By Fr. Flor Lagura, SVD
In the Service of the Word

PEOPLE, like Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol who summarily dismisses Christmas saying, “Bah, Humbug!” and loves to wield their control over others, make people below them feel so small and powerless that they can turn to no one else but God to help them.

Six centuries earlier, St. Francis of Assisi realized the lesson of the coming of Christ, the lesson of poverty and weakness of the Almighty and Supreme God. This saint made the first belen before which he used to meditate during Advent on the meaning of the coming of the Lord. His Franciscan brothers continue to do so in many places of the world.

One of these places is the village in Judea where John the Baptist was born. The Franciscan Friars built near the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth a church aptly called the Church of the Visitation. The place has a fantastic view of the city of Jerusalem.

During the “Day War in July of 1967,” when the Palestinians had to be moved for security reasons and the Jews had to fortify their towns in fear of an Arab invasion, when bombs and rockets created havoc among the population, people from Jerusalem on a Sabbath still went up to the Franciscan Friary and stayed to pray in the church.

One such Sabbath a rabbi mingled among the people who went to the church.  Inside the church he met with a Franciscan priest, and he told the priest, “You know, we Jews and you Christians have one thing important in common.”

The Franciscan priest asked, “And what is that?”  The rabbi said, “All of us, Jews or Christians, are looking forward to the coming of the Messiah!”  “Yes, that’s true,’ the priest remarked. “However,” the rabbi continued, “while we joyfully and eagerly wait for the Messiah to come, you Christians seem to be scared to meet him!”

Advent is a season of hope, a time to be joyful at the coming of the Lord.  This joy and hope should tide us over during the pain from  so much frustrations and disappointments in life especially for  people who suffer the yoke imposed on them by others who vaunt their power and authority  by lording it over others.

Many in our land bear with muted lips their powerlessness in the face of flagrant exercise of control stemming from position or wealth, and sometimes from a dangerous combination of these two.

Like John the Baptist some shout against the crimes of injustice perpetrated against them. And like John these men and women of courage sound like voices crying out in the wilderness. Not too seldom, these brave heralds of justice and righteousness get locked up, and some have to pay the ultimate price for their courageous stand.

Advent with its vision of the Word who from his dwelling in eternity leaped into our time and  became flesh in order to live with us, feel and love like us, and who finally accepted our painful yet common lot to die like one of us provides us a respite with hope. His death ushers for   us eternal life, for in him we can pin our hope as we look beyond the transitory merriment of the season and look forward to the glory of the resurrection.

“Jesus said to them in reply, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news preached to them.  Mt. 11:4-5  (Sun.Star Cebu)

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