4th Sunday of Advent 23.12.07 Enabling others
When someone wins an award he will make a speech thanking everyone who has made this award possible. He might thank his parents, his wife, his colleagues, his coach/teacher etc.
These people have all contributed something to his success. He is the shining light; they provided the platform for the light.
We prepare to celebrate the coming of Christ at Christmas. He is the shining light, but others have helped Him to come, through their own humble and faithful contribution.
John the Baptist paved the way for Him (just before His public life).
Our Lady enabled Him to be born, and St Joseph in his turn enabled her to perform her role.
This was Our Lord’s ‘team’ that He would wish to thank for making possible what He went on to achieve.
So we also are part of His team. Each of us has an irreplaceable role in the scheme of things, something which only ‘I’ can do. We may not be on the same scale as the great saints, but still we are needed. If an aeroplane needs wings to fly, it also needs nuts and bolts to keep the wings attached. If you are just the screw holding something else in place you are essential to the whole operation.
Maybe as our life unfolds the best contribution we make will be to enable someone else to make a bigger contribution.
St Monica is a saint in her own right, but what she is best known for is that she brought about the conversion of her son, St Augustine.
Her greatness lay in bringing forth someone greater (just as for St John the Baptist).
It could be your children, but it could be anyone that you have helped to develop or discover a hidden talent, or overcome a certain weakness. It could be an unknown word or prayer or example that has a flow-on effect.
In the Stations of the Cross, the eighth station is: ‘Jesus speaks to the women of Jerusalem’. Our Lord told the women to weep for their children, by way of inducing repentance. I think of the many mothers who come into churches to pray for their wayward children – those prayers do make a difference and many a ‘child’ becomes a fervent disciple as a result.
A lot of that prayer is performed in obscurity, non-recognition. No one knows the mother is praying, nor for whom, yet eventually the prayer hits home.
So we proceed, not just mothers, but all of us can contribute the enabling of others to find their true place in the Church, and in the scheme of salvation.
We might wish for a more spectacular role, one that will bring recognition and even fame.
But humility is the keynote of Christmas, and we are told repeatedly the humble are pleasing to God.
As we contemplate the Crib at Bethlehem we feel this is not a time for self-assertion, but for stepping aside. It is a time for good will to all men.
The good we wish on others is not just physical health or prosperity, but the ultimate good of being in union with God, and developing to the full the gifts with which God has endowed them.
What we yield in humility we gain from the benefit of the other’s growth. St John the Baptist benefited from the life and death of Jesus Christ. If John had tried to grab the glory for himself where would it have ended?
But because he made himself less, we regard him as great, and so for all the saints.
If we are to assess our lives, either looking back on what has been or looking forward to what is coming – what have we contributed? How many awards have we won? No, that is not the place to look. The real value is hard to determine and may not even be known to us, but the principle is clear: have we been humble enough and faithful enough to enable God’s will to be achieved in others (and in the process, ourselves)?
