Good morning every one. I am happy to welcome all our parishioners, visitors and every one who is here today and I would also thank you all for coming out today to celebrate Christ. Dear friends, every time we come to Church, we hearing the constant calling of our Lord Jesus to follow Him, every time we come to church we experience the healing power of Christ and every time we come to church we are asked to live out the message namely love and forgiveness of Christ our Lord.
One day a man spotted a lamp by the roadside and he picked it up, rubbed it vigorously and a genie appeared. “I will grant you your fondest wish,” the genie said. The man thought for a while and said, “I need a spectacular job and job that no man ever succeeded at” The genie smiled and said, “you are a housewife”.
Today we celebrate the second Sunday in Advent and this Sunday is called John the Baptist Sunday. John the Baptist the forerunner of our Lord Jesus Christ came to prepare the way of the Lord. His message was, ‘The Lord is coming, let us prepare the way”.
Today we are called to become John the Baptist and prepare the way of the Lord for those who want to come to Him to experience the love and kindness.
John the Baptist’s message contains three important things namely calling, healing and living out the message.
1. Calling: Once a prisoner who lived in a solitary confinement for years and who never saw or spoke to anyone saw an ant coming to his cell. The man was so happy to the ant and he took the ant and put it in the palm of his hand and was amazed at it’s beauty and fed the ant with one or two grain. He was transformed by seeing an ant. Then one day he realized that it had taken him ten years of solitary confinement to know the beauty of that little creature. A same kind of experience happened to El Greco the Spanish painter. One day he was sitting in his dark room and his friend called him saying, ‘ the Sun is shining. Come out to the light and he said, ‘ No I will not because it would disturb the light that is shining within me’
Those who intensely search the Lord will always find Him. Every baptized person is given the gift to find Him through means of prayers and other spiritual practices. When we look for him, He will manifest Himself to us. Once we experience the Lord, then like John the Baptist we too will begin to call others to the light namely Christ our Lord.
2. Healing: Once while three monks were going to a village to preach the Good News came to a river bank and realized that they had to cross the river to go the village and then they saw a beautiful woman also standing on the bank wanting to cross the river, so one of the monks carried her on his shoulder and thus they all crossed the river. When the monks came back to the monastery, the other two monks went to all and said what had happened. They all came to the one and said, ‘We monks are not allowed to touch a woman and you carried her on your shoulder’. They all criticized him and it went on and on for many days and then one day, the monk called the other two and said, “By the way, I carried the woman and let her go many days ago and why are you still carrying her in your minds?”
Healing comes when we leave certain things behind. When we hold on to unholy things of ours and others, we distant ourselves from Christ but instead when we leave our old ways of hatred, revenge and jealousy, we become new in Christ our Lord.
3. Living out the Gospel message: Once a pious catholic had a neighbor who never went to church or did any spiritual thing in his life. Every Sunday when Joe went to Church the other man went fishing. Every time the man saw Joe, he always said to Joe, ‘Joe, I am going fishing, are you going to join me?” Joe used to say, ‘I am going to Church” then one day the neighbor looked at Joe and said, ‘Joe, how come every time I go fishing I invite you and you never invite me to church. That day Joe experienced something new.
Living out the gospel message means helping others to know the love and kindness of God. Today so many people do not come to Church and so many are not experience the love and forgiveness of God not because they are bad or they are unholy but because they are not feeling welcomed. We do not extend Christ’s love and kindness to them. Let us become John the Baptist and call them to the Lord. Amen.
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