Blessed Second Sunday of Advent, my friends! The Scriptures today introduce us to John the Baptist. Christians see him as the last of the Old Testament prophets and the great Forerunner of the Christ. John comes to announce the coming Savior and the Kingdom He will inaugurate. The Gospels give the clear impression that many first-century Jews were expecting this coming Kingdom to be an earthly reality—something like the glorious kingdom of Israel under David. That united kingdom, in its full conception, was incredibly short-lived. The twelve tribes were briefly united under Saul, and then a civil war broke out with the House of David. David eventually reunited the tribes and the kingdom remained united under his son Solomon. After Solomon’s death it fractured permanently: the ten northern tribes became Israel (later called Samaria after its capital), while Judah and Benjamin remained as the southern kingdom of Judah. In time, the northern kingdom was destroyed by Assyria, and eventually Judah was exiled to Babylon—though a remnant later returned under Persian rule. The glorious Davidic kingdom, as it once existed, never returned. By the time of Jesus, “King” Herod was merely a client ruler under Roman authority; the people never truly regarded him or his heirs as legitimate successors to David’s throne. The golden age of the Davidic kingdom did not return.
While some longed for the restoration of that earthly political reality, the Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus is primarily an interior one that leads to eternal life. Conversion—metanoia, a complete change of heart and mind—is the path to eternity. On this Second Sunday of Advent, the Baptist calls us to that conversion and urges us to “prepare the way of the Lord.” The imagery is one of massive transformation: mountains leveled, valleys filled, crooked paths made straight. Make a highway for the Lord who is coming! The Gospels are given to enlighten our path in this life and to equip us with the eyes and heart to live already in eternity. Christianity is not merely “pie in the sky when you die.” It is about living in this world in such a way that we are constantly mindful of the next. The essential challenge is the transformation of attitude and action.
Disciples acknowledge that the Master does the heavy lifting: we are saved by Jesus and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Yet our role in the drama of redemption is not passive. We walk the proverbial narrow path between living the Gospel radically and avoiding sin—both the active evils (the traditional seven: pride, envy, anger, sloth, gluttony, avarice, and lust) and the passive evils of self-absorption and indifference that make us incapable of truly loving one another as Jesus loved us. Prepare the way of the Lord! Blessed Second Sunday of Advent, fellow disciples and seekers!
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
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Good morning, digital neighbors! Blessed Sunday to all! To all my brothers and sisters in Christ, a very blessed and joyful day of praise and worship. While God does not need us, nor does He gain anything from our worship, we believe He delights in it nonetheless. When we are ordained, most priests — if not all — have some sort of small prayer card made to memorialize the event. It usually contains a quote from Scripture, the wisdom of a saint, or some Church doctrine or dogma.
It varies with the individual, since it is their choice and sort of an expression of their ministry. One side will usually have some sort of religious artwork and the date of ordination, and the other will have the passage. This was mine back in January of 1993.
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 ...
XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
