A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy

 

 

BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 9, n. 3)

3rdSunday of Advent, Year A – December 12, 2010 *

 

“Healing Joy”

 

BIBLE READINGS

Is 35:1-6a, 10 // Jas 5:7-10 // Mt 11:2-11

 

 

 

(N.B. Series 9 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year A from the perspective of the Second Reading. For reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year C based on the Gospel reading, please scroll up to the “ARCHIVES” above and open Series 3. For reflections based on the Old Testament reading, open Series 6.)

 

 

I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS

 

Today is Gaudete (“Let us rejoice”) Sunday. We thank God for his gift of “healing joy”. The prophet Isaiah depicts the joyful advent of the Lord as a healing, transforming event that affects creation and humankind. The healing of the dry land and the blooming of the desert express the newness and glory that the advent of God would bring. Moreover, the promised Messiah would be a messenger of Good News and a joy-bearer. His is a ministry of the healing of ills and the confirming of blessing. He would heal human infirmities and bring forth “miracles of life”.

 

In this Advent season of grace, we are being asked to focus on the messianic signs of healing and goodness that surround us. The Advent liturgy invites us to open our hearts to the “miracles of life” wrought by Jesus Christ, which confirmed to John the Baptist that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed “the one who is to come”.  The healing works and saving deeds of Jesus are actions of life. They transcend time and space. They give us great comfort and joy and enable us to experience an exquisite flowering in the desert of our soul if only we are open to grace.

 

As people of Advent expectation, we are called to be sensitive to the mystery of the “healing joy” and to be efficacious bearers of Christian joy. Experiences of “healing joy” continue to be felt in today’s world as the archaeologist-scientist Sal Trento would testify. Sal narrates of a mysterious visit he received on a Christmas Eve when he lay near death in a hospital bed after a terrible car accident. He was feeling trapped in a broken body and trapped by his regrets about the past, when a mysterious elderly lady with intense blue eyes entered his room in the ICU to hold his hand and pray for him. Sal writes: “What I felt now was something very certain and very real: joy. Thank you, Lord, I hear myself say. The words reverberated through me like a kind of healing.” The medical staff was aghast at Sal Trento’s miraculous recovery. The mysterious kindly lady who radiated great calm and kindness brought to him the gift of healing. Sal would forever remember that Christmas Eve when he experienced that he would never again feel alone … when all is joy.

 

This Sunday’s Second Reading (Jas 5:7-10) gives deeper insight into the mystery of Advent. The Lord’s coming is likened to the “precious fruit of the earth” patiently awaited by the farmer. The mystery of the Lord’s coming, with its fruit of “healing joy”, unfolds slowly and progressively in the vast field of salvation history. As the farmer patiently waits for the autumn and spring rains and the precious crops that the watered earth would bring, so too we must keep our hopes high and be patient till the Lord is come.

 

The patience of Christian disciples as they wait for the Lord’s Advent has remarkable qualities. Harold Buetow remarks: “It is a patience that does not lose hope, no matter how hard the situation: a patience that is strong and at the same time gentle. It is a patience that is not supine and passive, but active. It is a patience that manifests a quiet, everyday sort of strength.”

 

The patient waiting of a farmer for the rains and the fruits of the earth does not mean inactivity, complacency or lack of initiative. The farmer tills the soil, sows the seeds, pulls the weeds, etc. He must labor; otherwise there is no harvest. God does his part; we must do ours. Like the hard-working farmer, we too must toil patiently and zealously to promote the advent of God’s kingdom on earth.

 

The following inspiring article from our local newspaper warmed my heart and made me joyful (cf. Linda Zavoral, “Back in Bloom” in SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, August 12, 2010, p.1, 8), especially since it deals with a neighborhood garden close to our convent here in San Jose. The transformed garden underlines the importance of patient toil and human endeavor. The “healing” of the neglected San Jose rose garden gives us a glimpse on how to labor patiently, creatively and fruitfully as a community for the advent of God’s kingdom.

 

Hey, Portland and Pasadena! There’s a new queen of roses. Just a few years after being put on horticultural probation, the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden has not only salvaged its reputation but will be named today as “America’s Best Rose Garden”, beating out more than 130 public rose gardens nationwide. In the process, it’s become a model for how to care for a community garden at a time of declining government and park budgets. (…)

 

All-America Selections, which also accredits gardens, put the disheveled San Jose garden on probation in 2005 and then noted its transformation by lifting the probation status in 2008.

