Thursday, II Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr
(Matthew 11:11-15)
When I suggested that the pious elderly Italian woman might enjoy some spiritual reading, she dropped her head in sadness. Then she confessed that she only went to school for a couple of years and never learned to read well. Most of the world is fortunate to have at least a basic education. We might not read much but we have been taught to read well enough. Likewise we are privileged to live in this era when one can count on growing old. Medicine and hygiene have inverted the average age of death over the last hundred years. In 1900 people died on the average at forty-seven years; in 2000, that number was seventy-four.
If we count our blessings in this way, we can understand why Jesus calls “the least in the kingdom of heaven” greater than John the Baptist. The “least in the kingdom” refers to his disciples, not limited to the inner twelve but all who follow him, including ourselves. We are blessed in a way that John wasn’t because we have experienced the fullness of the Kingdom in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Of course, we were not there to witness these events but the graces that have flowed from them have been manifested in achievements of Christianity from the apostolic community’s holding everything in common to the sister’s of Mother Teresa picking dying people off the streets this morning.
Although John did not witness the Kingdom in its fullness and could not appreciate the love of God that it brought, he was very aware of the effort that it demands. His constant message was repentance. We must change our sinful ways if we are to benefit from the Kingdom’s riches. John is the central figure of these middle weeks of Advent because he reminds us that the king who is to come will require sacrifice of his subjects as he transmits to them the fullness of life.
