Friday, December 9, 2022

 Friday of the Second Week of Advent

(Isaiah 48:17-19; Matthew 11:16-19)

In today’s gospel Jesus shares with the crowds his disappointment with their response to the call to repentance.  When John made it, he says, the people thought he was crazy.  When he makes it, Jesus continues, they ask whether one who hangs around sinners can be trusted.  Matthew, the evangelist, has Jesus leveling this criticism of the Jews perhaps fifty years before he wrote.  But he was aware that Christians too might reject the call to ongoing conversion with similar excuses.

We have seen in our day increasing rejection of Christ as the path to holiness.  Secularization has accelerated within the past three generations to the extent that in many places mostly grey hairs go to church.  The vast majority neither fear punishment nor try to please God by living impeccably.

Nevertheless, the Church continues to wave a stick and a carrot to move people to reform.  Especially during Advent, we await the return of Christ at the end of time to judge the world.  We also joyfully anticipate celebrating on Christmas his first coming.  Although it may seem like a losing strategy, we know that it can work.  At different times either the soft or the hard approach has gotten through to people’s hearts.