You may notice, when reading this newspaper that my mission of service
as Archbishop takes me to quite a few places! These include, primarily,
opportunities for celebrating Mass, preaching and being present to the
faithful throughout the Archdiocese. They also include events in what
is called the “ecclesiastical province” of Philadelphia,
which comprises the entire State of Pennsylvania, as well as functions
throughout the country. As a Cardinal, I have a number of meetings in
Rome, which are directed to the service of the universal Church.
It will not surprise you to learn that, before each of these missions,
I need to recollect myself and concentrate on how the Lord is calling
me to serve Him in that particular aspect of my pastoral ministry. Clearly
envisioning whom and what I will encounter helps me to give those persons
and events the attention they deserve, and so helps me to fulfill the
mission entrusted to me by the Good Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ.
This brings to my mind something a priest once told me. He related his
friendship with a high school classmate, whose family functions he was
often invited to share in, along with some other friends. When arriving
at a particular event, this friend would often explain beforehand who
would be there and what the context would be. This was not only an act
of courtesy and sensitivity but also a means of making the situation
more enjoyable and socially fruitful. Saint Ignatius, in his great Spiritual
Exercises, explains his method of meditation or contemplation, based
on solid Christian tradition, by suggesting that the individual envision
a “composition of the place” including the setting and persons
in a scene, so that the one praying might draw as much as possible out
of that scene for his or her spiritual life. Even in a practical way,
this principle, along with the courtesy of the young man in the story,
can be fruitful!
I wonder if we might take some of the examples I have shared with you
and use them for our spiritual benefit during this liturgical season
of Advent? After all, aren’t we preparing to enter a place, Bethlehem?
Aren’t we preparing to meet the great figures of Mary, Joseph
and the Infant Jesus? Wouldn’t it serve us well to reflect on
the setting in which all this took place and the circumstances from
which it came forth? In this sense, it is extremely important that we
look at the characters of Advent, so that they will help us to profit
more greatly from the event we will relive at Christmas.
We do not worship an “unknown god.”
In Saint Paul’s speech in the Greek Areopagus (Acts 17: 22-26),
he praises the people of Athens for recognizing their religious nature.
With the best of intentions they had erected an altar inscribed, “To
an Unknown God.” They knew instinctively that there must be “someone”
superior to them but they did not know who that was and so they erected
their altar to this ‘unknown god.’ Paul takes that good
intention and leads them to the reality of the true God, Jesus Christ,
who has a profile and a true identity and is not far off and unknown.
It is particularly important today for us to recognize the “profile”
of Jesus, announced in the Scriptures and fulfilled according to the
promise mysteriously made in the Book of Genesis (3:15).
Would you like to have a “generic” friend, or husband or
wife? Of course not! We want to love someone with a true identity, to
whom we can relate and with whom we can have a true relationship. So
it is in our relationship with God! We do not believe in an impersonal
or unknown God, a God without a profile. We believe in One who paid
us the compliment of telling us about Himself, of revealing to us, as
far as it is possible for us to understand, His profile and true identity!
Likewise, we do not “create” a profile for God from our
own inner needs but we are called to respond to the true and loving
Person, who reveals Himself to us.
In his homily at the celebration of First Vespers of the First Sunday
of Advent, our Holy Father beautifully summarized this:
“The one true God, ‘the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of
Jacob,’ is not a God Who remains in heaven, disinterested in our
history. He is the God-Who-comes. He is a Father Who never ceases to
think of us and, in absolute respect for our freedom, wishes to meet
us and visit us; He wants to come, to dwell among us, to stay with us.
His ‘coming’ arises from His will to free us from evil and
from death, from everything that prevents our true freedom. God comes
to save us. The liturgy of Advent highlights how the Church gives voice
to the yearning for God so profoundly inscribed in the history of humanity;
a yearning that is, unfortunately, often stifled or diverted along false
paths.”
Who are some of the “characters of Advent” who will lead
us on the true path?
