Friday of the 2nd Week of Advent
Seminarians and Parents Pre-Christmas Gathering
St. Mary’s Seminary
December 15, 2023
Neither Fish Nor Fowl
Advent, a friend once told me, is neither fish nor fowl. When I asked him for an explanation, he said that sometimes Advent is presented as a time of penance and purification, not unlike Lent, and at other times, Advent is presented as a time of hope and joyful anticipation. By way of illustration, he pointed to the prominence of John the Baptist in Advent. There he stands weatherworn and roughly clad, calling people to repent of their sins and plunging them into the Jordan River. On the other hand, Advent invites us to share in the exquisite hope and joy of the faithful remnant of Israel who sensed that the promised Messiah was about come into the world. Add to that how we tend to observe Advent. While we might begin the season thinking that we will indeed prepare our hearts by fasting, prayer, making a good confession, mending fences, and giving to the poor, we often find ourselves swept up into the festivities of the season, and our pre-Advent resolutions are, to turn a phrase, “gone with the wind”. Thus my friend’s comment that Advent is neither fish nor fowl.
John and Jesus
All this comes to a head in the Gospel just proclaimed. Jesus takes up a song that children sang in the public square and makes it his own: “We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’” There you have it, all rolled up into one Scripture quote: the ambiguity of Advent.
But let’s see if we can’t bring a little clarity to this situation, beginning with this. When Jesus says “we” played the flute and “we” sang a dirge, he’s not using the royal “we” – as in Queen Victoria’s phrase, “We are not pleased”. Nor is he using the editorial “we”, as if he were writing for the Wall Street Journal. No, when Jesus says “we” played a flute and sang a dirge, he is referring both to himself and to John the Baptist.
He is saying that John’s ministry is different from his own, yet there is no daylight between himself and John. The difference between John and Jesus is that while John calls us to repentance, only Jesus bestows on us life-transforming holiness and joy.
John sang the dirge of repentance and self-denial and they said he was possessed. Jesus played the flute of divine joy, and they called him a hedonist and friend of sinners. The reaction of many people to the preaching of both John and Jesus shows us that their ministries were joined at the hip, for in both cases, people were saying, in effect, “Leave us alone.” People reacted with indifference both to John and to Jesus – to John’s purifying sorrow on the one hand, and Jesus’ transfiguring joy on the other.
Our Reaction to John and Jesus
How, then, should you and I react to the preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus? It is surprisingly easy for us to react with indifference: to allow Advent to slip through our fingers; to hear John’s preaching but not take it to heart; to hear of the coming of the One who is “joy to the world”, but remain impervious in our busyness and preoccupation.
Advent invites us to have done with indifference and to respond rather with both sorrow and joy to John and to Jesus – assured that the two “reactions” are not mutually exclusive but complementary. Both sorrow and joy awaken our soul to the wonder of God’s love, revealed in the person of Christ and bestowed on us by Christ in the Holy Spirit. True contrition for our sins is not wallowing in one’s guilt but rather offering God a broken, contrite heart into which his healing love can enter. Repentance and mortification do not deny the goodness of God’s creation, but channel our attention to his purifying love. So too, the joyful notes of the Advent liturgy are not misplaced, even as the celebrations of the season are not an invitation to self-indulgence, but rather the sharing of a hope and joy like no other. Thus the liturgy of Advent often beseeches God for the grace “to judge wisely the things of earth and hold firm to the things of heaven.”
Yes, Advent is a season of both sorrow and joy, with sorrow serving as a precondition for joy. Sorrow for sin clears the pathways of the heart to receive the Lord anew, and to experience more deeply the joy of believing, the joy of hope, the joy of love. And to be clear, indifference is not a middle way between sorrow and joy.
Manic?
But someone might say to me: Aren’t you suggesting a spiritual life that is manic, alternating between the depths of sorrow and the heights of joy? After all, we have a family to raise, a job to go to, seminary formation to attend to, and for all that we need to be level-headed, with our emotions in check. Yes, of course, we must maintain our equilibrium, but that is not the same thing as indifference or spiritual apathy. In the midst of our daily life, we must maintain a capacity for sorrow and joy.
If a married couple loses its capacity to say they are sorry, or to mourn for a loved one, or to repent of their failings – their love becomes barren and their capacity for joy shrivels up. If a seminarian approaches formation as a grim business, as if it were merely a spiritual boot camp, he may miss out on the joy of discipleship, the very joy that attracts people to Christ and to the Church. If we want to be like Jesus, we have to pay attention to John.
Wisdom Is Vindicated
At the end of the Gospel, Jesus says, “Wisdom is vindicated by her works.” May the Wisdom of the Gospel be vindicated in us this Advent as contrition for sin opens the way for joy at the coming of the Lord – Christ the power of God, Christ the wisdom of God!