The Baptist Invited to be converted Gospel: Matthew 11:2-11
Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF Claretian Missionaries
Educated by the prophets, Israel has been waiting for the Messiah for centuries. When he came, even the more spiritually prepared and well-disposed persons struggled to recognize and welcome him. Even, the Baptist remained undecided.
In the first part of today’s gospel passage we see that John is imprisoned. Not getting news about exciting interventions from Jesus, the Baptist’s faith begins to waver. How did these perplexities come to him? The answer is quite simple. He has been expecting the “liberator” (Is 61:1), the person in charge of restoring justice and truth in the world. He might not have understood why Jesus did not decide to intervene to release him from prison.
He awaited for a strict judge, a messiah who rails against the wicked. But the fact surprised, no—even disappointed him.
To the messengers of John the Baptist, Jesus presents himself as the Messiah, listing the signs taken from texts of Isaiah (Is 35:5-6; 26:19; 61:1), the prophet of hope, who had predicted, “On that day no one would complain: I am sickly” (Is 33:24).
To the queries, he sent through the messenger, the Baptist is invited to take note of the new realities. The new world has come up: those who have been walking in the dark and have lost the orientation of life now is enlightened by the Gospel. Whoever was crippled and could not move a step towards the Lord and towards their brothers and sisters now can walk quickly. Whoever was deaf to the word of God now listens and lets themselves be guided by it. Whoever regarded themselves miserable and hopeless has begun to listen to the good news: “There is salvation for you as well.” There is no fire here, no scary vengeance.
The Messiah of God has nothing to do with the energetic and severe character that John had expected. His way of doing had scandalized the precursor and continues to shock us even today. There are still some who ask the Lord to intervene to punish the wicked. There are still some who interpret misfortunes as God’s punishment to those who have done evil. But can God be angry or feel pleasure in seeing his children (even if they are bad) suffer?
Jesus ends his answer with a beatitude, the 10th, found in the Gospel of Matthew: “Blessed is he who takes no offense at me.” A sweet invitation to the Baptist to review his theological convictions.
Jesus contradicts all the beliefs that John had. Like us, the Baptist also imagined a mighty God. Finding himself weak, he expected sensational interventions. However, the events continued to unfold as if the Messiah had not come.
The Baptist is the figure of a true believer. He flounders in many perplexities, asks questions, but does not deny the Messiah because he does not match his criteria. He calls into question his own beliefs.
Jesus is not worried about who has trouble believing, who feels lost in front of the mystery and puzzles of existence, who says that s/he does not understand the thought and actions of God. He is worried about those who confuse one’s own beliefs with the truth of God, those who have ready answers to all questions, those who have always some dogma to impose, those who never allow themselves to be questioned: such a faith at times borders on fanaticism.
Indebted to Fr. Armellini SCJ for textual analysis
Purging the Evil from Within Gospel: Matthew 3:1-12
Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF Claretian Missionaries
Every year on the second Sunday of Advent, the liturgy offers us the preaching of John the Baptist. He prepared the people of Israel for the coming of the Messiah. So, also today, he teaches us to welcome the advent of the Lord. Today, as then, the most difficult step to take is to understand the need to get out from where we are settled in, leave the false religious and theological security that we have constructed, and welcome the newness of God’s word.
Before we delve into the details of John’s preaching, I would like to draw your attention to the metaphors that are used to refer to John the Baptist. He is referred as “a voice crying out in the wilderness.” Some translations say, “the voice of the one crying out in the wilderness.” This is less accurate when you compare it with the original. Why is someone referred to as a voice? The voice has a fleeting nature. Once something is pronounced, it vanishes and, in the wilderness, it vanishes even without an echo! In those days, we did not have voice recording systems. This indicates the purpose of John. He was there only to announce the coming of the Messiah and vanish from the scene. This is also the mission of every Christian. Like a voice, we need to announce the Messiah to the people and vanish from the scene.
Going back to the mission of John the Baptist, not everyone responded well to the invitation of the Baptist. Not all were willing to work a radical change of heart. The Pharisees and Sadducees, for example, while intrigued by the preaching of John, found it hard to get involved. They did not trust him but preferred to keep their certainties (vv. 7-10). They thought they were already right with God for the fact of being children of Abraham.
