Waiting in Action - Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon

0:00 Peace be with you. Friends, we come to this third Sunday of Advent called Gaudete Sunday. That's an imperative in Latin meaning rejoice. It's a command to rejoice. You know what strikes me about the readings this week and this year is they're really good at helping us understand what to do while we wait. I talked a couple weeks ago about the spirituality of waiting, which is part of Christian life. Our entire life, in a way, is waiting. Come, Lord Jesus. We're waiting for him to come back. Well, you say, all right, that's just sort of a passive stance. No, is the short answer. There's a lot to do while we wait. And the readings illuminate that in different ways. I want to begin with a second reading from the letter of James, which is one of my favorites in the New Testament. It's full of very practical wisdom, very quotable, very memorable. He had a great eye for the striking image.

0:58 Well, listen now to this text as it begins. Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. Okay, so that's all of us all the time. We're waiting. So be patient. Here's a comparison now. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and late rains. Some translations have the spring and winter rains. I don't know about you, but for me, the worst kind of weather is cold rain. You know, look, I'm from the Midwest. I'm used to snow, and a snowstorm is kind of interesting, if you're not in a car while it's happening. And then the wake of a snowstorm, you know, when it gets real cold, but usually it's bright blue sky and the sun's out and the white snow, and it's, you know, quite striking, really.

1:55 Spring weather can be lovely. Summer weather is great. Fall weather, terrific. The worst weather, in my opinion, would be, let's say, late November, and it's about 37 degrees, and it's raining. It's like a summer rain can be refreshing, But a winter rain, for me, that's the worst kind of weather. Okay, now put this in a spiritual order. When do we experience winter rains? Times of enormous failure.

2:32 Times of moral failure, times of great sin in our lives. Times of sickness. I mean, of course, in my pastoral ministry, I'm always dealing with people who are struggling with sickness, people in the hospital, recovering from surgery, getting bad news from the doctor. That kind of suffering is like winter rain. The loss of a loved one, nothing is worse, right? Nothing is worse. Nothing is more like winter rain than that.

3:04 So what's the comparison that James gives us? don't just see these things as dumb suffering. So while we're waiting for the coming of the Lord, these awful things happen to us. And everybody listening to me right now, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Unless if you're beyond the age of five, you know what I'm talking about. We all endure these really dark, painful moments, the worst kind of weather. But see, James is compelling us not to see these times as just dumb suffering, but rather as the farmer does. Now, I'm from outside Chicago, but the suburbs. I didn't know much about farms. But now in my diocese, I'm surrounded by farms and farmers. And I've had the privilege of visiting some farms and coming to know farmers better. And farmers are extraordinary people because they're very close to the earth and the rhythms of nature.

4:01 But also they live in dependence upon the weather in a way that most people don't. I mean, you plant your crop, and then you're hoping for the right rhythm of sun and rain and so on. So I can be experiencing in my house these winter rains are coming, these late-season rains, and it's just miserable, and I've got to run to the car, and I just hate it. But a farmer, he's saying, great, great. I'm delighted we're getting all this rain because this is going to be really helpful for my crop. Be patient, James says, as the farmer is patient while he receives the winter and spring rains. Why? Because he's waiting for the precious fruit of the earth. See, what are these moments of great suffering? Can we read them as preparations for the reception of Christ in our lives?

5:00 ways the Holy Spirit is preparing us to receive the Lord when he comes. The turning over of the soil of our hearts so as to receive the gift of grace. What Fulcine said is sometimes the Lord has to break a heart in order to get into it. Well, I think a lot of people know what that's like. It's like the winter rain that makes the growth of the crop possible. So while we wait, while we're patient, we're aware that the Lord is mysteriously at work, even in the suffering we go through. Okay, so there's the first great image from James, but there's more to it. He says, you too must be patient. Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand. Now, heart, it's a great word in the Bible.

5:57 They didn't think in terms of body and soul. That's more Greek language. But heart is a very biblical term. And it comes up into the great tradition, of course. Think of John Henry Newman, his motto, corps ad corps loquitur, heart speaks to heart. It's this gesture I just did here. I'm gesturing toward the organ in my chest, the heart. But it means the deepest center, the ground and organizing principle of the whole of my life. So mind and passions and body and feelings and sentiments and all the things that make me up. But somehow there's a center to all of that. There's my heart of hearts, we'll say. And what's the heart? Ultimately, it's what's ordering me to God. That's why Augustine says, Lord, you made us for yourself, but our heart is restless till it rests in thee.

