Great joy, much excitement, radiate from the Advent Liturgies. Jeremiah tells us – “Nations, hear the message of the Lord, and make it known to the ends of the earth: Our Savior is coming; have no more fear.” Zechariah tells us – “See, the Lord is coming and with him all his saints. Then there will be endless day.” Isaiah tells us – “Sound the trumpets, summon the nations, tell them the Good News – Our God and Savior is coming.” The Advent message is missionary – “Proclaim the Good News, tell it to everyone, shout it aloud – Our God is coming.” We, the Church, have Good News to tell. You and I are evangelizers, carriers of the Good News for our times and no matter what our problems and crosses may be, no matter how heavy our hearts at this time, Advent is always the reminder that we are the privileged recipients of God’s good news. This is what the Church is all about – to communicate a sense of the Good News, to communicate a much needed expression of Christian hope. The Church exists to evangelize, to tell the world that God has first loved us and that we ought to love God in return.
Recently I read an interesting comment on evangelization. An African Cardinal from Ghana, while visiting London, gave a talk entitled “How Africa Can Help Europe”. He said with regard to evangelization, and every pastor would say the same thing – There is a great disparity between what parish baptismal and confirmation records have to say and the vast number of those who have not persevered in the joyful practice of the faith. This has to do – the Cardinal said – with the whole issue of evangelization. It is wrong, he suggests, to make catechesis, rather than evangelization, the point of entry into the Church. What does this mean in our American context? I suggest that it means that Catholic colleges are offering theology courses to undergraduate students who in large numbers have not been properly catechized – but this is mission impossible. Every parish is offering catechism classes for many young people who have never become properly evangelized. This also is mission impossible. Evangelization comes first, that is, falling in love with the risen Christ whom we encounter primarily in the liturgy and in the sacraments. The Advent liturgies – I suggest – are expressions of evangelization. They make present what they contain – that is – a falling in love with God. A class in catechesis cannot help an unevangelized unbeliever.
The English word “incarnation” means becoming flesh, taking on our humanity. And so we read in John’s Gospel – “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word become flesh and dwelt among us”. Christ Jesus, the very Son of God from all eternity, equal in divinity to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, at a particular moment in human history, took on our humanity without ceasing to be his divine self and became like us in all things except sin. As we reflect on this mystery of faith, we praise God, and we ask the question – Why the Incarnation? Why did God the Son take on our humanity and enter truly into our troubled history? Three answers come to mind:
1. The Lord Jesus came among us to bear witness to the truth. He himself tells us – “I was born for this, I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the truth.”
2. The Lord Jesus came among us to free us from our sins. Do not the Gospels tell us that the Son of Man came to search for and save what was lost? The Lord Jesus is the Lamb who takes away our sins.
3. The Lord Jesus came among us to show us the way that leads us to God our Father. As St. Paul reminds us – Through Christ Jesus we have access in the Holy Spirit to God the Father. This is what the season of Advent is all about. This is what the great teachers of the faith have done down through history, asking the big questions of faith – Why did God become Man? Why did the Lord Jesus suffer death on the cross? Why did God create the world in the first place? There is but one answer to these questions, and that answer is God’s love. God cannot create out of self-interest, but only for what is good for us. For to love means to give; to love means to will the good of the one who is loved. This is why St. John tells us that God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son. This is why St. Paul tells us – The Lord Jesus so loved the Father and us that he gave himself in sacrifice on the cross for us.
Christ Jesus came into our world to bear witness to the truth. St. Augustine writes in his Confessions that he had lost all faith and was in deep despair of ever finding the truth. He examined all the philosophers he could find and God enabled him to realize that the philosophers at times may have been quite helpful in some respects but knew nothing about the Lord Jesus who is our way, our truth and our life. Edith Stein, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, spent her life in philosophy but without faith. The grace of the Church’s proclamation ultimately overcame her and she began to realize that truth had a name – Jesus the Christ. God gives each human being two wings, faith and reason, which we may activate in cooperation with the Holy Spirit so as to rise to the contemplation of the truth. God places in our hearts a desire to know the truth, to know and love God who is our heart’s desire to know the truth, to know and love God who is truth and love, and by knowing and loving God we will come to know the truth about ourselves. The Advent Liturgies tell us that Christ is the truth.
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