The Prophet Isaiah
The role of the prophet in Israel’s history was to call the people
back to fidelity and to warn them of their sinfulness. It is in this
context, and to add to their ‘credentials’ before the people,
that they sometimes spoke of future events touching on Israel’s
expectation of the Messiah. In many ways, the liturgical season of Advent
is one of expectation and longing, recalling us to fidelity, just as
the prophets did with the people of Israel. As with ‘our ancestors
in the faith,’ we are living again, in this Advent, our expectation
of what has been promised. In the midst of Isaiah’s many calls
to fidelity, he speaks in the following mysterious, yet pointed, way
as he relates a conversation between the weak king Ahaz and the Lord
of Israel: “Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: Ask for a sign from
the Lord, your God; let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the
sky! But Ahaz answered, ‘I will not ask! I will not tempt the
Lord!’ Then he said: Listen, O house of David! Is it not enough
for you to weary men, must you also weary my God? Therefore the Lord
himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and
bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:10-14). In
his Gospel (1:23), Saint Matthew quotes this verse, written some seven
hundred years before the birth of Jesus, and relates it in the context
of its fulfillment as he concludes the genealogy of the Savior. The
Church has always understood and taught that Jesus is the ‘Immanuel,’
the God-with-us foretold by Isaiah. In turn, this fulfills what was
spoken to the serpent, after the fall of our first parents, related
in the Book of Genesis referenced above. In this and many other references,
we see Jesus not as some unknowable figure, or one created according
to our own needs but as the precise fulfillment of a promise. The Prophets,
Isaiah most especially, testified to his coming and gave pointed references
to identify him when he would come. It is for this reason that our Lord,
as recounted in the Gospel of Saint Luke (4:16-21), having read one
of the prophecies of Isaiah (61:1,2), was able to say: “Today
this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Zachary, Elizabeth and John the Baptist
We may say that these figures are the great “bridges” between
the prophecies of the Old Testament and their fulfillment in the person
of Jesus. They are also found in miraculous circumstances, which clearly
show forth not only God’s power but also His detailed plan of
salvation. The angel, in telling Mary that her relative Elizabeth is
expecting a child, even in her old age, reminds her that “nothing
will be impossible for God” (Luke 1:36). God’s plan is so
specific that when the father of John the Baptist, Zechariah, is told
that he and his wife Elizabeth will finally have a child, his doubt
of the word of the angel causes him to be deprived of his gift of speech
(cf. Luke1:18-20). His speech is only restored after he makes clear
that the will of God concerning the son born of him and Elizabeth must
be fulfilled. He accordingly directs that the child be given the name
John (cf Luke 1:57-65). Zechariah then sings a glorious hymn, which
may be considered the proclamation of John the Baptist as the “bridge”
to the complete fulfillment of all the prophecies: “Blessed be
the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited and brought redemption
to his people even as he promised through the mouth of his holy prophets
from of old and you, child, will be called prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways” (Luke1:68-76).
In these brief summaries, I have tried to express the concept that there
is a “profile” of Jesus, prepared down through the ages
and identifying Him not as an “unknown” God but as the One
foretold by all the Prophets. You may want to take up one of the many
studies done on this topic and you will see a wonderful harmony and
continuity, leading up to the “crescendo” found in the birth
of Jesus. You will see that Jesus is not a person we “make up”
or fit to our inner needs, but He is our loving God with an identity
that expresses love for us and is able to be loved in return.
Saint John of the Cross, the great Carmelite mystic, expresses for us
both the prophecy and its fulfillment in his famous work, The Ascent
of Mount Carmel: “Under the ancient law prophets and priests sought
from God revelations and visions which indeed they needed. Their seeking
and God’s responses were necessary. He spoke to them at one time
through words and visions and revelations, at another in signs and symbols.
But however he responded and what he said and revealed were mysteries
of our holy faith, either partial glimpses of the whole or sure movements
toward it.
“But now that faith is rooted in Christ, by giving us, as he did,
his Son, his only Word, he has in that one Word said everything.”
December 14, 2006