Dear Christ the King Family,
While we are just one week into a new Liturgical year, we are still at the tail end of our Church’s Jubilee Year of Hope (It ends officially on January 6th, the date that most of the world celebrates as the Solemnity of the Epiphany). St. Paul’s letter to the Romans invites us to turn towards the Scriptures, because everything found in God’s Sacred Word was written so that by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. I believe that our scripture readings for this Sunday’s Mass challenge us to embrace a certain kind of hope: hope for the just judgement of God.
I say ‘challenge’ because I know that many contemporary minds struggle to see this as a thing to hope for. Many–even among Christian believers–can balk at the concept of God’s judgment. Perhaps we are unduly motivated by the failures and flaws we see in human judgment, and so many can’t help but think of Divine judgment as something harsh, terrifying, or arbitrary. Some abandon talk of divine judgment because they see it as irreconcilable with God’s tender mercy.
Yet as much as the Sacred Word does assure us that God is merciful and forgiving, the Bible also tries to plant in our imaginations and in our hearts a real hope for God’s justice and righteous judgment to prevail.
Let us learn from the prophet Isaiah, who does not worry about God’s judgment being arbitrary or cruel, but who sees it as necessary to right the wrongs constantly being afflicted by human sin upon the poor, the vulnerable and the weak. Not by appearance shall he judge, nor by hearsay shall he decide, Isaiah proclaims of the coming Messiah, but he shall judge the poor with justice and decide aright for the land’s afflicted. On the other hand, He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
Let us heed John the Baptist–the last and greatest of the prophets to speak of the Messiah’s coming– as he dramatically warns that the one who is coming after me…will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
We may find ourselves trembling at these words, but the biblical messianic hope for a just judge was–and still is– a hope that God will intervene and put an end to the injustices that oppress and rob people of their humanity. That God’s power will overcome the wickedness of the mighty and rescue the poor and the afflicted. In this Advent season of hopeful anticipation during a Jubilee year of hope, we are called to make this hope our own. We do so on behalf of the many throughout our world who suffer unjustly as victims of human greed, violent wars, racist or nationalistic prejudices, or simple insensitivity and willful ignorance on the part of those with power to make a difference.
Of course, we may be forced to recognize that we sometimes participate in the very wickedness that we ask God to stamp out in the world. And here’s where divine mercy comes back in. Right beside John the Baptist’s ominous warnings, is his call to repentance– to turn away from sin and seek to align ourselves in every way with God’s true justice. God always gives us a chance to turn away from sin and back towards his love. Let us take advantage of the penitential spirit of this Advent season to examine our sins and approach the Lord in the Sacrament of Confession, so as to allow our own hearts to be made right with God. Then there will be no apprehension, no fear in our hearts–only confident hope– when we sing with the psalmist: Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace forever.
Peace in Christ,
Fr. Cameron Cortens, C.S.C.
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