The reproach with which the Baptist welcomes Pharisees and Sadducees is severe: “Brood of vipers!” He compares them to snakes that inject their poison of death in those who inadvertently come close to them. Then he moves on to the invective, the announcement of disasters that are about to hit them. They run the risk of being cut off like a tree that does not bear fruit and of being burnt like chaff. We are faced with dramatic images that seem to refute the dream of Isaiah in the first reading.
The tone is threatening, and it is not surprising on the lips of John the Baptist. The preachers of that time expressed themselves that way. This is the language that often appears in the Bible. In the context of the whole gospel, the words of the precursor take on a meaning that goes beyond the immediate. When he spoke of God’s wrath, John had no clear idea of how it would manifest. The wrath of God is an image that recurs often in the Old Testament. It is not intended as an explosion of hatred on the victim. It is an expression of God’s love: he is fighting evil, not the person who does it. He does not want to hit the person but to free each one from sin.
The axe, which cuts the trees at the root, has the same function given by Jesus to the scissors pruning the vine and freeing it from useless branches that deprive it of precious sap and suffocate it (Jn 15:2). The trees uprooted and thrown into the fire are not the people that God always loves as children but the roots of evil that are present in every person and in every structure, and need to be cut to pieces so that the healthy ones can sprout more buds (Mt 3:10).
The cuts are always painful, but those done by God are providential. They create the conditions for new branches to sprout and produce fruits.
The fan, finally, with which the Lord realizes his judgment, is a living image. It describes the way in which God screens the work of every person. In human courts, judges take into account only the errors and pronounce judgment on the basis of the harm done. They take little account of good works. In the judgment of God, the exact opposite happens: he, with the winnowing fan of his word, puts every person under the discerning breath of his Spirit that blows away the chaff and leaves only the precious grains on the threshing floor—the works of love, few or many, that each one had performed.
Indebted to Fr. Fernando Armellini SCJ for parts of the textual analysis
第二個人物是洗者若翰。救主派遣祂來使以色列人做好準備，迎接天主的默西亞；今天，他同樣以兩種方式為我們做好準備：他用自己的話，用自己的一生，幫助我們做好準備。我們不僅在福音經文中聽說他，也歷史書中看到過他。洗者若翰逝世後10年，若瑟·弗拉維烏斯（Josephus Flavius）出生，他向我們證明：這位非凡的人物，在他所處的時代，仍然有著鮮活的形象。在他的著作《猶太古史 (Antiquities of the Jews)》中是這樣描述洗者若翰的：“他是個好人，時常鼓勵猶太人過正直的生活，公平對待彼此，虔誠順從天主，並要接受洗禮。”接著，他非常清楚說明洗者若翰是如何理解他的洗禮，他說，若翰認為：這樣的洗禮不足以赦免罪過，他深信如果心神沒有藉正直的行為得以淨化，那麼，洗禮只是對身體的淨化。
第二个人物是洗者若翰。救主派遣祂来使以色列人做好准备，迎接天主的默西亚；今天，他同样以两种方式为我们做好准备：他用自己的话，用自己的一生，帮助我们做好准备。我们不仅在福音经文中听说他，也历史书中看到过他。洗者若翰逝世后10年，若瑟·弗拉维乌斯（Josephus Flavius）出生，他向我们证明：这位非凡的人物，在他所处的时代，仍然有着鲜活的形象。在他的著作《犹太古史 (Antiquities of the Jews)》中是这样描述洗者若翰的：“他是个好人，时常鼓励犹太人过正直的生活，公平对待彼此，虔诚顺从天主，并要接受洗礼。”接着，他非常清楚说明洗者若翰是如何理解他的洗礼，他说，若翰认为：这样的洗礼不足以赦免罪过，他深信如果心神没有藉正直的行为得以净化，那么，洗礼只是对身体的净化。
The Advent of the Heart: A Meditation on Divine Visitations Gospel: Matthew 24:37-44
Fr Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF Claretian Missionaries
The language of the Gospel, especially its apocalyptic tones, often strikes a dissonant chord within our modern psyche. We either spiral into fearful speculation about a punishing God and a catastrophic end, or we flatten its profound mystery into a mere moralism about the suddenness of physical death. Both interpretations are a flight from the true, transformative power of the Word, born from a misreading of its sacred genre. Let us remember the fundamental key: the Gospel is, by its very nature, Good News. Any interpretation that breeds anxiety instead of hope, fear instead of conversion, or turmoil instead of peace within the soul is a distortion, moving us away from the heart of God, which is love and salvation.
