Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday! A day where people around the world gather together in Jesus name to commemorate the three mysteries of today’s celebration: the institution of the Eucharist, the institution of the priesthood and Christ’s commandment of brotherly love. Mysteries, which are inter-related and any of them will be meaningless without the understanding of the others. We must have a clear idea of the meaning of the washing of the feet if we really want to understand the importance of the Eucharist and the significance of the new commandment.

2000 plus years ago, the popular way to go from one place to another was on foot and they walked long distances on rough and dusty roads. You can imagine the feet of the people when they arrived in Jerusalem from Galilee for example. For sure their feet will be sore with blisters and painful.  It was therefore normal that the house servant of slaves would provide a warm foot-bath and massage to relieve their pain and to restore energy to continue and complete their journey. For sure the disciples would have understood Jesus washing their feet in light of this cultural background, however for John and for us it is an indicator to the meaning of the Eucharist we celebrate.

Nowadays we do not travel on foot. We have faster and more comfortable means of transport, however our life as Christians is a hard journey in this long pilgrimage. Along the way we find difficulties, trials, get tired, worn out and out of energy to continue our journey and we may be tempted to give up. But Jesus has given a place where we can go in to bath our aching feet and to be refreshed in body and soul for the journey that is still ahead. That place is the Eucharist. This is very well expressed in the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. When we give communion to a sick person, we call it viaticum which means “provisions for a journey.” This is my Body and this is my blood, take it, eat and drink. With this words Jesus is telling us that his Body and his Blood is always a viaticum to regain strength to continue our journey toward God

As we can see in the Gospel we just read, John doesn’t give any account of Institution of the Eucharist at all. I believe this is not an omission. This story of the washing of the feet explains the two Sacraments: that of the Priesthood, and that of the Eucharist. It tells us what it means. By washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus is saying, “This is my body; this is my blood; Do this in memory of me.” And, he is also saying, “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

By washing the feet of his disciples, Jesus is establishing a close link between him washing the disciples’ feet and the disciples washing the feet of others. If the Eucharist is the place where the Lord washes our feet, daily life is the place where we ought to wash the feet of others. True Eucharist piety must lead to service of others. Jesus who broke the bread of the Eucharist also washed the feet of his disciples.

The Eucharist is the start and finish of our journey. It is the place and the center from which we are sent out to bring Christ to the world. We should not be afraid to get our feet dirty, to run out of energy. There is no other way of putting into practice Jesus command, “this is my blood, this y my flesh, do this in memory of me” than by passing through the dust and mess of the world in which the world is.  We cannot love and keep our feet clean. We cannot love and save our life. The washing of the feet is not the prelude to the Eucharist, it is the Eucharist.

What we have just listened in the Gospel is only part of John’s account of the Last Supper; John’s account concludes with Jesus’ Priestly Prayer. During that prayer to the Father, Jesus prays for the apostles, “Consecrate them in the truth.” My dear brothers in religious life, tonight we celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the gift of Priesthood to the Church. Jesus in the Upper Room embraced the fullness of humanity and showed us the way. Let us consider ourselves the first ones to get our feet dirty and the first one to follow Jesus example, to bend down and wash the feet of our brothers and sisters who cross our path. Jesus knelt down at the feet of his friends and washed them, and called upon them to do the same to each other.  That is our calling, too.  In whatever form it needs to take, we are call to be companions of our brother and sisters in the long journey, to relief their spiritual aching and help them regain their strength so that they may be transformed by the truth.

Holy Thursday is also known as Maundy Thursday. The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin word mandatum which means “command”.  Holy Thursday is a day of love, the day when Jesus showed us the depth of his love. He instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist where he gives his own body and blood, and to fulfill his promise of being with us as our daily nourishment, he instituted the sacrament of the Priesthood. Through the ministry of priests, the Eucharist is celebrated until Jesus comes again in his glory.

Tonight, my dear brothers and sisters we are given a new commandment, a lesson in how we are to give ourselves to and for each other. “I have given you a model to follow,” he says, “You too should wash one another’s feet. As I have done for you, you should do for one another. Blessed are you if you do it.”

Pope’s Feb. 2 Homily for Day of Consecrated Life

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 6, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI gave last Thursday at vespers on the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, which is also the World Day of Consecrated Life.

Dear brothers and sisters!

