13/12/2009 - 3rd Sunday in Advent Season - C
1st Reading Soph 3,14-18 Ps 12,2-6 2nd Reading Phil 4,4-7 Gospel Lk 3,10-18

"He said: <Father, the hour has come>". Jesus, with his eyes upward towards heaven, open his mouth and starts his prayer with a loud voice. He is not afraid of being heard, on the contrary, he wants that his own hear him so that even they join his same desire of the moment of communion he is living with the Father. Who can say whether their hearts change as they share in his prayer, or their love grows and mature and becomes true and deep, or their faithfulness be strong and stable!
"Father": Jesus calls God with this familiar word, as he had already taught his disciples to do so.
In prayer, Jesus knows that he is not only in front the omnipotence of God, but above all, his love, that love that gives life and make it grows to fullness. Hence, Jesus starts the prayer by putting himself one to one, like a son in front of his parent, by whom he is wanted and loved. The moment of his prayer is intense. He has just instructed his apostles about the action of the Holy Spirit in their lives, has given them the new commandment of loving one another, has washed their feet, and trusted in their hands, in the symbols of the bread and the wine, the memory of his body and of his blood. The apostles are only eleven, because Judas has left them in the middle of the night to satisfy the darkness of his greed. This moment is full of awaiting, the one Jesus himself had anticipated when he said: "I have another baptism to be baptized with, and I cannot wait anymore until is fulfilled!" (12,50). "The hour has come": the Father knows this hour, he has always waited for it. It's the hour even the mother was waiting. She had taught it had arrived at the wedding in Cana when Jesus was invited with his disciples. Then he had said to her: "My hour has not yet come" (Jn 2,4). It's the hours that marked his passing, of all his ministry of teaching his disciples: the salvation of mankind! Jesus knew that he was in the world with a precise mission, will by the Father, a mission that now was being fulfilled. We learn from this, that even for our lives, God has assigned a moment, a mission, and we are not to be happy until this happens. We are to carefully search for it and find it by letting ourselves be enlightened by his wisdom, by his Word and by the needs of his Church.
"Sing and rejoice", says the Psalm. Why sing? Why rejoice? To sing one needs to be happy, while we are always down, anxious, full of fears, insecure and without hope. Sing and rejoice! The reason of our joy is what st. Paul tells us: "The Lord at hand". He is at hand, he who has overcome death and hence, can overcome all our fears and can help us overcome all our difficulties, who is next to us, on our right hand side, he who loves us and holds in his hand the key of our joy. He is at hand and listens to our voice in prayer. We are to present to him, first and foremost, thanks giving and praise. Why thank him? He came down to us who are sinners, who have become a burden to one another. With his coming down to us, he gives us a hope to live. St. Paul tells us that, thanks to his coming down to us, we can turn to God and present to him all our requests, praying and thanking him: away from us all fear and sadness. Even in, what seem to be desperate situations, when we don't see a way out, even then the peace of God can reach us and in his peace our heart can remain fixed on Jesus, our joy.
The words of the apostle have echo in those of the prophet Sophonia, who invited Israel to express joy because the Lord God is at hand, even so, "he is amongst them", and is able to bless his people with peace and prosperity. A message of joy is also the words of John the Baptist to the crowds that went to him to be baptized at the river Jordan. To them he use to give counsel as how to return to the Lord, from the heat. To all he advised the sharing of material goods: the one who is attached to riches, who think how to accumulate for self gain, cannot live in joy because he wont be able to see God's presence with him. To those who gather taxes, tempted every day to enrich themselves on other peoples shoulders, he recommended not to expect more than what was obliged. And to the soldiers, who were accustomed to take advantage of the poor, recommended also to be happy with the little they were getting without expecting more. And then, he proclaimed the presence of Jesus: he is greater and bigger, and his mission shall be above every expectation, that of "baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire". With such expressions John wants us to come to know the greatness of Jesus, who does not limit himself to forgive us our sins, but puts us into the life of God. Speaking of fire, John thought to that at the Temple's altar, that used to burn the offerings as an acceptable sacrifice. If Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and with fire, it means that he wants us to be holy and just, so as to present us to the Father as an acceptable offer.
During these last day of Advent, let us move in conversion, away from the things of this world, awaiting Jesus who renews, purify and sanctify our lives.

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