2nd Week of Advent, Saturday, Dec 14
Ecclesiasticus 48: 1-4, 9-11 / Matthew 17: 10-13
Great are you, Elijah: You are destined to return.
Elijah is described as parting life in a fiery chariot. (2 Kings 2:11) Symbolic or not, the description gave rise to the popular belief that Elijah would return to prepare the way for the “Day of the Lord.” To this very day, Orthodox Jews put an empty chair at the seder table for Elijah. Reform Jews put a “cup of Elijah” at the table. They hope this will be the year he'll return.
Some New Testament Jews thought Jesus was Elijah returned. Jesus clarified the matter, telling his disciples that Elijah had already come, but people had not recognized him. “Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.” Matthew 17:13 (Matthew 16:14)
***
To what extent are we heeding John's message: “The right time has come. ... Turn away from your sins”? There is no such thing as a sudden conversion What is sudden is the realization that we've undergone a conversion.
***
In the Old Testament, the prophet Elijah is the “prophet of fire,” a fiery, zealous personality who makes fire come down on the enemies of God. He wanted to prepare the hearts of the people to accept God.
***
If there was one prophet in the Old Testament that we can say is really dramatic, it is surely the prophet Elijah. And the 1st reading makes special mention of this dramatic prophet, and rightly so. Elijah was a fire-and-brimstone prophet. He worked great and awful deeds like calling down famine upon the land, calling down fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice he offered and putting down the 450 false prophets by slitting their throats, just to mention a few. But all those dramatic deeds were intended to turn the people back to God and for the restoration of Israel as the people of God.
But people can just be interested in the dramatic and the spectacular and not see the meaning and the message behind it. We live in an age where people, Catholics included, are easily attracted by the dramatic and the spectacular and the extraordinary.
We may even expect the end times and the second coming of Christ to be kind of dramatic and spectacular, with awesome signs. But as Jesus said in the gospel, Elijah came in the person of John the Baptist, and God came to visit His people in the Word made flesh.
But John the Baptist and Jesus were just too ordinary, and hence did not live up to the people's expectations. The season of Advent prepares us to encounter God in the ordinary. Amidst of the festive celebrations, let us quieten our hearts to hear the voice of God in the ordinary.
When Jesus first came to this world at the first Christmas, it was just another ordinary day. When He comes to us today, it will also be in an ordinary way.
***
In the New Testament, the “prophet of fire,” the new Elijah, was John the Baptist. Full of zeal, he wanted to prepare the hearts of the people to accept Jesus as the saving Messiah. Who is calling us to conversion today and opening our hearts to make Christ alive in us? It is the Spirit of fire, who wants us to do with great zeal and love the work of Christ, that is, to bring the love, peace and justice of God in today’s world. Do we let the Spirit kindle that fire in us?
***
Prayer
Lord, our God, let us never become indifferent to the ardent message which your Son speaks to us in the Gospel. When we have become inattentive and uninvolved, send us again prophets to wake us up and to make us receptive again, to make your kingdom among us a reality. For the love of you and of people, may we work for justice and awaken others to love. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen
***
Saint John of the Cross (c. 1542-1591)
Feast Day December 14
John of the Cross was locked in a cell six feet wide and ten feet long for nine months, with no light except that which filtered through a slit high up in the wall. He later forgave the men who had imprisoned him. How could he do that? He explained, “Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love.”
John’s father had been disowned by his wealthy Spanish family when he married a poor weaver rather than a woman of equal economic status. Living in poverty proved to be too much for him, and he died shortly after John was born. John spent much of his youth in an orphanage, where he was clothed, fed, and given an elementary education. At the age of 17, he found a job in a hospital and was accepted into a Jesuit college. In 1563 he entered the Carmelite Order. Eventually he enrolled in another university, where he did so well that he was asked to teach a class and to help settle disputes.
When he met Teresa of Ávila and learned from her about the reform of the Carmelite Order, John decided to help with it. As part of this decision, he wore sandals instead of shoes and lived very simply in prayer and solitude. In 1577 the attitude toward the reform shifted.
John was caught up in a misunderstanding and imprisoned at Toledo, Spain. During those months of darkness in that little cell, John could have become bitter, revengeful, or filled with despair. But instead, he kept himself open to God’s action, for no prison could separate him from God’s all-embracing love. During this time he had many beautiful experiences and encounters with God in prayer. Later he would describe these experiences in poetry. In 1578 John escaped to southern Spain to join the reformed Carmelites. There he held leadership positions and wrote reflections on his experiences, which showed his deep spirit of prayer. When he became ill, he chose to go to the city of Ubeda, where no one knew him. It was there that he died.
