Today's readings: Zephaniah 3, 14-18; Philippians 4, 4-7; Luke 3, 10-18.
Over the past few days, Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, Archbishop of Milan, has been ridiculed and attacked by the extreme right of Italy's political divide because, they say, he is talking too much about solidarity. He had also spoken of what he calls 'the politics of image', which hides the true problems people are facing every day.
What is surprising in this is that the same people who are attacking the Archbishop were recently publicly defending the right to affix crucifixes in school classrooms. Probably, for them, Jesus crucified is only the symbol of a civil religion. We need to reimagine the ways in which Christian faith illuminates the world.
John the Baptist's flight to the desert as depicted in the Gospels may be taken as a withdrawal into solitude. Yet we read in today's Gospel how people were coming to him concerned with the relevance of his message to their lives. The Baptist's radical action of fleeing from the world is a variation on the rich biblical themes of wilderness and desert. He withdrew to the desert, but his message was not about a disincarnate Christianity.
The role of the last among the prophets was indeed to prepare a people ready for the Lord. Luke, at such an early stage of his Gospel, already refers to he who baptises with spirit and fire, a clear reference to Pentecost, the new beginning.
The new beginning comes about in concrete acion, because what we believe in as Christians is not just a supernatural power regarded as creator and governor of the universe. Today's Gospel is dominated by the question: "What must we do?" In his admonitions to the crowd, John warns of God's visitation, and in responding to the people's queries about concrete action and commitment, he is inspired by an acute sense of justice.
If there is no justice, we cannot speak of a heart or people ready for the Lord. Justice is part and parcel of preaching the Good News. There cannot be one without the other, even if this is not always the underlying characteristic of our ways of translating faith into action.
Religion in the 20th century has ceased to altogether integrate public life. The aggressive secularism of our times is posing a more serious challenge to Christianity than the anti-theism of the past.
Our vision of society has become fragmented. For religious life to continue in a secular society it is essential for it to originate from the self, in terms of a response to a precise call, not derived from inherited habits or from social pressure.
We could easily end up projecting a caricature of Christ and of Christianity if justice is not the motif of all we do. What's the use of lighting up Christmas trees and inaugurating cribs and defending the right to retain Christian symbols in public but then not consider the very basic needs of a growing majority in our societies?
It's relatively easy to speak in generic terms of issues of justice. But that can be just rhetoric. Prophecy is not rhetoric. Prophecy goes deeper than words.
If profit continues to come before people while we lament about the new forms of poverty emerging in our society, then we are just in a vicious circle with nothing to look forward to. "Israel, shout loud", says Zephaniah in the first reading. Shout loud because the Lord "has driven your enemies away" and "you have no more evil to fear". That's how Zephaniah saw the messianic future. It was a bright one. Ours is still a fearful one; in fact, we prefer not to speak about it.
Traditionally, this third Sunday of Advent is known as the laetare Sunday, the proclamation of joy to the world. As long as our joy is not rooted in justice, it will always be a joy that is fabricated, hence temporary, even fictitious, resting on what is trivial and what fades away as Christmas passes.