FREEPORT — Advent should be a time of “creative waiting and preparation,” according to Bishop Robert Guglielmone, and Catholics can look to John the Baptist, Mary, and Joseph as guides.
Bishop Guglielmone, of the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina, spoke of this during an Advent Night of Recollection at Our Holy Redeemer Church here Dec. 6, a celebration that included evening prayer, Eucharistic adoration and benediction. Bishop Guglielmone resided at the parish while serving as director of priest personnel for the Diocese of Rockville Centre.
“Preparing and waiting. Those are the words that we hear over and over during this Advent season,” the bishop noted during his homily. “We prepare for the coming of the Lord, not 2,000 years ago, but now. We prepare and wait and somehow open ourselves up to the possibility that Jesus will visit us individually and somehow be born through us individually. But then how do we wait and how do we prepare? Do we sit and wait?”
Bishop Guglielmone offered a “focus on some people who will help us come to an understanding of what this preparation and waiting might be all about” — John the Baptist, Mary, and Joseph. “In one way or another in each of them, they carried the very spirit of God in doing the task that God asked of them to prepare for the Messiah.”
“Creative waiting means we have to go deeper and deeper into conversion, deeper and deeper into intimacy,” he noted. “If we permit Jesus to live within us, we become His hands, His heart, His voice. If we truly allow Jesus to live within us, we can build the city of God here on earth.”
Like John the Baptist, “you have to change your life,” he said. “Don’t sit back and wait for God to do something. John has every distraction removed” by going out into the desert. “We too are called to the desert, to empty ourselves so that God’s word can fill us up.”
As for Joseph, “we know so little about him,” the bishop continued. “There isn’t one word that Joseph speaks in the Scriptures. However, if we look at his actions, we can come to know him. His preaching is by example. Integrity, honesty, strength of character — those are what make somebody a man. Faith is not simply belief. It is belief plus action. My faith is supposed to affect the way I live. Like Joseph, let us put our belief into action.”
The Blessed Mother can also guide us, he noted. “Her yes involved many sacrifices, but there’s one overriding aspect of Mary that we must understand. Mary spoke her yes on behalf of every one of us, the entire human race. She’s the new Eve, not only the mother of God, but the mother of us all. In her, divinity and humanity become one in Jesus, the Word of God made flesh. She reveals the true mission and message of the Church, to bring forth the Word made flesh to the world.”
“It never leads her at any time to a sense of arrogance or pride,” Bishop Guglielmone said. “She remains throughout her life a humble servant of the Lord. In her quiet reflective heart she can hear the voice of God. We find it hard at times to lead reflective lives. Everybody’s talking at us. Can we shut it all out and listen to the one person who really has something to say? Can we use this Advent to listen not only with our ears but with our hearts, to allow the voice of the Lord to speak to us in whatever way we are most receptive and God is most willing to speak to us? For Joseph it was dreams, for Mary it was her reflective spirit. Each of us has a way that we can hear the Lord best, but we have to be open to those possibilities.”
Most Commented