*****
“Be vigilant at all times.”
It is the beginning of yet another season of Advent! It is the time for vigilance. Listen to the words of Blessed Louis Brisson, OSFS:
“Advent means coming. This time is set aside to help prepare us for Christmas. These four weeks of Advent represent the four thousand years that preceded the coming of the Messiah. Throughout these many years the prophets announced the coming of Our Lord. In reading their prophecies we find all the details of His life and sufferings described in advance with as much accuracy as if they had already taken place.”
“There are two advents of the Lord. The first is his great advent when He came to this earth to save us. He willed to come to us little, humble and unknown. He was born poor to show us that poverty is no disgrace. He willed to be a workingman to teach us to love work as He loved it.”
“The second advent of Our Lord is made in our hearts. Evert time we have a good thought, every time that we take the Good God with us, every time that we make an act of fidelity, every time that we are all His, an advent takes place…” (Cor ad Cor, p. 13)
Each and every moment of every day has the potential for presenting us with an opportunity for experiencing the “advents of Our Lord”. Of course, as Jesus himself warns us in the Gospel, each and every moment may also have its share of worries and anxieties associated with the state and stage of life in which we find ourselves.
Are we open to considering how the worries and anxieties of life may precisely be the places in which the “advents of Our Lord” may come? Are we vigilant? Are we watchful?
*****
“Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.
In today’s Gospel Jesus is amazed not only by another person’s depth of faith; but he is also amazed at the person who demonstrates such faith – a foreigner. And not just any old foreigner, but a powerful one: a Roman centurion who, for all his power, truly knows his place.
In a sermon for Lent during the last year of his life, Francis de Sales remarked: “Certainly the greatest defect we have in our prayers – and in all that happens to us, particularly in that which concerns tribulations – is our lack of confidence.” (Living Jesus, p. 105)
We see no lack of confidence on the part of the centurion in today’s Gospel. As a man who gives – and takes – orders for a living, he knows that the willingness to follow orders can make the difference between life and death, between success and failure, between victory and defeat. He approaches Jesus with the belief that Jesus can affect the miracle for which he seeks by simply giving the order. The soldier’s confidence is so strong that he is prepared to take Jesus’ word on it.
In the midst of our concerns and tribulations, how confident are we in the promise of Jesus’ power? How willing are we to take Jesus at his word?
*****
“At once they followed him...”
In his book This Saint’s for You, Thomas J. Craughwell writes:
“Andrew and his brother Peter were sitting in their fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee, repairing their nets, when Christ called to them, saying, ‘Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.’ Although the brothers did leave their boat to follow the Lord, they never stopped catching fish: it was how they supported themselves and their families.”
“Time and time again the Gospels take us back to the Sea of Galilee: on one occasion, Jesus climbed into Peter and Andrew’s boat to preach to a crowd on the shore; on another, while the brothers and some of the other disciples were out fishing, they saw Jesus advancing toward them by walking on the water. After a long night of fishing and catching nothing, Christ urged the brothers to go out to the deepest part of the sea and lower their nets one more time. This time the catch was so great that the fishing nets broke, and Peter and Andrew had to signal to their fellow apostles and business partners James and John to come help them haul in the fish. And, when there was nothing for the crowd of five thousand to eat, it was Andrew who brought forward a boy who had five barley loaves and two fish, which Christ multiplied to feed the multitude…with much leftover to boot.”
“Tradition says that St. Andrew carried the Gospel to Greece. At the town of Patras, he was arrested and tied to an X-shaped cross. The legend claims that it took him three dies to die, and the entire time he hung on the cross St. Andrew preached to all who passed by.” (p. 179)
Andrew: once a fisherman, always a fisherman. A fisherman doesn’t get to pick the day, time, situations or circumstances in which he fishes. He simply fishes, come what may. A fisherman jumps at the chance to make a catch; he will drop whatever else he might be doing in pursuit of his livelihood. Such an avocation requires tenacity, patience, determination and a willingness to go with the flow. Perhaps that’s Jesus why Jesus called Andrew to become one of his apostles/disciples, because such qualities could come in quite handy when it came to preaching the Good News.
Jesus calls each of us - in our own unique ways - to be fishers of “men.” To what degree does Jesus see in us some of the same qualities that he saw in Andrew?
*****
“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd...”
Today’s Gospel offers us two things for our consideration. One is the virtue of compassion; the other is the anatomy of compassion. In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales observed:
“Compassion, sympathy, commiseration or pity is simply an affection that makes us share in the sufferings and sorrows of those we love. It draws the misery of others into our own heart. Hence it is called misericordia, that is, misery of heart.” (Living Jesus, p. 38)
The virtue of compassion is clearly displayed in Jesus. When he looks at those he loves – the people who had been with him for three days – “his heart is moved with pity” for they had had nothing to eat for all that time. Jesus experiences “misery of heart” when confronted with the neediness of the crowds. The anatomy of compassion is also clearly manifested in Jesus. First, Jesus recognizes the needs of those he loves (they were hungry). Second, Jesus’ heart is moved by the needs of those he loves. Thirdly, Jesus acts. Rather than simply stopping at being “moved with pity”, he does whatever it takes to meet the needs of those he loves.
