Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

3rd Advent Sunday – Year B

1st reading: Isaiah 61, 1-2a.10-11)

Psalm: Lk 1, 46b-48, 49-50, 53-54

2rd reading: 1 Thessalonians 5, 16-24

Gospel: John 1, 6-8.19-28

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This prophecy from chapter 61 of the book of Isaiah that we hear today, Jesus will read it himself in the synagogue of Nazareth at the beginning of his public ministry, to reveal its fulfillment. For Jesus will be the one on whom the Spirit of the Lord God rests in fullness, John the Baptist will be the witness. And he on whom the Spirit rests is he who is anointed with the Holy Spirit - which is said in Hebrew mashiyah – מָשִׁיחַ which gives the French word “Messiah”, and which is said in Greek Christos Christ which gives the French word “Christ”. Christchurch et messie are strict synonyms which designate “one who has received the anointing of the Holy Spirit”. And this one is sent for — we are told announce the Good News to the humble — literally, it is: evangelize the humble - that is, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim to the captives their deliverance, to the prisoners their release, to proclaim a year of blessings granted by the Lord. All this was accomplished in Jesus and we know it: we will soon enter the year 2024ᵉ year of blessings granted by the Lord, and we heard last week how the time given to us is given to us for our conversion.

Already last week, the Gospel made us hear the ministry of John the Baptist which precedes that of Jesus and which prepares hearts, which prepares people to welcome the Savior. Again today, the Gospel makes us hear this figure of John which is essential, since the evangelist tells us in his Prologue: “He came as a witness, to bear witness to the Light, that all through him might believe.”…that all may believe through the ministry of John the Baptist. Everyone, and therefore including ourselves. John’s ministry does not end when John dies. It does not stop after the death and resurrection of Jesus: the ministry of John the Baptist runs until the end of time. It is this work that will prepare hearts to welcome the Messiah. By celebrating the Nativity of the Lord in ten days, we will renew our welcome of Jesus as a traveling companion, welcoming the Savior as the one who walks with us in our human lives. It is not a question of welcoming it as if it were the first time, but it is a question of renewing

this welcome. And this renewal requires from us that we work to prepare ourselves, that we work towards a form of conversion.

Who is the Baptist? First, his identity is magnificent, it is a negative identity. And the Greek text literally says, “He confessed, and denied not, and confessed, I am not the Christ.”

It is good for us to have this in mind because too often, without realizing it, we take ourselves to be the Messiah, that is to say, we exempt ourselves from needing Jesus to be able to live our lives. " Without me, Jesus will say, you can't do anything » (Jn 15,5:XNUMX). And when we think we can do without Jesus, we think we are the Messiah.

" Who are you ? I am not the Messiah ". Thérèse will express it differently by saying that she has no merit, by saying that she is capable of nothing. And everything she does, she does it out of love for Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus.

Then, John calls us in his very identity. " Who are you ? » He ends up answering anyway: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness Straighten the way of the Lord. » Its identity is to constantly be a call to straighten the path of the Lord. How can we straighten this path? How can we continue our preparation for Christmas? Well the passage from the letter of Saint Paul, the first Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians that we are made to hear is quite precious: “Quench not the Spirit.” The Spirit is a light that illuminates our minds so that we understand what God does, so that we understand the world in which we live. And this light comes to us particularly through the reading and meditation of the Holy Scriptures as the Church continues to comment on them.

“Quench not the Spirit, neither despise prophecies, but discern the worth of all things.” What does it mean to discern? Paul explains it: “what is good, keep it; keep away from every kind of evil.” And this is always a very demanding spiritual work that we must do, it is to always look for good where it is. Our world is twisted enough today that it's easy for us to see what's wrong... But Paul begins by saying: “What’s good, keep it.” and we must demand of ourselves that we know how to look for good where it is found, that we oblige ourselves to look at the good that is being done, wherever we see evil acting. Is there any good being done? Not to validate evil or to excuse it. But you remember the parable of the wheat of the tares... The Lord encourages us not to want to resolve everything by ourselves, to let the wheat take its course. Let us do this incessant work of seeking to locate the good where it is and to keep it. And then Paul continues: “May the God of peace sanctify you entirely; may your spirit, your soul and your body be entirely preserved without reproach for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” How, in the coming week, will we be attentive to this, to keep our spirit, our soul, our body blameless? Just as there is bodily hygiene, there is also the need to develop mental hygiene: not letting anything get into your body.

our mind, not letting any thoughts wander alone in our mind; and even less feed evil thoughts within us. The hygiene that we must have with our body refers us to the hygiene that we must have with our mind. To seek to see good where it is, we must develop within ourselves the thought of good and learn to think of good and beautiful things. It is by looking at beauty, by listening to beauty that we learn to create beauty in our lives.

Finally, the passage from Saint Paul began with three injunctions that I prefer to translate in a more literal and concise manner:

Always rejoice,

always pray,

in all give thanks...

Always rejoice, always pray, always give thanks.

Always rejoice : It is an active verb, it is not a state. That’s why I don’t like the translation: Rejoice. It’s not a state, it’s an action: rejoicing in the Lord. But perhaps you will tell me. : “Yes, but at the moment I am going through terrible things, I am going through a serious ordeal. How do you want me to rejoice? » This is because the cause of our joy is not found in what we experience, it is found in the presence of Christ, conqueror of sin and death. We will hear it again at Easter, but we heard it at Easter this year in the final blessing of the Easter Vigil: The joy that nothing, not even death, can take away from us. The Christian's joy comes from the presence of the resurrected Christ. And no trial can touch that, which makes Christian joy coexist with other feelings. Thérèse understood this very, very well. In a letter that she wrote to Father Roulland, this missionary whom she accompanied with her prayer and penance, she told him “The image that you gave me still rests on my heart in the book of the Gospels which does not never leaves me. By placing it at random, here is the passage she came across: “He who leaves everything to follow me will receive a hundredfold in this world and eternal life in the age to come.” She explains: These words of Jesus have already come true for you since you tell me: “I am leaving happy”. I understand that this joy must be entirely spiritual; it is impossible to leave one's father, one's mother and one's homeland without experiencing all the tears of separation...oh, my brother! (LT 193) This joy must be entirely spiritual, since you could not leave your loved ones like this without experiencing the heartbreak of separation...

And so what Thérèse is making us understand there is that Christian joy – spiritual joy – does not sweep away other feelings; it coexists and I would even dare to say that it is like the case which receives all the other feelings. We can be sad, we can sometimes even experience anguish, this cannot extinguish the joy of the presence of Christ. And don’t forget that when Thérèse writes this to Father Roulland, she is already in the darkness that she has been experiencing since Easter.

Always rejoice, always pray. It is not a question of standing on our knees all day with our hands folded, but it is a question of having the presence of the Lord in our hearts. And this is done through love and through constantly renewed acts of trust.

in all give thanks. In all. Not just in what goes well. In all, give thanks. For what ? Because God is good, because Jesus loves us to the point of having given his life for us, and whatever we experience, whatever trial we go through, God surrounds us with his love, his goodness, and he makes everything contribute to the good of those he loves (Cf. Rom 8,28:XNUMX).

And so in everything we can give thanks because God always takes care of us for our good. And I can assure you, having experienced it myself, that when we are in trial and we have the audacity to give thanks to God, if only for all the good that he will be able to bring out of this trial that we are going through, this thanksgiving already puts our hearts at peace.

So yes, brothers and sisters, here is our roadmap for this week:

Always rejoice,

always pray,

in all give thanks.

Amen