Our Lady of La Salette Welcomes You to Her Shrine! Come...Be Blessed!: December 14, 2014 ... Third Sunday of Advent ...WHERE IS OUR SOURCE OF LIGHT?

12/13/2014

December 14, 2014 ... Third Sunday of Advent ...WHERE IS OUR SOURCE OF LIGHT?

WHERE IS OUR SOURCE OF LIGHT?

The evangelist John, in line with the Gospel we have read in the Second Sunday of Advent, unfolds further details regarding Jesus’ cousin, Elizabeth and Zachariah’s son. Indeed, the evangelist reminds us the dialogues John the Baptist entertained with the Priests and the Levites, who came to him from Jerusalem to question his identity: was he the awaited Messiah, God’s anointed one? “No” –John answered– “I’m [simply] a voice of one crying out in the desert ‘make straight the way of the Lord’ as Isaiah the prophet said” (John 1:23). While praying this New Testament passage, St Augustine wrote: “John is the voice, but the Lord is the Word who was in the beginning. John is the voice that lasts for a time; from the beginning Christ is the Word who lives forever. Take away the word, the meaning, and what is the voice? Where there is no understanding, there is only a meaningless sound. The voice without the word strikes the ear but does not build up the heart.” (Serm 293, 3: PL 1328-1329).

John the Baptist –writes the evangelist– “came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify to the light” (John 1:7). This passage echoes the Prologue of the same Gospel: “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:9).

When we compare the Gospel reading of this Third Sunday of Advent with the apparition at La Salette, we find a striking parallelism between John the Baptist and Our Lady. They both came to testify to the light. Both John the Baptist and Our Lady are Christ-centered. They find their consistency in being “second” and not “first”, and in pointing to the One who is the light, so that, enlightened by Him, we can become and be light. They both are “voices” pointing to the One who is the “Word” made flesh.

We often talk about “New Evangelization” and about news ways to share our faith in our contemporary society. But both John the Baptist and Mary remind us that one thing is actually essential: to be exposed to the One who is the Light in order to follow him and have the light of life: “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” (John 8:12)

In this Third Sunday of Advent we are invited to ask ourselves: where do we find our source of “Light” so that we can become and be “light?”

Our Tradition has always pointed out two main sources, i.e. the Eucharistic table and the table of the Word of God (especially the so called Lectio Divina). While most of us are quiet familiar with the first one, what about the second one?