10th THURSDAY IN WEEK 2 OF ADVENT

1.Isaiah 41:13-20

Gospel:Matthew 11:7-15

REFLECTIONS AND MEDITATIONS ON THE READINGS

Jesus' testimony to John

In today's gospel we hear Jesus praising St. John the Baptist fully. He calls him greater than any person born so far as His tremendous tribute to the Baptist. However, the praise  is followed by this startling phrase Jesus says of him, " yet the least in the Kingdom  of heaven  is greater than he." Why is this so? this is simply because what was lacking  in John the Baptist was that he missed to Jesus' love for us as He revealed on the Cross. The full depth of God's love was something John could never experience or know. In this sense, we are luckier than John because we and even the least Christians have experienced the Cross of Jesus and able to know God's love more deeply. This is indeed an unmerited gift of God to us.

However, Jesus does not say that we are necessarily better than St. John. Yes we may be more blessed than he is but that will be of little benefit to us if we do not  appreciate the love that God has shown us. The temptation ahead of us is the danger of getting accustomed to our blessings. Like the world traveler who has been everywhere and seen practically everything, we are in danger of taking our blessings for granted and getting so accustomed to them that they fail to excite him as they once did. A proof that we have grown accustomed to our blessings to our blessings is this spirit of criticism and complaining. Instead of thanking God for what we have, we complain about it and tell Him we wish  we have something else. We can be sure that if God does give us what we ask for, we will eventually complain about that. The person who has gotten accustomed to his blessing can never be satisfied.

St. John too calls each one of us to put into action what we confess in words. For him it is not enough that we go to confession and confess our sins to the priest; utter some prayers of our favorite devotions and claim that we are Christians Catholics because we were baptized as such. He wants us to practice charity, to share food  and clothes, to be honest, to be just and incorruptible. This is exactly what Jesus demands of us later on.

Lastly what strikes me of St. John the Baptist is his humility. John, when the people came to him in order to listen to his teaching, did claim that himself was the Messiah, rather he says that he is even unworthy to untie His sandal's straps. He just prepared the way of Jesus. When he saw the Savior, he pointed to Him by saying: " Behold the Lamb of God." and let his followers followed Him. One of them was St. Andrew who became one of the apostles of Jesus.

At the end let us reflect these words from Henri Frederic Amiel who said, " True humility is contentment."