Consider the context. The disciples, enthralled by the grandeur of the temple—a symbol of religious, political, and emotional security—are jolted by Jesus’ prophetic words: “Not a stone will be left upon another.” This is the first movement of the Spirit in our own lives: the unsettling of our false sanctuaries. Jerusalem, clinging to its structures and refusing conversion, was decreeing its own inner downfall long before the external ruin. So too, the parts of our soul that are closed to grace, that trust more in our own edifices of achievement, routine, and self-justification, are already experiencing a spiritual collapse.
To this inner turmoil, the disciples ask the questions of the ego: “When? What will be the signs?” Jesus, the divine psychologist, bypasses the curiosity of the intellect to address the readiness of the heart. He invites us not to a calculation of time, but to a state of perpetual, loving vigilance.
He offers three psychological portraits for our examination.
The first is the portrait of the Unconscious Soul, from the days of Noah. Here, people were absorbed in the merely biological and social dimensions of life: eating, drinking, and marrying. There is nothing sinful in these acts, but the tragedy was a complete absorption in them, a spiritual slumber that made them deaf to the groaning of the cosmos and the whisper of the Spirit. The “flood” that comes is the sudden collapse of the world we have constructed, the crisis that reveals the foundation upon which we have built. The vigilant soul is not the one who predicts the crisis, but the one who, through an ongoing inner awakening, is already building the ark of a new consciousness, grounded in the Word. This is the birth of a new humanity within us.
The second portrait is even more subtle, depicting two people engaged in the same mundane tasks—grinding meal, working in the field. Externally, they are identical. The difference is entirely interior, in the orientation of the heart. This is the core of the psycho-spiritual journey. What is the intention behind my action? Is my work a field for communion with God, an offering of love? Or is it merely a means for self-affirmation, a burden that ties me to the anxieties of the world?
Think of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Both prayed. The one who was justified was the one whose heart was open in humble poverty. Think of the widow and the rich. Both gave. The offering that pierced heaven was the one that came from a heart of total surrender. The “one taken and one left” is not an arbitrary divine selection, but the natural consequence of our inner orientation. The soul that is “left,” that remains entangled only in the visible, is the one overwhelmed by the “cares of this world.” The soul that is “taken” into the new reality of the Kingdom is the one whose inner eye is fixed on the Giver in the midst of the gift, on the Eternal in the heart of the temporal.
This is why the decision is so urgent and dramatic. It is the choice, in every present moment, between the life of the Spirit and the death of the ego. “Keep watch!” Jesus insists. This watchfulness is not a fearful scanning of the horizon for a future judge. It is the serene, attentive awareness to the saving judgment of God that comes today—in a moment of grace, in a challenge to love, in the quiet voice of conscience, in the disruption of our comfortable plans. These are the “visits of God.”
And herein lies the great paradox of the spiritual life: these divine visits are often missed because they are “incompatible with human wisdom.” They do not conform to our criteria for success, our timelines for salvation, or our desire for dramatic signs. They come in the gentle, unexpected, and often disconcerting whispers that only the humble, vigilant heart can recognize.
Therefore, be alert. The Son of Man, the Christ consciousness, the saving presence of God, comes at the hour you least expect—not at the end of time, but in the eternal Now of a heart that is awake, humble, and intent on love. Do not let this favorable opportunity, this advent season, this divine visitation in the present moment, pass you by. For the one who is vigilant in this holy Now is the one who is saved, here and forever.
全属于祢 
您必须登录才能发表评论。