JOYFUL LIVES: LESS PROSE, MORE POETRY
Responsorial Psalm:
“Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.” Is 12:6
Gospel
“The crowds asked John the Baptist,
‘What should we do?’
He said to them in reply,
‘Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none.
And whoever has food should do likewise.
. . . Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.
. . . Do not practice extortion,
do not falsely accuse anyone,
and be satisfied with your wages.’”
“Now the people were asking whether John might be the Christ.
John answered them, saying,
‘I am baptizing you with water,
but one mightier than I is coming. . . .
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.’
“His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor
and to gather the wheat into his barn,
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Exhorting them in many other ways,
he preached good news to the people.’” Luke 3: 10-18
WE ARE A JOY – FILLED PEOPLE
The joy that fills us is the joy of the Holy Spirit – the joy-filled love shared by the Father and the Son. Jesus sent and asked us to receive that Spirit, that intense, joyful love, the same love shared by Him and the Father.
BEYOND THE BAPTIST’S REPENTANCE TO CHRIST’S “HOLY SPIRIT AND FIRE”
Interestingly, this Gospel passage begins with John the Baptist’s message of repentance, advising us to stop our spiritually unhealthy practices and do good deeds, but then it ends with saying that this gets us only to John’s baptizing with water – the “prose” of life (?) – necessary but limited in scope and potential. The “One to Come”, will baptize us with the “Holy Spirit and fire”, – Holy Spirit: joy-filled love; fire: passion, enthusiasm, purpose – – the “poetry” of life – the joy which is the inner life of God.
PROSE – LENGTHY, BLOCKY PARAGRAPHS FILLING THE PAGE; POETRY – MUCH OF THE PAGE BLANK, LEAVING ROOM FOR THE SPIRIT OF GOD TO ENTER.
Could it be that, before Jesus (and, maybe, even now), humanity too often saw the living of one’s life as mostly prose: seeing things, doing things from a prosaic mindset, filled with lengthy, blocky paragraphs that fill the page – far from the more poetic mindset that purposely leaves much of the page blank, ready to receive loftier thoughts and sentiments? A Trinitarian God does seem to be a bit loftier, more poetic in nature. John says the “One to Come”, will baptize us with the “Holy Spirit and fire”, – Holy Spirit: joy-filled love; fire: passion, enthusiasm, purpose – – the “poetry” of life – the joy which is the life of God.
Jesus has come. We have been baptized into the “poetry” of life. What difference is that making in our everyday lives?
John continues:
He who is to come “’will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor
and to gather the wheat into his barn,
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’
Exhorting them in many other ways,
he preached good news to the people.” Luke 3: 16-18 (See Note below.)
Having been baptized into Jesus, having accepted the “Holy Spirit and fire”:
Spirit: joy-filled love;
fire: passion, enthusiasm, purpose
“poetry” of life: joy-filled love – our true self in the life of God,
Let us allow God’s wind to blow away the chaff that still remains within us so that, like the wheat, we humbly and joyfully may fall onto the more poetry-than-prose grounding of our lives in God. May we see that the offered Eucharistic Celebration gifts, are more than mere bread and wine, symbolizing the accomplishments of our lives, that they and we are becoming the Body and Blood of Christ offered to us and to all the world.
Sister Loretta
Note: The online New American Bible, Revised Edition explanation of the above-referenced grain processing: The discrimination between the good and the bad is compared to the procedure by which a farmer separates wheat and chaff. The winnowing fan was a forklike shovel with which the threshed wheat was thrown into the air. The kernels fell to the ground; the light chaff, blown off by the wind, was gathered and burned up.
A Poetic Hymn
O God the lamp of heaven high
And source of light: Your shining Hand
Unrolls the banner of the sky,
Upholding it above the land.
Dawn, casting up a crimson tide,
Has veiled the stars that saw its rise;
The morning breezes, far and wide,
With dewy breath the earth baptize.
The darkness from the sky has gone
As nightly shadows pass away;
The morning star, sign of the Son,
Arising, wakes the sleepy day.
O God, O radiance wonderful,
Most glorious day and fairest light:
One God, in all things powerful,
Three Persons, matchless in one might!
To you, our Savior, brightest, best,
On bended knee our prayer we raise;
To Father and to Spirit blest,
With all our pow’r, we offer praise. Amen.
“O God the Lamp of Heaven High” by Kathleen Lundquist • • Available for Purchase • Title: O God the Lamp of Heaven High; Text: Deus qui caeli lumen es, 5th-6th c.; Tr. © Thomas Buffer. Used with permission.; Tune: Chant, Mode IV; Lumen Christi Hymnal; Artist: Kathleen Lundquist; Recording copyright 2016 by Surgeworks, Inc. • Albums that contain this Hymn: Hymns and Chants of Divine Office, Vol. 1