Homily: 2nd Sunday
of Advent – Cycle C
You know, I’m not sure if Pope Francis
is crazy or courageous.
One of the ways to know whether or not
someone is crazy is to test them on their grasp of reality. For example, someone who complains that it
rains all the time while in the midst of a drought probably doesn’t really know
what is going on. This is magnified if
the situation involves something dangerous: like, for example, should someone
walk into a Lion’s den carrying cat treats to feed the “little kitties”. There’s obviously a disconnection there
between that person’s perception of danger and the reality.
Someone is courageous, however, when,
fully knowing the danger that he or she is walking into, he or she walks into
it anyway. Like the firefighter who runs
into a burning house to search for anyone who might be trapped. He or she wears a fire suit and an oxygen
mask because he or she acknowledges the danger (thus assuring that he or she
has a good grasp on reality), but, nonetheless, he or she runs into the fire
anyway for a noble cause: making him or her courageous, not crazy.
So, let’s see how Pope Francis
measures up. This past week, he made a
trip to multiple countries in Africa.
Okay, to say it was a “trip” would indicate that he was on vacation or
something. In truth, it was an
“apostolic journey” in which he sought to bring a message of peace to parts of
Africa currently being torn apart by conflicts between its peoples. One of the countries that he visited was the
Central African Republic, a place where an active conflict between Christians
and Muslims is ongoing. Thus, he faced
real danger in going there. Now, he
acknowledged this before he went—and many of his closest advisors acknowledged
this, too, I’m sure—and yet he went anyway.
So was he crazy—that is, failing to acknowledge danger where danger
existed—or was he courageous—that is, fully acknowledging the danger, but going
anyway because of a noble cause?
If you read the reports and look at the
videos from the trip, it doesn’t look like the Pope had any extra protection
for himself at any point. Nonetheless,
he embraced the danger of the trip. One
report even said that, after hearing of an attack on Christians not far from
where he was, Pope Francis asked if he could “go to” the attackers (who had
been arrested) so that he could speak to them.
This is the point when even his closest advisors must have said to him:
“Are you crazy? You’ll get killed!” But Pope Francis isn’t crazy, he’s courageous. He knew exactly what was going on and, in
spite of appearances, he went into this situation armed and ready for what he
would encounter.
You see, I believe that Pope Francis
is engaged in a “War of Mercy” (that’s a “war OF mercy” not a “war ON
mercy”). Pope Francis, as bishop,
archbishop, and now pope, is doing everything he can to prepare for the coming
of the Lord. Like John the Baptist in
today’s Gospel, who went out into the region of the Jordan River and proclaimed
a baptism of repentance so that the people would be prepared for the
manifestation of Jesus Christ as the long-awaited Messiah, so too is Pope
Francis going out to the “margins” of the world to proclaim the Lord’s mercy so
as to prepare people for when Jesus comes again.
As you can see, this is not a war in
the traditional sense. Pope Francis is
not fighting on their terms. Rather, he
is engaging them with the weapons of love and mercy. In a traditional war, the combatants fight
under the premise that “it’s us or them”.
Pope Francis, however, seems to acknowledge that, if our war is love, it
can never be “us or them”, but rather
it must always be “us for them”. This is the courageous example that he is
giving to us; and this, I would argue, is how he is living Advent.
When we look around we see that our
world is a war-zone. In many places (too
many places), it is a physical war-zone, where people have taken up arms
against each other. In many other
places, it is an ideological war-zone, where people are attacked for their ideas
and pressured into conforming to the prevailing notions of truth. In either case, if we try to fight their war
we will lose, because it is a worldly war and our victory is not of this
world. The only war that we will win is
a war of mercy, for in this war the victory has already been won for us in
Jesus Christ.
To live Advent, therefore, means to be
constantly working to “prepare the way of the Lord”, which we do, not by
chopping down mountains and filling in valleys, but by opening a way for the Lord
in men’s hearts. For those who are
against us both physically and ideologically, the only weapons we have to
overcome them are love and mercy. Thus, Pope
Francis has, in a way, declared a great offensive in this war in opening the
Jubilee Year of Mercy. In it he is
calling us first to be overcome by God’s mercy—especially in the sacrament of
reconciliation—and then to blanket the world around us in mercy, especially
through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. In joining him in this crusade of mercy, we
will be preparing the way for our Lord to return to us and, thus, we will be
living Advent.
My brothers and sisters, Advent is our
call to live as if our Lord’s second coming is imminent by making preparations
for his coming. The Year of Mercy is a
special opportunity to make great inroads towards preparing the way. May our experience of God’s mercy that comes
to us through the sacrifice of Jesus, his Son, which we will re-present soon
here on this altar, make us courageous crusaders of mercy so that the kingdom
that is coming may truly dwell in our midst here and now.
Given
at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – December 6th, 2015
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