The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, 40 days after Jesus’ birth, shows us Mary and Joseph, who in obedience to the Mosaic Law travel to the temple of Jerusalem to offer the child, as the first born, to the Lord and ransom him by a sacrifice (cf. Luke 2:22-24). It is one of the cases in which the liturgical time reflects historical time, because today it has been precisely 40 days since the Solemnity of the Birth of the Lord; the theme of Christ the Light, which has characterized the cycle of Christmas feasts and culminates in the Solemnity of Epiphany, is taken up again and prolonged in today’s feast.

The ritual gesture of Jesus’ parents, which takes place in the form of the humble discretion that characterizes the Incarnation of the Son of God, is received in a unique way by the elderly Simeon and the prophetess Anna. By divine inspiration they recognize in that child the Messiah announced by the prophets. In the meeting between the venerable old Simeon and Mary, the young mother, the Old and the New Testament join together in a marvelous way in giving thanks for the gift of the Light, which shown in the darkness and prevented it from taking over: Christ the Lord, light to enlighten the nations and the glory of his people Israel (cf. Luke 2:32).

On the day in which the Church recalls the presentation of Jesus in the temple, we celebrate the Day of Consecrated Life. In effect, the Gospel episode to which we refer constitutes a significant icon of the self-donation of those who have been called to represent, in the Church and in the world, the characteristic traits of Jesus: virgin, poor, obedient, the Consecrated One of the Father. Thus in today’s feast we celebrate the mystery of consecration: the consecration of Jesus, the consecration of Mary, the consecration of all those who place themselves in the following of Jesus for the love of the Kingdom of God.

Following the ideas of Blessed John Paul II, who celebrated it for the first time in 1997, the day dedicated to the consecrated life has some particular purposes. It intends to respond first of all to the need to praise and thank the Lord for the gift of this state of life, which pertains to the sanctity of the Church. To each consecrated person today is dedicated the prayer of the whole Community, who gives thanks to God the Father, giver of every good gift, for the gift of this vocation, and with faith calls upon him once more. Moreover, this occasion aims to increase more and more the recognition of the value of the witness of those who have chosen to follow Christ through the practice of the evangelical counsels by promoting knowledge and esteem for the consecrated life among the People of God. Finally, the Day of Consecrated Life intends to be, above all for you, dear brothers and sisters, who have embraced this state in the Church, a precious occasion to renew the decisions and revive the sentiments that have inspired and inspire your gift of yourselves to the Lord. This we wish to do today; this is a task that you are called to accomplish every day of your life.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, I have, as you know, called for the Year of Faith, which will open in October. All of the faithful, but in a special way the members of the institutes of consecrated life, have welcomed this initiative as a gift, and I hope that they will live the Year of Faith as a favorable time for interior renewal — for which one always feels the need — with a deepening of the essential values and of the demands of their consecration. During the Year of Faith you, who have accepted the call to follow Christ more closely through the profession of the evangelical counsels, are called to deepen still further your relationship with God. The evangelical counsels, accepted as an authentic rule of life, reinforce the faith, hope and charity that unite us to God. This profound nearness to the Lord, which must be the element that has priority and that characterizes your existence, will bring you to a renewed commitment to him and it will have a positive influence on your particular presence and the form of your apostolate among the People of God, through the contribution of your charisms, in fidelity to the magisterium, with the goal of being witnesses of faith and grace, credible witnesses for the Church and the world of today.

The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, with the means that it will judge adequate, will suggest directions and do its best to ensure that this Year of Faith constitutes for all of you a year of renewal and fidelity, so that all consecrated men and women engage in the new evangelization with enthusiasm. While I address my cordial greeting to the prefect of that dicastery, Monsignor João Braz de Aviz — whom I have chosen to be among those whom I will make cardinals at the next consistory — I gladly welcome this moment to thank him and his collaborators in the precious service that they give to the Holy See and to the whole Church. [Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

Profession of faith, oath of fidelity and homily

On January 28, Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, and after the proclamation of the Gospel, a new Moderator of Studies for the Center of Institutional Studies of the Province of Our lady of the Rosary, Fr. Jose Luis de Miguel, OP made his Profession of Faith and Oath of Fidelity. Thereafter, Fr. Jose Luis pronounced the following Homily (Editor)

Promising fidelity to God, to Jesus his Son, to the Gospel he preached and the Church he established, and being faithful to the mission entrusted by the Spirit to the members of the Order of Preachers, makes me feel as if I were renewing those promises of long ago, made in fear and trembling, trusting not in one´s own strength, but in God´s mercy.

