2nd Sunday of Advent (07.12.14)
Did You Hear What I Mean?
Words are one of humanity’s basic tools of communication. People may sometimes use them excessively and not infrequently inappropriately. Returning to the UK after a lengthy absence, people are sometimes shocked and saddened by the seismic deterioration in language most notably by participants in reality and ‘comedy’ TV shows. The audible street language used by students at the end of a school day can be unnerving, too.
Words change their meaning over time. For example, an older generation use the word ‘cool’ to refer to the temperature or, maybe, to relations between people. For today’s youth ‘cool’ is an expression of approval, even enthusiasm. A person or a gadget can be ‘cool’. Likewise, ‘wicked’, to the older generations has overtones of evil but to youth it equates with ‘that’s great!’
Changes in the meaning of words and phrases have been occurring for centuries. ‘By our Lady’ was once an intercession invoking the help of Mary, Mother of Jesus. If you repeat the phrase fast enough you’ll soon discover the origin of the too popular expletive beginning with ‘b’. Likewise, the word ‘crikey’ has its origins in a plea for divine help namely, ‘O Christ’.
More subtle changes in word comprehension take longer to become established. The first Scripture reading for this 2nd Sunday of Advent comes from the prophet Isaiah (40:1-5, 9-11). God directs his prophet to “Comfort my people”. Some translations use the words ‘show compassion to’ instead of ‘comfort’.
Were you to be asked, how would you explain the meaning of the word ‘compassion’? Contemporary usage indicates the showing of sympathy towards another or others experiencing some form of distress. Others understand compassion as an attribute of character – he / she is very compassionate, meaning that the person has a naturally forgiving disposition. What might God want us to remember through Isaiah’s word(s) ‘comfort’ / ‘show compassion to’? We are reminded that we are oppressed exiles, descendants of those who originally brought exile upon themselves and their descendants through their disobedience. The earth has been roamed by oppressed exiles from Adam and Eve to the present day. God has reached out compassionately to each and every one.
For Christians, especially, Jesus of Nazareth is the Incarnation of the visible, infinite, unconditional love God has for his people. Jesus is truly God made Man, like us in all things but sin. Jesus demonstrates, by his every breath, that being compassionate is a lifetime activity. Our English word has Latin origins – com passio – meaning ‘with passion’ or ‘co-suffering. In its original form ‘compassion’ described the way in which people directly shared the same danger, discomfort as a victim, thereby showing solidarity and depth of care.
This quantitative dimension of compassion, reflecting depth, vigor, and passion, differentiates it from empathy that can be ‘support from a distance’. Compassion more commonly gives rise to an active engagement with the alleviation of another’s suffering. An example is Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare. MSF offers assistance to people based on need, irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.
There is considerable personal risk attached to a ‘hands on’ approach to being compassionate / giving comfort. The barbaric beheadings of volunteer aid workers in recent times is ample proof along with the countless religious women and men staffing field hospitals and care centres who have been and continue to be murdered. Recently, Pope Francis observed that, in our age, more Christians are suffering persecution than ever previously recorded.
Yet, there is no limit to the power of a compassionate touch or word other than the intentions of the person doing the touching or speaking and the willingness of the recipient to allow the other’s intervention. For example, Our Lady’s sinlessness allows the fullness of God’s grace to flow through her to humanity. Mary is honoured by the Church with the title ‘Mediatrix of all Graces’. By comparison, my state is that of being a recovering sinner. As such, I lessen the flow of God’s grace through me to others in much the same way that an impacted pipe delivers less of whatever it is intended to carry. In the same way, the disposition of a recipient of a compassionate touch or word limits its effectiveness. For example, a person’s lack of faith inhibits their reception of God’s full love.
Jesus was crudely but expertly nailed to the cross on Calvary. His companions were tied to their crosses. Despite his additional agony, Jesus reached out with mercy to the thief who accepted his compassion. “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” And Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke23: 42) Some limited comparison can be drawn to a person who, for example, aware they are dying of a cancer that pain relief can only partially relieve, determines to demonstrate a strength of love and compassion capable of forgiving someone who has injured both them and those they love.
Enduring compassion does yield miracles but not always so immediately. The older we become the more clearly we appreciate, with no small amount of embarrassment, how long Jesus has been longing for us to grow closer to him since he first reached out to us, unconditionally, through the gift of Baptism.
“I know exactly how you feel” is a phrase all too easy to say. Not infrequently it causes upset. A person, in making use of the phrase, may have kindly intentions but misplaced empathy. This is especially true when the speaker has no first hand experience of another’s tragedy. ‘How can you possible know what I’m feeling? You have never experienced what I went through!’ is an understandable, if fiery, response.
Jesus’ compassion for us, his right to declare “I know exactly how you feel”, is born out of his Baptism in the River Jordan when, as an adult, he freely chose to take on himself humanity’s painful incarceration by Satan and thereby committed himself to battle with Satan for our release. Implicit in this acceptance of humanity’s pain, caused through sin, is humanity’s pain of guilt because it is part and parcel of the sin.
We affirm Jesus’ right to declare to each and every one of us, “I know exactly how you feel”, each time we acclaim, ‘Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world. Have mercy on us.’ Jesus gave us the visible demonstration of his co-suffering with humanity throughout his life culminating in the Triduum days of the week known to Christians as Holy – Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday.
John the Baptist’s own ‘advent’ traditionally features on the 2nd Sunday of Advent. This year we read Mark (1:1-8). Our attention may be captured by Mark’s description of John’s choice of clothing, which probably says more about our preoccupation with our appearance than John’s attire! John’s ‘advent’ reveals a remarkable public appetite. Mark tells how: “People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.”
Clearly the Jews, then, found inadequate motivation to reform their religious lives through the exhortations of their own religious leaders. It was not John’s basic clothing and food that drew the crowds. They came because of their appetite for The Truth that they discovered in John’s words and presence. John awoke a powerful response from a spiritually distressed people and thereby prepared the way for Jesus.
John fulfils the role of a prophet which is to tell people the meaning of what is happening, not what will happen:“One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of His sandals. I have baptized you with water; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
John was not reading from a script. What he said came from the depths of a heart and soul replenished by the Holy Spirit when he, in his mother Elizabeth’s womb, leapt for joy at the nearness of his Saviour in Mary’s womb. The occasion we commemorate in the second Joyful mystery of the Rosary known as The Visitation.
Jesus can look any womb-conceived child in the eye, as it were, and say – “I know exactly where you became human”. Jesus’ dovetailing with the human experience, ‘like us in all things except sin’, exemplifies how perfectly he fulfils his heavenly Father’s command, voiced by Isaiah so many centuries previously, “Comfort my people” “show compassion to my people”. God made Man does not empathise from a safe distance. He immerses himself in the human condition to the point of freely accepting suffering and death for our salvation. In the many forms of pain that we experience during the journey of life here on earth, Jesus can truly say to us – “I know exactly how you feel.”
That so many of his contemporaries flocked to John the Baptist tells us that John, from the womb onwards, must have been nourished with God’s holiness. Jesus and John were first cousins in an oppressed nation where the extended family was always close. John would have been in physical proximity as well as spiritual communion with Jesus.
When we give true, informed consent to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit our life becomes suffused with a holiness that not only fills us but also reaches out to all. The late Mother Teresa of Calcutta is but one easily recognised exemplifier of this. There will be members of our extended family, parish or pastoral area resilient with holiness. Others sense this holiness in them while they themselves remain unaware. In fact they see themselves as repentant sinners. In this they are correct for that is what they and we are!