Advent - Gaudete Sunday

3rd Sunday - Advent - Gaudete Sunday

Abbot Raymond - HOMILY

Mass Is61:1-2,1--11. 1Thess5:16-24. Jn1:6-8,19-28

THE WITNESS OF THE BAPTIST

John was a man sent from God to bear witness to the Light.

But surely Jesus was much better qualified to bear witness to himself than even John was. What need had he of the witness of John? Who knew better than himself exactly who he was? Who was better able to explain to men exactly who he was? John himself recognised this and when Jesus came, he immediately stepped back, and he said: “Now he must increase and I must decrease”. But the big difference between John’s witness and that of Christ, was precisely that John’s witness also had the nature of a foregoing preparation; a preliminary moulding and shaping and purifying of the minds and hearts of men to recognise and receive the Christ when he would appear.

This is what links the mission of the Baptist to the mission of all the prophets who had gone before him from the very beginning. There were thousands of years of preparation for the coming of the Messiah. And the great lesson for us all in this is that it makes us realise that just as time is an essential element the preparation of the whole human race for the coming of Christ, so also it must be an essential element in each individual human soul’s response to him. Even our very spirituality, our holiness itself, is made of time. We are creatures of time and space, and so our souls, as well as our bodies need time and space to grow to spiritual maturity.

How precious a thing then time is for us on our way to God! It’s not sufficient for us to avoid using it sinfully. St Paul speaks of “redeeming time”, that is, of appreciating it for what it is; of using it wisely and fruitfully; of not wasting and squandering it uselessly. Let us remember then that time is something precious; something that has a spiritual value. Time is something out which our eternity itself will be made.

How then do we set about “redeeming time”; using it fruitfully? Basically and fundamentally it is not so much a question of what to do with time, as of realising and believing in it; of believing that each moment comes to us from God and is a source of grace in any one of a thousand ways. It comes at us, it flows over us, precisely as something sanctifying and bearing grace, whether in the people we encounter on each day’s journey or in the things that are demanded of us by each moment’s requirements; time forces grace upon us in spite of ourselves. In short, it is the attitude of faith that makes it sanctifying.

“Whether you eat or whether you drink, or whatever you do, let it all be for the glory of God"

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