Monday, December 3, 2002
1st Week of Advent
1st Reading: Is 11:1-10
Gospel: Lk 10:21-24
Jesus was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit and said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and made them known to the little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. I have been given all things by my Father, so that no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
Then Jesus turned to his disciples and said to them privately, "Fortunate are you to see what you see, for I tell you that many prophets and kings would have liked to see what you see but did not, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."
Commentary
Isaiah images a world of harmony, calf and lion cub eating grass together. Our rational selves are sceptical: eat or be eaten is nature's law, established long before human beings appeared. And yet, we long for a world radically renewed: "the whole creation groaning in the pangs of birth." (Romans 8) We have made so many advances, but we are far from knowing where we stand in the journey of homo sapiens - near the end or near the beginning? Jesus is not an answer, but a witness that his way of living is possible, and this is his good news. The media witnesses mainly to bad news, which is newsworthy precisely because it is not the norm. Goodness is not newsworthy because it is too common. Today's gospel celebrates the goodness of the numberless hidden saints who live in God and in whom God patiently works for renewal.