By contrast, the disciples’ compassion appears to come up short. While they, too, recognize the needs of the crowds - and while their hearts similarly are moved by the neediness of the crowds - the disciples seem overwhelmed by the enormity of the needs and appear to be more interested in doing whatever it takes to send the crowds away to fend for themselves.
You have to wonder: for whom was this miracle of compassionate action performed? Was it done for the crowds who had been with Jesus just three days, or for the disciples who had been with Jesus long enough to know better than to doubt him?
How well does the anatomy of compassion work in us? How willing are we to recognize the needs of those we love? How willing are we to allow our hearts to be moved by the needs of those we love? How willing are we to try to do something – however extraordinary, however sublime – to meet the needs of those we love?
When it comes to imitating the compassion of Christ, two-out-of-three merely will not do.
*****
“A strong city have we; he sets up walls and ramparts to protect us.
On this new day on our Advent journey, we reflect on these words from Blessed Louis Brisson:
“Father Chevalier, my moral theology professor, used to say to us, ‘Do you believe that Our Lord became human merely to redeem the world? He became human that we might partake of His life, of His body, of His soul, of His divinity and of His happiness.’ And who is this Model, this life and this Happiness? The Word-Made-Flesh Himself!”
“The Savior, Jesus Christ – the One Whom we attempt to reproduce in ourselves and Who is living in us – accomplishes this divine redemption in us. He gives us the grace to do this. He is our Exemplar, our Model. He walks before us. We have only to put our feet in His footprints. Thus, we will bring about our complete redemption.” (Cor ad Cor, pp. 18, 19)
We have a strong city in the person of Jesus Christ! In Christ we find walls and ramparts in which we find not only protection, but also experience “His life, His body, His soul, His divinity and His happiness.” And perhaps more than ever these days, we could use more than few extra ramparts.
Today, how might Jesus be inviting us to be a “strong city” in the lives of others? How might we become a source of safety, support and protection for others today and help them to experience the life and happiness rooted in a life in and with Jesus?
*****
“Do you believe I can do this for you?”
“Francis Xavier was a man of tremendous zeal, energy and optimism. As a student at the University of Paris he met St. Ignatius of Loyola (a fellow Basque). Led by Ignatius, in 1534 Francis and five friends formed the Society of Jesus (better known as the Jesuits). The first Jesuits hoped they all would serve as missionaries together in the Holy Land; instead, Francis was sent to southwest Asia. He sailed with a convoy of Portuguese ships bound for the colony of Goa, India. The journey consumed thirteen months, and Francis was seasick through most of it. While the Portuguese already had been in Goa for thirty-one years (the city was well established with churches, monasteries and even a bishop), most of the town’s population was composed of cruel, dissolute and vicious men who abandoned the illegitimate children that they had with Indian women, tortured their slaves, despised the helpless and regarded India as their personal property to pillage as they wished.” “With so much work to be done, Francis maintained an exhausting routine that included visits to the city prison and hospitals, saying Mass for the lepers, teaching catechism to children and slaves, and writing lyrics that explained the basics of Christianity and then setting them to the tunes of popular songs. One of his toughest challenges was trying to convince the Goa Portuguese to live like Christians instead of godless despots.”
“After months in Goa he sailed to the Spice Islands (in what is now Indonesia). There he met three Japanese converts to Christianity. This chance meeting piqued his interest, and once he arrived in Japan the refinement, elegance and courtesy of the people there captivated him. But Francis could never stay long in one place; he wanted to bring the Gospel to China. With the help of a Chinese convert named Anthony, Francis struck a bargain with a Chinese merchant who – for an extravagant fee – agreed to transport him to China. However, the merchant abandoned Francis and Anthony instead on a desolate island. There, Francis fell ill and died, attended by Anthony, two slaves and a Portuguese ship’s captain who’d stumbled upon the castaways.”
“Francis Xavier set an exceedingly high standard for missionaries: it is estimated that during a period of eleven years he converted forty-thousand people to Christianity. In 1904 Pope Pius X recognized his achievements by naming him as the patron of missionaries.” (This Saint’s for You, pp. 277 – 278)
When it comes to evangelizing – when it comes to continuing the work of Jesus Christ – it could be said that we are all missionaries by virtue of our Baptism. Fr. Brisson believed that evangelizing is not only about waiting for people to come to us but also about going to them.
Francis Xavier believed that all things were possible for Jesus. How can we imitate his example today?
*****
“The Kingdom of heaven is at hand…”
One of the signs that Jesus associates with the Kingdom of heaven being at hand is the driving out demons. The season of Advent provides each of us with a great opportunity to drive out from our own minds and hearts any number of demons with which we might be plagued. These demons – while not necessarily limited to this list – could include:
• Anxieties
• Grudges
• Bitterness
• Resentment
• Old Hurts
• Unresolved conflicts
• Unbridled anger
• Perfectionism
• Scrupulosity
• Negativity
• Ingratitude
• Presumption
The Kingdom of heaven is at hand! Why not make more room in your life for the Word-Made-Flesh by driving out our demons through some heavy duty spiritual house-cleaning between now and Christmas?
