Catholic Community of Jeffersonville St. Augustine
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Catholic Community of Jeffersonville St. Augustine & Sacred Heart

Homily
by
Father Thomas E. Clegg

3 Sunday Advent C       St. Augustine/Sacred Heart                       2009

Zephaniah 3:14-18a                Philippians 4:4-7                Luke 3:10-18

This season of Advent is now three weeks old.

  Three candles are burning on our Advent wreath,

    Including now the pink one that tells us Advent is more than half over,

       We are well on our way to the coming of the celebration

           of the birth of Christ.

You know, as we celebrate Advent, it really is a momentous occasion.

   To celebrate that the Almighty, all-powerful God would pay a visit to us,

      To say that the great and powerful God

         would become a lowly human being,

It almost boggles the mind to think about it.

Our Gospel reading tells of the response of a people who had just heard

 that very same message from John the Baptist for the first time.

And it seems to me that their response was right on target:

     They asked: What ought we to do?

In other words, they realize that if God is to pay them a visit,

   If they are to have the all powerful almighty God in their midst,

      It requires something of them.

And so they ask: What ought we to do?

And the amazing thing in this story is the simplicity of John’s answer.

He doesn’t tell them to prepare to do great things;

   He doesn’t tell them to alter their lives in great ways.

He says to them: let the one among you with two coats,

      give to the one who has none.

  He tells them to share from their abundance.

He tells them the same thing many of you

    told your children when they were little:

If you have two pieces of candy and your friend has none,

    share what you have.

Nothing too great or too profound in that. 

And then he tells the tax collectors:

   be fair; don’t cheat. Treat people honestly.

   Once again, the lessons you taught your children

      and grandchildren, nieces and nephews,

        are the same lessons John teaches us in our Gospel today.

Next came the soldiers and John tells them.

   Do your job, but don’t bully anyone.

      Don’t accuse someone who is innocent. Don’t cry about your pay.

Once again, the very same things

   that parents have been teaching their children for generations,

      John teaches those first potential disciples.

My friends, one of the greatest misconceptions of Christian Holiness,

    of Christian Sanctity,

      is the misconception that you have to do great things to be saintly,

          to be holy.

If we were to ask John the Baptist,

   What ought we to do today?

He would no doubt speak to us about our jobs and our families.

 He would tell us to be content with what we have, not always wanting more.

    He would tell us to be generous with what we have, share it with others.

And I believe he would tell us that each of us has a sacred responsibility

   not to change the world,

      but to make sure that our part of it has integrity and character.

And we do that best by listening to John the Baptists

  and our parents who tell us:

    Be fair, honest, content, and share what you have,

       As we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our savior Jesus Christ.    

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Catholic Community of Sacred Heart | 1840 East Eighth Street, Jeffersonville, Indiana | 47130
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