Bishop Glen John Provost
Bishop of Lake Charles
Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matthew 3:2
There is an old riddle that goes like this. What first walks on four, then on two, and then on three legs? The answer: man. As an infant he crawls, as a man he walks erect, and when old he uses a cane.
Every great culture and every great religion known to mankind has recognized that there is a cycle to life. Autumn, in which we find ourselves now, sees nature dying, passing through an inevitable death in winter, only to be resurrected in the spring and come to full flourish in the summer. It is a cycle that reflects itself in every living thing, be it animal or plant. The Church in its extraordinary wisdom recognizes this cycle too.
The Church gives us the liturgical year. The purpose is simple. The cycle of the Church year is to recall the cycle of the life and work of Jesus Christ. Advent begins that cycle, placing before us the preparation for Jesus' coming. Isaiah in the first reading takes us to the beginnings: "On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom" (Isaiah 11:1). Jesse was the father of King David, and Jesus came from King David¹s line. "On that day, the root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious" (Isaiah 11:10). Christmas will continue that cycle, along with Epiphany, when the Gentile kings will "seek out" and find the "dwelling" of God in Jesus. Then through Lent, as nature prepares for second birth, we will join Jesus in the desert and await His redeeming death and resurrection at Easter. Jesus will return to His father's side, as He promised He would do, and the Holy Spirit will descend at Pentecost to confirm the work of the Church in continuing Jesus' presence in the world in a great sunlit summer.
The liturgical year of the Church is genius. Centered around the Eucharist, the Church takes us by the hand and leads us through the cycle of Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection. Cycles are nothing new. Man has observed that nature has a cycle since the beginning of recorded time. What is different is that Jesus returns the cycle to life. He says it Himself: "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live" (John 11:25).
Jesus is life. He spoke of himself as the vine with us the branches. Apart from Him, we die. He spoke of a life that like a grain of wheat must die in order to live. He spoke of our eating His flesh and drinking His blood in order to have not just life but eternal life. He spoke about a life that would never end, a cycle that would reach its fulfillment. Though human beings ripen, age, and die, there is more to life than nature¹s cycle. There is ultimate meaning. For this ultimate end, for this breaking of the cycle, Jesus chose as His image the harvest. At the harvest only one thing would matter, whether or not we had born fruit.
"Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance," Jesus says in the Gospel of today (Matthew 3:8). When the axe is laid to the root of the trees, only one thing will matter.
We very much live in the midst of what Pope John Paul II called the culture of death. The world at times appears to have gone mad. The family is dissolving before our eyes. The pursuit of pleasure without conscience continues to lead us down a path to total alienation. The separation of the sexual act from procreation has made the most intimate of human acts nothing more than entertainment. Principles have been completely made relative. Man seems not to know what truth is. In the words of T. S. Eliot, "We are the hollow men/ We are the stuffed men" (The Hollow Men). Poets, the good ones at least, are sensitive enough to perceive what is going on.
In the face of our self-deception and self-destruction, Jesus has the courage to say, "Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?" (Matthew 3:7). He calls us to genuine and true repentance. The warnings of Advent make sense in this context. Prepare the way, stay awake, keep alert, repent. These are harvest expressions. There will come a time when the cycle will end, justice will be done, the world and its folly will be proved to be what it is, nonsense. Only life will remain. The harvest will be accomplished, and we shall do what Jesus first did. The cycle will end, and we shall live.