The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.
Glory to you, O Lord.
John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea, and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said, “A voice of one crying out in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths.”  John wore clothing made of camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. At that time, Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.
When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the axe lies at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I am baptizing you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry His sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand. He will clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into His barn. But the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.”  The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Praise be Jesus and Mary. Now and forever. Amen.
We heard in the first reading this excerpt from the book of the prophet Isaiah, where the Lord speaks about the stump of Jesse. “A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse.” Jesse was the father of King David. So it’s talking here about the Davidic line. The Israelites knew that the long-awaited Messiah would be a descendant of David. He would have been of the royal Davidic line.
But then what had happened? There had been unfaithfulness on the part of Israel after King David, and the whole nation, which had already been divided into two parts, was taken into exile. And the Davidic dynasty was apparently ended. But seemingly ended. No more king. No more descendant of David. No more kingdom. Everyone in exile. So it seemed as if it was just a stump. In other words, when you cut a tree down, if you ever cut a tree down in your backyard, you know what happens. Years pass by and the stump just begins to rot. There’s no more life there. There’s no more tree. It’s just a stump. But then it might happen a few years down the line that some little shoot springs out from the side. Not from the old stump, but from the side. A little shoot springs up. And that’s the image that our Lord is using here.
So this little shoot is going to sprout from the stump of Jesse. So that which apparently or seemingly was dead, cancelled, is now going to bud forth with a king whose kingdom will have no end. And that is Jesus Christ. And this happened precisely at the Annunciation, when God became man. Our Blessed Lady was in fact espoused to St. Joseph. And St. Joseph was of the Davidic line. And so here we have our Lord who is the true descendant of King David, therefore the royal line, thanks to St. Joseph, but sprouting forth in an entirely miraculous manner from a stump that appeared dead. So here we have a true sign of a divine intervention.
It’s also a sign though of what our Lord can do in our lives. It might seem, you know, after being far from our Lord, after having been so confused maybe with worldly ideas, and confounded in sin, that our life is just like a stump. Normal life, normal sense. But we need to know that God’s power is greater than our misery. And so even if our life appears just to be a stump, He can make something sprout forth. If only we let Him water it, and we let the light and the warmth of His love shine upon it. It entails a correspondence on our part, but He can do that. So we want to let Him and ask Him for this grace that our lives that appear maybe sometimes so arid may truly bud forth and bear fruit.
We have another hint about that in today’s Gospel. When St. John the Baptist says to the Pharisees, “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.” So let’s just take a step back. And we hear St. John the Baptist, who is the long-awaited Elijah. Remember, it had been prophesied that the prophet Elijah would return before the coming of the Lord. Well, it wasn’t personally him, but it was one who was just like him. In fact, the prophet Elijah wore the same attire. The prophet Elijah wore clothing made of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist. He lived in this penitential attire. Well, that’s just how St. John the Baptist appears. So he reveals himself in this way as the long-awaited second Elijah who will prepare the way for the Lord.
But very important is what he says. “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight His paths.” What is this preparation? He himself gives a hint as to what it is when he says repent. He offered a baptism of repentance. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It would make no sense to want to welcome or just to celebrate the coming of our Lord without any repentance on our part, without moving away from sin, without abandoning a life of sin which is opposed to the reason for which He’s coming. He’s coming to save us from sin. He’s coming to clothe us with His divine life. But that cannot come about if we are still in sin and not repenting for that sin.
But it goes beyond that, because as we see, St. John the Baptist says to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, “The fruit of vipers produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father.” So what was their fault here? They appealed to their being of, their being descendants of Abraham. They appealed to their fulfillment of the requirements of the ritual, the old ritual law as a title of salvation. In other words, without any real repentance, without any interior conversion, they were just saying, we are descendants of Abraham, we perform these external rituals, which were prescribed in the book of Numbers, in the book of Deuteronomy; those things have been completely superseded by the new law of grace. But just by observing those things without any interior repentance, and St. John the Baptist makes that evident by what he’s saying here. He’s basically saying, you do these external things, but there’s no conversion in your hearts. “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.”  So basically their sin was that of hypocrisy. They do external things, but they don’t represent any real interior disposition. And how often that can happen in the lives of Christians, where someone says, and I’ve heard this kind of thing said before, I’m just making examples now, but I have actually heard these things. Someone says, you make some question regarding their situation of, where they are in their life of faith, and they say, well, you know, my great uncle was a priest, and my aunt was a nun, therefore I’m going to be saved. Well, that’s like saying, you know, we are children of Abraham. That’s what the Pharisees were saying. We are children of Abraham, therefore we are okay. That’s not any title for salvation. Maybe that’s an extra responsibility on your part. In other words, having had good examples of those who came before you in your family, you should be corresponding better. But that which is going to open up salvation for your soul is your own correspondence, your own repentance from sin, and bearing the good fruit, producing the good fruit, as St. John the Baptist says here, produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.