In our Order, when we make promises, we do it in the presence of and surrounded by our brothers: we place our weakness into their hands, and thus, strengthened by them, we look to the future with faith and confidence, joyful for the joint venture of announcing to the world the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus.

Ever, since the beginning of our eight centuries old history, it has been customary to have a Centre of Studies in our houses of formation, to secure that the preparation of our younger brothers to carry out the mission entrusted to them by the Spirit and confirmed by the Church, is guaranteed. Thus started our Studium, that in our present situation, here in Macau, will count with the very highly esteemed cooperation of the Catholic University of Saint Joseph, towards which we cannot but express our deepest gratitude.

In his words of farewell, Jesus made it clear to his disciples that he would not leave them alone; he himself, together with his Spirit, would accompany them. This is, and it will always be, our trust, our hope and our joy.

However, this promise does not, in any way, dispense us from  the responsibilities we must assume to bring, in a dignified manner, the good news of the gospel to our fellow women and men of today. And we must do it in fidelity to our Dominican vocation.

The mission entrusted to us by the Lord in the construction of his Kingdom, demands that we be prepared not only to be familiar with God´s revelation, expressed in the Holy Scriptures, but also that we be  trained to be able to talk to our fellow men and women about God, and to share with them their anxieties, their interests, their desires and hopes.  More and more every day, we must also be ready to face their possible disagreements with us and humbly explain to them the reason for our hope.

In the convent, or in any other centre of learning, the Dominican prepares himself –he does not preserve himself- to engage in the battles of the spirit, wherever the doctrinal or human problems present themselves acutely. In the cultural crossroads, in the “agoras” of the world and in any place where religious and profane sciences convene, the Dominican makes himself present, to offer the fruit of his study at the light of the Gospel. We are speaking, therefore, about a serious, exigent, and always up to date study, which takes into account our fidelity to the Word revealed, as well as to the questions that people pose to themselves, even if sometimes they are not aware of it.

All these challenges make it necessary to study hard, and constantly, since it is greatly through the means of our study that we shall be able to enter into dialogue with our contemporaries, respectfully listening to their questions and sharing with them the fruit of our effort. Thus, our study becomes, in the first place, an act of love, for we do it not just for our own personal interests, but to share the truth we pursue and place it at the service of others.

This demands of us and open mind to understand the plans of God for his people –his children- today, and an equal openness to accept the “truths” that they, too, in their own way, seek; for as Saint Thomas Aquinas, quoting Saint Ambrose, used to say, “the truth, no matter where it comes from, is always from the Holy Spirit”. Saint Thomas Aquinas himself, whose glorification we are commemorating today, is an extraordinary example of how we can be salt and light today, at the service of our people and with the joy and good taste of Jesus in our hearts.

***

In the passage of the gospel, just proclaimed, Jesus tells his disciples –he tells all of us, his followers-, that, if we live the beatitudes, we cannot but pay attention to the social dimension of our faith. He says it with two very delightful, unforgettable metaphors: “Look”, he tells them, “you are an insignificant group of persons, lost in the midst of this powerful Roman empire, and yet, I´ve called you to be the “salt of the earth”, and the “light of the world”.

“Salt” and “Light”…, ¿of the world? ¿Would that not be too pretentious?

Jesus explains to them how this will be possible. Salt, he says, does not seem to be very important; and yet, its effects are noticeable, precisely when it mixes with the food and seems to have disappeared.

We all know what the purpose of salt is, and of the use we make of it is. on one hand, it is used to preserve the food, so that it won´t rot; on the other hand, it serves to add taste to the food we consume, it makes it more tasteful. Food is good, but it can rot. It is tasteful, but sometimes not tasteful enough. With salt food becomes tastier.

Our study, carried out in the silence of our room, is meant to enable us to preserve the best tradition of our Church that links us to our very roots, which are in Christ. It also enables us to proclaim to others the good news of the gospel, helping them to live more meaningfully, more tastefully and more joyously. ¿Are we salty enough to give taste to the life of our contemporaries? ¿Who are the ones benefitted by our presence in their lives?

As for the light, Jesus was, once more, extremely generous, entrusting to each and every one of us a task that belongs exclusively to Him. When we are in darkness and switch on a light, no matter how small, it brightens the whole atmosphere, filling it with life, meaning and sense. We are called to shed light to this world, at times immersed in thick shadows. It is useless, and a sign of little faith, to waste our time lamenting incessantly about the wrongdoings that we detect around. As the English saying goes, “Do not course darkness, light a match”! Light, not darkness, has the last word.

