Talk for the Third Sunday of Advent
December 12, 2010
Christ — Our Light

This past Monday morning I was drinking my coffee at breakfast, and reading a very interesting article about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. All of a sudden the lights went out, and everything ’stopped’ including me. I sat there motionless, somehow expecting the lights to come back on, or something to happen. Life seemed to have stopped, as I began slowly to recognize that most of the things I had planned could not, now be done, as I needed electricity on the outside in the yard. I then began to reflect on how dependent we are on electricity, and from there to the whole encompassing issue of God. If we did not have God, life, you and I would cease as human beings with an eternal destiny, and life itself with all its ‘ups and downs’ would have little or no meaning. Consequently the essential and daily importance of prayer – taking time out, no matter what – to become aware of His presence, and that He is the One who enables to breathe. In a word He is the electricity that enables us to see, even in the darkness.“ Jimmy Sanchez one of the 33 Chilean miners, might have been far from family and home, but he was never far from God. In the earthen tomb that housed him for 69 days, his buoyant spirit is something we can all work to emulate this season. ”There are actually 34 of us”, the 19-year-old wrote in a letter sent up from the mine,” because God has never left us down here.” (St .Anthony Messenger, December 2010) Obviously we do not wait until the crisis befalls, but we pray consciously, and frequently. I came across this quote which is most appropriate: ”In the Catholic tradition, this practice of meditative attention to God’s presence everywhere has been called the sacrament of the present moment.’

As we move through Advent we hear again the prophetic vision from Isaiah: ”The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom...strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, say to those whose hearts are frightened; be strong, fear not, Here is your God .he comes to save you. .”In the midst of their alienation and detention in a foreign land the people believed that their situation would be reversed. Hence the importance for us in our trying times to do likewise. Now in the gospel from Matthew 11, we meet John who is now not so certain-he is now in prison and is beginning to question himself and Jesus — He was perhaps looking for a different kind of liberator — we can easily fall into the same expectation Jesus’ mission is about saving the individual and not the economy. ”Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”So Jesus had to clarify his role. The blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them .And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me .Then we have James in the second reading urging patience.”Be patient Brothers and Sisters, until the coming of the Lord. MAKE YOUR HEARTS FIRM, BECAUSE THE COMING OF THE Lord is at hand.”

AMEN.