2nd Sunday of Advent 6.12.09
‘What did you go out to see’, Our Lord asks the people. It was not someone soft and comfortable who would make you feel good.
John the Baptist is an awe-inspiring figure for his absolute commitment to the task. He is not the most popular saint because of his severity, yet there is something very admirable about him for his refusal to yield to anyone in any direction, in life or death.
We admire people like that and wish we were like them, or maybe we don’t wish it, but we should!
To be uncompromising with evil. We compromise with a lot of things that go on in the world. There is so much evil around, and we are powerless to stop a lot of it from happening. If we look deeper we may have more power than we realized.
Always people will be telling us not to worry, to relax. The temptation to compromise is very strong but sometimes we have to make a stand even if we die in the effort. (St John Baptist, St Thomas More, all the martyrs, and of course Our Lord Himself... just about every martyr has probably had someone say at some point: Is your cause sufficient to give up your life? Would it not be better to save your life and fight another day? Yet the sacrifices they made have changed history).
Granted we cannot take on the whole world all at once. There are so many fronts on which the battle can be fought and no one person could deal with all of them. But progress is possible.
First, of course, one has to avoid joining in with the sin of the world. If we cannot stop others sinning we can at least not sin ourselves. This alone is a major task. Only with an abundance of prayer and sacraments, and studied application, can we be strong enough to avoid sin, at least in its worst forms.
Second, we can consider our own individual place in God’s scheme of things. Each of us has a different place in the Body of Christ; different gifts; different limitations. If we could harness the power of the Holy Spirit and let His gifts develop in us then we can be powerful contributors to the good of the Church, and thus the world.
We may not be John the Baptists but there is a lot of power in aggregates, all of us putting in our ‘five loaves and two fish’.
Third, there is the importance of being zealous: coming to love what is right and good for its own sake, for God’s sake. The saints had this in abundance. It was nurtured through their communion with God. They were zealous for the Lord, jealous for His honour.
Fourth, if all else fails at the very least we will be atoning for the sin that is going on. There is value in reparation for sins committed. Sometimes we can do no more, but it is something in itself. In reparation we express the love for God that the sinner has failed to show. God is consoled by that, and spiritual power is obtained. (This is the main point of the death of Christ)
We don’t always know what to do in the fight against evil. Even in one’s own family there are likely to be people doing something wrong. Do you tell them, or let them go and just pray? Or a bit of both? It is hard to say, but the closer we come to God the more likely we are to come up with the right answer. Live the truth, speak the truth, act the truth and good effects must follow.
Many people don’t even try to be holy, or do not go far enough. So the Church is very lukewarm in many places and the evils run riot.
Consider that a quarter of all Australians are Catholic but how little we influence the surrounding culture. In other countries the great majority of the population is Catholic but you would never know it.
How far can we go? We don’t know, but further is needed.
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