Our task is to be light for others, so that they can see, and eventually feel embraced and enlightened by the light of Christ. We should not forget, though, that we do not shine on our own; we just share the light that comes from Jesus and then, out of his grace, we reflect it to others. We are light in the deepest sense of the word, when other people can see in us “the good works” and be moved to glorify our Father in heaven. That is why our light cannot be kept hidden. That would be mean and stupid. Our light is ordained to enlighten our fellow men, so that they can discover the true face of our Father in heaven.

Saint Thomas, our brother, is a good example of how we can be salt and light today, at the service of our people and with the joy and good taste of Jesus in our hearts. Blessed are those who are “salt” and “light”, for they shall be rewarded with the love and mercy of our Father for time everlasting.

José Luis de Miguel, OP

Moderator

St. Dominic Center of Studies

Macau

Christmas Homily (St. Dominic’s Priory in Macao)

One of the great traditions of Christmas is the Xmas Cards, no matter whether it is printed style, msn message or email formats. But have you noticed that every year Christmas Cards are less and less religious? Most of the cards are related to snow, Santa Clause or scenic winter pictures. I dare to say that the message portrayed in the cards has nothing to do with tonight’s, December 24 celebration. Even if you buy a card with the picture of the Holy Family, like the ones that our brother Sebastian bought for us, it looks far away from reality. Mary does not look like she just had a baby; Joseph looks like one of the Beatles and not like the typical father worrying for not been able to find a place for his family to stay. Even the baby Jesus does not look like he just came out of the womb. You know what I mean? Xmas Cards do not portray the reality of Christmas because what would be realistic could not be beautiful.

In fact the first Christmas was neither beautiful nor perfect. The story of the Christmas we celebrate today was filled with mess and confusion. I would like to invite you to read the first Christmas story and find out how many things went wrong. Let me just enumerate a few things: Mary was expecting and Joseph didn’t understand this at all, and had his doubts about what was going on; because of the Census Mary and Joseph had to travel; Bethlehem was very crowded and there was no room at the inn, as the story says; they were stuck in the middle of nowhere and Mary in labor had the baby in a stable; the shepherds all of a sudden saw an angels and got terrified; the three kings or wise men got lost. As you can see the First Christmas has nothing to do with what is portrayed in our Christmas Cards. The First Christmas was not perfect scenery, it was a complete mess.

Our world like the first Christmas is not a perfect picture either. We live every day in a messy world. There are wars; there are conflicts; people get sick; terrorists attack innocent people; we have earthquakes like the one in Japan or flooding like this month in the Philippines; there are car accidents; our loved ones die, and we get lost, we hurt each other, etc. etc. etc. Imagine if we had to portray this in a Christmas card! Nobody would buy it. Nobody wants to deal with messy things, except one person: Jesus. And this is the good news for us in this messy world we live in. He came to handle our mess.  God has been handling mess ever since that night in a barn outside of Bethlehem. He took our mess upon Himself.  You cannot put that on a Christmas card, because nobody would buy it.  It is not pretty or beautiful or festive.  But the fact is that He changed us and our world forever.  And that is something beautiful, even when it is messy.  That is something to celebrate today, and forever. That is something worth to be portrayed in a Christmas card. Would you buy that Christmas card or would you be afraid?

Across two thousand years, the words of the angels reach out to us in joy and hope and consolation. No matter who you are, no matter where you live, no matter what your circumstances are, this is what matters: Do not be afraid. Are you afraid?

While so many people are powerless by fear of what is coming on the world, you and I can share the conviction, which comes from beyond us, from beyond our powers. God did not come as a dictator demanding submission but as a vulnerable child. God did not come as a legislator with an ideology but in the life of a child to melt our divisions and with the promise of peace and goodwill for the entire world. Jesus is the hope for peace on earth, for peace of heart. “Do not be afraid”.

Another great tradition of Christmas is the exchange of gifts. I do not know about you but whenever I receive a gift there is always a kind of excitement for what the gift could be and whenever I give a gift there is a kind of anxiety to whether the person will accept and like the gift. Allow me to tell you a story I read long time ago: A young man who was about to graduate was asked by his parents what he would like to have as a graduation gift. He told his parents that he would like a sports car that he had seen in the showroom of one of the car dealers shops. So on the big day of the graduation his father gave his son a small but beautifully wrapped gift.

