• Home
• >
• News & Events
• >
• News Articles
• >
• 2020
• >
• December
• >
• 12/6 Bishop's Homily 2nd Sunday of Advent
• >

News Articles

Bishop's Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent

December 6, 2020

[Our Lady Queen of Angels Church, Kula (80^th anniversary of the parish)]

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

How does one begin a Gospel?  When Mark wrote those words, he wrote them for those who had not yet heard of Jesus Christ so that they could come to know this person he had come to know and love.  Of course, we hear them now, even though we have heard those words for ages.  But are there not many people in our community who have never really heard the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God?  And is it not our mission as disciples of Jesus to tell the Good News to others?  Even though the Gospels we craft will not be the inspired Word of God as are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, unless we do craft the Gospel ourselves, so many will never know Jesus.

Mark begins the Gospel by pointing out a person, Jesus, and by saying that he is the Christ, the Anointed One, the long-awaited Messiah – and, amazingly, the Son of God himself.  In his first line he goes to the heart of the matter.  Yes, of course of our faith involves many important doctrines and many other things, such as the meaning of a parish and a diocese, a deacon, priest, bishop, the Pope, precepts and sacraments.  But the heart of them all is a person, Jesus Christ, and none of us will ever be effective in sharing the Gospel without knowing Jesus and loving him.

But just as soon as St. Mark takes us to the heart of it all, he takes us back in history to the Prophet Isaiah.  It is important that we also get to know those to whom we are announcing the Good News, their history, their joys and struggles, their hopes and anxieties.  The personal interaction is essential.  Yes, people can come to know Jesus through books or tapes or podcasts, but it is relationships that are most effective.

Then St. Mark introduces the person of John the Baptist, who touched many people with his message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  The first thing we notice about this is that people seemed to be tired of living in their sins, because sin brings disharmony, physical or emotional violence, self-hatred and hatred of others.  Repentance opens one to the love, peace and joy that every human being is built to long for.  So if our Gospel is to have “teeth” then it must address God’s call to leave sin behind and to be purified and immersed in his healing love.  But then John makes it very clear that he is not the heart of it all.  He was just the messenger, not the message, and the message is a person, the Word made flesh who dwells among us.

As we celebrate the 80^th anniversary of this parish, it is important that we also look to its past and give thanks to God for all who have built it and participated in it these 80 years.  It was here that people came so that they could be formed by the Gospel, allowing the living Word of God to take flesh in their hearts, turning away from sin themselves, and encountering the very same Jesus Christ, Son of God, whom John the Baptist proclaimed.  But we know more about Jesus than John knew at the time, because it was only after John’s death that Jesus laid down his life for us on the cross, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven and gave himself as the living bread come down from heaven.  And for 80 years, people have gathered here to be fed and nourished with this living Bread that is Jesus himself.

But the purpose of a parish is not simply to nourish its own parishioners or to help them grow in their relationship with Jesus solely for their own spiritual benefit.  Its real purpose is to form disciples of Jesus who leave the parish and go out to craft the Good News of Jesus Christ, Son of God, for all who have not yet heard it.  As John the Baptist did his important work wearing a course and inelegant garment of camel’s hair with a leather belt, so we go out wearing perhaps shorts and slippers to be the messengers of the same good news.  As John the Baptist prepared the way of the Lord, so we are sent out to level the mountains of pride, to fill up the valleys of self-hatred, to straighten the windy roads of so many lives by helping put them on the Way himself.  Like the Baptist, we are called to immerse the world in God’s grace, so that salvation can come to every home, every workplace, every school, every city and village, and every heart within them.  How will others come to know the saving and healing love of Jesus unless we who gather here go out and craft the Gospel once again for each of them?