Fourth Sunday of Advent

Rorate, caeli, desuper, et nubes pluant justum: “Drop down dew, ye heavens from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One: let the earth be opened and bud forth a Savior.”
Throughout the Advent season, the Church has put before our eyes the world’s longing for a Redeemer. Not only the chosen people of God, the Old Testament Jews and her prophets, but even the pagan sibyls and poets like Virgil and Horace longed for the coming of the one great hope of the nations. The urgency of this longing is most evident in the prophecies of Isaiah, and it is with his words that the liturgy in this last Sun-day of Advent is opened: Open wide o ye gates of heaven, and let the clouds of celestial love rain down justice – let the earth be opened and bring forth her Redeemer. How long has mankind waited, how long have men implored the heart of God. “Lord, rouse Thy power and come” we pray in today’s collect, and indeed, often throughout the Advent season! This urgency of men’s need of re-demption implores with pressing insistency the very heavens for God’s intervention in the affairs of fallen man. Carried along in this spirit of long-ing expectation, we accompany the Church on her path to Bethlehem. “Come Thou, the Desire of nations: come and bind in one the hearts of all mankind.” In today’s epistle, St. Paul warns us of the true implication of Christ’s coming into this world: we are to be judged by God according to our fidelity to Him, according to how we have fulfilled our duty of state in conjunction with the grace of Christ’s redemption. First of all we are bidden not to judge others – for this is the prero-gative of Christ; nor are we to fret over the judg-ment, often times sinful, which others may pass on us; rather, we are to stand firm in our faithful-ness to the Eternal Word of God, our Redeemer Who is coming to save us. We are to be firmly anchored in Him, our only salvation. The Advent expectation of this Redeemer is brought into a precise historical setting in the opening of today’s gospel of St. Luke. For the mo-dern sceptic who would reduce Christian religion to maudlin sentimentality or mythical delusion, Luke the physician, an educated scholar and historian, gives us – with great clarity – the very moment in time and place wherein the ancient world’s longings for a Redeemer were fulfilled: he gives the precise historical setting of Christ’s birth by listing the names of the Roman Emperor, the Roman procurator, the regional tetrarchs, and the High Priests of the Jewish people. At the time when all these men were in power, John, the miraculous child of the old and sterile Elizabeth and her priestly husband Zachary, appeared in the Judean desert boldly and powerfully preach-ing a baptism of repentance. He was the precur-sor, the herald, of the long awaited Messiah, and Luke is at pains to place him within his historical context. But it is John’s message that is vital: he proclaims without equivocation: Repent, prepare your hearts for the coming of God: a call which continues to sound to all men of good will, when-ever and wherever they may live. As I mentioned earlier this season, at the time of Our Lord’s earthly existence, when a royal entourage entered a mideastern territory, an actual preparation of the way of travel had to be undertaken. There were no roads: camels and people simply made their way at will through the hills and valleys. John’s summons was an anal-ogy immediately understood by his hearers. He identified himself with the powerful voice of Isaiah “I am he of whom Isaiah spoke, a voice crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make straight His paths: every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight.’” This is the universal call from God to all mankind, the divine summons to repentance as preparation for God’s coming into our lives. And why? The Lord is a king and for Him a royal highway must be prepared. Not a physical road, but a spiritual path, that royal way by which the world’s redemption may enter into men’s hearts. That way is made straight by honesty, sincerity, and truth. “Every valley shall be filed” by the raising of our lives to a higher standard of holiness and good deeds, and most notably by charity. “Every mountain and hill shall be leveled” by the crushing of the spirit of pride and disobedience and lawlessness with Christian humility. “The crooked ways” of pas-sion and evil desires shall be straightened accor-ding to the law of righteousness, and “the rough ways” of habitual sins and spiritual mediocrity shall be made smooth by the observance of the laws of God and the Church. Once this has been accomplished in our souls, once this has become evident in our lives, then shall we begin to exper-ience the salvation of God: for this is the kingdom of God which is within. Emmanuel: God with us. He is the object of our longing; He is the meaning of our Christmas celebrations. Have we prepared His way into our lives by self-examination and contrition, by con-fession and penance as the Church urges us along with St. Paul and John the Baptist? Or have we wasted this Advent season with super-ficial preparations for a Christmas characterized by the cheap attractions of tinsel and paper wrap-pings? Let us not lose Christ among the distrac-tions of a Christmas season robbed of our Redeemer.
Even in the few days that remain, let us turn our hearts therefore with greater fervor towards the East, towards Bethlehem, towards heaven, so that we may, with the purity of Mary, come to the manger to adore Him Whom the heavens have so mercifully rained down upon us.