6:56 There's the idea that the center of me wants God ultimately. And it's trying to order the whole of me toward God, if that makes sense. And so what's the recommendation here? Make your hearts firm as you wait. See, what happens, everybody? we're waiting for the coming of the Lord, meaning we're waiting for what's going to fulfill us ultimately. And it's hard. I get it. It's hard. That's why we're restless in this life. Nothing in this world satisfies us ultimately. Everything is evanescent. Everything comes and goes. Our feelings rise and fall. They come and go. Our bodies develop and then they deteriorate. I mean, that's just what life is like.

7:47 While we're waiting amidst all of this fluctuation, keep your heart firm. That's really, really good advice. So even as you age and even as you get weaker and even as you endure failure and even as things come and go, your heart is focused on the Lord. Think here of Teresa of Avila's great image of the interior castle. It's really good, isn't it? The castle. It's a keep. It's a fortress. It's a place of safety. And it's in the heart. It's the interior castle. So even as things are coming and going and battles raging around you, you're safe in this interior castle. Keep it firm. Now, how do you do that?

8:41 It's a great Advent theme now. Prayer above all. You know, don't just think, I'm going to piously mutter my prayers. I mean, that might be a propedeutic to real prayer. Prayer is this raising of the mind and the heart to God. That's John of Damascus. It's keeping the heart fixed upon God in season and out. It's really, really good Advent advice. Okay, and here's the third thing from James I love. He then says, Do not complain, brothers and sisters, about one another, that you may not be judged. Look, I'm a sinner. You're a sinner. Everyone who lives to me is a sinner. So we know what this is about. This is, okay, I'm waiting for the Lord. I'm not fulfilled.

9:34 Nothing in this world will fulfill me. Everything ultimately is kind of frustrating to me. I know, that's life. I get it. That's what life is like. Even the best moments, well, they come and they go. All right, all right. So what's the danger? The danger is in the midst of that frustration, I start looking around.

9:57 How come she's getting so much credit? I'm better than she is. That guy? You're giving that job to that guy? I mean, I'm much better than he is. Why is he getting favored over there? And they're ignoring me. what happens into all of us sinners is we kind of lose sight of where we're going of what God wants following God's will and so then we look around now go right back if you want to Cain and Abel see the Bible knew all about this the Bible knows about it all from Genesis to Revelation but it begins Cain and Abel is when they lose sight of God accepted you know We accepted Abel's sacrifice. How can we accept my sacrifice? And it leads to this jealousy to the point of murder.

10:47 Welcome to the dynamics of human life. Read any book of history. You're going to see something like this. So what's James telling us? Don't complain about each other. Get over it. It's a waste of time spiritually. Keep your eyes, your heart fixed on the Lord. keep waiting for the Lord, and don't look around at everybody else. Remember, I think I've told this, in Dante's Divine Comedy, the envious on Mount Purgatory have their eyelids sewn shut. And it's the way in the Middle Ages a falconer would have sewn the eyelids of the falcon shut. It's a great image, isn't it? Because that's what envious people do. We look around, look around. Stop looking around. Keep the eyes of your heart fixed on the Lord, see? And don't play that game.

11:41 I love this too, finally. He says, take an example of hardship and patience. Take as an example of hardship and patience the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. The author James knows perfectly well all the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Saul, Samuel, David, Solomon, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel. I don't know any exception to this rule. Every one of them endured hardships. There's not one figure in the Old Testament or New Testament that didn't endure some terrible hardship. It's just kind of written into the structure of our finite and fallen existence. What do we notice in them? What do we admire in them? Their patience under trial. Now, go from the biblical patriarchs to all the saints.

12:35 Give me an example. You can't find one, trust me, of a saint who didn't go through some trial, some difficulty, and who found their sanctity precisely in their patience through suffering. Look at the Bible, look at the great saints, and take courage and direction from the way they handled hardship. Can I give you just one more as I'm running out of time? and I want to look just briefly at the first reading from Isaiah. And he's waiting for the Lord to come, and the step will flower, and this great day is coming. But what do we do while we're waiting? He says, strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak. What I love here, and I'll close with it, is never ever think of this waiting as some dumbly passive thing. I'm just waiting, just waiting.

13:28 No, no, no. It's an active waiting. It's an anticipation. So think of the hands and the legs, and you're ready for action. Your expectation of the Lord doesn't make you passive. It draws you up out of yourself in an active anticipation. Just think, the saints, would it ever occur to you that Thomas Aquinas or Francis of Assisi or Therese of Lisieux or John Paul II were not energetic. On the contrary, their powers and energies were strengthened and awakened precisely by their expectation of the Lord. So wait with this active, joyful anticipation. So take a look, everybody, at these readings, and you get a really good sense of what to do while you wait.

14:23 And God bless you.