With great disappointed he unwrapped the small gift to find a lovely leather-bound Bible. Looking at the gift and at his father he said: “With all the money you have and you give me a Bible“. He put the Bible on top of a chair and left the house.

As the years passed by the young man became more and more successful in his business with a lovely family and a lovely home. He had everything that a man can aim to achieve, however the fact that since his graduation he had not spent any real time with his father, was something that was bothering him continuously, so he decided that he should go and make up with his father.

Before he could make the arrangements, he received a telephone call to say his father had passed away suddenly.  When he arrived to his father’s house he was filled with sadness and regret. He also found the Bible still new as he had left it.

With tears he opened the Bible and as he turned the pages, a car key fell out from the back of the Bible.  It had a tag attached with the dealer’s name of the sports car he had desired, the date of his graduation, and the words paid in full.

God sent his only Son into our messy world and messy lives because he wanted to do so, just because he loved us. Everything that we celebrate tonight is a gift. Tonight we celebrate the most durable, long-lasting enduring gift of all. However the gift comes wrapped not in beautiful and colorful wrapping papers but wrapped in swaddling clothes, placed not under the Christmas tree but lying in a manger.

The question we have to ask ourselves tonight is: Do we miss God’s blessings and answers to our prayers because they do not come as we had expected?

The value of the Christmas story is not to simply give us information about what happened 2000 years ago but rather to point out the way we are called to live. This story tells us that the way to happiness is the art of compromise. There are many things that none of us want to deal with at Christmas. We do not want to struggle with poor health, take care of a sick person, finances problems, losing a loved one which comes from divorce or death. But there are people here with those realities right in the center of their lives. Can we compromise? Can we choose to find the good that is still in our life, the people who love us, the opportunities that are still ours, or will we insist that there can be no joy until things change?

The first Christmas was neither white, silent, perfect nor the Christmas that Mary or Joseph have chosen. I am sure they would have preferred a Christmas that was more familiar, safer, and cleaner, however it was a compromised Christmas.

Jesus presents himself to us tonight and anxiously looks on, hoping that He will be accepted by each one of us. The Giver of the gift Himself becomes the Gift. As we ponder about the first Christmas and meditate upon our own Christmas, let us all say to the Lord: “This is not only the gift I wanted, it is truly the gift I needed. It is the perfect gift, it is the perfect Christmas”.

FR. ALEJANDRO SALCEDO, OP

St. Dominic’s Priory

MONTESINOS PROPHETIC ADVENT HOMILY, 500 YEARS LATER

           The season of Advent is the season of hope, which is the virtue of the pilgrim – of our life. Hope like a coin has two faces: one relates us to God; another, to the neighbor, particularly the poor and needy neighbor. Advent then is a special time for Christians to become more aware of and committed to the poor around us and in our world.

             Concerning the love of preference for our poor neighbors, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is focused on the proclamation of justice and love, which are the two main social values and virtues to be preached and practiced by Christians – and many other believers and men and women of good will. This proclamation includes the denunciation of injustices, and the announcement and witnessing of justice and love.

             Social action is a constitutive dimension of the “preaching of the Gospel, or the Church’s mission” (Synod of Bishops’ 71). A shining moment of the proclamation of the social Gospel is represented by the well-known Homily of Dominican Father Antonio Montesinos for the Third Sunday of Advent of the year 1511 in the Isla Española, now the Dominican Republic. As asked by their latest General Chapter (Rome 2010), the Dominicans throughout the world are re-calling this Advent of 2011 the prophetic Advent Sermon preached 500 years ago.

             What makes that prophetic sermon still more relevant for us Dominicans today  is the fact that it was prepared not only by Montesinos but by the whole Dominican community. The community read the signs of their times and interpreted them according to the Sacred Scriptures and the consequent teachings of the Fathers of the Church and, in particular of Saint Thomas Aquinas (cf. II-II, 66).The Dominican community of the Española applied courageously the doctrine taught by the Dominican Masters of Theology at the University of Salamanca regarding the equality of all human beings, including the natives  of Latin America, who were unequally treated by the greedy colonizers of that time.  Montesinos thundered from the pulpit five hundred years ago in Central America:

