The Lord is Near

Gospel Reflection for December 15, 2024, Gaudete Sunday - Luke 3:10-18

And the people asked him, saying: What then shall we do?

And he answering, said to them: He that hath two coats, let him give to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do in like manner.

And the publicans also came to be baptized, and said to him: Master, what shall we do?

But he said to them: Do nothing more than that which is appointed you.

And the soldiers also asked him, saying: And what shall we do? And he said to them: Do violence to no man; neither calumniate any man; and be content with your pay.

And as the people were of opinion, and all were thinking in their hearts of John, that perhaps he might be the Christ;

John answered, saying unto all: I indeed baptize you with water; but there shall come one mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to loose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

Whose fan is in his hand, and he will purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

And many other things exhorting, did he preach to the people. (Luke 3:10-18 DRA)

One of the strongest temptations for Christians throughout the centuries, especially Christians who genuinely desire to be good and faithful imitators of Christ, is to overemphasize the focus of Christianity on acts of charity or what are traditionally called corporal works of mercy, especially almsgiving and service to the poor. This is particularly the case since the Enlightenment, whose proponents only saw Christianity as worthwhile if it contributed in some tangible, material way to the welfare of society; hence why Napoleon, in his campaign to “modernize” Europe and “liberate” it from the ancestral structures of Catholic Christendom, shut down all monasteries and convents except those dedicated to social work. This overemphasis can be more appealing for its immediate, visible benefits to the world and to the individuals whom one serves; it is also usually a communal effort, as with soup kitchens, building projects, etc., and thus fosters a sense of friendship among Christians working together to obey Christ’s command to see and to love Him in the poor.

Truly, this desire is not wrong, and in fact, the tendency of most Christians is towards the opposite extreme: to give little of themselves to charity beyond weekly tithes in the basket at Mass while accumulating a full wardrobe of clothes, expensive cars, mansion-like houses, etc., and dismissing the poor as being the concern of those with more time on their hands to help or else reduced to the wrongdoing of the poor themselves and the condition which they justly deserve. For this reason, any parish which invites guest speakers – at an appropriate time – to speak about their charitable ministries should be commended and imitated.

Nevertheless, this overemphasis, despite its good intent, can quickly turn the Faith into just another humanitarian movement, a social service equivalent to those funded by taxes and operated by governments, with a purely worldly, temporal focus. The charity that St. John the Baptist calls for in the Gospel today is not mere humanitarianism or tax-deductible tithing. Rather, his counsels to the groups who approach him have a decidedly otherworldly, eternal focus, to prepare for the coming of the Kingdom of God by living rightly, loving others as ourselves through the unitive friendship of charity and loving God above all else by obeying His commandments. As St. Ambrose taught,

For other commands of duty have reference only to individuals, mercy has a common application. It is therefore a common commandment to all, to contribute to him that has not. Mercy is the fulness of virtues, yet in mercy itself a proportion is observed to meet the capacities of man’s condition, in that each individual is not to deprive himself of all, but what he has to share it with the poor. (Catena Aurea)

As a Christian, charity is meant to lead others to Christ and to make ourselves more like Christ. It is meant to obey the justice of God by giving of our excess to those who have less than they need and therefore rightly deserve it. It is meant to collaborate in the building up of the Kingdom of God which Christ initiated at His coming by making “Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.” This is why the Church has always upheld the spiritual works of mercy alongside the corporal, and it is also why, contrary to the pacifism of some Christians in history, St. John did not teach the soldiers to abandon their military service; nor did he advise the tax collectors to quit their jobs, as if taxation were wrong. Instead, he lifted their gaze to the heavens, to the spiritual good of the soul which is eternal and universal:

For he knew that soldiers, when they use their arms, are not homicides, but the ministers of the law; not the avengers of their own injuries, but the defenders of the public safety. Otherwise he might have answered, “Put away your arms, abandon warfare, strike no one, wound no one, destroy no one.” For what is it that is blamed in war? Is it that men die, who some time or other must die, that the conquerors might rule in peace? To blame this is the part of timid not religious men. The desire of injury, the cruelty of revenge, a savage and pitiless disposition, the fierceness of rebellion, the lust of power, and such like things are the evils which are justly blamed in wars, which generally for the sake of thereby bringing punishment upon the violence of those who resist, are undertaken and carried on by good men either by command of God or some lawful authority, when they find themselves in that order of things in which their very condition justly obliges them either to command such a thing themselves, or to obey when others command it. (St. Augustine, Catena Aurea)

Likewise, St. Bede wrote,

Those also who pursue the gain of this world by traffic are denoted by the same titles, all of whom, each in his own sphere, he equally forbids to practise deceit, that so by first keeping themselves from desiring other men’s goods, they might at length come to share their own with their neighbours. (Catena Aurea)

The question we Catholics today must ask ourselves is: am I preparing myself for the coming of the Lord? Are my eyes on this world or on the world to come? Do I obey Christ at Mass, only to lie, cheat, use deceptive or greedy business practices, deprive the poor of my accumulated luxuries, hide or even deny the Faith in public, fail to treat others with patience and dignity or neglect my own formation in prayer and the study of the Faith? Again, the point of these things is not merely to enact some social work but to conform ourselves to Christ and to prepare for the full revelation of His Kingdom in the End Times.

This is the true message of Advent, one both of profound, inexpressible joy which, as St. Paul said, “surpasses all understanding,” as we celebrate on this Gaudete Sunday, but also of the holy fear engendered by St. John’s warning that Christ “will purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” This is why Christ baptizes not only with the healing rain of the Holy Ghost poured out from Heaven, but also with the purgation of fire, so that no attachment to the glamour of sin and the seductions of this world might hinder the inflaming of His divine love in our hearts. May we therefore heed the words of St. John Chrysostom as we continue journeying through the desert on the way to the Nativity of Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, keeping our eyes ever on His star:

How then is it not of the utmost folly, where destruction and waste is the lot of all that is stored, there to heap up all, but where things abide untouched and increase, there not to lay up even the least portion; and this, when we are to live there forever? For this cause the very heathens disbelieve the things that we say, since our doings, not our sayings, are the demonstration which they are willing to receive from us; and when they see us building ourselves fine houses, and laying out gardens and baths, and buying fields, they are not willing to believe that we are preparing for another sort of residence away from our city. For if this were so, say they, they would turn to money all they have here, and lay them up beforehand there; and this they divine from the things that are done in this world. For so we see those who are very rich getting themselves houses and fields and all the rest, chiefly in those cities in which they are to stay. But we do the contrary; and with all earnest zeal we get possession of the earth, which we are soon after to leave; giving up not money only, but even our very blood for a few acres and tenements: while for the purchase of Heaven we do not endure to give even what is beyond our wants, and this though we are to purchase it at a small price, and to possess it forever, provided we had once purchased it.