ADVENT Gospel for Friday, December 13 Third Week of Advent
Matt 11:16-19
To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children who sit in marketplaces and call to one another, 17 ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.’ 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is vindicated by her works.”
REFLECTION
Why this Gospel during this season of Advent? Perhaps by giving us these words of Jesus, the Church reminds us that Jesus will be all things to all people. You will find Him in the dancing and the mourning, in the letting go and in the confining, in the freedom and in the discipline, in the quiet and the proclamation. In this truth, He is often hard to find at all when we place our own parameters on who or what He might be.
Perhaps once again this Advent, humility may play its part. When we become like a child, freely accepting all things and imposing no limits on all possibilities, we are free to see Jesus in everyone, everything, and every situation.
This Advent let’s pray for the humbleness to see Jesus in all things. Especially, in our families, in our day to day routines and in those small ubiquitous things that up until now have hidden their sacredness from us.
In the last line of today’s Gospel Jesus reminds us that wisdom takes its time to reveal itself. Indeed, wisdom does not reveal itself in one quick look or one quick thought. Humility is not a knife-like tool. It is more like sandpaper. With time and patient effort, the beauty in the wood is revealed.