From the Parish House

This weekend we celebrate the third Sunday of Advent and the Gospel reading continues with the ministry of John the Baptist.  He is situated in the wilderness where people are coming to him for baptism.  In preparation for baptism John is calling for the repentance of those who approach him.  For their part people ask him ‘What must we do?’  So, it would appear there are two movements in being drawn into John’s baptism.  First, repentance and second, action.

Repentance is a loaded word.  It comes from the Greek work metanoia.  In its essence it means to change your mind or to go beyond (meta) your mind (nous).  It means to see things differently from the way that you have seen them.  It means to open yourself up to a new way of seeing the world and the relationships that make up your life.  In the biblical sense it means reorienting our minds to the vision or culture that God has in mind for the world.  Perhaps that is why Advent is often described as the season of the ongoing creation of the world by God.  Advent reminds us that we are all on the pathway of being created into the full human beings that we are destined to be.  But we can never grow into the fullness of ourselves without change.  Perhaps that is why we hear words like ‘listen’, ‘be alert’, ‘stay awake’, and ‘be attentive’, throughout the Advent season.  We are being called to take our minds to the culture and world of God.

It is not always easy to grasp the world that God is calling us to join in creating.  So often we get stuck with the way things are, the way we have always seen things and done things.  This is not so just for us as individuals but also for churches and society as a whole.  Pope Francis has been urging us to see things differently.  In many ways he has been a Pope calling us to repentance or metanoia.  Listen to these words.

 I dream of a “missionary option”, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channelled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.  The renewal of structures demanded by pastoral conversion can only be understood in this light: as part of an effort to make them more mission-oriented, to make ordinary pastoral activity on every level more inclusive and open, to inspire in pastoral workers a constant desire to go forth and in this way to elicit a positive response from all those whom Jesus summons to friendship with himself. (Evangelii Gadium 27)

Great challenges are placed before us in this exhortation.  Pope Francis, in Laudato Si’ is also calling us, and our leaders to undergo an ecological conversion.  What does he mean by this? 

He defines ecological conversion as the “transformation of hearts and minds toward greater love of God, each other, and creation.  It is a process of acknowledging our contribution to the social and ecological crisis and acting in ways that nurture communion: healing and renewing our common home.

So back to today’s gospel.  Those who arrive in the wilderness to be baptised by John ask him – What must I do?   In the twenty-first century there are many answers to that question.  Our Christian faith is open ended when it comes to how we might practically live it out.  Our imagination is the only obstacle.  And Pope Francis has given us at least two answers to the question, What must I do?  Become a missionary people, channelling everything towards the life of the world, not for self-preservation and transform your hearts and minds to greater love of God, each other and creation.

Repentance and action are needed as much today as they were in the wilderness with John the Baptist.

Fr Brendan Reed

 

Parish Priest

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Ray

Thank you, Father Brendan, for underlining the true meaning of repentance.

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