The Second Sunday
of Advent (A)
Dear brothers and sisters,
It is a rare moment in the Scriptures when we
are told what someone wears, but two of the four Evangelists - Matthew and Mark
– take the time to tell us Saint John the Baptist “wore clothing made of
camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist” (Matthew 3:4; cf. Mark 1:6). If both Evangelists make explicit reference to John’s clothing, there
must be something significant about it; but what? What is noteworthy about a
tunic made of camel’s hair?
Saint John Chrysostom tells us, “John’s
clothing itself was symbolic of nothing less than the coming kingdom and of
repentance.”[1] We
know this is true become there is another man
who wore similar clothing in the Scriptures, one who lived many centuries
before John’s birth. To this man the angel of the Lord said:
Go, intercept the messengers of Samaria’s
king, and ask them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going
to inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron?’ For this, the Lord says: ‘You shall
not leave the bed upon which you lie; instead, you shall die’” (II Kings 1:3-4).
This man warned of impending death for the
grave sin of idolatry, of turning to false gods for help.
Hearing these words, the king’s messengers returned
to him. King Ahaziah asked them, “What was the man like who came up to you and
said these things to you” (II Kings 1:7). “‘Wearing a hairy garment,’ they
replied, ‘with a leather girdle about his loins’” (II Kings 1:8). Hearing this
description, the king knew at once the name of this man and cried out, “It is
Elijah the Tishbite” (II Kings 1:8)!
By donning a garment made of camel’s hair and
securing it with a belt of leather, John the Baptist demonstrated in a clear
way his prophetic calling. We learn through the prophet Zechariah that this
form of dress was customary for the prophets: “On that day, every prophet shall
be ashamed to prophesy his vision, neither shall he assume the hairy mantle”
(Zechariah 13:4). But more than this, John showed through the use of his
clothing, that he was Elijah.
That Elijah would return was foretold by the
Lord God through the Prophet Malachi:
Lo, I will send you Elijah, the prophet,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and terrible day, to turn the
hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to
their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with doom (Malachi 3:24).
The mission of John the Baptist was the same
as that of Elijah, to turn back hearts. This is why he cried out in the desert,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2)! Because John the
Baptist’s life so clearly reflected that of Elijah, Jesus said of John, “All
the prophets and the law prophesied up to the time of John. And if you are
willing to accept it, he is Elijah, the one who is to come. Whoever has ears
ought to hear” (Matthew 11:13-15). What are we to hear? His call to repentance,
for John came “to give his people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness
of their sins” (Luke 1:77).
Regrettably, too many people have accepted the
lie that sin is unimportant; too many people say something like, “I’m a good
person; that’s all God wants.” This is simply not true; God desires – and even
commands – that we be holy, that our lives look like that of Christ Jesus.
To sin is – in Greek – “to miss the mark,” hamartia.
It is an archery term used by Saint Paul to describe our offense against the
law of God, our failures to love by God and neighbor. Put simply, to sin is to miss
the mark. What is the mark for which we are aiming if not the life of Jesus? We
our lives fail to reflect his, we miss the mark; we sin.
As I said, lots of people today refuse to acknowledge
their sins. They think because they have not committed physical murder or
adultery, or because they have not robbed a bank, that they have not sinned.
This is only because they fail to realize the reality of sin; every sin is a
failure to love, and each of us fails to love several times each day. Saint
Augustine put it this way:
So long as a person bears flesh, he cannot but
have some at least slight sins. But don’t belittle what we are referring to as
these slight sins. If you belittle them when you weigh them, shudder them when
you count them out. For many slight ones make a great one: many drops fill a
river; many grains make a mass. And what hope is there? Confession above all.[2]
Confessions are heard here before Mass, but few people come; next week, another opportunity will be had. Will you
hear the cry of the Baptist to repent and take advantage of this opportunity to
prepare the way of the Lord?
When it comes to confession, people generally
have a few basic questions, the first of which goes something like this: “Why
do I have to confess my sins to a priest?” The short answer is because Jesus
wants us to confess our sins to a priest. When he breathed the Holy Spirit upon
the Apostles, Jesus said to them, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained” (John 20:23). If Jesus did not want the
Apostles to forgive sins, he would not have given them power and the authority
to do so; he did nothing needlessly. If the Apostles are to know which sins to forgive
and which sins to retain, they must know what the sins are and this requires
confession.
The second question wants to know something
like, “Won’t Father treat me differently? What if he remembers my sins?” The likelihood
that a priest remembers who goes to confession is small; we enter the
confession to lift the burden of sin, not to keep a tally of who comes.
However, even if a priest does remember who comes to confession, he cannot treat
that person any better or any worse because of what he learns in the
confessional. It’s rare that a priest might remember who confessed what sin.
You enter the confessional to get of your sins; why would the priest want to
keep them?
A third question is, “It’s been a long time;
how do I go to confession.” The process is very simple. Enter the confessional
and tell the priest how long its been since your last confession. “It’s been
while,” means different things to different people; has it been two months, or
thirty-seven years? Next, confess your sins are best as you able; there is no
need to euphemisms; let the priest know you are finished by saying something
like, “These are my sins,” so he doesn’t accidentally interrupt your thoughts. The
priest may then give a few words of counsel and will give you a penance. If you
think the penance is too severe or too light, let the priest know. Next, make
an act of contrition by acknowledging your sorrow for sin; it can be as simple
as, “Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner.” The priest will give you absolution and
send you on your way with your burden lifted.
When Saint John tells us to prepare the way of
the Lord, he intends for us to prepare and cleanse our hearts, for by cleansing
our hearts we also cleanse our lives. This is – frankly – the only preparation
for Christmas that matters. As beautiful as the lights and trees are, as tasty
as the cookies are, if our hearts and souls are not prepared, all of the
preparations of our homes will be vain and will not produce the full joy that
is desired.
In what remains of Advent, “what we really must do is clear
the way for the Lord who is good and powerful. We are disposing our hearts for
an encounter of love with him, and in this way we are encouraged to undertake
the needed purification.”[3] Ask the Lord, then, to help you recognize
your failures to love, your failures to love both God and neighbor, in ways both
large and small. Enter into the confessional with these failures to love and
ask for the grace to make a good and worthy confession. By doing so, you will
encounter Love himself, who will fill you the joy and peace he longs for you to
have because his kingdom is indeed at hand. Amen.
[1] Saint
John Chrysostom, The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 10.4.
[2] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Homilies
on the First Epistle of John, 3.14.
[3] Albert Vanhoye, S.J., Daily
Bread of the Word: Reflections on the Weekday Lectionary Readings (Chicago:
Liturgy Training Publications, 2019), 2.
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