Abbot Brendan
When I was growing up my family used to visit our relations in the lead up to Christmas every year. We would all pile into the car and head off together. My abiding memory of those journeys are road works. Clare County Council seemed to specialise in December road works. I remember thinking to myself, when this road is finally finished it will be just great. However, it was never finished. Once they repaired one section, another section needed attention. I mention this because John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way. Not a physical road, but a way nonetheless. Today is Gaudete Sunday, meaning rejoice and John the Baptist is the saint of joy – for even in his mother’s womb he leapt for joy. This joyous servant is the one who prepares the way; how does he do this?
John is a most unusual character. I’m not talking about his funny clothes, or the fact that he lived on a diet of locusts and wild honey, or that he was a spiritual road mender. He is unusual, even remarkable, for another reason. John didn’t mind taking second place. He had no problem giving up the limelight. He didn’t have a jealous bone in his body and that is so very unusual.
If we’re honest most of us do not appreciate competition, but John actually encouraged his disciples to leave him for Jesus. When people came, ready to honour John as the messiah, he set them straight. He insisted that he was not the star of the show, only a supporting actor. To use John’s own example, he was like the best man at a wedding. “My joy is now full (he said). He must increase and I must decrease.”
The Baptist was joyful because he was content to be who he was created to be – one who prepares the way. He calls us to conversion, to become who God created us to be. Most of us, at one time or another, battle a nagging sense inadequacy. We feel we are just not measuring up, mostly to expectations other people have set for us. We become preoccupied with ourselves, seeing others as competitors. Human history is full of tragic examples of this and in our own day we do not have to look very far before we find striking examples of this foolish pride. Even the ancient Greeks knew that hubris or pride was the root of tragedy. John the Baptist chose a different way and it is of him that it was said – a greater has not been seen!
Trying to measure up to the expectations of others is an exhausting enterprise. Freed from the blinding compulsion to dominate allows us to become the person God created, a masterpiece. Even in his prison cell John the Baptist was more interested in hearing about Jesus and what he was doing, than dwelling on his own situation, desperate as it was. What would happen if there were more people like John the Baptist in the world? What would become of the war in Ukraine if the desire to dominate evaporated? What would become of the housing crisis, poverty, global inequality? What would happen if I became more like this? What would happen if I were simply content to say, “He must increase and I must decrease”. What indeed! This is how to prepare the way for a better world. This is how to build a spiritual road, which will not need constant patching year on year because it is established on something, which is true. This is how to prepare the way for a real encounter with the Lord in the mystery of the Nativity. This is the invitation, what is your answer?