and the people began to say, “The prince’s back doesn’t seem as crooked as it once was.” When the prince heard this, his heart beat faster still.

 

Now the prince began to spend hours studying the statue and meditating on it. Then one day a remarkable thing happened. The prince stood as straight as the statue.

 

The story is a parable of you and me. We too were born to be a prince or princess. But a defect kept us from being what we were meant to be. Then one day God the Father sent God’s only Son into the world to show us what we were meant to be. Jesus stands spiritually straight, and when we look at him, our hearts beat faster.

 

What do the following stand for in the parable: the king, the prince, the prince’s crooked back, the statue, studying the statue?

 

Speak to Jesus about what there is in him that makes your heart beat faster.

 

 

“Christ…left you an example, so that you would follow in his steps.” – 1 Peter 2:21

 

One Islamic parable is called “The Watermelon Hunter.” It concerns a traveler who strayed into the “Land of the Fools”. Outside a village, he saw people fleeing in terror from a field where they were working. They were shouting hysterically, “A monster is in our field!”

 

The traveler drew nearer and saw that the monster was only a watermelon, something the fools had never seen before. To show how fearless he was, the traveler sliced up the watermelon and ate it.

 

When the people of the village saw this, they grew even more terrified, “He’s worse than the monster,” they said of the traveler. And they became even more hysterical.

 

Months later another traveler strayed into the “Land of the Fools,” and the same scene repeated itself. This time the traveler didn’t play the hero. He took up residence among the fools and taught them to overcome their fear of watermelons. Before he left the “Land of Fools”, the people even cultivated watermelons and ate them.

 

How is this parable a good illustration of the approach Jesus used with the human race?

 

Speak to Jesus about how you might imitate his approach as you continue the work he began on earth.

 

A Note on John’s Preaching

 

The Jews had not the slightest doubt that in God’s economy there was a favoured nation clause.  They held that God would judge other nations with one standard but the Jews with another.  They, in fact, held that a man was safe from judgment simply in virtue of the fact that he was a Jew. A son of Abraham was exempt from judgment.  John told them that racial privilege meant nothing; that life, not lineage, was God’s standard of judgment.

 

There are three outstanding things about John’s message:

 

(i) It began by demanding that men should share with one another.  It was a social gospel which laid it down that God will never absolve the man who is content to have too much while others have too little.

 

(ii) It ordered a man, not to leave his job, but to work out his own salvation by doing that job as it should be done.  Let the tax-collector be a good tax-collector; let the soldier be a good soldier.  It was a man’s duty to serve God where God had set him.  It was John’s conviction that nowhere can a man serve God better than in his day’s work.

 

(iii) John was quite sure that he himself was only the forerunner.  The King was still to come and with him would come judgment. The winnowing fan was a great flat wooden shovel; with it the grain was tossed into the air; the heavy grain fell to the ground and the chaff was blown away.  Just as the chaff was separated from the grain so the King would separate the good and bad.

 

So John painted a picture of judgment, but it was a judgment which a man could meet with confidence if he had discharged his duty to his neighbour and if he had faithfully done his day’s work.  John was one of the world’s supremely effective preachers.  It is clear that John preached for action and produced it.  He did not deal in theological subtleties but in life.