[__v.6_] 2025-12-14 “Advent 3rd Sunday homily”
Matthew
3:1–12 Proclaimers, Prisoners, and Precursors of Christ
Homily
— Gaudete Sunday
Every so often, a letter arrives in
the mail in a plain white envelope with an official seal. It invites us to
perform an important civic duty at the county courthouse: jury service. I
remember receiving one years ago. I opened it with that familiar mix of
curiosity and dread. I knew instantly that my time was no longer entirely my
own. My schedule would be interrupted. Someone else’s crisis — someone else’s
need for justice — was now entering my life uninvited.
There’s something humbling about
that. You don’t explicitly volunteer for jury duty. You’re summoned. And once
summoned, you must reorder your time. You show up when told. You wait. You
listen. You stay.
This experience has stayed with me,
and during Advent it reminds me of the voice of John the Baptist crying out in
the wilderness.
His message interrupts ordinary life: Prepare. Repent. The Lord is near.
God is claiming your time — your calendar, your priorities.
When I reported to the courthouse, I
was led into the jury deliberation room. If you’ve ever seen one, you know the
feeling: no windows, phones gone, quiet and closed. The door clicks shut. The outside
world recedes. You are not free to come and go. You are there for a purpose.
That room taught me something
important: sometimes we must be stopped in order to see clearly. Time itself
becomes a kind of enclosure — not a punishment, but a protection — so that
truth can be faced honestly.
Advent places us in such a space.
And today, Gaudete Sunday, reminds us that even this pause is ordered toward
joy.
1.
Proclaimers — Making Time to Listen
First, we are proclaimers.
John appears suddenly in today’s Gospel proclaiming God’s justice without
hesitation. He refuses to flatter or presume readiness. Last Sunday, the
Pharisees and Sadducees assumed their position exempted them from conversion.
Advent corrects that temptation.
To proclaim God’s Word, we must
first make time to listen. In the jury room, you don’t invent the law — you
receive it. And as disciples, we do not invent the Gospel; we receive it.
The Church helps us by claiming time
for God in concrete ways: Sunday Mass, seasons like Advent and Lent, and at
least once a year, confession. Advent is a wonderful time to go to confession.
Proclamation begins not with speaking, but with listening — and listening costs
time. Silence costs time. Prayer costs time. Mass costs time. It is an
investment.
St. James tells us today: Be
patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. This
patience is disciplined time, reclaimed from distraction and offered back to
God.
I struggle with this too. It’s easy
to be drawn into endless scrolling or videos that quietly claim our time. But
when we set aside even fifteen deliberate minutes — without the phone, without
noise — we allow the Word to judge us before we judge anything else. Only then
can we proclaim truth with integrity.
2.
Prisoners — Allowing God to Restrain and Purify
Second, we are prisoners —
willing prisoners. John’s proclamation eventually lands him in an actual
prison. He loses his freedom because he refuses to bend the truth to
convenience or power. His imprisonment reminds us that fidelity has a cost, and
often that cost is time.
Most of us will never be jailed for
the Gospel. But every disciple is asked to enter a temporary captivity:
allowing God to restrain us, interrupt us, and purify us according to His
timetable rather than our own.
This is why the Church gives us
seasons of penance and preparation. Lent. Advent. Every Friday. These are not
arbitrary rules. They are structured pauses — moments when the door closes and
we remain with God long enough for something real to happen.
I want to say a word especially to
younger people. It’s easy to assume you’ll always know what day it is. But
there will be times — illness, grief, exhaustion, even seasons like the
pandemic — when days blur together. The Church’s rhythms help us remember what
day it is. Friday penance. Sunday worship. These patterns form us when life
disorients us.
Fasting and abstinence are
time-based acts. They teach us to wait, to endure hunger without immediately
satisfying it, to sit with desire without obeying it. In doing so, they free us
from the illusion that every impulse must be indulged at once.
How often do we respond with both promptness
and completeness to what God is asking of us? And I don’t mean simply
showing up for Mass or attending a funeral, or doing our homework in school.
These “obligations” do claim our time — but they are meant to reorder the rest
of our lives, placing us on God’s time, not our own.
We postpone conversion. We delay
forgiveness. We avoid admitting we are wrong. Avoidance feels like freedom —
for a while. But true freedom comes after the verdict, after we submit
ourselves to the truth.
John shows us that even a prison
cell, when accepted in faith, can become a place of clarity and hope. Isaiah
promises that God strengthens weak hands and steadies fearful hearts. Time
spent in prayer is never wasted. It prepares us for joy.
3. Precursors — Learning to Mark
Time with Hope
Finally, John is the precursor
— the one who goes before the Lord. Even from prison, his life points beyond
himself. To be a precursor today is to learn how to mark time. We fast so that
we may feast. We wait so that joy may deepen. We accept restraint now so that
hope may grow.
Advent teaches us this rhythm week
by week, candle by candle. We guard time, and God’s time guards us. John’s life
proclaims the truth about time: He must increase; I must decrease.
This Sunday is called Gaudete
Sunday — a word that doesn’t translate easily. It doesn’t mean superficial
brightness. True rejoicing is deeper. It is the joy that comes from trusting
that God is already at work, even now.
We are called to be proclaimers —
giving God our time so His Word may dwell in us richly. We are called to be
willing prisoners — allowing seasons of restraint to renew us. And we are
called to be precursors — living with patience and hope that point others
toward Christ.
May John the Baptist teach us that
time surrendered to God becomes the path by which joy arrives.
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