4th Sunday Advent B - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2005

Gangs of young men have been fighting each other in Sydney, engaging in frighteningly irrational and destructive behaviour.  The extent of the violence, the numbers involved, the shape it has taken may be new, but is it ultimately surprising?

Get the right mix of factors and it can happen anywhere: undealt with angers, prejudice, surging testosterone, dysfunctional family life, fear, emotional immaturity, the power of the in- group.  Dissolve any restraining inhibitions with sufficient alcohol, and the mixture is explosive.  The prejudices determine who is on what side, but what the prejudices are is fairly irrelevant: skin colour, accent, race, gender, religion, sometimes even different football teams – any of them will do.  And our media exposure to world events illustrates the point clearly enough.  Sadly it’s going on around the world.

It seems to me that to deny the prejudice lurking in one shape or another in all of us is to deny the reality of Original Sin.  Of course, we’re prejudiced, afraid, emotionally incomplete and insecure.  To become otherwise, to grow out of it,  is a life-long task, and few achieve it.  To want to be superior, tougher, stronger, smarter, more popular or simply better than the rest is there in all of us.  We seem to think that if only we can make it come true, then we shall know freedom, happiness, fulfilment and peace.  It’s illusion.  In fact, its origin is fear.  

It’s the untruth of sin.  There is no need to deny the reality of sin, to pretend it’s not there, to whistle in the dark.  To deny its reality is to allow it free rein, whether in our own personal unconscious or in the collective psyche of our community.

But the fascinating thing is that along with these destructive impulses there is another energy calling us to life, and empowering us to love.  I am free and at peace when I can say,  not I can crush you (or manipulate you) or I am better than you, but I can love you, indeed I want to love you; there is nothing you can be or do that could ever stop my loving you.  That is the power of Grace.

In the gospel today, Mary got the message: Do not be afraid.  What a wonderful reassurance.  On the strength of it, the fear-less Mary could face anything.  With no clear knowledge of what her future held, she was able to say: Let what you have said be done to me.  Whatever it might be, let it be done to me.

The depth of our celebration of Christmas depends to a large extent on our own hearing the reassuring message: Do not be afraid.  We don’t have to be more powerful, more resourceful, more secure, more popular, more stunning than anyone.  Enough to be ourselves, to know we’re loved, loved by God.  The energy of grace is immensely more powerful than the power of sin.  There is no need to fear: Do not be afraid.  Nothing, no one, can overwhelm the power of love.

The child of the pregnant Mary was born in due course.  It’s what we celebrate at Christmas.  Later on they humiliated him; they degraded him; they tortured and killed him.  But they couldn’t overwhelm the irresistible power of love.  Nor need any evil abroad in our world overwhelm us.  Grace is there, too.  Confident of that, we are able to say with the fear-less Mary: Let what you have said be done to us.  It’s what we celebrate at every Mass.