By what right and by what justice do you hold these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? With what authority have you carried out such detestable wars against these people who were living in their meek and peaceful lands that you have consumed with deaths and ravages never heard of? How can you hold these peoples so oppressed and exhausted by not giving to them the food they need to eat, and by not healing their illnesses which are due to the excessive works you force upon them? Thus they die, or –better said – you kill them in order to acquire the precious gold every day! Do you care at all about letting them know God as their Creator… and fulfill their Sunday obligation? Are these people not human beings? Don’t they have rational souls? Are you not obliged to love them as you love yourselves? … Be sure that in this state in which you are you will not be saved…

             After that incredible sermon, the authorities attending the Mass, the masters of the Indians complained to the Superior of the community, Fr. Pedro de Córdoba, and asked him to call the attention of  Montesinos, punish him for this “new doctrine,” and ask him to recant what he had said at the following Sunday Mass, the Fourth Sunday of Advent. If the preacher would not correct himself and apologize they all will be sent back to Spain. Thereafter, the community prepared another sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Montesinos proclaimed it again: not recanting at all what he had said the previous Sunday, but reaffirming again with strong words the same radical and prophetic message. On the Fourth Sunday of Advent, he reportedly said:

You are enslaving the natives. If you continue like this, we shall not hear your confession. And know that we believe that we are not offending the King. On the contrary, we are thus serving God and also the King of Spain. 

Again, Montesinos called the rich and powerful to repent and change their unjust and merciless misbehavior against the dignity and the kindness of the natives.

             The enslavement of the poor by the insensitive rich and powerful – and also by the indifference of many of us who could do something to remedy this cruel situation but do not -, continues to be a terribly negative sign of our times:  injustices, violence, greed, human trafficking, discrimination based on sex, age, nationality or ethnic, religion are still here in our developed and developing world.  What to do? Imitate the courage and witnessing of Montesinos and others. We are asked by our humanity and our faith to continue condemning injustices, but at the same time giving always hope to our people like the true prophets of yesterday and today, and like the Prophet, Jesus Christ.

             Indeed, and following the social teachings of the Church – more explicit and    radically since John XXIII – and of the best theologians of liberation, we have to continue denouncing evils and call them by their proper names. But this is not enough at all. It is so easy and generally so useless to merely condemn others and called them to change. Moreover, the signs of the times require from the preachers and teachers of the Word to discern the situation and the context in which they are. At times, it might not be convenient or prudent to denounce injustices. Even, announcing the doctrine of justice and love may be at times, perhaps, useless and counterproductive. After all, people are a bit tired of listening to so many empty words! We are asked to be witnesses of Christ not only with our words but also with our silences, and above all, with good deeds of justice and love. A Christian knows, as Benedict XVI tells us, “when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak” (Deus Caritas Est, 2005).

Charity indeed begins at home, that is, in our communities and in our hearts. If the community of Pedro de Córdoba was able to prepare those prophetic sermons, it was because their members lived – singly and collectively – a frugal and simple life style. Besides, they were close to the poor, who loved them. According to our tradition, the Dominican communities have to be preaching communities. This communitarian preaching requires change in each member of the different communities. We have to begin to change individually. Yes, “let there be love,” but “let it begin with me!” This is, certainly, an excellent way of celebrating modestly and effectively the Sermon of Montesinos 500 years later. If there be no change in our personal heart – in our communities -, the celebration, the living memory of this Advent Sermon may be no more than an external and superficial celebration.

             Five hundred years ago, on the Third Sunday of Advent, Montesinos began his homily with the words of St. John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ: “Ego sum vox clamantis in deserto” (“I am the voice of one crying in the desert.” Yes, he added, “I am the voice crying out in the desert of this Island.”  John the Baptist tells us again in the Gospel for the Third Sunday of Advent (2011): “Make straight the way of the Lord” (Jn 1:23). He invites us this year – as he invited the Dominican community of the Española and many other exemplary communities of missionaries throughout history – to work for justice and love as an essential way to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth. If we proclaim in words and above all in good deeds this constitutive element of the Gospel, we shall contribute significantly to the transformation of the world and thus we will be saved. Jesus – the One who is to come this Christmas and at the end of time and always – keeps telling us: “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me a glass of water… What you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it to me” (see Mt. 25, 31-46).

             As I recall the powerful homily of Montesinos, I remember the words of the great preacher Fr. Lacordaire: “We the Dominicans (and all other preachers) will be effective in our ministry when the Word, dead and buried in books, comes to life in our lips and in our life.” At the end, when all is said and done, we have to say:  “Only love is credible” (Urs von Balthasar).

Fausto Gomez, OP

Third Sunday of Advent

 Macau, December 2011