I Want to See!
December 1, 2021
Fr. John Riccardo
My drivers license has a sentence on it that reads, “Needs corrective lenses.” Indeed I do. But not just, or even mainly, for driving. I need them for all of reality. The simple truth is I don’t see things very clearly.
Advent is upon us and this season only highlights my need for corrective lenses. Everywhere I turn there are ads for bargains and enticements to buy the hottest new thing I simply can’t live without. The mood and tone of this season is usually overly sentimental, embodied most strongly perhaps in the Christmas movies that will soon fill our various streaming services.
All of this is in stark contrast to a biblical vision of what this season is all about, and especially, as we draw nearer to Christmas, to understanding why the eternal Son of God became man, born of the Virgin Mary. Soon our mangers will be out, whether in our homes or in our Churches, and the operative question for all of us should be, “Why is He there? Why did He come? What is His mission?”
These questions are all the more important right now, as so many are doing their best to ward off discouragement and finding it challenging to live with hope. With every passing day, as we read and hear the news, evil can seem stronger than good, and things in the world and the Church can appear out of control, and God can appear absent. But these things are not true.
One of the most powerful prescriptions for poor spiritual eyesight is the Word of God. Soaking in His Word is healing, it enables us to see, and especially in this new liturgical year that has begun, to see what exactly we’re celebrating and why it should fill us all with unshakable hope and confidence in God.
Allow me, then, to share a few passages I am pondering at length over these next four weeks, along with an excerpt from one of the early saints on the mission of Jesus. These, I pray, will help restore our sight, so that we can see who God is, what Jesus has done for us, why we should surrender to Him, and why we have no need to be nervous or afraid, no matter how challenging things get. Jesus is Lord, the Stronger One, the Victor, the Conqueror of Sin and Death, the Lover of our souls, God with us! And because of these truths, the angel’s message to the shepherds should ring loudly in our ears too, “Do not be afraid!” (Luke 2:10).
On God’s promise to rescue us from the real enemy, the devil:
“Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? Surely, thus says the Lord: ‘Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued, for I will contend with those who contend with you … Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob” (Is 49:24-26).
One of the most powerful images in the Old Testament, a poetic look back at God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt, but an image that became reality when Mary said yes and the eternal Son of God really did leap down from His royal throne and began to grow in a virgin’s womb to save us from slavery to Sin and Death:
“For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed, a stern warrior” (Wis 18:14-15)
On Jesus making clear He has come to fight for us:
“When a strong man [the devil], fully armed, guards his own palace [this world], his goods [us] are in peace; but when one stronger than he [i.e., Jesus!] assails him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoil” (Lk 11:21-22).
Finally, St. Leo the Great on the rescue mission of Jesus:
“When, therefore, the merciful and almighty Saviour so arranged the commencement of His human course as to hide the power of His Godhead which was inseparable from His manhood under the veil of our weakness, the crafty foe was taken off his guard and he thought that the nativity of the Child, Who was born for the salvation of mankind, was as much subject to himself as all others are at their birth. For he saw Him crying and weeping, he saw Him wrapped in swaddling clothes, subjected to circumcision, offering the sacrifice which the law required. And then he perceived in Him the usual growth of boyhood ... Meanwhile, he inflicted insults, multiplied injuries, made use of curses, affronts, blasphemies, abuse, in a word, poured upon Him all the force of his fury and exhausted all the varieties of trial: and knowing how he had poisoned man’s nature, had no conception that He had no share in the first transgression Whose mortality he had ascertained by so many proofs. The unscrupulous thief and greedy robber persisted in assaulting Him Who had nothing of His own, and in carrying out the general sentence on original sin, went beyond the bond on which he rested, and required the punishment of iniquity from Him in Whom he found no fault. And thus the malevolent terms of the deadly compact are annulled, and through the injustice of an overcharge the whole debt is cancelled. The strong one is bound by his own chains, and every device of the evil one recoils on his own head. When the prince of the world is bound, all that he held in captivity is released. Our nature cleansed from its old contagion regains its honourable estate, death is destroyed by death, nativity is restored by nativity: since at one and the same time redemption does away with slavery, regeneration changes our origin, and faith justifies the sinner” (St. Leo the Great, Sermon 22).
In these holy days that have begun, may the Lord restore our sight with the power of His Word, fill us with hope, and send us into a world riddled with anxiety and fear as joyful heralds of His love, power and mercy.
