On the Second Sunday of Advent each year, we are introduced to one of the most important persons associated with this season of preparation: St John the Baptist.
Here in Australia the idiom “turn something on its head” is used quite a lot, especially in sports. When a team is leading by a big score and then the opponent rallies and is now in the lead, you can hear commentators saying, “The game has been turned on its head”.
Before we reflect on the Gospel, I want to share something very personal with you all.
In the gospel for this Sunday, which, like last week, is another story about Jesus’ baptism, somehow John doesn’t seem to recognise Jesus.
The feast of the Baptism of the Lord invites us to look at our own baptism in the Lord. Jesus, through his baptism in the river Jordan, begins his mission.
I feel squeamish when I see those paintings of Jesus, with Mary and Joseph, which depict this trio as the ideal family! In reality, no one in the Middle East, either now or 2000 years ago, would consider a mother+father+child as a family unit.
Today, as I celebrate this Thanksgiving Mass, I feel deeply grateful for the journey that brought me here.
Imagine this scene in a movie we may have seen in the not so distant past. A condemned criminal sitting on an electric chair in the last minutes of his life, an executioner just waiting for the signal to pull the lever to activate the electric chair, a police officer looking at the clock waiting nervously until the clock strikes 3pm, the time of the execution, another police officer waiting for the phone to ring. Then just a few seconds before the hour of three, the phone rings.
During this time of the year, when we are nearing the end of the Liturgical Calendar, our readings are about the “end-times”. And especially when we hear about natural and man-made calamities happening around the world left and right.
For those who are outside Australia, they might be surprised that the capital of Australia is not Sydney but Canberra. In the same way, when one asks where is the “Cathedral basilica of the Pope or the Bishop of Rome, it is almost automatic that one will answer “St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican”. But the cathedral church where the seat of the Bishop of Rome is in is St John Lateran’s Basilica in Rome.
Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/svdaus
