Daily Gospel Reflection
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December 8, 2019
John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said:
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.’”
Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
The wilderness is a privileged place of purification and preparation in the Bible. Moses leads Israel into the wilderness for 40 years as they approach the promised land. David spends many years in the wilderness before he is crowned king, pursued by the jealous king Saul. The prophet Hosea tells us how God will “allure [Israel] and bring her out into the wilderness” to purify the people of Israel from their idolatry (Hosea 2:14).
And in today’s gospel, we hear that John the Baptist, the last prophet, who is often viewed as the bridge between the Old and New Testaments, mysteriously “appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.'” His words, coming out of his own desert experience, pull us out of complacency.
Advent is a time where God calls us into the wilderness, into the harsh desert of waiting and preparation. And it is by embracing our own poverty in the desert—acknowledging our sins, recognizing our need for mercy—that we can experience the baptism of repentance, so that our hearts can be really free to welcome Christ.
Advent is the liturgical season that reveals to us, perhaps more than any other, what our lives really are: a journey of hope in the desert between Christ’s first coming at Bethlehem and his second coming at the end of time. John the Baptist lived, sometimes painfully, in this desert of expectation.
“One could say that man is alive as long as he waits, as long as hope is alive in his heart,” said Pope Benedict XVI. “And from his expectations man recognizes himself: our moral and spiritual ‘stature’ can be measured by what we wait for, by what we hope for.”
Prayer
Lord, life is full of peaks and valleys. As we continue this Advent journey, fill our depths with love for you, lower the mountains of self-doubt, unwind the tension stemming from unrealistic expectations, and smooth our inner dialogue to decrease its abrasiveness. Open us, Lord, to the healing of your forgiveness so we can prepare for your coming, for you live and reign forever and ever. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II, Juan Diego, the Aztec American Indian who received the visions of Our Lady of Guadalupe, was the first indigenous American to be canonized a saint.
Juan Diego was born in 1474 in an area that is now part of Mexico City, Mexico. His indigenous name was Cuauhtlatoatzin, which means “talking eagle.” Juan was most likely from a peasant family and worked as a weaver, farmer, and laborer. When Franciscan missionaries arrived in the area in 1524, Juan and his wife, Maria, were among the first to be baptized, even though Juan was already 50 years old by that time.
On December 9, 1531, Juan woke up before dawn to begin the 15-mile walk to attend daily Mass at the Franciscan mission, as he usually did. As he passed Tepeyac Hill, Juan heard music and a voice calling him in his native language. Curious and excited, Juan climbed the hill and saw there a radiant lady, Mary, whose clothes were shining and glimmering. She asked Juan to go to the bishop and tell him that she wished for a shrine to be built on that site.
Juan did as he was told, but the bishop was skeptical and asked for time to think about it. On his way home, Juan saw the Lady once again and suggested that she might do better to pick someone else because he was “a man of no importance.” The Lady insisted that she wanted Juan's particular help, and the next day Juan returned to the bishop to repeat her request.
The bishop asked for a sign to prove that the vision was authentic, and Juan returned to the hill and told the Lady, who responded that she would provide one the next day.
On December 11, Juan’s uncle fell sick, and Juan was busy at home caring for him. Juan's wife, Maria, had died two years earlier, and his uncle was his dearest and closest relative. The next day, his uncle’s condition worsened and the distraught Juan Diego left to find a priest to hear his uncle’s confession to prepare him for death. Juan was embarrassed that he had not fulfilled the Lady’s wishes, so he took a different route around Tepeyac to avoid seeing her, but Mary appeared to him on his detour and gently reprimanded him for not turning to her—“Am I not here? I, who am your mother?” she said.
The Lady assured Juan that his uncle was healthy, that she was watching over him. She instructed Juan to climb Tepeyac once again and collect the roses he saw in bloom at the top of the hill. Juan obeyed and picked from the unusual, out-of-season abundance of beautiful roses he found. Juan took the roses to the Lady in his tilma, that is, his cloak, and she rearranged them before sending him to the bishop.
When Juan arrived at the bishop's palace, he opened up his tilma, to show him the amazing sign of the roses in winter. But, when Juan opened up his tilma and the flowers tumbled out, an image of the Lady appeared, painted in vibrant colors on his tilma. The bishop knelt before the image, in awe, recognizing the Lady as an image of Mary, the Mother of God. Immediately, the bishop began to enact Mary's request to build a shrine on Tepeyac.
Juan was granted permission to live the rest of his life as a hermit in a small hut attached to the church built on Tepeyac, and he spent his days in prayer and service to the pilgrims who came to the shrine. Juan died in 1548 and was canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II.
One miracle that was listed in Juan Diego's cause for canonization occurred during the beatification celebration for Juan Diego in 1990. A twenty-year-old drug addict attempted suicide by throwing himself head-first from an apartment balcony onto a patch of concrete thirty feet below. The man severely injured his brain and spinal column and went into a coma.
The man’s mother saw her son jump, and invoked Juan Diego’s help to save him. Three days later, the man awoke from his coma—and only a week later he was discharged from the hospital because he had recovered.
The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe falls later this week, on December 12. The shrine that Juan Deigo helped make a reality receives over twenty million pilgrims every year—people come from all over the world to view the image of Mary that still shines from the fabric of Juan Diego's tilma.
St. Juan Diego, the simple and humble man whose faith founded the great shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe—pray for us!
To learn even more about Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoazin, watch this video lecture from the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.