So not enough to just do external things, they have to correspond to a real change of our hearts, of our wills. So if sin is opposed to the love of God, opposed to being united to Him, repenting of it means turning around. So it’s not just feeling sorry about what I did, but having a sincere desire to not do it again. This is a very important element of repentance. So even if we just speak about that within confession, if I go to confession and I feel some kind of regret for what I did, but I have no real resolution to avoid it in the future, that could actually end up being invalid. Why? Because there are two elements for a valid confession. Repentance and a firm resolution to avoid sin again for the future. That’s not the same as a vow, whereas I would vow to not sin, because I can’t foresee some moment of weakness. But as far as my good will is concerned, I have to have this firm resolution to do all I can with the help of God’s grace, trusting in His help and asking for that help, to not offend Him again. This is a very important part of repentance. Otherwise, once again, the repentance is just partial. Sometimes that repentance could just be a kind of self-love, if it’s just a feeling. I feel bad for something I did, I feel kind of disappointed in myself, but I’m not really sorry for the deeper motive of having offended God. If I truly recognize that my sin has offended a loving God who loves me, that should bring me not only to feel sorrow, but to not want to do it again. I don’t want to offend Him again.
We want to take this message from St. John the Baptist as a key element of our preparation for the whole mystery of Christmas. As was pointed out last Sunday, Advent actually entails three preparations. The preparation is a preparation here that coincides with the necessary preparation for three comings of Christ. We’re celebrating at Christmas the historical fact of His coming 2,000 years ago, but there’s also a preparation which is necessary, and so it coincides with the preparation of Advent, so that our hearts may be ready when He comes again in glory, so for His second coming, or at least for His coming at the end of our lives. We’ve got to be ready when He comes, so we’ve got to be preparing ourselves, so that coincides with our preparation for the celebration of His first coming.
But then there’s this preparation for His coming, His intermediate coming, so to speak. He wants to come into our hearts and into our lives today. It would make no sense if we were just celebrating an historical event, celebrating Christ’s coming 2,000 years ago, but that had no real relation, but it would make no sense if that had no real connection with me today. The fact is that He wants to come into my life today, reign in me today, be born into me, so to speak, today. That requires some preparation on my part, otherwise He’s not going to come. Why? Because He doesn’t want to. No, He wants to. But I can keep the door closed.
There’s a beautiful image which can be very useful for meditation. A beautiful image of our Lord standing at a door, out in the cold, with a lantern in His hand, and there’s no door handle on the door. He’s outside, the door is closed, there’s no handle on the door, there’s just a knocker. And so He’s knocking, the only handle on the door is on the inside. Why? Because that door represents the door of your heart, that can only be opened by you from the inside. If you don’t open it, He stays outside. Does He want to come in? Absolutely. Will He come in if you don’t open the door spontaneously and willingly? No, because He respects your free will, and He wants that to be a spontaneous act of love on your part.
So, all this requires preparation, so that we may have this disposition of openness to His coming, desire His coming, appreciate the gift that He’s offering, and desire that and open ourselves to it. Once again, a key element here, repentance of our sins, recognizing our sins, repenting of them, but then changing direction. I want to leave my sins, pursue a life of virtue, pursue union with God, so that He can truly be born into me, reign in me, and so participate to me those gifts, those graces, that divine life that He came to bring.
Let us turn to our Blessed Mother. St. John the Baptist was the prophet called to prepare the way for Christ’s coming when He first came. Well, in these times, in a special way, our Blessed Mother is like the prophet, the prophet of the last time, so to speak. She has come so many times in our recent apparitions, telling us to prepare our hearts, to turn back to God, to convert. She’s doing what St. John the Baptist did back then, she’s doing now, telling us to turn back to God, to stop offending Him, to repent, and to do penance. So let us heed her call, and so prepare our hearts for His coming, once again, not only for His coming at the end of our lives, but for His coming today into our lives, and into our families, and therefore into our society.
Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.