Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10; James 5:7-10; Mt. 11:2-11.
AIM: To nurture
the faith which enables us to wait in patience.
A few years ago I had a phone call from a young
man on the east coast. Now 31, he graduated in 2009 first in his class in one
of the best Catholic high schools in St.
Louis
They met during their freshman year
at college. Both devout Catholics, and both highly intelligent, they hit it off
at once. Close companions during their four college years, they remained close
after graduation. Gradually, however, their paths diverged. After college Mary
landed a lucrative position with a major Wall Street financial firm. She is now
completing her M.B.A. at a leading business school. Immersion in the world of
big money has undermined her faith. Right now she=s one of our CEO Catholics:
Christmas-and-Easter only. Peter is at Mass every Sunday, and on weekdays when
he can get there.
When Peter raised the subject of
marriage recently, Mary told him that it wouldn=t work. AYou want a girl who=ll go to Mass with you every Sunday,
Peter. I=m not that person.@ You can imagine how that hurt. My
friend Peter had such hopes, such dreams. Now they seem to have collapsed,
leaving him devastated.
The gospel
reading we have just heard describes a similar collapse of hopes. AAre you the one who is to come,@ John asks from his prison cell. AOr should we look for another?@ Like my young friend Peter, John the
Baptist also had great expectations. He had staked his life on the message that
the hopes of his people for centuries, about the coming of an anointed servant
of the Lord, the Messiah, were about to be fulfilled. The promised Messiah, he
thought, would come in power and glory. He would overthrow the hated Roman
military government of occupation and set his oppressed people free. The person
who came to him to be baptized in the Jordan River
turned out, however, to be very different from what John had expected.
John=s message was stern. We heard him in last
Sunday=s gospel calling his hearers a Abrood of vipers,@ and asking sarcastically: AWho warned you to flee from the
coming wrath?@ (Mt. 3:7) Jesus= message was different. He too could
be stern. Mostly, however, Jesus was much gentler. The difference between John
and Jesus can be seen in people=s reactions to them. John they found too ascetic, Jesus too
easy-going (cf. Mt. 11:18f).
John=s question, AAre you the one who is to come?@ reveals a crisis of faith. Was Jesus
really the one John had believed and proclaimed him to be? Like everyone who
tries to live by faith, John had to discover that faith is not a once-for-all
affair. It=s not like learning to ride a
bicycle, or memorizing the multiplication table. Faith must be constantly
renewed.
Is that surprising? Don=t we see the same in every
relationship based on faith? Marriage is such a relationship. So is priesthood
and the life of the vowed religious Sister or Brother. In all these cases
promises are made solemnly and for life. But they need to be daily renewed and
reaffirmed. For me that means getting out of bed when my clock radio goes off
at 5.15 in the morning. Only if I get up then can I be in church before six, so
that I can spend a half-hour waiting in silence on the Lord before I celebrate Mass
at 6.30. Without that time with Him I=d just be spinning my wheels.
We are gathered here around the Lord=s twin tables of word and sacrament
to receive from the One who alone can give it to us the strength each of us
needs to renew our commitment to Jesus Christ, and to the life of trusting
faith to which he has called us.
From his own crisis of faith, the
result of the seeming collapse of his hopes and expectations, John learned that
faith must be constantly renewed. From Jesus= answer to John=s question the Baptist learned
something more: that faith is always free. It cannot be compelled, any more
than love can be compelled. To his question, AAre you the one who is to come?@ John expected a Yes or No answer. Jesus
did not give it to him. Instead he gave John the evidence he needed to work out
his own answer: Jesus= miracles of healing. Tell John, he said, about the blind
regaining their sight, the lame walking, lepers being cleansed, the deaf
hearing, the dead being raised.
John’s gospel calls Jesus= miracles Asigns.@ They point to faith. But they cannot
compel it. In telling John to consider the miracles, Jesus was asking his
cousin what he asks of us: a free decision based on the evidence of Jesus= words and deeds, but going beyond
what this evidence proves in the strict sense. Isn=t that what we want of those we love?
their free decision to give us their love and trust, without our having to
prove in advance that we deserve to be loved and trusted?
The decision for faith is always
free. And the decision must be constantly renewed. That requires something we
Americans have never been very good at: patience. Our second reading is about
patience. It is from the letter of James. That letter was written for people
who had been told to expect the imminent return of the Lord in glory. He hadn=t come. James reassures them: AThe coming of the Lord is at
hand.@ But they must await his coming with
patience. Like the farmer waiting for his crop to ripen, like parents waiting
for their children to walk and talk, there are things in life which cannot be
hurried. We must simply await them in patience.
That is what I told my young friend
Peter. AIf you decide that the difference
between you and Mary about faith means the end of your relationship, breaking
it off will be terribly painful. But dragging things out, continuing to
entertain impossible hopes, will only prolong the pain. Be assured, however,
that God never closes a door in our lives without opening another. He has shown
me that again and again in my life. He will do the same for you, Peter. The
Lord has someone out there with whom he wants you to share your life, to be
your wife and the mother of your children. When the time is right B God=s time, not yours B you will recognize her. Meanwhile
you must exercise patience.@
As people of faith we are called to
live in this world aware that we are also citizens of another world: the
unseen, spiritual but utterly real world of God, the angels, the saints, and of
our beloved dead. Being obedient to that call is difficult. It requires
patience. We gather here at these twin tables of word and sacrament so that the
Lord can renew our patience when it has worn thin and threatens to give out.
It was God who first enabled us to
make our decision for faith. Here in the Eucharist he enables us to renew that
decision. Here he gives us the patience to endure life=s disappointments and trials Aas seeing him who is invisible@ (Heb. 11:27). Once we grasp the
greatness of God=s gifts to us, we realize that we are the people who are
experiencing already the great promises of our first reading. We Asee the glory of the Lord, the
splendor of our God.@ Here God himself Astrengthens the hands that are
feeble, makes firm the knees that are weak.@ When our hearts are frightened, he
says to us, as we heard Isaiah saying to the people of his day in that first
reading: ABe strong, fear not! Here is your God
... he comes to save you.@ We are Athose whom the Lord has ransomed@ by the poured out blood of his Son.
We are Acrowned with everlasting joy ... [we]
meet with joy and gladness, [as] sorrow and mourning flee away.@
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