Readings:
• Is 61:1-2a, 10-11
• Lk 1:46-48, 49-50, 53-54
• 1 Thes 5:16-24
• Jn 1:6-8, 19-28
There is something offensive to many people about Advent and Christmas. It is what Apostle Paul described as a “stumbling block” to Jews and Gentiles alike (1 Cor. 1:18-25). Eastern Orthodox philosopher Richard Swinburne calls it “the scandal of particularity.” It is the belief that God became man at a particular time and in a particular place, and that the God-man, Jesus Christ, is the unique Savior of mankind.
“Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God,” the Catechism states, “is the distinctive sign of Christian faith” (par. 463). It’s hardly news that this belief is often disparaged or dismissed by some non-Christians. Far more perplexing are attempts by Christians to deny the mystery of the Incarnation by rejecting the singular character of Jesus of Nazareth.
A few years ago, a Catholic priest in Australia posted online a manuscript he had written intending “to allow the man Jesus to be more authentic, and to make our Catholic religion more relevant.” He glibly dismissed the Incarnation, writing, “God is big. Real big. No human being can ever be God. And Jesus was a human being. It is as simple as that!” He then took this denial to its logical conclusion. “For a Christian,” he wrote, “to state that the fullness of redemption and salvation is to be found in Jesus Christ is not an acceptable statement for other faiths or religious traditions. And it is offensive to proclaim it as universal truth.”
Yes, it is offensive. And it is also true! Today’s readings present two great saints who not only proclaimed the truth about Jesus Christ but also gave offense—and continue to give offense—by being faithful to Him. They share in the “scandal of particularity,” for they are closely united to Jesus, by both love and by blood.
The first is John the Baptist, who is always a central figure during Advent. Today’s Gospel reading places a very Johannine emphasis on testimony, or witness. The Greek word—martyria—for “testify” or “witness” is also the root word for “martyr,” and it appears over 25 times in the Fourth Gospel, as well as several times in the Book of Revelation.
This testimony “to the light” is a sure declaration of truth by one who has seen what he gives witness to. The Apostle John, in his first epistle, wrote about “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life,” and then stated, “we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us.” He had seen Jesus Christ in person. But John the Baptist had not only seen and known the Savior, he had recognized him while still in the womb (Lk. 1:41). He gave witness not only by word but also by deed: first, through preaching and baptism, then through martyrdom (Mk. 6:17-29).
The second saint is the Theotokos, the Blessed Virgin Mary. She causes scandal to some by her humility and her willingness to accept, in faith, an astounding message from God. She is a stumbling block to many because she, a lowly Jewish maiden, is the Mother of God; her womb was the Tabernacle of the Most High. Her proclamation, the Magnificat—part of it heard today during the responsorial—is the testimony of the perfect disciple: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”
Many people believe that religious doctrine—especially dogmas about Jesus Christ—leads to narrow-mindedness, bigotry, and even violence. In reality, it is the wellspring of joy, as Mary’s canticle amply demonstrates. It is not enough to simply believe, or to proclaim—we are also called to rejoice and to worship. “Rejoice always,” Paul writes to the Christians in Thessalonica, “Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks.” Why? “For this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”
Such is the joyful, particular scandal of Advent.
(This “Opening the Word” column originally appeared in the December 14, 2008, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)
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And so, what happened to the priest who denied the divinity of Jesus? I hope at least he was defrocked???
I hope he is not a cardinal.
Faith, a gift of the Holy Spirit inspires a rational desire to believe. Why the will is called by Aquinas the rational appetite. It’s realized as a loving willingness to believe. Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu impugns the heroine’s faith in Christ exclaiming Faith is the desire to believe what you know isn’t true. Herzog, questioning his own personal issues with faith in Christ, a theme that runs through the director’s life, actually gave the correct answer. Except for the negation, “What you know isn’t true”. Editor Olson’s Australian priest’s disbelief, “No human being can ever be God” is a refusal to believe, not knowledge that Christ cannot be God. The admission that no human being can be God acknowledges its converse. That God can enter the world as Man. Born of Mary Theotokos. Faith in the Son of Man is synonymous desire [love] and hope. Hope that the Apostle says is evidence of what we believe. We desire what by nature draws adoration.
Superb commentary—thank you!
So grateful for the gift of faith in the Incarnation, the transcendent Son of God becoming flesh in created space and time on a planet which is like a speck of sand in the universe. Tragic that some, even a Catholic priest, are scandalized by this Truth.
It might be useful to have a a series of an articles on the first 4 Catholic Councils, starting with the Council of Nicaea. The Australian priest is just a modern day Arian or maybe just a Mormon masquerading as a Catholic Priest.
SMH. This is what I meant about leaving the Catholic Church. I have not left the Church, but it certain seems the Church has left me (and many, many, others).
The Catholic Apostolic Church is Christ and Christ is the Church. Jesus Christ incorporates all its members into His mystical body. The priest makes Christ present on the altar at every mass. Christ the Son of God, who made Himself the eternal sacrifice and divine food for His creatures would ask: What else would you possibly need but ME?
Yes…
Reaching back far before Vatican II, one secularist narrative holds that the “archaic” cosmos (the union of the sacred and the profane) has finally been displaced by the Enlightenment and its aftermath. Gone is the archaic unity between monarchs and peasants (etc.) within a cosmic order, and also gone is the allegedly Thomistic premise of a pyramidal Church from the papacy on “down,” even including archaic sacraments to be administered.
Enter stage left: synodality? Here an observation, a question, and a reality check…
OBSERVATION: Along came Vatican II…But, instead of reviving this “rigid” pyramid as some now suppose, the Council went directly back to the singular fact of the Incarnation within human history (Dei Verbum). And then, based only on this divine self-disclosure (God making “a nuisance of himself,” C.S. Lewis!), recalled the commissioned apostolic succession and the living Tradition centered on the gifted Real Presence in the Eucharist (Lumen Gentium). The renewed Church then sought to better engage the potentials and errors, and the peripheries of human suffering in this world (the more problematic Gaudium et Spes).
Ressourcement and Aggiornamento…
QUESTION: To what extent has the Council’s afterbirth/synodality allowed itself to suck up to the long-term secularist narrative? Such that now the proclaimed “experience” of synodal fraternity not only activates, but actually supersedes the perennial and Eucharistic Church? The myopic triumphalism of a “spirit of the Council” discarding the well-grounded Documents, within the “throwaway culture”?
REALITY CHECK: Given the reality of Christmas, what then is the fit between, say, Eucharistic Renewal and any parallel and inverted proceduralism?
Not to be eclipsed by the 21,000 words of the spiritualist (?) Synthesis Report is the leavening of the only-one and incarnational Word: the “same yesterday, today, and forever.” “His is a single, uninterrupted utterance, because it is continuous and unending” (Sermon by St. Bernard).
The joy of Advent…for a happening that is more than an experience.