 

“The amazing work that the Friends of San Jose Rose Garden, the volunteers and park staff have done to turn the garden around is truly wonderful”, said Henry Conklin, the Arizona-based president of All-America Rose Selections. “Their spirit, creativity and love of roses is emblematic of why the America’s Best Rose garden competition was created.”

 

News of the award, which will be announced officially today, thrilled flower enthusiasts and civic leaders alike. “I’m just ecstatic that we’ve gone from a park that was on probation – and frankly with weeds taller than I am – to the No. 1 rose garden in the U.S.”, said San Jose Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio, whose district includes the rose garden. (…)

 

In 2007, Oliverio suggested that the city outsource its garden maintenance to a private contractor – a failed proposal that upset union workers and ignited volunteer efforts by local rose enthusiasts Terry Reilly and Beverly Rose Hopper. They co-founded the Friends of the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden. Oliverio said Wednesday evening that both the volunteers and city staffers deserve the credit for the transformation. The key, Reilly said, was in getting people to understand how passionate gardeners are about their hobby and then channeling that interest. “Some people hike (for recreation). Some bike. They walk their dogs. Some like to garden, pull weeds and pick roses.”

 

Volunteers now average a total of 150 hours a week and thousands of hours since the group was formed in 2007. To assuage city fears about just anybody stopping by to prune or weed, the group trains volunteers and issues official vests to those who pass muster. It’s not unusual to see a vested volunteer or two or three toiling just after 8 a.m., when the garden opens, or at dusk, close to closing time, Reilly said … “This award is a fabulous demonstration of how important volunteers are to our community”, Hopper said. “They’re priceless, really.”

 

Now other gardens around the country are looking to replicate San Jose’s success with volunteers. Reilly and Hopper have been approached for advice by the people who run Sacramento’s McKinley Park Rose Garden, the Morcom Rose Garden in Oakland and an 800-plant garden, the Walnut Hill Park Rose Garden that opened this year in New Britain, Connecticut.

 

Kate McCue, the Connecticut project coordinator, proposed resurrecting a 1929 rose garden that had thrived until city budget cuts in the 1980s left it to grow wild. It was ultimately plowed under. The city said the restoration was OK – if McCue and her Friends group could raise private money and handle garden maintenance. “I modeled it after the volunteer project that San Jose has run so successfully”, McCue said. “We’ve modeled everything – the training, the supervised hours, the parties. It’s worked so well here. I’ve made no secret of the fact that San Jose has been one of the critical advisers in the success of our garden.”

 

 

II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART

 

  1. What feelings does a “blooming desert” evoke in you? How does the image of various “healings” in Isaiah’s prophecy impact you?

 

  1. Do you yearn for the “advent” of Jesus in your personal life? Are you ready to welcome him and be an instrument in his ministry of the healing of ills and the confirming of blessing?

 

  1. Is your Advent expectation marked with steadfast patience and creative toil? Do you open yourself to the thrill of “healing joy”? Do you endeavor to be instruments of Christ’s gift of “healing joy”?

 

 

III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD

 

Leader: Loving God,

the promise of “blooming desert”

makes us thrill with joy.

The vision of abundant flowers

inspires us to sing a new song.

The image of the eyes of the blind being opened,

the ears of the deaf being cleared,

the lame leaping like a stag

and the mute able to sing

fills us with consolation.

We exult and rejoice.

The messianic age has come!

We welcome the advent of Christ.

We thank you for the “healing joy” he brings.

Jesus Christ comes with saving grace

even in difficult moments of our life.

As Christian disciples, we look forward to the end time.

Help us to be steadfast and patient,

like fruits ripening for the “final harvest”

at the Lord’s glorious coming.

In this ad interim time of waiting,

teach us to labor zealously and toil patiently

that we may hasten the advent

of your kingdom of justice and peace.

We are a people of Advent expectation.

We assume the yearnings of the suffering people.

With them we proclaim,

“Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus, our healing joy!”

 

Assembly: “Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus, our healing joy!”

 

 

 

IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD           

 

The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.

 

 “Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord.” (cf. Jas 5:7a)

 

 

V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION

 

  1. ACTION PLAN: Pray that the spirit of patient toil may animate today’s people of Advent expectation. By your acts of charity, justice and compassion, enable others to diffuse the Lord’s gift of “healing joy” and promote the reign of God’s kingdom in today’s world.

 

  1. ACTION PLAN: That we may experience more intensely the advent of Christ our “healing joy” and be filled with power to spread the Gospel, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR: A Weekly Pastoral Tool (Year A, vol. 7, # 3).

 

Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang  PDDM

 

 

PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI

SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER

60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314

Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323

Website: WWW.PDDM.US

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